Empathetic, understanding and passionate: the Fall 2025 Golden Apple Award Honoree

In Fall 2025, students within the College of Agriculture, Life & Environmental Sciences (CALES) voted for the semester’s Golden Apple Award recipient, an honor sponsored by the Bart Cardon Academy for Teaching Excellence Fellows. This award represents the student voice and experience, as students nominate the instructors who go above and beyond in their teaching and support. 

The Fall 2025 honoree was Dubia Zaragoza.

Dubia Zaragoza, M.Ed.

Dubia Zaragoza is a career-track instructor for human development and family science at the University of Arizona at Yuma. Additionally, she has taught at Arizona Western College for over 15 years as a professor of family science and psychology. Her course load frequently includes classes like Basic Counseling Skills, Theories of Interpersonal & Family Relationships, and Adolescence. 

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As a practitioner, Zaragoza offers those in her class practical lessons derived from her 10+ years of working with families and caregivers in a therapeutic setting. Her goal is to layer those experiences into her lectures, creating a classroom environment where both theory and lived experience are valued equally.

She also prioritizes student inclusion and support, a sentiment felt by those in her class, with one student nominator saying: “Dubia Zaragoza was the most impactful professor because she is always attentive to her students. She is always ready to motivate and encourage her students, especially during hard times. She is empathetic, understanding, and passionate about what she teaches. There is no one else like her.”

Zaragoza’s empathy for students runs deep, as a first-generation college graduate raised in San Luis, Arizona, a rural U.S.-Mexico border community. Growing up alongside farm-working families inspired her to serve marginalized and underrepresented populations. And her hometown experiences showed how one instructor can make a difference, when a middle school math teacher helped her feel less overlooked and underestimated, and instead “capable of achieving anything.”

Now, Zaragoza is pursuing a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership at Arizona so she can continue to develop and mentor students. For her, showing up with excellence is the standard she sets for herself. 

“Receiving the CALES Golden Apple Award completely took me by surprise," she said. "I feel like I am simply doing what is expected of me, nothing extraordinary, so the recognition was incredibly meaningful -- especially because it came from my students, who are the most important part of my work. Moments like this remind me that building connections with students and creating a supportive learning environment truly matter.”

It’s clear that the students who nominated her see and appreciate Zaragoza’s commitment to their learning experience. Congratulations to Dubia Zaragoza, the Fall 2025 Golden Apple Award honoree!