Luís Aguilar-Herrera, MS, MEd

My professional identity lives at the intersection of three things that others sometimes treat as separate: student governance, Positive Psychology, and equity-centered leadership development. I do not experience them that way. The governance structures I oversee determine which student voices are amplified and which are not. The Positive Psychology frameworks I apply determine whether students encounter an institution that sees their potential or their deficits. The leadership development programming I design determines whether the next generation of student leaders looks like the full complexity of the campus community or only its most historically advantaged members. I believe the work of higher education is only meaningful when it extends to the students it was never designed to serve: first-generation students, rural students, and students from immigrant families who arrive without a roadmap but with everything they need to succeed. That belief is not a value statement I carry into my work. It is the architecture of my work.