Donado Elected to Board of Influential New Jersey Hispanic Organization

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Princeton, N.J. (September 17, 2010) —

Yvette Donado, Senior Vice President, People, Process and Communications and Chief Administrative Officer at ETS, has recently joined the board of directors of Hispanics Inspiring Students' Performance and Achievement (HISPA), a nonprofit organization headquartered in New Jersey.

HISPA programs inspire middle school students to stay in school, plan for higher education and aspire to achieve at the highest levels. It also assists teachers in improving essential skills for dealing with Latino youth and putting their students on a college track. The organization also conducts workshops and seminars in schools in communities across the state, pairing schools and students with Latino professional role models drawn from diverse fields, particularly from STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines. Well over 2,000 students have participated in HISPA programs.

"Deciding to accept HISPA's invitation to join its board did not take long," says Donado. "ETS's mission and theirs are parallel, and HISPA offers us the opportunity to help make a difference in educational opportunity and to engage our own employees as mentors. I am very impressed with the size, breadth and impact of HISPA's programs, and I am eager to contribute what I can."

In August HISPA moved their offices to ETS's campus in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.  HISPA will also hold its board of directors meeting at ETS in September.  In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month, which began September 15 and lasts until October 15, HISPA founder and president Ivonne Díaz-Claisse, addressed ETS employees to encourage them to serve as role models and mentors for students in the greater Mercer County area. HISPA also hopes to build bridges to two ETS-related organizations with similar goals: Parents Step Ahead in Dallas and the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute in Chicago.

"Our relationship with Yvette Donado and ETS represents an extraordinary opportunity for us to work with a prestigious, research-based testing organization that can help impart vital messages to our youth," says Yvonne Shepard, chair of the HISPA Board of Directors and former President and Chief Operating Officer of AT&T Puerto Rico. "And Yvette is herself such a powerful role model."

HISPA was founded in 2007 by Ivonne Díaz-Claisse, who has a Ph.D. in mathematics and is a former distinguished member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories. She is also an educational consultant with expertise in dealing with the challenges of Latino ELL students.

Further information on HISPA and its recent Youth Conference is available at the HISPA website.

About ETS

At nonprofit ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and post-secondary education, as well as conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL® and TOEIC® tests, the GRE® test and The Praxis Series™ assessments — in more than 180 countries. www.ets.org