(NAME-MCE) New Report - The Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution

[Anselmo Villanueva]

For more information and to download the report, go to
http://www.edexcelencia.org/research/emerging-hispanic-serving-institutions-hsis-serving-latino-students

The Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution

February 5, 2010   David Moltz  Inside Higher Ed

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/02/05/hsi


WASHINGTON – The number of  institutions officially recognized by the
federal government as  “Hispanic serving” is set to rise dramatically in the
coming years,  according to a comprehensive study of Latino enrollment in
higher education.

In the 1980s, the designation Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) was created
by  the federal government to direct funding  to nonprofit colleges where at
least 25 percent of the  full-time-equivalent students are Latino. On
Thursday, Excelencia in  Education, an advocacy group for Latino students,
released a report  identifying the growing number of institutions that do
not meet the HSI  enrollment threshold of 25 percent but that fit its
definition of  “emerging HSIs” – meaning that they “are within the critical
mass range  of 15-24 percent and have the potential to become HSIs in the
next few  years.”

Using data federal data from 2006-7, the report states that there were, at
that point, 265 HSIs; another 176 institutions were on the brink of becoming
HSIs and met its definition of “emerging.”

“Emerging” HSIs were located in 20 states. The highest concentration of
these  institutions was in California, which had 52, followed by Texas,
which had 42. Still, Deborah Santiago, the report's author and vice
president  for policy and research at Excelencia, said at a discussion
accompanying  the report’s release on Capitol Hill that these institutions
are “not  just in those places where we expect to see Latinos.” For
instance,  Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Oregon and Utah are among the states
that had  one such institution.

The largest share -- 44 percent -- of the  “emerging” HSIs were public
community colleges. Private colleges and  universities represented the
second largest sector, with 31 percent.  Public four-year institutions
represented 20 percent, and private  two-year institutions represented 5
percent.

“Call me parochial here, but I found it surprising that so many private
colleges are emerging HSIs,” said Luis Torres, deputy provost for academic
affairs at  Metropolitan State College of Denver, an emerging HSI featured
in the  report. “When one thinks of a rather stereotypical view of
Hispanics,  it’s that we are in the public colleges. I found it very
surprising and  telling and interesting. That gives us a lot of
opportunities.”

Among  the prominent private institutions on the list are Loyola
Marymount  University, in Los Angeles, with 19.7 percent Latino enrollment,
and the University of Miami with 22.1 percent. A significant number of
the  privates are religiously affiliated institutions, primarily (but not
entirely) Roman Catholic.

In the public sector, a number of  flagship institutions are also nearing
HSI status. The University of  California at Los Angeles, for example, has
15 percent Latino  enrollment, and the University of Texas at Austin has
17.2 percent.

Some  of the “emerging” HSIs identified in the report may already
have  reached the 25 percent threshold, due to the significant numbers
of  students who choose not to self-identify as Latino. At Palm
Beach  Community College’s Lake Worth campus, for instance, the report
notes  that administrators were certain that the college was well beyond the
25  percent threshold, even though it had an official Latino enrollment
of  16.5 percent.

“A high percentage of students chose not to provide  information about their
ethnicity, and as administrators reviewed  student rosters, it was clear
that many of these students were  potentially Latino (inferred from their
last names),” the report reads.  “In the college’s internal analysis, staff
attributed this phenomenon to  a potential stigma of identifying as
Hispanic, being undocumented,  and/or the institutional requirement that a
student whose first language  was not English must be tested for language
fluency.”

Santiago  estimated that at least 15 of the 67 institutions that had
Latino  enrollments between 20 and 24 percent “could be an HSI today” if
their  students properly self-identified without fear.

Still, Santiago  and others at the discussion argued that institutions
should not wait  until they reach the 25 percent threshold to start serving
the needs of  Hispanic students. Torres, for example, noted that Metro State
has  publicly stated its ambition of becoming an HSI by 2015. It created
a  task force in 2007, when its percentage of Latino students was
13  percent, to recommend how the college could reach out and appeal
to  Hispanics in the area.

Torres said he would like to see  Congress pass legislation that would give
“emerging” HSIs planning  grants so that they could intentionally grow into
HSIs with ease.

Juan Sepulveda, director of the White House Initiative for Excellence
in  Hispanic Education, said the Department of Education is “open to
the  idea” but that it would need some time to consider the merits
of  awarding such grants. Still, he acknowledged the importance
of  supporting HSIs, especially if there is hope of reaching President
Obama’s goal of the United States having  the highest proportion of college
graduates in the world by 2020.

“The president is a very smart person,” Sepulveda said. “Secretary
Arne  Duncan is a really smart person. Undersecretary Martha Kanter…. They
can all count. They know it’s impossible for us to reach this goal
without  the Hispanic community really bumping up
attainment-wise.”