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The UA program celebrates graduation by honoring outstanding graduates, up-and-comers and program supporters.

By Rebecca Ruiz-McGill, University Communications
May 14, 2008

The University of Arizona's Native American Student Affairs will host a graduation convocation for Native American students on Thursday.

The event offers students an opportunity to be recognized for their scholarly achievements individually in a culturally relative way and offers Native American Student Affairs, or NASA, the opportunity to thank program supporters.

The convocation ceremony begins with a processional conducted by the United National Indian Tribal Youth Traditional Singers and the Pumpkin Vine Singers. The ceremony includes NASA’s recognition of outstanding students and community members.

Dylan Moriarty, a Navajo from Window Rock, Ariz., is a civil engineering freshman and will receive NASA’s Outstanding Freshman Award. Moriarty is a Gates Millennium Scholar and during his first semester at the UA earned a 3.5 GPA.

Candace Begody, a Navajo from Ganado, Ariz., is a journalism junior. She will receive NASA’s Outstanding Undergraduate Award. Begody has worked at the Navajo Times, a weekly tribal newspaper publication for the Navajo Tribe; Native Voices in Vermillion, S.D.; The Missoulian in Missoula, Mont.; RezNetNews.org, a national online news forum; and the Tucson Citizen. She is a founding member of the UA's student chapter of the Native American Journalists Association – only the second such chapter in the country – and serves as the chapter's first president.

Christopher Hamilton from the Chippewa Nation graduates with a 3.659 GPA with a major in mechanical engineering. Hamilton is an Honors College student, a McNair Scholar and will receive NASA’s Outstanding Senior Award, also known as the Bahti Award.

Natalie Youngbull, a Gates Millennium Scholar, graduates with a master’s in higher education. She will receive the program’s Outstanding Graduate Academic Award. Youngbull is Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho from Oklahoma and helped coordinate NASA’s Native SOAR program.

SOAR stands for Student Outreach and Access for Resiliency and is a NASA program that partners Native American middle and high school students with undergraduate and graduate American Indian students, who serve as mentors to the students.

Information resources and library sciences graduate student Linda Epps will receive NASA’s Outstanding Graduate Service Award. Epps is being recognized for helping the UA American Indian community heal following the tragic loss of one of its students last fall.

Epps is a member of the Interior Salish-N’tlakapmx Nation and is graduating with a master’s degree in information resources and library sciences.

UA professor of chemistry, NASA faculty fellow and UA American Indian Science and Engineering Society adviser Phillip Keller will be recognized for his contributions to NASA.

NASA was established in 1989 through student and community advocacy. Now, there are over 75 tribes represented on the UA campus with a majority of students coming from Arizona tribes and reservations.

“Having worked in higher education for quite some time, I've seen firsthand how NASA has grown into a vital program serving the diverse needs of the Native American students attending The University of Arizona," said Luann Leonard, who is Hopi and Tohono O’odham and a member of the Arizona Board of Regents, the governing body for the state's three public universities. Leonard is the board’s first American Indian member.

NASA’s mission is to provide culturally sensitive academic counseling and support services to American Indian/Alaska Native students to enable them to achieve academic excellence.

“Recruitment and retention of Native American students has increased steadily. In 1989, the Native American student population at the UA totaled 434, or 1.2 percent of the student population. Now the Native American student population totals 940, or 2.71 percent of the UA student population,” said Amanda Tachine, interim director of Native American Student Affairs.