2022 Book of the Year Award

Our book Studying Latinx/a/o Students in Higher Education: A Critical Analysis of Concepts, Theory, and Methodologies received the 2022 Book of the Year Award from the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE).

This award recognizes the authors' accomplishments at the highest level of literature and scholarship. Throughout the book, the authors acknowledge and honor the power of the written word to share the Latin* experiences in research, theory, and practice.

This edited volume is culturally relevant and sustaining for how we make sense of the knowledges, skills, and abilities Latinx/a/o students bring from their communities into higher education institutions and community-based settings. To read more an overview of the book, read a previous post Overview of Book: Studying Latinx/a/o Students in Higher Education, where I share a short description of the book, by providing the abstracts of each book chapter.

Order your copy at Routledge, and enter the code FLA22 for a 20% discount.

2022 Emerging Scholar

Walter Hudson,

January 24, 2022

I am honored to be chosen as a Diverse: Issues In Higher Education's 2022 Emerging Scholar, among other brilliant scholar friends. The Diverse: Issues In Higher Education's Emerging Scholars elect junior scholars under the age of 40 years old who are making a significant impact in academia.

This article originally appeared in the January 20, 2022 edition of Diverse. Read it here.

Cristobal “Criss” Salinas Jr. is a productive scholar. A tenured associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Research Methodology at Florida Atlanta University, Salinas has published over 22 peer-reviewed articles and more than 27 book chapters and co-edited five books. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal Committed to Social Change on Race and Ethnicity (JCSCORE).

The accolades for Salinas are many, including receiving over 25 international and national awards for his expansive research that focuses on promoting access and equity in higher education. An expert on Latinx students in college, the 35-year-old has emerged as a popular media pundit, offering commentary on CNN, NPR, Telemundo and “Good Morning America.”

Born in Mexico, Salinas’ family was thrown into turmoil after his father was kidnapped by police officers in a neighboring town. The family fled to Nebraska, where Salinas was often the only Latino in middle and high school.

“It gave me a lot of context for growing up in White America,” says Salinas, adding that he quickly found that, despite racism, White educators also emerged as some of his biggest supporters, providing the mentorship he needed in order to progress as a first-generation American student.

“I knew I wanted to have a positive impact on students,” he says, recalling an ugly encounter that he had during his undergraduate years when another student threatened him after he announced his candidacy for student government president. The incident was racial.

“That really made me think and reflect more about how there are more people who look like me and sound like me and there is no one advocating for them and so that is one of the reasons why I wanted to continue with my educational career in higher education.”

After graduating from University of Nebraska at Kearney with a bachelor’s in Spanish education and English as a Second Language (ESL), Salinas taught for seven months at the Alief Elsik High School in Houston, Texas, before enrolling in a master’s program in student affairs and higher education at Iowa State University in 2010. He graduated from the program two years later, all while holding down a full-time position as the multicultural liaison officer and academic advisor for the College of Design at Iowa State.

Initially, he was interested in being a college administrator, but, after finishing the higher education administration doctoral program at Iowa State University in 2015, Salinas turned his focus to becoming a faculty member.

“My focus was on Latino men faculty. I wanted to become one, so I wanted to understand what were their experiences,” he notes, adding that he never had a Latino/a instructor in the U.S. until he enrolled in graduate school.

Now, in his seventh year at Florida Atlantic University, his ambitious research has expanded, focusing more on the term Latinx.

“I think there are many challenges,” he says overall about the plight that so many Latinx students face in college, including “the lack of support” while pursuing their academic goals. His decision to take a faculty role at Florida Atlantic University was fueled by the burgeoning and diverse populations of Latinx people in the Sunshine State.

A rising star in academe, he hopes to become a full professor and one day take on some administrative duties, all with the goal of helping students of color. “His research is critical in helping people unpack the issue of Latinx/a/o terminology, as he urged us to utilize the term Latinx more thoughtfully, explore our own positionalities and understandings of the term,” says Dr. Cristóbal Rodríguez, associate dean of equity, inclusion, and community engagement and an associate professor of educational leadership & policy studies at Arizona State University.

Rodríguez notes that, according to Google Scholar, Salinas’ groundbreaking article on the term Latinx has been cited 330 times and is the most cited article in the Journal of Latinos and Education.

“Criss’ research on the term Latinx has been critical to understanding the history, evolution and contemporary usage of the term in educational research and practice,” says Rodríguez. “His research is impactful for scholars and practitioners.”

Meet Dr. David G. Tomanio

Dr. Tomanio graduated from the Higher Education Leadership doctoral program at Florida Atlantic University in December of 2019. Dr. Tomanio has over 40 years of experience in human resources. He currently served as the Interim Human Resources Director at SUNY - Old Westbury, and served as the Assistant Vice-President of Human Resources at Florida Atlantic University. He enjoys training in Tae Kwon Do and holds a black belt.

You can follow him on Instagram @drdavidgphd or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-tomanio-ph-d-m-b-a-sphr-17b510a/

In Fall 2019, Dr. Tomanio graduated, and I had the honor to serve as his dissertation co-chair along with Dr. Deborah Floyd.

Favorite Quote: When you least expect it, you get the unexpected.

What advice would you give other graduate students?

Read everything that is required, and this means no skimming. Read beyond what is required in your selected program of study. As Dr. Salinas would always state “Reading is fundamental.”

Dissertation

Dissertation: Community Colleges’ Transition to Offering Baccalaureate Degrees: A Case Study of the Impact on Human Resources

The purpose of the multi-site case study was to gain an understanding of the impact on human resources that public community colleges in the State of Florida experience when the institutions expanded their degree offerings to include Community College Baccalaureate degrees. The researcher was able to identify that there were changes in human resources in the areas of compensation plans, job descriptions, and credentialing of faculty members. The researcher determined the other impacts on human resources, such as changes to the organizational structure, and to the culture of the organization, in a positive way. Qualitative research methods were used that included personal, one on one interviews, observations, and review of documents. The sample for the study consisted of 2 of the 27 community colleges in the State of Florida that have offered baccalaureate degrees at their institutions. The conclusion of this study resulted in additional literature being available for community colleges, policy makers, and other decision-makers interested in understanding the challenges faced by community colleges seeking to be successful in offering baccalaureate degrees at their institutions.

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As an associate professor in the Educational Leadership and Research Methodology Department at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), I have had the opportunity to develop a curriculum for, and teach undergraduate, master, and doctoral students. In these courses, I foster co-learning environments where students engage in collaborative learning. I draw from critical pedagogy, which challenges students to explore personal and systemic assumptions. In these classes, I seek to provide an education that will allow them to figure out the more complex problems, issues, and dilemmas within the macrosystem they belong to. Part of this process is to help students understand the complexity of higher education and discover the many areas that are understudied. All students can and should be inventors of their own theories, critics of other people’s ideas, analyzers of evidence, and makers of their own personal marks on this most complex world. Therefore, I encourage all students to do research, present at conferences, and publish their work in academic journals. And I hope that in this blog I can highlight students’ critical thinking and scholarship.

I created this spot in my blog to highlight doctoral students I worked with during their graduate school experience. In particular, in my blog, I highlight postgraduate students for whom I served as a dissertation chair or co-chair.

I believe that it is crucial to highlight their work on this platform as another form of promoting and elevating them and their work, and as a simple way of saying THANK YOU for trusting me in your academic journey. So, again, thank you, Dr. Dave Tomanio, for allowing me to learn with you and from you.