As many tuition-driven colleges face the challenge of lagging enrollment, Notre Dame de Namur University, in Belmont, Calif., has pursued a promising strategy. The Roman Catholic university decided to become a Hispanic-serving institution, a designation its president says has contributed to an all-time high enrollment, of 2,001 this year, and record retention rates.
To be classified as Hispanic-serving by the U.S. Department of Education, colleges must qualify for student-loan programs and serve an undergraduate population that is at least 25 percent Hispanic. Those institutions, or HSIs, the majority of which are community colleges, can compete for federal grants under Title V of the Higher Education Act, with funds that amounted to more than $104-million in the 2011 fiscal year.
In 2008, Notre Dame de Namur’s Hispanic students made up 20.8 percent of its population, several percentage points shy of the requirement. The university already saw itself as serving Hispanic students, even without the official designation, says the president, Judith Maxwell Greig. So officials began an effort to reach the 25-percent threshold, which would open up opportunities both for stronger marketing in the Hispanic population and for gaining additional funds from the federal government.
They linked the campaign with the institution’s values. “The mission that we get from the sisters of Notre Dame de Namur is really about providing access to education,” says Ms. Greig. And the educational needs of Latinos in the community, she says, have been notably underserved.
In surrounding San Mateo County, 10 percent of Hispanic adults hold bachelor’s degrees or higher, compared with 25 percent of the general adult population, according to census figures. “That doesn’t bode well for our country or region,” Ms. Greig says. “This is one of the biggest education issues for our generation.”
The real push to move forward and become an HSI, the president says, came as top administrators were reviewing graduation rates. “We looked at our data and realized that our Latino students were graduating at virtually the same rate as our white students,” she says. By contrast, recent national college-completion rates have been 10 to 12 percentage points lower for Hispanic students than for white students. “It became a point of pride for us. We said, ‘This is something we should capitalize on,’” Ms. Greig says.
A third of California’s population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, so Notre Dame de Namur just more specifically directed its recruitment, says Richard Rossi, director of communications. The campaign included printing Spanish-language materials for families and visiting community colleges with high proportions of Hispanic students. It was “a natural extension” of the university’s existing recruitment strategy, he says.
The Education Department certifies colleges as Hispanic-serving institutions only when they apply for HSI grants. In doing so, the colleges must provide documentation of their Hispanic enrollment and their Title V eligibility.
In the fall of 2009, the Hispanic student population at Notre Dame de Namur reached 25.3 percent. The university was recognized by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities as a Hispanic-serving institution but hadn’t yet applied for federal funds. The following year, Hispanic enrollment fell to 24.7 percent before the continuing steady climb to, at latest count, almost 30 percent.
The Education Department recognized Notre Dame de Namur as a Hispanic-serving institution in September 2011, awarding it two grants totaling more than $6-million.
How the Funds Are Used
The number of Hispanic-serving institutions has increased for several years, says Antonio R. Flores, president of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, and is now growing even more rapidly. The Education Department and the association, with different criteria, keep their own lists; the current count ranges from the former’s 260 to the latter’s more than 350.
Mr. Flores says his group identifies about a dozen new HSIs each year, although not all of them register with the federal government.That designation is required to be eligible for federal grants, awarded for programs meant to support Hispanic students’ educational success.
Notre Dame de Namur, which got one general grant and one for the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines, has a “high tide lifts all boats” mentality, especially with respect to the general award, says Hernan Bucheli, vice president for external affairs. “The grant allows us to strengthen the whole institution and provide services for more than just a designated population,” he says.
Retention from the first to second year, 81 percent among all students, is at a record high at the university.
In general, researchers have raised concerns over the effectiveness of HSI grants in improving Hispanic-student success, especially when colleges use the money to build and improve facilities and equipment, among several projects that Notre Dame de Namur’s grants support. “It can be very difficult to determine who’s learning in those labs, who’s doing research with faculty members,” says Estela Mara Bensimon, founder and co-director of the University of Southern California’s Center for Urban Education.
But graduation rates by major and ethnicity, which Notre Dame de Namur tracks, can help measure progress and identify areas for improvement.
One number that hasn’t risen as fast as others at Notre Dame de Namur is that of minority faculty members. Faculty searches should focus not only on Latinos, Ms. Bensimon says, but also on others with backgrounds that could make them helpful mentors to Hispanic students, many of whom are the first in their families to go to college.
At an institution that doesn’t make a lot of full-time hires, faculty diversity is a work in progress, says Ms. Greig. For now, the university is advertising open positions to diverse audiences and assigning members of its diversity council to each search.
Despite the growing number of Hispanic-serving institutions, their recognition and support are still lagging, Ms. Bensimon says. Institutions designated as historically black colleges and universities and as tribal colleges have distinct identities and public pride related to their designations, she says, but that’s not usually true of HSIs.
“The ambivalence of Hispanic-serving institutions to fully and publicly claim the identity,” she says, “is related to our societal discomfort with issues that have to do with marginalized populations, inequality, discrimination, racism, and the fear of alienating students from non-Latino backgrounds.”
Hispanic-serving institutions, Ms. Bensimon thinks, should more publicly embrace their role. She and Mr. Flores, of the Hispanic-colleges group, see room for loftier goals and expanded funds to get colleges there.
“Not only are we way behind, but more HSIs become eligible every year for the same amount of money,” Mr. Flores says. Often those colleges are already struggling for resources. “The challenge” for now, he says, “is really to catch up.”
