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Meet UAGC Scholarship Recipient Heather Tyler, Rio Salado Associate Dean
Mira Radovich, Senior Contributing Writer
Heather Tyler, Associate Dean of Instruction and Workforce Partnerships at Rio Salado College, is one of six recipients of the University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC) partnership scholarships.
Earlier this year, UAGC awarded four Rio Salado alumni and two staff members approximately $180,000 in full-program scholarships. Recipients were chosen based on application essays and academic achievement.
“I am honored to both work at such a rewarding institution at Rio Salado College and receive a full scholarship with UAGC to achieve my educational goals,” Tyler said. “The more I can learn and grow, the more I can give back to the work I love.
Tyler has worked at Rio Salado for 16 years in various positions in both student and academic affairs. In her current position, she oversees the Incarcerated Re-entry (IRE) and Educational Services Partnership programs.
“My work with IRE allows my teams to innovate ways to deliver learning, from state-of-the-art classrooms at the prisons to the new opportunity of on-line courses for the incarcerated population,” Tyler said.
Currently, Rio Salado’s incarcerated students take college courses either through print-based correspondence or through on-site occupational training.
“Including our incarcerated students in the same online experience as our traditional population is a career accomplishment I could have only dreamed about five years ago,” Tyler said. “Now it is just over the next horizon.”
Tyler plans to pursue a doctor of philosophy in education at UAGC.
“I want to study strategies for including social and cultural diversity, design policies that are ethical and sustainable, and focus on educational opportunities that solve current and future societal problems,” Tyler said.
“I see my next chapter expanding to support workforce in a way that will shape how community colleges interact with the current and future labor markets.”
The transfer partnership between UAGC and Rio Salado began in September 2020. Scholarship recipients can pursue degrees in more than 50 programs UAGC offers, including these seamless transfer pathways from Rio Salado College to UAGC, which give students an opportunity to earn up to 90-credit hours in transfer.
Watch Heather’s video on YouTube.
Read more about all the UAGC scholarship recipients from Rio Salado College.