Cindy Nava⁠, Senator,⁠ New Mexico State⁠, & ⁠Deborah Santiago⁠, CEO, ⁠Excelencia in Education⁠

I had the privilege of sitting down with New Mexico State Senator and Majority Whip Cindy Nava and Deborah Santiago , Co-founder & CEO of Excelencia in Education. The passion for their work inspired the room! These pieces from our conversation also stayed with me: → Senator Nava was a DACA recipient. Today she helps lead the New Mexico State Senate. She knows firsthand what students face when the system isn't built for them, and she brings that into the room where policy gets made. → Enrolling Latino students and serving them are not the same thing. Deborah has spent decades making that distinction impossible to ignore. Access opens the door. Service is what happens once a student walks through it. → The question I keep coming back to: how do you lead without losing sight of why you started? Both of them answered it by example. I left Philadelphia clearer about my own work. The strongest enrollment strategy in the world means nothing if the institution isn't built to serve the student it recruited. Thank you, Cindy and Deborah, and thank you to Lumina Foundation for making room for these conversations and these incredible leaders. Are you ready to #EdUp?! 🎙️ 🎧 Check out the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/eG3aTFWZ 🎥 OR WATCH the episode here: https://lnkd.in/ea_Gtjpu Lumina Foundation Excelencia in Education The EdUp Experience #HigherEd #LatinoStudentSuccess #EdUp