This week, we’re talking to Dulcinea Lara, the academic department head and professor of Borderlands and Ethnic Studies at New Mexico State University.
Borderlands and Ethnic Studies began in 2019 as a multi-disciplinary program at NMSU to build awareness and cultural understanding of what it means to live along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Known as BEST, the department in the College of Arts and Sciences offers a multi-disciplinary graduate certificate to address the growing need for knowledge in the areas of cultural competency, equity and inclusion to work effectively with diverse populations.
Lara championed the program from its inception and advocated for its designation as a department. Her goal is to guide students in examining the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and other identities and how those identities impact people living in border communities.
We also talk at some length about Critical Race Theory, which has become a hot topic in education — and, for various reasons, particularly in New Mexico — as of late. We talk about what it means, and how it can be put into practice at various levels of instruction.
I’m grateful to have Dr. Lara joining us this week.