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David Gilberto Olguín is the Director of Cultural and Community Engagement for Auraria Higher Education Center (AHEC).

Olguín is called into equity and community building work as a result of his lived experience and his desire to drive forward the social, political, and economic mobility of marginalized communities. He is focused on actively driving collaboration by calling people into the work. Olguín’s ambition was born out of a desire to reconcile history and, in the tradition of the ancestors, to bear witness and make those testimonials known. His passion is rooted in his own desire to connect la comunidad to restorative healing and recognition.

David has previously served as the Student Advisor to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, the Co-Chair to the Equity Champions Coalition at the Colorado Department of Higher Education, Legislative Liaison to the State Student Advisory Council of Colorado Community College System, RISE Education Fund selection committee member, as well as a proud member of the CU Denver Latinx Undergraduate Leadership Advancement program, and founder of Front Range Community College’s LATINX Student Organization. Olguín continues to serve Denver’s Latino community as a mayoral appointee and Vice Chair to the Latino Commission of Denver’s Human Rights and Community Partnerships.

Olguín, an adult first-generation graduate, obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Public Service at the School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver and an Associate of Arts at Front Range Community College. David completed his degree with distinction by intentionally fusing his degree pathway to ethnic studies research gaining knowledge of the histories, and epistemologies of Black, Indigenous, Chicano, and Latino communities.

David is focused on la lucha. He believes, “We must utilize the educations gained to benefit la gente, not to simply, ‘take the good stuff and run.’ For we own centuries of wisdom, and in the tradition of our people, we must carry those ways of knowing forward. We must lift our voices, evoke the ancestors, gather like minds, and drive change through strategic and intentional action.”