Untold Stories: The Latinx Leadership Experience in Higher Education

By Peter Rios and Juan Francisco Martinez

Despite the exponential growth of Latinx students in Christian higher education, and despite professions of commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, the Latinx experience in Christian colleges and universities has gone largely unstudied, rendered invisible by the structures and history of colonialism and racism. Untold Stories, by sought-after leadership consultant Peter Rios, provides a groundbreaking glimpse into the complicated experiences of Latinx leaders in Christian higher education institutions, along with a prophetic call to action for those who care about these institutions and the students and leaders--current and future--they seek to serve.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Dec 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781666716993

Peter Rios

PETER RIOS, PHD, is a Lecturer at Penn State and the Founder of Peter Rios Consulting. He has served diverse organizations including businesses, religious institutions, government, higher education and non-profits in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion; leadership development and change. His extensive professional and academic experience has made him a sought-out keynote and conference speaker. Rios has been invited to speak and train leaders, nationally and internationally. He is also a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. Peter has served as an adjunct professor at several institutions teaching undergraduate and graduate students in organizational leadership, business management, religious and cultural studies. Rios has also been a vice president at two universities. Prior to academia, Peter was involved in pastoral ministry for over ten years and has over twenty years of leadership development experience. Rios holds a PhD in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Graduate Schools, completed doctoral work at the University of Southern California, and an MA from Northeastern Seminary. He is married to Dr. Ruby Gonzalez-Rios, a cancer and infectious disease researcher. For more information, please visit www.peterriosconsulting.com or @drpeterrios.

Book preview

Introduction

Reality is in the eye of the beholder.

—Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

This book stems from my own Christian higher education (CHE) experiences, along with practical service in higher education as an executive leader within the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) and affiliate institutions. The lack of professors and administrative leaders who could relate to my U.S. Latinx experience and context has been one of the main drivers for my desire to address diversity issues within CHE. While at my first graduate school, I did not have any professors of color, nor were there any administrative leaders of color. Although I did have two female professors, one was an adjunct with little influence. In my first doctoral studies program at Regent University, my experience was similar. And once again, I found the same situation during my second doctorate cohort phase at Fuller Theological Seminary, with my first four professors being White males who led the core curriculum.

This book addresses the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) climate within CHE from a Latinx perspective, focusing on executive Latinx leaders and their stories and how leaders like this might assist in the diversification of the CHE enterprise. While serving in CHE as a faculty member and administrator, I have observed that there exists a disparity in DEI. White privilege and power are organizational and structural issues that seem to be addressed at the surface but not systemically or at CHEs root. After surveying the literature and considering my own personal experience alongside the experiences of other people of color in CHE, it is apparent that there is much work to be done to better serve a changing and ever-more-diverse student population. According to Pete Menjares in Diversity Matters, one of the fastest growing student bodies is Latinx; yet the Latinx representation in leadership at CCCU schools is limited. Menjares asserts, This reality is registering on the minds of institutional leaders throughout the CCCU and has elevated the urgency of the ‘diversity’ conversation on many campuses; this conversation is currently being framed as a matter of ‘institutional survival’ across the council.⁵ CHE will have to think strategically if it desires to serve these students with excellence.

While there exists much research in public higher education literature pertaining to people of color and women in leadership positions, as well as research focusing on Latinx in community colleges in general, there is a current void for Latinx leadership research in CHE. Research shows that Latinx are the fastest growing student population in higher education,⁶ while in CHE students-of-color enrollments continue to grow while the White student population continues to decline.⁷ However, Latinx administrators and other people of color (including women) at the executive level do not yet reflect these current student demographic trends.

Although there exists a growing body of literature on the lived experiences of Latinx leaders in public higher education, when I scanned the research there was very limited content on Latinx in CHE. Currently the number of executive Latinx leaders in the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) in particular are significantly underrepresented in senior leadership positions. To examine stories and counter-stories that may explain the dearth of Latinx leaders in CHE, I investigate through the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Latino/a Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) the experiences of Latinx leaders within the CCCU.

This book seeks to discover how the very limited numbers of Latinx leaders have attained their positions, how they have navigated predominantly (or dominantly) White evangelical institutions, and what has been the character of their overall experiences within the CCCU. The experiences of executive Latinx leaders in CHE and the CCCU are not well-documented; therefore, the aspiration of this text is to provide a foundation for future research. If CHE desires to survive the shifting of a majority-minority nation by 2044,⁸ its leaders will have to address DEI issues that are pertinent to the CCCU. Hence, this book seeks to understand the experiences of executive Latinx leaders serving within the CCCU and higher education.

As a scholar conducting qualitative research, it is important for me to recognize my own bias, and to claim clearly that my own life is intertwined with this research on diversity in CHE. Although every scholar tries to handle their investigation with a level of professionalism and objectivity, all are subject to their humanity, whether they admit it or not. As Melissa Freeman reminds us, research, like teaching, is a political act, in that, as researchers or instructors, we make conscious decisions about what to include, exclude, emphasize, and strive for.⁹ For that reason, I begin this book by sharing my own critical and autoethnographical analysis of my intersectional experiences in CHE.¹⁰

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. Longman, Diversity Matters,

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. Chun and Evans, Leading a Diversity Culture Shift,

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. Longman, Diversity Matters,

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. Chun and Evans, Leading a Diversity Culture Shift,

16–17

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. Freeman, Modes of Thinking,

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. DePouw, Intersectionality and Critical Race Parenting,

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1

Why We Must Tell These Stories

For me, service in the US Special Forces in Central America was an epiphany. In combat zones I learned that the edifying story I had learned about my nation as a guardian and promoter of democracy was false. It took me many more years to explain exactly what was wrong with that history, and how a new and more accurate story might be told.

¹

In the beginning

I was born in the Bronx, New York, and lived there for my first eight years of life. Along with two younger cousins, I was raised by my grandmother who had migrated to New York from Puerto Rico at the age of fifteen. My grandmother moved us from the Bronx to Dunkirk, NY, about a fifty-minute drive west of Buffalo. We were raised in a very strict religious Pentecostal home, where most things outside of church activity were scrutinized as potentially sinful.

We attended church services from 7 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. We also went to Sunday school in the morning, then returned after eating lunch at home for Sunday evening worship, usually from around 6 p.m. As I think back, I realize that it was considered essential to attend church services often since a consistent theology was that Christ was returning for the church soon.

Reflecting on these times, no one seemed concerned that children might have needed to get to bed at a decent time to be rested for school, or to have substantive time for studying or developing other gifts and talents that could contribute to society. I can remember that the most important things in life for my grandmother were Jesus, the church, and hard work. And although some of the nights were long and school was not necessarily a priority, having faith in Jesus was, and for that I am most grateful. My grandmother and her generation gave us what they had inherited: a fervent faith that they believed was more important than anything else. It was never a viable option for my grandmother to go to school. Looking back, I am sure she would have been successful if afforded the opportunity to study in an environment conducive to learning.

I moved with my mother around the age of twelve. I was very curious about what the world had to offer since the church always criticized it. This would be the beginning of a very unstructured life, the opposite of the very controlled and religious life I shared with my grandmother. The pursuit of education was a late phenomenon for me. I barely graduated high school due to a lack of personal motivation to learn, an unstable home and family, and limited mentors (to say the least). Growing up, I never received any encouragement from teachers or counselors about something positive that I could become, or any direction or conversation about college and vocation.

It was assumed that I would at best get into a trade school, or more likely get incarcerated or drop out of school. There may have been several reasons for this, one being the fact that I ended up having early encounters with the law and being expelled from school in the tenth grade. However, I never received any guidance while in middle school either. I also experienced prejudice in school growing up and witnessed how certain students from affluent backgrounds and from the majority culture always received favors for upward mobility. But God would provide an angel for me, someone who would believe in me and expose me to much more in life, primarily through the lens of education. Dr. Laila Denoya, the Director of the Upward Bound Program at SUNY Fredonia, convinced me to join Upward Bound in tenth grade. I would be a part of this program throughout the rest of my high school journey.

My grades in high school were not the best, so I enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. My first duty station was at Okinawa, Japan. This not only gave me global exposure but also allowed me to see my own ethnocentric ideologies and to become aware of American imperialism. I could not understand why the Okinawans did not want us there after all the U.S. had done for them, and why other cultures preferred to conduct themselves outside of what I deemed normal. As I got stationed in South Korea and California shortly thereafter, this all began to shape a new worldview within me, and I soon noticed the Puerto Rican youngster from NY being stretched and forced to change viewpoints that I once held as sacred, from culture to tradition, even my own denominational view of Christianity.

I had two tremendous personal encounters with Jesus Christ, one while serving in the Marines, and the other in New York a few years after my honorable discharge. These events transformed my life more profoundly than anything else, changing me from a worldly and religious person to someone who treasured an intimacy with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. I left my job and began to study in my denomination’s biblical institute (in Spanish), simultaneously studying for an associate degree in pastoral studies at Houghton College’s West Seneca Campus. This would be the start of my educational experience within the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). The program I was registered in closed due to the lack of enrollment before I could finish; therefore, I transferred to another religiously affiliated university online (Liberty University) to complete my B.S. in Religion.

I entered Northeastern Seminary (NES) at Roberts Wesleyan College right-after my undergraduate degree and noticed that most of my professors were male and White. The curriculum, while new and exciting in some respects, was also lacking diversity and voices from the Global South. It was difficult to translate this knowledge to my context. In other words, I had to contextualize information being taught to my own Latinx and multiethnic community. Around this time, I was also serving the broader church as a full-time evangelist, which connected me to many Latinx churches, customs, and ecclesial traditions. I noticed a common denominator among Pentecostal and Charismatic churches and their leadership: namely, the lack of formal theological or college education overall (although there were some exceptions). I ended up completing my M.A. in theological studies at NES and a doctoral degree in strategic leadership at Regent University, another CCCU school. An interesting detail is that my academic experience was similar at the doctoral level, with primarily White male professors and nondiverse coursework.

On May 6, 2016, my wife Ruby and I traveled to Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA, for my first doctoral commencement and commissioning service. I was ecstatic because I was going to be commissioned as a Christian leader to go and transform the world. The commissioning service for the School of Business and Leadership began, and they gave the microphone to Pat Robertson, Chancellor and CEO of Regent. He started well by congratulating us and painting a future picture of success. However, shortly thereafter he began to speak and exegete the Parable of the Talents found in Matthew 25:14—30. If you have never read the Parable of the Talents, it is a short story that Jesus shared about a person who was going on a long journey:

Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. Master, he said, you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more. His master replied, Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness! The man with two bags of gold also came. Master, he said, you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more. His master replied, Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!

Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. Master, he said, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you. His master replied, You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned, I would have received it back with interest. So, take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Pat Robertson began to interpret this pericope and in so doing began to ruin the night for many of the graduates. Pat took the liberty of tarnishing a wonderful moment of celebration and achievement to make comparisons between Republicans and Democrats in the United States. But this was just the beginning. He stated that God took from the poor and gave to the rich like the owner did in the Parable of Talents, taking one bag from the third servant who only had one and giving it to the person who had ten. Pat could not understand why the Democrats were so upset with the Republicans regarding how they leveraged their financial gains.

The most disappointing facet of all this for me and many others was the fact that the majority of Regent graduates were women and people of color. These graduates had paid a lot of money to enroll in this school and were not appreciated. Quite frankly, I felt used for their political conservative agenda. Unfortunately, I could not find a recording of this event and even contacted Regent University’s manager of administration and events but was told that they did not record this commissioning (of course they didn’t!). As I searched online, I found every other school’s commissioning service at Regent for 2016 and thereafter. While I could not find the 2016 commissioning service, I did find Regent’s School of Business and Leadership 2021 Commissioning, and this is an excerpt of what Pat communicated to the graduates:

About

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years ago the Lord spoke to me, and he said, Build a school for my glory. I didn’t realize in those days how important Regent University would be. I couldn’t have foreseen a time in which the world was so torn apart with conflicting ideologies, a time when all the basic assumptions of our life would be challenged. A time when the United States of America, the greatest nation on earth, was in danger of becoming communists and socialists. I couldn’t have dreamed that we would have a society in which perversion was being exalted and abortion was being made a constitutional right. . .I couldn’t believe that little children in the elementary grades would be taught Critical Race Theory and that somehow America was a systemically racist society. I couldn’t have believed that a major newspaper would publish something called the

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project which said America did not begin until the importation of slaves. Totally inaccurate, totally apart from our history, and we’re trying to divorce our society from history.²

As you can see, not much changed with Pat from 2016 to 2021.

If anything, Pat, and people like Pat, have doubled down in their ways. But this is only one experience among many that I can share from my experience within the enclave that is Christian higher education. Around this season of life, I felt compelled to address this situation of diversity and racism across Christian institutions and the evangelical church in the U.S., and decided to pursue another doctoral degree, this time at Fuller Theological Seminary at the PhD level. More than being compelled, I would say that I felt called to this work.

I originally went to Fuller to research the intricacies of culture and diversity issues in CHE. What led me to Fuller was my experience with racism in the Midwest while serving at a CCCU school. I experienced microaggressions and prejudice firsthand at this institution and local churches. While serving there, I was able to serve on numerous search committees for faculty and I witnessed how highly qualified candidates of color, sometimes more qualified than White candidates, were bypassed by the search committee or chair. At one point, the chair of a faculty search was prescreening applicants and sending us the ones that he believed were good mission fits for approval. I stated that this was not aligned with best practice but was silenced by other senior White faculty who seemed to appreciate what the chair was doing.

An African American colleague who also served at this institution once shared with me that he and his family were cautioned to stay out of a neighboring town. This specific town was still known as a sundown town. We spoke together and counseled each other often. Since there were very few of us, it was important for us to seek each other out for prayer, and a space to vent about pressing issues. On another occasion, my colleague shared with me that an African American student’s car was keyed (scratched up badly) with the words get out of here nigger.

One final experience at this institution is worth noting, and that is the experience of my wife. My wife holds a PhD in biochemistry and is well-published, more than any other scientist on the staff or faculty of this institution at the time. We networked and tried everything possible to get her a position in this CCCU school, mainly since there was a lot of talk about how they wanted to diversify the staff and faculty, but there was always an excuse (including: no position open, no funding, overqualified, maybe next semester). There are very few women of color in science, particularly in the CCCU. One would think that if a university is intentional about recruiting and retaining staff and faculty of color, that they would be more strategic or even accommodating to couples. I witnessed over and