¿Si No Yo, Quien? HSI Directors Leading the Way

This episode features Dra. Cyndia Morales Muñiz who serves as Senior Director of HSI Initiatives at University of Central Florida (UCF). Dra. Muñiz led efforts that resulted in UCF becoming a federally recognized HSI in 2019. She now works across the university to develop a centralized vision for maximizing this designation in a way that meaningfully serves students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members from diverse backgrounds. In this episode we learn how she leverages her HSI director role to lead the HSI movement on campus, start conversations about servingness, and encourage faculty and staff to get involved with HSI initiatives. She shares the process of UCF achieving the Seal of Excelencia and highlights the value of using the Seal’s guidelines in conjunction with the servingness framework as a way to transform the campus. She also talks about how the campus has used the HSI designation to open conversations about better serving all students, while holding people accountable for talking specifically about Latine student success. She drops so many gems for all HSI campus leaders and shares many stories of success in achieving federal, private foundation, and corporate grants to be innovative in their servingness efforts.

Cyndia Morales Muñiz (She/Her/Ella), Senior Director, HSI Initiatives, University of Central Florida

LinkedIn: Cyndia Morales Muñiz, Ed.D. | Facebook: Cyndia Morales Muñiz

LinkedIn and Facebook: UCF Hispanic Serving Institution Initiatives

Instagram: @cyndiamuniz and @ucf_hsi

APA Citation: 

Garcia, G. A. (Host). (2024, October 6). ¿Si No Yo, Quien? HSI Directors Leading the Way (No.505) [Audio podcast episode]. In ¿Qué pasa, HSIs?. https://www.ginaanngarcia.com/podcast/ 

Attachments / Show notes: 

• https://access.ucf.edu/hispanic-serving-institution/ 
• https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucf-awarded-5-7m-in-federal-funding-for-hsi-initiatives-through-2027/
• Franco, M. A., & Muñiz, C. M. (2022). Centering servingness: Framework‐informed assessment of Hispanic‐Serving Institutions. In A. A. Mitchell & K. M. Dixon (Eds.), New Directions for Student Services: Student Affairs Assessment: Nuanced Practice to Leverage Equity (97–109). Wiley.