By Abigail Loop
Staff Writer
To celebrate the end of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Baylor Hispanic Student Association and Baylor’s Department of Multicultural Affairs are bringing “What Would You Do” host John Quiñones to Baylor’s campus to speak about his role as a Hispanic newscaster.
Quiñones will speak at the Hispanic Student Association’s annual banquet at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Cashion Academic Center.
While the deadline to purchase tickets for the banquet has passed, Quiñones’ presentation will be free and open to all audiences, starting at 7:45 p.m.
Richmond senior Bryan Tehrani, president of the Hispanic Student Association, said the association wanted a well-known speaker who would influence the Baylor community to come to the banquet.
“We wanted to bring someone who would incline students to attend and reap the benefits,” Tehrani said. “He’s coming to acknowledge the whole reason for Hispanic Heritage Month.”
Tehrani said Quiñones will be speaking about his experience of being a Hispanic and working on popular shows such as “Burning Questions”, “20/20” and “Primetime Live.”
Originally from San Antonio and winner of seven Emmy awards for work on a variety of television shows, Quiñones will use the scenarios he’s been in and experienced to shed more light on what it’s like to be Hispanic and lead a prominent spotlight on television.
Organizers of the event are hoping Quiñones’ lecture will bring awareness to Hispanic culture and heritage on Baylor’s campus.
“This is so beneficial because it’ll get the Hispanic culture out there,” Tehrani said. “Baylor isn’t very Hispanic and this will educate people on the culture and build an awareness of diversity among campus as well.”
According to data taken from Baylor’s Institutional Research and Testing, Hispanics make up 14.4 percent of the Baylor undergraduate class.
Last year, Hispanics made up 14.2 percent of the Baylor undergraduate class.
Since 2007, the percentage has continued to rise.
Geoffrey Griggs, assistant director of multicultural affairs, said he believes diversity at Baylor is going in the right direction and having a speaker like Quiñones, will only make it better.
“We want this event to not only help Hispanic students celebrate their culture, we also want to educate non-Hispanic students and those who don’t know about other cultures,” Griggs said. “Diversity at Baylor is going in the right direction and hopefully this will influence not only the Baylor community but in the Waco community as well.”
Griggs said Quiñones is someone students can relate to and anyone who comes will be interested in his story.
Quiñones’ lecture, as well as the banquet itself, are both intended to help Hispanic students relate to someone in a professional field who comes from a similar culture and also be an opportunity for students of other cultures to expand their views and knowledge.
“Our motto is to celebrate and educate,” Griggs said. “It’s our mission here and what we plan to follow for events like this.”
For more information on Quiñones’ lecture, email Bryan_Tehrani@baylor.edu.
