Leading with ESPARiTU: Recovering the Origins of Serving through a Student Participatory Action Research Project in a Grassroots HSRI

• In Event: Participatory Action Research Projects at Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Co-creating HSI-PAR to Foster Servingness and Community-Centered Transformation

Abstract

Background and Purpose
As the number of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) has increased across the US, there is a growing focus on recognizing and expanding strategies that contribute to Chicanx/Latinx student access and success. The University of California, Riverside (UCR) was designated an HSI in 2008, the first in the University of California system. UCR is one of only 27 Hispanic Serving Research Institutions (HSRIs) nationwide, classified as an R1 institution with high research activity by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (Marin & Pereschica, 2017). While a growing body of literature exists on HSIs, research on the experiences of Chicanx/Latinx students at HSRIs is limited, and few studies actively involve Chicanx/Latinx students in defining “servingness” (Garcia, 2019). UCR, recognized with the “Seal of Excelencia” (Excelencia in Education, 2021), is uniquely positioned to understand access and opportunity for Chicanx/Latinx students as a grassroots HSRI, where intentional efforts to create a Hispanic-serving identity were established before the federal designation was created (Author, 2022; Doran & Medina, 2017).

Theoretical Framework and Methods
Guided by Critical Race Theory and Chicana Feminist Theory, this Participatory Action Research (PAR) study centers the voices and experiences of Chicanx/Latinx students both historically and presently to identify and recover the origins of Chicanx/Latinx student success at UCR and trace the university’s trajectory to becoming an award-winning HSI (Author, 2022). Twelve Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x undergraduate co-researchers and I formed Encuentros, Student Participation Action Research, and Testimonios (ESPARiTU). Over twelve months, we analyzed archival documents and conducted three oral histories as testimonios of faculty and students who helped establish the first support structures for Chicano students (Author, 2023; Blackmer Reyes & Curry Rodriguez, 2016). We placed our collective analysis of the archival materials and testimonios in conversation with my analysis of the ESPARiTU undergraduate experiences to map continuities and contestations across time.

Findings and Significance
This research affirmed the vital role of Chicano/Latino student activists in establishing historical structures of serving at UCR; it centered the experiential knowledge of Chicano/Latino students from the 1960s-1970s to today, creating a cross-generational definition of servingness. Aligned with the conceptual frameworks leading this study, El Plan de Santa Barbara: A Chicano plan for higher education (CCCHE, 1969), and the Multidimensional Conceptual Framework for Understanding Servingness at Hispanic Serving Institutions (Garcia et al., 2019), the Chicano activist of the 1960s-1970s enacted servingness, while the co-researchers in this study defined servingness within the following four themes from our findings: compositional diversity, culturally relevant curriculum and pedagogy, programs and services for Chicano/Latinos, and engagement with the Chicano/Latino community. Engaging in this historical recovery, the co-researchers gained a renewed sense of self-determination evident in three phases: 1) conocimiento (knowledge production), 2) comunidad (establishing a collaborative knowledge community), and 3) cambio (change/action). This study advances knowledge of HSRIs by recovering the practices and tools used to promote a culture of Chicanx/Latinx student success at UCR alongside Chicanx/Latinx students.

Authors

• Arlene Cano Matute, University of California - Riverside

• Alexis Meza, University of California - Berkeley