Ochoa is the recipient of Cal Poly’s College of Liberal Arts Susan Currier Visiting Professorship for Teaching Excellence for winter quarter 2016. She is teaching two courses in the Ethnic Studies Department, “Cultural Production and Ethnicity” and “Chicana/o-Latinas/os and Education.” Her April 7 lecture will be the culmination of her time on campus.

Her talk will use lessons from her extensive study of high school students and her experiences at Cal Poly to explore how seemingly well-intended movements for diversity and celebrations of academic excellence can maintain the status quo and reproduce inequality in institutions of higher education.

Ochoa will discuss discrepancies between what individuals and institutions say and do to enhance diversity, inclusivity and equity. By exposing and exploring those gaps, her talk will highlight areas for individual and institutional transformation.