Meet Montserrat Villafuerte: the 2023 Miley González scholarship recipient
Montserrat giving thanks to the Miley González donors
Written by - Katie Modic
On a humid Friday morning in June, Montserrat and I met at CATIE’s iconic Wallace Building, the focal point of campus and where I’m lucky enough to have an office with a view of the Turrialba volcano. It was my first time to meet Montserrat and really, one of my first times to interface in a meaningful way with any of the graduate students attending the University as I had started my job only months earlier. Having been an educator for most of my career, spending the morning with Montserrat filled me in a way I’ve come to learn little else can. The issue I became the most passionate about as a teacher was ensuring that I was creating an environment where my students could reach their full potential. Meeting Montserrat triggered that satisfying knowing that I was witnessing young potential at its best.
Montserrat joined CATIE’s graduate school as the recipient of the Miley González Scholarship, a Fund that was initiated in 2020 with the passing of Dr. González. Dr. I. Miley González had a long and distinguished career of more than four decades in higher education and government, including serving as CATIE’s deputy director general. In addition to his service at CATIE, Dr. Gonzáles held posts at Montana State, New Mexico State University, the University of Arizona, Pennsylvania State University and Iowa State University.
During his tenure at New Mexico State University, Dr. Gonzalez served as deputy director for Extension and associate dean for academic programs as well as secretary of agriculture for the state of New Mexico. Dr. Gonzalez was nominated by former U.S. President Bill Clinton to serve as the Undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, serving from 1997 to 2001, providing oversight for the Agricultural Research Service, the Economic Research Service, the National Agricultural Statistics Service and the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Dr. Gonzalez also served as a member of the National Telephone Bank Board, the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, the Commodity Credit Corporation, the White House Commission for Excellence in Hispanic and Native American Education, and on the U.S./China Commission on Science and Technology. He served for more than 15 years on the USDA Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities leadership team representing NMSU. He also served as NMSU's vice provost for research and as the federal liaison to Congress, as well as associate dean and director for the Agricultural Experiment Station.
During his life, Dr. Gonzalez raised livestock and crops in southeastern Arizona, worked on a cattle ranch in Venezuela, managed farms in northern Mexico and worked with farmers in Pennsylvania and Iowa. He spent three years as a high school vocational agriculture teacher in Avondale, Arizona, and on a Native American reservation at Parker, Arizona.
Hispanic Business Magazine recognized him as one the top 100 most influential Hispanics in the U.S. So, it’s with good reason that CATIE named a Scholarship in his honor intended to specifically support students from Latin America’s Indigenous communities, which brings me back to Montserrat.
As Montserrat and I began to talk about what being the recipient of this prestigious scholarship means for her individually and more widely, for her family and community, I saw greatness before me. Montserrat shared that upon graduation, she has a vested interest in applying her Master’s Degree in Economics, Rural Development, and Climate Change in her home community if Chiapas, México. “It’s very important to find ways to improve the lives of farmers,” she shared, “and I want to do this at home.” In a recent report published by CATIE’s graduate school, the majority of graduates report assume leadership positions post graduate that positively impact their rural, agricultural home communities. Montserrat, it seems, will be following in their footsteps.
As Montserrat and her peers conduct field studies, write thesis, and continue their education, The Tropics Foundation is gearing up for our next round of Miley González Scholarship Fundraising. We’ll launch a one-day fundraiser in honor of World Indigenous Peoples Day on Monday, August 7th, 2023. If you know you’d like to donate to this important cause, email me: katie.modic@catie.ac.cr.