Exceeding Expectations

'I'm a product of affirmative action.'

When Carlos Santiago was a graduate student at Cornell University, he was participating at a seminar when a faculty member noted out loud that Santiago was garnering quite a few interviews from doctoral programs from various universities. Then he turned to Santiago and said: "It must be because of your ethnicity."

"I was kind of dumbfounded when he said that," says Santiago, since 2005 the chancellor at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and keynote speaker at the ¡Aquí! Milwaukee Education Forum on April 3. "There'll always be people who feel that what you have achieved is due because of your race, and you have to prove them wrong."

Proving them wrong is what Santiago has been doing most of his life. In an age when many Hispanics still struggle to graduate from high school - much less college or graduate school - Santiago carries an academic résumé full of accomplishments. Besides his role as chancellor, Santiago is a full professor in economics, he's the former provost at the University of Albany, and he's the author of several books, including "Puerto Ricans in the United States: A Contemporary Portrait."

When Santiago became UWM chancellor in 2005, it was a special moment for the Latino community in Milwaukee. In 1970, hundreds of Latino activists had taken over the office of the chancellor to demand more inclusion of Hispanic students. With Santiago, the Latino community finally had one of its own running the chancellor's office. In February, Santiago took a few moments to speak with ¡Aquí! Milwaukee about a range of subjects.

Diversity on College Campuses

"It's hugely important, because students that are coming to the university will be unleashed onto a community, and in that community they will have to interact with populations of diverse backgrounds. We want them to have a broad sense of other perspectives. To the extent that a university is preparing students for the real world, if they are studying in a diverse environment, that will strengthen their experiences."

Affirmative Action

"I'm a product of affirmative action, and I say that without hesitation. When I left to go to Cornell University for a doctoral degree, I was supported financially by the Rockefeller Foundation's funds dedicated to diversifying the doctoral student ranks. If not for those funds, I could not have afforded Cornell. So for me, it would hypocritical to say I don't support affirmative action."

Best Experience in College

"It happened my first semester, I took a course in something I knew nothing about, economics, and I really fell in love with it. That transformed me in a major way, because I had started my undergraduate career thinking I wanted to be a doctor - you know, every Latino family wants a Latino doctor. But I realized I hated biology and chemistry."

Undocumented Students

"It's really a tragedy to have these students that had nothing to do with their particular status, documented or not, yet they have to suffer the consequences. By not having the opportunity to go to college, we lose a lot of very capable men and women who can help society."

Outreach

"At UWM, we have a very extensive pre-college program, a $7 million investment, that's a very important mechanism of introducing students to the university setting that otherwise wouldn't have had that opportunity."