Student Affairs Staff Spotlight: Mariah Goyenechea (October 2021)

Nominated by: Victoria Hill-Ouhl

Mariah has been at UW Tacoma Financial Aid for 8 years now. She consistently strives to be a good steward to students, parents and staff. Over the years she has improved on her leadership skills and is now capable of handling and solving complex student problems no matter how difficult. She does this with kindness and a willingness that her team members (and supervisor) truly appreciate. She is the ultimate team player, always thinking of her teammates and ready to jump in and help whenever the situation warrants. She is very low-key, but an important member of our team.

In addition, Mariah is very dedicated to helping BIPOC student population and looks for ways to be an ambassador to these students. In this past year she has served as an important contact to our Undocumented Student population. This included helping reviewing WASFA files and providing support to undocumented students and their families to help them feel safe and provide documents confidentially and securely. She even converted our FAFSA/WASFA presentation to full Spanish (in consultation with her father who speaks fluent Spanish) over a weekend!

She is an avid lover of animals, dogs especially, and is a loving dog mom to Tochi, Rainer and Rajah.

We are proud to have her as a financial aid employee and feel it is time she was recognized for her hard work to UW Tacoma students over these last several years.