- Author: UC Davis by Julia Ann Easley
Traditional Aztec dance, mariachi music and contemporary Latin dance will mark the opening of a new facility for the Center for Chicanx and Latinx Academic Student Success at the University of California, Davis, on Wednesday, Sept. 27.
The center is among new and expanding campus initiatives to support the recruitment and academic success of historically underrepresented groups — African American, Chicano/Latino and Native American — and reduce the time necessary for all students to earn their degrees.
UC Davis is also pursuing designation by the U.S. Department of Education as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, or HSI, which opens the door to grants to help students succeed in college. In fall 2016, about 23.8 percent of the campus's domestic undergraduates were Chicano/Latino, and Davis expects to meet the designation's threshold of 25 percent this fall.
Cirilo Cortez, director of the Chicanx and Latinx Retention Initiative and the center, said the center serves as a hub to provide academic support for Chicano and Latino students; empower their leadership, career and personal development; and help them access campus resources.
“We affectionately call it el centro, and it's a place where students can find a sense of belonging and family, too,” he said.
Operating in temporary quarters since last fall, the center will now use former meeting spaces on the second floor of the newly renovated Memorial Union. It includes study and socializing areas, computer stations, a conference room, offices and a kitchenette.
Students will be able to meet on-site with tutors and counselors, as well as academic and career advisors. The center will host cultural events, skills workshops and for-credit seminars to help students succeed in their transition from high school or community college.
Cortez said academic support and faculty advising will include the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math, where Chicano and Latino students are underrepresented.
The opening ceremony will begin at 5 p.m. on the south patio of the Memorial Union with the performances and remarks and then move to the center for a ribbon cutting and tours.
Source: Published originally on www.ucdavis.edu, UC Davis to Open New Center for Chicano, Latino Students, By Julia Ann Easley on September 15, 2017
- Author: City College of New York by Jay Mwamba
Harlem-based City College, which is designated a Hispanic Serving Institution of Higher Education by the U.S. Department of Education, will receive $2.315 million of the funding and UTEP $1.3 million.
Under the administration of CCNY's NOAA CREST, the two institutions will collaborate to develop, implement and study a model for training and transitioning Hispanic environmental sciences and engineering (ESE) doctoral students to STEM instructional faculty positions at community colleges and other institutions. Candidates must have completed all coursework and be dissertating, as they transition.
Participants will primarily include Hispanic doctoral students of Caribbean or Mexican origin, who are advanced level doctoral candidates majoring in ESE fields. These include civil, electrical, mechanical or biomedical engineering; earth and atmospheric sciences; ecology and evolutionary biology, among other disciplines.
The project will be led by CCNY faculty Jorge E. Gonzalez, Fred Moshary, Joseph Barba, Kyle McDonald and Ellen E. Smiley. UTEP experts include: Miguel Velez-Reyes, Craig Tweedie, and Ivonne Santiago.
The CCNY-UTEP partnership is in response to the NSF's Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program solicitation. AGEP seeks to advance knowledge about models to improve pathways to the professoriate and success of historically underrepresented minority (URM) graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty in specific STEM disciplines and/or STEM education research fields.
There are three community college partners in the Hispanic AGEP Alliance: LaGuardia Community College, Queensborough Community College and El Paso Community College in El Paso, TX.
The NSF grant to CCNY and UTEP brings up to $23 million in awards to City College since last fall for training underrepresented minority scientists and engineers. Last September CCNY won a $15.5 million NOAA grant to produce mostly minority STEM scientists.
In addition, $5.2 million was received from the U.S. Department of Education in October to promote STEM education, particularly among underrepresented groups.
Source: Published originally on www.eurekalert.org, CCNY-UTEP partner to produce next generation Latino professors, City College of New York by Jay Mwamba, May 26th, 2017.
- Author: Pew Research Center
College enrollment grew among all race and ethnic groups during this 16-year period. Among Hispanics, college enrollment growth exceeded the growth in public high school graduates (141%) over roughly the same time period. The number of public high school graduates increased 63 percent among blacks and 8 percent among whites.
In 2012, Hispanics made up about an equal proportion of all public high school graduates (18%) and all college students (ages 18 to 24) (19%). Whites, blacks and Asians also had about the same share of public high school graduates as college enrollees.
But when looking at data of an older age group with bachelor's degrees, a gap opens because a smaller share of Hispanics are completing a four-year degree. In 2012, Hispanics accounted for just 9 percent of young adults (ages 25 to 29) with bachelor's degrees. This gap is driven, in part, by the fact that Hispanics are less likely than whites to enroll in a four-year college, attend a selective college and enroll full-time.
While Hispanics are the most pronounced demographic story, the education data show different trends for other race and ethnic groups on college campuses. Like Hispanics, blacks are underrepresented among those with bachelor's degrees. In 2012, blacks made up 14 percent of college-aged students (ages 18 to 24), yet just 9 percent of bachelor's degrees earned by young adults.
By contrast, whites and Asians are overrepresented among young bachelor's degree holders. Whites make up a smaller proportion of students on campus today than they did 20 years ago, when three out of every four students on a college campus was white. In 2012, whites accounted for 58 percent of college-aged students, but 69 percent of young adults with bachelor's degrees. Like whites, the data show that a high percentage of Asians complete four-year degrees. In 2012, Asians accounted for 7 percent of college-aged students but 11 percent of bachelor's degrees earned.
Americans by a two-to-one margin (63% to 30%) say affirmative action programs designed to increase the number of black and minority students on college campuses are a “good thing,” according to a new Pew Research poll. Blacks and Hispanics overwhelmingly support affirmative action and a majority of whites do, too. (Sample size for Asians is too small to be statistically significant.) Overall, support is nearly unchanged from 2003.
Source: Pew Research Center, More Hispanics, blacks enrolling in college, but lag in bachelor's degrees, April 24, 2014.
- Author: nbcnews.com
The gap dropped to 9 percent in 2014 from 14 percent in 2012 among those who entered college as first time, full-time undergraduates, according to the report.
But it's a different story when part-time students, which account for almost half of Hispanic students, are included. In California, home to the largest number of the country's Hispanics, only 15 percent of Latino students completed their undergraduate degree or certificate in the year 2010-11. In Texas, the number was 17 percent.
Low rates of college completion - especially at the community college level- do not just affect Hispanics. The difference is that in most states, there is still a very big gap between the number of Hispanic adults holding a degree compared to the rest of the population.
At East Los Angeles College in California, about 24,000 Latino students enrolled in the year 2011-12, but only about 1,000 completed their Associate Degree that year. And although California has the highest number of Latinos, not one of its colleges were in the top five institutions awarding associate or bachelor's degrees to Latinos.
Low rates of college completion - especially at the community college level- do not just affect Hispanics. In Texas, when part-time students are taken into account, only 18 percent of non-Latino whites obtained a degree in 2010-11 academic year.
The difference is that in most states, there is still a very big gap between the number of Hispanic adults holding a degree compared to the rest of the population. Nationally, only twenty percent of Latino adults have a postsecondary degree, compared to 36 percent of all U.S. adults. In California, only 16 percent of Latino adults over 25 have an associate or bachelor's degree, compared to 38 percent of all adults in that age group. In Texas, it's 16 percent of Hispanics who hold a degree, compared to 32 percent of total adults those ages.
At the same time, more and more Hispanic children are entering the nation's schools. In California, Hispanic students make up over half of the K-12 population; in Texas, it's about half. At the national level, 22 percent of children in K-12 are Hispanic.
Source: Originally published on nbcnews.com as Latino College Completion Rates Low Despite EnrollmentBy Sandra Lilley, April 15, 2014.
- Author: NBC Latino
“For Hispanic families, participating in AP expands not only academic and college opportunities, but just as importantly, it connects them to financial benefits that can come with earning AP credit,” said James Montoya, vice president of higher education at the College Board.
In California, Florida and Texas, one out of every three students successfully completing an AP course is Latino. In Arizona it is 1 in 4 and in New York, it is 1 in 10. Overall, the report found too few Latinos participate in AP classes. Only 3 in 10 Latino high school graduates with the potential to take an AP math class ended up taking an AP math exam. This is a missed opportunity; not only does it save students money and credits in college, but data shows that students who get a good score on an AP math exam are more likely to earn degrees in engineering and other sciences.
Among the class of 2012, over 300,000 high school students identified through their PSAT scores as having the potential to take AP classes did not take them, and many were minorities. One of the reasons there are fewer qualified Latino students taking AP courses is that these classes are less available in schools with high numbers of low-income or underserved minority students. While there has been some progress in the past – in 2003, 11.5 percent of AP Exam takers were low-income – the number went up to 26.6 percent in 2012.
Source: Originally published on NBC Latino as More Latinos taking AP courses, but numbers are still low by Sandra Lilley, February 20, 2013.