Colorado State University’s El Centro welcomed Jose Hernandez Albarado as their new student success coordinator Jan. 3, making El Centro now fully staffed. 

Located alongside the other Student Diversity Programs and Services offices in the Lory Student Center, El Centro provides different types of support for the Latinx community at Colorado State and in Fort Collins. The office provides social, cultural and academic support. They work on student engagement and academic success while also encouraging cultural pride.

The El Centro mission statement says, “We strive to promote an inclusive environment that focuses on awareness and understanding of the Latinx experience.”

Albarado completed his undergraduate degree in theatre education at the University of Northern Colorado. Albarado is now finishing his Master of Science in student affairs in higher education at CSU and has been working as a graduate assistant for Off-Campus Life for the past year.

Albarado has prior experience working with students. He worked as an orientation leader and a student employee for the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center at UNC and was also part of their student senate. He also spent time teaching in high schools and elementary schools while at UNC and did practicum work with Metropolitan State University of Denver, working in their Dean of Students Office and helping with their Student Conflict Resolution Services.

“I wanted to find a more intentional way that I could give back to my community.” –Jose Hernandez Albarado, student success coordinator for El Centro

At CSU, Albarado works as a graduate advisor for Fraternity and Sorority Life and previously worked as a graduate assistant for RamRide until December 2021. He did a practicum with El Centro over the summer of 2021.

Albarado said his new job includes working with La Conexión, El Centro’s mentorship program. In the program, first-year Latinx students are paired with La Conexión mentors, who provide an additional support system academically and mentally.

Albarado said the mentors “really serve as an additional way — … and I think a more individualistic and personal way — for Latinx and Latina first-year students to seek support.”

“I wanted to find a more intentional way that I could give back to my community,” Albarado said. “I knew that it was always important for me to end up working back at an identity-based center and providing support to students in a different capacity.”

Albarado also spoke about how doing his practicum with El Centro showed him there was a space for him there. During his practicum, he helped El Centro analyze data that graduating students had provided and saw ways to engage in El Centro.

“I think that also really helped me realize that there was space for me there where I felt like I could contribute a lot of the things that I found meaningful, and I could contribute to that space while also giving feedback right to a community that I hold very dearly to my heart,” Albarado said.

He said he wants to work on things like social justice and equity while at El Centro.

“I want to work intentionally to empower my students to find those tools, to seek those tools, to get those tools and to contribute to their own liberation and to really feel empowered to frame their experiences here at CSU in a way that they want to frame them,” Albrarado said.

Reach Piper Russell at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @PiperRussell10.