Hernando Herrera: It Takes a Village
Image via UVa Alumni Page
Hernando Herrera | he/him/his | CLAS ‘89
B.A. in Psychology
Some people know immediately when they arrive on grounds that UVA is the school for them. This wasn’t the case for Hernando Herrera. As a native of Northern Virginia, and a graduate of Bishop O’Connell high school, he was torn between two of Virginia’s institutions. The road to UVA had been an interesting one. Both of Hernando’s parents had gone to college in their native Colombia, but the U.S. application process was entirely new to them. Hernando navigated the majority of the process on his own. Although his guidance counselor helped him with the process, she encouraged him to look at other state schools believing he wouldn’t get into UVA despite strong grades, community service, and athletic involvement. However, when it came time for Hernando to choose, UVA was among the many schools he had received offers from. He was torn in his decision, because on the one hand, James Madison University felt friendlier compared to UVA which initially seemed too big and too impersonal. He viewed UVA as the better academic option, but wasn’t sure where he would be happier. It wasn’t until his second visit and introduction to the Catholic community that Hernando realized UVA also had a place for him. Seeing the support network available and the relationships he could build at UVA solidified it as the best choice. Finding and building networks of support would become a huge part of Hernando’s UVA experience.
When settling into life at UVA, Hernando was struck by how involved people were in the fraternity system. He thought that being involved in a fraternity dominated social life at UVA and to the extent that not being in one might be isolating. Though belonging to a fraternity was never of interest to Hernando, and he was never a direct participant, they played an important social function. In an era before cell phones, fraternity houses and parties were a guaranteed social space where you could catch up with your friends after a long week of school.
As a Psychology major, Hernando was very focused. He knew what he wanted to study prior to arriving at UVA and chose his courses accordingly. The majority of the courses he took were those necessary to complete his major, and that remains among his only regrets from his time at UVA. Back then, he didn’t know that the value of some courses rested solely on who taught them. UVA has for decades boasted an impressive list of faculty who are leaders in their respective fields. Professor Ray Bice was among these ranks in the Psychology department. Hernando never took Psych 101 with Professor Bice, but heard amazing stories from students who described how lively and animated he was during class and the way he wove information from his own experiments into the course.
Hernando quickly became involved with the Catholic community on grounds by joining the Catholic Students Association. However, the network of Catholic students would not be the only support system Hernando found during his time at UVA. Hernando’s first-year resident advisor encouraged him to explore the idea of becoming an RA. Having just applied to live on Monroe Hill, now Brown College and the University’s first residential college, Hernando was among the inaugural cohort of upper-class residence advisors at Monroe Hill. These RAs had no clue what awaited them, and mainly learned through experience. One of the new challenges he and his peers had to face was the legal drinking age, as his class was the first unable to legally purchase alcohol during all four years of college--the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 raised the minimum purchase and public possession of alcohol from 18 to 21. Thus, the RAs had to decide between being a buddy or enforcer in a way they didn’t have to before.
Being an RA gave Hernando access to faculty he would never have met otherwise. One of these was Professor Mavis Heatherington, a senior professor and researcher in the Psychology department. Through the relationship he formed with Professor Heatherington, Hernando was offered a Research Assistant position that opened the door to graduate school opportunities. The Residence Life staff also represented a microcosm of UVA in the way it approached diverse recruiting. The staff was very representative and more diverse than the general student population, due in large measure to the recruitment efforts of residence staff. What has now grown into a large University establishment began as a small office in the basement of Dabney dorm. Hernando worked closely under former UVA faculty member and activist Angela Davis and outgoing Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer Pat Lampkin. Credited as the most important part of his UVA tenure, being an RA taught Hernando the professional values he still uses on a daily basis, such as punctuality and communication.
“One of the things I absolutely love about the University is student self-governance. It’s a delicate thing and we need to preserve it.”
The ideas of race and identity were topics looming in the background during Hernando’s time at UVA, and his personal identity developed significantly during his time as a student. Prior to arriving on grounds, he didn’t identify as a ‘minority.’ In high school, he had always identified with the macroculture, and never had any perception of not fitting in because of his ethnicity. During his first year, it became very apparent that there was a lot of tension between the black students and the rest of UVA. A lot of white students felt uncomfortable engaging with the black students, and Hernando noticed a very tangible divide within the student body. The Black Bus Stop was one location where black students would gather and socialize together. Many students had a lack of understanding and appreciation for its significance, or felt generally intimidated by it. Hernando also found the BBS intimidating at times, but recalls making an active effort to wave and speak to the people he knew when he walked by.
Various speakers hosted by the University had also exposed Hernando to new perspectives on race in the U.S. One of particular importance to him was a talk he attended when Yolanda King and Attallah Shabazz, the daughters of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X respectively, spoke to UVA students as part of a national tour. Hernando described their lecture as transformational and eye-opening to a lot of the problems facing the black community nationwide and what black students were experiencing and confronting right here on grounds in Charlottesville.
During his first year, a friend of Hernando’s suggested that they form the first Latino organization on grounds. At the time this idea seemed preposterous to him as there were so few Latinx and Hispanic students on grounds (approximately under 30 students). It would not be until Hernando’s fourth-year that he truly started to identify as a minority and his Hispanic heritage and identity grew much more after graduating from UVA.
What Hernando didn’t know at the time was that the support networks that attracted him to UVA would ultimately become part of the legacy he left on the University. At the time, there were so few Hispanic and Latinx students at UVA that Hernando didn’t recognize the need for any kind of unifying body or advocacy group. The only formal recognition on grounds was Casa Bolivar, now a prestigious upper-class Spanish immersion residence, was at the time a suite in Lambeth Commons. As his Hispanic identity grew stronger and the Latinx student population grew larger, Hernando realized the need for support networks designed specifically for Latinx students. To this end, Hernando became involved in the Bolivar Network. According to the Bolivar Network’s website, the organization was modeled after the Ridley Foundation Scholarship for African-American students. Like Casa Bolivar, the Bolivar Network is named in honor of the Bolivar family. Fernando Bolivar, the nephew of Simon Bolivar, a Latin American hero, attended the University of Virginia shortly after it opened.
Hernando Herera chaired the Bolivar Network for three years and served on its board for another five. During that time there were many questions about what administrative support for Latinx students should look like. Those questions circled around whether it was necessary to have an independent dean for Latinx students, whether they needed their own student center, and how to encourage more Latinx students to apply in the first place. While serving as chair, Hernando created the beginnings of a fund to financially support Latinx students looking to attend the University. He also helped to expand a book scholarship that provided funds to two undergraduates and eventually expanded to include a graduate student as well. Much of the work done by the Bolivar Network was related to expanding the connections between Latinx members of the UVA community. They conducted outreach to connect Latinx faculty and have worked to build a strong alumni network.
“It takes a village to send a student to university and help them professionally”
Another goal of the Bolivar Network is to preserve and share the stories of Hispanic and Latinx students at UVA. Virginia Magazine released a bicentennial edition that contained features of notable alumni. Not a single alumni listed was Hispanic or Latinx. This came at a time when this population of students had increased substantially. When visiting in the early 2000s, Hernando was shocked to see how many Latinx student organizations had developed since his time at UVA. Throughout this time, the Bolivar Network had been collecting an internal history of Hispanic and Latinx students at UVA and what the Virginia Magazine article demonstrated was that these stories simply were not known. This is an ongoing issue, one that lies at the heart of this oral history collection, and will require sustained dialogue and attention in order to improve.
The legacy of Fernando and Simon Bolivar are carried in the names of both the Bolivar Network and La Casa Bolivar. However, that legacy doesn’t encompass the entire experience of the Latinx students at UVA. Publicity and dialogue on the experiences of Latinx students have been noticeably lacking. Hernando’s efforts and those of the Bolivar network are to make their experiences and stories more tangible and accessible. Hernando hopes that by connecting with alumni, today’s students can be equipped with the tools to gain the administrative attention they deserve. Knowing that he would have a support system at UVA is what made the University home for Hernando. Today he works to pay it back by making sure that current and future Hispanic and Latinx students also have the resources to call UVA home.