A proclamation honoring and recognizing the 2019 University of Colorado Denver Latinx Cohort and all Education Doctoral graduates of Colorado.
Thank you, Councilman Brooks. That concludes our announcements. There are no presentations and there are no communications this evening, but we do have three proclamations one will be going through on consent, but we have two to be read this evening. So, Councilman Brooks, will you read Proclamation 436? All right. I was just talking about this. I will be excited to read this proclamation. 436 A Proclamation Honoring and Recognizing 2019 University of Colorado, Denver, Latinx cohort and all educational doctoral graduates of color. This is really exciting. Whereas it is a fact that this is the largest graduating class of educational doctoral degrees conferred in a single ceremony from an institution of higher ed by Latinos, African-Americans, Asians, women, white allies. And. WHEREAS, The Denver City Council recognizes the exceptional work that all the doctoral students undertook to change the educational landscape of Colorado for the greater good. And. WHEREAS, the 25 doctoral graduates all have been strong advocates of all students of color engaging in research in the end of school to prison pipeline, restorative practices, linked linguistic learners, cultural responsive learning, leadership bias, student centered supports, and many, many more issues. And. WHEREAS, the Class of 2019 has endured many challenges in their lives from homelessness, societal and economic barriers, and many doors closed due to the color of their skin. And yet these 25 has still prevailed. And. Whereas, collectively, these graduates have over 500 years of experience working in education in the state of Colorado. And. Whereas, lifelong commitment of graduates to earn their doctorate degrees and continue to serve the youth of Colorado and make them outstanding citizens. And we're, as graduates, are committed to promote and enhance and increase the asset, strength and skill sets of our young people by helping provide the necessary services and resources, including opportunities and options for mentoring . Social. Emotional. Intelligence. Education. Financial. Literacy. Education. Financial. She education and post-secondary secondary education, skilled trade, trade training, entrepreneur education and health options and access to increase their odds of success. Now, therefore, being proclaimed by the Council of the City County of Denver, Section one to the Council of the City, County in Denver and the entire community express their heartfelt congratulations to the 2019 University of Denver doctoral students of color and the Council of the City and County of Denver. Hereby officially proclaims that May 18, 2019 be known as Doctors of Education Day. Section two. The Clerk of the City County of Denver shall test and fix a seal upon the city in county of Denver . This be pro proclamation be transmitted to the graduates of and if I mess up any of your names charged to my head and my heart. Okay, Cynthia. Bottom duty. Judy. B, Elizabeth, Elizabeth B, Eleanor Burns, Melissa Conley and Catherine Gaddis and Kasey Green and Tanya Holguin. And Clara Hernandez. And Dominique Jones. And Gabriela maldonado. And Jenna martin. Bonnie Martinez native the Miller. Angelique Montoya. Angelica Ramirez. Michael Ramirez. Teresa Rosado. Jose Silva. Marin Stewart. Artan Thomas. Diana Thompson. Cynthia Sheehan. Thomas Velasquez and Hank. Chunk. You know what I'm saying? Okay. We congratulate all of you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Councilman Brooks. Your motion to. Adopt? Yeah. I moved that proclamation for 36 to be adopted. It has been moved and seconded comments by members of Council Councilman Brooks ment. This is so exciting. You know, when we talk about barriers to opportunities in our country, in our city, you know, I was I was raised on this because my my mother and I always talk about this, but she was the first African-American born in a hospital. She's the first African man born in a hospital in Arkansas, southeast Arkansas. And they put her in a box so she wouldn't contaminate the rest of the white babies. She was born in a very horrible time. Yet she fought through those barriers and became a Ph.D. at UCLA, and she was pregnant with me doing her dissertation on a typewriter. I don't know how she did that, but that showed me the type of barriers that it takes for some of us who are folks of color in this society, and to see the number of folks of color who have become PhDs. And I got a chance to go to one of the doctoral defenses by Jose Silva. It was one of the most incredible things. And I just want to share this with you. Jose was defending his his. You know, his thesis. And it was amazing to be able to see Jose, the community person, and now Jose the scholar. And one of the doctors said passion is great. Passion with scholarship is unstoppable. And I like I got choked up. I was like, man, this is a serious deal. But we are now getting our folks of color who are from these passionate, desperate backgrounds with incredible barriers to have scholarship in their work. And that is tremendous. And so from all of us on city council, we salute you and we thank you. You are the real leaders of this city. You are the real leaders of this region and state. And we tell you, continue to move out, keep going and go forward, because all of these young people, you're setting an example. You are exploding ceilings for them. So this is an amazing day. And we we congratulate you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Brooks. Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. Councilman Brooks, thank you for bringing this forward. And I just want to say, I know a couple of folks on this list, but I want to say congratulations to all of you and go forth and shape the minds of our our young people. Whether you're going to be teaching in our schools or our universities, you all will be influencing the minds and the the thoughts of of many people that will then continue to influence others in our community. So thank you for the the. Entire journey that you have been through and in just for your dedication and commitment to giving back. Because this is another example of public servant. See, if you will, and I. Hats off to all of you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Ortega. Councilman Herndon. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to my comment to commend you all for this. I am a student, a graduate, not the doctoral program. But I will also say my wife is one year into getting her Ph.D. And so I know. I know because I hear about it, the. Rigor. That you all went through. So congratulations on that and job well done. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Herndon. I will just add my congratulations and thank you to Councilman Brooks for bringing such a great proclamation forward. Madam Secretary. Raquel Brooks. Hi. Black Eye. Espinosa. Hi. Flynn Hi. Gilmore I earned it. I. Cashman All right. Can I. Lopez Hi. Ortega Hi, Cessna. Mr. President. I am secretary. Please close voting. Announce results. 12 hours. 12 eyes proclamation. 436 has been adopted. We have 5 minutes for a proclamation acceptance. Councilman Brooks, is there anybody you'd like to bring up? Yep. I just want to do two things. One, can all the FD stand up, please? Give them a hand. You know, for all the work you guys have done, we could be clapping all day. Be honest with you. I'm going to bring up Dr. Jose Silva to receive this. Regardless of the situation. You can right there. Yeah. Good morning, counsel counsel President Clark, thank you so very much for allowing us to be here and inviting us to be here on behalf of myself and our cohort, the latte next cohort. We are just so honored and thankful that the City Council and you all would be willing to honor all of us in the work that we've done. Some of you know me, some of you don't. But I come from the projects here in West Denver, the North Lincoln Projects, and the Sun Valley Projects. And I'm a proud graduate of Denver West High School, class of 1998. And when I went to West High School many times, I was told my friends we all would end up dead or in jail. And for many of my community, that has been the result. But for many of us, we have decided to stand in the gap, show up and be better representations and better representatives of our community . And for us to join this Latin next cohort, when 25 of us were accepted, 25 of us will graduate. And we will be the largest number of Latino graduates with doctorate degrees in the history of the United States in a single ceremony from the city and county of Denver. That is remarkable, not just for us, but for the young people that are going to come behind us. And so I challenge all of you as our leaders today, to continue to stand in the gap for young people, to continue to find ways to open doors for other young people. And currently, right now, the university is raising more money to provide more scholarships to young people to be able to get in the E.D. program. Many of us received a half scholarship. I was fortunate enough to not only receive a half scholarship, but a full ride. So I would ask you to think about how you has council members might be able to stand in the gap for the next generation of doctors by maybe contributing, opening up some of your opportunities and standing in the gap for the next generation of leaders. I will now yield my time to Dr. Trinidad, to Dr. Cynthia that she had. Good evening and thank you very much for having us. I know this is an evening that we're all going to cherish very much for many of us. We became a chosen family and we talk about that a lot, about being a chosen family. This group of. Strong individuals have come together as such a. Strong group. Chosen is the key word for the fact that many things in our families and our family's journeys, as well. As our own journey was not chosen. We did not choose discrimination. We did not choose for the doors to be closed on us. We did not choose for people to try to get us to fail to weed us out at the beginning of our program and even through our. Journey to get to higher ed. But we chose to stay. We chose to rise to the occasion. We chose to take the opportunities that were given to us and to also open those. Doors for more opportunities for up and coming students of color. Because of the courage that each of us have shown every day and together. Whether it was through texting, phone calls. Keeping each other on track. We made it. And this family, this chosen family will forever. Be together. And. Forever bound by the moment. Tonight and the moment that we will share on May 18th, a chosen family of individuals who did not waste time, did not. Waste opportunity, and we surely did. Not waste the journey of our. Ancestors. So congratulations to our cohort, and thank you again for having us. Thank you, Councilman Brooks, for bringing that forward. We have another one, Mr. President. I just want to tell the cohort we have another proclamation than we have. We're going to give you a bunch of proclamations. So if you guys could hold on for just 5 minutes, that'd be great.