About Dr. Garcia

Dr. Gina Ann Garcia is a professor in the School of Education at UC Berkeley. Her research centers on issues of equity and justice in higher education with an emphasis on understanding how Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) embrace an organizational identity for serving minoritized populations. She explores how HSIs transform their organizational structures to create a culture that values the lived realities of people of color and investigates the processes and practices that enhance the outcomes and experiences of students attending these institutions.

 

Dr. Garcia is the author of Becoming Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Opportunities for Colleges & Universities, for which she won the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education Book of the Year Award in 2020, and the editor of the book Hispanic-Serving Institutions in Practice: Defining “Servingness” at HSIs. She also authored Transforming Hispanic Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice and co-authored the companion workbook Transforming HSIs for Equity and Justice: A Practitioner’s Workbook.

 

She has delivered over 200 public lectures and workshops across the country and consults directly with HSIs to work towards organizational transformation. She is also the host of the popular podcast ¿Qué pasa, HSIs? and directs the Higher Education Action Research for Transformation Lab, affectionately known as HEART. 

 

Dr. Garcia graduated from California State University, Northridge with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, the University of Maryland, College Park with a master’s degree in college student personnel, and the University of California, Los Angeles with a Ph.D. in higher education and organizational change. She is a proud alumna of a HSI and was a Title V Coordinator at Cal State University, Fullerton.

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