‘When He Sees a Need, He Wants to Fill that Need’
Andrés Galindo believes a caring community is the secret to enduring happiness. That is, in part, why he wanted to join DA as the school’s new DEE director.
By Dylan Howlett | Photos courtesy of Andrés Galindo
He would rise at the same time every morning to make his bed. He would then prepare breakfast and his school lunch, and he would find time in the morning or afternoon to switch the family’s laundry or fold clothes. Andrés Galindo was 8 years old. “When he sees a need,” his wife, Julia, says now, “he wants to fill that need.” That’s what happens when you have to grow up fast, as Galindo did in San Carlos, Colombia, some 45 miles east as the crow flies from Medellín. It was the 1980s, and cartels and drug-related violence were everywhere. Galindo remembers getting mugged as a kid. A bullet once pierced one of the windows in his house. His parents moved Galindo and his sister to a safer neighborhood, a new school. He met a handful of teachers at Colegio Padre Manyanet in Medellín who gave him a sense of belonging, of comfort. One day, he thought, I want to be able to do this for other kids.
First, he had to do it for himself. Galindo knew — during that impressionable time when kids are keenly aware of how they compare to their peers — that he was one of only a few children in his neighborhood who wouldn’t get the latest pair of Nikes for Christmas. That spurred him to get a job when he was 16. He graduated from high school and enrolled in business school, taking accounting and calculus, micro-
economics and macroeconomics. Galindo was working full time and going to school full time. He was running out of money to pay rent, buy groceries, attend classes. He returned home late one night and found only butter in his refrigerator, only saltines in his pantry. He couldn’t continue like this. So Galindo dropped out, and he came to the United States.
He worked seven days a week in greater Boston: at a car wash every weekday, at a McDonald’s every weeknight, at a restaurant on weekends. In between, he tried putting his two and a half years of Colombian business school expertise toward an entrepreneurial pursuit; it didn’t work out. After eight years of undocumented status, Galindo obtained his Social Security card and work permit. He got a job with the catering company that staffed the cafeteria at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He borrowed English-language cassette tapes from the library and listened to them during his commutes on the T, Boston’s labyrinthine light rail and subway system. He picked up more idioms — and punchlines — from Friends and his favorite character, Chandler Bing. His language improved so swiftly that the catering company asked Galindo to work the register, then become a manager. A human resources employee at HGSE mentioned one day that there was an opening for a staff assistant’s position in the Office of Student Affairs. He would get the job and spend the next 15 years at Harvard — mentoring, counseling and supporting first-generation college students, Hispanic students, Black students, LGBTQ+ students, undocumented students. He was able, at last, to do this for other kids.
He’s an excellent listener, and it comes out in one-on-one conversations,” says Julia Galindo, an academic writing and executive function coach who met Andrés while she was teaching and pursuing her doctorate at Harvard.
“He’s not one to jump in and say, ‘I am the expert. I know exactly what you do.’ I think he’s really good at listening and creating a space for a student to express their concerns. He’s very validating. If he hears a student talk about a concern that they have, I think he’s able to receive that in a way that they feel it was a useful exchange, and it actually deepened their understanding — or maybe just made them feel a little bit lighter because they unburdened themselves to someone.”
And now he’ll get to be that someone for Durham Academy students. Galindo was named DA’s director of Diversity, Equity and Engagement in an early April announcement from Head of School Michael Ulku-Steiner. Galindo assumes the role from Jason Mundy, who has occupied the DEE director’s role since 2022 and oversaw the launch of the school’s three-year DEE action plan. (Mundy will become the Middle School’s new director on July 1.) The Galindos and their two daughters moved to North Carolina in June; their oldest, Isabel, will join DA’s third grade class in the fall, and their youngest, Abby, is 3.
At the end of the day, I said to myself, ‘What is my heart and soul telling me?’” said Galindo, who emerged as DA’s favorite from a field of more than 110 applicants and a national search that stretched four months. “I want to go and explore these new adventures, and I want to do it at DA. Everything that I read — about the community and people’s sense of belonging — made me say, ‘Yes.’ To me, that’s the biggest piece: to be part of a caring community. This is a no-brainer for me.”
In his scant free time as a Harvard administrator and father of two, Galindo would mentor Cambridge-area Colombian immigrants who were applying to college. He is, Julia says, the Galindo Family planner extraordinaire, spearheading trips to state parks and beaches, pizza nights and movie outings, and spirited games of “Uno!” and “Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.” He is an avid outdoorsman who can’t wait to frequent the Triangle’s mountain biking trails and rock-climbing gyms.
“Everything,” Galindo says of his move to DA and to Durham, “has felt like it was meant to be.”
The DA community feels exactly the same way. Here are three things to know about Galindo, including his proudest contributions at Harvard, his abiding fidelity to DEE work and why he chose DA.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for brevity.
His work at Harvard featured successful efforts to ensure graduate students felt seen, heard and supported.
Galindo: “There are a couple of things that I always think about — the biggest being the creation of university-wide graduation ceremonies for Black students, Latinx students and LGBTQ students. The ceremonies kind of started to take off, and the university realized that they needed to centralize those. When I attended the ceremonies, students would hug me and thank me, and they would bring their parents over to me and say, ‘He made this happen.’ I didn’t even know this was going to have such an impact. So that was very touching.
“The other thing that I feel good about is organizing the first university-wide organization for undocumented graduate students. As someone who was previously undocumented, that was very close to my heart. I always felt it’s great that Harvard doesn’t discriminate based on whether you’re documented or not. But once you’re here, it’s very challenging. Undergrads have tons of different supports in place. I always thought that we needed to at least provide graduate students with some kind of support. I met with a bunch of lawyers, and one of them was an immigration lawyer, and so he really took an interest in it. And then we launched the student organization.”
He believes DEE work is inseparable from a Moral, Happy and Productive trajectory.
“I keep telling people that we have to make the business case for DEE now. The way I think about it — especially for children — is the earlier they are exposed to different ways of thinking, ideology, identity, the better they’re going to do. And that’s not just for the rest of their middle school, high school experience, but also when they go to college and they really hit that universe of diversity, the better prepared they’re going to be once they graduate. They’ll know that if they want to implement a successful initiative, they need to meet a community where they are. If they’re exposed to that early on in life, it’s not something that they’re going to have to learn as adults: It’s something that’s already going to be embedded in their minds that people have differences and unique identities. It’s just going to be natural.
“I think about what’s going to prepare them to be successful, not just socially and not just academically, but also professionally and as a member of society. It’s about making their communities better and understanding the people that surround them better. If I meet somebody who’s very thoughtful, who is aware of others, I’m going to want to be around this person, go into business with them, be their client, hire them. It’s a skill. Maybe I’m biased, but I think it’s a skill that is far more important than, say, learning how to code. Understanding human behavior, being empathetic: That’s a skill that the earlier you start working that muscle, the stronger you’re going to be in the long run.”
And he can’t wait to do this work at DA.
“This is serendipity. Everything is happening the way it’s supposed to. I’ve mentioned many times to folks my reaction when I first read the DA mission statement about preparing students for moral, happy, productive lives — and happiness came up in a bunch of different places. What do I want for my daughters? To make sure they’re happy, right? When I would work with students at Harvard, I would always ask them: ‘What’s going to make you happy?’
“A place and a school that cares about children’s happiness? We’re on the same page. That’s what I’m all about, too.”