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Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center

UROC Speaker Series

The UROC Speaker Series is an hour long discussion with invited guests from diverse backgrounds and disciplines who will share their experiences navigating the academic terrain in higher education. They will be discussing their path from undergraduate research to where they are now and discuss any adversities they may have traversed across along the way.

Check MyRaft for registration info. 

List of Speakers Fall 2021 

Dr. Dolores D. Mena - Sept 16 

Dolores D. Mena is a Full Professor and Department Chair in the Counselor Education Department at San José State University, with 16 years of graduate-level teaching experience in the areas of lifespan development, K-12 school counseling, parent engagement, community-school relations, and cultural perspectives in counseling. 
 
The work that she has been engaged in through her scholarship and service has centered on collaborating with university colleagues, school districts, and community partners to address concerns related to K-18 education pathways to create more equitable opportunities for students who have been traditionally underserved in educational settings.  Similarly, her teaching has centered on educating, training, supervising, and mentoring K-12 and higher education counselor candidates to more effectively work with students and families from diverse communities.  Her overall research agenda focuses on issues related to equity and social justice for low-income, underserved, and underrepresented ethnic and linguistic minority K-18 students and their families.  Prior to becoming a college professor, Dr. Mena had several years of school counseling experience in San Jose public schools and also worked with pre-college and in-college academic support programs (e.g., EOP) that served low-income and first-generation college students.  In addition, in partnership with the U.N.-Mandated University for Peace, Dr. Mena has co-led a winter faculty-led program to Costa Rica since 2012.  The focus of this program has been to foster global-mindedness in K-16 educators’ professional preparation and practice; increase understanding of global, cultural, and linguistic diversity; and to build capacity for working effectively in diverse and complex settings.
 
Dr. Mena was born in Zacatecas, Mexico but immigrated to California at a young age.  She is fluent in Spanish and English and maintains strong Mexican cultural roots.  She was the first in her family to attend and graduate from a 4-year college.  She earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from San José State University and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz.