Aned Y. Muñiz Gracia

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Aned Y. Muñiz Gracia is an award-winning professor.

Contents

[edit] Background and studies

Aned Muñiz Gracia was born in Corozal in 1984, a rural town in Puerto Rico. She started swimming competitively at age 10. During her last year of high school, Aned took part in an international cultural exchange program in Austria. She attended the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus and received a Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages. During her undergraduate studies, Aned studied one summer at the Far Eastern National University in Vladivostok, Russia, participated in a summer seminar at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, and worked at Fersped Skopje, an import-export company in Macedonia. She received the Master of Arts in European Languages and Literature from the University of Hawaii. Her Master's Thesis was titled "Music as a Mnemonic and Didactic Device for Language Instruction". Upon completion of her Master's degree, Aned Muñiz was awarded a Fulbright grant to conduct research in Austria. During her second long-term residence in Europe, Aned Muñiz taught at the Vienna Business Academies, the Handelsakademie I and attended the Universities of Vienna and Klagenfurt. She is now writing a dissertation at the University of San Diego, California, where she has completed all coursework leading to the doctoral degree in Leadership Studies and Educational Sciences. Professor Aned Muñiz started teaching at the University of Hawaii at age 20. Besides education and sports, a big concern of hers is the well-being of Puerto Rico's stray animals.

Having lived, studied or worked in different parts of the world enabled Aned Muñiz Gracia to learn various languages such as Russian, German, French, Spanish, Italian, English. She has also studied Welsh, Serbo-Croatian, and Arabic, among other languages.

[edit] Awards and accolades

Aned Muñiz Gracia's roster of scholastic awards includes:

  • Outstanding Professor of the Year at MiraCosta College in 2006
  • Excellence in Teaching Award from Grossmont College in 2007
  • One of San Diego's "Top 40 under 40" successful young people / community leaders in 2007 by San Diego Metropolitan Magazine
  • One of San Diego's "Hispanic Top 10" in 2007 by Nostika magazine
  • Fulbright award
  • Second Prize, University of Hawaii French poetry contest, 1994
  • Poetry Award, Association Portoricaine des Professeurs de Français, 1995
  • Hawaii Newspaper Agency Award for Excellence in Commentary/Analysis, 1998
  • Homecoming Scholar, University of Hawai`i, 1996
  • Surfer of the Month, El Nuevo Dia newspaper, September 1996

[edit] References

[edit] Community service

Aned Y. Muñiz Gracia has volunteered as a Latina Youth Mentor with MANA San Diego, the House of Puerto Rico in San Diego, and as a swimming instructor in Austria. She has served as Faculty Advisor for various student clubs and started her own foundation in Puerto Rico. In 2003 Aned spent her summer in Stavanger, Norway, volunteering 40 hours a week for Camp Adventure Youth Services as Camp Director for an international children's day camp.

[edit] External links

[edit] Early articles written in English by Aned Y. Muñiz Gracia

Aned Y. Muñiz has written for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and for Ka Leo O Hawaii in Honolulu, Hawai`i. Here is a sample of her early work.