Beatriz Reyes-Foster : Women Who Shaped UCF
Congratulations, Beatriz Reyes-Foster, on your special honor from the UCF Center for Success of Women Faculty. 
The Center is celebrating “31 wonderful UCF women who have helped chart the course of UCF’s 50-year history” with special stories on their site. Leclair was honored on March 2 with the below interview.
What is your current job title and responsibilities?
Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Faculty Fellow at the Center for the Success of Women Faculty. My responsibilities include teaching, research, and serving on various committees. In my role as faculty fellow, I also promote work and family life balance issues at UCF, including moderating a Facebook group for faculty parents and a special interest canvas course on these issues.
What is your history at UCF? (past job titles, responsibilities)
I am in my second year at UCF.
What is your favorite UCF memory?
I haven’t been here very long! But my favorite UCF memory would probably have to be getting my first article (ever!) accepted for publication.
If you could change one thing at UCF, what would it be? ($ and time no object)
If I could change one thing at UCF, I would provide cheap, on-site infant care and emergency care for sick children.
What is one piece of advice you would like to share with your colleagues?
I am very much in the “getting” rather than “giving” advice part of my career, but if what I have found helps me stay on track is to have clear boundaries between my life and my work. In MC Santana’s words: “I love my life, I love my work, but my life is not my work and my work is not my life.”
What is your favorite restaurant or food?
I love Nelore churrascaria in Winter Park!
What is your favorite book or movie or song?
My favorite book of all time is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
What is your dream vacation spot?
Bali, Indonesia
If UCF was going to name something in your honor, what would you like it to be?
An on-campus infant care center or a well-endowed center for the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences.
If you could have lunch with anyone at UCF, who would you choose and why?
Someone from ORC with a background in the social sciences, so I could get some good advice about writing a solid grant proposal.
Who at UCF would you like to thank for your success?
I can’t name any one person. My entire department, anthropology, is full of wonderful friends and mentors who have been incredibly supportive. Linda Walters at the CFSWF has also been an incredible mentor, and I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to engage with an issue I am passionate about, work-family life balance under the institutional umbrella of the CSFW.
Name and describe a teacher from you past who truly inspired you.
I had two undergraduate mentors, Ana Yolanda Ramos-Zayas and Laura Ahearn, who to this day continue to be important women and mentors in my life.
What undergraduate class/program inspired you the most and why?
As an undergraduate? Probably my introduction to Latin American Studies class, which I took at Rutgers University with an amazing political scientist, Geisa Rocha, who really opened my eyes to the interconnectedness of Latin America and the United States. Her class made me decide to double major in anthropology and Latin American Studies.