Dr. Felipe Hinojosa Named a 2024-25 Fellow of HACU’s Leadership Academy/La Academia de Liderazgo

Holder of The John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair in Latin America at Baylor selected for program that increases diverse representation in higher education leadership roles

September 26, 2024
Felipe Hinojosa, Ph.D., professor of history at Baylor University and The John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair for Baylor in Latin America

Contact: Lori Fogleman, 254-709-5959
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The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities has announced that Felipe Hinojosa, Ph.D., professor of history at Baylor University and The John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair for Baylor in Latin America, is among the 45 fellows who will make up the sixth cohort of its Leadership Academy/La Academia de Liderazgo.

“I am honored to have been selected as a fellow for the HACU Leadership Academy,” said Hinojosa, who also received the Carnegie Mellon Scholarship. “This one-year fellowship program, designed to increase diverse representation in executive and senior-level positions in higher education, offers me the opportunity to meet Latina/o leaders from across the country, exchange ideas and explore ways to address our most pressing challenges as we work to better serve our students.”

Fellows participate in an array of leadership development activities preparing them for leadership roles in the full spectrum of institutions of higher learning, with an emphasis on Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Emerging HSIs. 

“The HACU Leadership Academy/La Academia de Liderazgo has a proven record of advancing diverse leaders within a wide range of higher education institutions, demonstrating the value of the program in expanding representation at the highest levels of college and university administrations” said HACU President and CEO Antonio R. Flores. “We are proud of our previous cohorts in how they have moved into the upper ranks of academia with speed and fully expect this current cohort to match if not exceed our alums in successfully breaking into leadership roles across the nation.”

Baylor in Latin America

Hinojosa joined Baylor in Fall 2023 from Texas A&M to serve as the inaugural Jackson Family Chair for Baylor in Latin America, expanding the University’s international footprint and providing additional leadership to advance the priorities of the Baylor in Latin America initiative. As Baylor grows its global impact, the Baylor in Deeds strategic plan builds upon the existing work led by Hinojosa and other faculty focused on Baylor’s nearest global neighbor, Latin America.

“I think Baylor in Deeds positions us well to continue doing the important and collaborative work started through the Latin America initiative,” Hinojosa said. “In fact, Baylor’s approach to bridging Latino and Latin American studies makes us quite unique. Few institutions take this sort of hemispheric approach and doing so helps us acknowledge the connections and disjunctures, to ask the big questions that drive our research and to be more attentive to the communities and people we study.”

Born and raised in Brownsville, Texas, Hinojosa earned a B.A. in English from Fresno Pacific University, an M.A. in history from the University of Texas Pan American and his Ph.D. from the University of Houston in 2009. Growing up as the son of a Mennonite pastor in the Texas/Mexico borderlands, Hinojosa was exposed to the power of the Gospel and how communities can harness religion and politics at the grassroots level to do good and implement change.

Hinojosa’s research focuses on Chicana/o and Latina/o studies, the civil rights movement, and American religion. His work has appeared in Zócalo Public SquareWestern Historical QuarterlyAmerican Catholic StudiesMennonite Quarterly Review, and in edited collections on Latina/o Studies. He serves on the Advisory Board for the interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed and online moderated forum Latinx Talk, on the Editorial Board for Eerdmans Publishing Co., the Historical Committee for Mennonite Church USA and on the Executive Board for the Immigration and Ethnic History Society.

Hinojosa is the author of two award-winning books: Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical Culture (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), which won the 2015 Américo Paredes Book Award for the best book in Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, and Apostles of Change: Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio (University  of Texas Press, 2021), which was awarded the 2022 Outstanding Book Award by the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education. His most recent book, Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 (New York University Press, 2022), is an edited collection with co-editors Maggie Elmore, Ph.D., now associate professor of history at Baylor, and Sergio González, Ph.D., assistant professor of history at Marquette.

He is currently working on a book on the Latinx civil rights movement and its role in shaping American democracy in the post-World War II era.

Mentorship connection

Hinojosa will participate in the one-year fellowship program that includes webinars and three seminars, with the first seminar held in October 2024 in conjunction with HACU’s 38th Annual Conference in Aurora, Colorado. The second seminar will be held in Washington, D.C., in April 2025, at HACU’s National Capitol Forum. The third seminar will take place at a still to be determined international location.

The Leadership Academy faculty consists of current and former presidents, chancellors and senior administrators and brings over 100 years of combined experience in serving various sectors of higher education, including private/public universities, community colleges and faith-based institutions. Mentorship with a university president or senior-level administrator is a key component, as well as the development of a special project designed to have an impact at the Fellow’s current institution.

The following Academy alums have attained president positions: Universidad Central del Caribe President Waleska Crespo-Rivera, Ph.D.; California State University, Fresno President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, Ph.D.; Harold Washington College President Daniel López, Jr., Ph.D.; Macalester College President Suzanne Rivera, Ph.D.; New Jersey City University President Andrés Acebo, J.D.; Oklahoma Panhandle State University President Julie Dinger, Ph.D.; College of San Mateo President Manuel Alejandro Pérez, Ed.D.; and Keiser University Miami Campus President Norma Pastor.

More information about the HACU Leadership Academy/La Academia de Liderazgo is available at www.hacu.net/leadershipacademy.

ABOUT HACU

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, founded in 1986, represents more than 500 colleges and universities in the United States, Latin America, Spain and school districts throughout the U.S. HACU is the only national association representing existing and emerging Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). The Association’s headquarters is in San Antonio, Texas, with offices in Washington, D.C, Sacramento, California, and Chicago, Illinois. 

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked Research 1 institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 20,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions. Learn more about Baylor University at www.baylor.edu

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