Cruzilious Contreras-Amezcua

Cruzilious Contreras-Amezcua (they/he), BSW, is an Advanced Standing MSW student at the University of Pittsburgh. They graduated from Juniata College with completing two programs of emphasis (POE) in Social Work and an individualized Peace and Conflict Studies POE in ‘Social Transformation and Mediation Capacity’. His background consists of being involved in participatory action research, working with youth in an after-school program and within school district settings, supporting college students through residential life, and serving on national and local councils to create resources for various populations such as LGBTQ+ youth.

During their time at Juniata College, Cruzilious worked with his mentor and fellow students on ‘Project CAUSE: Using an Antiracist Ideological Perspective to Examine Disparities in Student Retention’, which focused on utilizing an anti-racist perspective to address institutional factors as barriers to retention and graduation rates for BIPOC students–as oftentimes, colleges and universities have documented these rates but rely on racist and deficit-based ideologies as an explanatory framework and not looking into causal factors that are in institutions' own academic systems. The research was presented at the Society For The Psychological Study of Social Issues 2021 Conference and twice as a special session for Juniata College’s Liberal Arts Symposium.

Cruzilious focused most of his time at Juniata leading the Plexus Registered Student Organization (RSO), the multicultural organization on campus. With many students struggling to connect to somewhere on campus that made them feel heard and valued through all of their identities and experiences, Cruzilious shifted the Plexus to a more support-focused organization. As a multicultural organization, Plexus strives to support and uplift students from all cultures, backgrounds and experiences by offering a space for students to share their cultures and identities as well as learn about ones they may not know about or share with their peers.

Cruzilious believes in the power of community and hopes to continue their community involvement. Continuing their studies, Cruzilious is focused on learning how to further uphold an anti-racist framework in their practice as well as how to uplift intersectionality to support oppressed and vulnerable populations, especially in group settings.