CU graduate student launches Spanish-language orientation

A University of Colorado Boulder graduate student has created a pilot program offering two orientation sessions in Spanish, giving parents of incoming students an experience she never had when she started college.

When Nuvia Mendoza was an undergraduate student in 2016, she didn't have the opportunity to participate in a Spanish-language orientation. Her parents missed out on the experience too — something they considered a milestone as the first in their family to go to college.

"As a first-generation student, a lot of it really fell on me to be that window for my parents to provide that information," Mendoza said. "Of course, it's still a burden."

Fast forward 10 years, Mendoza is now a graduate student studying higher education while serving as the director of college success at DSST Montview. Mendoza said the idea surfaced during her graduate coursework.

"I kind of posed that as a suggestion," said Mendoza. "My professor was like, I love that idea. And she asked a couple of people and started talking around of like, 'Is this something we could actually do?'"

The Spanish-language orientation is a first for a campus with a relatively small population of native Spanish speakers. About 16% of CU Boulder's student population identifies as Hispanic, and about a third identifies as people of color, according to 2024 CU Boulder data.

"I do see how the difference in experience is for a student that goes to a school where their parents can go to a Spanish orientation," Mendoza said.

Mendoza organized two Spanish-speaking orientation sessions earlier this summer as a pilot program for parents of incoming students. Dozens of families showed up.

"The response that we have gotten from parents has just been that they are really appreciative of just having the opportunity to have their concerns heard," Mendoza said. "Because every single parent that is coming here, they want to get informed, but there is so much to know."

Mendoza said the goal is to relieve some of the responsibility that often falls on first-generation students to serve as translators and information sources for their families, something she said she was accustomed to doing for her own family growing up.

"It's just such a transformative experience for everybody involved," Mendoza said. "I think it's just very important to make sure that parents can pull the weight that they want to pull and take some of that burden off of students' shoulders having to be the one to be that window for their parents."

Mendoza's mother, Veronica Sánchez, helped with the event — something she said she did not get to participate in when her daughter first came to CU Boulder a decade ago.

"Since she is my first child, our first child, the eldest, it was a bit difficult adjusting to this new phase of university life," Sánchez said in her native Spanish language. "In our culture, we are used to having our children with us all the time."

Sánchez said her daughter was 17 when she moved away to attend college and that the first year apart was the hardest for the family. She said the new orientation program helps parents feel connected to the university community.

"Many of us didn't have the opportunity to attend university in our home countries, so it is a challenging transition, but this program makes you feel welcome," Sánchez said.

She helped Mendoza set out folders and materials and greeted parents during the orientation sessions. She hopes that parents feel welcome alongside their children as they go through the transition to college together, and that families feel they are not losing their children but can continue supporting them.

The program is currently a pilot, and Mendoza hopes it will eventually become a permanent part of new student orientation at CU Boulder, potentially expanding to include other languages beyond Spanish.

"My hope is to offer more sessions next year to maybe do programming where parents do have two full days of programming, like they do now, but in Spanish or also another language," Mendoza said. "Because Spanish isn't the only language. There are so many diverse students on this campus, so I really just want to see it expand."