Latin American Herald Tribune - Miami Dade College Marks 50 Years as Model of Education for Hispanics

Latin American Herald Tribune - Miami Dade College Marks 50 Years as Model of Education for Hispanics

Miami Dade College Marks 50 Years as Model of Education for Hispanics MIAMI – Miami Dade College commemorates this week its 50th year as the center of higher education with the greatest number of students in the United States and as a model of quality teaching for Hispanic undergraduates. With 171,000 students from 182 different countries, MDC is known in the United States as an example of college education for minority groups and for Latin American countries that need to improve their educational standards. “Education is key to a nation’s development. We live in a world dominated by a knowledge economy and without education there is no hope for development,” MDC President Eduardo Padron tells Efe. “Education is vital for the Hispanic community, and for the United States having Latinos and other minorities go to college is a matter of survival,” the 66-year-old Padron, who became head of the school in 1995, said. On Thursday, MDC commemorates its 50th anniversary at a time when its reputation is at its highest point ever for the number of students it graduates every year, for the name and the fame it has acquired and for the national influence exercised by Padron himself. Born in Santiago de Cuba, Padron came to the United States as an exile when he was 15, and for 40 years he has been associated with Miami Dade College. “When I came to the United States and they asked me what I wanted to be, I said I wanted to be rich. Not an engineer, not a businessman, not an economist, I wanted to be rich. I worked in several companies where I could have made myself rich, but I discovered that my vocation was education, which I still pursue with the same passion,” he said. Padron was selected in 2009 by Time magazine as one of the nation’s 10 best college presidents, and this year President Barack Obama named him chairman of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. The goal of this effort is to create a national awareness of the importance of education and “convince the country that the challenge is to educate each and every one of its citizens,” he said. “Nobody and least of all Hispanics can be marginalized. Without going to college there are no opportunities. Human potential is infinite and university education is the key to collective prosperity,” Padron said. With the turbulent political climate surrounding immigration in the United States, which is giving Hispanics a very negative image, Padron sees a need to boost educational standards and reduce the high dropout rate among Hispanics. “People without a university degree can expect to earn no more than a minimum wage. Those with only a high school diploma have three times more likelihood to be jobless than those who have graduated from college,” he said. In the face of that situation, the role of institutions like Miami Dade College is make getting a degree possible for students who, because of their academic qualifications, cannot get into most universities. “Our open-door policy allows students without sufficient initial learning to begin taking a course. We welcome with open arms students who don’t belong to the elite and we facilitate their learning. For that reason MDC is a real factory of dreams,” Padron said. The MDC president stressed how much merit there is in preparing these students “because we already know that those who go to Harvard are going to succeed,” given their solid educational attainments. Padron said that the experience of Miami Dade College now serves as an example for schools in Brazil, Colombia and Argentina, whose rectors maintain ties of collaboration to improve the standards of college teaching in those countries. “Latin America has to establish a system of higher education for the middle class, not just for the elite as has been the case up to now. The current formula that increases the gap between rich and poor only leads to disaster,” he said. The main event commemorating MDC’s 50th anniversary will take place Thursday at the iconic Freedom Tower of Miami with a ceremony to which the leaders, companies, alumni and the most representative figures of South Florida have been invited. EFE