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Expert Spotlight: Autumn Alaniz-Wiggins

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“We must invest in strengthening diverse and equitable admissions, hiring, and retention practices to ensure that people who look like me are no longer systematically left out of higher education.”
Autumn Alaniz-Wiggins
Student Advocate

As part of our Affirming Equity, Ensuring Inclusion, Empowering Action national initiative, we are proud to release expert spotlights sharing the perspectives of three students, in which they emphasize the role of faculty and leadership diversity in their higher education journeys. In this expert spotlight, we interviewed Autumn Alaniz-Wiggins to learn how colleges and universities nationwide can affirm the belonging of diverse students in the aftermath of a SCOTUS decision that threatens to erode inclusion on campuses.

Autumn Alaniz-Wiggins is an aspiring social researcher and advocate with a profound
commitment to public service and philanthropy, particularly in the realms of higher education
and community advocacy. She graduated this year with a double B.A. in Sociology and Multicultural Gender Studies from California State University, Chico and served as President of the Chico State Associated Student Government and Director of Social Justice and Equity.

Autumn’s road through higher education has not been easy: a lack of support in her major program and feelings of isolation as one of the only Afrolatina students on campus ultimately forced her to pause schooling. Read her spotlight to learn how one professor changed the trajectory of her college journey and her call to continue support students through efforts to diversify leadership at America’s largest 4-year university system, the California State University.