Maria Luisa Alaniz has been a professor in the Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences since 1988. Alaniz is engaged with Student Academic Success Services on a grant to create a mentorship program that will pair students with faculty and staff mentors. Having served as a mentor through the McNair Scholars Program, Alaniz relishes the role. She believes that daily classroom interactions between teachers and students create impactful relationships. When she visits former students who are now teachers she says, “Our students are so humble, but they have the talent and skills to make it anywhere. They have such good, supportive connections with their students.”​​