For immediate release

U.S. minority higher education leaders
meet with wife of president of Mexico

MEXICO CITY – Minority higher education leaders from the United States met Friday in Mexico City with Marta Sahagún de Fox, wife of the President of Mexico, on shared efforts to open new doors to a college education for diverse communities of learning in the United States and Mexico.

“We are honored that Mrs. Fox, who leads so many outstanding educational outreach initiatives in Mexico, met with us about how to promote a new era of multicultural understanding and advanced educational opportunities for all citizens of this global economy,” said Antonio R. Flores, president and CEO of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), following the meeting with leaders of the Alliance for Equity in Higher Education.

The Alliance for Equity in Higher Education, created as the first unified voice for U.S. minority higher education concerns, was founded by HACU representing Hispanic-Serving Institutions, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) representing Tribal Colleges and Universities, and the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) representing Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Alliance leaders from HACU, NAFEO and AIHEC met with Fox at Los Pinos, Mexico’s White House, during meetings in Mexico City of the Kellogg Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) Leadership Fellows Program. The leadership program, funded through the Alliance with a four-year, $6 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, is designed to prepare the next generation of minority higher education leaders for U.S. college campuses and communities.

Leadership Fellows are selected from HACU, AIHEC and NAFEO member colleges and universities and represent a wide range of academic and administrative expertise.

“Rapidly changing demographics have contributed to Hispanics becoming the U.S.’s largest ethnic population, and the Mexican-American population has played a large role in that growth. Our shared heritage with Mexico can be the springboard for establishing new cross-border higher education partnerships in an era when new technologies and the global marketplace of commerce and ideas transcend physical borders,” Flores said. “There is much common ground and evolving expertise that can benefit students and higher education institutions in both countries."

HACU represents more than 360 colleges and universities serving two-thirds of the Hispanic students in higher education in the United States, and includes as well an international membership of leading higher education institutions throughout Mexico, Latin America and Spain.

The Kellogg MSI Leadership Fellows Program directly addresses the need to end the continuing under-representation of minority senior-level administrators at U.S. colleges and universities with large and fast-growing minority student enrollments. Organizers predict that by the end of this decade, at least half the participants in the Kellogg MSI Leadership Fellows Program will be serving as presidents or other senior leaders at minority-serving colleges or universities.

Marta Sahagún de Fox, the wife of Mexico's president, was keynote speaker at HACU’s 5th International Conference in Mexico in 2003. She is a renowned international voice for education and health care. She is an educator who has taught at La Salle University in Celaya, and at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. She has taught courses and seminars ranging from English, business administration and personnel management to politics and administration. She has published numerous articles on education issues in Mexico.

For more information, contact HACU's national headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, at (210) 692-3805. Ext. 3214. Or visit www.hacu.net.