Deena J. González, a professor of Chicana/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University, has been named to the prestigious ACE Fellows program, which trains veteran faculty members to potentially take on administrative roles in the future.
González is one of 46 fellows chosen this year by the American Council on Education, a nationwide higher education consortium that includes 1,600 colleges and universities as members. During her yearlong fellowship, González will shadow senior administrators at a college in the Southern California region to learn how their work is done.
“It’s really exciting and interesting, because it’s adding depth to my experience,” González said. “As a faculty member for 28 years, I thought I had an idea what, for example, Student Affairs does. But when you actually sit down and look at things from their view, it provides this depth of meaning to the amount of training required, what are the typical issues on any given day that they face, how do they resolve conflict, what contributions to they feel or think they’re making to an institution.”
González plans to focus her training on dealing with diversity and gender equity issues within the university. She has not yet been placed at a host institution for the fellowship, but will return to LMU after the 2010-11 school year.
“The idea is that you’ll be able to apply in some way what you’ve learned outside at your home institution, so that it can be helpful to programs or strategic plans or visions,” she said. “It might also just be helpful at the ground level to have a faculty member who has seen the inner workings of an administrative office, to know how that is structured and how that functions.”
Sharon McDade, director of the ACE Fellows Program, said most previous fellows have advanced into major positions in the administrations of their institutions. Of the nearly 1,700 participants in the first 45 years of the program, more than 300 have become chief executive officers and more than 1,100 have become provosts, vice presidents, or deans.
“We’re extremely pleased with the strength of the incoming class,” McDade said. “The Fellows Program will sharpen and enhance their leadership skills and their network, and prepare them to address issues of concern to the higher education community.”