Borikén Syllabus 2.0

As the ASHE community prepares to return to San Juan, Puerto Rico, in November 2026, we reflect and build on the foundational work of the 2021 Local and Community Engagement Committee’s (LCEC) Borikén Syllabus. In consideration of the 2021 committee’s commitment to honoring the ancestral lands of the Taíno people, we retained Borikén (meaning “land of the great lords”) in the title of this updated syllabus: Borikén Syllabus 2.0: Land, Memory, Power, and Resistance.

This return also asks us to remember the 2021 statement on gathering in Puerto Rico. Then-President Dr. Darin M.L. Stewart challenged the Association not simply to “show up and take up space,” but to make a sincere contribution and create conditions for members to engage deeply with what it means to gather in San Juan. Because 2026 is our second conference in Puerto Rico in five years, we approach this syllabus as a continuation of commitments already made—not as a first encounter with Borikén.

In alignment with this year’s theme, “Land, Memory, and Power: Collective Movements to Revolutionize Higher Education”, we curated an interdisciplinary collection of resources that foreground both the longstanding presence, advocacy, and the sustained resilience of the Borikén community. The following sections and resources illuminate the complex challenges faced by higher education institutions on the archipelago while also highlighting the resilience, resistance, and enduring impact of Borikén advocacy in Puerto Rico and the diaspora.

The Borikén Syllabus 2.0 includes Land & Labor Acknowledgements followed by five core sections:

• Land Acknowledgement & Labor Acknowledgement

• 2026 Current Context | Water, Infrastructure, and Reciprocity connects the present water crisis to longer histories of infrastructure, colonial governance, disaster, community resilience, and our responsibilities as returning visitors.

• Land | Tierra extends the work of the 2021 Local and Community Engagement Committee by inviting readers to revisit the 2021 Borikén Syllabus and critically examine the relationship among space, power, violence, and assumed rights of access to Puerto Rico.

• Memory | Memoria traces the history and contemporary realities of higher education institutions in Puerto Rico and considers how the archipelago’s colonial and political history continues to shape funding, institutional conditions, and educational opportunity.

• Power | Fuerza centers the power of Puerto Rican movements across the United States and the archipelago, and how these have been grounded in resilience, solidarity, and liberation.

• Music as Resistance | Música es Resistencia focuses on how musical expression offers a vital interpretive lens into dynamic forms of resistance that transcend history and place, through bomba, salsa, merengue, and reggaetón.

Each section includes a brief overview, a curated list of resources, and reflection questions to guide colleagues as we prepare to return to Puerto Rico as responsible visitors.

We acknowledge that this syllabus is neither neutral nor exhaustive. Rather, it offers one framework for engaging with these topics and reflects our collective effort to curate resources that support critical reflection and continued learning. We invite ASHE members to engage with this syllabus alongside Puerto Rican, Taíno, Afro-Puerto Rican, and local community knowledge, recognizing their perspectives as essential to developing more critical, contextualized, and accountable understandings.

Most importantly, we ask ASHE colleagues not only to think critically about how to be in community with the people of Borikén given the current national climate as we return for the 2026 annual conference, but also to engage with the resources provided and reflect on how we may remain in solidarity with Borikén through ongoing scholarship, research, practice, and collective commitments.

In solidarity and on behalf of the ASHE 2026 Local and Community Engagement Committee,

• Juanita K. Hinojosa, PhD, she/her, Co-Chair, Syllabus Committee; Research Manager, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Felicia Akerele, she/her, Co-Chair, Syllabus Committee; Doctoral Student, University of Michigan

• Stephen Santa-Ramirez, PhD, he/him, Co-Chair, 2026 Local and Community Engagement Committee; Associate Professor; University at Buffalo

• Theresa J. Ambo, PhD, Gabrielino/Tongva, Luiseño, she/her, Co-Chair, 2026 Local and Community Engagement Committee; Associate Professor, UCLA

• Nichole M. Garcia, PhD, she/her, Chair, 2026 Conference Committee; Associate Professor, Rutgers University