Michelle Villegas-Frazier, who has more than 20 years of experience in Native American outreach and retention, assumed her duties April 1 as the first director of strategic Native American retention initiatives at the University of California, Davis.

She was most recently program coordinator in the office of Student and Resident Diversity at the UC Davis School of Medicine.

The new position in Student Affairs is among efforts to develop and expand initiatives to support the recruitment and academic success of historically underrepresented groups — African American, Chicano/Latino and Native American — and reduce the time necessary for all students to earn their degrees. Directors for African American initiatives and Chicana/o and Latina/o initiatives were hired earlier.

Villegas-Frazier will provide strategic leadership to identify opportunities to enhance the persistence, achievement and graduation rates for Native American students.

In her most recent post at the medical school, she helped organize programs to encourage Native American high school and college students to pursue university studies and explore the health professions.

On the Davis campus from 1994 to 2004, Villegas-Frazier was an outreach officer for undergraduate admissions and a regional outreach coordinator for the Early Academic Outreach Program.

Villegas-Frazier has served as vice chair of the Sacramento Native American Health Center since 2013, read undergraduate applications at UC Davis since 2012 and been a member of the university’s Native American workgroup since 1994.

She has also chaired the UC American Indian Counselor Recruiters Association; been a member of the Pinoleville Tribal Nation’s education committee; and managed the health and nutrition component of California Indian Headstart, a program that supports the school readiness of children from low-income families.

Villegas-Frazier received a bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Santa Barbara and a master’s degree in higher education leadership from Sacramento State.