With attendance of 36 out of 42 presidents and representatives from our institutional members; HETS celebrated its second virtual winter Board Meeting on February 5, 2021 through the Zoom platform. The Board meeting discussed the first semester of academic year 2020-2021, the fourth year of the Strategic Plan 2017-2021. With a positive report on our Strategic plan results, including the increase of the use of our online resources, while envisioning to continue with new projects for next semester, including more webinars and continue offering our online workshops initiative.
Among the initiatives, HETS shared with the Board, were highlighted the major activities to support the organizational programmatic goals such as the publication of the Fall Issue of the HETS Online Journal in another special collaboration with HACU and additional tools and services that were enhanced to the HETS Virtual Plaza. Other initiatives included the Student Leadership Showcase held online in September in Spanish for Puerto Rico and Latin America, and in October in English for the United States, and the 2021 Virtual Best Practices Showcase Conference and Opening Session.
During the meeting, HETS Chair Dr. Carlos Morales welcomed the representatives of two of the four new member institutions: Dr. Daniel Ward from New Jersey City University, and Mr. Faust Gorham from California State University, Bakersfield. In addition, a corporate session was held in which various partners’ representatives shared with Board Members their latest trends to support Hispanic Serving Institutions and their educational community included. Among these representatives were: Ms. Dorotha Ford and Mr. Abraham López from Blackboard, Mr. Carlos Crespo and Ms. Maria Cruz from COBIMET, and Mr. Pablo Rodríguez from PR Top Level Domain. We are looking forward to continuing strengthen our HETS initiatives in the upcoming semester to foster greater collaboration among all of our affiliates and widen our partnerships with other organizations, as we continue developing new strategies to innovate and support our services.