Alejandra Rengifo attends Faculty Innovation Fellow pinning ceremony

Department of History, World Languages, and Cultures faculty member Alejandra Rengifo has received international recognition for her commitment to helping first-generation students achieve success at Central Michigan University.

Rengifo traveled to The Netherlands in April to present information about her project and attend a pinning ceremony as a Faculty Innovation Fellow through Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.

The pinning ceremony followed a two-year experience designed to help faculty and staff expand design thinking, leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship activities at their universities.

Rengifo’s project, ¡Sí, se puede! (Yes, you can!), celebrates first-generation students graduating from CMU. She says that becoming a Faculty Innovation Fellow has given her the tools to help and work with them.

"First-Generation students at CMU are an important part of our population,” says Rengifo. “As the community we are we need to show them we are here to support and mentor them. Our reward is to see them graduate from college and be the first in their family to do so.”

CMU classifies first-generation college students as a student having parents who never enrolled in post-secondary education.

Fourteen individuals from universities around the world were pinned during the ceremony.