Before long, prospective students coming to the university may hear a new phrase at the beginning of a campus tour: “Bienvenidos a la Universidad de Maryland!”
Every week, student guides lead about 30 tours for prospective students and their parents, and the tours are all in English. By the end of this year, Maryland Images, the group that organizes tours on the campus, hopes to implement Spanish-language campus tours for incoming freshmen and transfer students at least once a week.
Senior government and politics and Spanish major Kelly Brown, a student coordinator for Maryland Images, formulated the idea of campus tours in Spanish last spring after returning from a study-abroad trip in Spain.
“I realized how hard it is to navigate bureaucracy when you’re not a native speaker,” Brown said.
Spanish tours of the campus are offered as a special group request but are not a common occurrence.
Churches and other community groups contact Maryland Images for tours in Spanish, but because of a lack of Spanish-speaking tour guides, Images limits the number of these special-request tours. Brown estimates that these tours only happen about once a month.
“I just want to have the resources to provide the Latino community with the best opportunities to discover the university,” Brown said.
Now, in order to jump-start the new program, Maryland Images is translating tour guide manuals and determining which communities to pinpoint.
The university is close to Latino communities like Langley Park, which Brown considers an “untapped resource.” The tours are seen as a way to reach out to prospective students and their families living in those neighborhoods. While students might speak English, it is often their parents who need the translations.
“I want to involve the whole family,” Brown said, “to make them feel comfortable.”
Spanish tours are also seen as a way to boost Latino enrollment, according to Pamela Hernandez, coordinator for Latino student involvement and advocacy.
“This is important, especially because there’s a need for it,” Hernandez said. “It has a lot to do with parents and helping them to know what the school is about.”
Out of the 126 tour guides who volunteer for Maryland Images, only eight speak the amount of Spanish required to give campus tours. None are native speakers.
Other universities across the country offer campus tours in Spanish. Hernadez first heard about the idea at her former school in Oregon.
While Spanish majors are welcome to apply, Maryland Images is looking for native speakers, Brown said. She has posted flyers in classrooms, made announcements to professors and contacted the Latino Student Union. Despite the strong support from minority students, response is slow.
Hernandez said minority groups have been in support of a Spanish-language tour program since its origination, and their voice has finally echoed in the admissions office.
“[That’s] where it should have been,” Hernandez said.
Undergraduate Admissions plans to see this program to its success, said Maryland Images advisor Peggy Tiffany, the coordinator for programs and visitor services.
“There is a collective effort in our office to provide a resource to families,” Tiffany said, “relieving a language barrier.”
Applications for Spanish-speaking tour guides are due by 4 p.m. Tuesday and can be found on the Maryland Images website (studentorg.umd.edu/mi). Applicants go through a short trial tour, in English or Spanish, in order to determine how well students relate the university facts listed on the application. Decisions will be made before spring break, and finalists will be trained throughout the rest of the spring semester. Brown said she hopes to get Spanish tours fully running in the fall of next year.
“At this point, we just need to start,” Brown said. “I’m really hoping that we get the interest from students to make this a reality.”
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