Answering questions and identifying concerns for Latinos, the Shaping Education Policy for Latinos in Illinois conference held last week helped bring issues to new levels.

The conference, which was held Nov. 9 at the NIU Naperville campus, contained numerous workshops, speeches and panels to address issues concerning the Latino community.

According to Michael Gonzales, director for Latino and Latin American studies, Manny Sanchez, chairman of the board of trustees, initiated plans for the conference to find answers to common issues.

“I think he was concerned with trying to come up with solutions of well-known problems,” Gonzales said. “I think that the major problem confronting Latino college students is lack of financial resources.”

Gonzales attributed the dropout rate of Latino students in high school and college to financial constraints.

“I think that lack of preparation can be a problem because the majority of these students come from less well-funded high schools, and I think funding is the key issue when it comes to a high school education,” Gonzales said.

Conference discussions included preparing Latinos for higher education, affirmative action case studies and the impact on Latino enrollment in higher education, Latino student success and standardized testing and its impact on Latino enrollment.

“It is important to keep the momentum going,” Gonzales said. “We must continue the dialogue and muster the political will and financial resources to effort solutions to the problems that have been identified.”

Jaime Garcia, Student Association vice president and conference speaker, spoke about the different obstacles encountered at home in his speech to the crowd.

“I was extremely happy to see that there was a lot of teachers from K-16 and administrators from other schools,” Garcia said.

Garcia said the conference helped to identify the needs of Latino students.

“It identified a problem,” Garcia said. “We are the fastest growing minority but have one of the highest dropout rates.”

An addition to the turnout of the conference was the interaction between conference attendees.

“There was a lot of communication between everybody,” Garcia said. “Everyone was really open to new things and certain situations that could pertain to their schools.”

Gonzales said the conference was held to identify key problems facing Latino students, possible solutions and to set in motion solutions to these problems.

“I am hopeful that we will have another conference next year,” Gonzales said. “This one was such a success, and we should build upon what we’ve accomplished.”

Gonzales said that the bringing of awareness of Latino concerns was accomplished through the conference.

“I think we got off to a good start,” Gonzales said. “I think we brought together a critical mass of people in the same room and talked about all these dimensions to problems and created a great deal of awareness and enthusiasm.”

Gonzales hopes that now more research can be performed and more questions can be answered.

“There are people publicly acknowledging that Northern has taken the lead and will be looking to Northern for answers,” Gonzales said. “I’d like to see offices on campus generate new research in the area of educational policy for Latinos.”