Mitzi Ramos
Dr. Mitzi Ramos has been part of the Latin American Recruitment and Educational Services (LARES) at the University of Illinois at Chicago for over two decades. Though she began her tenure at LARES as the Graduate Assistant for the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Latinos, she went on to become the LARES English Academic Skills Specialist, and today holds the position of Associate Director of Graduate Student Career & Professional Development.
As an Associate Director, Mitzi not only oversees programming and scholarships aimed at strengthening the graduate school pipeline for Latino students, but she also spearheads the program’s leadership initiatives (LARES Summer Institute, the LARES Leaders Academy) and academic programming (LARES Summer Scholars Bridge Program, Academic Skills Proficiency courses). To strengthen the education pipeline and begin to encourage students to pursue graduate degrees, she created an independent study course within the LARES program where she has mentored over 150 undergraduate students in the creation of original research studies which have been presented at a number of academic and professional conferences.
In addition to her work at LARES, Mitzi is a professional lecturer. In this capacity, she has taught a gambit of courses at Northeastern Illinois University, DePaul University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago; courses which have included: Chicago Politics, Latinos & Public Policy, Latinos & Politics, Multiculturalism & Democracy in the US, Women & Political Influence in the 21st Century, and Immigration, Ethnicity & Citizenship.
Though Mitzi was the first person in her family born in the United States, she is proud of her Costa Rican roots and became a dual citizen to honor her roots. She holds a B.A. in English Literature & Language and Foreign Languages & Literature (concentration in Spanish) from Western Illinois University, an M.P.A. from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Illinois Chicago. In addition to being a recipient of the Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois (DFI) Fellowship, Mitzi received the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Latinos: Academic Professional Recognition Award in 2020 and the Honoring Our Professors’ Excellence (HOPE) Award in 2023.
