ESCALA's Conocimientos

Conocimiento 1, Gaps Don't Just Happen uncovers the history of systemic racism endured by Latinx communities in the U.S., and how these educational histories caused the current inequitable outcomes in higher education for Latinx people. Special attention will be paid to Latinx educational segregation in the early 20th century, legal battles, parent walkouts, and the role of Latinx higher education administrators and community advocacy organizations in the development of the HSI designation and funding. The module provides an important historical context for anyone who works with significant numbers of Latinx students.

Conocimiento 2, Developing Data Practices to Serve Latinx Students is designed to help HSI practitioners develop greater proficiency with using and talking about data that is disaggregated to show Latinx student outcomes. Knowing how to collect or retrieve Latinx student data, and create data visualizations to assess equity gaps for Latinx students is fundamental to analyzing institutional as well as one’s own effectiveness, as well as a powerful way to call others to action. 

Conocimiento 3, The Caracol of Becoming you will turn your attention inward, to reflect on your identities, experiences, attitudes, and values and how these impact the way you show up with your Latinx students, colleagues, and work. In the module we conceptualize identity, not as labels that we use to describe ourselves, but rather look at identity as the attitudes and values that we develop about ourselves and others and that impact how we navigate and interact in the world. Thus, we will explore identity as a function of time and space. You will explore your identities throughout past experiences and by envisioning your future self.

Exposing White Supremacy in Institutional Culture is a module designed to provide you with the lens to recognize what white supremacy culture is, then see how the unexamined procedures, policies and practices we utilize on a daily basis work to mutually reinforce it.

Conocimiento 4 is the first step in disrupting institutional racism in our institutions, by heightening our awareness about the conditions of white supremacy culture that were constructed within the very first days of higher education, and continue to operate as a major barrier to Latinx student success (Garcia, 2019, Yosso et al. 2009, Sue, 2004).  

Knowing Your Latinx Students is a module designed to provide you with an understanding of the diversity within Latinidad. In order to be able to be responsive to our Latinx students, we need to know their many identities and how they self-identiy. Conocimiento 5 creates space for you to consider how the building of a collective Latinidad identity was necessary in order to show our importance and relevance as a group, as well as shared histories of oppression and marginalization in North America.  At the same time we’ll contest the idea that there exists a singular Latinx experience due to the vast differences in Latinx people's relationship to settler colonialism, U.S. citizenship, and colorism, as well as the ways people identify with a wide variety of languages, racial identities, socio-economic status and immigration stories.  

Envisioning Latinx Servingness is a module designed to provide you with the tools to better understand and analyze Servingness through an institutional, departmental, and personal lens.  

Conocimiento 6 creates space for you to visualize how institutions can better serve Latinx students and be deemed as truly serving by examining the alignment between individual responsibility, organizational priorities, and systemic structures. In our view, exploring servingness at your campus requires you to imagine what it would feel, sound, and be like to work in an institution, and with a critical mass of colleagues that embrace serving Latinx/é students.