By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
Continuing a legacy brought to Fort Hays State University in 2016, Hispanic high school students from across Kansas and beyond will converge on campus for the Hispanic College Institute.
The four-day event from June 1 to 4 helps incoming high school juniors and seniors learn about college life and enrollment and engage with Hispanic leaders.
“It’s an event to help Hispanic students — first-generation students — kind of get their feet wet with college,” said Fort Hays State University Assistant Director of Admissions Hugo Perez.
During this year’s free four-day, three-night residential camp, he said students would experience life on campus — something crucial for first-generation college students.
“We could talk all day about how getting them to campus is the biggest part of it,” said Carolyn Tatro, Fort Hays State University Alumni Association engagement strategist. But she said guiding them toward having the resources to succeed in their academic endeavors is critical.
“It’s really just a way to get everybody kind of involved in here,” she said. “You can do this. Whether you have the resources or you feel like you have the resources, we want to help you find those resources. And whether you end up at Fort Hays or a community college or a bigger school. We just want you to be successful. And there are ways to do that, and we want to help you.”
“Ultimately, our goal is to get students to attend post-secondary education,” Perez said. “We’ve had students, we have got a ton of students that have come to Fort Hays. We have had many that have attended community colleges and then transferred to Fort Hays. We’ve had students go to Wichita State, Kansas State. We had one that attended that went to Stanford. So, I guess it’s just an ultimate goal is to get them exposed to higher education.”
But if they choose FHSU, all the better, he said.
As much as the program is about university life, attendees will also have the opportunity to explore the community.
“When it comes to life here in Hays, America, we’ll get them around town,” Perez said. “The Convention Visitors Bureau has done great things with us and helping do tours. We get them all over town so they can see what Hays and Fort Hays has to offer for them.”
Since the program began six years ago, first-year attendees are now making their way out of college and into the workforce. As that happens, those experiences and the connections made at the institute prove valuable, Tatro said.
“During this event, a lot of former students who can come talk about their experience, and they’re truly all from different backgrounds, and their family lives were very different as well,” she said.
“We’ve already had a few students who had graduated, that had been part of the program that graduated the past two years, that have come back actually to talk as those young alums,” Perez said. “It’s a really neat avenue for them to be able to see that whole gamut for them.”
Those generational relationships also create the opportunity for long-term guidance as the latest group of attendees makes their way into college and beyond.
“It gives those students the possibility of having mentors, as well,” Perez said.
For more information about the FHSU Hispanic College Institute, visit the FHSU website, fhsu.edu.