2022 HENAAC Awards
Education: Ph.D., Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin; Master’s, Portuguese, University of Texas at Austin; Bachelor’s, Spanish, Saint Louis University.
The “access and excellence” mission that Dr. Diana Natalicio passionately believed in transformed the University of Texas at El Paso from a regional university into a highly competitive international research university that never lost sight of its responsibility to create social mobility pathways for the region’s residents.
Her story is the story of so many underrepresented minority students from coast to coast. Whether it was fighting “imposter syndrome” as a first-generation college student, or working long hours at various jobs in order to support herself financially, or attending classes in the morning and finding time to study in between work hours, often late in the evenings and on weekends, she walked the walk of an underserved student – and triumphed.
Dr. Natalicio joined UTEP in 1971 as a visiting professor in the department of modern languages. She immediately saw herself in her students, especially those in their first year of college suffering from the same self-doubt over whether they were truly college material. Thus began her passion for “access and excellence” at a school where she could create opportunities for all who followed in her footsteps.
In 1988, she became the first woman to be named UTEP’s president and eventually set the record for longest serving female university president in the country. in 2011, the president of Mexico presented her with the Orden Mexicana del Aguila Azteca, the highest recognition Mexico bestows on foreign nationals. In 2015, she received the prestigious academic leadership award from the Carnegie Corporation. In 2016, she earned the Hispanic Heritage Award in STEM, and in 2017, Fortune Magazine named her one of its Top 50 world leaders.
By the time she retired in 2019, she had achieved her dream of creating a university that not only served and reflected the community it served, but uplifted it. in that same year, UTEP was designated an R1 research university – the highest research designation from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. She proved that a public university could achieve both access and excellence.
Her passion to transform lives and communities through education lives on through all of us who desire social equity and justice, and who are inspired to know that one individual can make profound improvements in our national and international societies.