NHI announces partnership with University of Dayton for new CWS program

The National Hispanic Institute — celebrating 40 years of developing high-performing Latino high school students into leaders through an innovative, immersive learning experience — will partner with the University of Dayton to host its capstone leadership education program in 2020. The inaugural National Collegiate World Series (CWS) program is slated to begin at the university July 22-26, 2020.

Like the established programs in Texas and Florida, along with a new Colorado-based program, the CWS will provide up to 120 top high-school students a five-day experience in which they learn about the college application process through an interactive, team-based competition, and where they’re also introduced to inquiry-based learning as a tool for self-development and community change.  It also gives some students the opportunity to live on a college campus for the first time.

“We’re excited to partner with the University of Dayton to create this experience for our students,” said Chris Nieto, Senior Vice President at NHI. “We anticipate students from throughout the Midwest, the nation, and all of the Americas to choose the University of Dayton for their CWS experience.” 

“It is an honor to come together with the National Hispanic Institute to offer this opportunity to these future leaders,” said University of Dayton President Eric F. Spina. “The goals of the CWS program align with our mission as a Catholic, Marianist institution to provide a diverse, inclusive learning community where students can link their scholarship with leadership and service.”

The CWS, designed for top Latino students between their junior and senior years of high school, is the final program in a three-year leadership education series NHI runs in partnership with host universities throughout the U.S. as well as Mexico and Panama. The three-part series of summer programs is attended by high school students with high potential to become leaders within the U.S. and global Latino communities. 

Though NHI notes that 98 percent of its students enter college, with 90 percent receiving college degrees within five years, the program is focused on much more than higher education, seeing college as only one step towards a principled leadership thinking about the Latino community as an opportunity to develop its assets.

It’s a forward-looking leadership program that NHI president and founder Ernesto Nieto notes is geared toward what communities throughout the Americas will need in the decades to come. NHI has developed the concept of immersive-disruptive learning — a self-directed, student-centered learning method that encourages critical thinking and challenges society’s assumptions and conventions — to provide both a compliment and a contrast to the education students experience during the school year.  

To register for the National CWS, go to the application page on the NHI website to get started.