Past CLFSA Community Award Recipient

2015 - 2016 Dr. Miguel Zavala, Chapman University

Dr. Miguel Zavala, Associate Professor of Chapman University is a strong advocate of community voice and grassroots. Dr. Zavala is an educator who uses his doctorate in Urban schooling, from the University of California, Los Angeles, to explore the possibilities of learning and teaching within grass-roots spaces. Miguel is an educator who builds on the emerging scholarship by critical Chicana/o and Indigenous scholar-activists, working with a decolonizing framework for understanding pedagogical, research, and community organizing processes and spaces.

 

Dr. Zavala’s calling is to be a catalyst for student activism and grassroots organizations in and out of academic settings.  While at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF), Dr. Zavala was involved with several projects that integrated faculty, staff and students to create a new space and voice for the Latino community at CSUF. Miguel always gives of his time, space, and pocketbook. Dr. Miguel Zavala serves as a role model, and one who empowers not only Latino youth, but colleagues as well, to be the conscience and voice of the Chicano/Latino community.