¿Qué pasa, HSIs?

This episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? features Dra. Cynthia D. Villarreal, an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Northern Arizona University. She is a fronteriza studying the borderlands of higher education, HSIs, organizational culture, equity in decision-making, and Chicana feminisms in higher education. Dra. Villarreal is a storyteller and uses countertestimonios to critique and transform higher education. In this episode we talk about faculty hiring experiences at HSIs, HSI consciousness, and the path to servingness conocimiento.  

Dra. Cynthia D. Villarreal (she/her/ella), Assistant Professor, Northern Arizona University

Twitter: @CynDVillarreal | LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthiavillarreal915 | Instagram: @BorderConsciousness

Show notes: 

https://www.cynthiavillarreal.com/ 

Villarreal, C. D. (2022). Servingness in the Borderlands: A study of faculty hiring at a Hispanic-Serving Institution on the border. AERA Open, 8(1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584221099597

The most downloaded episode of season 1 was “HSI Grant Directorship & Implementation.” In this episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? we return to this important conversation with Victor Davila, Executive Director of Retention and Student Success at Lamar University and old school veterano to HSI grant directorship. Victor has worked in higher education for over 18 years at public institutions in Texas serving as a Primary Investigator, Project Director, and Project Coordinator at three HSIs. He has secured over 9 million dollars in grant funded programs and has a wealth of knowledge around Title V, Part A and Part B as well as Title III Part F directorship and implementation. This episode is a must for anyone writing, directing, or implementing HSI specific grants.

Guest: Victor M. Davila (he/him), Executive Director of Retention and Student Success, Lamar University

LinkedIn: Victor M. Davila | Instagram: vicdavila2012

Show notes: 

Davila, V. M. & Montelongo, R. (2020). Considering digital technology and innovative learning spaces as “structures for serving” at Hispanic Serving Institutions. In G. A. Garcia (Ed.), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) in Practice: Defining “Servingness” at HSIs (pp. 117-134). Information Age Publishing.

We turn the focus to STEM in this episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? Our guest, Dr. Paloma Vargas, the Dean of Math, Science, Health, Kinesiology, & Athletics, Oxnard College, talks about her journey into STEM servingness, starting with her undergraduate experiences in biology and two historic HSIs, University of Texas at El Paso and El Paso Community College (HSIs). Dr. Vargas has served as a biology faculty member, researcher, HSI Director, Science Coordinator, and STEM Advisor at multiple private and public HSIs, all informing her STEM servingness consciousness. In this episode we discuss the intricacies of being a good teacher, mentor, and server and about enacting servingness within STEM at HSIs. This episode is for all the STEM faculty and STEM leaders at HSIs and Title III and NSF HSI directors trying to figure out the intersections of STEM and servingness.

Guest: Dr. Paloma Vargas (she/they/ella), Dean of Math, Science, Health, Kinesiology, & Athletics, Oxnard College

Instagram: @iheartamoeba

Show Notes: 

Vargas, P. & Ward, M. (2020). Building an HSI brand: A case study of California Lutheran University. In G. A. Garcia (Ed.), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) in Practice: Defining “Servingness” at HSIs (pp. 21-39). Information Age Publishing.

In this multi-guest episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? I talk to the dynamic duo from ESCALA Educational Services Inc., Dra. Melissa Salazar and Dra. Maribel Jiménez about the history and evolution of ESCALA and the ways that they support HSIs. ESCALA is a consortium of higher education consultants who are committed to closing equity gaps for Latinx students in HSIs by way of faculty training and development. They work exclusively with HSI educators and do their work through a Latinx-centered approach. In this episode they talk about the challenges of implementing servingess in practice and the unique challenges that faculty face in doing this work. 

Guests: 

Dr. Melissa Salazar (she/her), Chief Executive Officer, ESCALA Educational Services Inc.

Dr. Maribel Jiménez (she/her/ella), Lead Facilitator and Curriculum Designer, ESCALA Educational Services Inc.

Social Media:

Twitter: @ESCALAHSI | Facebook: EScalaEducation | Instagram: escala_ed |

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/escalaeducation 

Show notes: 

http://www.escalaeducation.com/

Salazar, M. L. (n.d.). Faculty as change agents: Why faculty development is crucial for Hispanic-Serving Institutions. http://www.escalaeducation.com/uploads/3/7/1/0/37102959/why_faculty_development_in_hsis_escala1_pager.pdf

In the third episode of season 2 of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? I engage with Dra. Marcela Cuellar who is an Associate Professor at UC Davis. Dra. Cuellar talks to us about the importance of doing research with emerging HSIs and elevates her research about campus climate in HSIs. She also shares her work conceptualizing a Hispanic-Serving Research Institution (HSRI) identity and helps us further understand liberatory outcomes, or what she calls empowerment outcomes, and why they are important indicators of serving. This episode offers a wealth of knowledge about Dra. Cuellar’s research which examines higher education access, experiences, and outcomes at HSIs and emerging HSIs, campus climate, and community college baccalaureates.

Guest: Dra. Marcela Cuellar (she/her/ella), Associate Professor, UC Davis

Twitter: @LaProfeCuellar | Instagram: @dra.mgc

Show notes: 

• Cuellar, M. (2014). The impact of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), emerging HSIs, and non-HSIs on Latina/o academic self-concept. Review of Higher Education, 37, 499–530. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2014.0032

In this episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? we focus on the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institution Educators (AHSIE), learn about the history, role, and purpose of the organization, and encourage everyone to get involved. I talk to the inaugural Executive Director Dr. Yolanda Cataño and the current president Dr. Paloma Vargas. Yolanda and Paloma have been heavily involved in AHSIE and give us an inside look at the organization. They also talk about this year’s 15th annual best practices conference entitled, La Quinceañera: Celebrando Crecimiento, Past, Present and Future and why HSI educators should attend.

Guests: 

Dr. Yolanda Cataño (she, her, ella), AHSIE Executive Director, Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institution Educators 

Twitter: @YolandaCatano | Instagram: @ahsieed | Facebook: Yolanda Cataño | LinkedIn: Yolanda Cataño

Dr. Paloma Vargas (she/they/ella), President, Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institution Educators  

Instagram: @iheartamoeba

Show notes: 

https://www.ahsieconference.org/

In the first episode of season 2 of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? I talk to Dra. Blanca E. Vega, Assistant Professor of Higher Education, Montclair State University, about a variety of important topics including racial conflict as an organizational dilemma in HSIs, supporting Black students in HSIs, and complicating Latinidad in HSIs. Her research situates racism as one of multiple barriers that can impact higher education experiences and success, not just for students but also for administrators and faculty. In this episode we talk about her research on racial conflict, policymaking concerning undocumented students, Latinidad in higher education, and HSIs as racialized organizations.

Guest: Dra. Blanca E. Vega (she/her/ella), Assistant Professor of Higher Education, Montclair State University

Social Media: Twitter: @blancavnyc | Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blanca-e-vega-8a551210/

Show notes: 

Vega, B. E., Liera, R., & Boveda, M. (2022). Hispanic-Serving Institutions as racialized organizations: Elevating intersectional consciousness to reframe the “H” in HSI. AERA Open, 8(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584221095074

Vega, B. E. (2021). “What is the real belief on campus?” Perceptions of racial conflict at a minority-serving institution and a historically White institution. Teachers College Record, 123(9), 144–170.

Vega, B. E. (2019). Lessons from an administrative closure: The curious case of Black space at an MSI. Frontiers in Education, 3(88), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2018.00088

For the final episode of the inaugural season of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? I talk to Dra. Maribel Jiménez about one of the most significant processes that all higher education institutions engaging in, the strategic planning process. Yet Maribel centers HSIs in her conversations about strategic planning while acknowledging that the process is mostly race-neutral and dominated by white ways of practicing higher education. She shares insight into making this process about Latinx students and HSIs, guided by the findings from her dissertation. As a practitioner and alumna of an HSI, Yakima Valley College, she also discusses her insights into effectively implementing servingness in practice while also being critical of dominant practices in higher education. 

Guest: Maribel Jiménez (she/her/ella), Dean of Academic Transfer Pathways and Partnerships, Highline College

Social media: Twitter: @LaDoctoraMJ | Instagram: @maribeltorresjimenez | LinkedIn: Maribel Jimenez, Ed.D

Show Notes:

• Flores, A. & Leal, D. R. (2020). Beyond enrollment and graduation: Examining strategic plans from Hispanic-Serving Institutions in Texas. Journal of Latinos and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2020.1791121

As we continue down our journey to learn about servingness, this episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? features Dra. Marla Franco who is the inaugural Assistant Vice Provost for HSI Initiatives at the University of Arizona. She shares insight into the intentional ways she implements servingness con cariño and offers best practices. She shares details about the HSI Fellows Program, which has not only become a vehicle for advancing servingnesss on campus, but also serves as a retention tool for faculty and staff on campus. She also talks about the AZ HSI Consortium and the importance of having a collective group of HSI leaders at the state level, while acknowledging some of the challenges and opportunities of being an HSI in Arizona.

Guest:

Marla Franco (she/her/hers/ella), Assistant Vice Provost, HSI Initiatives, University of Arizona

Social media: @marla_franco, marla-franco, dr.marla.franco, Marla Franco

Show Notes:

https://hsi.arizona.edu/

Franco, M. A., & Hernández, S. (2018). Assessing the capacity of Hispanic Serving Institutions to serve Latinx students: Moving beyond compositional diversity. In D. Zerquera, I. Hernández, & J. G. Berumen (Eds.), New directions for institutional research: Assessment and social justice: Pushing through paradox (pp. 57–71). Wiley.

Franco, M. A., Lozano, G. I., & Subbian, V. (2020). HSIs and community partners: A framework for strengthening servingness through engagement. In G. A. Garcia (Ed.), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) in Practice: Defining “Servingness” at HSIs (pp. 151-172). Information Age Publishing.

This episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? features a dynamic duo, Dra. Yolanda Cataño, Executive Director of the Alliance of HSI Educators (AHSIE) and Dr. Ángel de Jesus González, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Southern California, who extend notions of servingness to queer and trans Latinx peoples at HSIs. They talk about the importance of centering the intersectional identities of Latinxs at HSIs and share findings from three articles they have published about queering HSIs. While centering LGBTQIA+ people in their storytelling, they talk about their own experiences attending HSIs, describe the complexities of data-driven decision-making at community colleges, and talk about institutional and state level policies that affect sevingness. This duo drops intersectional, practical, and empirical knowledge about HSIs and servingness.

Guests

Yolanda Cataño (she/her/ella), Executive Director, Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institution Educators (AHSIE)

Twitter: @YolandaCatano, Instagram: @becomingdracatano, LinkedIn: Yolanda Cataño

Ángel de Jesus González (he/they/elle), Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Southern California

Twitter: @dr_Adj_gonzalez

Show Notes 

• Cataño, Y. & Gonzalez, A. (2021). Examining servingness at California community college Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) for LGBTQ+ Latinx students. Journal of the Alliance for Hispanic Serving Institution Educators, 1(1), 55-72.