CREATING A TRANSFORMATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL JOURNEY TO INTENTIONALLY SERVE LATINO STUDENTS

Monday, March 13, 2023
11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Allendale Campus
Faculty, Staff

Facilitated by Deborah Santiago, co-founder and CEO of Excelencia in Education

What do Latinx students need from institutions of higher education? This session will highlight best practices in serving Latinx students. Excelencia in Education re-certified GVSU’s Seal of Excelencia in 2022 for our service to Latino students and demonstration of positive outcomes. In this presentation, we’ll explore how Grand Valley can expand upon the work already happening at the university to better serve our students and to learn more about the role that each of us can play.

Deborah A. Santiago is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Excelencia in Education, America's premier authority on efforts accelerating Latino student success in higher education. As an innovator, thought leader, and educational visionary, she has led research and advanced evidence-based practices and strategies for more than 20 years at national levels to improve educational opportunities and success to better SERVE Latino, and all, students.

She co-founded Excelencia in Education in 2004 to inform policy, compel action, and collaborate with those ready to accelerate student success with an unapologetic Latino lens. Among her many contributions, Deborah has addressed federal legislative issues in higher education at the Congressional Research Service and informed program and policy implementation at the U.S. Department of Education. She also improved awareness and education opportunities for Latinos with federal agencies as the Deputy Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. Among Deborah’s community efforts, she has provided program design and implementation for dropout prevention and parental engagement for the ASPIRA Association and translated data for community engagement at the Los Angeles Alliance for Student Achievement.

Deborah has been referred to by media as a national expert on Latinos in higher education and her respected work has been cited in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Economist, Forbes, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She serves on the Board of Visitors for the University of Mary Washington, her Alma Mater, as well as the Advisory Board of TheDream.US.