As a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan studying how scholars mobilize to defend ethnic studies, I spend a lot of time thinking about the powerful ways that people come together to fight for access and equity in higher education. With members of the Latinx community still vastly underrepresented and tokenized in academic institutions, our future in higher education depends on our ability to collectively create spaces where our own can be supported and affirmed as they transform the academy from the inside out. The American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) is precisely that type of collective effort.
When I attended my first AAHHE national conference in 2011, I was part of a research team at the University of Michigan that was deeply engaged in studying higher education access and success for undocumented immigrant students. Although I was only a master’s student at the time, the experience was transformative. People I had never met before treated me like family; they congratulated me on the research, offered helpful advice on how to advance it and connected me with other Latinx scholars who were studying this important issue. It was also the first time that I was surrounded by an entire community of brilliant Latinx scholars and higher education professionals who understood scholarship and advocacy as inseparable. Knowing that this type of community existed only solidified my decision to pursue doctoral study and a career as a faculty member.
This past spring, I had the great privilege of participating in the 2017 annual AAHHE conference as a graduate fellow. From meeting graduate fellows at previous AAHHE conferences, I observed how the experience offered them an invaluable network of fellow Latinx scholars who could provide mentorship, professional advice and encouragement through the many ups and downs along the journey to earning a doctorate. My experience as a fellow did not disappoint. As a graduate fellow, I met a diverse set of new colleagues spanning several disciplines, each of whom is bringing their unique scholarly lens to the advancement of Latino communities across the nation.
In addition to the camaraderie I experienced with the other graduate fellows, I also spent time learning from the faculty fellow cohort whose experiences as junior scholars in their fields provided me with a much clearer idea of the expectations and strategies associated with navigating the academic profession. One of the faculty fellows, Dr. Claudia Anguiano, served as my faculty mentor during the conference; our honest conversations about self-care and wellness in the academy provided me with a much-needed boost to continue on my own academic journey.
Having received an overwhelming amount of support and validation through my AAHHE graduate fellow experience, I feel more motivated than ever to complete my doctorate and make my own contribution to AAHHE’s collective efforts to bring equity-oriented change to higher education. Nurturing and empowering future generations of Latinx leaders in higher education might be a tall order for one individual, but with the solidarity of my AAHHE familia, all things are possible. •
