The Virginia Latino Higher Education Network (VALHEN) is an organization designed to serve as a networking structure for individuals in colleges, universities, and the community-at-large, to communicate, advocate, organize, research, and identify resources which support and work towards the success of Latinos in higher education in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The VALHEN Board includes (in alphabetical order):
Sylvia Rosa-Casanova (Treasurer) is the Compliance Manager for the private and Out-of-State- Postsecondary Education unit of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). She earned a B.A. with honors in English from Mercy College and a M.A. in Writing from Manhattanville College. A native of New York, she was director of the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) at Manhattanville College- a program serving economically disadvantaged and academically underprepared students. Prior to relocating to Virginia in 2007, she held the position of Research Compliance Manager at Columbia University.
A published author, her children’s book Mama Provi and the Pot of Rice, a Reading Rainbow selection published in 1997, relates the story of a Puerto Rican grandmother and the multi-ethnic feast she collects on the way to visit her granddaughter. She was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul.
George Font, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the College of Education at James Madison University. The focus of his research is to generate small-scale, mixed-method studies that involve connections between digital resources and literacy learning. His work draws on existing funds of knowledge in studying practices rooted in the life circumstances of diverse learners. It is a 21st Century learner-centered approach that involves interpretation, negotiation, and reconceptualization.
Dr. Font’s professional experience is embedded in a social constructivist agenda using strategies that integrate content, context, and community of practice.
Judy Mejia (Secretary) is the Program Manager for the Richmond Families Initiative at the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement of the University of Richmond. Mejia leads the Center's community engagement efforts at the newly opened University of Richmond Downtown campus. She earned a B.A. with honors in Communication with minors in Latin American Studies and Business Management from George Mason University, Fairfax Campus. She also holds an M.A. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Education, Teachers College, in Education Policy.
A Richmond native, Mejia worked for five years in education policy and research for the New York State Education Department and for the New York City Council Education Committee. Prior to her return to Virginia, she managed university-community partnerships in the Bronx and Harlem for both the City University of New York's Lehman College and Columbia University's Teachers College.
Mirta M. Martin (Vice-President) serves as the Special Assistant to the Chancellor for the Virginia Community College System. Prior to this assignment, Dr. Martin served as the Special Assistant to the President of John Tyler Community College and the Executive Vice President of the John Tyler Community Foundation, where she provided leadership in building an effective development and outreach program. She received her Baccalaureate from Duke University, with a triple major in Political Science, Psychology, and French. She has an MBA from the University of Richmond and a Ph.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University with a concentration in Strategic Management and Leadership.
Previously, she directed executive education and workforce activities at the University of Richmond, Robins School of Business. She also has over fourteen years experience as a tenured faculty member and administrator. Dr. Martin started her career in the banking industry, serving in her last position as Senior Vice President for First Union Bank.
Marcela Chaván- Matviuk, Ph.D. serves as director for the Center for Latino Leadership at Regent University. She has extensive experience in higher education, ethics, entrepreneurship, mass media, community and faith based organizations. Her topics of research include the testimonial communication, the impact of leadership training centered on values, women’s leadership and the experience of Latino students in Christian higher education. She has a Ph.D. in Intercultural and International Communication, and master’s degree in Counseling and Social Communication.
Dr. Chaván- Matviuk is actively involved in the community as chair of the education committee of the Hampton Roads Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, founder and outreach director of Hispanic Leadership Forum, and Chair of the LALP scholarship program.
María Nieto-Shahsavarian (Board Member) holds a dual appointment as an Outreach/Development Specialist for the Pathway to the Baccalaureate Program and as a Spanish Instructor for the Department of Languages and Literature at Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC). She holds a Master of Arts in Foreign Language and a B.A. in Government and International Politics.
She has over 20 years of experience at NVCC, where she has served in various capacities on three of the college’s campuses, including Program Manager and Medical interpreter (Spanish/English) at the Medical Campus. Ms. Nieto-Shahsavarian is a native Peruvian, with extensive multicultural and global experience.
Aida Pacheco works for the Virginia Community College System, Workforce Development Services, providing strategic leadership and policy direction as staff to the Virginia Workforce Council. She has extensive experience in program development and management, technical assistance and consultation, networking and building collaborative partnerships, and community organizing and planning.
Ms. Pacheco was influential in establishing the first Hispanic human service agency in Mercer County NJ, known as MECHA. In Virginia, she was one of six Latinos working in the Governor’s Office from 2006-2008 assisting the Senior Advisor to the Governor for Workforce to reform the Commonwealth’s Workforce Development System. She is a board member for the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Aida Pacheco was born in NYC and raised in NJ. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Sociology, a teacher certification for secondary education, and a program certificate in Latin American Studies.
Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones (Board Member) is Associate Dean in Residence and Director of the Office for Diversity Programs at the Graduate School, an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science, and a member of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech. Pérez-Quiñones holds a D. Sc. in Computer Science from The George Washington University. His research interests include human-computer interaction, personal information management, user interface software, digital government, and educational uses of computers.
Dr. Pérez-Quiñones is the chair of the Coalition to Diversify Computing (2010-2011), and has been a member since 2006; he co-directed the national program Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates in Computer Science and Engineering. He serves on the editorial board for the ACM Transaction on Computing Education. For 2008-2010 has been included in the IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitor program.
Maricel Quintana-Baker (President) is currently a principal at MQB-Consulting, where she specializes in research, writing, and training on higher education policy and Latino and women issues. Previously she served as Associate Director for Academic Affairs and Planning at the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), where her duties included Virginia's Outstanding Faculty Awards, the Agency's Statewide Strategic Plan, and research and writing on higher education policy. She is a member of the National Advisory Board for the Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities' Higher Education Research Collective (H3ERC).
Dr. Quintana-Baker currently holds a gubernatorial appointment to the Virginia Council on the Status of Women. She was also appointed by Governor Warner to the Virginia Latino Advisory Board, where she served for five years. She is a founding member of the Central Virginia Chapter of LULAC (League of Latin American Citizens) and recently completed a term of service with the Executive Board of The Women's Network, the state affiliate of the American Council on Education's Office of Women in Higher Education.
She held an Oakridge Institute for Science and Education Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the National Science Foundation's Division of Education and Human Resource Development. She holds a Ph.D. from American University, and is a graduate of the Management Development Program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education and of Leadership Metro Richmond.
Maureen G. Shanahan, J.D., Ph.D. is associate director of the Honors Program and associate professor of art history in the School of Art and Art History at James Madison University. She has served on the university’s College of Visual and Performing Arts’ Diversity Council and has supported the university’s mission on diversity by collaborating with the Center for Multicultural Student Services to bring nationally-recognized scholars to campus. She has also been a successful fundraiser for the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, the Sate University of New York, Oswego’s Women’s Studies Program, James Madison University’s Honors Program, and the Women’s Caucus for Art. Her academic interests focus on issues of race and national identity as well as gender and sexuality in modern art, including research into representations of Simón Bolívar.
Emily Sumner, Esq. (Community Representative) is an immigration attorney at Challa Law Offices in Richmond, with a focus in university immigration. She speaks Spanish, having lived in Salamanca, Spain, and regularly advises clients on complex immigration matters in their native Spanish.
Ms. Sumner is also co-chair of the Immigrant Outreach Committee, a division of the Virginia State Bar, dedicated to educating other lawyers on legal issues relevant to the immigrant community.
Dr. Enrique G. Zapatero is an associate professor of management information systems at Norfolk State University (NSU) in Norfolk, VA. He has several publications in the areas of e-commerce, virtual learning environments, and multi-attribute decision support systems. He is the principal investigator in a 2008 Hewlett-Packard Technology for Teaching.
Dr. Zapatero serves as chair of the General Education Council, member of the executive board of the Quality Enhancement Plan Implementation Committee, co-chair of the School of Business Assurance of Learning and Curriculum Committee, and Director of the Center for The Enhancement of Teaching, Learning, and Advising (www.nsu.edu/CETLA). He is the president of the NSU Chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society and serves as a MIS-track reviewer for the American Society of Business and Behavioral Sciences annual conferences. He earned a Ph.D. in Business at Virginia Commonwealth University.