Escontrías to lead ASU’s academic personnel office

<p>Gabriel Escontrías Jr. has been named the new director of academic personnel in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.</p><separator></separator><p>Escontrías will serve as the liaison to the academic units and faculty with questions or concerns about university and college policies concerning the status of their appointments, requirements for sabbaticals, leaves, reappointments, tenure and promotion.</p><separator></separator><p>“My overall goal is to make sure that the Office of Academic Personnel becomes user-friendly, and to ensure that all our processes abide by ASU Policies and Procedures,” Escontrías says.</p><separator></separator><p>Escontrías is developing a new monthly brown bag series so everyone in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences can become more familiarized with academic personnel processes; providing information to the college’s Web team to redesign the college’s academic personnel’s Web site; and has been working with other colleagues to create a manual on university policies and procedures.</p><separator></separator><p>Escontrías served as the manager of academic personnel in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He joined the college in February 2007 to serve as assistant to the dean of natural sciences.</p><separator></separator><p>Escontrías holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s degree in higher and postsecondary education from ASU. He is pursuing a doctoral degree in education at ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton School of Education. He also is the 2008-2009 president of the ASU Chicano/Latino Faculty and Staff Association.</p>