A Quarter of a Century with Puerto Ricans

“Taking a new job in Denver in 1986, I was unclear as to the specific projects that would be ahead of me. It wasn’t clear to the Regis College president either, but he seemed to have enough confidence to hire and support me.“

New Ventures Partners with Puerto Rican University System

By 1990 New Ventures of Regis had been firmly established, and within a ten-year period a total of 33 colleges and universities had become partner institutions. These partner schools established their own accelerated degree completion entities with the advice and counsel of New Ventures. One of those universities was Ana G Mendez University System (AGMUS) of Puerto Rico which conducted their classes in Spanish.

From the start, my relationship with the folks at Ana G Mendez University System (AGMUS) was collegial and endurable. I say endurable because partnerships can be testy and challenging. (Of the 33 partnerships, there were a few that were plain rocky.) My main AGMUS contact and teammate, Luis Zayas, became a wonderful life-long friend. Luis and I collaborated as we solved many issues along the way through a five-year period. His staff, most notably Roxanna Pietri, worked side by side with our New Ventures staff to serve the educational needs of a growing adult population in Puerto Rico.

My first meeting with the president of AGMUS had been in 1995. A colleague and fellow educator, Tom Emmet, and I visited President Jose Mendez and the AGMUS Board of Trustees in Puerto Rico to present the accelerated program and its success at Regis. Within a matter of months, a partnership agreement was signed and the “AHORA” program was initiated. It was an immediate success.

(The president of AGMUS, Jose Mendez, Sr., was a highly innovative and entrepreneurial man whose mother, Ana, had started the educational enterprise in 1948. In many ways, President Mendez was a Puerto Rican version of Regis President Fr. David Clarke.) 

As our 5-year partnership came to a close in the year 2000, President Mendez approached me and suggested that we consider a new venture between our two institutions. His idea was to create a partnership between Regis and AGMUS whereby AGMUS would offer academic programming in the continental United States. Courses could be offered in both languages, one week in Spanish and the next week in English. Graduates would achieve the academic outcomes and be professionally competent in two languages.  

AGMUS Ventures (AVI) is Created

In November 2001, a joint planning meeting between Regis New Ventures and AGMUS concluded that collaboration would advance the educational interests of both Institutions. We would be incorporated as equal partners in “AGMUS Ventures, Inc.” The $1 million project would be equally funded with $500,000 coming from each partner.

(New Ventures in Higher Education, Inc. had been established in July 2000 with a board of directors and a staff of corporate officers. This new not-for-profit (501c3) corporation operated with more autonomy and flexibility to set future directions and develop initiatives such as pursuing new partnership agreements.) 

The AGMUS Ventures Board of Directors was established to oversee the management and integrity of the academic programming and operations. The Board was comprised of an equal number of representatives from both institutions. As the chair, I pledged that Board members were one team and would act independently for the good of the common mission and not as two separate institutions. If there was an instance of “block voting,” I would resign as chair. During my terms as chair, that never occurred.

Luis, along with several AGMUS vice presidents, and the New Ventures team started work on finding an appropriate place to offer this dual language program and to start developing academic content and services that could be made available to the Hispanic American population. We conducted exploratory market research in Tampa, Miami, and Orlando and found that each metro area contained significant Hispanic populations. We concluded that Orlando, because of its predominant Puerto Rican population, would be our initial campus location. We would then add Miami and Tampa later if we could make Orlando a successful operation.

The process of locating a classroom facility and hiring faculty and staff then began. Luis and his small cadre of professionals identified a classroom/office building, began hiring faculty and support staff, and directed the development of a dual language curriculum. Classes started in September 2003 making it the first higher education dual language program in the country. 

The joint venture between Ana Mendez University System and Regis New Ventures continued successfully at other locations in Florida (Miami and Tampa) and in Dallas, Texas. Extension into Washington DC and Maryland worked for a short time and then was terminated. By 2013, thousands of adult learners had earned their degrees. 

A Celebration of 25 Years

The partnership between Regis and AGMUS was mutually dissolved in September 2013 and AGMUS Ventures continued on its own. In 2017, AGMUS Ventures was reconstituted into a NFP corporation and I was asked to rejoin the new Board as chair. I continued in this role until the Spring of 2021.

Having the experience of working with AGMUS between the inception of the AHORA program in Puerto Rico through most of the years in the dual language venture in the States was a personal and professional privilege. It was a testimonial for teamwork, partnering, and dedication for the common good.

Although my professional relationship with Ana G Mendez University had come to its conclusion, my friendships and memories of shared struggles and successes shall live for the rest of my life. During those 25 years, I can safely say that thousands of Puerto Rican and other native Spanish speakers have achieved higher education degrees via the dedicated staff from Regis University and Ana Mendez University. (See: https://www.facebook.com/search/posts/?q=Universidad%20Ana%20G.%20Méndez )