On Friday, April 29, Linfield University will host the annual Mente Summit, which connects young Latino males with speakers and mentors to address the inequities and barriers to their success.
The summit begins at 9 a.m. with a keynote address by Rolando Cruz, a product line manager at Nike. Cruz led the largest Latino youth soccer program in Oregon before joining Nike where he supervises a team of designers and product developers that creates soccer apparel for clubs in Latin America and Europe.
Four workshop sessions follow the keynote and are designed to increase understanding and knowledge of disparities in cultural and professional environments, while sharpening the skills and building the networks to overcome them. A special emphasis is placed on higher education and themes of resiliency, community, perseverance, growth and change.
“The experience of young Latino men in higher education is not unlike that of other minorities, but it rarely gets the same attention,” said Gerardo Ochoa, Linfield vice president for retention and student success. “Hosting the Mente Summit at Linfield is one more way the university is collaborating with high schools, colleges and other community partners to reduce barriers to education among Latino males.”
Between 2010 and 2020, Oregon’s Latino population grew by nearly 140,000 to 588,757, according to the U.S. Census. Among Oregonians under the age of 18, Latinos comprise 23% of the population. Despite overall gains in Latino students completing higher education degrees, they still lag behind peers of other race in the state, according to Excelencia in Education.
As of fall 2022, 20% of all Linfield students identified as Latino. Linfield is an emerging Hispanic-serving institution and an associate member institution of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. Linfield University Latinx Adelante (LULA), a McMinnville campus club, organizes cultural celebrations, meet-ups, mentorships, the Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration, Latinx Commencement and other activities designed to increase student retention.
Linfield signed a three-year agreement to host the Mente Summit in 2020 and that year’s event was held shortly before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year will be the first in-person Mente Summit since 2020.
