Santa Fe College will host an admissions event for Spanish-speaking students and their family members who may be considering applying for admission to the school.
The event, called Sigue Soñando, which is the Spanish term for “keep dreaming,” will be hosted completely in Spanish. Representatives from the admissions office, international studies department, academic affairs department and the English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program will be there to help prospective students and their families learn about the admissions process at Santa Fe College.
The Sigue Soñando - Keep Dreaming event will be held at the Santa Fe College Northwest Campus in Room R-001 on Thursday, April 14 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. It will be a hybrid event, offering people the option to eitherjoin in-person or via Zoom.
This event is one of the first steps Santa Fe College is taking to connect with a diverse population of students.
“We have a diverse student population here at Santa Fe, with students coming from many different countries and we see that we have an opportunity there to reach our population and our community,” said Michael Laffey, the coordinator for international student services. “This is a great way to connect with some members of our community and make sure that they know what the process is like, what coming to school at Santa Fe College is like, and what they can study once they are here. This is a great opportunity to connect with more people.”
The event will cover a variety of topics and aims to clarify the application and admissions process for prospective students and their family members, according to Laffey.
“This is for members in our community whose primary language at home may be Spanish, and they are looking to learn more about going to college in Alachua County,” he said.
Prospective students will receive information on admissions, Florida residency and financial aid. They can also explore information on the degree programs.
Representatives from the Adult Education and ESOL program will be on hand to talk about the programs and classes offered to learn English as a second language, Laffey said.
Santa Fe College wants to provide resources for these students and show them that they have a community that supports them there.
“We realized that this was a community that we haven’t tackled before and myself, someone who is bilingual and comes from a primarily Spanish-speaking family, this is important when it comes to education,” said Ismelda Alvarez, an admissions specialist in the Office of Admissions. “So we offer all kinds of resources and for this event, in particular, our goal is to tackle all families, students, and even family members who are not of the immediate family because we find that, when it comes to the Hispanic culture, family is a big deal.”
Representatives at the event want to help attendees better understand what Santa Fe College has to offer.
“I have people on this committee who are from all these different departments and we all have an understanding that depending on where the student is, because it is case by case, we will be able to assist them which is why at this event we will give them all of this information at once. Then we will be able to personalize their experience for them afterwards,” Alvarez said.
As of now, the Sigue Soñando - Keep Dreaming event and the ESOL program are the only language-aid initiatives that exist within Santa Fe College, but Alvarez said her goal is to expand to have programs designed for several languages, in addition to Spanish.
ESOL is an adult education program at Santa Fe College that helps non-native English speakers improve their English skills while also helping them choose a career path of their choice and develop employable skills. ESOL offers morning classes at the Santa Fe Northwest campus and evening classes at the downtown campus.
“The students who come to us have some sort of deficiency in English language ability that is preventing them from attending the type of jobs they want or pursuing education in the United States,” Adult Education ESOL Specialist Alexander Kronholm said. “So our job is to fill that gap and give them that language fluency they need to reach their goals.”
Once students reach a confident level of English proficiency, the program is designed to help them pursue other avenues. Those include applying for jobs, building their resumé, understanding the application process, preparing for interviews, or transferring to another education program, Kronholm said.
When ESOL presents to prospective Spanish-speaking students, the goal is also to reach their families.
“The goal for our side of it is that when students are going to come here and learn about degree programs at Santa Fe College, they might also bring their family,” Kronholm said. “So we are trying to extend our services to the wider Spanish-speaking community whose brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and other family members might need English classes for their career or education goals.”
The University of Florida has a program similar to ESOL that is called the English Language Institute. Although the goal of UF’s ELI isn’t to help students become bilingual, it offers similar concepts to Santa Fe College’s ESOL program because it serves as an intensive learning program for students who speak one or more languages to become proficient English.
“We serve students who speak languages from over 30 different countries right now,” UF English Language Institute director Megan Forbes said. “Our mission is to help them succeed in institutions of higher learning in the United States.”
This event will serve as Santa Fe College’s first step in reaching diverse populations that speak different languages similar to what UF’s ELI has to offer.
However, the Sigue Soñando event isn’t only for prospective students who want to improve their English skills. Attendees can also receive detailed guidance on admissions and be provided a window into what life as a Sante Fe College student is like.
“If a student comes to the event, maybe they don’t know the whole entire process. Maybe they’re not necessarily coming from a different country, but for some reason they ended up here, they want to enroll in classes, depending on whether they have a visa or don’t have a visa, we want to be able to help them through that process,” Alvarez said.
There will also be academic professors at the event who will be talking about their experience working in a classroom with students. Higher education often looks different in other countries; professors will be able to paint a picture of what students can expect.
Santa Fe College has seen an increase in Spanish-speaking students and they wanted to make sure they were catering to those groups of students.
“We’ve primarily seen students who are bilingual or they come from families who are Spanish-speaking who are coming from outside of Alachua County,” Alvarez said. “But with this event, our goal is to tackle the people who are here in Alachua County and who want to further their education at whatever level that may be, whether it is to enroll with the ESOL program, learn English then transfer over to the academic side and get a degree – whether that is with a certificate or bachelor’s.”
Aside from the increase of Spanish-speaking students attending Santa Fe College, this event was also inspired by them recently hosting first-generation events, Alvarez said. “We wanted to expand on that conversation when it comes to first-generation students and provide those resources for them, and our goal is to continue having events like Sigue Soñando - Keep Dreaming.”
This first event will allow representatives at Santa Fe College to hear from diverse groups in the community and figure out ways to provide meaningful resources to them.
“So this is going to kind of be a pilot event. We’re going to be able to hear from our community, we are going to be able to understand a little bit more about what they need and then go from there,” Alvarez said. “Hopefully we can expand not only on the conversation but the resources we have to offer to our community.”
If these prospective students decide to pursue an education with Santa Fe College or go through one of their programs, many of the different departments will help guide them on their journey.
Students will receive support and guidance from the office of admissions and from international student services. Once they are admitted to the college, the student will meet with an academic advisor to create an academic plan, discuss their program of study, and make sure that they are on the right path for their first semester to select the appropriate courses so they make academic progress, Laffey said.
“That is a priority here at Santa Fe. We want to make sure that we are providing the guidance and support and the advising necessary for both our new students and our continuing students as well,” Laffey said.
When people come to the United States from other countries looking for a job or to get an education, oftentimes they need to have some level of proficiency in English to reach their goals so Santa Fe College is using their resources to provide that for people in the North Central Florida area.
“English language fluency is the number one thing that recent arrivals to the United States need to integrate into the community,” Kronholm said. “So our goal is to help them obtain jobs, get education, and help them integrate into the community and become citizens that feel comfortable and will be able to contribute to the wider society.”