HACU Lauds the Appointment of Dr. Juliet V. Garcia, President of University of Texas at Brownsville, to Obama Transition Team

San Antonio, Texas - Dr. Antonio Flores, President & CEO of HACU, lauded the appointment of Dr. Juliet V. Garcia, President of University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, to serve on President-Elect Barack Obama’s transition team.

Speaking on behalf of more than 400 member colleges and universities, including more than 200 Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), Flores said, “We congratulate Dr. Juliet V. Garcia, an exemplary educational leader and HSI president, on her appointment to President-Elect Obama’s transition team. In addition to being the first Mexican-American woman to head a four-year U.S. university, Dr. Garcia is a well-respected national leader noted for her commitment to educational innovation in the service of student access and success. 

“It is just this experience of leadership,” Flores noted, “that is needed to assure that the new administration will make greater investments in higher education in order to prepare the highly skilled workers demanded by our high technology and knowledge-driven economy. Especially is this true of Hispanic higher education: with the exponential growth of the Latino community across our nation, Latinos have become the backbone of the American workforce, accounting for one of every three new workers today and projected to account for one of every two new workers by 2025. We can no longer afford as a nation to be satisfied with the historic rates of Hispanic access and success in higher education.”

HACU presented its Platform Issues & Recommendations to all presidential candidates in 2007 and at its annual conference in Denver, Colorado in October, 2008. In a congratulatory letter this week to President-Elect Obama, Flores urged him and the new Congress to make these issues a national priority and directly address the needs of HSIs and other HACU-member institutions in order to successfully prepare the new generations of Hispanic leaders for the 21^st century economy.

###