A Message from Inaugural Dean Yoshitaka "Yoshi" Iwasaki
This July, we celebrated two years since the formation of our one-of-a-kind College of Health, Education, and Social Transformation (HEST). Many thanks to our HEST stakeholders, we have truly made good progress forward. We have built a strong foundation, exemplified by our new college slogan of Learn. Engage. Transform., to be a community of learning and engagement as a catalyst for transformation. Without each and every one of you, our college would not be where we are today.
We are fully committed to showing the relevance of what we do by offering high-demands essential curricula to meet the needs of our students and the industry, encompassing allied health, education, and social sciences and services in both clinical and community settings. Our programs are designed to facilitate a meaningful, flourishing journey of life, work, and citizenship for our diverse students. HEST will continue to be a pioneer with an entrepreneur’s mindset to innovate and be relevant.
To break down our HEST slogan of Learn. Engage. Transform, first, learning is ubiquitous happening everywhere everyday, through which curiosity (being curious) is instrumental for a joyful learning. Then, learning happens through our engagement, which is about relationship-building with people. Finally, transformation is about a change to make a difference and have an impact, with our commitment to mobility and justice.
NMSU is New Mexico’s land-grant public research university, which means that we are a steward of the land, resources, and people across the Borderlands region, New Mexico, and beyond, as an engine for economic and community development. Within this context, HEST is an interdisciplinary, solution-oriented destination college and anchor institution to address societal issues facing our communities in order to transform our society.
Such commitment transcends across the lifespan from early childhood education, K-12, and higher education, to workforce development and adult learning. Most importantly, HEST produces next generations of transformative leaders who serve, support, and elevate our people and communities. For this purpose, HEST opens doors for transformative opportunities through planting seeds at grass-root levels and then nurturing those to grow, prosper, and flourish!
