Esperanza College, a North Philadelphia branch campus of Eastern University and the first Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in Pennsylvania, is now in an articulation agreement with Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University. Students who complete their associate of applied sciences in Media and Technology at Esperanza can transfer their degree credits to Klein to complete their bachelor of arts in media studies and production. The agreement was signed during the fall 2020 semester after a years-long negotiation between the two institutions.

As one of the stipulations for an HSI grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education, Esperanza was required to incorporate a digital communication program into its program offerings. David Hurtado, director of the Department of Digital Communication and Media & Technology at Esperanza, met professors from Klein at a community event and discussed how to best serve the Latino community in the area. 

Hurtado primarily worked with Patrick Murphy, associate dean for research and graduate studies, along with other Klein and Esperanza faculty and administrators to solidify the agreement.

“We are connecting to the community...we’re working with a partner within the city of Philadelphia in a way that we haven’t in the past and that’s really exciting,” Murphy says.

Esperanza’s student body is overwhelmingly composed of minority students and the college offers classes in both Spanish and English. Eastern University is a faith-based institution with a largely interdenominational Christian student body, and Esperanza is no exception. The college was founded in 2000 due to the combined efforts of Eastern and Esperanza Inc., a local nonprofit started by the Hispanic Clergy of Philadelphia that aims to build “opportunity communities” with flourishing businesses, creative and educational spaces and safe and affordable living.

Hurtado sees value in both Esperanza’s and Klein’s instruction in media, which can aid in telling the stories of Philadelphia’s Latino community. He is not only excited for students to use Esperanza’s developing television studio and control room, field equipment lab and a media and technology computer lab but also for them to learn more about media production through the college’s instruction in video production, web development and mobile app development. 

At Klein, students from Esperanza can take their interests in media even further by completing coursework toward a bachelor’s degree that will set them apart from other media makers. Temple is located in the fourth-largest media market in the United States, a distinct advantage for media students in the city. In the spirit of esperanza, which translates to hope in Spanish, Hurtado is looking forward to more representation of Latinos as the subjects and producers of media at Esperanza, Klein and in the larger media world.

“There are some awesome stories waiting to be told and through our program at Esperanza College we are preparing people to tell those stories,” Hurtado says. “And I’m excited about the possibility of them going on to get even greater preparation through a bachelor’s degree at Temple to continue telling those stories. Our program is young but we really have a very, very bright future ahead of us and I think collaborating with Temple just helps us to make that future brighter.”

Murphy agrees and is happy that the agreement has come to fruition. “This is a really exciting agreement and hopefully we’ll find that it increases the representation of Latinx students particularly from Philadelphia at Klein,” he says.