HSF's Alumni Hall of Fame and Education Summit
In 2002, HSF held our first formal celebration of some of our most accomplished scholars. Every year since then we’ve honored former HSF scholarship recipients and other outstanding Hispanic individuals who are powerful and positive role models for Hispanic students, and who personify our mission.
Previous Hall of Fame honorees include former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona; U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza; Senior Vice President of Corporate Responsibility at Time Warner, Lisa Quiroz; American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director, Anthony Romero; as well as physicians, artists, civic officials, business CEOs, and educators who are leaders in their respective fields.
On Tuesday, October 5, 2010 in New York City at the Mandarin Oriental, we will honor four HSF inductees, as well as Jeff Bewkes, Chairman & CEO of Time Warner Inc. and honorary inductee, Cesar Conde, President of Univision Networks. Soledad O’Brien, who is anchor and special correspondent for CNN/US will be our Master of Ceremonies.
This year, we will also conduct the first Education Summit in conjunction with the annual Alumni Hall of Fame award ceremony. An impressive roster of guest speakers will be on hand, including the Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City; Juan Sepulveda, Director, White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, as well as corporate representatives from Toyota, Marathon Oil and Coca-Cola.
The Summit will bring together leaders from foundation, corporate, and federal and state education sectors to discuss issues that impact Hispanic education and to formulate strategies designed to make a higher education more accessible to Hispanic Americans. We will explore factors that influence the attainment of a higher education for Hispanics, including financial and cultural barriers, socio-demographic differences among Latino groups, college admission and support services, and knowledge of career paths and goals.
The Education Summit comes at a critical time … America’s future depends on resolving these issues so more Hispanics can earn a college degree. In a recent speech by President Obama, America has fallen, in a single generation, from first place to 12th place in the world in the number of students completing college. And children in our middle and high schools are consistently being outperformed in math and reading by children in other countries. More concerning, a large performance gap persists between white students and African American and Latino students.
For 35 years, HSF’s mission has been to help fund higher education for Hispanic Americans, and to provide research-based programs to help pave the way for Hispanics to attain a college education. We are proud to know that the Obama Administration, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Lumina Foundation have embraced the same goal. Obama’s selection of HSF to share his Nobel Peace Prize award underscores his belief in the importance of our mission.
We hope you, as an HSF alumnus, will be able to join us for this important event. You can find more information and purchase tickets here.
If you can’t join us in person, we invite you to join us virtually. For the first time ever, we will stream the Alumni Hall of Fame live. Please join us on October 5th at 7:30 (EST) to view an amazing event full of wonderful moments that will fill your heart. To watch go to: http://www.ustream.tv/hsf