Jesus Celaya - Adjunct Assistant Professor


Ph.D., University of Arizona

Dr. Jesús Celaya, a native of Tucson, serves the Language, Reading and Culture department as an Adjunct Assistant Professor. His primary role, as a professional educator, is working as an elementary principal in the Tucson Unified School District. Dr. Celaya also holds a seat on the University of Arizona’s College of Education Alumni Council Advisory Board.
Prior to his adjunct assistant professorship and his work as an administrator, Dr. Celaya educated children from kindergarten through eighth grade as a classroom teacher in various settings in Tucson. He completed his Master’s in Educational Leadership in 1998 through Northern Arizona University, and he obtained his Doctor of Philosophy with a major of Language, Reading and Culture from the University of Arizona in 2003. Dr. Celaya’s dissertation, Students’ and Parents’ Understandings of School Safety in Relationship to Emergency Crises, revealed the significance of children and adults making concerted efforts to uphold safety and to manage crises, and it stands as one of the few qualitative projects that highlights school safety. In his spare time, Dr. Celaya composes poetic literature for children and adolescence, and selections of his poetry have been published in anthologies in the United States and in Europe.
Dr. Celaya’s current LRC undergraduate and graduate courses include: Educating the Culturally Diverse in a Pluralistic Society, Multicultural Literature and Literacy, Curriculum & Instruction in Bilingual & Second Language Settings, Bilingual Reading and Writing, and Structured English Immersion. Through his pedagogy in the LRC department, his administrative efforts outside the college, and his professional and poetic writings, Dr. Celaya strives to represent, empower, and transform the lives of oppressed individuals.