Hispanic College Institute wraps up a third year
Seventy-eight students of either Hispanic or Latino origin from three different states learned a little about the ins and outs of college life this year during their four days and three nights on the Fort Hays State University campus. The Hispanic College Institute is for students heading into their junior or senior years of high school.
Rigoberto Ramirez, a 2003 graduate of FHSU and that year’s winner of the Torch Award as the outstanding graduating senior, was born in Mexico but grew up in Great Bend. He is now completing his final two years of training in clinical cardiac electrophysiology at the St. Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo.
His story of turning a low grade-point average into a 3.94 on a 4.0 scale was one of the featured stories at the recent third annual HCI at Fort Hays State, Hays.
Ramirez was able to relate to the students firsthand, telling his story of growing up in Great Bend. Neither his father or mother attended high school. His father had an eighth-grade education and his mother seventh-grade, and Ramirez said he wanted more.
“There were two ways I could approach this,” he said. “I could throw my hands up and not go to college or learn from the experience and try to turn it around and do something positive.”
Another guest speaker was Sonia Esquivel, also a native of Mexico, who grew up in Garden City. She is now an assistant professor and counselor at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
“My overall favorite part of the entire program is our leads and all our staff who help our students realize their potential to go to college and that they can be successful in college,” said Taylor Kriley, director of inclusion and diversity excellence at FHSU and one of the HCI directors.
