In this episode we focus on organizational change, drawing from strategies both within the book, "The HSI Movement” and from equity-focused higher education research. Dr. Roman Liera, an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Montclair State University, joins the conversation to discuss the book and his research on racialized organizational change and equity in higher education. We discuss the way faculty cluster hiring can be used as a lever of change, and how it can disrupt the traditionally decentralized, racially biased hiring processes at the department level. We also explore the distinction between first order and second order change, with Dr. Liera providing concrete examples of how institutions can move from surface-level adjustments to deeper cultural and mindset shifts. Moreover, we discuss presidential and senior leadership hiring, including how racial and gender schemas shape perceptions of who is considered "presidential," and what questions institutions should ask when seeking equity-minded leaders. We close with a reflection that meaningful change may never be fully visible within our lifetime, but that even small contributions to the movement carry significant long-term impact. Grab a pen, take notes, and nerd out with the nation’s leading scholars on racialized organizations.

Guest:

Roman Liera (he, him, his)

Associate Professor, Montclair State University

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roman-liera-b701a151/

Instagram: @DrRo

Show Notes:

• Liera, R., Rodgers, A. J., & Villarreal, C. D. (2026). Diversity ideologies and racial commodification: Navigating reappointment, tenure, and promotion as early career faculty of color amid organizational DEI co-optation. Innovative Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-026-09892-7
• Liera, R., & Ching, C. (2025). Tinkering towards racial equity: White community college faculty disrupting and preserving their white innocence. Journal of Community College Research and Practice, 49(10-11), 653-668. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2025.2510272
• Liera, R., & Desir, S. (2023). Taking equity-mindedness to the next level: The equity-minded organization. Frontiers in Education, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1199174
• Virella, P., & Liera, R. (2024). Nice for what? The contradictions and tensions of an urban district’s racial equity transformation. Education Sciences, 14(4), 420-434. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14040420

APA Citation:

Garcia, G.A. (Host). (2026, October 18). From 1st Order to 2nd Order Change within Racialized Organizations (No.804) [Audio podcast episode]. In ¿Qué pasa, HSIs?.

We return to our discussion of the book, "The HSI Movement: Strategies Driving Change at Hispanic Serving Institutions," with Yesenia Silva Estrada, Vice President of Planning and Chief of Staff at Colorado Mountain College (CMC). Yesenia shares her personal HSI journey, having been born in Chihuahua, Mexico, raised in one of the communities CMC serves, and having attended CMC herself as a first-generation student, to now serving in a role of influence as the campus transitioned to becoming an HSI. We discuss how HSI-mindedness at CMC has been driven by intersectional data analysis, a shared equity leadership model, and a commitment to measuring student thriving well beyond completion rates. We also discuss the VP’s role in the HSI movement, and how some days are challenging. We finish with a focus on Colorado's landmark House Bill 26-1006, which established the Colorado Thriving Institutions designation. As a leader in the HSI movement, she personally drafted the bill's language and worked with legislators and a broad coalition of partners to pass the legislation. The episode concludes with a strong message that HSI identity belongs to the institution and its communities, not to the federal government, and that institutions must continue to claim that identity regardless of what happens at the federal level.

Guest:

Yesenia Silva Estrada (she, her, ella)

Vice President of Planning and Chief of Staff

Colorado Mountain College

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ysilvastrada

Facebook: https://facebook.com/yesilvaestrada

APA Citation:

Garcia, G. A. (Host). (2026, October 4). From Student to Change Agent: Building an HSI from Within (No.803) [Audio podcast episode]. In ¿Qué pasa, HSIs?.

Show Notes:

• https://coloradomtn.edu/about-us/hispanic-serving-institution/
• https://coloradomtn.edu/news/cmc-news/colorado-mountain-college-helps-lead-passage-of-landmark-thriving-institutions-legislation/

In this episode we learn with Dr. Katie Christoffersen, Associate Vice Provost for Bilingual Integration and Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), exploring the concept of linguistic servingness at HSIs. Katie shares the story of how UTRGV built bilingualism into its academic core through the B3 initiative, which allows students to take courses across disciplines taught in Spanish or bilingually and graduate with the B3 Scholar Seal as an official honor on their transcripts. The conversation covers the origins of the initiative, how faculty are trained and compensated, and the compelling outcome data showing that students in B3 courses demonstrate higher academic success and satisfaction. Katie also offers four practical recommendations for HSIs looking to implement linguistic servingness on their own campuses, including starting with a baseline inventory, putting money behind the work, institutionalizing systems rather than one-off projects, and building an evidence base. She closes by defining linguistic servingness as "the institutional practice of treating students' full linguistic repertoire as an academic asset with actions and not just with words," and breaks it down into four dimensions: access, recognition, labor, and ideology.

Guest:

Katherine (Katie) Christoffersen (she, her, ella, ela)

Associate Vice Provost, Office for Bilingual Integration

Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Website: https://katherinechristoff.wixsite.com/my-site

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-christoffersen-590339214/

Show Notes:

• https://www.ginaanngarcia.com/post/language-bilingualism-multilingualism-in-hsis-ideas-for-linguistic-servingness
• Bilingualism in Higher Education Summit- Oct 14-16- website: https://bilingualism-higher-ed-summit.netlify.app/
• Christoffersen, K. (2026). “Hablo pocha, ¿no?”: Divergent language ideologies of pocho and mocho in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Applied Linguistics, 47(2). 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amag045
• Mazzaro, N., & Christoffersen, K. (2026). How prestige and socio-economic status shape the linguistic landscape of Brownsville, Texas. International Journal of Multilingualism, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2025.2612562
• Christoffersen, K, Ortín, R., López García, D., Cavazos, D, & Lu, M.T. (2025). Dual language in higher education: Assessing student success and student experiences. Foreign Language Annals, 58(2). 916-940. https://doi.org/10.1111/flan.70040
• Christoffersen, K. & Regalado, K. (2021). “Toda lengua es válida aquí en esta clase”: Translanguaging pedagogy and critical language awareness in sociolinguistics courses on the U.S.-Mexico border. Journal of Bilingual Education Research and Instruction, 23(1). 23-71.
• Christoffersen, K. (2019). Linguistic terrorism in the borderlands: Language ideologies in the narratives of young adults in the Rio Grande Valley. International Multilingual Research Journal, 13(3). 137-151.
• UTRGV Office for Bilingual Integration: https://www.utrgv.edu/bilingualintegration/
• B3 Scholarship & Creative Works Collection: scholarworks.utrgv.edu/b3_pub
• Office of Bilingual Integration https://www.utrgv.edu/bilingualintegration/index.htm
• B³ Scholar Seal overview: https://www.utrgv.edu/bilingualintegration/student-resources/b3-scholar-seal/index.htm
• Carvalho, A., Bessett, R. & Christoffersen, K. (2021). CESA and CoBiVa Training Handbook. https://bit.ly/CESA_CoBiVa_Handbook

APA Citation:

Garcia, G.A. (Host). (2026, September 20). Linguistic Servingness in the Classroom: Learning with UTRGV (No.802) [Audio podcast episode]. In ¿Qué pasa, HSIs?.