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Topic: Immigration

Arturo Jimenez

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Arturo Jimenez, J.D., is an affiliate professor in the Chicana/o Studies; and Criminal Justice and Criminology Departments at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He teaches a course Chicanos and the Law where students learn about how the legal system and laws relate to individual community rights, cultural conflict and issues concerning ethnicity. Jimenez areas of expertise include immigration, public education, local/national politics and cross-border Latinx issues.

Jimenez has practiced federal immigration law for over 24 years in Colorado as a bilingual attorney and is a founder of the Immigration Clinic at Catholic Charities in Pueblo. He represents immigrant families for Legal Permanent Residence, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, Naturalization, Asylum, Family Petitions, Victim’s Visas and Deportation Defense at the Immigration Law Offices of Arturo Jimenez.

After serving as the President of the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition from 2000 to 2006, Jimenez was twice elected to the Board of Education for the Denver Public Schools and served from 2007 to 2015.

Jimenez is the author of Dreamers Nightmare: The U.S. War on Immigrant LatinX Children. He earned his bachelor’s in sociology and his juris doctor degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Adriann Wycoff

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Adriann Wycoff, Ph.D., is a professor of Chicana/o Studies and holds a courtesy appointment as an associate professor of Women’s Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Marc Rodriguez

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Marc Rodriguez, M.A., is the Parents as Teachers Coordinator and Parenting Coordinator in the Family Literacy program at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of expertise include K-12 education, parenting skills, Sheltered (ESL) Instruction, and educational administration.

Rodriguez has been with MSU Denver for 10 years. In addition to working at MSU Denver, Rodriguez works as a Teacher Effectiveness Coach at Denver Public Schools.

Rodriguez received both his master’s degree in educational administration and his bachelor’s degree in elementary education from University of Colorado – Denver in 1995 and 1990, respectively.

Luis Rivas

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Luis Rivas, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of English at Metropolitan State University. His areas of expertise include rhetoric and composition theory, students of migrant/seasonal-farmworkers and post secondary education.

Rivas previously worked as director of the College Assistance Migrant Program where he oversaw daily activities reporting to the Office of Migrant Education. He also attended and presented at several Office of Migrant Education sponsored conferences to share relevant experience with other CAMP programs. Prior, he also worked as a student liaison in 2010 for CAMP, where he developed workshops and other activities for students.

Rivas received his Ph.D. in composition and rhetoric theory and a master’s in creative writing in poetry from the University of Nebraska. He received his bachelor’s in English from York College.

David Piacenti

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David Piacenti teaches Prejudice & Discrimination, Contemporary Sociology, Art & Craft of Sociology Writing, and Sociological Theory: Past and Present.

He has taught at Metropolitan State University of Denver since 2010.

Piacenti has published “Yucatec-Mayan Immigration to the Mission and Edison Neighborhoods: A Comparison of Social Conditions and Immigrant Satisfaction” in the Journal of Méxican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, “The Tangle of Anthropological Tourism: How the Consumption of Fantasy and Academia Share Common Spaces” in Applied Anthropologist and “For Love of Family and Family Values: How Immigrant Motivations Can Inform Immigration Policy” in the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy.

Marina Pereira

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Professor Marina Pereira has taught graduate courses in the Graduate Social Work program as MSU Denver. She has taught at Metropolitan State University of Denver since 1999.

Professor Pereira is well versed in topics of mental health and families. She has special interest in issues of acculturation, diversity and first-generation Latino students. She was an advisor for the Student Association of Social Workers (SASW), a student organization that helps students develop and increase their sense of civic responsibility and community engagement by service learning activities.

Before teaching at MSU Denver, Pereira worked in the areas of medical social work and mental health, where she specialized in treating and advocating for children and families with a history of domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse.

Alexandre Padilla

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Alexandre Padilla, Ph.D., is the chair and professor of the Department of Economics at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Denise Mowder

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Denise Mowder, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Metropolitan State University of Denver where she currently teaches classes in criminal justice ethics and victimology. Mowder has worked as an attorney and for more than 10 years as prosecutor in Oregon, where she has prosecuted cases involving domestic violence, child abuse and sexual assault. She specializes in trail practice, investigations and victim advocacy, and her research areas involve the impact of current immigration law, undocumented battered Latina women and the wrongful conviction of factually innocent.

Mowder received her Ph.D. in criminal justice from Washington State University in 2010, her J.D. from Willamette College of Law in 1994 and her bachelor’s from the University of Colorado Denver.

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