UT honors NHI with Community Partnership Award

The National Hispanic Institute and the University of Texas at Austin’s ongoing partnership received public acknowledgment this past week, as the flagship university’s Division of Diversity and Community Engagement honored NHI with its Community Partnership Award.

In an awards luncheon at the Texas Union Ballroom last Thursday, the host university for the Texas Ambassador Great Debate — and the host university closest to NHI’s Maxwell headquarters — honored NHI for its work throughout the Austin community.

“The University of Texas at Austin is honored to recognize the National Hispanic Institute with the 2019 Community Partnership Award,” said Dr. Leonard N. Moore, Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement at UT-Austin. “The Division of Diversity and Community Engagement has partnered with NHI for over 10 years, bringing 300 to 400 Texas students to the UT campus for week-long programming in the summer. This award honors that strong relationship, as well as the positive effect NHI has on thousands of students nationally each year. With 98 percent of NHI participants attending college, we know there is great social and economic impact for these students.”

“We’re honored to be selected for the Community Legacy Award by the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement,” said Nicole Nieto, Executive Vice President of NHI, one of a number of NHI officers recognized at the event. “We have worked together with Dr. Victor Saenz, Erica Saenz, and Milagros Lopez since 2009 to coordinate these efforts. We deeply appreciate our partnership and UT’s stalwart support and loyalty to our mission, as well as their role in our training over 2,350 high school students at the Great Debate and LDZ programs on their campus.”

In addition to serving as the current host university for the Texas Ambassador Great Debate, UT-Austin has also been a recent home base for the Texas Lorenzo de Zavala Youth Legislative Session, one of NHI’s largest and longest-running programs. A number of NHI alumni have continued their leadership education after high school as University of Texas undergraduate and graduate students.

NHI’s mission is to develop a Latino leadership class of engaged, educated, and thoughtful community leaders who aspire to create new opportunities for the people within their communities. In ongoing efforts dating back to NHI’s founding 40 years ago, the organization seeks to identify, recruit, enroll, and train future community leaders.