Alicia Baca, outreach coordinator for the Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (CSEEES), has been awarded the 2023 Association of Staff and Faculty Women's Mary Ann Williams Leadership Award. This award recognizes a university employee who exhibits leadership that instills in others a sense of confidence to succeed, promotes a greater understanding of others, bridges differences and encourages co-workers and friends to collaborate and cooperate.

The award committee was particularly moved by Baca's ability to provide opportunities for students and staff to grow through mentoring, advocacy and support. A role model, mentor and strong advocate for diversity in the Slavic, East European and Eurasian studies field, Baca leverages her position to ensure diverse and lesser-known voices are given the opportunity to share their expertise and experiences.

She advocates for all students to be able to access CSEEES programming. She designed and implemented a plan to allow for other attendees and community members to sponsor students’ attendance at the Midwest Slavic Conference, and all requests for waivers were met. This allowed a much larger number of students to access the professional development and networking opportunities at the conference. Baca also volunteered to personally pay the way of a student who could not otherwise afford to compete in the statewide Russian language competition before another funding source was located.

Baca was also recently invited by the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, the premier organization in the field, to speak on a career panel.

The award was presented at the Deborah A. Ballam Symposium on May 19, 2023 at the Nationwide & Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center on campus.