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Counselor

Elizabeth Celania-Fagen, who takes the helm of Tucson Unified School District in July, was born and raised in Iowa but does have some Arizona connections — her father lives in Phoenix and her mother spent last winter in Tucson.

Celania-Fagen is an associate superintendent in the Des Moines Public Schools district and the mother of a toddler. She will visit Tucson again in mid-May to gain more knowledge about the district, which is twice the size of hers, so she can get to work more rapidly on the myriad of steep challenges facing the school system.

A quick Q&A with Celania-Fagen about her upcoming move to the desert:

"I'm trying to think back to my second day of interviews, when I had a chance to visit the schools and get a better look at the community — but it wasn't until that longer, last visit (in early April) that I had several days there and my husband came with me and I felt that I got to know more about Tucson.

"It's funny to say this, but it felt like a small town even though it's really very large. There aren't a lot of freeways, so that gave it a small-town feel, and the other thing that I thought was notable was that people were universally welcoming and helpful. So overall, I had a good first impression."

"The weather. Des Moines has a lot of green grass and it's just so strikingly different in that way. But again, I get the sense that there are more similiarities than you might think. We always joke that Des Moines is the largest small town. And they both are diverse places."

"I do think that in Iowa, there seems to be a general consensus of support for education and that support comes from every level, from the Legislature to the governor on down through the community. There's a schoolhouse on the quarter, so that's significant.

"In Arizona, there seems to be a lot of questions about whether everyone is committed to having the best education system for children. We still argue about how much money is needed and those kinds of debates, but overall, Iowa just has a really strong commitment to its students."

"Probably the feeling of familiarity — that feeling of home, where you know where everything is."

"I'm looking forward to living closer to a part of my family. My dad is in the Phoenix area and we're very geographically separated so this will be the closest I've lived to my dad since I was a kid."