University of San Diego Magazine 75th Anniversary 2024

Ethical Conduct and Compassionate Service

A riela Canizal ‘17 (MA) has come full circle. The only child of immigrant parents in Los Angeles, she worked hard to get to college. But Canizal didn’t do it alone. She had important mentors along the way. Now, as USD’s director of community and leadership development, she fulfills a similar role for commuter and first-generation college students, helping them forge a new life on campus. “At the end of the day, it’s all about connecting the students to the resources that are here for them,” said Canizal, who is also a PhD student in leadership studies at the university. “However, it’s not enough just to make sure they graduate. It’s teaching them how to navigate the world, how to make socially just, civil discourse decisions, and how to be a good human.” In her current role, she oversees four initiatives. One entails creating programs to onboard commuter students and ensure they experience the campus the same way residential students do. She also co-chairs a team to support students who, like her, are the first in their family to attend college. In addition, Canizal runs a financial wellness initiative so students understand the full range of options for funding their education. On top of all that, she teaches an undergraduate class on leadership. Teaching made her reflect on ethics, because while Canizal acknowledges that she loves working with students and they think she’s cool, she is still an authority figure who has to hold them accountable.

Her job is a natural extension of her previous role as a retention specialist in the university’s Office of Student Support Services. That role focused on advising first-generation students on classes, scholarships and internships, as well as coaching them through challenges, including imposter syndrome. “I was there to basically pop that bubble of self-doubt and self-intimidation and let them know they deserved to be here,” she said. “They worked hard to get here, and my job was to show them how to take full advantage of it.” Canizal knows what it’s like to be that student. “I’m a Latina, raised in Boyle Heights near downtown L.A. I was always told I was never going to leave.” But she did, securing a full scholarship to Marymount Manhattan College in New York. She credits her own academic success, in part, to those who offered helping hands. Not only her parents, who believed in her, but also her high school guidance counselor, as well as compassionate faculty members and student affairs leaders — many of them women and people of color — during her undergraduate and graduate career. Now she’s passing it on. The students she interacts with are not at the university just to get a degree and land a good job but to make a difference in people’s lives. They want to go back to their communities and say, “Hey, I did it. Let me show you how.” With Canizal as a role model, they already have a head start. •

We promote ethical conduct and compassionate service among our students, our faculty and our staff. We value the study of ethics as a distinguishing characteristic of a Catholic university. We engage with the imminent social issues of our time to enhance the common good and educate leaders who are committed to choices and pathways that elevate fairness and equity.

– Bonnie Nicholls