University Business - September 2007 - (Page 48)

The Top 10 List The leading schools for awarding bachelor’s degrees to Hispanics in 2006: 1 FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS-PAN AMERICAN 3 THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO 4 THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO 5 CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE 6 CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON 7 CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LONG BEACH 8 SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY 9 THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN 10 CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LOS ANGELES Source: The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine 2,903 1,889 1,616 1,555 1,360 1,343 1,291 1,184 1,148 1,124 companies in their ﬁeld.” UTEP also takes pains to prepare future engineers for their fulltime careers with professional development seminars in everything from creating PowerPoint presentations to managing projects. Acosta points out that this training also takes cultural norms into account. “In the Hispanic culture it can be considered rude to be aggressive,” he says. “I found out at IBM that I needed to be more assertive about expressing my ideas and asking for what I wanted.” Under the umbrella of “The Role of Hispanic-Serving Institutions in the Nation’s STEM Enterprise,” UTEP hosted a national gathering this past April of 175 college administrators, federal ofﬁcials, and high-tech corporate representatives. Among the topics of concern were graduating more Hispanic students in these areas, increasing teacher preparation in math and science, and gaining access to the $136 billion promised over the next 10 years in the White House’s American Competitiveness Initiative. Strength in Numbers HACU’s annual conference leverages the strength in numbers of its member institutions. Last year’s 20th anniversary program in San Antonio featured tracks in public policy advocacy, best practices for capacity building, and partnerships and alliances. But one of the biggest priorities at HSIs has been increasing the numbers of Latinos working and leading in higher education. “You want to be in a position to hire people with whom students can identify,” says Arciniega. “Anytime you have a low-income population, it takes a while to get into the position where enough members move into university jobs, from staﬀ work to PhDs. In many cases, it becomes a ‘grow your own’ proposition.” Along those lines, HACU has encouraged HSI administrators to bring student contingents to its conferences. “It’s a way of creating consciousness among students of possible careers in academia,” says Lehman College’s Ricardo Fernandez. “And you don’t need to be a professor. You could be a counselor, a researcher. You can be part of the enterprise.” Fernandez says that his Hispanic heritage also has made a signiﬁcant diﬀerence in the way his school operates. “We’ve engaged in partnerships that didn’t exist 20 years ago,” he says. “I pushed hard and brought in people and set aside resources to do the work that the college wasn’t paying attention to.” Among the changes, Lehman faculty and staﬀ have been able to get release time for working on recruitment and retention. “Instead of teaching a course, they can do a study or a project to improve local schools,” Fernandez suggests. Miami Dade’s José Vicente seconds the notion of having a large Hispanic presence in running HSIs. “This is something we do from top to bottom,” he says. “The board of trustees is fully committed to the point of being vigilant that the contracts we award are representative of the community we serve. It’s part of the DNA of the institution.” Ron Schachter is a Boston-based freelance writer and a correspondent for National Public Radio. universitybusiness.com important thing is for them to persevere and continue to take even one course per term. The moment there’s a gap, it takes a double eﬀort to continue. “We have faculty members who have been through what the students or their parents are going through,” Vicente continues. “Along with the other support systems, that’s what can make a diﬀerence.” The Math and Science Challenge Success in the so-called “STEM” areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics has proved more daunting. “In these ﬁelds we’re behind the curve,” says HACU president Antonio Flores. Silas Abrego, Cal State Fullerton’s associate vice president for student aﬀairs, notes that remediation is a requirement for many undergraduates. “Forty percent of the students in the CSU system ﬂunk introductory math courses,” he says. “Title V allows us to work with instructors teaching the introductory math course to a diverse student body, and it also allows us to establish study cohorts led by graduate assistants.” At UTEP’s engineering school, upperclassmen and graduate students provide mentoring services, and new students can take calculus courses that are more user-friendly. And, says UTEP’s Acosta, there’s a heightened emphasis on getting them involved early on in their chosen ﬁeld. They may have also extended their undergraduate careers as long as six years, but all in the service of being better prepared for the professional world, Acosta adds. “It takes them a while to graduate, but the reality is that most have to work while they’re going to school. Instead of working at McDonald’s, we get them working at 48 | September 2007 http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - September 2007

University Business - September 2007
Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
People Watach
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Human Resources
Money Matters
Financial Aid
Community Colleges
Una Fuerza to Reckon With
The Right Stuff
Making an Impact
Going VoIP
Training Your Staff to Protect SIS Data
Summer Conference Report
Business Technology
What's New
Calendar of Events
End Note

University Business - September 2007