–

John L. Garland
I believe that we need to recommit to teaching helping skills in all of our programs. There has been more of a movement, I think, toward administration and maybe not so much on the helping skill. So as a former counseling professor, I advocate fully for recommitting to creating unconditional positive regard for all college students through the professional preparation of Student Affairs practitioners and professionals in helping skills and counseling skills. So no native no program is going to be able to hire a native person or an indigenous person for every program, and every program is not going to have multiple indigenous graduate students in their program.

Raechele Pope
Welcome to Student Affairs NOW. I’m your host, Raechele Pope, and I’m joined today by co host Gudrun Nyunt, who you will hear from in a bit today, we are discussing serving minoritized students and the unique institutional types that specifically emphasize supporting minoritized students. Our hope is to focus on ways we can serve minoritized student population, institutions that may not have been created with these populations in mind, but are now played an important role in providing access to higher education. With this focus, we hope to highlight what all institutions can learn about serving minoritized students and how professional associations like ACPA can better support student affairs and higher education professionals engaging in this important work. This episode is part of a 13 episode series for ACPA, 100th anniversary and a partnership between ACPA and Student Affairs now. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s 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@studentaffairsnow.com Today’s episode is sponsored by ACPA, an independent 501, c3, nonprofit association which is sponsoring this special, 13 episode series with Student Affairs now to celebrate again, its 100th anniversary, boldly transforming higher education. As I mentioned, I’m Raechele Pope. My pronouns are she and her. I’m a professor in the higher education and student affairs program at the University of Buffalo, and I also serve as a Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Student Affairs and the Chief Diversity Officer for the Graduate School of Education. I’m recording today near the University of Buffalo’s campus on the unceded Land of the Haudenosaunee people.

Gudrun Nyunt
And hello everyone. I’m Gudrun Nyunt. My pronouns she and her. I am an associate professor and program coordinator of the Higher Education and Student Affairs Program at Northern Illinois University. I also have the honor of serving on the ACPA 100 core committee, and am ACPA vice president of membership. I’m joining you today from Northern Illinois University, which occupies the homeland of the Anishinaabe peoples, also known as the Council of the three fires. And so enough from us. Let’s get this conversation started. So John, we’re so happy to have you here and welcome you to the podcast. Could you please begin by telling us a little bit about yourself so your current role, and a little bit about your pathway. Pathway. Essentially, we’d love for our listeners to know a little bit about who you are and your connection to this topic.

John Hernandez
Thank you, guru, and it’s so nice to be in community with you all today. I’m John Hernandez. My pronouns are he? Him, el I currently serve as the president of Irvine Valley College, a two year community college in Southern California. I have been here now for four years, starting my fifth This is my second presidency. And prior to that, I had been a Vice President for Student Services for 11 years, and was a very active member of ACPA for many years, I have worked at four Hispanic serving institutions, both two and four year and currently at Irvine Valley College, we are a minority serving institution. In 2015 we were designated as an anapisi Serving Institution. Currently, we serve about 41% API students. We are also an emerging Hispanic serving institution with about 24% Latinx enrollment. I am deeply drawn to this topic, not just because of my professional roles, but because of my own lived experience as a first gen Latinx in. Immigrant who also navigated higher ed for the first time, first through the community college system before transferring to the four year institutions at Irvine Valley College. We honor the ancestral homelands and traditional territories of indigenous people who have been here since time immemorial, and we honor the kitsch nation, the Hashima nation and the Gabrielino Tongva tribe.

R. Joy Vergara
Thank you. Thank you. Nice to meet you, John, and it’s great to be here with all of you. Thank you, Raechele and and good one for the invitation to be on this great panel. Thank you for all those that are listening and watching today. My name is Joy Vergara. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I’m the Assistant Vice Chancellor for the University of Illinois Chicago within student affairs. I’m going into my second year in this role, 11 years here at UIC and at other previous institutions here in Chicago, I’m Filipino American. I’m a proud mom of three. I’m a Nina, a godmother to some. For those that are on campus, they’ll also call me auntie or Tita joy. I’m a sister, a daughter, a cousin of my friends and family. I have a loving partner for 21 years, and I’m proud to be part of the Student Affairs profession for over 20 years in serving our students here at UIC, we are a research one public urban institution, proud to be serving all of our students, a high number of first generation students. Ana Peasy grant funded, as well as HSI grant funded. We were Ana Peasy and MSI in 2010 and then in 2016 HSI. And so I think, like John, it’s a distinct honor to have these distinctions and how we work together with our academic partners in this endeavor. Here at UIC, we are on tribal land as well, and want to recognize, as best as I may, the three tribal traditions here, territories, Ojibwe, Odawa and bodwadmi that are here at UIC, but along that the Illinois host 75,000 Tribal members here, recognizing and honoring all of our tribal, tribal descendants here. So with that, I thank you for this opportunity. I’m looking forward to the conversation.

John L. Garland
Thank you, Joy and I am John Garland. My pronouns are he, him, his. I’m a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and of the United States of America. I reside on the eastern shore of Maryland, which is the ancestral homelands of the Piscataway and Nanticoke peoples. I might just start by saying the arc of my career has focused on helping higher education be more inclusive by weaving indigenous student data and experiences into the nation’s fabric. For the last seven years, I’ve served as Director of Research and scholar success for the Cobell scholarship program, a scholarship that funds college students who are members of one of the 574 federally recognized tribes. I received my bachelor’s and master’s degree from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, a Native American serving non tribal institution, which we will talk more about in a minute, and received my doctorate in counseling and personal services from the University of Maryland with a concentration in College Student Personnel Administration. I’m also a Certified Rehabilitation counselor and have worked in higher ed and higher ed adjacent capacities as both faculty and in administrative roles for the past 7570 75 years. For the past 25 years, it feels like 75 sometimes

Raechele Pope
you look good. John, yeah, that’s great. Thank you all for being here. And I’m sure our listeners can tell we have really assembled a really amazing panel. So why don’t we get into that? Today, we’re talking about serving minoritized student populations, and as a diversity of our college students increase, many institutions are becoming minority, serving institutions, or have programs to serve minoritized student populations. And between the three of you, you have a wide range of experiences, both on campus and off campus. In so many ways, you have experiences working at HSIs Hispanic serving institutions. Anapesis, Asian American, Native American and Pacific Islander, serving institutions. And this, I had it, and it’s gone. Nascentes,

John L. Garland
nascenty, Nestea,

Raechele Pope
Native Americans serving non tribal institutions, which is a newer term than we have been using for a long time. Scholars often stress the need of these institutions to not be classified as simply serving these institutions due to the demographics of their students. We’re going to call you that because these are your demographics, but instead to truly serve these student populations, that’s the purpose. So what do you want listeners and viewers to know about these institutional types? Why are they so important to students? Why are they so important to the higher education landscape and the communities that they serve?

John L. Garland
Rachelle, I’ll kick it off. What I might do those begin with just some basic data and distinctions related to Native Americans serving non tribal institutions in 2008 that well, I should say the 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Ed act of 65 included the granting of a special designation of institutions that have an undergraduate enrollment of At least 10% American Indian and Alaska Native students and that qualify for Title Three status under the US Department of Education. The resulting designation for this year for 2024 includes 31 colleges that meet that definition, with 21 of those currently listed as nascent T Department of Ed grantees, and I’ll talk about that more in a second. But as the name implies, these institutions are distinct from and do not include what we have come to know as tribally controlled colleges and universities, which there are currently 35 of 18 of those are four year and the remainder are two year institutions. So that’s just sort of a quick overview with regard to nascentes. These are typically, historically white institutions, again, with 10% or more of their student population identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native, and it’s important that we make that distinction too. So American Indian and Alaska Native. There are over 200 tribes. 200 of the 574 federally recognized tribes are in Alaska itself. So I think, you know, just some of the basic numbers often get sort of obscured with when we’re talking about tribal education in the US, but it’s important to really understand sort of the Alaska situation as it relates to nascentes. The Department of Ed designation opens opportunities, I think, for nascentes to collaborate with one another in meaningful ways, to share ideas, resources, and probably most importantly, build capacities through additional funding and a grant granting opportunities. So for example, there are lots of opportunities once you’re designated as a nascenty as the other MSIS, and speak to that, really focus on, in this case, data sharing, getting more data into the hands of these institutions that support Native students, because for so long, Native students have been invisible, both on college campuses and within the data. And so part of the arc of my work in higher ed, as I mentioned earlier, has really been around addressing the Native American asterisk in student affairs research. And when I was working on my dissertation back in 2004 I almost couldn’t do it because of the lack of data. And my advisor at the time, Dr Mary, Lou McEwen, handed me a dissertation, the dissertation, or a draft of a dissertation of John Hernandez and and that was really helpful, because I think the structure of his dissertation really helped me rethink the approach of my own and so and so there is this sort of cross pollination, I think, across our Across our institutional types, and across experiences that really inform one another. And so I’m really glad that you had kind of have this all together in this podcast, because I think you’ll find similarities across these designations. But, you know, I think the the other part that’s just as important, the ultimate goal, of course, is to improve indigenous student outcomes, as we know, indigenous students are the least likely to attend college and the least likely to complete in six years. One of the things that we’ve discovered, and I’ll mention more of this later, in our research across the four largest Native scholarship providers who. By the way, have in our in our hands the one of the largest data sets of indigenous college student data in the world, and so we have a very powerful resource that we’re harnessing to begin filling in those gaps of research and literature for Student Affairs and for higher ed more broadly. But one of the things that we that we know is that native students may not be graduating as six years, but they are graduating. So some of our data is looking at the the trend more actually, over a nine year period. And so if we think about, what does completion mean, if we think about some of the definitions that we’re using across institutional types to determine what is success, there may be some revisitation, needed some reexamination of those terms. Needed to really think more critically about how are students succeeding on their own terms now that certainly has implications for data. That’s important to higher ed institutions, as I’m sure John can speak to when it comes to reporting outcomes to national and state groups and and overseers. And so thinking about how we both focus on the student and the institution’s success simultaneously can get very complicated, especially as it relates to Indigenous students. So these conversations are critically important. And I think the growing data around ascentes is going to help inform some of these, some of these outcomes in these discussions. Yeah, Jen, I

Raechele Pope
think that’s really important when I think about this. And one thing that you mentioned is this time to degree, and how we have tied time to degree with financial aid, and so that longer time period sometimes makes those students, or almost all times, makes those students ineligible for aid, and some of our students who need it most. And so that may be a conversation will return to but you raised a lot of important questions there or pieces that affect all of these institutions and all of these students.

R. Joy Vergara
And I’ll jump in there to piggyback off of that. John, you know at UIC Student Affairs does not have enrollment management of course, with communication learning, what are those strategies? And UIC looked at, how do we welcome our tribal members and students to feel welcomed that they are welcomed here? And looked at systemically, what does enrollment strategies look like? And so looking at making sure our Native American students are classified as resident students versus out of state students. And I think that was very big in telling and a message to campus partners and to us in student affairs. This is the direction we’re going in, and I think this is where, as student affairs professionals and partners, how do we learn what we could do in student affairs to partner with those in the provost area Academic Affairs, who at UIC is leading Anna pz and HSI here at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and so that’s where I come from. My perspective is, how do we learn as professionals, and what we can contribute to those efforts, asking those questions, learning about and keeping up with what are with our colleagues and what we’re doing and making sure we’re reaching out to them as they come here to UIC, you know, we want to make sure they persist and graduate and so, you know the sense of belonging those registered student organizations. How do we make sure from the beginning, in those pre enrollment stages, and when they come here through orientation, that they feel a sense of belonging and be inclusive.Do our students feel seen and for our students here? You know, I have the privilege of doing the welcomes at all of our orientations this past summer, with with another, with another leadership administrator here. And what we agreed upon is we want to make sure our students know who we are and sharing we are proud to be an HSI and a peasy, and that might be the first time our families, their guests, alum. And I and our students hear what that means and that designation, what does that mean? And so I do ask our students to look around and whether you’re first generation students, you’re an adult learner. How do we help them feel that sense of belonging and they have access to to to resources and tools, and so creating that community from day one is really something that I want to share. You know, as we build the the systematic pieces to create those ladders to reach those goals, who are not anapesi yet, or not HSI or emerging. You know, are the pieces in place, and I think that’s really important. You know, the reputation of the institution matters, the community building matters. You know, how our stakeholders talk about our campuses does help make our students feel they belong here. So I can kind I could go on with other examples and what have you, but a little bit about UIC. You know, we were in a peasy. In 2010 and minority serving institution with over 18% of API student enrollment as undergrads. And then in 2014 when we became eligible for HSI, we were at 25% and so that that means a lot when, when students hear that that, you know, we are a large commuter campus as well in the heart of the city. And so our students still need to know, who am I here on campus with? Who am I commuting with? And you know that community building does help as the students are trying to persist towards graduation.

John Hernandez
Raechele, can I? Can I jump into the question of, Why are MSI so important? I wanted to reference a brief that was published from the American Council of Education through their Center for Policy Research and strategy that in essence reported that MSIS are engines of upward mobility for the millions of students who are enrolled at these institutions, and they found that MSIS propel students from the bottom to the top of the income distribution at higher rates than non ms size, and that was equally true for two and four year institutions. And I don’t think that should be glossed over, because we then become the economic engine that lifts so many students and their families out of poverty and into the what could be and the possibilities that perhaps they And or multi generations may not have thought possible, and so I think that’s really an important element. When you think about the transformation generational transformation impacts that that creates for families and for the students who are enrolled at our institutions. The other reason it’s important, I think John alluded to it, but it’s just the sheer number of MS eyes. I mean, when you look at Hispanic serving institutions, There are currently over 600 designated HSIs at both two and four year institutions within 30 states and 63% of all Latinx students attend an HSI. And then there’s the the rest of us who are in the wings the emerging HSIs that typically have anywhere from 15 to 24% and getting close to that 25% federal designation that there’s now like 41 states with a significant number of HSIs, whereas, you know, maybe a decade ago, it was like 20 something. So the sheer number, but I also feel that the designation is one element, because whether there is or isn’t designation, whether there is or isn’t federal or other funding that is specific to that designation. If we don’t have that commitment and that responsibility to ensure equal students success, outcomes for all of our students, then the designation, frankly, means nothing. And then the other two points, and I do want to talk a little bit more about that in the next question that you’re going to ask, because I think there’s something around that that I have felt very passionately about and do want to discuss at that point. But then the other are that many of the institutions that we’re talking about are located within. Communities of color, and so there needs to be such an important connection to your community. And if that sense of connectedness to your community, and I’m talking about community based organizations, faith based organizations, then in some ways, we’re not truly living up to that mission. And then, of course, whether it’s an HBCU or others, we often see that we employ some of the most diverse faculty, staff and administrators, so it becomes an entry point for so many young professionals who are, you know, in the in graduate preparation programs, or who are hoping to establish a foothold within higher education, and it not only provides that sense of community, but an immediate connectedness to the students that we serve, and that, I think is also critically important in terms of the representation and how representation truly does matter?

Raechele Pope
Well, I really appreciate that, because I’m really struck by the numbers that you were talking about, and the reason behind the work that we do and the work that these MSIS are doing should be the same kind of work that should be happening on all campuses. And so what can we learn? So it’s fascinating. Thank you. Yeah.

Gudrun Nyunt
And so you’ve all started to talk about, right, how it’s not just about getting the designation. It’s really about doing the work to figure out, how are we serving these populations. And what’s interesting, right, is all of these institutions weren’t created for the populations they actually now serve. And so what are some of those structural changes that either have happened at your institutions or that need to happen to better serve these populations?

Raechele Pope
Joy, I’m wondering if you can start us off there.

R. Joy Vergara
Sure, sure. You know, I was thinking of a few different situations or scenarios here at UIC being sitting in student affairs and working with our HSI partners and a Pz staff that really lead the research and implementing the the initiatives, or leading the charge, right? And so I think, you know, creating the tools here on campus is really important. Who are the go to people, I think for our students, and I know this matters for our students and their families, is they want to know, are they going to have the support? Are there the tools and the resources to navigate campus, to get through the challenges of you know, the rigorous academic work, the challenges around learning and living on and off campus. Will, Will that support be there? And when I shared this in my last, in my previous, you know, comments about, you know, reputation and you know, UIC HSI staff and faculty, there’s a level of excellence here, and there’s a number of schools here in Illinois that have HSI designation, but to know that your student and that that that creates the conversation, that creates a Oh, check out UIC. There’s a pathway there for them to go from undergrad to a community college, to transfer in, or to start off. Or you might be the first in your college. They’ll take care of you. There’s great people there. And so when that communication between our colleges and between our administrative departments in starting to connect our students to them, that only benefits the experience that they have here. And when we do it well, and we do it well for a long period of time, our undergrad experience feeds into our graduate and professional experience. And so now we’re disrupting, you know, we’re changing the cultures of these industries that that have been predominantly other ethnicities. You know, our students are going into STEM our students are going, you know, and they’re, they’re taking the leadership roles, and so we’re changing the landscape

Raechele Pope
joy. Let me ask you. Let me push you on that a little, yeah, because it sounds like you’re doing some amazing stuff, but what are the structural things that you’ve done that allowed for that to happen?

R. Joy Vergara
I think identifying that there’s a commitment for from the institution. So John had mentioned that and then continuing to talk about that in our day to day work. You know, whether that is through an email or when we’re facilitating meetings or these. Committees that come together. Decisions are being made in committee work or in our own departments or colleges. So the deans are talking about it, the associate deans are talking about it. So when you’re implementing it, I believe, you know, it’s not just put on one person and and that’s really important. When you’re onboarding your staff, you’re onboarding faculty. So we just have, we are just about to have faculty onboarding orient orientation. I’m sure they will hear why and how we are. HSI, why and how we are. MSI and apesi, although we are leading those initiatives, I know that I have student workers that are going to be here. I know, I know, I know. I have student leaders that will benefit from HSI initiatives, whether that’s scholarships or additional support and advising. We have separate offices to hone in on. You know, if they’re transitioning into their grad and professional programs. So I think that’s really important to know who, who can help these students. And I think if we take it from a student centered perspective, that’s when we start buying in and start collaborating. And there are challenges. There’s no doubt we are a large institution. We have 16 colleges, and so what one college, or what one division may be doing in student affairs, it may take a while to understand, oh, another campus partner is doing this. How can we connect on this, maybe in the near future, and we might miss a program that we could have collaborated on. So even though we are HSI, we still have a lot of work to do to build a system to where we’re serving our students. So one of the things that I’ll share here, too is Pacific Islanders. We want to support our specific Islanders in a different way, and so understanding, what does that look different? How does that look different from our southeast Asian students, our Asian American students, our international Asian students. What can we what do we need to provide differently? And what are those structures here? Does that? Does that mean different conversations with enrollment? Does that mean something different, even in dining and culturally and around food and religion, where they practice their faith on campus? And so those are some things that we need to be willing to ask those questions, but also to listen to our colleagues when we need to make changes on campus. So I hope that answered some of the structural things that we are trying to achieve here at UIC as an example. But there definitely still are opportunities that that we could forge ahead with.

John Hernandez
And maybe this is part of a of a structural change, but I feel it’s even the pre designation and or really having conversations of what is the motivation for the institution seeking that MSI status. It’s very disappointing, in my opinion that many institutions are just seeing the sheer numbers reach a level where they can qualify, and too often, unfortunately, it is for funding access of us, Department of Ed specific grants, whether it’s you know, NASA or others, that are designated and targeted for one or more of the MSI classifications. And it is always a bit surprising, and yet perhaps it shouldn’t be that so many of the funded projects lack any intentionality around efforts to enroll, educate and retain students that centers around their diverse experiences, their histories and so forth and so I that is an internal conversation that has to happen. We at my institution, as I said, have been anapeasy since 2015, way before my time. But as I talked to folks who were around at that time, there was never any intentionality or conversation around what does that mean and what is the responsibility that comes with that designation. So as we are an emerging Hispanic serving institution. We have embarked on a framework around serving nests because we use that term because it’s embedded in the designation name. But I would challenge us and look at our structures to say, are our structures truly being. Reframed around serving nests. And I know you all had Dr Gina Garcia on a recent Student Affairs now podcast, I would encourage listeners, if they haven’t read her work or to perhaps listen I’ve we had the honor of having her last spring for our convocation to set this up, and this coming year, we’re going to engage in a HSI transformation work to have that convert. We’re in such a unique place to reflect on what that means, and part of that is completely changing the narrative of pre college characteristics of deficits and instead realizing the assets that these students are bringing with them, and more importantly, that the onus for us as educators is indeed on us and not on those students, not on any student, to transform our learning environments that are truly set up For the success of every single student, because if we’re leaving particularly minoritized students behind, enrolling them, which is a an important point for access, but not ensuring that they are making it through their educational objective, is a broken promise to these students. And I think that has to be one of the most fundamental structural shifts that I’m not sure there’s a high degree of intentionality happening around the commitment, the responsibility and the accountability for the servingness factor of our work. Mm, hmm, yeah. That’s powerful. That is powerful.

John L. Garland
I would just like to quickly echo that from a nascenty perspective, when you’re thinking about the structural changes that the more recent nascenty designation has created, has often been around funding, as John mentioned, but as Joy mentioned, many of the programs that that funding supports are focused on sense of belonging, on campuses where Native students have, for too long, not belonged and and it one of the, I think, one of the interesting things, because It’s still so new, it’s, it’s really looking at, how are these grant funded programs becoming line permanent line items in budgets? How are personnel becoming permanent? Personnel those, I think, are now the struggles that we’re seeing with so many of these really innovative programs that have emerged over the last decade, in particular on the Santee campuses, I mean extraordinary programs that focus on sense of belonging, or the focus on completion, or that focus on high Achieving Indigenous students, getting those programs to become permanent assets of those institutions is really difficult, because many of those institutions, for example, were originally normal schools or teachers colleges that have historically been underfunded. And so you think about the funding and the lowering, especially of state institution funds for those types of institutions, it’s an extra burden then to rely on so much grant funding. And that can be a that can be both a deficit and an asset, and I think we’re still learning, from an Asante perspective what those outcomes are going to look like. I will say that the Western I was just looking that up here, the Western inter the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education. Witchy is sort of the home, I guess you will, the informal home of nascenty groups, nascenty campuses, nascenty professionals. So they they have, in the past, hosted those in a conference setting, so that each NASA T program administrator director can bring their staff for professional development to share ideas and those kinds of things. And so I think there’s some beginnings of sort of this shift to shape institutional culture and institutional characteristics. But I don’t think, I think it’s at the Infancy order.

R. Joy Vergara
If I can jump in really quick just to round out this, topic. One thing to keep in mind, as you were talking about this, John, you know, I had shared Anna Peasy was funded. I actually was a co chair for a committee on campus around the status the Chancellor’s status on the committee for Asian American staff, faculty. And students here at UIC, and we weren’t sure if we if the department, the US, Department of Ed, would fund both designations at the time. And so the financial implications of designations or eligibility, you know, how do we sustain that? And I remember being in a conversation with the chancellor at the time or previous chancellor, Chancellor asking that very question, you know, what are the bridge to faculty lines look like for our staff? You know, the same committee highlighted that there were not Asian American staff on campus. And so we wanted to be sure, you know, and there was a number of staff members who championed this before me, that that you know, kept this in the conversation, that kept the you know, pressing The topic and asking for some decisions, or pressing for this to be more part of of of it being systemic at our institution. And so it did take some time. So So second thing that came up as you were talking John, was, you know, a number of our conferences were talking about, you know, the the state of where our South campuses, or our southern states are at, around dei work and the Department of Education, you know, being a topic, you know, in this very election, And how do campuses adjust to, you know, not being able to talk about critical race theory or having issues and staffing being changed. And so I, you know, I think it’s, you know, being very sensitive to our student affairs professionals. I have read professionals that structurally, it’s, it is very complicated during this time right now, until, you know, we know more of the direction of what the country is going in. And so I just share that as we’re talking about structure on our campuses and and makes that very difficult. You know, as presidents and chance chancellors are bounded with a lot of what state governments are, you know, providing direction on?

Gudrun Nyunt
Yeah, definitely. And I like, right, as you talked about earlier, that that’s why it needs to become everyone’s job. Like, it can’t be this add on. It can’t be this extra position that was created because we had grant funding and then goes away when the grant funding goes away, right? We really need to, as we say in ACPA, right. We need to boldly transform higher ed like we need to change our structures. We need to do things differently so that then it can continue, right, even if there are these changes, even if there are these political forces that are shaping us. And so the other thing I want to follow up on, John Hernandez, you talked about, right? How there really, we need to serve all of our students at all of our institutions, right? And we have Asian, American, Pacific Islander students at every institution in this country, right? And we have indigenous students and Latinx students. And so what can we learn from MSIS on how to better serve minoritized students at all institutional types, regardless of if we have the designation at the grant funding or thinking about it, yeah,

John Hernandez
I’d say maybe three or four things I wanted to share. The first is data disaggregation, if there is, if the institution is only reporting aggregate information on any of the student metrics that we typically Gage, whether it’s for student success or completion and so forth, it paints an incomplete picture. If we’re truly going to be cognizant of are we leaving some students behind? What are those opportunity or equity gaps that currently exist? And you’re not going to know that unless you have a embedded into your practice. The process and the belief in the importance of data disaggregation. And it’s not just by ethnicity race, it’s by low income, it’s by first gen, it’s by veteran student and so forth, right? The other is to have that data disaggregation working with faculty so that it is made available at the course level, so that faculty are able as part of their not just the learning outcomes, but really their overall assessment and program effectiveness, that they have critical conversations. Among themselves and their peers. Through our guided pathways framework, we’ve created completion teams for each of our academic schools that are faculty led. They all have a research analyst to help them make sense of the data. Our Office of Research has a robust dashboard that individuals can access, and now we’re starting to embed that in the program review process so that they are, in essence having to respond, reflect and think critically about what does that data say to you, and then what can be done either through your classroom experience and or as an institution to close those gaps. The other is student equity plans in California, we’ve, you know, received many years ago, funds for student equity funding that required these equity plans again to disaggregate and look at key metrics so that we can monitor over time. We’ve identified at my institution that our two populations that have the greatest gaps that we want to spend focused intentional efforts around our Latinx and first gen. And we know that moving the needle takes a long time, and we do have some incredible programs, but they often are community, communities of practice that have not been scaled up. Maybe they’re having an impact on a cohort of 30, 40, 50, maybe, 100 per year, but it’s not being scaled up. But you don’t know what you don’t know, unless you have these clearly defined metrics a plan to execute and what is the goal to start to change those gaps. We’ve also completely revamped our strategic plan, our strategic plan, the very we have five major goals. The first goal is ensure equity and access and achievement. And that has like seven priority objectives underneath it, and it really is all centered around eliminating institutional barriers, eliminating equity gaps in certain student metrics, and, in essence, cultivating a culturally responsive and inclusive learning environment that has to be embedded into our educational planning documents. Otherwise, this work is only happening on the periphery, and that’s not being embedded in the core of the institution. Our mission statement starts our first sentence, and our mission statement is student equity, inclusion, access and success are central to Irvine Valley College’s identity. That is a bold statement, and when we and we’ve been going back and changing deficit minded language in our in our strategic plan. It’s not static. It needs to be constantly reviewed and reassessed. And at one point we were having, like, actual goals or reduce equity gaps by 10% and at some point we said, hey, this might be aspirational, and maybe we will never achieve it. But let’s change the language that says we’re going to close and eliminate equity gaps period, because what does that say to a group of students that are being left behind, that our commitment is only to increase by 10% so in so the other than So, data disaggregation, student equity plans, practice, which is really about protocols, policies, reviewing. Our Student Services Division last year went through a process of reviewing protocols and policies through a dei lens, we found things that were not intentional, perhaps, but that were barriers and that were hindering students through our educational pipeline. And then I guess the other part I’ll just say is that leadership, a lot of us, I haven’t always been in an executive leadership role, and I’ve always found it frustrating that it feels like you’re doing these efforts and these initiatives almost in isolation, and they’re not truly being embedded. And so I realized that depending on our positions and our sphere of influences, we may only be able to do so much, but I feel very fortunate that as a vice president and now as a President, I’m really able to have a direct impact on the messaging, on the expectations, on modeling, what it is that I believe we need to do, to do better by our students and then creating this overall culture of care. You’ve all talked about, the sense of belonging, not just for our students, but also for our minoritized employees. And. So those are, those are some things that I believe we should I believe many MSIS are doing, and frankly, non MSIS could learn from that as well.

R. Joy Vergara
Yeah, I would love to jump on that. I think thank you for bringing up the disaggregated data. We did that with Ana Peasy report as well. And I think that’s why, you know, the next conversations we have on campus, you know, is looking at Pacific Islander support, you know, like I shared earlier, what is the same or different, or how we approach that, and being able to know and identify who those students are will make the biggest difference. And reaching out to our colleagues and asking, how can we help in student affairs, we will be aware of a report the federal grant being renewed, or additional funding supported by the state, or what have you, or additional scholarships. And you know, I think in student affairs is where, where do we see our students? Where do we see ourselves as staff to contribute and and also celebrate that we have this information, one of the things that that we’re challenged with, and what I’m hoping to do in my various roles in committee work and in this position, is sharing what we learn. And I think that level of intentionally with our students goes the same with our faculty and staff. And, you know, sharing it on LinkedIn, sharing information. And it might not be, it might be the first version iteration of it, and ask more questions than answers, but it allows us to have those conversations. And what is, you know, as you were talking John, about the disaggregated report, you know, I have on my shelf, I was like, oh, there was a report that was done. I should dust that off. I have new staff here that is joining in. You know, it where we sit is, how do we keep educating our our new staff coming into our institution. They’re coming from non for profit agencies, and so we become their student affairs, or their higher ed 101, course for them, and start creating their network. And so what are those reports that are still relevant, those task force that were created, perhaps before our time or under different leadership here at UIC. We have our 10th Chancellor. That was it had her investiture last year, and so she has created her priorities. And so where do we see ourselves in those priorities? And the next, you know, phases of those strategic plans, and where does Ana Peasy and HSI for our institution fit in that? Where do we fit to help contribute to increasing Black and African American enrollment here at UIC and support the committees that are here? And how do we get that to the next level? And so I appreciate you talking about the disaggregate, disaggregated data and how we can use it and go back to it actually, and bring it back to our staff.

Gudrun Nyunt
Yeah, definitely. And so we are starting to run out of time, because you all have such wonderful things to share. So one of the questions that I wanted to ask, right? Obviously, this episode is sponsored by ACPA, and so what are some supports that you have found through membership in ACPA as a professional at an institution that serves minoritized student populations? Or also, what are some things that ACPA and other professional association need to do better, right, to really support you in doing this important work, and maybe John garland, do you want to start us off?

John L. Garland
Sure, I’ll do that, and I just have a couple of quick points. I want to talk about data, in particular, through ACPA, the native, Aboriginal and indigenous coalition, I think is, is a core and key element for all student affairs professionals who might identify as native, Aboriginal or indigenous, to come together and to learn from one another and to have a sense of belonging within the association. It’s an incredibly important group. The other organization within ACPA, the indigenous Student Affairs network I san is for all of those groups and for allies and people who work in Native student affairs, or who might be their one point person on campus who supports the Native students, but may not be indigenous, that is their home too, and so ACPA does a really good job of. Of making sure that not just native professionals are included, but people who are supporting Native students are included. So that’s incredibly important. But related to that, and we’re when we’re talking about data disaggregation, one of the things from my perspective as a data and research person for a national scholarship provider is that many campuses don’t collect native data that can be appropriately disaggregated. So thinking about what data is collected at the institutional level is an incredibly important conversation for everyone to be involved in, or to, I might say, insert yourself in because there are aspects of collecting native data that can be really complicated. We get calls all the time saying, can you share with us a list of every tribe, every federally recognized tribe in the US? Because we want to ask that on their on our demographic data, incoming student profile. And so we’re like, sure we have we keep that list updated every year. We’re happy to share that with you. And so you’d be surprised at how many institutions are starting to ask very specific tribal affiliation questions on their demographic questionnaires. And so you know, if you have a campus that’s near tribal community, and you have a majority, let’s say, Choctaw students, but you have students who are also Navajo or Piscataway or from Onondaga, those students may be having a very different experience than the Choctaw students. And so, you know, there is sort of a Pan Ethnic approach to thinking about American Indian and Alaska Natives, but there are very individual experiences that can vary by tribe and by identity. And so when we’re thinking about that, it’s really complicated. And I would say that there are some emerging organizations. There’s an indigenous data collaborative national group that has emerged over the past few years. They just had a conference down in Austin that was wonderful. Everyone from from the every governmental department is thinking about this. Colleges are thinking about this. So I would encourage all campuses, regardless of your your affiliation and your designation, to think about how you’re collecting your data on your campus.

John Hernandez
ACPA had to go back to the young, 26 year old professional that first walked into an ACPA national convention and was overwhelmed, and I’m going to compare that to what so many of our minoritized students experience when they enter our institutions, you immediately want to look for others that share your lived experience. You immediately want to find a safe space you are drawn to a community of like minded individuals. And that’s what ACPA did for me in my early professional years, and then later, as I was involved in various leadership I think the the presence of the affinity group groups or entity groups that are, you know, within the networks, or even within the Coalition for Multicultural Affairs does offer that home for support, mentorship, networking. Coming from California that is such a, you know, ethnically, racially diverse, it always surprised me to be at a meeting where you’re hearing individuals say, I’m the only one at my campus, and coming here is how I nourish my soul. So ACPA has for so long been that that home in that place, and certainly been cutting the edge around social justice issues, dei and so forth, in terms of what ACPA could do more of, I would say. And I don’t know if this has happened or not since I’ve not been as connected. Of recent is, you know, the what is the level of intentionality occurring around this area of focus, around professionals who support minoritized students, or who work within minoritized institutions. Do we know, for example, which what percentage or who of our members are from MS size, and have we ever assessed to see if there’s some particular professional development needs that they’re experiencing that may be unique to the work that they’re doing? And perhaps, and then again, again. How are we creating space to leverage and cultivate the the cultural wealth of of our members who come from MSIS? What type of professional development, scholarly, scholarly work, whether it’s our publications, and then maybe even just looking at our professional competencies and leveraging what already exists in terms of the kinds of skills that individuals should possess to effectively navigate those environments. And maybe they got some of that in a graduate preparation program, but more likely than not, they may not have and then lastly, again, I’m going to go back to my, my new passion, which is, how can ACPA elevate the servingness framework and the serving this conversation so that we don’t lose sight of it? I think Joy referenced we’re in very uncertain times. This is, you know, there’s a lot of uncertainty, you know, will there be a US Department of Ed or not? Will we have funding for any of these programs, including trio and others? There’s a lot of uncertainty, which I don’t want to, I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole, but whether we do or not, or do not, have the funding for these programs. We still have a commitment to the students we serve, and we’re still going to need to be in community to solve those challenges and to come up with effective strategies.

Raechele Pope
You know, I’m I’m listening to just what’s offered, and I know that, you know, there’s so much more. I don’t think I’ve been on one of these student affairs now, episodes where I’m like, Oh, we could talk about this longer, and yet I’m sitting here, and I keep extending the timer coming close to the end. So I want to pull us into one last question. And as a faculty member and John, you started to hit on this. John H you started to hit on this, and so I want to ask, What do graduate preparation programs need to do to prepare graduates to serve minoritized student populations at either MSIS or pwis or any kind of institutions that’s out there now, because you folks have such great ideas and have offered so much. I’m going to ask you to limit it to one pick the one thing that you think graduate preparation programs need to do to prepare to are the incoming professionals to serve minority, pop minoritized student populations.

John Hernandez
I’m gonna offer the first by me, and I’m thinking of my Maryland experience, which was in the mid 80s. No, mid 90s. Geez, I’m not that 80s. Yeah right. Mid 90s, 75 years.

John Hernandez
Yeah right. I look pretty good for 75 right? John garland, or there’s a theme of 75 alright? The inclusive, inclusive curriculums that I know we often don’t feel are have a home and a graduate preparation program, because we tend to see that as a responsibility of a liberal undergraduate education. But I’m talking about, you know, content on the history experiences and contributions of marginalized group and higher education and minoritized student populations. Back in the midnight, mid to late 90s, I remember taking Mary, Lou mcewen’s advanced student development theory class. And it was all, all, I was like, Okay, I was expecting the traditional theory. It was, you know, A People’s History of of the US, a book on tribal colleges. I mean, it was, in essence, an immersive experience of understanding those populations that we serve, that we may not have known, understood, let alone comprehended the context of their historical point of reference. So I found that to be so useful, and I thought that was cutting edge for the mid 90s. I hope that is still something that is being embedded into graduate professional programs. And if not, I would really advocate for that.

R. Joy Vergara
Um, you know, having a undergraduate higher ed program here in our area, we have seven to eight graduates, graduate graduate assistants with us, and we’re fortunate. And so I think one of the things that that, I would suggest is intentional advising of our. Marginalized, my minoritized students, I that is not of your race or ethnicity or culture, and I think that’s very valuable as you are trying to support and challenge our students and our students now are are challenging, and, you know, in different ways than our students 10 years ago, pre pandemic, and seeing them and how they behave and how they are building their skills today and so being those advisors that can be change engines for those students. But also to implement programs and events and marketing and messaging to those students, to create that sense of belonging, to create that community and trust and open communication, and which can be challenging for some of our students coming to a small institution or large institution to feel very you know, it’s, you know, navigating new waters, and so they’re not sure you know how to interact with their faculty or their staff or what their roles are. And we have to remember that they don’t know how the school, the institution, the campus, operates. So they see us as all one campus, one UIC, and so when we are when we are articulating a policy or why they have not met a deadline for in class or outside of the classroom, they just feel that they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re, education is challenging here, as a student here, you know, at their institution. So I think if collectively, we come together as faculty and staff, and when we troubleshoot our students and intentionally advise them holistically, I think that is one thing that I would I would suggest for graduate programs to look into and serving our students. Thanks, Joy.

Raechele Pope
So John, you get the last word here. John G you get the last word here, to tell us, this is what these higher ed and Student Affairs preparation programs need to do. My number one goal,

John L. Garland
I am ready for it. I believe that we need to recommit to teaching helping skills in all of our programs. There has been more of a movement, I think, toward administration and maybe not so much on the helping skill. So as a former counseling professor, I advocate fully for recommitting to creating unconditional positive regard for all college students through the professional preparation of Student Affairs practitioners and professionals in helping skills and counseling skills. So no native no program is going to be able to hire a native person or an indigenous person for every program, and every program is not going to have multiple indigenous graduate students in their program. So therefore, we have got to create welcoming and create unconditional positive regard, as Carl Rogers might say, for all of our students and in our preparation as well.

Gudrun Nyunt
Nice. Yeah, I love that. And thank you again, all of you for for all the things you’ve shared during this episode. This has been so interesting and and as I’m right, as a faculty member, as something but a faculty retreat, I charted down like three or four notes on things, and I’m teaching quants. I was like, oh, data. I need to talk about data disaggregation. So thank you. This has been so wonderful.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, I want to thank you all too, and I want to thank our sponsors for today’s episode, ACPA. ACPA has been my professional home throughout my career, and so I’m thrilled to be able to host this program, ACPA, college student educators International is celebrating its 100th anniversary, and it’s bolding, boldly transforming higher education by creating and sharing influential scholarship, shaping Critically Reflective Practice and advocating for equitable and inclusive learning environments. ACPA aspires to be higher education and student affairs most inclusive and community driven Association by leading our profession in centering social justice, racial justice and decolonization as defining concepts of our time and the foreseeable future, we encourage you to consider contributing to ACPA ongoing conversations about the future. So visit my acpa.org or connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, and I refuse to say the other so I’ll just say other social media outlets to learn more about ACPA. A huge shout out to our producer, Natalie Ambrosey. Natalie does all the work to help us with the behind the scenes stuff to make us look and sound good. We love the support from our community for these important conversations, and you can help us reach even more folk by subscribing to our podcast, YouTube and weekly newsletter announcing each News episode and more. So if you’re so inclined, you can also leave us a five star review. I’m Raechele Pope with Gudrun Nyunt thanks again for this fabulous guest today, John Hernandez, John Gardner, and Joy Vergara thank you so much, so much, so much for being with us today, and thank you to everyone who is watching and listening until next time.

MSIs-as-Engines-of-Upward-Mobility.pdf (acenet.edu)

This brief published by ACE CENTER FOR POLICY RESEARCH AND STRATEGY while a bit dated (2018) spotlights the role of MSIs as engines of upward (or economic) mobility.