Vivanco, left, and Villarreal. (Photo by Judith Van Dongen, WSU Spokane)
SPOKANE, Wash. – Ismael Vivanco might not have gone to college if his father hadn’t heard there were strawberries “as big as apples” in Washington’s Skagit River Valley.
And Miguel Villarreal might have become a police officer were it not for an invitation to visit a kindergarten classroom.
Ish and Mike, as everyone calls them, are experts in Latino education who graduated Friday from Washington State University Spokane with doctor of education degrees. Their accomplishments illustrate the roles that fate and mentoring play in life – and the value of a friend who pesters you.
“Ish finished his doctoral work last August. We were both on track to do so,” said Villarreal, assistant superintendent for the Othello School District. “But a person in my office left, plus we’re remodeling all of our schools, and work pulled at me. So Ish called me once or twice a week since August, pushing me to get done.”
Vivanco couldn’t imagine going through commencement without Villarreal.
“I had to wait for my buddy,” he said. “He and I have definitely supported each other.”
Funny, passionate, focused
Both men are 42. Over the past four years, they worked their way together through WSU’s superintendent certification program, followed by the doctoral program in educational leadership.
They balanced their course work, internships and research with their family obligations – Villareal has five children – and demanding jobs. Vivanco is associate executive director of the North Central Educational Service District, based in Wenatchee.
“Blessed are the flexible,” Vivanco likes to say. “They will not be bent out of shape.”
The two are so close that their WSU advisor, Associate Professor Paul Pitre, describes them with a compound noun, “Ishandmike.”
“Half the time they’d be beating up on each other and competing. And they’re funny. They’re hilarious,” Pitre said, adding: “These guys are very passionate and focused on important areas of research based on the work they actually do.”
Unveiling the hidden rules
A lot of that work involves trying to improve the educational odds for migrant farm families like Vivanco’s.
“I’ve gotten the furthest with my education of any of my 600-plus family members,” said Vivanco, who was born in Mexico City. His family moved to an Oregon migrant camp when he was two.
One factor that worked in his favor, he said, was his parents’ decision to settle in the Skagit Valley.
“We didn’t have the high mobility that a lot of migrants have. And I had role models, older brothers, and outside activities,” said Vivanco. His high school sport was baseball.
He majored in Spanish as a college undergraduate, then earned a master’s in education. While the doctoral degree isn’t required in his job, he sees it as a good investment: “I wanted to prepare myself for the future.”
His graduate research focused on people who prepare migrant high school students for the future. They’re called migrant graduation specialists. They are, Vivanco said, “the cherry on top” of efforts to help kids get through high school, into college and on to good careers.
“For lack of a better description, they’re like counselors,” he said. “They’re important because educational resources are out there, but a lot of our migrant students don’t understand the hidden rules of our middle class society.”
Forty percent of public school students in north central Washington are Latino. In Othello, where Villarreal works, that figure is 80 percent.
The importance of mentors
Villarreal grew up in Othello. Unlike Vivanco, he didn’t work in the fields. His father went to college. He went to college in Utah and studied criminology.
His life took a different direction, though, when a faculty member who was also a half-time Provo kindergarten teacher came up to him in the cafeteria.
“He said ‘Why don’t you come to my classroom?’ – and I got to watch a masterful teacher,” he said, explaining his decision to earn a bachelor’s, then a master’s in education. “If it weren’t for Dr. Richard Aslett, I would not be here.”
The role of mentors was a theme in Villarreal’s research. He looked at what inspired Latino men and women to become teachers, and what made them stick with the profession.
He interviewed 20 teachers in eastern Washington. Eighty percent of them were the first in their families to graduate from high school and college, so they had few role models. They told him how much it meant when another teacher, a principal or even a community member took a special interest in them.
“If they felt there was a support system, they could go through the bumps and bruises of being a new teacher,” he said.
Villarreal’s doctoral degree will give him extra credibility when he gets on his “bully pulpit” about the role that encouragement plays in teaching careers.
“The Ed.D. allows me to say I’ve done some work on this,” he said. “If I had to boil what I learned down to one word, I’d say ‘relationships.’ ”
For the last four years, Villarreal’s and Vivanco’s most important relationships included those with the educational leadership faculty at WSU.
“The people I met in that program – Paul, Dennis Ray, Gene Sharratt, Joan Kingrey – who are good quality, solid educators,” said Villarreal. “When I got done with my superintendent’s program and realized there was more work to do, they pushed me down that pathway to the doctoral degree.”
For information about Washington State University’s Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) degree, visit http://education.wsu.edu/graduate/edd/