What Will the Future of Hispanic-Serving Institutions Be?

• In Event: What Do We Know About Hispanic-Serving Institutions? The Politics of Acknowledgement in Institutions of Higher Education

Abstract

Even as the number of HSIs is growing exponentially, the body count for the HSI designation focuses only on an enrollment of at least 25% of students who identify as Hispanic. This statistical focus on only students renders the racial demographics and cultural ideologies of faculty at HSIs invisible and suggests that they are inconsequential. However, much research suggests that the presence of Hispanic faculty on campus who teach classes and are involved in setting policy in relation to HSI mandates, may directly impact the academic achievement and ideological viewpoint of Hispanic students as well as their White counterparts. However, colleges across the country are struggling to bolster the faculty ranks of Blacks and Hispanics who constitute only 8.8% of all tenure-track faculty as student populations grow more diverse. While an increase in Hispanic faculty is necessary and mandated as part of HSI Cultural Citizenship, racial similarity between HSI students and faculty are not a present reality. Additionally, racial similarity does not always equate to academic and social success for Hispanic students. Equally important to racial background of faculty is an ideological stance and commitment to the academic and social success of Hispanic students. Latino/a teachers and White teachers who engaged with students in ways that honored the students’ cultural concerns, including critical family and community strengths, and connected the importance of an education to larger social issues grounded in the lived realities of their Hispanic students’ lives, were more likely to impact academic and social success of Latino/a students than those faculty who only shared racial signifiers.

Authors

• Deborah A. Santiago

• Antonio Flores, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities