Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Brief summary of minutes of annual meeting: https://ksuemailprod-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/r/personal/dbolton_ksu_edu/_layouts/15/Doc.aspx?sourcedoc=%7BDF0761F8-64C4-4B33-8FDF-73ADDD578229%7D&file=Document.docx&action=default&mobileredirect=true

Accomplishments: How can we promote research partnerships? 

Steve Jeanetta, Ruben Martinez, and Jan Flora are studying the livelihood strategies of Latino farmers in Iowa, Missouri, and Michigan. Early findings demonstrate the need to build relationships with the farmers who tend not to have connections to institutional resources. Marcelo noted that the principle challenge is language and trust. 

Kim Greder is working on partnerships with people who are not necessarily in NCERA.  University of Illinois, U. of Houston, and others to look at the health of Latino audiences.  Also, Kim is working in an integrated project to build sustainability in programs that address poverty by collecting data from parents and youth. 

Julia Albarracin reported research in immigrant communities in Champaign-Urbana  

University of Illinois focusing on the Guatemalan community with a small grant to address needs.  Also looking at how changes in legal status changes behavior around identity. Counselors in public school systems in their interactions with undocumented students show unsupportive relationships.

Debra Bolton reported a book, which is now at publisher, which focuses on the networks of the African diaspora of women in contemporary communities across the U.S. Debra’s chapter focused on resilience of the women as they navigate new communities. 

Ness reported a project with the Missouri Health Foundation focusing on communities with high immigrant populations across Missouri, in Kansas City Kansas, and Illinois.  Also working with the Mosaic looking at immigrants in the country who are working in jobs for which they are highly over-qualified because of licensing and educational restrictions that do not acknowledge the educational credentials of the home country. Also working in a project focused on demographics and data on GIS. 

Steve Jeanetta reported on work with Latino farmers and how they develop as entrepreneurs.  Some of the data is being developed for resource providers to work with the Latino farmers.  Also working with University of Missouri to expand Latino resource centers into other states of the North Central Region.  They hope to discover what role Land Grant systems can do to further reach out to Latino audiences. A consistent support system needs to be put in place in institutions. Inconsistency contributes to distrust in institutions.  

Julia and Ruben continue to work together to develop a training model to promote integration of Latino communities and Spanish speaking immigrants into civic engagement activities.  

How can we assure reporting for work collaborations and individual research? Debra will get the template from Ruben to distribute among NCERA 216 members.  

Ruben reminded the group that Hector Santiago, our new administrative advisor, wants us to focus on interstate collaborations around our strategic areas. 

Reports – Debra will distribute template at NCERA 216 annual meeting in June 17, 2020 so that members will have their reports submitted by July 30, 2020 for August report. 
Adjournment 

Short-term Outcomes: Members of NCERA 216 reach across state lines to collaborate on research and educational programming to ease the integration process of Latinos and other immigrant populations in Midwest communities and institutions of higher education.

Outputs: In addition to two authorized meetings in 2019, NCERA 216 members commit to a minimum of three interstate collaboration projects.  1) Michigan State University and University of Illinois (Julia and Ruben), 2) University of Missouri, Iowa State University and Michigan State University (Ruben, Jan, and Steve), and 3) St. Louis University and University of Missouri at Kansas City, and University of Illinois (Ness, Gerardo and Julia)

Activities: NCERA 216 Members focus on five strategic areas:

Entrepreneurship and Business 

Co-Chairs:    

Corrinne Valdivia valdiviac@missouri.edu 

Maria Rodriguez-Alcala   rodriguezalcalam@missouri.edu 

Families and Education 

Co-Chairs:    

Daisy Barron-Collins daisybcollins@missouristate.edu 

Jackie Guzman jguzman2@unl.edu 

Kim reported phasing out Juntos to expand programming in Latino communities called, Solir Adalente.  It focuses on career and pathways to college. Her project centers in Iowa, but she hopes to expand in terms of interstate collaboration. Ruben suggested that we program that applies across the country with core elements. 

Building Latinx and Immigrant-Friendly Communities 

Chairs:   Stephen Jeanetta jeanettas@missouri.edu 

Athena Ramos aramos@unmc.edu 

Ricardo Diaz   xpenn.diaz@gmail.com  

Julia spoke of the antithesis of friendly communities with organizations that are emboldended to be overt around racism. Kim spoke of a curriculum called “Facing History Facing Ourselves.”   

How do we address intellectual growth around truly addressing integration of under-represented populations into educational institutions to advance community transformations? 

A suggestion was made move the Cambio de Colores conference beyond Missouri.  

Building Diversity-Competent Organizations 

Co- Chairs:   Rubén Martinez mart1097@msu.edu  

Gerardo Martinez martinezgr@umkc.edu 

Alejandra Gudiño gudinoa@missouri.edu 

This group continues to work on ways to increase equitable representation in academic, administrative, and power structures in higher education, a slow process since the dominant structures appear to be unwilling to give up their spaces. 

Bertha Mendoza will keep us abreast of Kansas Extension’s study of reaching under-served population in hopes to include other states in NC Region for an interstate collaboration.  

Demographics and Change 

Co-Chairs:   Onésimo Sandoval jsandov3@slu.edu           

Sal Valdez salvaladez85@gmail.com 

Debra Bolton dbolton@ksu.edu 

Milestones: Project renewal for NCERA 216

Impacts: North Central Region institutions increased efforts to address inequities in serving under-represented populations by less than 1% with the addition of a Department of Multicultural Students Affairs Department at Kansas State University

• OC-77: The Development of Latin American Philosophy
• NEXO Spring 2019
• Promoting Latino and African American Collaboration through Dialogue and Engagement
• Survey of Cooperative Extension Educators in the Midwest: On Serving Latino Populations
• LATINOS 2025: A Needs Assessment of Latino Communities in Southeast Michigan
• Emily R. Crawford and Dr. Lisa M. Dorner edited together Educational Leadership of Immigrants: Case Studies in Times of Change published by Routledge. This book is meant to prepare current and future educational leaders to evolve with the changing climate of U.S. demographics, education, and immigration policy.
• Gustavo Carlo and others share their work published in Children and Youth Services Review “Children exposed to methamphetamine in settings where the drug is being used”. The article presents a descriptive analysis of children’s exposure in settings where the drug is being used in an effort to educate adults and assess the risks children face living in these environments, serving as a motivator to promote substance abuse treatment.
• Stephen Jeanetta and Dr. María E. Rodríguez-Alcalá worked with another researcher on “The Role of Acculturation and Social Capital in Access to Health Care: A Meta-Study on Hispanics in the U.S.” and published in the Journal of Community Health. This study is meant to enhance the understanding of how acculturation and social capital impact the Hispanic population’s ability to access and navigate health care in the U.S.         
• Gustavo Carlo and another researcher collaborated to give us “Nativity as a Moderator of Familial and Nonfamilial Correlates of Latino/a Youth Prosocial Behaviors” found in the Journal of Research on Adolescence. This article’s findings address nativity as playing a prominent role in familial and nonfamilial relations guidance of youth’s prosocial tendencies.          
• Denice Adkins and another researcher share their work “Information behavior and ICT use of Latina immigrants to the U.S. Midwest” in Information Processing & Management: An International Journal. The article presents foundational research on the complex and interconnected nature of the social environment of Latina immigrants in the U.S. Midwest to better understand information practices. This population is highly vulnerable to marginalization and digital exclusion; this research investigates systematically Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use by immigrant Latinas is the Midwest.
• Gustavo Carlo worked with another researcher to publish “Toward an Integrative Conceptual Model on the Relations Between Discrimination and Prosocial Behaviors in US Latino/Latina Youth” in the Handbook of Children and Prejudice. This article explores theories and research on discriminatory experiences role in US Latino youth prosocial behaviors and the associated risk and protective factors.
• Sujin Kim and Dr. Kim Song wrote the article “Designing a Community Translanguaging Space Within a Family Literacy Project” in the journal The Reading Teacher. This article features a multilingual family literacy project to enhance family engagement in children’s literacy development. This is done by family and community members collaborating to build larger communicative repertoires of multiple languages.
• Denice Adkins, along with two other researchers, share their research “Exploring Reader-Generated Language to Describe Multicultural Literature” in the International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion. In this article, text mining processes, or deriving high-quality information from the text is used to yield reader-generated book reviews, followed by analyzation of the words readers use to describe multicultural fiction with the goal of providing library and information science (LIS) professionals insight into reader’s perspective related to this genre.
• Francisco Palermo and Dr. Gustavo Carlo collaborated with two other researchers on the article “Latina mothers’ mental health and children’s academic readiness: Moderation by maternal education” found in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. This article looks at the association of Latina mothers’ parenting stress and depression to their children’s academic skills years later, if mothers’ positive parenting behaviors and children’s self-regulation mediated those associations, and whether the mediated associations varied based on mothers’ education.
• Lisa Y. Flores and others wrote the article “Evaluating the Scholarly Impact of Vocational Research With Diverse Racial/Ethnic Groups: 1969-2017” in the Journal of Career Development. Through citation analysis, this study evaluates the scholarly impact of career-related articles on diverse racial/ethnic groups in the U.S. from a pool of journal articles published in a variety of journals.
• Gustavo Carlo and others published the article “The quality of mother-adolescent disclosure: Links with predictors and adolescents’ sociomoral outcomes” in the journal Social Development. This article examines the factors that predict the quality of adolescents’ disclosure to their parents, more specifically their mothers, as well as the consequences of quality for adolescent’s outcomes.
• Claire Altman collaborated with a group of researchers on “Gender, Education, and Physical Health among Adults in Central Mexico” found in the journal Sociological Perspectives. This article looks at the relationship between education and health in central Mexico, whether it is gender specific, and how this relationship varies by health outcome.