Three Colorado State University employees have taken on new leadership roles in the Office for Inclusive Excellence.
They are Victoria Benjamin, director of the Women and Gender Advocacy Center; Aaron Escobedo Garmon, director of El Centro; and Zoë Urcadez, student success manager. Benjamin and Urcadez started in their roles Jan. 8, while Escobedo Garmon was named permanent director in November after serving as interim director since last April.
Vice President for Inclusive Excellence Kauline Cipriani said she is excited to have such dedicated and talented individuals join the team.
“Victoria and Aaron are leaders whose vision and heart are exactly what we need to more fully support and increase belongingness among those individuals drawn to the Women and Gender Advocacy Center and El Centro,” said Cipriani. “And Zoë Urcadez will play a critical role in elevating our efforts to shrink opportunity gaps and bolster student success, a top priority for President Parsons and the CSU System. We feel fortunate Victoria, Aaron and Zoë have chosen CSU as the place where their work to advance inclusive excellence is welcome and will matter.”
Victoria Benjamin
Benjamin, who was born in Fremont, Nebraska, moved with her family to Fort Collins in 1991. After earning her associate’s degree and attending massage school, the first-generation single mom of four decided to transfer to CSU in 2014.
Benjamin and her children lived in CSU family housing and have leaned on public assistance. While she started as a biology major, she switched to sociology and women and gender studies. She has worked at Crossroads Safehouse and was an hourly employee at the WGAC while earning her master’s degree in ethnic studies, before taking on a full-time role at the center.
Benjamin said one of her priorities is to bring stability to the WGAC and make the center more inclusive, noting that some community members don’t see themselves in the WGAC’s current name. Benjamin said the center plays a key role at CSU – it supported 457 survivors last year.
She identifies as a survivor herself, having escaped an abusive marriage.
“I share this because I want to bring something that people often feel shame about out of the dark and into the light,” Benjamin said. “Support exists for students, faculty and staff to deal with the aftermath of interpersonal violence.”
Aaron Escobedo Garmon
Escobedo Garmon was raised in Aurora and attended Hinkley, an Alliance high school. He is a self-described child of immigrants: His dad is from Mexico, and his mother’s family has Mexican roots that stretch back to before the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in the mid-1800s, when the border shift turned Mexican territory into U.S. land.
Escobedo Garmon describes his family and upbringing as working class; he and his sister were the first of his four siblings to attend college (his sister went to CSU). Escobedo Garmon holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from Ithaca College in New York as well as a master’s degree in college student development from Northern Arizona University. He said he identifies as gay and a survivor of childhood sexual assault.
When he came to CSU in 2014, he worked with the Key Communities and the Community for Excellence. Escobedo Garmon noted that El Centro grew out of the Chicano Movement and was formed in 1976, and he intends to honor that history. El Centro has a very engaged alumni base that wants to stay involved, and he said he regularly gets calls from them.
Escobedo Garmon said his goals include helping recruit more faculty and staff of color and ensuring that the classroom environment is inclusive and embraces diverse ways of teaching. He also plans to secure stable funding for the center, its scholarships and its commencement apparel. Escobedo Garmon said it’s powerful and moving at each graduation ceremony when students get to invite family members to the stage to place a special stole over their heads.
“Victoria’s years of experience, knowledge, and commitment made it clear she was the ideal person to take WGAC to the next level,” said Bridgette Johnson, assistant vice president for inclusive excellence. “Aaron’s dedication, innovation, and strong desire to create a sense of community are exactly what El Centro needs in a leader. The work these two are doing is undeniably important to us as a campus if we are truly creating a sense of belonging for our most marginalized students.”
Zoë Urcadez
Urcadez is a registered mental health therapist who has been at CSU since 2021, when she was hired by the Health Network.
She grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and earned her bachelor’s degree in international studies and journalism in Spokane, Washington, before serving in AmeriCorps for two years. Urcadez said her undergraduate experience was difficult because it was at a predominantly white institution where she witnessed many microaggressions. So she said it was rewarding to work at the Health Network and provide multicultural support and a safe space to students who were having similar experiences.
While earning her graduate degree in the San Francisco area, her concentration was in school counseling, and Urcadez also gained valuable skills in program development, data assessment and communicating the impact of programs. She said she plans to apply those skills to her newly created role at CSU, helping the division’s centers to use data to tell their success stories.
As student success manager, her duties will include coordinating assessment of the division’s student success initiatives and overseeing the coordination of programs aimed at supporting racially minoritized undergraduate students and others. Those include the Multicultural Undergraduate Research Art and Leadership Symposium (MURALS) and United in STEMM.
Sense of belonging
Johnson explained that Urcadez’s new position fills a need to share the significant impact that the Cultural and Resource Centers are having on creating a sense of belonging and retaining first-generation, limited income and racially minoritized students.
“Zoë’s experience in listening intently, program assessment and development allow for the student success work we are doing as a division to be told and elevated,” she said. “All three are joining a team of already committed leaders, and there is no doubt what they bring to the table will enhance the path we are headed as a division. I am grateful and excited for the campus to learn more about the Cultural and Resource Centers and how we fit into the student success narrative.”
Benjamin added that the three new leaders in the Office of Inclusive Excellence owe much to others who have worked hard over the years to champion diversity, equity and inclusion.
“We stand on the shoulders of giants, and we want to take up the torch and be as strong as the folks who came before us,” she said.
When the Office for Inclusive Excellence was created a few years ago, there was some reorganization, uncertainty about the future and staff turnover in the Cultural and Resource Centers.
“But with these new hires and the collective work of our dedicated staff members, OIE is poised to move confidently into the future,” Cipriani said. “We have turned a corner, and I think 2024 is going to be our best year yet.”
