Gina Ann Garcia: I had a lot of vision for what it could be, but also there was a lot of limitations on things I couldn’t do, um, ’cause obviously there’s, there’s limitations on implementing these HSI grants. Um, and I just got really frustrated with are we really just doing grant work or are we actually serving? Because it felt like it was just grant work, and it was just monthly meetings and the things that I was working on, um, and that was HSI, and I just didn’t feel like that was, that was what it should be. And so I think that’s really where a lot of the research that I do, the questioning what does it mean to serve really comes from that practics, practice work, um, that I did immediately following my completion of my program at the University of Maryland. Um, that was the work I was doing. And, and so yeah, it informs all of my research now on Hispanic-Serving Institutions and this idea of servingness.

Keith Edwards: Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW. I’m your host, Keith Edwards. Hispanic-serving institutions enroll more than four million students across the country, and yet most of the last three decades, serving has largely meant enrolling. Dr. Gina Anne Garcia spent years arguing that there’s a fundamental difference between being Latiné enrolling and Latiné serving, and that the work of bridging that gap is the defining challenge of this moment in higher education.

Her new book, The HSI Movement, tells that story through the voices of the grassroots leaders, organizers, and change-makers who are doing the work from the inside. Joining her, her in today’s conversation is a grassroots leader herself, Amber Gonzalez, brings that lived on the ground experience to the table.

Together, they’ll explore what it actually takes to move an institution, not just its demographics, but its culture, its curriculum, its commitments, and its soul. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for thousands of us who work in, alongside, or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs.

We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find details about this episode or browse our archives at studentaffairsnow.com. This episode is sponsored by Evolve. Evolve offers four leadership coaching journeys designed to expand capacity and build capabilities, empowering courageous leadership to transform institutions and reimagine the future of higher education.

As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards. My pronouns are he, him, his. I’m a speaker, author, and coach empowering higher education leadership with and through the storm toward better tomorrows for us all. You can find out more about me at keithedwards.com. Now, I’m recording this conversation from my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both the Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples.

Let’s get to the conversation. Gina, let’s start with you. Tell folks a little bit more about you and your connection to this topic

Gina Ann Garcia: Yes. Hello everyone. Thank you, first of all, Keith, for and the invitation to talk to you today and to talk to the Student Affairs NOW community. I’m excited to be here.

My name is Dr. Gina Ann Garcia, she/her pronoun series. I’m a scholar mother of two human children and two poodles, toy poodles, and scholar of all things Hispanic-Serving Institutions. I’m also a professor at UC Berkeley, and prior to UC Berkeley I was actually at the University of Pittsburgh.

So some folks have followed my career, my scholarly career, I was at the University of Pittsburgh for 10 years, so shout out to Pennsylvania. But now in at UC Berkeley where I’m in the Berkeley School of Education continuing to teach graduate students, but also undergraduates. As we have a large undergraduate program, particularly in our education program.

I have a long career as a student affairs professional dating back to when me and Keith were grad students together at the University of Maryland, which was a long time ago. So we go way back, and we’ve known each other a long time. So I do have a degree in college student personnel, worked in co- college student personnel or student affairs for a good number of years before entering the professoriate.

So I think a lot of my work speaks to practice. People say that a lot. They’re like, “Your research is so relevant to practice,” and I think that’s because I have the training as a student affairs professional, have the work working in programs, in areas, developing programs implementing grants, including an HSI Title V grant which was where a lot of my frustration with HSI, I think, begins.

Thinking about the connection to the topic today I was a Title V grant implementer, and it was one of the hardest jobs ever. If you’ve ever implemented a grant it’s challenging, particularly when you didn’t write the grant and you’re just given it and said, told to go do it. And you have a lot of vision, at least I did.

I had a lot of vision for what it could be, but also there was a lot of limitations on things I couldn’t do ’cause obviously there’s limitations on implementing these HSI grants. And I just got really frustrated with are we really just doing grant work or are we actually serving? Because it felt like it was just grant work, and it was just monthly meetings and the things that I was working on and that was HSI, and I just didn’t feel like that was what it should be.

And so I think that’s really where a lot of the research that I do, the questioning what does it mean to serve really comes from that practics, practice work that I did immediately following my completion of my program at the University of Maryland. That was the work I was doing. And so yeah, it informs all of my research now on Hispanic-Serving Institutions and this idea of servingness.

So I’ll go ahead and pass the mic to Amber.

Amber Gonzalez: Thank you, and thank you so much for inviting me to join you all today. I’m super excited. My name is Amber Gonzalez. I’m a professor over at Sacramento State, part of the CSU system. I have been here for over 13 years. I think I’m starting my 13th year. Don’t hold me to that.

No, it’s my 13th year as a full professor- … in Child and Adolescent Development in the College of Education. And I think what– part of my dissertation was really understanding how do institutional structures, or how do students’ perceptions of institutional structures shape their motivations and their persistence, and their wanting to continue with their education.

And so I was not in the world of HSIs. I was really just looking at higher education, and I’m not trained as a higher education or organizational theorist. I’m trained as a developmentalist primarily focusing on psychology And then I started to see myself in a lot of the, the work in higher education, and then I started to think about HSIs and what HSIs are.

I’m the product of a CSU, Cal State Fullerton was where I did my undergrad. It was an HSI. And so I knew I wanted to be at an HSI. And so when I was looking for jobs, I started to look at the CSU systems and which ones were HSIs. Sac State was, had the demographics, but they hadn’t yet become an HSI.

But I was like, “But they’re, they have the demographics,” and it was just about, putting the paperwork together, putting the data together. And so I had this assumption that because they have that population there, there must be a lot of things happening at the institution to support that population.

That was a very big assumption. And so when I got here and people didn’t even know that they were an HSI or that they were, could be an HSI, and what an HSI was I was rather shocked. Then they had an HSI task force. I was like, “Great, I’ll get on the HSI task force.” After they received HSI status, that HSI task force went away.

And so that was really shocking to me as well because I was like, “Then what was that about?” So I started to ask a lot of questions which probably got me into some trouble because I started to realize people didn’t want to answer my questions. And so that’s I think, why I’m being labeled as this sort of middle leader, grassroots leader is because I just, I started to ask questions the minute I started on campus.

And in order to change it… I wanted to be at an HSI because I wanted a system that serves people that look like me, right? That really focused on Latine students. And I made an assumption that if you’re an HSI, then you must do that. And then I started to learn more about serving this HSI work, really started to dig into a lot of Gina’s work Marcela’s work, Dr.

Cuellar’s work Anne Marie Nuñez’s work, and then I was like, “Oh. Oh, wait. My assumptions were all wrong.” “Now let’s go backwards.”

And so that’s I think, a little bit about me and who I am.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. That’s really helpful, and I think Gina’s framing of her experience and then it’s all her fault, Amber.

The reason why you get to spend this time with us is because Gina said that you were this, this grassroots leader. And I think you spoke to that disconnect you experienced between enrollment and securing a grant-

…

Keith Edwards: And the servingness. Which I think leads us beautifully to Gina. So tell us about how this book came to be, and I think- you mentioned it, and we’ve actually been talking about it throughout this short introduction about this idea of servingness. If you can just talk about where that sits in all of this, I think that would be helpful.

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah, for sure. So the book is the what we’re calling the trilogy.

That’s what the pr- the publisher’s calling it, or what my students call Act III, … referencing to Beyonce. So either Act III or the trilogy. Either way, it’s the third book in the series published specifically with Johns Hopkins University Press. So I’ve had three books with the same press v- very highly successful books, so they like me to write more.

And they’re like, “Do you, would you like to write the third book?” And I’m like, “Sure, I’d love to write the third book.” And I had collected, been collecting data that I think fit really nicely. It was interesting ’cause the first book is called Becoming Hispanic-Serving Institu- In- Institutions. The second one is Transforming Hispanic-Serving Institutions.

And I was like, this book is not… It’s gotta, it’s something different, right? I wanted to go along with that sort of same, the gerund word for HSI, but I was like, “Hey, I’m gonna call it The HSI Movement,” which is what I’ve been calling this movement, right? This idea that institutions enrolling Latino Hispanic students, a large percentage, doesn’t make you an HSI.

Whether you have 10% or 20% or 40% or 80% or 90%, there are HSIs with 90% Latino students that are still not serving them adequately or intentionally, right? In the way, across the whole institution the way that they, we would imagine, right? The way Amber said she assumed- … that they would be. And so enrollment does not make you a serving institution, Hispanic-serving institution.

And so The HSI Movement is something I had been playing with for a little while, this idea that, l- grassroots organizing happens oftentimes outside of organizations, right? The ones that we think about and that we see and that we would name, right? Like that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Like led movements.

We think of protests outside against institutions. This is a movement that’s happening within the institution, and a lot of people have written about this. I’m not… I didn’t come up with anything new and I reference some of those folks in the book. But this idea that social movements happen within the organization.

And so when you’re trying to… And social movements are all about change, they happen because we’re trying to call for something new. And so the social movement, The HSI Movement is happening within. And that’s what the book signifies, right? That like, yes, we’re moving towards servingness, but we haven’t got there, but it’s happening, right?

I think the book really is… I’ve read it multiple times because I have to when it goes into production, you have to read it, you have to edit it, you have to copyedit it, you have to index it. You have, I’ve read it so many times already. And it really is, that’s what it is. It’s saying there’s a movement happening within HSIs, and here are some examples of what the movement looks like.

And these are real people, ’cause it’s an empirical study. So I didn’t make this up, although it’s written in counter-narratives so it’s written as stories. But they’re all based on the empirical research. So here’s what it looks like for people within an organization to be so dedicated to something that they can drive the change from within.

Now servingness, the question about servingness. Servingness, been theorized since 2019. The framework that came out called the multi- multidimensional conceptual framework of servingness in HSIs.

Amber Gonzalez: MCFS. I see if

Gina Ann Garcia: that’s what it’s called. Yeah. You got it. It’s MCFS. It says what it’s called, yes. Servingness, and we all, this is why we all just say servingness. There’s a framework, and it’s called servingness, right? And so the servingness framework, although in the original framework, in the original article, nowhere does it say that it’s an organizational change framework.

In the past, five, six, seven years, I’m like everybody I see using it, they’re using it to drive change. They use it very practically. It’s very much being used in practice. I’ve traveled all across the country talking about the servingness framework because people are using it to think about how do they drive the movement, right?

How do they become institutions that intentionally adapt to the student population? How do you adapt to a population that the institution was never for, right? And we know institutions were not for most of us. So how do you adapt to institutions or adapt to the students and make the institution, right?

So even this idea of sense of belonging, I’m always like, “I hate sense of belonging,” if you’ve ever heard me say that. I’ll tell you why. I’m like, we shouldn’t have to feel like we belong. The institution should make itself feel like it’s ours, right? Like, how do we flip that so that everybody does feel like we belong, but the institution has to do something different so we all feel that, right?

Because what I need to feel like I belong is different than what somebody else needs, and a lot of that is based on our identities our social identity. So really thinking about identity-based work, right? That organizational change should be identity based. We should be thinking about what Latino students need.

Language comes up so much in servingness because so many of Latino students are bilingual, not all, and in no way can we say we shouldn’t consider the continuum of language, but there are many bilingual Latino students, and language is important to them. It’s their community cultural wealth.

It’s what they bring to the institution, and we’ve never allowed them to fully- do that and be bilingual and be bicultural in an institution. But what if we did, right? What if we actually adapted the students to allow for that to happen? So the the third book really comes out as that, as like this movement is happening, here’s some examples of what it looks like.

And when people read it, I think there’s gonna be either they read it and they feel validated and say, “I’m doing the right thing. Keep going.” Or they’re gonna read it and say, “Okay, this is what we need to do,” right? And there are many of campuses that are still in that place of like needing examples of how to move, but there’s many that are moving and are gonna say, “I feel validated,” right?

“Dr. Garcia just wrote my experience,” right? And for some people it really is. It’s the people that I interviewed are gonna see their stories brought to life on how they’ve been working really hard to make servingness a reality in these, in, in institutions. So that’s how I- And you do … that’s how I think of the book.

Keith Edwards: Yeah, I want- Amber, you’ve been around for the whole play, the whole three acts. So what would you add in

Amber Gonzalez: this framing and- yeah. I was gonna say, ’cause I know that Gina oftentimes gets put into the box that’s HSI, right? I think when… And so at Sac State we’re actually we’re, we’ve got the triple designation, right?

We’ve got the AANAPISI, the HSI, and we also now have the California designation Black serving institution. And so when we talk about servingness, a lot of times people are like they use the word servingness, but then they don’t use the conceptual framework or they don’t talk about that organizational change theory.

They’re just now using this term. And so I think this, I think Gina hit it on the nail when she said this is about organization. It’s a theory of change. It’s organizations changing for the populations in which they serve. And so if you’re serving predominantly Black, Latine Asian American, Native American, Pacific Islander students, then you need to adapt your organization to serve those populations of students, and it might look different in different spaces on campus.

And so one size- … doesn’t necessarily fit all.

But you need to be thinking about servingness through all of that. And so I think- … that’s one thing that I, ’cause I, when I’m at the table, I continue to talk about that and people are like, “Oh, no but Gina does HSI work.” And I’m like, “No, Gina does servingness work.”

And so it’s not, it’s about serving the students that are at the table, that may not be at the table. Oftentimes those students aren’t at the table, but they should be at the table. And so I think that is one thing I just wanted to share, was that the work is for organizational change to serve the students that are there.

And the faculty and the staff.

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Amber Gonzalez: And their families

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah. Yep

Keith Edwards: Gina, you framed this around some of my favorite things: emergent strategy, liberatory education- … and cultural wealth. How are you applying all of this to HSI servingness or, as Amber just said, servingness?

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah, for sure.

Oh, yeah. Servingness applies to- And APZs and BSIs and all the institutions that are trying to figure this out for their population. So we do serve, think of servingness as adaptable to other populations, for sure. Yeah, so emergent strategy is a change framework, right? I ground this book in the emergent strategy framework.

Adrienne Maree Brown is an organizer. Adrienne Maree Brown is an organizer the way we would think of organizing, not within the organization, but outside the organization and has led many of movements and calls herself an organizer. And the emergent strategy framework really is about organizing to disrupt, institutions that are not serving minoritized people.

And so the emergent strategy framework just really spoke to me when I first, first time I read Emer- I’ve read it multiple times and it’s just a beautiful… If you haven’t read Emergent Strategy, just read it. It’s just beautiful, right? And I think everybody that reads it probably gets something different from it, ’cause it’s very it ju- it flows in all kind of different ways, right?

And I think we all can interpret emergent strategy in different ways. But for me, who’s a very practical, org-y thinker, I’m like, okay, it gives me six, six processes. Okay, how am I gonna move these processes, and how am I gonna make them make sense in HSI world, and do we do these processes? And what I, when I think about emergent strategy and servingness, I actually can now, I just use the word processes, and this is some of the other research that’s gonna be coming out, is I’m moving into the p- the action pieces, right?

Whereas I now am calling servingness framework- Yeah … static. It’s static, right? It can be an i- it can be a snapshot in time, ’cause you can use the servingness framework to assess your campus and a snapshot in time, but then now what do we do? ‘Cause some people don’t move beyond the assessment. They just assess, and then they don’t know what to do, right? ‘Cause you have to then move, right? You need people like Amber who are like, “All right, bet, I can see the big picture, and now let’s move in these different directions,” right? And start to do that. And have the, there also needs to be some capital in your organization to be able to move.

That’s why there’s an o- there’s a chapter about the middle leaders because they’re not the highest level presidents and chancellors, and they’re not the, folks at the the, the classified staff. They’re in the middle. They have some power. They are management level often. They are faculty who have some power, and they know how to use levers for change, right?

And so the emergent strategy, I think, gave me a way to think about processes rather than just, here’s a snapshot of how you can assess your the as- the servingness framework is a great assessment tool. You can assess it in many, how, what are our structures? Where are we doing servingness?

And how are we measuring it, right? There are the, the metrics of serving. But the, the emergent strategy is process oriented And so this book speaks about processes. And so I start to name them, and in some of the articles that are under review right now that will be out soon, I start to really name the processes, right?

Processes of change. If we are going to become, and let me be clear, everybody has to become an HSI. The whole idea of being an emerging HSI is between 15 and 24%, that’s false. 25% and on is emerging as well. 15 to 24, emerging. Zero to 25, emerging. Everybody’s emerging because nobody’s an HSI, right? Like, all the institutions are trying to become and embody this, this identity, so everybody’s emerging.

No matter what, we’re all emerging, and we’re all- … trying to figure it out until we get to that point where we’re saying, “This is the epitome of HSI.” We haven’t got there yet. There’s a lot of disparate things going on where we’re like, that’s kind of an HSI, and that’s an HSI in this one area.

And over here in that other area, it’s kind of an HSI. But we haven’t got to an organizational sort of- … place where we say this is it. And so emergent strategy gave me the the processes, right? I think it’s all grounded in liber- liberation. I talk so much about liberation and liberatory outcomes of that our students should, those of us that, that subscribe to a Paulo Freire and Bell Hooks approach to liberation, that we all believe that education is a space where people should liberated, right?

It’s a place where you should see yourself and feel like you are empowered, right? To, to, to do different things. You see yourself represented in educational spaces, and you are empowered to change the world, right? That, it would be a p- that’s a powerful education. And so it’s grounded in that, and it’s grounded in community cultural wealth and in acknowledging people’s lived realities, lived experiences, and they bring that to the institution, and we should embrace that.

Keith Edwards: Amber, you wanna add anything to this before we turn to you more?

Amber Gonzalez: Yeah, no. I was just… As Gina was talking, I just kept thinking about until HSIs or any institution that wants to serve their population starts looking at their policies and their practices, there, there’s no way they can say that they’re an HSI because-

Those policies are often from, the early, I like to say like the 1900s, but that makes me like, oh, that was just like just a little bit ago. So the- … the early 1900s. The mid-1900s. A lot of these policies that were not made or were… did not envision students or faculty or staff of the communities in which they serve at the institution, and and they haven’t been changed. And so I’m like, how can you say you serve the population when you’re still using policies that exclude the population?

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah. I have a good example real quick of that, that is so relevant right now at my campus, ’cause I’m in the University of California system. I was just talking last week, I did a talk on campus, and we were talk- We have the Black serving institution designation as well.

Amber Gonzalez: You just said

Gina Ann Garcia: that. And I made a very strong statement. I said, “We are a BSI, and if we bring back the SAT, that is completely the opposite of being a BSI.” Because the SAT was grounded in the eugenics movement, right? It’s grounded in racism. So like we know that standardized tests are, come out of the eugenics movement at this idea of trying to prove that certain races are more superior than others, and standardized tests embody that.

So if we’re saying we are about Black lives but we care more about the SAT that, those don’t align. That’s not BSI movement. That’s not BSI ways of acting. So thanks for bringing in the policy ’cause, yeah, that’s where you can really say you can say we have a Black cultural center all we want, so we’re a BSI, but then, you do things in your policy that would say no you’re not.

So when do they… They have to fully align for you… serving it to be actualized.

Keith Edwards: I love that you brought in Emergent Strategy. I think for folks who aren’t familiar, Gina described a book. It’s very unconventional. It’s not a hard read. Full of poetry and Star Wars references and Star Trek references and so much more.

Drawings and movement lessons from bees and insects.

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah, biology. A lot of biology. Yeah.

Keith Edwards: And I just think that in in the long run we’ll look back on Adrienne Maree Brown and think of her as one of the greatest thinkers of our times like we think of- … bell hooks or Maya Angelou or Grace Lee Boggs.

Yeah … and so I love that, that framing. So Amber, you’re in this uncomfortable position that Gina describes you as a grassroots leader for HSIs. That is

Amber Gonzalez: sweet.

Keith Edwards: How are you doing this, and how would you like to call on others to join with you in this?

Amber Gonzalez: Yeah, I think very carefully.

Because I think

So I’m a faculty member, I will start there, so there, and a full professor, so there comes a lot of privilege with that. But I would say that I started my, Being a member of the Good Trouble Club, or maybe just the Trouble Club, at Sac State- … the minute I set foot on campus. And my second day, I think, on campus, there was a meeting, and they were talking about RTP, retention, tenure, and promotion, and they were creating a policy, and they were talking about authorship of articles.

And I will never forget that they were just like, “You have to be this author in order for this publication to count, and it has to be in this type of journal for it to count.” And I’m just thinking in my mind, I’m like, “How? Okay. Okay. Check. Check. Okay.” And then I think I just asked a question of, like, why?

Like, why does it have to have an index factor of that? And did you know that this o- this journal doesn’t really publish any qualitative work? And I was just at… All I was doing was asking questions. And I was just… It was just questions. I was like, “I don’t understand why. Why does it have to look like this?”

And I will never forget one of the men that was, leading the conversation stood up, and he was like, “Are we gonna listen to this little girl ask us all of these questions?” And I was like, “Is he talking about me? Am I the little girl in the room?” I was like, “Oh, he’s talking about me.” So then I raised my hand again- and I was like, “Why are we referring to me as a little girl? I’m 30-some-out years old, and I have a doctorate.” And then he referred to me as Miss, and I was like, “Oh you can call me Dr. Gonzalez. I just have some questions.” And then after that meeting was all over, I went into the bathroom and cried.

And then after that meeting, I then called my former institution CSU Northridge, and begged them to take me back. I was like, “I do not wanna be here.” “I don’t wanna be here. All you… All I do is ask questions.” And I remember David Wakefield, he was like, “No, you need to stay there. We’re not taking you back.

We’re not hiring you again, and keep asking all your questions.” And so that’s I think, when I just started to ask questions. I just wanted to understand why were certain things the way w- they were. But because I was asking questions, I was now questioning these white normative cultural practices and values that the institution had embodied.

So I was starting to question things like, “Why don’t we have a syllabus policy? Why are grades done in this way? Why don’t faculty and staff have to share their syllabus with students during week one?” Like, why is that not policy? Why are these this way? Why… I just started to ask a lot of questions.

Why do faculty have a, have to have a 4.0 teaching evaluation score in order to earn tenure? Why? Which then led bl- labeled me as a troublemaker, and then I just decided to take on the trouble. And I was like, “Okay if I wanna start changing the institution to better serve the students, I need to understand how to navigate this space, how to change policy.

Is this a policy or is this a practice? What’s the process? What’s the procedure that we have to go through?” I quickly learned Robert’s Rules in order to understand where… Like, how to make a motion to make an amendment. Where does the policy get consultation? How does it get enacted? Because I think that’s the biggest challenge, is that a lot of people are like, “Oh, we can’t do that.

We can’t pay students a stipend because the policy.” And then I start to ask where’s the… Can I see the policy?” So I’ll never forget, we were hiring a chief of police at Sac State and it was right after Stephon Clark was murdered by police in Sacramento, and a lot of people had questions about why do we have to have a chief of police on our campus.

And all we kept getting told was, “It’s policy. It’s policy.” And then people just said, “Oh, okay, it’s policy.” And I was like, “Wait, we’re just accepting that?” If somebody says it’s policy, we’re just like, “Oh, okay”? And they’re like, “Yeah, ’cause it’s policy.” I was like, “Have y’all read the policy?” “No.” So then I remember going into a meeting with President Nelsen and saying I’d like to read the policy.

I have my computer open. Can you just put the link in the chat or can you send the link via email?” There was no policy. But people had- … already said there is a policy. And so I think the way in which people can start joining this movement is to start asking questions.

It’s gonna get on lots of people’s nerves, but you have to question this sort of white institutional culture that we’ve all- sort of embodied, and you have to question how are things done at the institution, ’cause that’s where you can start. That’s your starting place, is to, like, how are these things done? Why don’t- … we have a certain center? Why is the SAT being used? I need to understand your underlying assumptions that you’re making.

And then also, is this a practice or is this a policy? Is this a procedure? ‘Cause then it changes who I need to use in terms of my-

Keith Edwards: yeah …

Amber Gonzalez: not use. I shouldn’t say use. Work with.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. In

Amber Gonzalez: terms of changing the institution.

Keith Edwards: A couple things that I- Yeah … think are really important about what you’ve shared here is this good trouble, which is John Lewis’ line about- getting in good trouble, and the power of asking important questions. As- … I think asking important questions seems innocuous, and we need- … to be declarative and have solutions and have the answers. But asking important questions can be powerful. And then also in that story, In that story you both have some moxie and sauciness-

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah.

Keith Edwards: and you cried in the bathroom.

And I think oftentimes we think that it’s one or the other.

That you have moxie and sauciness and nothing bothers you, or it really is hurtful. And we can have both, right? We can have the hurt- … and the pain-

…

Keith Edwards: And feel the dehumanization, and- also stand up for ourselves and come back- … and continue to push and continue to nudge. What would

Amber Gonzalez: you add to that, Danya? And that’s why you have to have… Oh, I was gonna just add, that’s why you also have to have a village in both places. That’s right. You have to have the village for the sauciness that are gonna also…

‘Cause oftentimes I’m at the forefront, and people are like, “Oh, yeah, I support you. I support this.” And then when we get to Senate, where we’re gonna make a resolution or we’re gonna make an amendment, and they’re ready to raise their hand, but they’re not ready to speak in support of.

So I think knowing that, and so having that village to make sure that people are prepared to speak, but then having the village for everybody that’s gonna come to your house later or call to check on you- Yeah … to make sure that, “Hey when the president attacked you or when you felt attacked or when- Yeah

somebody disagreed, I just wanted to, I just wanted to tell you we’re on the right track and you’re doing great,” and check in to make sure you’re okay.

Keith Edwards: Or those colleagues at that other campus- yeah … who loved when they said, “You can’t come back. You go, girl. Stay there. Keep going.” Yeah. Yeah, Danya’s gonna take me back.

Keep going. Those, those colleagues. Yeah. That, that village is helpful, too.

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah. I think what I would add is just to, I, I agree that this idea of asking questions is a important piece, right? But I think what Amber didn’t get into with her being, really a leader in this HSI movement is then, w- and this is what I see, people ask a lot of questions, they start annoying people, and then they start to figure out how they’re gonna do something about it.

And so Amber’s how am I gonna do something about this, and particularly around the HSI work, was getting a grant from College Teachers, a very large grant to work with students. And she started creating a lot of students who were also cau- into causing good trouble, right?

Yes. So then she multiplied. Yeah.

Amber Gonzalez: So

Gina Ann Garcia: then now we have a little army. But

Amber Gonzalez: I think

Gina Ann Garcia: that’s the other thing.

Amber Gonzalez: You go and you get the students to start-

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah …

Amber Gonzalez: recognizing and understanding. So not only now you have the faculty, oftentimes a protected- Yeah … a protected group on campus, the tenured faculty, who oft- who do not use their, that power and that privilege always- Always.

They forget of, I feel like faculty oftentimes forget no, you’re tenured. That’s a very powerful position to be in. And now you can get students who are also in a very powerful position, right? ‘Cause students can demand, like they can make demands of the institution and they really can’t have any repercussions of those demands.

So when a student says- … “Hey, your HSI website doesn’t even say the word Hispanic-Serving Institution. What is wrong with you?” That is a problem, President so and and then the president’s like, “Oh my gosh, I have to change that immediately.” Or, “Where on your homepage does it even say that we’re an HSI?”

And within a couple of hours that was changed because now all of a sudden the students are starting to see and they’re making demands, right? And so I think that when we got that grant, it was, Not, we really were just getting it as a research grant. That was really what was suppo- It was “Okay we’re gonna get this research grant.

We’re gonna understand the student perceptions.” And then the students were like no, hold on. Now I wanna change it,” which is when we were like, “Okay, this is actually a participatory action research grant.”

And we’re gonna figure out the actions that the students… The students started to make demands, “Hey, we have all these HSI, DHSI grants, 5 million, 3 million.

You get lots of publicity from the SAC B on ’em, and we don’t even know where the money’s going. Where’s the transparency?” And so they started to then start to ask their questions. And they figured out how to get on the State Hornet. We had the SAC B come because we had a journalism student who had the SAC B come to her class to talk about journalism, and she was like, “Hey, do you wanna come hear about our research project?”

Now all of a sudden she’s coming and telling Kevin and I, “The SAC B wants to come and hear about our research project.” And we were like, “Okay.” Yeah. And I remember Kevin was an assistant professor at the time, and he was like you’re taking the lead on this one, right?” As a tenured faculty. And I was like, “Of course.”

So also knowing- Yeah … where to position people that are in those protected spaces versus not protected spaces to change to maneuver the institution, to change the institution.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. Some strategy there.

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah. There’s a whole more, a whole lot to be said, but people can listen to Que Pasó HSIs.

Amber was on that podcast, and they describe their whole project and how, and basically how they create the movement, right? And there’s so many stories of HSIs, people creating the movement from within and getting students to join and staff and faculty and- … board trustees. When you got some trustees in there, you’re really doing the movement, and that’s happening.

People are, like, getting people on board.

Keith Edwards: Yeah. Thanks for mentioning that. We’ll get the link to your wonderful podcast and that particular episode in the show notes for this. I think the… I can’t imagine anyone watching or listening who isn’t thinking about the current moment that we’re in, that we’re living through this tumultuous moment for S- HSIs in general, which is to say the least.

What do you see ahead for the future of HSIs? Amber, where do you see in your crystal ball ahead for the work, the movement, and some of the challenges that we’re facing?

Amber Gonzalez: Oh, that’s hard. I, I was just in a meeting earlier to- I was in a space earlier today, and somebody was so proud that they were submitting an $8 million grant, not to to NSF or something.

And this was, somebody that, of course, my question asking, “Oh, and is it around our HSI work?” And she said, “Yes.” And again, no Latinos are on as PIs. No. So I think this is a challenging time, and I think people are scared because I think we’re having to look at our The funding’s gone, and so now we’re having to look at our budgets in a different way, because a lot of the things that people were doing with the grants were never institutionalized.

And so now we don’t have grants, and so now- … they’re going like, “Oh, wait. Were we actually doing servingness- … if we never institutionalized it?” Which is a really hard question for these leaders to start to ask- … themselves. And start to see that, “Oh, darn. We don’t have the budget to keep these people employed that were doing all of the work to serve this particular population, and come this weird date, they’re no longer gonna be employed here.

What are we gonna do with this center?” And it was never… So I think that’s a hard place to be. I would be saying that what needs to start happening is these institutional lealers- leaders need to start examining their budgets, which I don’t think- … they do enough, because they were relying- on the grants.

And so now they’re saying “Oh-

Gina Ann Garcia: … D-

Amber Gonzalez: darn, we don’t have the budget to keep this afloat.” Yeah. “What are we gonna do?”

And, ’cause you can look at policies, you can look at practices, you can look at processes. These are all free, but the minute that you say, “We were relying on those dollars to pay for this, and now we don’t have those dollars,” and you need to be transparent about that- that we weren’t actually doing the work, and nobody wants to admit that.

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I agree. I think the most tumultuous thing that has happened with HSI, in the HSI world, is that people who had, who were funded by Title V grants have lost their jobs. There’s tremendous job loss.

I think we know there’s tremendous job loss under this current president in general. He doesn’t like to admit it and will fudge the numbers, but many people have lost jobs because of a lot of funding that’s gone away, and it’s I call it collateral damage. There’s the people who are directly funded, and then there’s the, like, contractors and folks like me who were funded to come do talks, right?

Stuff like that. There’s many people who have lost jobs and opportunities because of this loss of not only HSI Title V funding, but all federal funding- … that has been now just gone. It’s just gone, right? And things that were really great things that were happening are, it’s harder to make ’em happen without the funding.

A lot of loss that I think we need to acknowledge. But yeah, as far as how HSIs are adapting and responding, I think I’m really seeing a division between red states, blue states. Doh. There’s that. The reality is- The more liberal progressive states, the blue states are still 100% committed, including ours.

That’s in California, and California now has a state initiative to start an HSI to start an, launch an HSI state level policy. Both HSI and AANAPISI we already have Black serving. California’s already fine- That doesn’t have funding with it. Doesn’t have funding with it, that part.

Yeah. That’s a whole separate, which now the BSI’s going through, is first you get the designation, then you have to ask for the funding, right? Two different parts. But Colorado has also just passed. They are calling it something around thriving thriving institutions. And I was just in Illinois last week.

Illinois is still doing it, right? So Massachusetts, right? There’s places that are still 100% committed, and then there’s places like Texas with the second most largest number of HSIs in the country behind California that has completely dismantled everything, right? And everything that I would even say has what I call the historical phases of serving in the new ser- There’s a new serving that’s framework coming out, by the way.

It’s not out yet but once it is, I’ll share it with the community. But historical spaces have also been dismantled meaning the spaces that have been doing this for 60 years are also now gone. So not only the things that were funded by Title V grants, but stuff that had already been line items in the campus for decades have been dismantled, right?

In places like Texas, right? Ethnic studies, cultural centers, women and gender studies, all that being completely just dismantled. So it’s, to say it’s a challenging time is an understatement, right? It’s w- we’re having to rethink completely, and I think serving this and the new book, are just gonna be, continue to be the tools for people to use because it is about really embedding it in who we really are, right?

Because if our, if it’s in our core mission then it’s gonna be what we do. And I talk a lot about enrollment based HSI, or enrollment based minority serving institutions, and mission based, and the mission based are your HBCUs and your tribal colleges. And they don’t question, “Oh, now we’ve lost this, this funding, so are we still what we are?”

No you will always- … be an H- HBCU. You will always be a tribal college, and the HSI designation is not there yet because it’s still enrollment based. It’s not in our mission. So once it’s in our mission, then it’s what we do. Everybody can make decisions about what they do based on our mission, and if our mission is to be, a- and I’ll say minority serving institution, not just HSI because there are many campuses, like Amber mentioned her campus, that are, particularly in California, double and triple designations at this point, ’cause we’re just very diverse institution- in some states like California. So until it’s in our mission- Budget follow- Oh, go ahead.

Keith Edwards: I mean that in the best way. And then Amber, you had just jumped in about- The budget … budget follows mission. Yeah. So maybe we can just- … go back to you saying, “And the budget follows mission,” and all the- Okay … smart stuff you said that I didn’t hear. Yeah. That was great. Yeah. It was a

Amber Gonzalez: very… I don’t know.

I just… All I was saying was- I really appreciate Gina thinking and talking about the mission statement because the budget follows the mission, right? So if you’re a president of a university or even the, the dean of your division, any of that, your budget has to align with your mission. Your strategic priorities have to align with your mission.

So that’s why HBCUs never have to question their identity as an HBCU because their mission says they’re an HBCU. They stand next to that mission, and therefore their budget’s going to align with that. So I think that’s why I say like HSIs, BSIs, and APZ’s are struggling because while they got all of this Title V funding, did any of that funding to support different activities align with the mission?

Did, was there ever a push to change the mission? Because then now that those have left, it’s “Oh no, we don’t have any line items in our budget. Oh, we don’t have any strategic priorities that align with what those grants were doing.” Amazing work. So even our students are missing out on some of the resources- activities that are helping them become a contributing member to society. And so I think that’s where we, these institutions need to start looking at their missions and what are our missions and do our budgets and our strategic priorities align with those missions? And is servingness embedded in that mission?

Maybe not with the word servingness, I understand, but is there something

Gina Ann Garcia: in- Servingness is an allowable word. The federal

Amber Gonzalez: government has not banned it. It is an allowable

Gina Ann Garcia: word.

Amber Gonzalez: You can I can- So far. So far. That is fine, but-

Gina Ann Garcia: They haven’t

Amber Gonzalez: come in to get me yet. But I’m hoping that there’s a citation next to that servingness because what I’m seeing also- Yes

is that people use the servingness, they even use the servingness framework, which I absolutely appreciate and I want people to start using servingness 2.0. I did see a little pre of that, so I’m excited to see that come out. But I do want, we also need to make sure that we go to that foundational work and the foundational scholars- that were doing that work,

Keith Edwards: yeah. Yeah.

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah

Keith Edwards: Sounds like the, the big push forward is to stop relying on the grant funding or enrollment numbers- … and integrate this into how systems operate, whether it’s through the mission, through the budget, through the policies- … through how we operate.

That seems- … to be the way forward for folks who

Amber Gonzalez: really care about this work. In

Keith Edwards: a weird

Amber Gonzalez: way, that’s like a blessing. … Using that very, very, like- Weird way. Weird way, yeah … weird way. Very weird, but I do see this as an opportunity for institutions to really start transforming, because I think- they were relying on this funding. I mean-

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah …

Amber Gonzalez: our career center, we are gonna find a way to fund it, but our career center was heavily relying on grants to support- … its activities. And now that those, that funding’s gone, we’re having to readjust and find funding in the budget. But I think it’s almost like a blessing, because who doesn’t wanna have that career center be a direct line item in the budget where I’m not having to think about this in 2028?

It’s just, it’s already got a line item.

Keith Edwards: Yeah.

Amber Gonzalez: So it’s almost like a weird, gonna use that very weird blessing.

Gina Ann Garcia: It’s forcing us to think differently. Yeah.

Keith Edwards: Yes. Yeah.

Gina Ann Garcia: Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I agree.

Keith Edwards: Thank you. Thank you both. We are running out of time, and the podcast is called Student Affairs NOW.

We always like to end with this question about what are you thinking, troubling, or pondering now? And also, if folks wanna connect with you, where can they do that? So Dr. Garcia, what are you troubling now?

Gina Ann Garcia: Oh, wow. Troubling. I I’m gonna be honest in in mainstream world, I am troubling why I continue to watch Love Island because

Keith Edwards: Love Island- I did not see this coming

Gina Ann Garcia: every d- I, it’s like you gotta connect with the folks, love Island, I’m sure a lot of folks list- watch Love Island, and I watch it every day, and I’m like, “Why am I wasting my life with this garbage?” But then I know we find ways to make it make sense. And so I will keep finding that.

So yeah I think about things like that, why am I doing this? Besides the work that I think about all the time, which right now is what I am pondering, I already mentioned this a little bit, was this systems change work. Is what does it look like and what are the processes, and how are we gonna move it, and what other people have written about it, and how can I learn more about it?

So that’s where I’m really at as far as pondering in my work. But, I’m a human at the end of the day, so yeah, I also ponder why I continue to watch Love Island. But shout out to Love Island. As far as people following me, you can follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn are probably the two places I spend the most time posting.

My full name, Gina Ann Garcia, is how you can find me on both those spaces.

Keith Edwards: Wonderful. And Amber, what are you pondering now?

Amber Gonzalez: I am, I’m still, I’m addicted to Love Island. So I do which I think that you have to be right now. So reality TV is where I go to decompress. And so it’s either Love Island or reality Real Housewives.

Because I don’t know what the ladies in Rhode Island are going to do. … What’s gonna happen to the coffee shop? I don’t know. I need to know. I need to know what’s going to happen. And the Orange County girls are gonna come back. But Encasa Amor just opened, so- I did … on Love Island, so that- I did

came out last night. So very interesting stuff in terms of my personal life. I think in terms of my research HSI work, I think now that these institutions are starting to get these multiple designations, and now we have the state level designation in California, I’m really wondering, like, how students and their families are thinking about these institutions in terms of the cake and where’s their slice of the cake, or where’s their slice of the pie, and how are we thinking about these institutions differently, similarly?

They’ve been all over the news. And so I’m really interested to know how are families… do they matter? Do these institut- do these designations matter to the families? Do these designations matter to the students? In what ways are we interpreting what the designations mean for families, for communities?

We talk about them a lot, I see them a lot, but I don’t know how they’re resonating with the communities in which we are aiming to serve. So that’s something I’m really interested in or trying to understand better.

Keith Edwards: Wonderful. Thank you both. This has been terrific, and so much to… you’ve helped me make sense of so much, and I think helped so many folks lead forward through these challenging times with your perspectives and your insights and, as Gina mentioned, very practical approaches to how we can do some of this with some, some great stories.

So thanks for your leadership in this space. Yeah. Also, thanks to our sponsor of today’s episode, Evolve. Given the current context of higher education, we need to invest in leaders with the capacity and capabilities to transform their institutions and the future of higher education. The Evolve Institute offers four leadership coaching journeys tailored to four different leadership levels.

Each is a three-month journey that includes individual and group coaching, plus a curated curriculum of short asynchronous video modules. We also offer Evolve for leadership teams. If you’re ready to evolve your leadership voice, visit evolve-institute.com to learn more. Huge shout-out to our producer, Natalie Ambrosey, who does the behind-the-scenes work to make us look and sound good.

And we love your support of these conversations. Your listening, sharing, and recommending makes all of this possible. You can help us reach even more folks by subscribing to the podcast on YouTube or our weekly newsletter announcing each new episode every week on Wednesdays. If you are so inclined, you can leave us a five-star review.

It helps great conversations like this reach even more folks. I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks to our two fabulous guests today and to everyone who’s watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thank you both.

https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/53957/hsi-movement

https://www.ginaanngarcia.com/podcast

https://www.ginaanngarcia.com/podcast/episode/af237fd8/sac-state-using-student-voices-to-transform-hsis

https://www.ginaanngarcia.com/post/the-hsi-movement-will-not-be-televised

Defining “Servingness” at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs): Practical Implications for HSI Leaders

Transformation Teams Leading the Hispanic-Serving Institutions Movement at HSI Community Colleges