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Photography by Reed Hutchinson
UCLA Photographic Services
Nurse practitioner Fara Anzures (right) is using her scholarship
to learn medical procedures, such as suturing, to treat students
at the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center.
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Financial help to build skills
Scholarships enhance careers of staff
BY Wendy Soderburg
UCLA Today Staff
It’s common knowledge that students and faculty can obtain
financial assistance in the form of scholarships, fellowships and
grants. What may not be as well-known, however, is that staff are
eligible for scholarships of their own.
Each year, UCLA’s Staff Assembly offers scholarships for
career enhancement and professional growth to staff members with
at least one year of employment in a full-time position. Funding
of up to $350 can be used to pay for a conference, workshop, seminar
or certification course, or enrollment in courses offered by UCLA
Extension or Campus Human Resources.
This year’s winners are using their awards in creative ways.
Riza Natividad, born in the Philippines, came to the United States
11 years ago and has worked at UCLA for eight years, the last four
as an extramural fund manager in the Department of Chemistry and
Biochemistry. She’ll use her scholarship to enroll in a business
writing class for non-native English speakers.
“Most of what I do focuses on numbers,” Natividad said.
“But now and then we do memos, we write to the principal investigators
and to our colleagues. This course will help me a lot. It’s
really a great subject to take.”
Melissa Veluz-Abraham, student affairs officer in the Center for
Student Programming, advises approximately 70 of the 800-plus student
organizations on campus. She also handles the daily scheduling of
events in Bruin Plaza. She plans to use her $350 scholarship to
enroll in an Extension class in Web design so that she can create
a Web site that will answer students’ questions about reserving
space in the plaza.
“Because it’s really the only outdoor space where you
can have a band or amplified sound, there is a high demand for Bruin
Plaza. Sometimes it gets difficult to juggle the scheduling and
advising, which is a large part of my work,” Veluz-Abraham
said. “So wherever I can, I’ll streamline and try to
make my work a little bit more efficient.”
Some scholarship winners, such as nurse practitioner Fara Anzures,
make more unusual choices. Anzures works in the Arthur Ashe Student
Health and Wellness Center and treats students with everything from
colds and sprained ankles to diabetes and asthma.
With her $350 scholarship, Anzures will enroll in a course on medical
procedures, such as suturing, skin biopsies and advanced examination
of joints.
“I urge everyone next year to apply and to know that this
opportunity is out there and available for us,” Anzures said.
“We’re very fortunate to be working at UCLA, where they
encourage us to grow.”
For more information on scholarships, see http://uclasa.chr.ucla.edu.
Staff Assembly recently awarded scholarships to 15 deserving staff
members and also named the winners of the Faculty/Staff Partnership
Award. This year, the recepients of that award are Mathematics Professor
Christoph Thiele and Shahram Sharafat,
a lecturer in mechanical and aerospace engineering. All will be
honored at a June 10 ceremony in the Royce Hall West Lobby.
In addition to those winners named in the story, other scholarship
recepients are: Carlos Aguirre, Office of Instructional
Development; Renita Bailey, Univerisity Extension-Business
and Management; Nicole Chan, Asian Languages and
Cultures; Jane Collings, Oral History Program;
Dinora Duarte, Pediatrics Gastrointestinal and
Nutrition; Thomas Holton, Institute for Genomics
and Proteomics; Sarah J. Kennington, Fowler Museum
of Cultural History; Anna Laven, Music and Ethnomusicology;
Bettina Pedone, Ashe Student Health and Wellness
Center; Dana Pysz, Office of Residential Life;
Ronni Sanlo, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
Research Office; and Cathy Thomas, Molecular, Cell
and Developmental Biology.
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