José Roberto Cruz and Jennifer Lauren Reed, who are both juniors, will assist with student mentoring and other recruitment and retention activities for the WSU College of Education. Both will receive scholarship support from the program.
Cruz is the son of Maria Guadalupe Soto and Roberto Cruz of Pasco. In addition to a earning a degree, he is working on an endorsement to teach English as a second language.
“I feel I can make a difference to students who may not have good male role models,” Cruz said, explaining his career choice. “In my community there are a lot of immigrants who don’t know English yet and there are not enough teachers to assist them.”
At WSU, Cruz has experience working with multicultural student organizations, including Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano/a de Aztlan and the fraternity Gamma Iota Omicron. He has also helped with the annual Children of Aztlan Sharing Higher Education Conference (CASHE).
Reed is the daughter of Robert L. Reed and Iluminada Pascua Reed of Aberdeen. She works at the WSU Women’s Resource Center. She is a member of the Association of Pacific and Asian Women, the Filipino American Student Association, and Buhay, a traditional Filipino dance troupe.
She has helped with student events such as the CASHE conference, and has held various campus leadership positions. Those experiences will help her be an effective ambassador, Reed said.
“As a bi-racial student with a disability here at WSU, I am familiar with services that help students succeed in college such as TRIO Programs and the WSU Multicultural Centers,” she said.
More information about Future Teachers and Leaders of Color is available on the Web at https://education.wsu.edu/ftloc/ or from Sarah Penney, director of recruitment and retention, WSU College of Education, spenney@wsu.edu, phone 509-335-4864.
