Education

2010 State Farm Service-Learning Champion Award Recipient

• Cynthia Nava
• Superintendent, Gadsden Independent School District
• New Mexico State Senator
• Albuquerque, New Mexico

Cynthia Nava, current Superintendent of Schools for Gadsden Independent School District, has been the primary legislative champion of service-learning for nearly 15 years. First, as a Special Education leader, and then later as Assistant and finally Superintendent of one of New Mexico’s most diverse school districts, Nava has also led by example. She was an early sponsor of the New Mexico Civic Engagement Initiative – a civic learning project to get students involved in local community problem solving and learning how to take local issues and move them into the state policy agenda arena.

After attending the National Service-Learning Conference in Albuquerque in 1994, the newly elected State Senator became convinced that this teaching method was perfectly suited for her multi-ethnic students and others throughout the state.  Since 1995, Nava has either authored or sponsored nearly 20 separate pieces of legislation and related funding to support service-learning as public policy, sound curriculum practice and teacher preparation requirements.

Nava has also worked with service-learning leaders to promote other mechanisms for advancing service-learning in the state. She was an early supporter- both personally and professionally – of the development of the National Indian Youth Leadership Project. Most recently, Cynthia has been working with a statewide network funded by Atlantic Philanthropies and the New Mexico Community Foundation to extend service-learning into the after-school hours. Her school district has been the major sub-grantee in the southern part of the state. Nava has been the lead administrator working with local non-profits, a statewide community foundation, several national consulting groups, and area teachers and staff to develop a model after-school project – grounded in service-learning principles. 

Through this project and other parts of her personal and professional network, Nava has also extended the lessons learned from this approach to other national funders as well.