Latino enrollment is growing at UW-Milwaukee. This man helps students stay on track to graduate.

It was just before 3 p.m. in the Roberto Hernández Center, which is tucked into the first floor of Bolton Hall on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus.

One staff member starts to heat up her lunch, hours late but the first opportunity she's had in a busy day. Another is scheduling student appointments over the phone in Spanish. A poster behind the front desk proclaims the words of Mexican-American labor leader Cesar Chavez: "Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students. What better books can there be than the book of humanity?”

Center director Alberto Maldonado is running late. An emergency meeting with a student has popped up. Would the Journal Sentinel wait a half hour? Sure. No problem.

Thirty minutes later, Maldonado sits down in his small, cinder block office, ready to answer questions. The delay speaks to the urgency of his work.

The Latina student Maldonado had just met with was juggling three jobs and in her final semester at UWM. She had a post-graduate plan, having recently learned of her acceptance into a doctoral program. But she didn't have enough money to cover tuition and other expenses this fall. Their meeting was necessary for her to receive a $500 emergency grant that would get her to graduation.

Stories like hers are common among the students coming into the center, Maldonado said. About 60% of UWM's Latino students are the first in their families to attend college, and many are unfamiliar with the byzantine system of financial aid and loans. Educating students and their families about it is the hardest part of his job.

It's why UWM needs a dedicated space for Latino students, he said.

"These places were not constructed or built for them," he said. "They were not imagined for them. Whether we like it or not, most of our higher education institutions are predominantly white institutions. Centers like Roberto Hernández are extremely important to help those students navigate what for many of them is very intimidating."

At a time when UWM is fighting to fill seats, losing about 5,000 students over the past decade, the university has seen sustained and steady growth in Latino students.

That echoes what has happened nationally. Latinos have been the fastest-growing demographic group enrolling in college over the past two decades. But the last few years, nationally, have been a struggle.

Some in Milwaukee's Latino community credit Maldonado for being able to continue this trend during the pandemic, a time when, nationally, many Latino students dropped out or skipped college altogether. Since he took the reins of the Roberto Hernández Center in 2016, Latino enrollment has grown from around 2,300 to nearly 3,000.

The center is more than a place where everyone is bilingual, Maldonado said. It's where students can find resources they didn't even know existed and a sense of belonging that makes them feel invested in their college experience. It can be the difference between a student dropping out or earning a degree.

Maldonado, 51, understands this all too well. He was in the same position when he walked into the center as a student on academic probation.

A simple life in Puerto Rico

Maldonado studied at UWM in the early 1990s, a time when the number of students who looked like him hovered in the hundreds.

Born in Milwaukee, Maldonado spent the first few years of his life just a 10-minute drive from campus. Most of his childhood, however, was spent in the mountains of Puerto Rico, where his mother worked a $2.80-an-hour manufacturing job and his father was a farmer. They both began working after eighth grade, a work ethic Maldonado credits for his own approach.

The Maldonado family lived a simple life where faith was at the forefront, he said. At 9, he suffered from a rare form of epilepsy, an illness he said he didn't overcome from until 25 with the support of his family and vocational rehabilitation. On the farm, he was in charge of the pigs and rabbits. He learned math by counting the bananas and oranges they grew.

School wasn't Maldonado's strong suit. He averaged a 2.4 GPA in high school. But he loved being in front of people. Sports, plays − he wasn't a shy kid. He wanted to be in front of a camera. In his first year at the University of Puerto Rico, where he had landed a full-ride athletic scholarship, he studied radio/TV journalism and communications.

Then his parents shared some news that ground the 18-year-old's dreams to a halt: The family was moving back to Milwaukee.

'It was like my safe haven'

Maldonado knew basic English but couldn't carry on much of a conversation. The communications major felt awkward everywhere he went.

So he signed up for language lessons at Milwaukee Area Technical College and practiced English at his restaurant job. He also somehow landed a young actors internship with the Milwaukee Public Theater, extending both his language practice and his dream to be in front of people.

His sister studied at UWM and encouraged him to enroll, too. Even before classes started, she introduced him to the center, telling him, "Here's people who look like us and care."

By Maldonado's second year, he was floundering. It wasn't from a lack of trying, he said. But a year of language immersion classes wasn't enough to prepare him to write biology lab reports and college-level essays.

The center helped. Maldonado visited nearly every day. Eventually, the academic probation lifted.

"It was like my safe haven," he said of the center. "I could speak Spanish. I felt cared for."

Creating a different experience

Maldonado sees his own struggles reflected in a lot of the students he advises.

It took him six years to earn his fine arts degree, in part because he worked a second-shift manufacturing job on top of his studies. He lived at home with his parents while commuting to classes, an arrangement that about 85% of UWM's Latino students adopt. The approach saves money but can also make them feel less a part of the university community.

That's why as center director Maldonado has created events that bring the whole family to campus, especially for students in their first three semesters, when they are most likely to drop out.

"We serve with intention and with the understanding that family is integral," he said. "We need to be inclusive of mom, dad, grandma. The whole community comes on board when their child goes to college."

Dinorah Márquez Abadiano has seen how the center changed under Maldonado. As director of the Latino Arts Strings Program, a pre-college music training program for low-income Latino students, she's watched some of her students go on to enroll at UWM. Those attending before his tenure didn't have the experience that students do now.

Maldonado can break through the university's bureaucracy and garner support in ways others may not, Márquez Abadiano said. He's also hands-on, sitting down with students and proactively pointing them to scholarships and other resources. She remembers sending an email seeking help on behalf of a former student who was struggling financially to afford UWM. Immediately, Maldonado replied with an option that kept the student enrolled.

"I have hundreds of those stories," she said. "That’s what Alberto is about on a daily basis."

On the cusp of dropping out, a success story

In terms of outcomes, there's room for improvement at UWM. Only about one third of under-represented minority students graduate from the university within six years, according to UW system data.

But that doesn't mean the success stories shouldn't be celebrated.

Isaac Noel González called the Roberto Hernández Center "the best thing that happened to me in college." The engineering student was struggling academically and "pretty close" to dropping out when center staff reached out about an upcoming workshop. There, he learned note-taking, study skills and time management.

González, 26, became a "regular" at the center. Maldonado helped him secure a scholarship, land two internships and join the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.

"I turned things around completely as a student and he was a huge part of that," said González, who graduates in December. "You can tell he cares about his students. It's not just a job for him."

Commercial is a UWM first

In a sign of UWM further embracing its role in serving the Latino community, the university last year filmed its first Spanish-speaking commercial. Aired on Telemundo, the clip encouraged Latino students to enroll and said the center can help them realize their dreams.

Maldonado appeared briefly in the 30-second commercial. He's sitting across from a student in a one-on-one meeting. He's listening. He's directing.

In a way, the commercial was a realization of his wish to work in front of a camera. But the work he does behind the scenes is so much better. It's the biggest stage he could have ever dreamed.

Contact Kelly Meyerhofer at 414-223-5168 or kmeyerhofer@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KellyMeyerhofer.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UW-Milwaukee Latino center director thrives keeping students on track