Antonio Felix M.A., director of Partners in Los Angeles Catholic Education (PLACE) Corps and the Catholic Archdiocesan School Teachers (CAST) programs at LMU School of Education, participated last week in the David L. Clark National Graduate Student Research Seminar in Educational Administration & Policy, sponsored by the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA).
Nominees for the Clark Scholars Seminar are outstanding doctoral students in preK-12 educational leadership and administration, and/or preK-16 education policy, who are seeking careers in research. Felix was selected for the honor for his dissertation topic, which explores the racialized experiences and factors that motivated, sustained, and contributed to Latino/a Catholic school teachers’ choices to work in underresourced urban Catholic schools. “Empirically, little is known about why Latino/a teachers choose to teach in under-resourced urban Catholic schools, or about the factors that contribute to their retention,” says Felix. “My hope is to advance the field’s knowledge of these factors, with an eye toward enhancing the recruitment and retention of such teachers.”
Felix presented his dissertation research during the 2022 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in San Diego, California. “Felix is both an outstanding doctoral candidate and an outstanding staff member,” said SOE dean Michelle D. Young. “As director of our PLACE and CAST programs, he has been instrumental in preparing the more than 500 Catholic educators who’ve come to us for training. Together those alumni have taught more than 60,000 students at 100-plus partner schools throughout California. In addition, his dissertation research touches on an issue that is critical for student success at under-resourced Catholic schools. His efforts are fully deserving of the honor of being named to this prestigious group of scholars.”
