Place-Based Servingness at a Fronterizo Hispanic-Serving Institution: A Call for Borderland Servingness

• In Event: Navigating Race and Place Beyond Black-White Binaries

Abstract

Sixty-six percent of all Latinx undergraduate students are enrolled in Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs), which established in 1992, are degree-granting institutions that enroll a minimum of 25% Latinx undergraduate students. Although a growing body of scholarship broadly conceptualizes indicators of servingness, context-based indicators are missing. This paper provides a place-based portrayal of servingness at a fronterizo HSI located at the U.S.-Mexico border. Based on qualitative interviews with 14 students and 22 faculty, findings offer borderland servingness as a situated conceptualization of servingness that highlights how the fronterizo is inextricable to what it means to serve. Findings also present borderland bilingual higher education as an indicator of borderland servingness. In total, borderland servingness represents the future possibilities of higher education.

Authors

• Christina Convertino, University of Texas - El Paso

• Isaac Frausto Hernandez, University of Texas - El Paso

• Lucia Dura, University of Texas - El Paso