Making Movidas: Cultivating Leadership through Conocimiento in an Undergraduate Student Retreat

This educational case study examines the efforts of one Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) to counter deficit narratives and provide institutional as well as interpersonal supports for Latinx student success through a Student Leadership Retreat. We consider these activities and students' experiences therein through the lenses of Latinx leadership and Gloria Anzaldúa's notion of "conocimiento." To do so, we rely on established methods in Chicanx Studies that center the voices of participants and communities to foreground emic systems of knowledge and activity qualitatively. Specifically, we examined students' experiences in programming undergirded by "conocimiento" (iterative and dialogic understanding of ourselves and others), "cariño" (care for self and others), and "confianza" (trust) in contrast to more traditionally individualistic, competitive, and transactional arrangements within higher education.