Students mingle with Johana Coronado, program coordinator for the Latine Student Success Center, in the weeks leading up to the center’s closure. Credit: Sandra Fu | Photo Editor
Tucked away in Room 200 of Hale Hall, the Latine Student Success Center serves as a refuge for many Ohio State community members.
Some days, the room is filled with music and lively conversation as students relax on the couches. On others, it’s a calm sanctuary where students study at tables or nap beneath the flags of several Latin American nations.
But soon, the space will fall silent, as the center prepares for its inevitable fate.
The Latine Student Success Center will close at the end of the semester after just three years of operation, university spokesperson Ben Johnson confirmed. This closure comes as part of Ohio State President Ted Carter Jr.’s Feb. 27 announcement rolling back several diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on campus. Among these programs are the Office of Diversity and Inclusion — which housed the Latine Student Success Center — and the Center for Belonging and Social Change, both of which will also shut down at the semester’s end.
Though Johana Coronado, the center’s program coordinator and a second-year graduate student in education administration, said the center’s closure signals a decrease in institutional support for Latine students, she said it has provided programs and resources supporting community building, leadership development and cultural awareness since 2017.
In addition, Coronado confirmed she is one of 16 university employees whose positions will be dissolved by the end of the semester due to the closing of ODI and CBSC.
Some of the center’s key initiatives, including the Latine Student Success Early Arrival Program and leadership programs like Avanzando Through College, provided students with support in navigating both academic and personal challenges, Coronado said.
For many Latine students, the Early Arrival Program — or the LSS EAP — is often their first glimpse of campus culture.
Kevin Cazarez Lopez, a third-year in environment, economy, development and sustainability, said he didn’t know what the climate at Ohio State would be like before he arrived in 2022.
“I came into OSU not really expecting anything, but I grew up in a diverse community with lots of Latinos, so I guess in my head [I] was like, ‘Oh, there’s bound to be some over there,’” Cazarez Lopez said.
After receiving the Morrill Scholarship, Cazarez Lopez said his application for the Morrill Scholars Early Arrival Program was deferred to the LSS EAP, where he spent three days on campus before classes started.
Coronado said the LSS EAP offered an early move-in opportunity, campus tours, mentorship services and introductions to resources at ODI at no cost to students, also providing a mix of group activities and social events featuring Latine faculty and staff.
“It’s honestly just the time to make friends,” Cazarez Lopez said. “I’ve made a lot of my closest friends that first week that I was here, and then a lot of the people that I see around campus are our mentors.”
Even after his first year in 2022, Cazarez Lopez said he continued to participate in the LSS EAP, with one of his favorite events being the center’s annual intersectionality workshop.
“It’s just a moment to reflect on your multiple identities and acknowledge that at a [predominately white institution], your identities are going to come into conflict with each other, and it’s more beneficial to you and more beneficial to the people around you to always be true and authentic to yourself,” Cazarez Lopez said.
Cazarez Lopez said he credits the LSS EAP for introducing him to Coronado and the broader Ohio State Latine community.
“And from that moment forward, it was a very open and welcoming community,” Cazarez Lopez said. “I felt very comfortable to be around the people there.”
Juli Pinzon Garzon, a third-year in forestry, fisheries and wildlife, said she was in the same LSS EAP cohort as Cazarez Lopez. Prior to attending Ohio State, she felt out of place, having only met one other Colombian peer in high school.
“I never felt like I had a space to talk about my experience,” Pinzon Garzon said.
Through the LSS EAP, however, Pinzon Garzon said she felt seen after meeting other Colombians while the cohort participated in an activity about their cultural identities.
“Not only am I understood, but these people are going through the same things,” Pinzon Garzon said. “It’s unmatched.”
Pinzon Garzon said she is glad she decided to take a “leap of faith” by choosing to attend Ohio State, as she left behind her family and a student loan-free life in Colombia.
“I was looking for a small home here in the large campus that is OSU,” Pinzon Garzon said. “And I found way more than I could have ever hoped for.”
Since Room 200 opened its doors, the LSS Center has been a place where students like Pinzon Garzon said they can feel at ease in an unfamiliar environment.
“I kept coming back because that was my comfort spot,” Pinzon Garzon said. “I didn’t feel comfortable in my dorm.”
After encountering the LSS EAP, Pinzon Garzon joined Avanzando Through College, a program that offers college-readiness curriculum for first-year, second-year and transfer students through a partnership with UnidosUS, a large-scale Latine civil rights organization, Coronado said.
Initially drawn in by the promise of a trip to Chicago, Pinzon Garzon said she ended up forming close friendships and realizing the importance of networking during her time with the program.
“In retrospect, that’s one of the biggest things that LSS has provided for me, is that network [of friends],” Pinzon Garzon said.
For Cazarez Lopez, the LSS Center has not just served as a second home — it has also served as a pillar for personal growth.
“It’s been everything to me because after I came in that first week, I was kind of empowered to just keep being myself, and keep putting myself in spaces that make me uncomfortable and spaces that I can bring my perspective into,” Cazarez Lopez said.
Beyond fostering academic success, the LSS Center likewise encouraged cultural expression, Cazarez Lopez said.
With support from his fraternity, Alpha Psi Lambda, Cazarez Lopez said he was able to build an ofrenda — or altar — in the LSS Center for Día de los Muertos, a Mexican holiday that honors the deceased.
Alpha Psi Lambda is a co-ed fraternity geared toward Latine students that promotes “cultural awareness, cultural identity and cross-cultural understanding,” according to its website.
Cazarez Lopez said he began to build the ofrenda with his fraternity and other community members in 2023, displaying pictures of loved ones on the altar and taking moments to share stories and show respect for those who have died.
“It was very healing, to be able to do that,” Cazarez Lopez said.
Cazarez Lopez said he expressed a desire to the center’s employees and his fraternity to open up celebrations of Día de Los Muertos to the wider campus community in 2024. Complete with snacks, music, crafts and activities, the Mexican Student Association and Alpha Psi Lambda held a joint event commemorating the holiday in the LSS Center from Oct. 15, 2024, to Nov. 15, 2024.
“It was very impactful, just being so far away from my family and being able to bring a piece of them onto this campus,” Cazarez Lopez said. “At that time, it felt like I was building a permanent space for them here, just because it was physically in the center, and it was something that we all really cared about.”
Cazarez Lopez said Alpha Psi Lambda appealed to him through its meaningful work on campus and beyond, noting its focus on advocacy, community service, cultural awareness and diversity.
Founded in 1985, Alpha Psi Lambda was established at Ohio State with the help of Josué Cruz Jr., then-assistant vice provost of the Office of Minority Affairs, according to the organization’s website. Today, the national co-ed Latine organization has 50 chapters, encompassing over 4,000 students, according to its website.
“Coming in as a member, I felt a lot of pressure,” Cazarez Lopez said. “I was like, ‘How do I uphold this whole legacy, all these values and this amazing organization?’”
Now, as incoming president, Cazarez Lopez said he will have to face the reality of a campus without ODI and the LSS Center next year.
“Unfortunately, with them being dissolved now, I have to reshift my focus to saving what can be saved and trying to save that community that I care about,” Cazarez Lopez said.
With the loss of the LSS Center, students will also be losing Johana Coronado, the center’s program coordinator, as a resource.
Johana Coronado, program coordinator for the Latine Student Success Center and a second-year graduate student in education administration, poses at her desk in Room 200 at Hale Hall. Credit: Sandra Fu | Photo Editor
After Coronado graduated with a degree in public affairs with a focus on education policy and literacy from Ohio State in 2021, she interned with the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School, studied education in Brazil and later interned with the Ohio Department of Education.
Coronado then worked as a STEM program administrator, supporting independent K-12 STEM schools and managing feedback from the state board of education for seven months, before returning to Ohio State as the LSS Center’s program coordinator in May 2021.
Coronado said she took the position to reconnect with and give back to her community, seeing it as a chance to engage more with students and help them tackle academic challenges.
“I saw it as an opportunity to bring on additional perspectives and really give back to the community that helped me grow as a person so much,” Coronado said.
However, Coronado’s homecoming to Ohio State wasn’t smooth sailing, she said.
In her first year working at the university, Coronado said she felt she wasn’t maximizing the Avanzando Through College program’s potential, as she believed the students weren’t sufficiently engaged. But following a trip to Chicago, Coronado realized the students deeply valued the experience and had formed meaningful bonds.
Coronado said she decided to gather input from students to improve the LSS EAP, allowing them to shape it based on what worked and what didn’t.
“Those two experiences really helped me understand that it doesn’t have to be perfect,” Coronado said. “You just have to be present.”
This collaborative mindset has continued to help shape Coronado into the mentor she is now, she said.
“Knowing that I’m properly representing the students and serving them by asking them what they want is a way for me to know that, OK, they’re here, they’re committed,” Coronado said. “I’m committed to them, they’re engaged, and their feedback helps inform what to do better or what not to do.”
Coronado is also the faculty advisor for Ohio State’s Sigma Lambda Gamma chapter — a multicultural sorority focused on women empowerment — said Sahiba Salmon-Rekhi, a third-year in sociology and SLG member.
Coronado will maintain the position as she completes her graduate education at the university.
Salmon-Rekhi said Coronado has become one of the most important people in her life.
“From being my mentor to being my friend, and wearing both hats, and just helping me with my resume, helping me with finding internships and connecting me with people, helping me with presenting myself to employers and working on my personal brand, I guess you could say she has just really, honestly helped to mold me into the woman I am today,” Salmon-Rekhi said. “She has done so much for me in a professional setting, as well as in a personal setting, to the point where I could never pay her back for everything that she’s got coming.”
To Salmon-Rehki, the loss of the LSS Center means the loss of a mentor and a home. As a campus ambassador, she describes Hale Hall as a place where she “spends too much of her time.”
“I call it Hale Home,” Salmon-Rehki said. “I know that there’s no one in here that will judge me, ever.”
Knowing the center will soon close, Salmon-Rekhi said she is left with “a big hole in [her] heart.”
“There’s going to be a big part of my safe spot on campus that is missing, and I don’t really know what I’m gonna do next year,” Salmon-Rekhi said.
For many students, Pinzon Garzon said the center is not just a physical space that’s disappearing — it’s a place where they found belonging, support and community. But the closure has also left some feeling a sense of disloyalty when it comes to the university’s administration.
“I literally feel like it’s betrayal in its highest form,” Pinzon Garzon said.
Pinzon Garzon said her frustration only grew as she reflected on the cutbacks made to DEI programming at Ohio State.
“If I had to sell my left kidney so that it would all go back to normal, I would,” Pinzon Garzon said. “Highkey, I would do so many things for it to just go back, especially with [Coronado].”
Cazarez Lopez said he originally wanted to stay at Ohio State to pursue a graduate degree after completing his undergraduate track. However, following the shutdown of the center, this sentiment has changed.
“I don’t want to say this, but in a way, I am tired of fighting to constantly be recognized, and there are universities and institutions out there who will gladly accept me with open arms, and who have programs to support me and to support my success,” Cazarez Lopez said. “So, why would I stay at a university that is doing the opposite?”
Though Cazarez Lopez said he is frustrated by feeling a lack of university support, he acknowledged that his connection to the campus community remains a source of strength.
“I think the only reason I’m not completely crashing out right now is because my coordinator, Johana Coronado, has kept telling us, ‘They can take away your physical spaces, they can take away the institutions that support you, but they can’t take away the community,’” Cazarez Lopez said.
Cazarez Lopez said while he wants the Latine community at Ohio State to grow, he feels like he cannot recommend Ohio State to prospective Latine students because “clearly, the administration doesn’t want [Latine students] to have a community.”
Despite fears surrounding DEI rollbacks, Coronado said she has hope for the future of Latine students at Ohio State.
“We don’t know what’s gonna happen with this physical room, but I know that they are, they’ve always been, the change makers, and they’ve always been part of the decision-making and everything that happens,” Coronado said.
Even though students are losing a role model, Coronado said she believes they will be able to persevere without her.
“They’re great leaders; they’re great peers; they’re great mentors,” Coronado said.
Ohio State has lent its support to staffers like Coronado by offering to review resumes and cover letters to see what opportunities are available at the university, Coronado said.
“Everyone has and will be making their own choices, possibly with support from the institution, possibly elsewhere,” Coronado said.
Coronado said she has yet to decide her next steps, but at the end of the day, she’s confident students will continue “living in their purpose” and paving the way for future students.
“Ultimately, the center is called Latine Student Success, but truly, their success is all of our success,” Coronado said. “So, they’re going to continue succeeding; they’re going to continue upholding the center, even if it’s not formally or physically.”
This story was updated April 3 at 4:56 p.m. to correct the year the LSS center opened and two instances of the misspelling of “Avanzando.”
