“Alce su Voz” (‘Speak Out’) is a community-engaged program housed within Wichita State University’s modern language department that strives to improve health equity for individuals with non-English language preference (NELP). The program emerged from a series of Spanish-language community meetings that Rachel Showstack and her students facilitated in Wichita, Kansas in early 2020 to explore problems in healthcare for Spanish-speaking patients and propose possible solutions. Since then, Alce su Voz has engaged with Latino and Mayan Indigenous communities throughout southern Kansas and has developed a three-pronged approach of community education, workforce development, and policy research to improve healthcare language access across the state. In this lecture, she will describe the program’s history and approach, offer strategies for engagement with community stakeholders, and discuss practical and ethical considerations for community engaged work for health justice in multilingual communities.


Occurrences
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Friday, March 20, 2026, 9:00 a.m.–10:30 a.m.
Groups
Our events and programs are open to all students regardless of sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, or any other protected class.
The College of the Liberal Arts is committed to building a community of belonging for all.