Professors & 700 TAMIU students rally to sign petition
to confer degree posthumously to Stella G. Araiza

By María Eugenia Guerra

The signatures of over 700 Texas A&M International University students on a petition authored by TAMIU faculty last September were the grassroots impetus for the first-ever posthumous degree awarded to a TAMIU student.
Stella G. Araiza, a 77-year-old senior three hours shy of completing a degree in history at TAMIU, died on September 10. The university's College of Arts and Humanities awarded Araiza's degree to her daughter, Patricia Araiza Ives, at the recent December 14 commencement exercises.
Stella Araiza was a member of the Omega Upsilon Chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society at TAMIU. She had plans to continue her education in graduate school after completing her undergraduate degree and had already taken the graduate school entrance exam.
A native of Lorain, Ohio, she moved to Laredo in the 1940s where she met and married her husband, the late Pedro Araiza, Jr.
"When she was in high school in Milwaukee during World War II, my mother worked at night in an armament factory," said Araiza's daughter Carolyn Araiza Norton. "She went to school in the daytime to support her father who was disabled and her mother who was unable to work. When she felt she could not continue going to school and thought about dropping out, her teachers encouraged her to continue. Through a great deal of effort, she made it through. She cherished her high school ring because it had cost her so much. It was a symbol for what she could do. It was so old that when I was growing up it looked worn," Norton continued.
"My mother was very smart and she went on to work as a bookkeeper. She was never financially able to afford a college education -- it was out of her reach when she was raising a family. My mother and father sent my sister and I to college. She always denied herself in order to provide for us. When we were grown up and gone she finally retired. After my father's death, she took a class at Laredo Community College. She liked it and never missed a class and then went on to TAMIU and never missed a semester," Norton continued.
Araiza was a student of TAMIU history professor Dr. Deborah Blackwell, who recalled, "Stella took two of my classes: the History of the American South, and Building Modern America (1877-1919). She was the kind of student who stood out in class, not because of her age relative to the other class members but because of the quality and thoughtfulness of her class participation. She was clearly very bright, and the other students had enormous respect for her. We got to talking one day after class, and she told me that she had worked in a factory during World War II. I asked her if she would come speak to my U.S. women's history class to talk about that experience, and she was really mesmerizing, for me and the students. I greatly admired her, for her perseverance in the face of life's difficulties and for the joie de vivre she brought to her studies. She was a real-life example of the fact that it is never too late to learn new things or to follow one's dreams. So many of her professors at TAMIU -- Drs. Ben-Ruwin (the originator of the petition drive for her posthumous degree), Haruna, Waters, Green, and Pisani among them, as well as myself -- were genuinely devastated by her passing, and I am so glad that her family had a chance to see a measure of the esteem with which she was held here. Stella is one of those students I will always remember, and one from whom I learned as much as she learned from me."
Social sciences professor Dr. Carol Waters first met Stella Araiza in the Fall of 2000 when she was a student in Waters' senior level Issues in U.S. Government class. "Though she was older than the other students in the class, she related to them as peers, fitting into the group as neatly as any traditional senior. That particular class involved group activities and lots of classroom discussion. In both of those activities, Stella held her own. I remember also that she wrote a vociferous critique of the proposed privatization of Social Security (perhaps, in her wisdom, having insight into the possibility of such events as the Enron debacle) and, in general, spoke articulately concerning whatever issue was under discussion," Waters recalled, adding, "Stella definitely had opinions and was not hesitant to express them, but she always did so in a lively, courteous manner. She was an excellent role model for younger students with her keen interest in world events and her dedication to learning."
Waters kept up with Araiza. "She was excited and proud about the prospect of having her degree. When she came into my office this last August for advisement for the Fall semester, she said she really wanted to take another class with Dr. Ben-Ruwin, whose comparative politics class she had enjoyed, but his class was in the evening. She remarked, 'I'm not as young as I used to be' and that she didn't like to drive at night, so she decided to take another class instead. A few days later she came back to say she had changed her mind. 'You only live once, I will take the class with Dr. Ben-Ruwin,' she told me. So, we signed her up for her Fall (and final) semester, anticipating her graduation in December. That was the last time I saw her," Waters recalled.
"Her stamina, her drive was something I was so proud of," said Araiza's daughter Patricia Ives. “She loved the students and loved the professors. We could see how much she enjoyed school, how good it was for her. It filled her world after my father died. It changed her in that way. Up to the last day she was on the go. We are very appreciative of the 700 students who signed the petition to award my mother her degree in history and are as well appreciative of the professors who initiated the petition," Ives said.
"My mother was interested in other people and other cultures. She had no use for the mediocre or the familiar. In school, she found something profoundly new. She found the universe. She had just passed the GRE on the first try and was set to enter graduate school in 2003. She fought like a tiger to stay alive," Norton said.
Thirty-five TAMIU professors sponsored the signed 65-page petition that was delivered to university president Dr. Ray Keck along with a request that Araiza be honored posthumously at the winter commencement exercises.
"Mrs. Araiza was not just representing herself when she came back to school," the petition sponsors wrote. "She was representing the oldest generation in our community. She was a symbol of determination, hope, and dedication. To some of us she was a student and a teacher at the same time. She was a polite, sincere, and hardworking student."