Miguel Baique says his Warner School experience moves him closer to his goal of being a chief diversity officer.
Miguel Baique teared up during his dissertation defense this spring. Nearly two decades earlier, he and his five siblings were moving house to house in a single-parent family trying to make ends meet, and now he was doing something he never thought possible鈥攅arning a doctorate at the 暗网吃瓜.
鈥淚 give all the credit to my mom, an immigrant from Peru,鈥� says Baique. 鈥淚鈥檓 living the American dream through my mom.鈥�
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The persistence that he learned from his mom came in handy at the , which initially turned him down.
鈥淚 was interested in education policy, so I applied for the PhD program at Warner, but I was told my career trajectory was not a good fit,鈥� says Baique, who, at the time, was the inaugural coordinator of the Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate Achievement Program at SUNY Geneseo. 鈥淚nstead, they guided me toward the EdD, but I wasn鈥檛 interested.鈥�
While the education doctorate degree is geared toward the practicality of education, as opposed to research, Baique took the advice of a colleague and decided to give it a try. This time he got in.
He found the first semester to be tough, but then the unexpected happened鈥攈e started loving it. 鈥淚t was the Diversity and Equity in Higher Education course in my second semester that really sparked something in me. At that point, I decided to stick it out.鈥�
Baique had some familiarity with the content, but being in the classroom, he says 鈥渁llowed me to immerse myself in the literature, as well as take part in discussions about first-generation students, women in higher ed, low-income students, and stigmas faced by Asian communities. It touched on a broad range of minority identities that we should be conscious of in today鈥檚 environment.鈥�
Baique says that course helped prepare him for the position he would take later that year鈥攖he inaugural director of student engagement and inclusion at Genesee Community College鈥攂ut also a position he eventually hopes to hold鈥攖hat of chief diversity officer. He describes his time at Warner as a roller coaster, largely because of the challenges presented by the pandemic.
And he gives a lot of credit to the 鈥渢ough love鈥� provided by , associate professor and his dissertation chair, for helping him get through it all. 鈥淪he was flexible and supportive, but she reminded me that I had goals to meet and that I needed to submit my work.鈥�
It may be Baique鈥檚 name on the EdD certificate, but he understands that he didn鈥檛 do it on his own. First and foremost, he credits the example set by his mom and the support of his wife, Lisa Martinez-Baique. But he also knows that because of the guidance and counsel of the faculty鈥攊ncluding DeAngelis and assistant professors (his advisor) and 鈥攁s well as his fellow classmates, he can now be called 鈥淒r. Baique.鈥�
That鈥檚 why he鈥檒l miss the classroom more than anything else. 鈥淚鈥檓 a lifelong student. I enjoy learning, I enjoy the discussions, and I enjoy learning from others.鈥�
