[media-credit name=’JESSE BLOCH/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Peruvian dancers, donning colorfully knit hats and ponchos, spun their partners across the floor. Latino music pumped through the room's speakers continuously. And melted chocolate poured from a fountain in the middle of the room.

However, the party atmosphere did not distract University of Wisconsin officials from the more serious issues at hand Tuesday.

In an effort to bring to the forefront Latino community concerns on the UW campus, university officials held a kick-off reception Tuesday to organize a campus-wide Latino association.

UW officials expressed their hope that the association would bring together Latino representatives from all sectors of the university — including students, faculty, administration and classified staff — to address such issues as the university's hiring practices, work conditions and overall campus environment.

"We're not seeing the number of us being promoted, we're not seeing the number of us being hired at the higher levels, the higher administrative positions — vice chancellors and all that — and we would like to see more," Ben Rodriguez, assistant dean of the College of Letters and Sciences, said as more than 150 university representatives, most of them Latino, gathered in the alumni lounge at the Pyle Center Tuesday. "We'd like to see more chairs of departments, we'd like to see more faculty hired, more administrative staff hired, more promotional opportunities."

Chancellor John Wiley spoke during the reception and voiced his support for the association and stressed the importance of addressing Latino community concerns.

Speaking through a translator — as the reception was held in half Spanish, half English — Wiley said the Latino influence on campus was obvious and that UW needed to continue to encourage diversity on campus.

"It's something that I want you to know we embrace, we encourage and we do everything we can to further," Wiley said. "It will happen despite our efforts, but we are impatient for it to happen faster."

Citing an increasing Latino population across the state and country, Rodriguez said the university needs to do what it can to prepare its students for a more multicultural society and help remedy the social problems facing the Latino community across the state.

"The growing numbers, percentages of Latino kids, … they're going to make up a majority of grammar school kids, high school kids," Rodriguez said. "They're going to be knocking on the doors of higher ed[ucation]."

Other UW officials in attendance echoed Rodriguez and Wiley's sentiments.

Assistant Vice Chancellor Peyton Smith said it was important for the university to provide opportunities for the Latino community as the campus and country becomes more diverse.

"A growing percentage of people coming into the region are of Latino-Latina descent, and it's a good thing to provide professional development opportunities and opportunities for their voices to be heard," Smith said.