Reimagining Excellence: The Charge for Hispanic-Serving Research Institutions

• In Event: Imagining Excellence: Examining, Predicting, and Projecting the Future of Prestige in Higher Education

Abstract

Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), broadly defined by a 25% Latine undergraduate enrollment, now comprise 20% of all institutions of higher education in the United States (Excelencia in Education, 2024b). With more than 400 emerging HSIs, HSIs will soon occupy a more significant role in American higher education (Excelencia in Education, 2024a). These institutions utilize different approaches to enacting HSI identities, with some simply enrolling a greater share of Latine students with few institutional changes while others develop culturally-responsive practices (Garcia, 2019; Garcia et al., 2019). HSIs also operate within white supremacist structures, often relegating them as “less prestigious” based on educational outcomes grounded in whiteness, such as graduation rates (Garcia, 2019; Garcia et al., 2019). While HSIs have largely been historically broad access institutions, the landscape of HSIs is quickly evolving with a growing share of Hispanic-Serving Research Institutions (HSRIs). As prestigious R1s that also meet HSI eligibility, the emergence of HSRIs is described as a “watershed moment” as they merge excellence and access (Nuñez, 2017). HSRIs thus appear to be in a particularly unique position to transform traditional notions of excellence and prestige as they endeavor to serve Latine and historically underserved students.

In line with Zerquera’s (2023) call to integrate equity in explorations of prestige, Dr. Marcela Cuellar will discuss whether HSRIs are challenging traditional notions of excellence and prestige as they increasingly serve Latine and minoritized students. She will provide examples of how HSRIs are simultaneously challenging and upholding traditional notions of excellence and prestige. For example, in a recent content analysis of HSI strategic plans developed by several University of California (UC) campuses, one of the largest R1 systems in the nation, these campus reports recognized a need to shift cultural practices to better support Latine students given histories of racism in the nation and institutions. This framing questions how whiteness has permeated a campus in its historical and current excellence, which holds promise in the quest to establish new notions of prestige that aim to advance equity for communities of color. However, these campus reports also explicitly implicitly reinforce the idea that prestige is not compromised with a HSI identity, which limits potential for promoting more expansive notions of prestige that shift away from whiteness (Cuellar et al., 2023). Dr. Cuellar will extend this UC-based analysis to other HSRIs that produced similar publicly available HSI strategic planning reports to further understand whether and how other HSRIs are expanding notions of excellence at HSRIs.

While HSRIs are poised to advance new notions of prestige grounded in equity, these institutions must be explicit in these efforts, which can have a larger impact on the field of higher education. To meet this charge, Dr. Cuellar thus argues that HSRIs must reckon with the history of racism at R1s that has been intertwined with their prestige, question and redefine traditional notions of excellence, and articulate a need for institutional transformation to better serve communities of color. Without such goals or actions, HSRIs will maintain prestige without innovatively advancing equity.

Author

• Marcela G. Cuellar, University of California - Davis