The Women in Education group: (l-r) Betsy Brenner, Mavel M Marina, Yesica Gómez Hernandez, Arely Velasco Miranda, Montserrat Flores Alcalá, Lupe Navarro-Garcia, Kitzia Larissa López Jiménez
This summer four scholars from the largest public university in Puebla, Mexico, known as Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP), came to UC Santa Barbara for a month-long project named Women in Education. Gevirtz School alumna Dr. Mavel M Marina (Education, Ph.D., ’13) organized this cross-cultural event in response to a request that scholars from BUAP sought additional research guidance. In order to do so, Marina put together a group of specialized faculty and staff with former dissertation advisor Dr. Betsy Brenner from the Gevirtz School’s Department of Education, Director of the Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS) Simran Singh and Acting Assistant Vice Chancellor of Student Academic Support Services Dr. Lupe Navarro-Garcia.
Marina, who currently works as an International Scholar Specialist at OISS, designed the month-long agenda that assisted scholars with expanding their literature reviews to include more U.S. and international authors and provided sessions that guided the focus of their theoretical frameworks.
The four Mexican scholars and their research topics for the summer were: Arely Velasco Miranda—“Gender perspective workshops as a strategy to reducing sexting in secondary schooling;” Kitzia Larissa López Jiménez—“Using images to improve reading comprehension skills for high school students;” Montserrat Flores Alcalá—“Implementation of playful/ludic game based strategies to enhance the learning of probability and statistics;” and, Yesica Gómez Hernandez—“Experience of Indigenous Women incorporated in CONACYT (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia) programming dedicated to regional enhancement.”
In addition to this academic work, the program also provided the opportunity: for the visitors to enhance their English language skills; for UCSB staff and students to enhance their academic Spanish; for the visitors to learn more about the structure and function of U.S. higher education; and for the visitors to take part in optional cultural activities that further enhanced their cultural experience while in the U.S.
“We believe that the project was really successful,” Marina says. “Both faculty and staff who participated in the project learned a lot from these scholars, but what sticks more in my mind is that many became more aware of the gender and education issues in Mexico and they also learned about the interest women from Mexico have in learning how these same issues impact research in the U.S.”
Dr. Edgar Gómez Bonilla, the Chair of the Department of Education at the University in Puebla, met with the scholars after their return to Mexico, and he has made it a priority to continue the collaboration. Gomez has committed to arranging funding in collaboration with CONACYT for a second scholar visit to UCSB scheduled for July 2019. He has also committed to arrange funding for travel to Puebla, Mexico in January 2019 and October 2019 for the UCSB contingent who guided scholars.