Flores Niemann selected as 2006-07 ACE fellow

Yolanda Flores Niemann, associate professor and chair of the Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies at WSU, has been named an American Council of Education fellow for the 2006-07 academic year.

Designed to develop academic leadership, the program enables ACE fellows to spend an academic year working closely with a college or university president at a host institution. Thirty-eight fellows, who are nominated by the presidents or chancellors of their universities, were selected nationwide.
 
Flores Niemann first learned of the program when she was attending a summer institute for women in higher education administration at Bryn Mawr College in 2002. WSU President V. Lane Rawlins discussed the program with her in the fall and offered to nominate her.  Flores Niemann was notified of her selection in February.

“I am very excited about this opportunity and about returning to WSU after the fellowship year with added skills,” Flores Niemann said.

Marlene Ross, director of ACE, said that of the roughly 1,500 participants in the first 41 years of the program, more than 300 have become chief executive officers and more than 1,100 have become provosts, vice presidents or deans.

Flores Niemann received her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Houston. She came to WSU as a faculty member in 1996. From 2001-2003, she was the director of Latina/o outreach at WSU-Tri-Cities. She serves as a principal investigator on a $12.2 million five-year GEAR-UP grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to WSU to encourage college preparedness among minority students and has been chair of her department since 2003.