Valentina Ahedo receives The Business Forum’s ATHENA Award
Promoting diversity
Promoting diversity
By Jonathan Gramling
Whenever there is a program being held at Madison College — formerly
Madison Area Technical College — that touches on students of color, chances
are that Valentina Ahedo gave a helping hand in getting the program off the
ground. Ahedo is a program coordinator in the Office of Diversity and Community
Relations, which is headed up by Maria Bañuelos. Ahedo prefers to be in the
background facilitating successful projects, but was pushed into the limelight
November 11 when she received the 2009 ATHENA Young Professional Award
from The Business Forum.
Ahedo came to Madison College five years ago from UW-Madison because
she was afraid she was losing her native language Spanish and sought a
position where she could use it on a daily basis. When a bilingual information
specialist position opened up at the downtown campus, Ahedo jumped at the
chance because she hadn’t regularly used Spanish — outside of talking with her
mother — since she matriculated from her fifth grade ESL classes in Iowa where
she grew up.
Whenever there is a program being held at Madison College — formerly
Madison Area Technical College — that touches on students of color, chances
are that Valentina Ahedo gave a helping hand in getting the program off the
ground. Ahedo is a program coordinator in the Office of Diversity and Community
Relations, which is headed up by Maria Bañuelos. Ahedo prefers to be in the
background facilitating successful projects, but was pushed into the limelight
November 11 when she received the 2009 ATHENA Young Professional Award
from The Business Forum.
Ahedo came to Madison College five years ago from UW-Madison because
she was afraid she was losing her native language Spanish and sought a
position where she could use it on a daily basis. When a bilingual information
specialist position opened up at the downtown campus, Ahedo jumped at the
chance because she hadn’t regularly used Spanish — outside of talking with her
mother — since she matriculated from her fifth grade ESL classes in Iowa where
she grew up.
But as Madison College grew and reorganized, Ahedo’s role grew as well. When Bañuelos was promoted to associate vice president
and moved to the Truax campus, Ahedo went with her. Ahedo became a self-described generalist, tackling any challenge that was placed
before her.
Ahedo is quick to point out that the Office of Diversity and Community Relations is an umbrella for many innovative initiatives at the
school. “My position is to coordinate and manage all of the different responsibilities under that office, which don’t all have to do with
diversity,” Ahedo emphasized. “We are responsible for the South Madison campus. We just had a grand opening there. We’re responsible for
the development and collaboration with other departments and units in the college for all the short-term credit, bilingual programs that come
out. We are responsible, in some parts, for hiring part-time faculty, for implementing new teaching technologies such as telepresence video
conferencing software, a teaching tool we just purchased. We have a lot under our umbrella and it’s been one of the best things in terms of
what I do because it is really diverse. So not only is diversity part of who we are and what we do, but it is also part of our day-to-day life to do
lots of different things. I do a little bit of everything.”
One of the areas that Ahedo’s office is focused on is the changing demographics of Madison — particularly in Madison’s public schools
— and the impact it will have on the college down the road. They are placing a big emphasis on increasing the diversity of their instructional
staff. “We adopted a model called the Minority Faculty Internship where we provide a paid internship for someone who has a diverse
background,” Ahedo said. “They may not have the teaching experience that we normally look for in someone that we would normally hire.
And we take a year to mentor them. We give them a reduced teaching load. We give them the pay and benefits and the opportunity to really
grow and get those skills under their belts so they could be more competitive to be able to secure a job teaching.”
And while one can’t help but notice the student diversity as one walks the corridors of the Truax campus during class changes, Ahedo
feels the biggest challenge is to retain students after their initial enrollment at the school. “There are many different initiatives that the college
has put into place,” Ahedo said. “The biggest one is advising where we have multi-tiered advising where everyone from the front office
person when you walk in to a faculty member to a dean has a thin layer of advising responsibility so that they can all serve as resources to
students. One of the programs that our office has initiated in collaboration with a couple of other offices in the college and with support from
the foundation is the Mentoring Minority Males Scholars Program. It’s a program designed for minority males that is centered around a peer
learning community. They go to a class every couple of weeks that is led by Charles Cunningham. They go through the text of Power Learning,
which is a college skills study kind of textbook. They are sent a mentor either internally or externally to the college. We try as best we can to
set them up with work-study positions so that they are also connected at that level with the college. And then, we have events. So we do a
kick-off event at the beginning of the year. We do a little celebration at the end of the school year. What we’ve found is that for those students
who have been able to stay with us, sustain their membership in this group, it has paid off. We see it in their GPAs, their credit loads and
being more connected across the college. That for us is success. That is where we are going to see it, one student at a time. That is what we
do, transform lives, one student at a time.”
Ahedo was quite surprised that she won the ATHENA Award. “A lot of people say they are humbled by receiving the award, but I actually
am,” Ahedo said. “I don’t consider what I do or how I do it any different than what anyone else does. I would hope — maybe I am being naïve
— that people would do the best they can with the gifts that they are given, the talents that they have. If it warrants any kind of special
recognition, I don’t know. That’s not my interest. My interest is simply doing the best I can with the gift that I have been given. The fact that
was recognized is nice. It’s humbling because I tell you, the competition up there was some pretty amazing people.”
Although she wouldn’t admit it, Ahedo is quietly pretty amazing herself.
and moved to the Truax campus, Ahedo went with her. Ahedo became a self-described generalist, tackling any challenge that was placed
before her.
Ahedo is quick to point out that the Office of Diversity and Community Relations is an umbrella for many innovative initiatives at the
school. “My position is to coordinate and manage all of the different responsibilities under that office, which don’t all have to do with
diversity,” Ahedo emphasized. “We are responsible for the South Madison campus. We just had a grand opening there. We’re responsible for
the development and collaboration with other departments and units in the college for all the short-term credit, bilingual programs that come
out. We are responsible, in some parts, for hiring part-time faculty, for implementing new teaching technologies such as telepresence video
conferencing software, a teaching tool we just purchased. We have a lot under our umbrella and it’s been one of the best things in terms of
what I do because it is really diverse. So not only is diversity part of who we are and what we do, but it is also part of our day-to-day life to do
lots of different things. I do a little bit of everything.”
One of the areas that Ahedo’s office is focused on is the changing demographics of Madison — particularly in Madison’s public schools
— and the impact it will have on the college down the road. They are placing a big emphasis on increasing the diversity of their instructional
staff. “We adopted a model called the Minority Faculty Internship where we provide a paid internship for someone who has a diverse
background,” Ahedo said. “They may not have the teaching experience that we normally look for in someone that we would normally hire.
And we take a year to mentor them. We give them a reduced teaching load. We give them the pay and benefits and the opportunity to really
grow and get those skills under their belts so they could be more competitive to be able to secure a job teaching.”
And while one can’t help but notice the student diversity as one walks the corridors of the Truax campus during class changes, Ahedo
feels the biggest challenge is to retain students after their initial enrollment at the school. “There are many different initiatives that the college
has put into place,” Ahedo said. “The biggest one is advising where we have multi-tiered advising where everyone from the front office
person when you walk in to a faculty member to a dean has a thin layer of advising responsibility so that they can all serve as resources to
students. One of the programs that our office has initiated in collaboration with a couple of other offices in the college and with support from
the foundation is the Mentoring Minority Males Scholars Program. It’s a program designed for minority males that is centered around a peer
learning community. They go to a class every couple of weeks that is led by Charles Cunningham. They go through the text of Power Learning,
which is a college skills study kind of textbook. They are sent a mentor either internally or externally to the college. We try as best we can to
set them up with work-study positions so that they are also connected at that level with the college. And then, we have events. So we do a
kick-off event at the beginning of the year. We do a little celebration at the end of the school year. What we’ve found is that for those students
who have been able to stay with us, sustain their membership in this group, it has paid off. We see it in their GPAs, their credit loads and
being more connected across the college. That for us is success. That is where we are going to see it, one student at a time. That is what we
do, transform lives, one student at a time.”
Ahedo was quite surprised that she won the ATHENA Award. “A lot of people say they are humbled by receiving the award, but I actually
am,” Ahedo said. “I don’t consider what I do or how I do it any different than what anyone else does. I would hope — maybe I am being naïve
— that people would do the best they can with the gifts that they are given, the talents that they have. If it warrants any kind of special
recognition, I don’t know. That’s not my interest. My interest is simply doing the best I can with the gift that I have been given. The fact that
was recognized is nice. It’s humbling because I tell you, the competition up there was some pretty amazing people.”
Although she wouldn’t admit it, Ahedo is quietly pretty amazing herself.
Valentina Ahedo has been an administrator with Madison
College for five years.
College for five years.
