Xaxiri Yamane has nine years of higher education experience at community colleges. She currently serves as the Grants Development Specialist at Rio Salado College, in Tempe, AZ, one of the ten colleges in the Maricopa Community College District. In this role, Xaxiri primarily focuses on assisting the college on grant proposal development, which includes researching grant opportunities; working with faculty, administrators, and staff to develop proposals ideas; as well as writing grant proposals. Prior to joining Rio Salado College, she managed several grant projects from the National Science Foundation and other private funders. Her experience includes working with faculty and industry members to implement grant activities, managing project budgets, event planning (local workshops and national conferences), and presenting at national conferences. Xaxiri earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Arizona State University.
To determine how to plan for transformational change across campus, Rio Salado College used a strategic planning effort and sought expertise from higher education leaders. In the process RSC developed a replicable and executable roadmap to plan change.