Lamar University will host Raymund Paredes, Texas Commissioner of Higher Education, in a Dec. 8 visit to Beaumont that will include meetings with higher education and K-12 leaders in Southeast Texas.
Paredes visit will include a tour of the Lamar University campus and a speech to the Beaumont Rotary Club. In the afternoon, he will meet the faculties and staff of the Lamar University, Lamar State College-Orange, Lamar State College-Port Arthur and Lamar Institute of Technology, area K-12 leaders as well as business and community leaders. The meeting will take place at 2 p.m. in the Dr. Richard L. Price Auditorium at LU’s John Gray Center.
There, Paredes will discuss proposed funding changes for Texas colleges and universities. He will also review the progress Texas has made on increasing the number of Texans going to college, as well as new initiatives to increase the percentage of college students successfully completing a degree. Educators, business and community leaders interested in attending the meeting should contact Steve Buser, director of the Southeast Texas P-16 Council at (409) 880-7639 or email steve.buser@lamar.edu.
Immediately after Paredes’ presentation, the Southeast Texas P-16 Council will conduct a short discussion about new developmental education initiatives at Lamar University. The university’s distance learning division is seeking K-12 input on new online courses and how to implement them to best help K-12 schools meet education and reporting goals, Buser said.
Paredes spent most of his academic career at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he served as an English professor, associate vice chancellor for academic development and special assistant to the president.
Prior to joining the coordinating board in July 2004, Paredes was vice president for programs at the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) where he was responsible for scholarship and outreach programs. Before joining HSF, he was director of creativity and culture at The Rockefeller Foundation from 2001 to 2003.
Paredes was born and reared in El Paso. After graduation from El Paso High School, he attended The University of Texas at Austin, receiving a B.A. in English. He served in the U.S. Army for two years, including a 14-month tour with the First Infantry Division in Vietnam. After separation from military service, he resumed his education, receiving a Ph.D. in American Civilization in 1973 from UT. Paredes was included in The Hispanic Business 100 Most Influential Hispanics in the October 2007 issue of Hispanic Business magazine.
Since joining the coordinating board, his primary focus has been on closing education gaps in student participation and success. He has traveled across the state, building partnerships with the K-12 education community, including the development of a strong relationship with the Texas Education Agency, two-year and four-year institutions of higher education, elected officials, educational leaders, the business community and community-based organizations.
In May 2006, during the Third Called Special Session, the 79th Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1, helping put Paredes’ vision regarding achievement of participation and success goals of Closing the Gaps into action. HB 1 seeks to dramatically improve college readiness, college-going rates, and college success in Texas.
Paredes’ goals for closing the gaps begin early with an increased emphasis on the importance of early childhood education and cognitive development. The goals include creating a college-going culture in every pre-K-12 school in Texas, increasing the rigor of the high school senior year, and aligning high-school exit standards and college-entrance standards. At the higher education level, Paredes’ goals include increasing state and federal financial aid, overhauling developmental education and increasing transfer rates from two-year to four-year institutions. Concurrently, he seeks to improve the quality of undergraduate education and increase graduation rates while improving educator quality for pre- and in-service teachers.