‘Your stories matter’: Vasquez wins AAHHE book award
Last year, Marissa Vasquez and her co-editor José Del Real Viramontes hit the road in support of their first book. They found themselves leading panel discussions with chapter authors and getting them to share their experiences as community college transfers — and doing so to audiences of current community college students.
In the world of academic publishing, this was about as far from the ivory tower as you could get.
“That was the best part,” Vasquez said. “We got to demystify the writing and publishing process. It was also reminding students that your stories matter.”
Their stories can also win awards.
In January, Vasquez was notified that “Community College and Beyond: Understanding the Transfer Pipeline for Latina/o/x Students” (published by Information Age in 2023) was named a 2025 American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) Book of the Year Awards Recipient in the Edited Volume category.
Vasquez calls “Community College and Beyond” a “comprehensive” book that captures research on the pre- and post-transfer experiences of Latinx college students, as well as promising practices at two- and four-year institutions in serving Latinx students.
“I’m proud that we published something that is very unique,” Vasquez said. “This book is a compilation of empirical research on Latinx students who enter postsecondary education through the community college. I think that's really cool!”
A national organization that addresses issues affecting Latinx communities in academia, AAHHE has long been Vasquez’s academic home away from home. She was elected to serve as its chair starting this fall.
The book was a collaboration between Vasquez and her longtime AAHHE mentee. Now an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside, Del Real Viramontes was paired with Vasquez by the organization in 2016 when he was a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin and she was an early-career faculty member at SDSU.
More than two dozen authors contributed 14 chapters with their research on supporting the transfer trajectories of Latinos at community colleges. Many have ties to SDSU, including Senior Assistant Dean in Faculty Advancement and Student Success Michelle Lopez, Senior Director of Enrollment Sandra Temores, and Associate Professor of community college leadership Tanya Gaxiola-Serrano. One of the chapters was written by a group of community college students publishing for the first time.
“A lot of the authors in the book are colleagues or former students that we've mentored,” Vasquez said. “I love that we could publish a book that not only contributes to academia, but one that also uplifts our community’s work and advocacy for community college and transfer students. I hope that this book is accessible to campus leaders, practitioners, scholars and students to further their support of Latinx students.”
