A recognized leader in fostering higher education among Latino students, Loyola Marymount University is teaming with Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to develop the next generation of Latino leaders among current college men and women.
Five LMU students will be leaving later this month for a weeklong program at the Kennedy School.
The LMU students were chosen after a highly selective application process for the Latino Leadership Initiative at the Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. The program is in its third year, and the LMU contingent will be among the 41 students taking part in the highly regarded educational and networking project.
The LMU students selected for the program are: Beatriz Alfaro of Santa Clarita, Calif., Daniel Echeverry of Northridge, Calif., Michelle Lara of La Crescenta, Calif., Sarah Palacios of Yakima, Wash., and Nestor Pimienta Lopez of Hawthorne, Calif. Lopez will be a junior in the fall, the others will be seniors.
They will join 36 students from the University of California-Merced, Texas A&M International-Laredo, the University of Houston, the University of Texas-Pan American, Miami Dade College, City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College and the University of Massachusetts–Boston.
The program was developed with seed money from Walter Ulloa, an LMU trustee, Loyola Law School alumnus, and chairman and CEO of Entravision Communications.
“The Latino Leadership Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School is all about enhancing the capacity of young people in a positive and productive manner, so that they can become our future leaders,” said Ulloa. “This is a cause we can all understand and one that I believe our country will benefit from.”
LMU has been recognized repeatedly by national educational groups for its leadership role among universities in recruiting and graduating Latino and Hispanic students, who make up about 21percent of LMU’s undergraduate students.
The 2012 LLI class will convene June 23 in Cambridge, Mass., for the program, which will include classes in negotiation, organizing, public narrative, emotional intelligence, and public speaking. LLI participants will also have opportunities to build relationships with respected Latino leaders from the government, nonprofit, and business sectors.
Faculty for the program will include Andy Zelleke and Marshall Ganz of Harvard Kennedy School; Harvard Divinity School professor Davíd Carrasco; and Georgetown University professor Robert Bies.
Students from each university will work as teams to design a community service project that will be implemented in collaboration with faculty and administration at their home university. The previous LMU group designed a mentoring program that shared with other students the strategies and information they had learned at Harvard.