FRANCISCO JIMÉNEZWebsite: www.scu.edu/fjimenezBio information: Author and educator, Francisco Jiménez emigrated with his family from Tlaquepaque, Mexico to California and as a child worked alongside his parents in the fields of California. He received his BA from Santa Clara University and an MA and Ph.D. in Latin American literature from Columbia University under a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. He has served on various professional boards and commissions, including the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (10 years, two as chair), California Council for the Humanities, Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities (WASC), Santa Clara University Board of Trustees and the Far West Lab for Educational Research and Development. Dr. Jiménez's autobiographical books The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (Cajas de cartón, Spanish edition), Breaking Through (Senderos fronterizos, Spanish edition), Reaching Out (Más allá de mí, Spanish edition), La Mariposa, and The Christmas Gift/El regalo de Navidad have won several national literary awards, including The California Library Association's 10th annual John and Patricia Beatty Award, the Américas Book Award, the Pura Belpré Honor Book Award, the Tomás Rivera Book Award, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Reading the World Award, and the Carter C. Woodson National Book Award. His books have been published in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Italian and Spanish. In addition, he has published and edited several books on Mexican and Mexican American literature, and his stories have been reprinted in over 100 textbooks and anthologies of literature. His latest work, Taking Hold: From Migrant Childhood to Columbia University will be published in April of 2015 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He was selected the 2002 U.S. Professor of the Year by CASE and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He was awarded an honorary degree from De Anza College and a doctorate of Humane Letters, honoris causa,from the University of San Francisco. He is currently the Fay Boyle Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Santa Clara University.