While I am saddened at the passing of our dear friend and colleague Tatiana Melguizo, I am pleased to be able to showcase her important contributions to the field of higher education and for community colleges.
What struck me about Tatiana was her steadfast pursuit of access and success for historically-marginalized students. Tatiana busted organizational barriers for students! Instead of blaming students for their lack of success — she reversed the scrutiny back on campuses. What practices and policies did they have in place that made it challenging for students to succeed? She showed how remedial education policies were particularly problematic and led to students being trapped in a cycle of courses they could never get out of. She exposed problematic placement exams that put students in this remedial education cycle as well.
And, she focused on math placement as math is the gateway to STEM education that so many students found themselves left out of. As a result of her decades of barrier busting, she helped campuses to revise their remedial education, placement and math policies. Her studies and reports provided the compelling evidence to shift campus routines and move toward promising approaches. Through her long collaboration with the Los Angeles Community College District, Tatiana not only made real, lasting changes on remedial education at the community college level, but also a major impact on the lives and futures of so many students.
Tatiana was not just an amazing scholar but also a mentor, who brought in and supported many new scholars into the field of higher education. She was a kind colleague who touched many of you with her tireless focus on student success. She will be sorely missed by her family at the Pullias Center and the Rossier School of Education, and by her colleagues, friends and family around the world. May her memory be a blessing.
