In October 2021, Vice Chancellor Renetta Tull appointed me the inaugural HSI Director. I have over twenty years of experience working in higher education. I received a masters in education from Harvard University in language and literacy and a Ph.D. from the UC Davis School of Education. I was the founding associate director of the Center for Chicanx and Latinx Academic Student Success (CCLASS) at UC Davis.
Read “UC Davis as an Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution: Embracing a Hispanic-Serving Identity”
My educational and professional experiences have framed my work through a social justice lens that allows me to build trust and rapport with communities. As a reflection of my commitment to education I have received several awards at UC Davis, including the Staff Assembly Citation of Excellence Team Award (2020), the Chancellor’s Achievement Award for Diversity and Community (2018), the Social Justice Award for Seeding Improvement in Education Policy and Practice (2018) and the Outstanding Advising Administrator Award (2017).
My vision for UC Davis is ambitious. In 2019, the HSI Taskforce, led by Raquel Aldana and Rahim Reed, released there report, “Investing in Rising Scholars and Serving the State of California: What It Means for UC Davis to be a Hispanic Serving Institution,” which outlined four primary goals and no fewer than 84 recommendations to achieve those goals. The members of that taskforce expected nothing less than its full implementation and with careful planning, time, and the necessary resources, it is my intention to lead that charge.
Of course, pursuing our official designation as an HSI remains a top priority. This achievement will mark the culmination of a goal set by staff and leadership at UC Davis more than a decade ago. It will make available a wealth of funding opportunities across the campus to further strengthen our ability to educate students from all backgrounds. Reaching the required threshold of 25% undergraduate enrollment will require attention to the entire lifecycle of a student from recruitment, to yield, to retention, with the assistance of staff and faculty.
A third priority of our HSI Initiative (HSI-I) is to strengthen the pipeline from undergraduate, graduate to the professoriate to align with “Growing Our Own” initiative. “Growing Our Own” is a systemwide initiative to increase the number and proportion of UC undergraduate degree recipients who earn a doctoral degree, and to increase the number and proportion of UC doctoral graduates from UC, California State University (CSU), other Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs). With this initiative, UC aims to build sustainable pathways for students from first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented groups1 to the professoriate, in California and beyond. One of the ways we have been able to do this is by investing in students to attend and present at leading, national conferences such as Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), and Alliance for Hispanic Serving Institution Educators (AHSIE).
A crucial component for achieving our HSI aspirations is raising awareness across the campus of what it means to be an HSI for all of us. From our redesigned website that includes informative and engaging materials about our progress, including this series of articles about out decades-long journey, collaborations with Strategic Communications in the Office of the Chancellor and Provost, to our new Avanza campaign, the office for DEI is sharing what everyone needs to know to be a proud partner of our efforts. As I recently told UC Davis journalist Cody Katura, our HSI Initiative has been our past, our present and our future and it will benefit the entire campus.
Read "UC Davis ‘Keeps Moving’ to Serve Hispanic Students"
Read the next article in this series: