2010 Keynote Speaker
Patrick M. Velasquez, Ph.D.
Patrick M. Velasquez, Ph.D.
Director, Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services (OASIS)
Lecturer, Education Studies Program
University of California, San Diego
Patrick Velasquez is a third-generation Chicano. His grandparents emigrated to the U.S. from central Mexico during the early 1900’s.
Dr. Velasquez earned a Bachelors Degree (Social Work) and a Masters Degree (Urban Education) from the University of Nebraska. He worked as a coordinator for
the federal Teacher Corps Program at the University of Nebraska in the early 1990’s.
Dr. Velasquez earned a Doctoral Degree in Higher Education Policy and Student Development from the Claremont Graduate University in California in 1995.
His dissertation focused on the process of cultural development among Chicano students and its impact on their persistence and development in higher education.
His doctoral research also probed the issue of how higher education institutions construct conditions that support or hinder Chicano and other underrepresented students.
Dr. Velasquez has served as the director of the learning center (OASIS) at the University of California, San Diego since 1996. He has teaching appointments in
the Education Studies Program and with John Muir College at UCSD and teaches a course (EDS 116) focused on college student development and its implications for
supporting college student success. Its content includes college student retention (including a focus on underrepresented students), culturally inclusive pedagogy,
campus climate, psychological variables that impact learning, and the relationship between diversity and learning. He also teaches a UCSD course called “Contemporary
Issues I: The University in Society” that focuses on the increasing importance of diversity and equity issues in postsecondary education.
In his work at the learning center, Dr. Velasquez directs a staff of seventeen professionals who provide tutoring, counseling, and mentoring programs with a
priority on serving underrepresented students of color.
Dr. Velasquez’ research addresses issues of equity and diversity for underrepresented students of color, including how institutions of higher education can
construct supportive conditions for such students. Two of his research papers were referenced in the second edition of the definitive collection of research on
college students, How College Affects Students, by Pascarella and Terenzini (Jossey-Bass, 2005). His 2003 qualitative study examined the first year experiences of
ten UCSD students, including their perceptions of their development, sources of support, and sense of belonging on campus. In 2007, he co-authored a qualitative study
that focused on the ethnic identity development of nineteen underrepresented students of color and the intersection of such ethnic identity development with other student
outcomes (the study was presented to the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association in 2007).
Dr. Velasquez has visited Cuba three times to conduct research on the potential contribution of Cuba to the educational achievement of Chicanos in the U.S.
He has presented at symposia sponsored by the Center for the Study of the United States at the University of Havana and the university’s Department of Philosophy.
He remains especially interested in the development of students’ ethnic identity and its relationship with a number of critical dimensions of college student outcomes.
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