Dr. Lorna Hernandez Jarvis, a former member of the Hope College psychology faculty who is now chief diversity officer at Whitworth University, will present the address “Migrant workers’ tale: Chávez and Huerta’s legacy of courage and persistence” as this year’s annual César Chávez Lecture at Hope College on Wednesday, March 31, at 4 p.m. EDT virtually.
The public is invited. Admission is free, although advance registration is required. Registration information is available at the event’s listing at calendar.hope.edu. Out of an abundance of caution due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, there will be no in-person audience.
The keynote address will focus on the history and plight of migrant workers, their struggle for equality, and their search for justice through the leadership of César Chávez and Dolores Huerta. Themes will include what America has learned as the nation continues to struggle with welcoming immigrants, and providing justice for the nation’s farmworkers and poor.
Hernandez Jarvis was a member of the Hope psychology faculty from 1993 to 2017, when she became chief diversity officer and associate vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington.
Her experience as a multicultural individual has motivated and informed her scholarship. She spent the first half of her professional career publishing in the field of semantic development in young children, bilingualism and bilingual education. Later, she collaborated on publications studying the effects of acculturation and ethnic identity on psychological well-being, particularly on the development of adolescents who are second-generation immigrants.
Hernandez Jarvis is a strong advocate of multiculturalism and diversity education. While at Hope, she collaborated in the development and implementation of the interdisciplinary Encounter with Cultures course, as well as in two courses for the psychology curriculum: The Psychology of Latino Children and Multicultural Psychology. She developed the Best Practices in Teaching Cultural Diversity Workshop for faculty. In collaboration with Hope’s Department of Communication, she designed and implemented Shalom: Global Learning Fellows, a faculty- and staff-development program on using intergroup dialogue as a pedagogical tool to address conflict and multicultural issues.
Also during her tenure at Hope, she served as director of cultural diversity courses in the general education curriculum, director of general education, chair of the Department of Psychology and co-leader of the Teaching Enhancement Workshop Program. She also directed two programs at Hope funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to improve the engagement of research experiences in the classroom. In addition, she was a faculty representative on the Hope College Board of Trustees for four years.
While living in Holland, Hernandez Jarvis served on the boards of El Centro, Latino Americans United for Progress, The Tulipanes Art and Film Festival (of which she was a founding member), and Black River Public School, and as a facilitator at the Summit on Racism and Inclusion.
She delivers talks in churches, schools and other organizations about multiculturalism, acculturation, ethnic identity development and Latino psychology. In 2020, she was appointed to the Spokane Human Rights Commission.
She holds her bachelor’s degree from the University of Akron, and her master’s and doctoral degrees from Kent State University.
The event is being co-sponsored by the college’s Center for Diversity and Inclusion; the Latino Student Organization; the Department of Psychology; and the campus-wide GROW (Growing Relationships through diverse Opportunities to strengthen involvement in an ever-changing World) initiative. Hernandez Jarvis was originally scheduled to present the address in-person in March 2020, but the event was canceled when Hope shifted to remote instruction earlier that month for the remainder of the spring 2020 semester because of the pandemic.