AAHHE Presents

Written by Cristóbal Rodríguez, Ph.D.

Schools need to have faculty, staff, and leaders that look and speak like the students and communities they serve. This historic civil rights movement demand has been a specific call for action since the integration of schools in a post-Brown v. Board of Education (1954) era, especially as teachers of Color were being outer-grated, by not being rehired in integrated public schools (Siddle Walker, 2015). More than half a century has passed since the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and shortly thereafter the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974, and yet this pressing demand for educators that look and speak like the students and communities they serve is still an urgent reality.

What values and assets do such educators bring to the table that enhance equity, access, and equal educational opportunities to the students and communities that schools serve? How can this be accomplished amidst the hostile race politics that education currently finds itself in, within the discourse of equity and equal educational opportunity? While these questions remain, particularly for public education across the pipeline, there is an even more urgent need for a response from Hispanic Serving Institutions to also recruit and advance Latina/o/x faculty, staff, and leaders

Justice and Equity for All Communities

I just joined the faculty and administration at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College of Arizona State University as her Associate Dean of Equity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement, after serving as Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Education at Howard University and as faculty of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies for the past seven years. At both of these unique and high-ranking institutions, I was hired as a direct response to the need to better serve the Latino community, with a focus on justice and equity , and to do so in a manner that also informs justice and systemic equity for all students and communities. This was particularly the case given  my areas of research, service, and teaching.  I was hired to contribute valued experiential knowledge as an Afro-Mestizo Chicano from the Borderlands of the U.S. Southwest and as a former Spanish and German high school teacher, who has served with humility in migrant communities, Tribal and Indigenous communities, and Black and Latino communities in urban settings. The connections to students and communities in my 25 years as an educator has blessed me with opportunities to grow in a manner that is reflectively consistent with addressing equity and justice not only for Latina/o/x students, but for all students as well. What has been key in both receiving and accepting these opportunities is the leadership and vision by my unit Deans and university Presidents at each institution, which reflects a strong position on justice and equity for all, especially for the underserved communities that they stand to influence.  Indeed, leadership matters: Leadership matters especially  in the current social climate and amidst the current politics in education, despite how vociferous and active one-sided perspectives might be.

I am joining ASU at a significant moment in which the institution is newly recognized as a Hispanic Serving Institution. ASU  has been responsive in strategic engagement for  the advancement of justice and equity for all communities, such as with Tribal Communities through the Center for Indian Education, and with Black communities through the LIFT (Listen, Invest, Facilitate, Teach) Initiative. Moreover, ASU’s institutional Charter and motto states that it is an institution that strives to be  “measured not by who it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed”.

In accordance with this charter, as well as with the current student demographic, ASU is committed to recruiting and advancing top leaders who have expertise in the key areas of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB). ASU has thus recently recruited and advanced Latina/o/x scholars, staff, and leaders at multiple key levels. ASU’s Deans work with designated internal leaders (myself among them) to advance diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging initiatives within each college. ASU has made several key appointments. Most critically, ASU has appointed Nancy Gonzales as Executive Vice President and University Provost, leading the academic enterprise of the nation’s largest comprehensive public research university. As Vice Provost for Inclusion and Community Engagement, Tiffany Ana López leads the advancement of DEIB through such initiatives as LIFT and an HSI strategic vision. Maria Anguiano, as Senior Vice President of Enterprise Strategy and Planning, will oversee ASU’s Learning Enterprise, which provides learning options for everyone of all ages and stages in life. These positions are key leadership roles to ASU’s three areas of enterprise: Academic Enterprise, Learning Enterprise, and Knowledge Enterprise. Notably, they are not the only strategic and key leadership roles held by Latina/o/x leaders. ASU visionary president Michael Crow is one of Excelencia’s model leaders, a position which requires a publicly stated commitment to serving Latina/o/x students. Leadership and vision that are grounded in the communities that institutions stand to serve, especially as Hispanic Serving Institutions, is paramount to the urgent need to be responsive and have answerability.

When co-writing and co-editing works on Latino Educational Leadership: Serving Latino Communities and Preparing Latina/o/x Leaders Across the P-20 Pipeline (Rodríguez, Martinez, & Valle; 2016, 2018), we recognized that the values and assets in Latina/o/x leaders advanced the call for equity and justice. Such Latina/o/x leaders did so through their rich experiences in critically serving Latino communities and Peoples of Color, and did not fall into the dominant ideology of deficit thinking by ascribing to meritocracy or victim-blaming, but instead improved access and addressed systemic inequities (Valencia, 2010). Moreover, such leaders “meet the needs of the growing and diverse Latino community; leaders who bravely and unapologetically validate and advance cultural, linguistic, and historical connections for Latino communities” (p. 15, Rodríguez, Martinez, & Valle, 2018). In the end, whether it is through interest convergence or with greater accountability and responsiveness to equity and justice, Hispanic Serving Institutions, through their leadership and governance, have an impetus for hiring and advancing Latina/o/x faculty, staff, and leaders.

*Tiffany Ana López, Ph.D., Vice Provost for Inclusion and Community Engagement at Arizona State University contributed to this article. 

Author Bio: Cristóbal Rodríguez is the Associate Dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, and is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and was a 2010 Faculty Fellow and a 2007 Graduate Fellow of the American Association for Hispanics in Higher Education.