COE Connections Episode 21: Vannessa Falcón Orta

Vannessa Falcón Orta:

I went back and reflected on a time when I was a transwater student, like, I'm talking elementary. And my brother and I, we were already crossing for some years now, but it was kind of like the beginning of our crossing, because we were so young, we were children. It was already a few years. Originally, we were living in LA, and then we started an elementary level crossing, and I remember we crossed… we crossed to Mexico. Tijuana specifically, and my brother said it's so different from being here to being there, meaning to be in San Diego, to being in Tijuana.

And the thing is, it was so, like, meta. We were in the midst of it. It was, like… we are also part of that difference, and it's so… it's also very isolated. It is us who are different as well, meaning that, yeah, in San Diego, we speak like this, and we blend in, just like any other student, and then we go to Tijuana.

Y empezamos a hablar así, como completamente en español, y pensamos…

Si alguien más vive esta experiencia, si no más somos nosotros, si no más somos… yo, y él no?

So, we cross, and we instantly, we start speaking Spanish fluently. And we think, is anybody else experiencing this? Or is it only us? And the thing is, is that, you know, we are so different as well, because we come into this space, but nobody knows that just a couple hours ago, we were in San Diego, and we were speaking like this. We were speaking English, we weren't speaking Spanish, and also, just like we are Mexican, we're also American, and we have this diverse experience, and we're also, in a way, similar but also different. Our experience is so different, but we are also so different, and this is so different, and does anybody else's experience this? Or are we the only ones? 

Because we didn't have anybody that we can relate to. In school, nor with children that we played, like, in Mexico. Hardly. There were, you know, we really didn't have anybody but us. And the thing is, I share this story because fast forward to today, and it's just so real, really, so real that we get to make and create these spaces of inclusion, validation, visibility, where transborder students can feel seen, but it can also see each other and have community with each other. Whereas, if we didn't have these spaces, we might not at all have that type of opportunity.

(Music plays)

Rachel Haine-Schlagel

Welcome to COE Connections, the SDSU College of Education Research and Scholarship podcast series. I'm your host, Rachel Haine-Schlagel. I'm the Associate Dean for Research for the College of Education and a Professor of Child and Family Development at San Diego State University, a proud Hispanic-serving institution on the land of the Kumeyaay.

Today, I am joined by Dr. Vannessa Falcón Orta, Assistant Professor of Literacy Education in the SDSU Imperial Valley Division of Education. Vannessa is a transborder scholar practitioner born in Los Angeles, California, and raised in the San Diego-Tijuana borderlands. She's the daughter of working-class immigrant parents from Mexico and Peru. She advances justice for trans-border students through research, teaching, and organizing that prepare critically conscious border educators across the California, Baja California region.

For over a decade, Vannessa has built transformative initiatives grounded in interdisciplinary transborder studies and community-rooted praxis. She is the founding director of the transborder Scholars Thriving Institute, a multi-site research community committed to reshaping Hispanic-serving institutions to equitably serve transborder students. She also founded the Building Bridges Graduation Initiative, the first-ever trans-border graduation at the U.S.-Mexico border, embodying her commitment to justice and borderlands education. Her scholarship appears in the Journal of Latinos in Education, Journal of College Student Development, New Directions for Higher Education, and the Journal of Borderlands Studies.

Recognized with the 2023 SDSU Outstanding transborder Educator Award, and the 2024 SDSU Imperial Valley Associated Students Outstanding Faculty Award, Vannessa continues to root her work in the Calexico Mexicali and San Diego Tijuana borderlands that she proudly calls home. Welcome, Vannessa, and thank you so much for talking with me today. 

Vannessa Falcón Orta:

Thank you so much for having me. It's a great honor to be here in this space.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel:

Yeah, I'm really excited for us to chat. So, I have a few questions for you today that I typically ask guests, but before we get started, for listeners who haven't heard the term before, what does it mean to be a transborder student?

Vannessa Falcón Orta:

Yeah, that's a great question, and means a lot of things. But I think to begin to understand what it is to be a transborder student, we first have to understand what is transborder phenomena, and a few things about transborderism and transborder phenomena, and that is that it's prevalent all over the world. And that is because we have borders all over the world. You know, within and across and, these borders are people, people that live in the in-between, that crosses borders. There are families, and there are also students. 

For us, specifically, and for me and my work, I focus at the U.S.-Mexico border. So, the U.S.-Mexico border is a highly and militarized border. At the same time, it is kept open, and as it's kept open, people cross. And through these crossings, you know, like I mentioned, you have families, and you also have students throughout the entire education pipeline, all the way from preschool to post-secondary and higher education and doctoral studies. And you also have professors, and just, you know, so many, so many people overall. So, transborder students are part of this phenomena, this transborder phenomena, that is ever most prevalent for us in the Caribaha borderlands, and for you at SDSU Main Campus with the San Diego-Tijuana border being one of the most frequently crossed borders in the world.

And for us at Imperial Valley as well, we have the Imperial County-Mexical border, and SDSU Imperial Valley being literally less than a mile, just a block away from the border. First, it's important to understand, how prevalent and also important for us at SDSU this, phenomena is.

Now, who are transborder students? Transborder students are many things. They are diverse individuals with diverse, aspirations, dreams, hopes, and so much more. But if we look at the literature, transborder students are predominantly of Mexican ethnic background. A lot are first-generation college students. And also, face… Challenges related to food and housing insecurities, and as well, being part of mixed immigration status families. So if we think about what are the factors that lead families and students to live these trans-border lives, there are two that are the most critical. 

Number one is economic disparities and hardship, and seeking to live south of the border to be able to still have a humane living arrangement. And two, being part of mixed immigration status families where, unfortunately, maybe mom or dad or, you know, a family member has been deported, so students living at the borderlands to, one, stay together with their loved ones, but two, also practice that human right to an education. And then also, I mentioned two that are most critical, but another that is also most prevalent factor of why people live trans-border lives is because they were born into trans-border families where you have grandpa and great-grandpa or
grandma, who are also trans-border, and it's about not so much that they cross the border, but really that the border crossed them and their families, and they're, you know, born into this, region, yes, but also, this life of crossing and being on both sides of the border. 

So it's a lot of things. We'll probably need, maybe, actually an entire course on… on trans-border students, but that's a little bit of, background.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel:

Oh, thank you so much for kind of orienting us to this conversation, and it really is such a common phenomenon, as you say, throughout the world, and particularly here in Southern California, especially right at the Mexico-California border. So prevalent and so impactful on our communities and on our classrooms. Transborder students make every classroom discussion richer, and interactions between students and between professors and students so much richer. So, thank you for… for the overview, and thank you in advance for the work that you do that we're going to be talking about. So, first, you know, you kind of alluded to this in your answer to my first question, but I'll just ask you directly, like, why do you study what you do?

Vannessa Falcón Orta:

It is informed by my personal experience. As you read in the bio, I am a trans-border individual. I grew up crossing the border every day throughout my entire education.

Even all the way up to the doctoral studies. The only reason why I'm not a trans border student anymore is because now I'm a trans border professor. Literally tomorrow, from Imperial County, Mexico, which is where, I call home, and I have the great honor to serve as an assistant professor. But tomorrow afternoon, I'm gonna be driving to Tijuana, and I'm gonna be over there for, you know, the holiday break.

And, yeah, I'm gonna be… I'm gonna be in my… also, you know, my… my home, my hometown. I've always crossed the border, I continue to cross the border, and I do this because I do have a profound understanding of the needs for this community, both lived, but also through research. So because of this understanding and this lived experience, I dedicate my work to creating inclusive, validating campus climates, but also preparing critically conscious border educators, because in reality, it is very, very few of us who are doing this work, and the few of us who are doing this work, I would like to think, are making significant change for this overall student population. Part of my work and how I do my work is that it's very much praxis-informed research. Meaning that there isn't anything that I write about and I publish that I haven't actually done, and I've been on the ground serving, creating inclusive spaces, having dialogue for sense of belonging. 

So, you know, I do also work towards creating innovative education initiatives. So, through those initiatives and hand-in-hand I create research so other educators can… hopefully duplicate, but also, you know, do it even bigger and better. That's really my greatest aspiration. And also that work that I do, yes, it's informed by my personal experience, but also my research. There are prevalent findings that have come up, and I've said, okay, we need to do something. What are we gonna do? How are we gonna do this?

I'm very blessed that I have colleagues that are also transborder scholars, like myself, whom I can collaborate, and that are immensely talented, not just academically and scholarly, but also talented in ways to be able to navigate the borderlands, and where I'm not alone. At one point, I was. You know, as a transborder student, it was a very lonely experience. In one of my interviews for my dissertation already, it's been a few years now. But in one of my interviews, a student quoted a jazz quote, where he says, alone… alone together. So, basically, we navigate these borderlands, these parallel lives, as he said, alone together, and why he said that is because we are in many, many, many. Just in San Diego Tijuana, you have 100,000 crossings from south to north. Daily. That's just daily, that's just in one day.

But yet, for transborder students, in my experience, and, you know, unfortunately it's still the reality, it's a very lonely experience, where, you know, you come to school anywhere in the pipeline, and sometimes your experience isn't validated or reflected, maybe in the literature, maybe in the lesson, or simply, hey, how are you doing? How was the crossing? Are you tired? Hey, look, I saved you some breakfast. Then, for that reason, is that I do this practice-informed research, with the aspirations that, you know, others will duplicate it. I'm only one person, and my colleagues are only… we're just a handful.

But this work really needs to be implemented along the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Not even just Calibaja, but really along the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. We also do webinars. We have the publications, yes, where we do webinars and just so many other ways to reach a broader audience. It is for that hope to improve educational experiences for our community.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel:

I'm so grateful that you're doing all this work, and I have to say the idea of praxis-informed work is so powerful. I mean, we talk a lot on this podcast, and in general about the impact of lived experience of a scholar on their work, which is, in and of itself, I think, incredibly important and powerful.

And then to kind of… it sounds like you kind of go a step further, and you only really study and write about the things that you… the efforts that you are directly a part of, which I think is really, really powerful. And when you are speaking to our broader community, it sounds like, and saying, we should do this, we need to do this. It's because you've tried it, not because you think from literature or talking to others that it should be tried. Did I… as an aside, like, did I get that right, Vannessa? Like, I don't want to put words in your mouth. 

Vannessa Falcón Orta:

I know, I think it's a great, like, kind of paraphrasing or summarizing, It makes our work a lot more richer. It really does, at least for… I'm just gonna talk about my research, not comparing it to any… and anybody else's work, not at all. It's not about that, but… I did, you know, in my master's thesis, begin with qualitative, grounded theory-informed work for identity development, and then it was very informed by my own experience, still. And… In the beginning, it was doing these interviews and finding these things, but  And I thought, there's some real challenges. How do we serve? How do we serve? And then that's when I started doing the… the praxis-informed work.

So even when I… my very, very early, early work, maybe my… my very first, you know, the master's thesis, it was your traditional, kind of, qualitative interviews and findings and themes, but then seeing the need. After that, you know, it's not just about having the focus group, it's about, like, how do we create spaces of inclusion. Even I do have work that hasn't come out yet as a publication, because I've been just very careful about how do we write about these sensitive issues, like times of unrest, or the double jeopardy of criminalization for our transborder men on both sides of the border? How do we write about that? And I literally have those manuscripts pending, and just because I want to handle this with a lot of care as well.

So what I'm trying to say is, yes, we do… me and my colleagues, and I have to include my colleagues in this, because I don't… I don't do this alone. The Praxis work, I don't do it alone, but even the publications, I write with my transborder scholars colleagues and allies, but also with students, so… We have these findings on transborder identity, or… in the analyzing the borderlands and the challenges that are prevalent in crossing the borderlands, but it's not just about publishing their insights, it's about, like, hey, how do we… how can we write together? How can we publish together? And so it's also about that.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel:

My second question is, what are you working on right now? So you just mentioned a few pending manuscripts. Are there certain things you're working on that you'd like to… certain… certain projects you're working on that you'd like to share?

I have to say I'm very fortunate. It looks like all of the publications just kind of decided to come out in 2025, so we have, my colleagues and I have about 5 publications. I have my very first quantitative study that I also published. But there are 3 that I'm really proud of. And again, they're informed by that praxis research. Continuing to build on those publications. And we're gonna, continue to hone that work. So we introduced a few concepts, like border HSI, we're gonna start working on other concepts, but also models, so then others can duplicate this work. A few of that is praxis-informed research, right? 

The transborder graduation you mentioned in my bio, you know, something that I implemented with my colleagues at SDSU Imperial Valley in 2022. Never had been done before, and we did it. We… we did it. SDSU supported us right away. We had the support, I shared this for the first time at SDSU to our wonderful Cristina Alfaro, and she supported us 100. So, from there, we published on the origins of that work, so others can kind of know about the blueprint, how did this happen, so they're hesitant to do this in their institutions, but now, within the last couple of years, we've been working on a model. So, on a model, how do you create a transborder graduation in higher education? We've already submitted it for publication, so now we're hoping to work on revisions and resubmissions for that.

And then also the Transforming Border HSIs that we also introduced this year. And now what we want to do is create a framework for that. So again, so others can duplicate, can do it better, can build on it. And so those are some of the things that we're working on, a few other as well, but we're hitting the floor running with those two.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel:

Sounds like you have been and will be very busy, and I just want to mention, you sent me a few of your papers to read in preparation for this conversation, and the… some of your most recent work on transborder HSI, or border HSI, I don't remember which is the correct term, but you wrote it with your co-authors as a… like, a love letter to the institutions, and what you're hoping they will consider doing different, and why. And it was just beautifully written and powerful and so different from the scholarship I'd read before. 

I just wanted to call it out, and if listeners are really interested to, they should check it out. Who was your co-author on that? It was one co-author, right? Yes, yes. I'm so proud of this work, and I'm proud of it because… not only the impact that it has and what it does, but also, who I have the great privilege and honor to write it with. And this… this specific article, Transcending Borders and Enacting Servingness, a love letter for Border HSI's transformation, that's with my co-author, Carlos Fitch speech, and he's the first author in this, and I'm just so proud of him and everything he's doing. He is alum from SDSU Imperial Valley. He was, a few years back, not too long ago, if I could be mistaken on the date, but I think it was 2022, 2023, he was AS president for SDSU Imperial Valley.

And we've, ever since, we've been working together since, you know, I came to SDSU Imperial Valley in 2021, he was a co-organizing student for the Building Bridges graduation, among others. So we… he led this piece, and I was so honored to follow his lead in this work. But something that I love about this work is, of course, the love component. I think I would wither away. I don't think I could do this work if it wasn't leading with love, working with allies, working with people that do care about the community and want to make a difference, working together with allies, bringing people in, educating those who want to learn about the student population, to lead with love, care, compassion, also for our transborder students, we talk a lot about the servingness component, but we can't… truly serve our students unless we do it holistically, and sometimes holistically means that we will have difficult conversations about, geopolitical tensions on both sides of the border, and unrest that happens at the borderlands, and having safe spaces and dialogue for these realities, for these students. We also do that, we have, we've had brave spaces of dialogue when there's peaks in unrest, specifically for trans border students, and it's been… I've co-led this with my colleagues who are transborder as well, professors, and staff and students.

And that's what Leading with Love is. It's, yeah, you have the wonderful, inclusive, culturally relevant, whether it's activities, lectures, graduations, but you also have care, compassion during the most difficult times of living at the Borderlands. And unless we do that, and we do it holistically, we won't be authentically and truly serving trans border students. 

Rachel Haine-Schlagel:

I think you've… you've spoken already a lot about how your work has impacted your community. But I would love if there's an example, a specific example that you could give of how your work has impacted a community. You can define community however you like. We would love to hear it.

Vannessa Falcón Orta:

I'll give two examples, and I kind of alluded to these already. The first, and I think the most popular, because it's been highlighted in the media on both sides of the border ever since its inception, and SDSU has also embraced this initiative so lovingly, not just as at SDSU Imperial Valley, but also at SDSU's main campus, and that is the Building Bridges Trans-Border Graduation. It's, graduation that we… implemented for the very first time south of the border, so specifically in Mexicali, for trans border students and students overall who had family members who could not cross the border and could not be at commencement in my research, but just overall as an educator as well, I've seen commencement, of course, you know, being a very beautiful time, but for transport students in particular, who are, you know, of mixed immigration status families, it is a very painful event, a very painful moment to be there in graduation alone, to not have your mom, to not have your dad, to not have your siblings there.

I actually started before the pandemic with the idea, and even secured, a space at the time in Colef, in Colegido la Frontera Norte, but then the pandemic happened, and commencement stopped. Period. Just, you know, we know the history. It stopped everywhere. So that idea just could… could not happen. And, I revisited again when I… when I started working at SDSU Imperial Valley as faculty director in 2021 for the Cross-Cultural Center.

It was embraced by my colleagues at SDSU Imperial Valley. Not only embraced, but we… we did this side by side, we led it, with adjunct faculty Gilberto Reyes, and, and AS President Carlos Fitch, and, Assistant Professor Efren Lopez. We did the graduation, we actually… Reyes and I secured a venue. Before we even introduced the idea, we secured a venue already with the collaboration of the Secretaria de Educacion de Baja California, so that is, your at the government level, like, cultural… I can't translate it, I'm so sorry. I'll… I'll… I'll come up with a translation, maybe, and I'll send it to you, so we can, I don't know, include it in the show notes, perhaps, but… Secretaria de Cultura de Baja California, at the time the director, we collaborated with, with him. And we secured a venue at Casa La Cultura, the Caso del Cultura de Mexicali, the cultural… the home of, like, cultural events and all of that, that is funded through the government, the Mexican government, sponsored that completely for us.

And then that is when I came with the idea to SDSU, and again, you know, full-heartedly welcomed, not only welcomed, but Cristina Alfaro supported our efforts, President de la Torre had and continues to have funds to support the graduation for… at SDSU Imperial Valley, and then, you know, SESU Main Campus now continues to do it as well. So, that commencement has served, you know, so many transborder students and families. And, you know, we continue to serve transborder students and families through this graduation. It's something I'm very proud of, but I also I see the impact instantly, you know, in commencement, we see it unfold, and… Right then and there.

That is one way that we've served our students through praxis. And I say praxis because this was a prevalent theme in my… in my research. The fact that transborder students would experience commencement without their loved ones, and how emotionally painful that was. So that is when I, you know, I started seeing those prevalent findings. I thought, we need to do something. We need to think outside the box, we need to transcend borders, build bridges, and, you know, till graduation, why not south of the border?

So, that is one… one that is, I think, very popular. It's, we have already a couple publications where we highlight the initiative, we're working on the model. And, it's also been highlighted by media, news outlets on both sides of the border, and it continues to be highlighted every single year. So that is one. Another… access-informed initiative and also research that I'm working on is serving transborder students during times of unrest. This one is not as popular.

But it's just as significant and important, because it's, you know, as I mentioned, the… the importance of serving transborder students during also the most difficult times in serving this population holistically, so it's not just the celebration and the cultural validation, but it's also how do we show up in the most difficult and vulnerable times. The Borderlands is a very hostile environment. Militarized, policed environment. It is a very difficult place to be. Unfortunately, borders were not created for us to really cross them. They were created to separate nations, cities, and the U.S.-Mexico border does separate communities and families.

And within this environment, there is also unrest, and there are peaks of unrest that happened, sometimes more on one side than another, sometimes in Mexico. Our students experience that unrest that reaches national and even global headlines, and then they come to the classroom. And nobody talks about it. Nobody says anything. You know, they're just expected to learn and to continue to thrive, because I do, you know, our… my community is very resilient, yes, but that doesn't mean that that resiliency doesn't come with, psychosocial stressors and… and challenges.

So what we do, what we've done is, when there are these peaks of unrest, we have brave spaces of dialogue. These brave spaces of dialogue, yes, are open to all students and community, but at the same time, they're not recorded, they're not at all… media is… is not at all welcomed. It is not, because this is a very private space. And I've done these spaces, of course, with my transborder Scholars colleagues, but also in collaboration with counseling and psychological support services from our campus, as well as even with U of A, because, as I mentioned, transborder students being prevalent along the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

And having the need of spaces like these. So, that's another Praxis-informed initiative that I'm very proud of and I also deeply care about, and we are working on a publication on how to serve transborder students during times of unrest. And the reason why I haven't quite yet published on this is because, you know, I want to handle it with a lot of care, a lot of compassion. It is a very difficult topic to navigate. But at the same time, we do need to serve our transborder students during these difficult times, so we do need to get a publication out there and a webinar, so others can do this work as well. But it needs to be, again, with a lot of care, love, compassion.

Because sometimes we don't want it to be something that is, like, sensationalized, in any kind of way. That's not what we want. So, again, being very careful about it. So those, again, to answer your question, those are two initiatives that are examples of what praxis-informed research looks like, specifically to transform order HSIs and serve our students at the borderlines for our work, we're focusing on transborder students, but that's not to say that transcoder students are the only population at the borderlines. Not at all. There's so many other scholars doing amazing work for undocumented students, for students who are refugees, asylum seekers, so that's also something to consider as well as we developed this framework. It's just the beginning, and again, we hope others can duplicate it and do it bigger and better.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel:

So, now I want to ask you, Vannessa, what do you struggle with the most in studying your area?

Vannessa Falcón Orta

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think what I struggle the most with I've… Mentioned already. And that is to serve our students holistically. Yes, in some of those most, difficult times of unrest and social and geopolitical tensions, that's… at times, when you have this happen, specifically for transport students. It can be twofold.

Because these, social and geopolitical tensions, you know, can be… can be intense in the United States, can be intense in Mexico, And for students who navigate, both societies, it's a double jeopardy. But then you also have the additional layer of, literally, the border, which is also a very… intense environment. So, showing up for my students in the most difficult moments, not because it's hard, not at all. It's not… it's not hard to show up, or it's not a hard decision to do, it's, I, without a doubt, will always continue to… to show up. But sometimes I, I do get tired, because it's, it's only… We're only a few, we're only a handful doing this work, and I want to make sure that, you know, the community that I serve, the community that I write with and publish with is taken care of, and sometimes… it gets… it can be very difficult. 

So, showing up, being there for them, in the structured, systematic ways that… that work, that everybody knows that this is available, we are going to have a brave space of dialogue, for example, during times of unrest. It's hard, because at this point, I'll be very frank, we are, kind of reactionary, so it happens, we have the space, but my aspirations and my… My hope is that we can have this already built in, where we have these brave spaces happening recurrently, that are there already, part of the design. That is my hope. We're not there yet, so right now. It is a very reactionary, kind of way to serve our students.

And it's hard, and it can be difficult, you know, balancing having to teach at 4, and then there's a peer review that is due, the revisions and resubmissions are due, but then, you know, something serious happens, and we also have to be there. That's hard. Not because it's hard to do, just because it's… I still need to find a way where… where it's more sustainable. And I… I'm still working on it, and that is part of that Transforming Border HSI framework that we hope that can also be duplicated, because we can't… we can't do all the practices,

We do need allies, and we hope that others can also join and do… Do this good work to serve our students, yes, in the most beautiful and culturally inclusive ways, but also in the difficult times as well. Yeah, the emotional toll that it must take on you and your colleagues to go from working on a paper to… Creating a brave space for students when something particularly impactful happens. Just happening a lot.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel:

I imagine that challenge really can drain your battery, and that it can be challenging to figure out how to… how to recharge so that you can keep doing it over and over and over again. So I appreciate your… sharing and being frank, and also your call for allies. I think it's really important for, particularly faculty and staff who are at universities like SDSU and SDSU Imperial Valley, who are part of these communities, to be aware of these challenges and… and hopefully open… some of them open to becoming more active allies.

So, my last question is… I think it can be kind of a fun one to think about. It's, like, nice to end on a more… on a positive note, is if your work was done, if there was nothing left for you to do professionally in this field of study that you're focused on. What would society look like? What would education look like?

Vannessa Falcón Orta

It would be… Education Without Borders, how society would look like, in an ideal world. And then my work would be done. I wouldn't even have to do my work. But if not sad, then… sooner than later, I hope we can have more research, initiatives, Programs. Services. That are dedicated to building bridges through education. So, using education as a tool to transcend and transform borders. Whether it's your nation state or geopolitical borders. And also borders within education, and, you know, higher education, meaning that we… we don't only… we're not only in… in education spaces or higher education spaces, we are also with the community so then, we have education as a tool to transcend borders and build bridges to serve most… the most vulnerable student populations at the Borderlands and their families.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel:

Sounds like a wonderful, wonderful goal to work towards. So, thank you so much, Vannessa, for taking time to talk with me and sharing so much about your work and your experiences, engaging in your work, and I'm just so proud to have you as a colleague, and so grateful that you're a part of the larger SDSU community.

Vannessa Falcón Orta:

Thank you.

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