To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, we have gathered some of our favorite stories from Common Thread, the Seed Field Podcast, and the Antioch Alumni Magazine that showcase the unique voices, experiences, and contributions of Antioch University’s Latinx/Latine community. This has been a big year in many respects for Antioch, including the signing of a memorandum of understanding with a leading Honduran university, the launch of a new MA in School Counseling with an emphasis in anti-racism, and another successful Latinx Mental Health and Social Justice Virtual Symposium. (The next one comes October 9-10.) We invite you to read and listen to these pieces as you engage with this month-long celebration of Hispanic Heritage at Antioch University and in the U.S. as a whole.
Expanding Commitment to Latinx Justice, Antioch University Formalizes Relationship With Honduran University
Antioch University and the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Francisco Morazán in Honduras recently signed a memorandum of understanding committing to working together on future research, educational and cultural exchange projects, and social justice initiatives. This agreement, signed by the leaders of both universities, formalizes the relationship between the two and sets the stage for future collaborations, cross-cultural pathways, and connections—especially in the fields of school counseling and mental health… [READ MORE]
Cool Course: Latinx/e Theories & Clinical Practice
Douglas Valdez grew up familiar with curandería, the traditional healing practices that his mother had learned as a child in Mexico. When he was sick, she would pull out an array of herbal tinctures and dapple his tongue with their bitter, dark liquid. When his skin got irritated, his mother spread tangerine peels on it—their aroma delicious and lingering. His mother herself suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and to find relief for her swollen, painful joints, she sought the help of a different medical tradition: acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. To get these treatments, she regularly brought Valdez on the journey from their predominantly Latinx/e neighborhood in Los Angeles to nearby Chinatown… [READ MORE]
Syntia Santos Dietz Publishes Article “Reflections about School Counseling in Latin America: A Call for Action”
Syntia Santos Dietz, PhD, Associate Professor in New England’s Clinical Mental Health Counseling program and MA in School Counseling Program Director, published her article: “Reflexiones Sobre la Orientación Educativa en América Latina: Un Llamado a la Acción” (Reflections about School Counseling in Latin America: A Call for Action) as part of a special edition of the Journal of School-Based Counseling Policy and Evaluation.… [READ MORE]
We Are the Storytellers: How MFA Alum Ligiah Villalobos Is Changing Film and TV Writing
Ligiah Villalobos Rojas was an executive at The Walt Disney Company, where part of her job was to review scripts written by fellows in the Writing Fellowship Program, giving each script the detailed feedback known as “executive notes.” Villalobos Rojas already had decades of experience as a Current and Development executive on various primetime television shows. But one day, after she shared her notes, one of the fellows asked her if she was a writer. She brought insights and thoughtfulness that marked her as not just an executive but an artist. This question surprised Villalobos Rojas, who today is an alum of both Antioch University’s BA in Liberal Studies and its MFA in Creative Writing… [READ MORE]
S6 E8: Our World’s Diverse Students Need Anti-Racist School Counselors
Syntia Santos-Dietz says that school counselors are especially situated to make changes that better serve students around the world. In this conversation, we talk about what it means for school counselors to develop cultural competence, how traveling back and forth between cultures has helped her understand the systems she works within, and her plan to bring Antioch school counseling students to work and study in her home country of Honduras… [LISTEN TO THE EPISODE]
Big Idea: Decolonizing Mental Health Education
As mental health professionals grapple with racism and exclusion in some of their foundational texts and concepts, a movement of reformers is working to decolonize the field. But what does that look like? And how will it impact our communities? In this episode, we gather the voices of seven different faculty members from across Antioch University’s counseling, psychology, and therapy programs—and hear their insights into this important work. This Big Idea episode pulls clips from interviews with Jude Bergkamp, Beth Donahue, Mariaimeé Gonzalez, Catherine Lounsbury, Mariela Marin, Amy Morrison, and Syntia Santos Dietz.… [LISTEN TO THE EPISODE]
S5 E5: Cultural Self-Assessment Is a Practice With Transformative Potential
What if we took this practice of cultural self-assessment—and went further? What if we used it as a jumping off place to really develop skills to navigate cultural differences and combat discrimination? That’s what today’s guest, Mariela Marin, encourages their students in the MA in Clinical Psychology program to do… [LISTEN TO THE EPISODE]
Dissertation Watch: Parentification and the Protective Factor of Familismo in the Latine Community
Leury Peña’s 2024 dissertation for the PhD in Couple and Family Therapy program studies parentification, the parent-child role reversal where children and adolescents take on parental responsibilities within the family. This complex phenomenon has been understudied, particularly within Latine and Hispanic households… [READ MORE]
Roberto Lovato — A Revolutionary Life in Four Acts
Roberto Lovato sits inside La Boheme, the same Mission neighborhood café where the voices of poets like Piri Thomas, Juan Felipe Herrera, Diane Di Prima, and Jack Hirschman still resonate. Over the previous five years, he’s spent countless hours there, writing. Noise-canceling headphones wired to an open laptop sitting on a vintage Singer sewing machine that doubles as a table are strapped over his bald head and cover his ears. His eyes are fixed on the screen as he waves his hands playing air guitar.… [READ MORE]
