The NAU Review — Getting to know grads, celebrating in-person commencement, water on Mars and Notes from the President
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For the first time in two years, NAU will celebrate commencement in the Skydome, with almost 2,800 students completing their degrees and President Cruz Rivera officiating his first commencement as president of NAU. With snow in the forecast, people traveling for commencement are encouraged to sign up for text alerts (by texting “NAU” to 237233) and leave extra travel time.
In the last week of the semester, President Cruz Rivera was in the classroom listening to student presentations and even getting behind the lectern. He shares about his meetings with city and county officials, NAU groups and other partners.
🎓 Uprooted, student finds passion for helping others through teaching 🎓
Alondra Alvarez loves Mexico. She was born and raised there, learned about her heritage in school there and enjoyed the best food there. Life was simple. Then, when she was seven years old, her family migrated to the U.S.—a foreign land nearly 1,500 miles from everything she’d ever known. She had to learn English and a new way of life—a life that she would come to love. On Friday, she will graduate with a bachelor’s in elementary and special education.
Scientists discover brief presence of water on Mars
Doctoral candidate Ari Koeppel and associate professor Christopher Edwards are part of a team that looked at martian rocks for evidence of water on our nearest planetary neighbor. The evidence told a story of a place that has in the past had water, but only for a short amount of time.
Larissa Wilcox has met a monster in real life. In this Views from NAU, Wilcox, a first-generation student who studied microbiology and philosophy, details the horrific struggles that defined her young life—a father addicted to heroin, a stepfather who dealt drugs and abused Wilcox’s mother, her sister and her, poverty, insecurity and always worrying about what awaited her when she got home. She found a way out of the dysfunction when she came to NAU and graduates Friday not only with an education and career opportunities but also hope for the future and the skills she needs to cope and ensure the trauma that she endured ends with her.
