Working on the downtown Denver campus for 14 years has provided René Galindo with a great deal of insight. As Galindo moves from his position as associate director of the Latino/a Research & Policy Center to associate dean for faculty and student affairs in the School of Education, that insight is vital.
In addition to oversight of the student services center and faculty services in the SOE, Galindo will work with faculty and staff to promote greater diversity throughout the school. “We’re going to make sure we’re supporting the minority faculty we have now,” he stressed, “and we’re finding ways to attract minority students. Across time I’ve seen different efforts in this area, and I’ve given it a lot of thought throughout those years.”
Galindo will be researching which traditional means of recruiting students and faculty and retaining faculty have been successful, which haven't worked and why. Some options include initiating more attractive offers, such as post-doctoral fellowships, to increase the incentive for minority faculty to come to the University of Colorado Denver in downtown Denver. “We need to introduce innovative ways to promote diversity because traditional ways haven’t paid off as well as we’d like.”
Born and raised in southern Arizona in the border town of Nogales, Galindo received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from the University of Arizona. He continued his education in the midwest, receiving his PhD in Education with a specialization in language and literacy at Ohio State University. Before his appointment as associate director of the Latino/a Research & Policy Center in 1999, Galindo was assistant, then associate professor in SOE’s Division of Language, Literacy and Culture.
He’s been active in the Denver community with efforts to improve education for Latino students and was instrumental in the establishment of the Sandoval dual-language, Montessori school in Denver, now in its fourth year.
Galindo’s current research in the area of language policy has examined relations among historical attitudes towards immigrants, language ideology, and nativism. For three years he researched Chicana teacher role identity and a biographical exploration of Chicano educational success. His work on teacher role identity examined connections between teachers' biographical experiences as minority students and educators and how they view and define themselves as teachers. The research provided examples to minority students who want to become teachers of how other minorities bridged their life experiences with their occupational role. Another area of his research examined of the relationships among literacy, culture, and social identity in Amish writing.
Galindo’s recent publications include “Dual Sources of Influence on Latino Political Identity: Mexico’s Dual Nationality Policy and the DREAM Act,” Texas Hispanic Journal of Law and Policy, “Newspaper Editorial Response to California’s Post-Proposition 227 Test Scores, Journal of Latinos & Education, and “Language Restrictionism Revisited: The Case Against Colorado’s 2000 Anti-Bilingual Education Initiative,” The Harvard Latino Law Review. He’s contributed to Education and Urban Society, and has been awarded numerous research grants and personnel training grants.