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As a Hispanic-serving establishment, Pacific Oaks Faculty has a objective to not solely enroll college students who’re Hispanic and Latino however to serve their distinctive wants, as nicely.
Jack Paduntin, Pacific Oaks Faculty
Mild salsa music accompanies podcast host Douglas Lezameta as he introduces his newest episode. “Bienvenidos al podcast Pacific Oaks Faculty, Hispanic-serving establishment, ¡Tu sueño tu Realidad!” Lezameta says.
Pacific Oaks Faculty, a Hispanic-serving establishment in Pasadena, Calif., created a podcast to succeed in the Latino inhabitants on campus and within the surrounding group, illuminating providers and assets accessible for scholar success in addition to the testimonies of those that have reached their desires.
The podcast identify, which interprets to “Your dream, your actuality!” is a component of a bigger effort not simply enroll to but in addition to serve Hispanic learners in distinct methods.
The background: Pacific Oaks obtained a $2.5 million Title V grant from the U.S. Division of Schooling in 2020 to help its creating HSI id. The five-year grant helps growth of educational providers, mentoring, college, curriculum and different assets.
Utilizing the grant funding, Pacific Oaks created the Latinx+ Help Success Initiative for Latino and different underserved scholar teams on the school, together with a bodily success middle, skilled growth alternatives, a speaker sequence, a brand new endowment fund and the podcast.
Pacific Oaks has a excessive success fee for its Hispanic college students, however officers wished to proceed to have interaction, retain and graduate learners at a fair increased fee, Pacific Oaks president Jack Paduntin says.
The necessity: Judy Castro, affiliate vice chairman of partnership at Pacific Oaks, developed the podcast with goals to help present college students and members of the group who could also be unfamiliar with this sort of perception into increased schooling.
The common scholar at Pacific Oaks is 36 years outdated, so many of the listeners are older grownup college students and their households or members of the group.
The podcast format additionally permits Pacific Oaks to have interaction with listeners on demand, every time they wish to hear on or off campus, Paduntin says.
The way it works: The podcast opens with an introduction to Pacific Oaks, sharing its location, HSI designation and the grant funding for scholar success. Throughout every episode, host Lezameta interviews a member of Pacific Oaks group about their experiences or experience in increased schooling.
Matters lined up to now embrace school success as an immigrant, transferring from a group school to a four-year college, the variations in school levels, monetary assist, first-generation college students and mentorship. Matter choice is “natural and genuine,” Paduntin says, with college students and employees providing topics which can be vital to them.
Episodes are recorded in English and Spanish, permitting listeners to resolve their most popular language with out sacrificing high quality or content material. Some company, together with Castro, have recorded in each languages, as nicely.
The podcast is hosted by Fusion Latina Community and accessible on a number of streaming platforms, together with Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart Radio and Google Podcasts. The podcast is marketed internally through e mail bulletins and promoted on the school’s social media platforms, however listeners vary from throughout the state and in cities exterior of California, an indication to campus leaders that extra than simply Pacific Oaks college students tune in.
With every episode, Pacific Oaks hopes to be constant, related and fascinating to its viewers, Paduntin says.
The subsequent steps: Pacific Oaks has two extra years of grant funding, and the podcast is gearing up for its second installment of episodes, or its second season, as Paduntin places it. With the success of its bilingual content material, the podcast may even be accessible in additional languages for the second season.
Analytics from the podcast’s platforms present that the three of the highest 5 hottest episodes in Spanish, with “Anclados en la educación: la historia de un inmigrante” the preferred on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
For future episodes, school officers wish to assist bridge college students’ desires with workforce wants, like supporting California’s trainer scarcity, or how their cultural background might be utilized to their vocational objectives, corresponding to the wedding and household therapists’ Latinx household research program.
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