Student ambassador Esther Vega has a simple, yet powerful\nway to connect with some of the parents she meets on campus tours and at\ncollege fairs: she speaks to them in Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese parents just want to be heard and listened to,\u201d she\nsays. \u201cIt\u2019s just so much more comfortable for them. And to me, it\u2019s a sign of\nrespect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Making sure prospective students and their families feel welcome is why Esther took on the task of translating an Honors College brochure into Spanish. And it\u2019s why she brings Mexican candy to recruiting events, even if it\u2019s gone within minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although Esther was a little indecisive at first about what\nto study at Oregon State, she landed on industrial engineering, which she\ndescribes as the science of optimization and efficiency in systems. The Honors\nCollege encourages interdisciplinary study, and the system she chose to examine\nfor her thesis was K-12 education. She wanted to see how community programs could\nbetter connect teachers and Latinx parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Esther\u2019s thesis is a byproduct of TEAMS: Teachers Educating\nAll Multilingual Students. The $2.5 million U.S. Department of Education grant is\nhelping in-service teachers at five Oregon districts earn their English for\nSpeakers of Other Languages endorsement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Esther\u2019s research focused on events to bring teachers and\nparents together in a welcoming and safe space. She says both groups were\nhesitant to talk to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTeachers are nervous to talk to parents because they don’t\nspeak their native language, and they don’t really understand their culture,\u201d\nshe says. \u201cAnd minority parents are nervous to go to schools and talk to\nteachers in a language that is not their first language.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What overcame that hesitation, she found, was parents and\nteachers realizing they had a common goal: to help their students excel in\nschool. Other findings from her research were specific and practical. For\nexample, many parents don\u2019t use email, so community events were better attended\nwhen promoted on Spanish-language radio stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Esther says she makes being welcoming a priority because the\nHonors College welcomed her. She applied \u201con a whim to see if I could get in.\u201d Esther\nknew she had the grades but was less confident about her test scores. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think something amazing about the Honors College is that\nthey take a holistic approach to selecting students,\u201d Esther says. \u201cIt\u2019s nice\nto be seen as more than a test score.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scholarships have made much of Esther\u2019s college experience\npossible. She earned a differential tuition scholarship from the Honors\nCollege, a Finley academic scholarship from OSU and two industrial engineering\nscholarships. A URSA Engage scholarship helped fund her thesis, and an Honors\nCollege experiential learning scholarship allowed her to attend a professional\nconference at Harvard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With another two years to go before completing her degree,\nEsther says she\u2019s most grateful for her friendships in the Honors College and her\nrelationships with multiple faculty mentors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt has definitely taken a village to get me where I am today,\u201d Esther says. \u201cI like my village.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Gary Dulude: Senior Editor, University Marketing<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Student ambassador Esther Vega has a simple, yet powerful way to connect with some of the parents she meets on campus tours and at college fairs: she speaks to them in Spanish. \u201cThese parents just want to be heard and listened to,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s just so much more comfortable for them. And to me, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9319,"featured_media":7438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1205,82,1306],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","category-features","category-student"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4297"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7992,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4297\/revisions\/7992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}