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Becoming Hispanic-Serving Institutions

Opportunities for Colleges and Universities

Gina Ann Garcia

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How can striving Hispanic-Serving Institutions serve their students while countering the dominant preconceptions of colleges and universities?

Winner of the AAHHE Book of the Year Award by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education

Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs)—not-for-profit, degree-granting colleges and universities that enroll at least 25% or more Latinx students—are among the fastest-growing higher education segments in the United States. As of fall 2016, they represented 15% of all postsecondary institutions in the United States and enrolled 65% of all Latinx college...

How can striving Hispanic-Serving Institutions serve their students while countering the dominant preconceptions of colleges and universities?

Winner of the AAHHE Book of the Year Award by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education

Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs)—not-for-profit, degree-granting colleges and universities that enroll at least 25% or more Latinx students—are among the fastest-growing higher education segments in the United States. As of fall 2016, they represented 15% of all postsecondary institutions in the United States and enrolled 65% of all Latinx college students. As they increase in number, these questions bear consideration: What does it mean to serve Latinx students? What special needs does this student demographic have? And what opportunities and challenges develop when a college or university becomes an HSI?

In Becoming Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Gina Ann Garcia explores how institutions are serving Latinx students, both through traditional and innovative approaches. Drawing on empirical data collected over two years at three HSIs, Garcia adopts a counternarrative approach to highlight the ways that HSIs are reframing what it means to serve Latinx college students. She questions the extent to which they have been successful in doing this while exploring how those institutions grapple with the tensions that emerge from confronting traditional standards and measures of success for postsecondary institutions.

Laying out what it means for these three extremely different HSIs, Garcia also highlights the differences in the way each approaches its role in serving Latinxs. Incorporating the voices of faculty, staff, and students, Becoming Hispanic-Serving Institutions asserts that HSIs are undervalued, yet reveals that they serve an important role in the larger landscape of postsecondary institutions.

Reviews

Reviews

A nuanced perspective on HSIs that will interest academics, practitioners, and graduate students alike. The book is rich in content and context.

This is a groundbreaking narrative on HSIs in American higher education. It expertly captures the complex issues HSIs face, including the evolution of their identities as Hispanic-"Serving" Institutions. A must-read for anyone interested in better understanding the essential role that HSIs play in advancing Hispanic educational success and America's future.

Dr. Garcia provides an in-depth analysis and evaluation defining, in addition to demographics, what it means to become an HSI: taking the challenge head on and identifying the strength of HSIs and the important role they play in educating Latinx students and the underserved. The vitality and viability of our nation is anchored in educating this new majority.

This book brings readers inside the world of HSIs. It disrupts conventional perspectives about institutional performance and expands considerations of how HSIs advance equity in US higher education. It will quickly become essential reading for anyone seeking to better understand these institutions and the students who attend them.

As the largest minority-serving institution type, HSIs are at once ubiquitous and yet often overlooked. Gina Garcia unpacks the history, organizational cultures, and counterstories of HSIs to bring these critical institutions into full view while at the same time interrogating just what it means to truly serve Latinx students.

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About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
176
ISBN
9781421427379
Illustration Description
5 line drawings
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction. What It Means to Serve Students
Chapter 1. Creating the Dominant Narrative: The Racialization of Postsecondary Institutions
Chapter 2. White Institutions Becoming HSIs: The

Acknowledgments
Introduction. What It Means to Serve Students
Chapter 1. Creating the Dominant Narrative: The Racialization of Postsecondary Institutions
Chapter 2. White Institutions Becoming HSIs: The Case of Chicago
Chapter 3. Enhancing the Cultural Experience of Latinx Students
Chapter 4. Serving the Latinx Community in the Third Space
Chapter 5. Pushing the Bar on Legitimized Outcomes
Chapter 6. Reframing the HSI Narrative
Notes
References
Index

Author Bio
Gina Ann Garcia
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Gina Ann Garcia

Gina Ann Garcia (PITTSBURGH, PA) is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Foundations, Organizations, and Policy at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of Becoming Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Opportunities for Colleges and Universities.