9 minute read
Education in Service of Others: Interview with CLR/LALS External Advisor Dr. Marisol Morales
Interview Conducted by Yamitza Yuivar Villarreal
Dr. Marisol Morales is the Executive Director of the Carnegie Elective Classifications at the American Council on Education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Latin American and Latino Studies and a master's in International Public Service Management from DePaul University. In 2020, Dr. Morales earned her EdD in organizational leadership from the University of La Verne with a dissertation about the community engagement experiences of Latino students at a Hispanic-Serving Institution. Between 2005 and 2013, she worked as the associate director of the Steans Center at DePaul University.
I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in Chicago. I've been working in higher education for almost 20 years now, specifically around community engagement. That's where I've spent most of my time, but I currently work for the American Council on Education, running the Carnegie Elective Classifications, which focuses on institutional transformation through higher education's public purpose missions.
How have you related your experience as a Latina alumna from DePaul with your work in higher education and public service?
When I went to DePaul, taking my first Latino studies class titled “US Colonialism of Puerto Rico” really changed my educational trajectory. It was the first time I saw myself reflected in the curriculum. It also gave me an opportunity to interact with the local Puerto Rican community. For me, it really jumpstarted my own development as an activist, leader, and community organizer. I'm grateful for my undergraduate experience at DePaul. I feel like it really shaped me into the kind of professional leader that I am today and it gave me a great foundation and relationships with faculty as well as community partners that I still really credit for my work.
Being able to work at the Center for Latino Research under Doctor Félix Masud-Piloto, who was a real mentor for me during my time there, also gave me a physical location to be situated as a Latino student, that we didn't have at the time because there was no Latinx Cultural Center. And it was really my cohort of student colleagues during that time that fought for that and got the creation of the Multicultural Center and resources for culturally or ethnically based student organizations, so I think it sparked my activism on-campus as well as off-campus.
Do you think that for the experience of Latinx students, it's important to have these spaces and courses?
Yeah, absolutely. I really believe in cultural spaces for students. For places like DePaul that are predominantly White institutions, these spaces help to service that kind of transition space for students who are trying to figure themselves out, their connection to higher education, and find resources.
What are your insights about research data and intention in the development of educational policies and programs?
In higher education, we need research that is relevant and has a real impact on communities. It's great that we emphasize publishing in journals, but that's not enough. How many people are reading that and what impact is that having versus taking the time, talent, and energy of our researchers to really think about their ability to help support communities that are working on important issues or move policy changes? More institutions need to recognize public impact scholarship as a real tool for assessing faculty contributions and tenure promotion policy. I think engaged public impact research has to be elevated.
We do a good job of collecting data. I don't know how good a job we do in analyzing that data and then creating meaningful changes. Higher education needs to assess its reputation of harm to the community and make adjustments in that way. It needs to review its overall policies and see how they are tools for bureaucratic violence and how they create unnecessary harm to students, communities, faculty, and staff. There needs to be policies able to ensure the full participation of our students given the needs and talents they bring into our higher education spaces. We need programs that support students more and that are more targeted toward thinking about the students we enroll.
My son just transferred to Northern Illinois University. During his freshman and sophomore years at DePaul, he had two friends who were shot and killed due to gun violence in Chicago. He told faculty, but there was no follow-up from the university into any support that he needed. He did not do well academically after those losses and only when he withdrew from DePaul, a retention specialist reached out to him, and that's too late. As soon as they see a student's grades go down, somebody needs to be reaching out, especially to our targeted Latino population. So, DePaul wasn't the right fit for him. There are a lot of things that I have insights into as a professional in this space, as a parent, I have all kinds of opinions about the ways that our institutions respond to students.
Higher education institutions are usually created for White students. When we talk about Latinxs, there are diverse experiences within this group.
Absolutely. And I think as a broader Latinx community we haven't had the conversations of, what's the difference for Afro-Latino students versus White presenting students? What are the differences that they experience? What experiences are we highlighting? How do we make the distinction between folks in the Latinx community who have been in the United States for multiple generations and those who just got here? There are commonalities, but there are a lot of differences. How do we talk about a broader Latinx identity that's not just based on knowing Spanish or Spanish being our first language, or first-generation versus not first-generation? There are all these assumptions that I think we make of our community.
There have been questions about whether HSIs have significantly addressed the challenges that Latinx students face in higher education. To what extent has the HSI designation and the opportunities that come with it, like grants, enabled universities and colleges to address the necessities of Latinx students?
My gut reaction is no, and it depends It depends on who the leader is and what leadership looks like because some institutions see the dollar signs but haven't had real conversations about what it actually means to serve. Or they're uncomfortable with hat conversation. Most of the HSIs were predominantly White institutions; you're trying to repot a plant in a different climate zone, and the question is, how do you create the right conditions? If you really want to be an HSI, then you have to be intentional about it. Going after the grants and sprinkling them on Latino students is not enough. I've been at institutions where they've tried to put a caveat to their HSI status: “We're an HSI, but we serve all students.” It has to be institutional. When my dad went to DePaul, there weren't many Latino students; it was a time of really rampant racism. I was able to get a lot of support and intentionality. I felt cared for. When I worked at DePaul, I tried to have that same perspective. My son did not have that experience, hence him leaving. I don't know how DePaul is connecting its Vincentian mission with its potential HSI status, but I think if it is able to really be intentional about both, there's a chance for it to be a strong HSI.
What do universities need to prepare to serve the students before getting the designation?
I hope that they would make a significant commitment to ensuring the diversity of their faculty and staff, which means creating opportunities for promotion within the institution. I hope that they would ensure that there are voices and there's representation at the highest leadership levels and on the board who are there to advocate for this population.
At DePaul, we should be measuring how successful we are in ensuring that students are supported in completing their degrees. When I worked at DePaul, my understanding was that the university was created to serve immigrant students, to serve the city. There's an enrollment cliff and then there's Latino students who are going to be the ones that save higher education. But not if higher education is just looking at us as dollar signs. We have to learn how to invite our students, we can't just expect them to come to us.
We can't take for granted that we ' re always going to be in a space that honors, respects, and wants diversity
In your work, you call for reimagining the Carnegie Foundation Elective Classifications for institutions that have made extraordinary commitments to their public purpose. But US universities are really competitive. What is necessary to move education to a more equitable and diverse context?
It's hard because what we're experiencing now is the clash in values between Capitalism and our public need to educate, engage, and inform citizens. For me, the more spaces we can create for collaboration and understanding, the more we enable a stronger higher education system. At least for the Elective Classification, we're trying to create these noncompetitive spaces. We need to, as individuals, think about the way we interact with our democracy to push away the extreme viewpoints. Our diversity as a nation is not going away as much as some of those folks would like to have that be the case. It's only going to increase. And our institutions are going to have to meet those demands and hopefully not be subjected to the culture war. This election is going to be really important in terms of that. We can't take for granted that we're always going to be in a space that honors, respects, and wants diversity.
What advice would you give to the DePaul students who wish to promote social changes and connect with their communities?
What students did last spring with the encampments, trying to bring attention to what was happening in Gaza, was a reminder to students that they have a lot more power than they sometimes realize. Social change is always this pendulum that swings back and forth, so for students who are really concerned and who both have the energy and the vision for the future, it is like getting energized by the winds, not getting disheartened by failure. Most of the social change that has occurred in this country has been because of young people.
