The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board recently awarded Project MALES  (Mentoring to Achieve Latino Educational Success) a $50,000 grant, which will provide support for the Project MALES Student Fellows Mentoring Program and will expand the number of fellows and extend mentoring to a second high school in the Austin Independent School District. In partnership with the X-Y Zone program of Communities in Schools, the mentoring program seeks to create a critical mass of young, engaged, and civic-minded Latino male students to positively affect their academic success and college readiness through mentoring bonds across multiple generations.

Led by Dr. Victor B. Sáenz, DDCE faculty fellow and assistant professor in the Department of Educational Administration, Project MALES is made up of two interrelated initiatives: a research project focused on exploring the complex experiences of Latino males in higher education; and, a pilot mentoring project that aims to cultivate an engaged support network for Latino males at UT-Austin and the Central Texas community.

For more information about Project MALES, please contact Dr. Victor B. Sáenz, at projectmales@gmail.com