¿Qué pasa, HSIs?

In the first episode of season 3 of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? I talk to Dr. Whitney Pirtle, Associate Professor of Sociology and McArthur Foundation Chair in International Justice and Human Rights at the University of California, Merced, where she also directs the Sociology of Health and Equity (SHE) Lab. As a formative critical race scholar, her research explores issues relating to race, identity, inequal...

For the final episode of the second season of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? I talk to Katia Paz who serves at the inaugural Associate Provost for Hispanic Initiatives & International Programs at Montclair State University. Dr. Paz is a part of the Provost’s senior leadership team and is a professor and founding chair of the Family Science and Human Development Department. In this episode we discuss some of her...

In this episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? we learn with Dra. Angélica Garcia who serves as president of Berkeley City College (BCC), a Hispanic-serving community college in California. Dr. Garcia is passionate about issues of access, equity, and student success in higher education. For nearly two decades, her professional experiences have included teaching and administrative roles in non-profit organiza...

Students are at the center of this episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? as they should be in all servingness efforts. This episode features the Title V Ambassadors from Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC) in California, including Crystal Chavira-Orduñez, Arlene Reyes, Estefania Sanchez, and Graciela Padilla, and their advisor Diana Felix who serves as Faculty Coordinator of Title V Student Development at Mt....

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 c...

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 servi...

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 fa...

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 develop...

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 l...

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...

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 hig...

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 hi...

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...

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 L...

This episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? features Dr. Jarett Lujan who serves as the inaugural Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Texas A&M University- Kingsville. Dr. Lujan provides us with an exclusive look at his dissertation findings which used a counter-story approach to critically evaluate the Hispanic-serving identity of an emerging HSI through the eyes of Latine students. In addition...

We turn the focus to Hispanic-Serving Community Colleges (HSCCs) for this episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? with Dr. Erin Doran who is an associate professor in the School of Education at Iowa State University. She is a 3-time graduate of the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), which has an extensive history as an HSI that Erin documented, highlighting the intentional way that the university set...

In this episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? I talk to Dra. Gabriela Kovats Sánchez who is a Faculty Scholar for the Native Resource Center at San Diego State University and lecturer for the department of American Indian Studies. She offers a wealth of knowledge as she works at the nexus of research and praxis in her formal roles within the university and voluntary roles in the community. Her research focu...

In our first multi-guest episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? I had the honor of sharing space with members of the Portland State University’s HSI Exploratory Committee: Óscar Fernández, Carrie Vasquez, Joe Rivera Soto, & Martín Alberto Gonzalez. We talk about the process of becoming an HSI and the intentional ways that PSU is engaging this process. Our guests talk about the challenges of becoming an HSI a...

In the third episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? we continue talking about policy with a more focused look at state-level policies and how they affect servingness. Our guest Dra. Ishara Casellas Connors is an assistant professor of government & public administration at Texas A&M University. Her research examines the implications of DEI policies for advancing racial equity for minoritized students. In this...

In this episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? we focus on an essential structure for serving, HSI grant implementation. Many HSIs start their HSI journey by applying for and launching a Title III or Title V HSI grant. This episode’s guest, Dr. Lisa Petrov, serves as the Project Director of a Title V grant called “Strengthening Advising, Teacher Education, and Our HSI Identity” which is in its final year of...

In the inaugural episode of ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? I talk to Dra. Stephanie Aguilar-Smith, an Assistant Professor of Counseling and Higher Education at the University of North Texas, about federal HSI policies and servingness. Her research examines educational policies, higher education as a hierarchical stratified system, and the ways that these trends shape HSIs. In this episode we explore the complex...

In this short trailer, Dr. Gina Garcia describes the HSI designation as a federal construct, outlines the requirements for becoming federally designated, and challenges the audience to rethink what it actually means to be Hispanic-serving. The purpose of this podcast, ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? is to grapple with this question. With each episode, guests will grapple with topics about servingness, emerging f...