The last week of October, 2011, I had the opportunity to participate in the 25th annual conference of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU).
HACU was founded in 1986 and today it represents more than 400 colleges and universities committed to the higher educational success of Latina/o students in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Latin America, and Portugal. HACU is the only national educational association that represents Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs).
In 1992 HACU and Latino advocacy groups requested that Congress formally recognize college and university campuses with high Latina/o enrollment as federally designated HSIs and that they provide funding for those institutions.
The U.S. Department of Education defines a HSI as an institution of higher education that has an enrollment of undergraduate full-time equivalent students of at least 25 percent Latinos.
Eligibility designation qualifies an institution of higher education to receive grants under Title V of the Higher Education Act and Title III, Part A Programs.
In 1995 HSIs were granted $12 million from federal resources. Since then, funding has increased significantly. In 2011, $104.3 million were appropriated for Latina/os serving institutions. Latino advocacy groups such as HACU have recommended $175 million be appropriated for fiscal year 2012.
To become a HSI is a complex process and cannot be reduced to simply recruiting and retaining students. Furthermore, those who oppose HSIs would argue that Latina/o students’ enrollment is not financially sustainable from the perspective of enrollment management administrators, and in the context of the “marketization” of higher education. Although the current Latino enrollment at UNC is approximately 12 or 13 percent (about one half of the required percentage), nonetheless, many benefits would accrue to the university if it were to pursue HSI status.
The pursuit would benefit not only Latina/o students, but also the institution and the community as a whole. Therefore, we need effective leadership and political willingness of all stakeholders to dedicate energy towards the goal of realizing HSIs status.
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Aldo, thanks for bringing this up! I was just looking at the HSI 2 days ago and was surprised that UNC was not on the list. This clears up some of why that might be. However, I'm surprised UNC hasn't tried to move that direction. I'm sure there are some logistical and political reasons why it hasn't happened yet. Thanks for providing more information about this.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is surprising that UNC has not moved in that direction. I agree there are many vested interests.
ReplyDeleteAs indicated, one possible reason is the fact that Latino/a students enrollment may not be considered a fiscally sustainable indicator with respect to enrollment management goals of having higher yield rates.
Also some may argue that Latino students may be more costly to recruit and retain..
Nevertheless, based on data, the Latino student population is the fastest growing demographic in the country. Thus, all stakeholders should find a way to pursue HSIs status
Aldo, thanks for a good post! I find the HSI topic a very interesting one.
ReplyDeleteI worked at Metropolitan State College of Denver for a couple of years and during that time, the push for HSI status was intense and purposeful. I liked working for an institution that put its values into such a worthy goal.
Over the summer I "defected" to the Community College of Denver on the same campus as Metro. After a few weeks, someone mentioned off hand that CCD was an HSI. I was shocked...because nobody talked about it! When Metro gets the status, they will make it widely known but CCD kind of keeps it a secret. Regardless of that though, I was proud to know I had inadvertently stumbled into working at an HSI. I find comfort in the diversity of the Auraria campus.
I don't claim to know all of the implications of HSI status, I know only a few, most of which are linked to funding. But I am thankful to have to chance to learn them as I do my job. I think the experience will be valuable.
I am glad HACU was a good experience for you!
Last year, my wife did some research about HSI's and she found that an institution with an HSI could be from having 25% students of color-not necessarily Latino/a or 1200 students of color or more attending the university...according to UNC public information, in attendance to our university -we do meet 1200 students of color. I am left too, as many of you wondering why UNC has not gone down this path and I speculate that perhaps, it is an emotionally charged and hot topic that some do not want to weather here on campus. it is my thought that campus and community are disengaged partly to do with an anti-sentiment for specifically-the Latino population, otherwise there would be an established relationship already. As for the idea that HSI's come with financial issues concerning recruitment and retention with Latino/a populations; I have considered in great depth, why some feel that there is a great need for retention for students of color, and it seems obvious to me that retention has to do with "home sickness" whether it be home sickness of distance and/or culture. So with that, shouldn't we be investing more into our cultural centers to make our students of color feel more welcome and to help them feel at "home" on campus? Connecting with students through cultural centers could help maintain enrollment and more importantly, degree completion. I say, lets invest in our students of color so that we can specifically invest in our community because those students will foster and cultivate leadership and education back into the community-starting with campus first!
ReplyDeleteAldo, thank you for your post. As someone who works at a HSI, there are a lot interesting things to consider before an institution becomes a HSI. First, let me say that I am proud to work at a HSI. It shows how committed my institution is diversity. However, there is certain expectation that exists when an institution is a HSI, which is perhaps why Meloni was so surprised to find out that our institution has the HSI status, but is not advertising it very well.
ReplyDeleteThe first question, did an institution become a HSI on accident or on purpose? I know there is a process that institutions must go through, but did they get to 26% latina/o student population on purpose or was that student population already attending the college, making it very easy to seek out a HSI status? While I was not there when we sought out our HSI status, I do often wonder how we fell into HSI status.
Either way an institution becomes a HSI, they need to be prepared to meet the demands of those students. If an institution "falls into" a HSI status, they need to setup support services quickly and make sure all staff understand what "HSI" means and what they need to do in order to support the HSI.
HSI status is an interesting conversation for me and I appreciate everyone's comments, especially from different schools and perspectives. Let me first say that I agree that UNC should have a higher latino/a population considering the Greeley/Weld County community. Working in Admissions, I do believe that this is something that the Enrollment Management office is seeking but perhaps maybe not at full-steam.
ReplyDeleteWith that being said, I wonder if some others can provide some input/thought to some questions that arise for me when thinking about schools becoming HSI status. This was sort of brought up in class yesterday but never discussed at length. I wonder what the bigger affects of schools becoming HSI are? For example, someone brought up yesterday, what if there are 4 institutions and each wants to have a 25% population of a different demographic - say African American, Asian American, Native American and Latino/a. All 4 of those schools succeed and get to that status/percentage. Wouldn't the benefit to everyone involved be greater if each of those 4 schools had a 15-25% population of each of those demographics as opposed to just one?
If Dion's stat is true that HSI doesn't just mean the Latino/a population, then this negates this question but that was never mentioned yesterday either.
Like Nelson said in his other post, some of the great resources that already exist on UNC's campus are not just for latino/a populations. It has been mentioned that the financial resources should not be such a huge consideration but unfortunately, I just don't think this is an option. Resources like CHE are extremely expensive to run per student and there are already hundreds of students on UNC's campus that qualify for CHE but there is not room/money for all of them. Even after receiving grant money from becoming an HSI school, I believe the costs and how far that money will stretch have to be considered. Regardless of a student's race/ethnicity/gender/disability (you name a difference) I believe it is unethical to recruit a student without having the support services they need to succeed...but that could open up a whole new can of worms...
After reading and article in Inside Higher Ed, it looks like UNC is not alone. According to this article, 44% of emerging HSIs are public community colleges, followed by 31% of private 4 year colleges. I found this statistic rather surprising. Another point the article brought up was the fact that some institutions might already be HSI's but because some students do not report their ethnicity the school does not receive this status. This may be due to the fear or being stigmatized, documentation status, and testing of language fluency. I agree with Dana's point that it is unethical to recruit students that we do not have the recourses needed for them to succeed. While I think HSI's are a great thing, getting there takes a lot more than just recruiting Latino students.
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