Student success has always been the focus for Southern\nIllinois University Carbondale Aviation\u2019s Lorelei and Jos\u00e9 Ruiz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each worked more than 30 years for the nationally recognized\nprogram, and they account for hundreds of aviation professionals in varying\ncareers within the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLooking back, I have been so blessed in the opportunities\nthat were presented to me,\u201d said Lorelei, who like her husband will often get\ntexts and photos from their former students. On one recent day, Lorelei, who\nretired as an associate professor in aviation flight in 2021, received a selfie\nfrom a former student and now first officer with United Airlines along with\nLorelei\u2019s very first flight instructor at SIU, who has worked with United for\ndecades and is a captain with the airline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI really enjoyed working with the students. They don\u2019t all\nstay in touch, but it\u2019s so gratifying to hear back from them and see them\nsucceed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her husband, Jos\u00e9, a professor in aviation management, will\nretire in September. He also looks to his students\u2019 successes within the\naviation industry, which run the gamut and include working with airlines, as\nair traffic controllers, military pilots, the Federal Aviation Administration\nand National Transportation Safety Board. He choked up a bit when discussing\nhis work with students, noting the key is being able to \u201cconnect with the\nkids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Came to SIU via different paths<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Ruizes \u2014 who married in 1997 after meeting at SIU \u2014 have\nbeen a \u201cpowerful \u2018one-two\u2019 combination\u201d for the School of Aviation since the\nlate 1990s, said Dave NewMyer, who came to SIU Aviation in 1977 and retired as\naviation management and flight chair in 2014. The School of Aviation consists\nof aviation management, aviation flight and aviation technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jos\u00e9 arrived at SIU in 1995 \u201cbecause of his strong\nqualifications with nearly 20 years in air traffic control with the U.S. Air\nForce,\u201d NewMyer said, noting Jos\u00e9\u2019s focus was to upgrade air traffic\ncontrol-related offerings and aviation safety-related teaching and research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lorelei, who grew up in Murphysboro with a love for\naviation, came to SIU to major in mathematics and Spanish with the goal of\nbecoming a teacher. She changed her major one day after walking by Faner Hall\nand hearing the engines of a plane piloted by an aviation student overhead.\nAlong the way, she became a certified flight instructor and started teaching\nfull time in January 1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jos\u00e9 credits NewMyer and other colleagues with mentoring him\nonce he arrived. He was familiar with teaching and service and was able to\naugment those areas with research, including, as NewMyer notes, \u201csignificant\nresearch on the career success of students who participated in airline-oriented\ninternships while enrolled in undergraduate aviation programs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jos\u00e9 became department chair upon NewMyer\u2019s retirement, and\nhe later served as interim director of the revamped School of Aviation from\n2022 to 2023. Jos\u00e9 was also selected by his national aviation education peers\nto serve one year as University Aviation Association president in 2012-2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lorelei, meanwhile, also managed the original application\nfor accreditation by the Aviation Accreditation Board International (AABI), the\norganization that accredits undergraduate aviation programs, NewMyer said.\n\u201cLorelei\u2019s work was so wide-ranging and significant that the faculty voted for\nthe first time ever to have her name placed on one of the new Cessna 172\naircraft just delivered to SIU.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lorelei also worked to restart the summer aviation camps,\nincluding a NASA Wings Camp for eight to 10 high school students, funded by the\nspace agency; the Summer Wings Aviation Camp for high school students and\nJunior Aviator Camps for students in first through eighth grades, and various\noutreach aviation programs to local schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scholarship named in her honor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a \u201ccomplete surprise\u201d when Lorelei learned a former\nstudent and SIU alumna recommended that a $500 aviation scholarship for women,\nthe Lorelei Ruiz Women in Aviation AAUW Scholarship, be named in her honor. The\nfirst award was presented this spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a huge honor, but even more than that, it is a great\nopportunity for women moving forward to have another scholarship opportunity\nthat is specific to women and the program,\u201d Lorelei said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jos\u00e9 said Lorelei is a \u201ctrailblazer\u201d: She was the first\nwoman to become a tenured faculty member within SIU\u2019s aviation program in a\nmale-dominated industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lorelei noted that she may return to the program soon as an\nFAA test proctor for the testing center within the Glenn Poshard Transportation\nEducation Center. Pilots and mechanics are required to take FAA knowledge tests\nto attain different ratings and certifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Tremendous facility\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While sharing the same profession, the couple note that they\nrarely saw one another during the day. Until the transportation education\ncenter (TEC) was completed in 2012, Jos\u00e9\u2019s office and classrooms were in the\nCollege of Applied Sciences and Arts building on campus, while Lorelei worked\nout of the former O.B. Young building at the Southern Illinois Airport. Even\nwith the move in 2012 and working just doors from one another, because they\nwere in different programs their individual schedules were different. Because\nboth were so busy with classes or flight instruction, Lorelei said she can\ncount on one hand the number of times they sat down to visit each other in\ntheir offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to also housing SIU Automotive and the aviation\ntechnologies program, the TEC also includes the first and only full tower-based\nair traffic control simulation center in Illinois, which Jos\u00e9 and a former\naviation faculty member helped create.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve gone from being a department located within a college\nto having a tremendous facility,\u201d said Jos\u00e9, who will be looking into volunteer\nopportunities and working on the family\u2019s farm after retiring. \u201cIf you look at\ncollegiate aviation programs around the country, few of them rival what we have\nhere in Carbondale.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Student success has always been the focus for Southern Illinois University Carbondale Aviation\u2019s Lorelei and Jos\u00e9 Ruiz. Each worked more than 30 years for the nationally recognized program, and they account for hundreds of aviation professionals in varying careers within the industry. \u201cLooking back, I have been so blessed in the opportunities that were presented […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-education","category-illinois"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lorelei-and-Joe-Ruiz-2-sm-edit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28781,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28779\/revisions\/28781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}