José Luis Cruz, the first Latino to be named president of the 120-year-old Northern Arizona University, is stepping into the role with a goal to make the institution a regional economic “power house” and to expand opportunities for students, particularly those from underserved populations. 

Collaborating with the business community is part of his vision, said Cruz, who was named NAU’s 17th president earlier this year with a unanimous vote by the Arizona Board of Regents. 

“I’m a big proponent of public private partnerships in the sense of driving for solutions, driving the fortunes of public and private sectors,” Cruz said.

But first, he’s meeting with groups and community leaders to just “listen.”

“I pledged to hit the ground learning. I’m prioritizing the first six months around conversations about collaboration and shared governance and how we can best allocate our resources to advance the aspirations of the campus community,” he said. 

Public health first 

Cruz, who officially starts the job June 14, spoke to �鶹��ýӳ�� about his priorities for moving the university forward post pandemic.

Public health comes first, Cruz said. His is to make sure all operations are ready to safely return to on-campus instruction in the fall. 

A university for the new economy

Looking ahead, he wants to establish NAU “as the third ‘power house’ right alongside Arizona State University and the University of Arizona.” 

“I think we can do that because of our scale and our excellent research enterprises that matter not only to Arizona, but more broadly to the nation and the world around issues like sustainability and climate change, for example.”

Cruz’ goals are right in line with the state universities’ to enhance Arizona’s global competitiveness and raise the per capita income of its residents. 

Collaboration with business 

To meet that end, Cruz said he wants to work with the business community to identify what’s working and accelerate progress in those areas such as the university’s strong healthcare programs. He also wants to identify areas for improvement. In turn, he will recruit businesses to mentor and hire students. 

“We want more internships, we want better placements for our graduates, and we want to have a part in sustaining the professional development of those already in the field,” Cruz said.  

Equity, inclusion, diversity an overriding theme

Cruz, a nationally recognized advocate for equity and inclusion to boost social mobility, said he will focus on policies and practices to expand opportunities for all students, including Latinos and Native Americans from the nearby Navajo and Hopi nations.

Cruz, who grew up in Puerto Rico, knows firsthand how education can open up the world to a better life. The oldest of four children in a household of limited means, his parents always emphasized the importance of getting a college degree.

He took it to heart, graduating from high school early and entering college at 16 to study electrical engineering. He also became a teenage father who went on to have five children with his wife, Rima. 

His first position in academia was as a faculty member and researcher in engineering at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez. From there, he catapulted into a number of leadership roles. 

Long career of academic leadership 

Most recently, Cruz comes to Arizona from New York City where he was the executive vice chancellor and university provost for the 25-campus City University of New York. 

Prior to that he was president of one of the university’s colleges, Lehman College, the only four-year institution in the system. During his tenure, he was credited with enhancing Lehman’s reputation as an engine for social mobility.

Previously, Cruz served as provost of California State University, Fullerton and is the former chief of student affairs officer for the University of Puerto Rico system. 

He also served as a vice president for the Education Trust in Washington, D.C., a national nonprofit that works to close opportunity gaps that disproportionately affect students of color and students from low-income families.

Community and “common ground” 

Asked about how he might deal with tensions within Flagstaff that have flared in recent years as the university’s enrollment and infrastructure have grown, Cruz said he is committed to creating solutions.  

“I’ve been in Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., California and New York City, so I’m very familiar with the tensions and very comfortable in trying to find common ground.

“What I find interesting about Northern Arizona University is that the campus community is very much the Flagstaff community and vice versa. I think that is a plus. I hope we can leverage that.”

Why the university in the pines

Cruz is only the second Hispanic to serve as president in Arizona’s university system. Manuel Pacheco was first at the University of Arizona in the 1990s. Cruz is replacing NAU President Rita Cheng, who announced last year she was retiring after six years on the job.

There were many things that attracted Cruz to Arizona, including the fact that he and his wife visited Northern Arizona when they were a new young couple. 

Now, they’re closing on their new home in Flagstaff, where they will be living with their last remaining child at home.  

“Flagstaff is very beautiful. My wife and I first traveled here together when we were just getting started as a couple. We visited the Grand Canyon and Sedona, and the pictures we took have accompanied us for 15 years in all the places we have served.

“It’s really a dream come true to be able to call Northern Arizona our home.”
To view a video interview of Cruz by Garrick Taylor, interim president and CEO of the Arizona �鶹��ýӳ�� of Commerce and Industry, visit .

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Arizona’s three public universities made a promise to citizens a year ago to raise the state’s competitive standing and per capita income through an ambitious initiative called the “New Economy Initiative: Enhancing Arizona’s Competitiveness.”

Though Arizona has seen incredible population growth and industry growth in certain sectors, the state lags behind the nation when it comes to personal income and discretionary spending, said Michael Crow, president of the state’s largest university, Arizona State University (ASU).

“Arizona is seeing economic growth, does have a stable economy, is attracting a lot of things to the state,” Crow said during Morning Scoop with the Arizona Capitol Times last week. “But on a per capita basis we’re creating mostly low wage jobs and they are difficult to build economic wealth around.” 

ASU sponsored the virtual event to speak with the business community audience about the technology-centered initiative and what’s ahead. The three main objectives are to: 

• Create a skilled workforce that stays in Arizona
• Attract major research funding to bring new industry here
• Close achievement gaps to better prepare Arizona students for higher skilled, technology-based jobs 

Arizona lags behind states like Texas, Colorado, Utah and Washington

The ultimate goal is to position Arizona alongside western states like Texas, Colorado, Utah and Washington that have made vast investments in the new technology-based economy. 

In turn, they have benefited “thousandfold,” Crow said. They are all outperforming Arizona and the nation in per capita income and GDP. 

Colorado, for instance, has a 25 percent higher per capita income. That generates more revenue for the state to invest in things like low-income communities and public infrastructure. 

Texas, which does not have a state income tax, has invested billions of dollars in education, research and infrastructure to . Today, it is one of the most competitive states in the U.S, Crow said. It’s $1.6 trillion economy is roughly the same size as the economy of Russia. 

Expanding ASU engineering school into leading talent powerhouse 

Crow detailed some of the efforts ASU is engaging in to achieve the initiative’s goal to create workforce pipelines for fast growing sectors like advanced manufacturing, information technology, health care, business services, and energy that are education-intensive and demand both knowledge-based and applied skills.

To that end, ASU is embarking on a major expansion of its nationally renowned . The expansion includes the construction of five Science and Technology Centers (STC) that will bring together faculty and industry leaders to identify specific workforce needs, develop training programs and create long-term partnerships. They will also be research hubs for industry to work with faculty and students to grow ideas from bench to market.

“We’re already seeing companies coming, staying, being built here and born here,” Crow said. “What we want to do is accelerate that around these specific areas with a focus on engineering.” 

Each will focus on a different industry:

Energy and Materials STC will be a national research resource for advancing new energy materials and device technologies to market, growing industry engagement and workforce training.

Human Performance STC will capitalize on regional strength and technology opportunities to enhance physical and cognitive performance, medical prevention and intervention and drive research from discovery to marketplace.

Extreme Environments STC will focus on management and technology opportunities associated with growing population centers; research outcomes to engineer resiliency into the energy, water, materials and transportation systems in the built environment of future cities and regions.

Advanced Manufacturing STC for the development of new technologies aimed at transforming manufacturing through 3D printing, robotics and automation, and new materials with strong links to private industry support in aerospace, defense and space systems.

Future Communication Technologies STC will drive ASU and the region to the forefront of physical information systems as the “internet of things” continues to develop, and as users increasingly desire greater access, information, reliability, and communications diversity. 

These centers will add to Arizona’s existing two applied research centers focused on industry-led research — one for WearTech, the other for Blockchain. 

This expansion will position Phoenix and Arizona as one of the leading global engineering centers in the world, Crow said.

Universities requesting $165 million with emphasis on workforce development 

The Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR), is asking the state Legislature to commit $165 million for the initiative. About $65 million would be for hiring and training more teachers, increasing student enrollment, expanding programs and degrees in different regions, and attracting more research funding. 

The bulk of the money — $100 million — would be for workforce development. Of that, $46 million would be “seed money” for the of the Ira A. Fulton engineering schools. Private investment would pay for the rest. 

The addition of the five new Science and Technology Centers are projected to attract more than 250 new industrial partners and empower global projection capabilities to drive engineering linkages around the world.

“It’s a catalyst investment. It’s a small investment in the overall scheme of things,” said Crow, who’s entrepreneurial approach brought in $671 million in research dollars to the university in 2019.  

The University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University will similarly leverage the New Economy initiative to expand and enhance areas of expertise at those schools to produce graduates in areas of high demand. NAU will place special focus on the healthcare field and bolstering the state’s talent pipeline, while UArizona will focus on space and defense, health sciences and mining.

Widespread support from business, economic development groups 

There is widespread support for the initiative from economic development and business groups including the Arizona �鶹��ýӳ�� of Commerce & Industry, the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, and the East Valley Partnership as well as Governor Doug Ducey and other state leaders.

Arizona �鶹��ýӳ�� President and CEO Glenn Hamer praised the universities for their futuristic vision in creating a sound business plan for the state.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty in today’s world. What is certain is that if we get The New Economy Initiative funded, Arizona’s GDP will increase considerably over what would be the case if this initiative did not exist,” Hamer said. “We know education attainment is directly tied to a state’s economic health and we would strongly urge our Legislature to seriously consider this initiative.” 

Read more about the initiative at:

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Rocking the retro NASA “” logo and a SpaceX emblem, astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken’s state-of-the-art spacecraft sits on the launchpad at Kennedy Space Flight Center in southern Florida. Passengers and pilots of the Dragon capsule, designed and produced by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the two astronauts will be the first Americans to launch into orbit (and dock with the International Space Station) from American soil since the termination of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.

This marks the first crewed spaceflight to be completed by SpaceX. But, as Musk and NASA will remind you, this is far from the last. This launch will serve as the “lighting of the candle” for a new age of American space dominance, spearheaded by robust public-private partnerships and a renewed public interest in space exploration.

Jim Bridenstine, the current administrator of NASA, that these sorts of endeavors can bring people together. “It’s not going to just unite Republicans and Democrats, it’s going to unite the world.”

Beyond the morale-boosting impact of a reinvigorated space program and launches such as Saturday’s, the new era of American space ascendancy will massively contribute to the U.S. economy. With the promise of incorporating private enterprises such as SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Boeing, and more into this grand undertaking, the positive economic impact will extend far beyond federal subsidy.

Economic impact

Investments in NASA and private ventures related to the space domain stimulate growth and .

As and Congress allocates larger amounts to NASA and the newly founded United States Space Force, the impacts will go a lot further than the multiplier effect. Following President Kennedy’s declaration that “we shall go to the moon,” the United States led the world with unparalleled ingenuity in innovation and technological prowess. Today, despite still being on top of the world, nations such as China are beginning to catch up. Now, we have an opportunity to lift ourselves up once again and accelerate stagnating growth and productivity through forward-looking approaches to the world of tomorrow.

The CEO of Space Angels, a New York investment firm, that private space companies “are graduating and going from concept to scale.” Federal and state leaders have taken notice, and the bureaucracy is reacting beneficially to an insurgent market demand for big ideas and bold approaches.

Evidenced by Saturday’s historic launch, time will tell if our leaders use this as a springboard or let the opportunity pass. For Musk, current NASA leadership, scientists, economists, and foreign policy junkies the world-across, there is no question – Saturday is the day that we “light the candle.”

Arizona’s role

Though not an ideal location for space launches, the Grand Canyon State has a key role to play in shaping the economy of the future. Prior to Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong took their first steps on a slightly less foreign surface : Cinder Lake Crater Field right here in Arizona.

Mining companies such as Freeport McMoran provide key minerals and metals needed to build everything from spaceships to launchpads. Aerospace companies like Honeywell, Boeing, and Raytheon have already started to adapt and expand into the final frontier with innovative designs. Every single industry has a place in this new economy, and the pie can only grow larger.

Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration has taken the lead on NASA’s which aims to launch in 2022 from the Kennedy Space Center and send an orbiter to a “unique metal asteroid” which appears to be “the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet.” It will also fly by Mars along the way.

The University of Arizona has found an interest in the final frontier with its Space Observation, Exploration, and Innovation within the Office for Research, Discovery, and Innovation. In 2007, the Phoenix Mars Mission launched with the guidance of UArizona, and more recently they have been working on the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) which discovered water on Mars in 2015.

Northern Arizona University is home to a world-renowned Astronomy and Planetary Science department. They study everything from spacecraft missions, to planetary materials, to planetary formation, to astrobiology.

Arizona is at the forefront of innovation. As Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken launch into orbit from American soil Saturday, the significance of this moment cannot be lost on us. Our state has an integral role to play in the era of American space ascendancy to come, and it’s on leaders in the public and private sector to lead the charge.

Looking forward

A state founded by cowboys, mavericks, trailblazers, and pioneers; Arizona is uniquely prepared for the next age of exploration. Clear leadership from government and industry will come first, and that will be accomplished through legislators working to pass innovative and friendly regulatory reforms that boost investment in the state and lure private businesses that bring consumers and government contracts along with them.

Furthermore, the Governor and other statewide elected officials must send the message that “Arizona is open for business,” and that it will be for decades to come. Thankfully, Governor Ducey has been a champion of business-friendly policies and pro-growth rhetoric.

The private industry, on the other hand, need not require guidance from politicians or pundits. Evidenced by the wild success of SpaceX and other innovative enterprises, it is abundantly clear that when government works with and not against American ingenuity, we witness extraordinarily positive outcomes.

Industry-specific policies spanning tax reform, licensing reform, subsidies, and more should also be on the table, but these remedies will come naturally as the economy booms and voters take notice.

President Kennedy reminded us all that we set goals, as Americans, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Commanding the next era of human space flight is no small task, but it is one that Americans up for.

The late and great Senator John McCain remarked that, “[Americans] never hide from history. We make history.” Beginning this Saturday, we will embark on the mission of a generation: to carve out our legacy among the stars.

You can learn more about Saturday’s historic launch .

Joe Pitts is a government affairs intern for the Arizona �鶹��ýӳ�� of Commerce & Industry and a student at Arizona State University.

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Northern Arizona University (NAU) — a $2.4 billion economic engine for the state — is focusing on flexibility and tackling the coronavirus as it gears up to open its campus in the fall to prepare another class of students for the new economy.

Last month, it launched a new COVID-19 testing center to grow the virus and test new drugs against it. And later this summer, it’s hosting an infectious disease boot camp. 

When the campus reopens, there will also be a heavy emphasis on virtual education options for students, NAU President Rita Cheng told �鶹��ýӳ��. 

“It’s imperative that we get kids educated, and particularly in this economy that we’re facing and the recovery,” Cheng said. “We’re all looking at flexibility. That’s the key. We can’t predict the future. We can only stay as flexible as possible.” 

That flexibility enabled the university to graduate the largest class ever last semester. The faculty and staff made a “heroic” effort to pivot to a virtual format last semester and it paid off, Cheng said. The school graduated about 6,000 students. 

“NAU has passion. Our mission is to shape and build lives and we continued on and that was something that kept us grounded during this really incredible disruptive event,” Cheng said.

Campus reopening with lots of virtual options

To keep the momentum going, the university will emphasize digital options for in-state, out-of-state and foreign students when the campus reopens.  

“For students that may not want to come right away to campus, we’re going to have a digital experience for them. They can Zoom into a classroom virtually,” Cheng said. “Or if a student is ill or feels that they may not want to be exposed to other groups of students on a particular day, they can Zoom in as well. We’re going to make it as flexible as possible but still have that campus experience.”

Possible early start and end time

University officials also are exploring an earlier start time so that it can end the fall semester by Thanksgiving, Cheng said. Flexibility will be key. 

“If we have to go virtual for a few weeks at any given time, we will,” she said. “We can’t predict this virus. We can only do risk mitigation as we go along.”

The school is implementing strict health and safety protocols to continue to attract and retain out-of-state and foreign students.  

“In some ways the size of NAU and its remoteness is a benefit for those who are coming from afar,” Cheng said. “This is a relatively safe place to be. We’re going to be taking temperatures, wearing masks and being physically distant. We’re a Lumberjack family and we take care of each other.”

Medical and public health students take on the coronavirus

With a host of strong healthcare programs including nursing, physical therapy, physician assistants, occupational therapy, and public health, students became an integral part of the frontline defense against the virus last semester, Cheng said.

“Students were on the frontline and did not stop what they were doing in helping in their rotations and when their rotations ended, they volunteered in the hospitals and in the health care organizations,” she said. 

Public health faculty and students also have been doing contact tracing and modeling of the coronavirus in the county and have worked side by side with epidemiologists. Contact tracing is considered an in the arsenal to fight the disease’s spread. Individuals work with infected patients to discover everyone they had contact with who may have been exposed.

To take the race against the virus even further, the is launching new programs including a new COVID-19 testing facility and an infectious disease boot camp. 

Infectious disease boot camp opening this summer

An infectious disease boot camp, a course scheduled to launch later this summer, will be designed to inform those working in healthcare and public health as well as others interested in the subject. 

“We have seen the need for increased knowledge in this area and look forward to expanding both the expertise and interest of people to take care of themselves and others,” Cheng said. 

New COVID-19 testing center on campus 

NAU also launched the new COVID-19 Testing Service Center to grow the virus and test new drugs against it. By repurposing its existing biodefense research infrastructure for the new testing facility — labs rated at Biosafety Level 3, one of the highest levels of biocontainment — the institute is dedicating much of its significant research capacity to fight the pandemic.

The testing is being conducted at the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute (PMI) on the Flagstaff campus in conjunction with the research institute, TGen. NAU built the PMI labs in 2008 to enable researchers to handle dangerous pathogens, including research on anthrax, Valley Fever, and other diseases such as plague, West Nile virus and Zika virus, with an emphasis on developing new diagnostic tools, therapeutics and vaccines.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis that requires the whole scientific community working together to find fast, cheap, and effective solutions to the problem. Our ability to redirect the PMI BSL-3 facilities to COVID-19 research is a small but important part of the nation’s path forward,” said PMI Executive Director and Regents’ Professor Paul Keim, a world expert in pathogens. Keim worked with the FBI to crack the “anthrax letters” case in the wake of 9/11.

The first therapeutic agent being tested against the virus is the promising cancer drug 2X-121, developed by the Danish firm Oncology Venture, which recently signed a joint research agreement with PMI and NAU to evaluate it. 

Although highly-trained staff members will conduct much of the research with the virus, undergraduate and graduate students will be involved in supporting roles.

University powers state’s economy 

NAU is the largest employer in its home town of Flagstaff and has become a beacon for the region’s growing research and development industries in science and high tech. It’s economic impact affects not only Northern Arizona, but the rest of the state.

NAU’s Economic Impact

To Arizona: $2.64 billion and over 24,000 jobs

To Coconino County: $1.96 billion and over 9,500 jobs

To Maricopa County: $189 million and over 1,500 jobs

To Yuma County: $21 million, more than 200 jobs

All other counties: $111 million, over 900 jobs

In state and local taxes: $185 million

Source:

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Northern Arizona University is expanding its Bachelor of Science nursing program in Tucson to accept more students.

Arizona has a growing health care workforce shortage, which the university said is a driving force behind the expansion.

The need for nurses is expected to grow by about 15 percent by 2026, according to Dr. Pamela Stetina, director of nursing at NAU.

“We are looking at a potential nursing shortage, and the RN workforce — the registered nurse workforce — is expected to grow about 15 percent, and that was from 2016 to 2026,” Stetina said. “There is a need for nurses. That in and of itself will help Arizona. I think that nurses are paid relatively well, and I think there are always jobs for nurses.”

The need for nurses is already growing by about 12 percent a year, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. That rate for other professions is just 5 percent.

“With more than 2,150 pre-nursing and nursing students pursuing a variety of nursing programs at NAU in a variety of locations or online, NAU is proud to address the health care workforce today and provide opportunities for our students to enter a high demand career with growing options,” said NAU President Rita Cheng.

Starting with the winter 2020 semester, the Bachelor of Science in nursing (BSN) program will accept an additional 20 students per year. NAU said it expects to graduate 200 BSN degrees per year by 2023.

“There were a couple of things that led to wanting to expand,” Stetina said. “I think the biggest one was that we were getting phone calls from students asking, because we have a lot of applications, so we aren’t always able to meet that need.”

She said even community college nursing programs in Arizona have had to turn students away because there are not enough spots.

NAU currently has BSN programs in Flagstaff, Tucson, Yuma and Fort Defiance, graduating an average of 180 new pre-licensure BSN graduates a year.

Stetina said the program will likely continue to expand to the best of its ability: “I’m not thinking we are going to expand by 500 students, but if we can continue to expand on a smaller scale, then yes.”

She said the university is also hoping to expand the nursing program at its to include in-person courses, in addition to the existing online programs.

In addition to the expanded class size, the university will also offer a new program for individuals with bachelor of science degrees in non-nursing fields that lets them earn a “master’s of entry to the profession of nursing,” also known as an MEPN, so they can enter the nursing workforce with a master’s degree. That program starts in fall 2021 in Tucson.

Another new program is the Clinical Nursing Specialist Prescriptive Authority Course Bundle, which authorizes clinical nurse specialists in Arizona to write prescriptions in a limited form.

“For example, if a clinical nurse specialist is working in a hospital setting, then perhaps if they can do some limited prescriptive authority, they can get the patients sent home earlier,” Stetina said.

The program is awaiting legislative approval, which is anticipated to happen in the spring. Stetina said the program is geared toward currently-practicing clinical nurse specialists who want to refresh their training as well as obtain prescriptive authority with just a few extra classes.

NAU has in-person and online RN-BSN programs and accepts 90 transfer credits from community colleges, making degree completion accessible to more students at an affordable price. NAU also offers a Concurrent Enrollment Program that lets students take community college classes at the same time and graduate with both associate and bachelor’s degrees.

“I always like to put in my plug for our RN-to-BSN and our concurrent enrollment programs,” Stetina said. “Those are programs that currently exist that we could grow as far as the number of students that would be taking those programs.”

The RN-BSN program is offered in a “Personalized Language” format for students who need competency-based learning, allowing students to progress at their own pace.

Header photo courtesy of Northern Arizona University.

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