Institutional Agents at a Hispanic Serving Institution: Using Social Capital to Empower Students

Abstract

As enrollment-driven postsecondary institutions, Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) must actively find ways to better “serve” their students. Guided by Stanton-Salazar’s social capital framework, this study sought to understand how institutional agents use various forms of capital to develop structures that support and empower minoritized students. Using data from a study of one 4-year, master’s granting HSI, we highlight how four institutional leaders serve as empowerment agents for students, seeking ways to challenge the status quo while developing the structures and policies necessary for serving minoritized students.

Keywords

postsecondary education programs public higher education diversity social capital Hispanic education urban education Hispanic students leadership identity

According to federal law, as stated in Title V of the Higher Education Act (HEA), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) are public or private, not-for-profit colleges or universities that enroll 25% or more full-time equivalent Latina/o students (Santiago, 2006). In the mid-1980s, institutions enrolling a high number of Latina/o students experienced increasing challenges in securing federal and private funding and support. As a result, the leaders of these institutions came together to advocate for support for their institutions, and in 1992 the federal government formally recognized HSIs under Title III of the HEA (Santiago, 2006). While they came to be known as “Hispanic serving,” it remains unclear what it means to “serve” Latina/o students, as a majority of HSIs were not founded to do so.

In addition to enrolling nearly 60% of all Latina/o undergraduates in the United States, HSIs serve as vital points of access for other students of color from urban school districts, with more than 50% of HSIs being 2-year institutions in urban settings (Excelencia in Education, 2014). Núñez, Sparks, and Hernández (2011) found that Latina/o, Black, Asian American, and multiracial students are more likely to enroll in 2-year HSIs than 2-year non-HSIs. Similarly, Contreras, Malcom, and Bensimon (2008) reported that 2- and 4-year HSIs provide equitable access for Latina/o, Black, and Asian American students. Beyond students of color, they also enroll a large percentage of low-income students (de los Santos & Cuamea, 2010), academically underprepared students (de los Santos & Cuamea, 2010), and first-generation college students (Núñez et al., 2011; Salinas & Llanes, 2003). These institutions are likely to increase as significant points of postsecondary access, success, and social mobility for students from urban settings as the number of emerging HSIs, or those defined as institutions that enroll between 15% and 24% Latina/o students, is also increasing at a rapid rate (Excelencia in Education, 2015).

While HSIs provide postsecondary access to minoritized¹ students from urban school districts, research shows that students of color who attend HSIs are not graduating in equitable numbers when compared with White students at HSIs, or those students who attend non-HSIs (e.g., Contreras et al., 2008; Garcia, 2013). Considering that research shows that urban high schools enact a college-going culture and graduate high-achieving college-ready students (e.g., Harper, 2015), inequitable outcomes at HSIs are concerning. In response to the inequitable degree attainment rates of students at HSIs, more research is needed to examine the ways in which institutions that were not founded to serve minoritized students can support them from matriculation through graduation. This requires a look at multiple elements, including leadership, administration, curriculum, instruction, policy, and reform (Milner & Lomotey, 2014).

The purpose of this study was to focus on leadership and administration at HSIs. In particular, we wondered how leaders at these institutions serve as institutional agents working to develop structures that support and serve minoritized students. Institutional agents are defined as “high-status, non-kin, agents who occupy relatively high positions in the multiple dimensional stratification system, and who are well positioned to provide key forms of social and institutional support” (Stanton-Salazar, 2011, p. 1066). The following research question guided this study:

Research Question 1: How do institutional agents at one 4-year, public, master’s granting HSI use their own social capital and personal and positional resources to develop structures that support and empower minoritized students?

In looking at agency, this study seeks to inform research, practice, and policy related to the actions that leaders must take to transform HSIs into more socially just, non-discriminatory, inclusive environments that serve Latina/o students. Guided by Stanton-Salazar’s (2011) social capital framework for the study of institutional agents, we highlight how leaders use their social capital and high status to better serve some of the most disadvantaged students in the educational pipeline.

Brief Review of Social Capital

Coleman (1988) described social capital as existing in the interactions between people. Interactions and connections between people allow individuals to access resources in the form of (a) obligations, expectations, and trustworthiness of structures; (b) information channels; and (c) norms and effective sanctions. Furthermore, Coleman argued that social capital is a resource dependent on context and activities, used by people to achieve desired ends. However, he suggests that while social capital “facilitates certain actions; it constrains others” (p. 105), meaning that interactions that activate social networks in one context or situation may be useless in another. In this study, it is relevant to consider the formation of social capital from Coleman’s perspective because he asserts that “both social capital in the family and social capital in the community play roles in the creation of human capital in the rising generation” (p. 109). Coleman’s perspective is fitting in defining social capital within the context and types of interactions examined in this study, which investigates how institutional agents use their own social capital to develop structures that contribute to the success and empowerment of minoritized college students.

Social Capital and College Access

Extensive research has determined that Latina/o students’ social capital is highly correlated with access to postsecondary education. Having access to teachers and counselors with college knowledge and college-going resources at the high school level is highly influential on Latina/o students’ decisions to attend college (Corwin, Venegas, Oliverez, & Colyar, 2004; Gonzalez, Stoner, & Jovel, 2003; Núñez & Bowers, 2011). Students who have greater access to resources through social networks at the high school level have a greater likelihood of enrolling in both 2-year and 4-year colleges (Perna & Titus, 2005). In addition, urban high school students whose social capital networks have lower levels of “college-related information and guidance” make less selective college choices (Hill, Bregman, & Andrade, 2015, p. 331). Not surprisingly, the quality of social capital networks influences urban and Latina/o students’ decisions about where to attend college. Gonzalez et al. (2003) found that Latinas who enrolled at highly selective universities immediately after high school identified their teachers in Advanced Placement (AP) and honors classes as sources of social capital that influenced their decision to attend these institutions. Núñez and Bowers (2011) found that Latina/o high school students are more likely to attend HSIs if they have contact with teachers and counselors who know about HSIs or attended HSIs. These studies underscore the influence of high school teachers and counselors in the acquisition of social capital that leads to college enrollment for Latina/o students.

Social Capital and the College Experience

In addition to increasing enrollment in college, access to social capital leads to greater persistence and more meaningful experiences in postsecondary education. Tovar (2015) found that access to social capital by way of community college counselors increases Latina/o students’ academic performance and intention to persist. Engagement in mentorship relationships with faculty is also positively associated with Latina/o students’ intent to persist as well as increased self-efficacy, decisions to select a major, decisions to transfer from a community college to a 4-year institution, and the ability to define college goals (Santos & Reigadas, 2002; Tovar, 2015). Furthermore, Santos and Reigadas (2002) found that Latina/o faculty mentors provide students with social capital that leads to increased personal and career development. These findings suggest that counselors and faculty members act as institutional agents who empower minoritized students by transferring social capital that leads to greater success in college.

Transferring Social Capital at HSIs?

While it is clear that institutional agents play a crucial role in transferring social capital to Latina/o students to increase their access and success in postsecondary institutions, research suggests that leaders and faculty members at HSIs hold deficit-based beliefs that may prevent them from supporting and empowering students. For example, de los Santos and Cuamea (2010) found that some HSI leaders associate students’ low persistence rates and need for remedial education with students’ lack of preparedness and low socioeconomic background. These findings suggest that some HSI leaders make decisions influenced by a deficit-based framework—potentially perpetuating the marginalization of students, rather than working to transform the campus environment into one that empowers students and recognizes their strengths. Some faculty members at HSIs also hold deficit-based perceptions of students. Compared with faculty at predominantly White institutions, faculty at HSIs are significantly less satisfied with the quality of undergraduate students at their institutions and prefer to spend less time teaching undergraduates (Hubbard & Stage, 2009). These findings suggest that Latina/o students at HSIs may not have sufficient opportunities to interact with faculty who value teaching or who want to form relationships with them in ways that contribute to their acquisition of social capital.

In seeking to understand how institutional leaders at an HSI reframe their deficit notions to empower students, we draw from the literature on social capital and its relationship to access and success, while filling a gap in knowledge about the ways in which faculty and administrators use their own personal and positional resources to develop structures that empower students. Specifically, our study examines how institutional agents at an HSI intentionally advocate and support minoritized students. An examination of their skills, ideologies, and empowerment-based practices may inform the ways in which institutional agents at HSIs can develop stronger support structures for minoritized students.

Conceptual Framework

In his early work, Stanton-Salazar (2001) argued that teachers and counselors play an important role in providing low-income youth from Mexican immigrant families with social capital. While he recognized the important role that social networks play in providing minoritized youth with opportunities for educational attainment and mobility, he also shed light on the fact that youth from low-income, working-class backgrounds do not have the same access to networks as their middle-class counterparts (Stanton-Salazar, 1997). Having connection to institutional agents that provide social capital networks, therefore, is essential to the educational advancement of minoritized youth. While in his early work he provided multiple frameworks for understanding social capital and institutional support (Stanton-Salazar, 1997, 2001), he did not theorize about the skill sets that institutional agents possess. He eventually presented a social capital framework that describes the “role requirements, skill-set, and ideology assumed by an agent when providing a certain kind of support” (Stanton-Salazar, 2011, p. 1080). We use this framework to examine the skill sets institutional agents possess, as opposed to the relationships they have with minoritized students. In using his framework, we accepted that while institutional agents have the position, power, and resources to provide support for “low-status” students, whom Stanton-Salazar defines as youth from working-class and ethnic minority communities, not all institutional agents choose to disrupt the flow of social capital.

Dominant flows of social capital continuously allocate resources to those students already in possession of dominant forms of social capital, leaving low-status students on the margins of social networks. As such, there must be a distinction between institutional agents who act as “gate-keeping agents” versus “empowerment agents” (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Gate-keeping agents work to perpetuate “mechanisms of privilege and domination” that allocate resources to individuals who possess privileged class and race and who exhibit dominant forms of social capital (p. 1087). Conversely, empowerment agents are critically conscious agents committed both to the empowerment of low-status students and to changing oppressive institutional structures. While gate-keeping agents may provide low-status students with support and resources, in lacking critical consciousness, they may provide this “as a means of enabling [students] to uncritically assimilate into the status quo,” thereby reinforcing the establishment of oppressive institutional structures (p. 1090). Instead, empowerment agents are “motivated to go against the grain” to change institutional structures, in addition to activating “empowerment social capital” by allocating resources to low-status students who have limited social capital, limited means through which to develop that capital, and who are otherwise disconnected from resource-rich networks (p. 1087).

Empowerment agents enact both positional resources, linked to the institutional agent’s position or role in the institution, and personal resources, linked to the individual independent of higher authority figures or hierarchical powers within the institution, to provide support and resources for low-status students. They are also aware of institutional structures that keep social networks and resources from reaching low-status students. Their critical consciousness motivates them to work toward “changing the world,” rather than merely “widening the pipeline” of education (Stanton-Salazar, 2011, p. 1090). Furthermore, they may do this both directly and indirectly. While direct support involves transmitting knowledge and teaching students how to network and navigate the institution, indirect support involves advocating for students in negotiating agreements with other institutional actors and using power to provide resources to other institutional actors, so that they can become direct empowerment agents for students.

In this study, we use Stanton-Salazar’s (2011) social capital framework to understand the various ways that institutional leaders at one HSI work collectively to provide support to minoritized students. We provide portraits of these leaders who align with Stanton-Salazar’s description of high-status agents who possess the personal and positional resources necessary to disrupt dominant flows of capital, while developing structures that provide social and institutional support to low-status students. In particular, they fit his description of empowerment agents who provide indirect support to minoritized students.

Research Context

Naranja State University (NSU; a pseudonym) is a large, public, master’s granting institution located in the southwestern part of the United States in a suburban community that in 2008 had a population of 1.75 million, with 42% Latina/o residents, 42% White residents, 10% Asian residents, and 3.6% Black residents. The suburban community is approximately 20 miles outside of the urban center. The school district that feeds into NSU enrolls nearly 700,000 kids, 73% of which are Latina/o, 10% Black, 9% White, and 4% Asian. Furthermore, 25% of the kids in the school district are English-language learners, with a majority being Spanish speakers. As a publicly funded institution that is part of a larger system, NSU relies on the state for annual allocations, although it has experienced decreasing financial support as part of a larger trend within the landscape of public postsecondary institutions in the United States.

NSU was founded in the late 1950s as a liberal arts institution intended to serve the residents of the rapidly growing region. NSU primarily enrolled White students for the first three decades of its existences. With increased efforts to recruit students from surrounding urban school districts, the institution saw a shift in the student demographics in the 1990s. In particular, the Latina/o student population at NSU grew at a steady rate, eventually reaching the 25% threshold to become an HSI. Since becoming federally designated, NSU has had a successful record of securing HSI grants from various agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Education. Flores and Park (2015) argued that pursuing grant funding reflects the institution’s commitment, at least loosely, to its HSI designation and to enhancing the experience of Latina/o students on campus. NSU has continued to see an increase in the population of Latina/o students, who in 2012 represented 35% of the total student population, surpassing White (29%), Asian American (11%), Black (6%), and Other racial groups (19%). In addition to being an HSI, NSU can be considered an urban-serving institution based on its location, racial composition, and state-funding model (Milner & Lomotey, 2014).

Method

The qualitative design of this study is situated within our compelling interest to “illuminate and understand in depth the richness in the lives of human beings and the world in which we live” while also using this understanding “for emancipating practices” (Jones, Torres, & Arminio, 2014, p. 11). To illuminate an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon of institutional agency while also enhancing praxis (Jones et al., 2014), we used narrative inquiry, a qualitative approach used to make meaning of participants’ lived experiences by focusing on their narrated stories (Chase, 2011). With this approach, the researcher uses narratives to give order to events and ideas that have occurred, as told from the perspective of the narrator (Bamberg, 2012). In particular, narrative inquiry focuses on specific cases within particular settings, with an emphasis on the context in which the story is set (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). For this study, participants were considered individual cases, and their experiences were used to construct a larger story about the ways in which institutional agents at one particular HSI have developed structures that support and empower minoritized students. The findings are presented in narratives, which enabled us to give meaning to each individual participant’s experience (Riessman, 2008).

Data Collection

Riessman (1993) suggested that the first of three processes used in narrative inquiry is “telling,” in which the researcher provides a space for participants to talk about important moments in their lives. Participants, including administrators, faculty, and staff at NSU, narrated their stories through a series of 60- to 90-min in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The goal of the interviews was to understand people’s perceptions of their HSI organizational identity and to explore the types of programs and policies that are in place for supporting minoritized students. In particular, participants were asked to describe the ways in which NSU “serves” Latina/o students and how their Latina/o-serving mission is reflected on campus. They were also asked to describe actors on campus that have been instrumental in providing support for Latina/o and other minoritized groups and to name the change agents on campus.

While their stories were centered on the analysis, data were derived from a series of observations used to describe the setting, the people, and the activities that take place at the site (Patton, 2002). Furthermore, public documents were reviewed to corroborate emerging findings. The combination of interviews, observations, and documents helped shed light on the research purpose (Merriam, 2009).

Sample

A purposeful sampling technique was used to ensure a diverse sample and to guarantee information-rich cases that yielded in-depth understanding and insight (Patton, 2002). Potential participants were identified through the institution’s website and organized by position and the first author’s perception of their race. All HSI grant program directors were identified as potential participants as well as staff that worked with the grants. For example, the director of one Department of Education grant was included as well as two program coordinators. All potential participants received an email asking them to commit to a 60- to 90-min interview in person, in a private office of their choosing. Some participants were identified through snowball sampling (Patton, 2002), particularly those administrators, faculty, and staff members who were named by others as institutional agents. An exerted effort was made to include those named in the sample, to gain perspective on the ways they have used their agency, social capital, and status to create support structures that empower students.

The sample is comprised of 47 participants, including 13 administrators from the president’s office, student affairs division, and academic affairs division, 19 tenured or tenure track professors, and 15 student services professionals in various positions across multiple offices on campus. Racially, the sample is 47% White, 38% Latina/o or Chicana/o, 13% Black, and 2% Asian Pacific Islander. By gender, 51% identified as female, 47% as male, and 2% as transgender. All participants either chose their own pseudonym or were assigned 1, in an attempt to maintain confidentiality and anonymity.

Analysis

The second and third processes used in narrative inquiry include “transcribing” and “analyzing,” which are not easily distinguishable (Riessman, 1993). The first author transcribed 30% of the interviews verbatim as the first step in the analysis process, writing memos about initial themes within the data. A private company transcribed the remaining interviews. The transcriptions were then imported into HyperRESEARCH 3.0.2 to organize and reduce the data. The data were first coded using an open process in which major themes, concepts, and evolving issues were identified (Miles & Huberman, 1994). As categories were developed, axial codes also emerged, which are those that connect concepts and themes to one another (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). In going through this formal coding process, we identified concepts related to the theoretical propositions guiding the study. We then identified portions of the text that represented the theoretical propositions through narrative form and bracketed the excerpts (Riessman, 1993). Next, we retranscribed the segments relevant to the research question to make meaning of them (Riessman, 1993). In doing so, we focused more specifically on how each participant’s narratives contributed to a greater understanding of how institutional agents use their social capital and resources to transform organizational structures.

Validation

We took several steps to establish validity in this study. First, multiple sources of data were used as a way to triangulate information across the data (Merriam, 2009). Although we only report on the in-depth interviews in this article, the other two sources of data were used to increase the validity of the findings. Second, the first author conducted member checks, which is the process of soliciting feedback on emergent findings from participants (Merriam, 2009). Faculty, staff, and administrators were sent their full transcripts as well as inserts from the findings, asked to assess the accuracy and validity of the results, and given 7 days to provide feedback. Thirteen participants responded with minimal feedback, and were mostly concerned with maintaining anonymity of the institution and their own identities. A third technique offered by Riessman (1993) is coherence, which is the process of providing thick descriptive accounts of the data. In this study, we focused on four empowerment agents as a way to connect localized accounts of their individual actions with more robust theoretical concepts about the phenomenon under study.

Positionality

In conducting the analysis, we discussed our own positionality and the ways in which our identities affected our interpretation of the data. The first author identifies as Latina—a third-generation Chicana raised by parents from Texas border towns. I attended an undergraduate institution in the Southwest that was on the cusp of becoming an HSI by enrollment standards (i.e., emerging HSI), and has since become officially designated. My undergraduate experience at the institution was transformative, particularly in the development of my own racial and ethnic identity, which largely shapes the way I think about HSIs in my own research. I also worked at an HSI for 4 years prior to pursuing a doctoral degree, with my experiences driving many of the questions I have about HSIs. The second author identifies as Latina—a second-generation Cuban immigrant. I am a first-generation college student who also attended an undergraduate institution that was considered an emerging HSI (it has now crossed the threshold of 25% but has not officially become designated) and have worked at a large public, federally designated HSI in the Southeast. The supportive networks I formed at these HSIs contributed meaningfully to my racial and ethnic identity development, educational aspirations, and research interests.

We write about our own positionality because we recognize that our racial identity as Latinas and our experiences in HSIs influence the way we approach research, including the way we frame our study, analyze our data, and report our findings. We understand that race matters in research (Milner, 2007), and we strive to be transparent researchers to increase the trustworthiness of our findings. The two main ways we eliminated biases were through the use of theory to guide the study and through regular conversations with each other and other content experts about ideas that were emerging from the data.

Portrait of Institutional Agents at One HSI

Stanton-Salazar (2011) contended that institutional agents have the potential to enact multiple roles by providing resources and support either directly to students or indirectly to other colleagues who then empower students. Specifically, he laid out 14 different roles that fit into four major categories, including direct support, integrative support, system developer, and system linkage and networking support. In listening to participants’ narratives, we found that multiple administrators, faculty, and staff members at NSU enacted one or two of the 14 roles laid out by Stanton-Salazar. Rather than focusing on the themes we found across participants, we chose to focus on the voices of four institutional leaders as a way to understand the “meaningful selves, identities, and realities” they constructed (Chase, 2011). As we connected their narratives back to the literature that reveals the deficit thinking of some faculty and administrators at HSIs (e.g., de los Santos & Cuamea, 2010; Hubbard & Stage, 2009), we felt that it was important to present an alternative narrative by highlighting how these leaders act as empowerment agents and contribute to the institution’s transition toward being Latina/o serving. To be clear, these institutional agents were highly critical of their own actions, both as individuals and as an organization. Rather than criticizing these leaders for the actions they have or have not taken in response to changing demographics at NSU, we used narrative inquiry, in conjunction with Stanton-Salazar’s theory, to highlight what we saw, as researchers, about the efforts HSI institutional leaders must undertake to effectively move their institutions toward better serving minoritized students.

Resource Agent and Political Advocate

Dr. Canales is a full-time, tenured professor in the College of Natural Sciences. She is a bench scientist who has been teaching at NSU for over 20 years. She identifies as American Indian and Chicana and was raised by parents who were farm workers. She has been a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and SACNAS, an organization that supports and advances Chicanas/os and Native Americans in Science. Dr. Canales has been awarded numerous multimillion dollar grants from federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). With these grants, she has initiated programs that encourage underrepresented students to engage in undergraduate research, including Maximizing Access to Research Careers and Minority Biomedical Research Support. She is well known across campus as a result of her successful grant-seeking behaviors, with participants raving about her ability to not only engage students of color in scientific research but also develop programs that support their academic achievement.

And [Dr. Canales] has done it well, there is no doubt. And what’s great about her is that she reaches out to other faculty to help get them involved and she’s been doing it [for] a long period of time; it wasn’t a flash in the pan, “I’m going to do this for three years [in order to] get my tenure.” I mean she’s been committed to it for a long period of time. I have a lot of admiration for her. (Dr. Bridges, White male administrator)

Dr. Canales fulfills multiple roles laid out by Stanton-Salazar (2011), making her an empowerment agent who works to dismantle oppressive structures that prevent students of color from fulfilling their dreams of becoming scientists. Resource agents provide students with both positional resources, which they possess as a result of their high status within the organization, and personal resources, which they maintain, regardless of hierarchical status (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Dr. Canales possesses both positional and personal resources because of her status as a well-established scientist, both on campus and within the larger science community. As a result, she is able to provide resources to many students in the College of Natural Sciences.

I could sort of see myself as an advocate for all students. And so I don’t care what color you are, really, but you know if it appears that you are working hard and not getting a fair shake [sic], I will try to help you. Or if there is something that you think I need some help to do, and you are sincere in it, then I will try to help you. (Dr. Canales)

Aligned with an empowerment agent ideology, Dr. Canales stressed that she does not solely offer opportunities to the highest achieving students, but rather looks for the hard working students who show sincerity, commitment, and dedication. This is essential to empowering students who enter HSIs, as they may enter the university underprepared or lacking the advanced training in science and math as a result of the primary and secondary schools that they attended. As a resource agent, she has the autonomy to hire students into her lab, train them to conduct scientific research, fund them to attend national conferences where they present their research, and provide them with academic support that will help them graduate. She is an autonomous leader on campus, working to empower students with little oversight from administrators.

At the same time, she uses her agency to challenge others to recognize the disparities in her field. She criticized her colleagues for failing to recognize barriers that minoritized students face when it comes to entering majors and careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM):

Some people think, “Oh, well, we’re fair, we’re open, everybody will come who wants to come.” And the reality is that that’s not true, some people [face] pretty significant barriers. There [are] still barriers against women. If you look at the fields around here, there is an underrepresentation. For example, in marine biology, until recently we had never hired a female marine biologist. Now there aren’t a lot of them, but that’s just because it’s also part of the [science] culture that there aren’t that many in the field. On the other hand, why aren’t there so many in the field when you get all these young women who want to be animal trainers . . . so why haven’t you nurtured that? What is it that you’re not—what kind of a roadblocks are we throwing up to prevent people from doing—thinking about themselves as being part of the field? (Dr. Canales)

While participants were quick to recognize how Dr. Canales’s efforts have helped NSU become recognized as a top 10 master’s granting institution for sending students of color into STEM doctoral programs, few talked about her work as a political advocate, working tirelessly to challenge the oppressive structures in place for minoritized students. Political advocates are knowledgeable of organizations that promote access and social justice for all students and actively promote social justice within their organizations (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Dr. Canales does this by challenging traditional notions of what a scientist looks like in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender, while also using her agency to make sure others recognize what she sees as real barriers for these students.

Advocate and Networking Coach

Dr. Hoffman has served as NSU’s provost for nearly a decade. He arrived at NSU with a tremendous amount of experience as both a faculty member and an academic administrator from other campuses that he considers “urban-serving” or those institutions that enroll a large number of students from urban centers. Most of the institutions he has worked at look like NSU, in that they are large (enrolling more than 20,000 students), public, state-supported institutions located near major metropolitan areas. His ideas about NSU’s identity as an HSI are largely influenced by his prior experience working with minoritized students. He self-identifies as a White male with a Jewish background and was trained in English/literature, serving as a professor for several years before moving into administration. Like Dr. Canales, participants touted Dr. Hoffman’s efforts to develop structures that support and empower students at NSU.

Stanton-Salazar (2011) stressed that institutional agents serve as advocates who promote and protect the interests of students. As advocates, these institutional agents actively speak on behalf of low-status students while defending their right to education (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Advocates at NSU include high-level administrators who support and defend underrepresented students on campus when others are not willing to. Constance Barrera (Latina, program director) said that there are faculty members on campus who want NSU to adopt more stringent admission requirements, so that underprepared students cannot enroll until they have completed their developmental English and math requirements at the community college. She said that administrators such as Dr. Hoffman regularly advocate on behalf of these students.

And it’s really our leadership saying, “No”—and that’s [Dr. Hoffman]; and again that’s our director of EOP constantly fighting for our students and saying, “That’s not fair, you forgot about them, what are you going to do about this?” So you do have to have people who are rallying for the students who are easily—can be overlooked. (Constance Barrera)

Constance stressed the importance of these advocates on campus who use their agency to rally on behalf of students while protecting students’ best interests. By advocating for minoritized students’ access, Dr. Hoffman works as an empowerment agent to maintain flows of social capital. When asked about how intentional NSU has been in providing access to minoritized students, Dr. Hoffman echoed what Constance said:

What we’ve done is—we’ve decided to remain focused on the [local school district] and the metropolitan parts of [the county], because those are the areas that are most diverse—and the most challenged economically, and that’s where we want our student body to [come] from. So we could have impacted by program, raised the GPA [requirement], and the entrance [exam] scores . . . but we’ve chosen not to do that piece, we’ve chosen to remain more focused on the area at large, and cut off access from the rest of the state, because we believe that this area is sufficiently diverse, [and] that will keep our profile where we want it to be. (Dr. Hoffman)

In recognizing that the institution’s actions could easily decrease access for students of color from urban schools, Dr. Hoffman understands his role as an advocate, particularly surrounding policy decisions that affect minoritized students.

Networking coaches teach students help-seeking behaviors that allow them to negotiate and interact with various agents within and outside the educational environment (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Rather than focusing directly on students, Dr. Hoffman has been instrumental in developing a network of knowledgeable agents who are focused on enhancing the institution’s capacity for directly serving students. When asked about his role in empowering other institutional actors to do the work necessary to ensure that the campus becomes more serving of Latina/o students, he said,

Because you can’t come in and just decide to do something, you have to come in [and] figure out what you want to do by talking to people and observing the place, then find out the people who can get the job done. Who are the people or the faculty who can carry the water on these things? Who wants to do it? Who [is] in the networks that can get this stuff done? You have to know the culture before you can get anything done effectively. That takes a couple of years to see. (Dr. Hoffman)

While other participants named Dr. Hoffman as a vital institutional agent in NSU’s push toward becoming more Latina/o serving, he stressed that it took several years for him to identify key people who could do the job. Dr. Hoffman’s commitment to affecting institutional-level policy while building an extensive network of institutional agents on campus portrays how he is an empowerment agent. Several empowerment agents at NSU have emerged as a result of Dr. Hoffman’s role as a network coach.

Lobbyist and Integrative Agent

Dr. Arias arrived at NSU shortly after Dr. Hoffman’s appointment as provost. She is the dean of one of eight academic colleges at NSU, with a background and training in psychology. Prior to being appointed as dean, she worked as an academic administrator at another institution in the same state system as NSU. While at the sister campus, Dr. Arias was heavily engaged in the HSI grant-seeking behaviors of the institution and possesses a tremendous amount of knowledge about what it means for an institution to seek federally funded capacity-building grants to develop the institution’s infrastructure for serving minoritized students. She self-identifies as a Latina, first-generation college student who is committed to giving back to the state university system that has been transformative in her professional and personal life. She has been a prominent member of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) and recognizes what it means for an institution to serve minoritized students.

Institutional agents who serve as lobbyists use their skills to acquire resources that will recruit, retain, and support minoritized students (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). As a result of her experience working with HSI grants at her prior institution, Dr. Arias is a lobbyist, working to secure more resources to provide academic support to students at NSU.

You know when I got here, the first year, there hadn’t been a HSI grant in a long, long time. I think there was one grant given to the library to infuse information literacy workshops and education for students. That was a really old, old, HSI grant. And having come from a campus that had a solid track record in securing HSI grants, I remember really constantly raising that issue, “Why are we not applying for [grants]?” or “We should be applying for [grants]” and really trying to raise awareness about the need to take full advantage of the HSI opportunities. (Dr. Arias)

Dr. Arias used her knowledge of HSI grant funding to raise awareness of NSU as an HSI and to lobby for more resources for Latina/o students through grant-seeking activities. Early in her tenure at NSU, she submitted an HSI grant proposal that was not funded, but parts of it were used to develop a second proposal, which was eventually funded and is being used to enhance academic support programs for minoritized students. In this way, she has had an indirect influence on the development of NSU’s infrastructure for serving these students. This institutional-level impact and her willingness to advocate for it make her an empowerment agent.

Integrative agents help socialize students by connecting them with high-status networks and professional venues (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Like Dr. Hoffman, Dr. Arias does not work directly with students, but instead works to integrate faculty into the professional networks that can help them advance their support for students. In particular, she maintains her connections to HACU and is working to integrate other faculty into that community.

I remember the conversation where I said to [a faculty member in my college], “You’re doing some really interesting work, here is the RFP, you should submit your work on this or that to the HACU Conference.” And, you know, you never know what [the] result of that [will be], right? But she, in fact did, and she was excited about that, and she enlisted two or three other faculty members to co-author this proposal and so, that seed then really sprouted and engaged other people, and now they’re gonna go to the conference and they’re gonna be influenced by others who will help that seed germinate even further and to me that’s exciting. (Dr. Arias)

By integrating faculty in her school into organizations such as HACU that have historically supported HSIs and the students within them, she is developing a network of institutional agents who are knowledgeable of HSIs and minoritized students. Being involved in a larger community of HSI leaders is essential for faculty, staff, and administrators who are charged with transforming their own institutional structures into organizations that are inclusive and free of racism and oppression.

While Dr. Arias has made progress as a lobbyist and integrative agent, she continues to question the extent to which NSU has embraced its identity as a Latina/o-serving institution. She suspects that the identity is still covert, and wondered when it would get into the deep psyche of the institution.

I remember recently the campus went through a re-accreditation process, and I don’t think you have HSI anywhere in that [re-accreditation] report; there’s no mention of it. Uh, you know, we describe ourselves in all sorts of other ways but I don’t believe that that’s even mentioned. Um, and similarly, I remember having a conversation with [another administrator] after we sat through a preview of the [re-accreditation] visit [and] report, and asking her, “Why are some of these projects that we’re doing with the HSI grant not even included in the report?” (Dr. Arias)

At what point will the efforts of empowerment agents to better serve minoritized students be recognized as standard to the larger higher education community?

Bridging Agent and Institutional Broker

Dr. Diaz is a full-time, tenured professor in one of several ethnic studies departments on campus who has moved into an administrative role. She has worked at NSU for over 20 years and within institutions of higher education for more than 30 years. She was appointed by Dr. Hoffman to focus on enhancing institutional agents’ awareness of NSU’s identity as an HSI and increasing the institution’s capacity for serving minoritized students. She is a member of HACU and the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, both of which have been integral to her own knowledge development for serving Latina/o students as well as her network for doing so. She self-identifies as a Latina who immigrated to the United States when she was young and eventually became the first person in her family to pursue and earn a bachelor’s and doctoral degree. She is recognized nationally as an expert on Latina/o culture, families, and women and is well respected on campus for her knowledge and experience in serving Latina/o students.

Bridging agents serve as “bridges” and gatekeepers to actors and key social networks that have the knowledge necessary to engage resources to support low-status students (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Stanton-Salazar (2011) described bridging agents as those with strong social networks who introduce students to other institutional agents as a means to expand their social capital. In appointing Dr. Diaz to her current role, Dr. Hoffman asked her to coordinate grant-seeking activities and to encourage others to apply for funding that can be used to develop programs that support Latina/o students. In this role, she convenes meetings of all the principal investigators and project directors for HSI grants on campus. She spends a tremendous amount of time connecting people and encouraging collaborations:

I think just in the last year, the provost—and I’ve been working with him and I have talked about how we need to let people know that we are an HSI—[that] we are HSI eligible. And of course, the way I’ve been working with him, and I’m not the only one, he’s working with a core group of us on this issue. [Dean Arias] is one of them. The project coordinators of all our current HSI grants—we’ve all been advising him on what we need to do. (Dr. Diaz)

Although Dr. Diaz does not directly bridge students with other empowerment agents, she does directly activate networks among other institutional agents. Because her role is to facilitate the networking that makes more support programs available to minoritized students, she holds a key role in affording institutional agents with the personal and positional power to become empowerment agents working directly with students through support programs and centers. In this sense, Dr. Diaz is an indirect bridging agent contributing to the expansion of the social capital network available to minoritized students at NSU. As an empowerment agent, she believes in affecting institutional-level change to make NSU more Latino/a serving.

As an extension of bridging, institutional brokers assume an intermediary role between two or more parties, often negotiating agreement and accessing institutional resources to support students (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Dr. Diaz also serves as an institutional broker by connecting colleagues on campus who are committed to advancing the institution’s commitment to serving Latina/o students and by attending regional and national HSI conferences, as a way to learn about best practices and new funding opportunities. After attending a system-wide meeting for HSI leaders, she learned about a federal request for proposals and took action on the development of a grant to implement strategies and best practices for retaining engineering students:

So for example I know that the grant that is in engineering and computer science, it’s my understanding that [Dr. Diaz] had gone to these system-wide meetings and had picked up some great ideas about how others are implementing strategies to increase students, the number of students in STEM majors, came back, engaged the dean, and together they collaborated on this project. (Dr. Arias)

The grant was funded and has been influential in the College of Engineering, where they have historically been committed to serving Latina/o students through programs such as Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA). With Dr. Diaz’s support, they now have the resources to continue offering academic support to their students.

While Dr. Diaz has been effective at bridging key actors on campus and brokering relationships, she continues to be critical of the work that needs to be done to move NSU forward as a Latina/o-serving institution. She mentioned the importance of transforming pedagogy and curriculum as well as training faculty:

I think we need to talk about [being Latina/o-serving] in terms of what it means pedagogically and what it means in terms of our curriculum. Those are two areas, in addition to faculty development. We need to educate a lot of the faculty. A lot of the faculty are, [they] really don’t know why there’s an achievement gap. Yeah, they don’t know what the issues or why—what’s behind [them]. They may have some ideas about—there’s some negative attitudes, of course, among some faculty. Although the majority of our faculty here are really on board with all of this, they want to help. But some faculty really do feel that if you can’t write when you get to college, you don’t belong in college and they don’t understand what has happened in the person’s life to get them to that place. And some of them don’t want to know about it. So it’s hard. Sometimes you can educate, sometimes you can’t. (Dr. Diaz)

Although Dr. Diaz notes the importance of empowering institutional agents and afforded them the knowledge and opportunities necessary for breaking down the oppressive structures and barriers that hinder minoritized students from succeeding, she also recognizes that the campus as a whole has a long way to go.

Discussion

The data from these narratives illuminate the role of institutional agents at an HSI in developing support structures that enhance the experiences and educational outcomes of not only Latina/o students but also other minoritized students entering HSIs in high numbers. In this section, we provide more explicit discussion on how the four institutional agents used their resources to be empowerment agents. As complex organizations, HSIs do not necessarily have a history of serving Latina/o students (Contreras et al., 2008), but instead have come to reflect the changing demographics of the surrounding regions in which they are located (Benítez, 1998). This study sought to understand how an organization comes to be Latina/o serving. While there are numerous ways to approach this question, we highlighted the way that campus leaders have not only embraced demographic changes but also have disrupted structures that limit minoritized students’ access to social capital networks.

Dr. Canales uses her positional (as a tenured professor) and personal (as a knowledgeable grant recipient) resources to create institutional changes that promote opportunities for minoritized students. She has been seeking federally funded grants and developing undergraduate research programs for students in the sciences long before NSU became an HSI. This suggests that the work of institutional agents on campus can be essential to the institution’s transformation toward becoming Latina/o serving, well before it receives the official HSI designation. Rather than suggesting that HSIs “accidentally” become HSIs, simply because of their location in urban areas or because of their changing demographics, we argue that institutional agents have the social capital and power necessary to change these institutions.

Dr. Canales’s history with the institution and long-standing commitment to serving minoritized students indicate that she is critically aware that “the success of low-status students . . . within the institution is contingent on their received systematic and tailored provisions of ‘institutional support’” (Stanton-Salazar, 2011, p. 1089). While Dr. Canales had no intention of transforming the institution, this knowledge, coupled with her dedication to truly serving and empowering students like her, has had a lasting effect on the institution. Dr. Canales represents an empowerment agent because she contributes to institutional-level transformation by pursuing grants earmarked for developing undergraduate research programs and support services for students. She seeks to empower students, not merely to advance her own career but to help those most in need. As such, Dr. Canales’s grant-seeking behaviors are more altruistic and less opportunistic. This is important because research shows that beyond faculty members’ ethnicity, Latina/o students’ perceptions of professors’ authentic care are associated with increased validation on campus (Dayton, Gonzalez-Vasquez, Martinez, & Plum, 2004). Furthermore, Stanton-Salazar’s (2001, 2011) research and theoretical framework illuminate that “authentically supportive relationships” between institutional agents and minoritized students are fundamental to the activation of empowerment social capital and inherent to the work of empowerment agents (p. 1090).

Dr. Hoffman possesses different skills than Dr. Canales but has similar ideologies for serving minoritized students. They both believe that it is the morally right thing to do. As the provost, Dr. Hoffman has the agency and positional power to speak up on behalf of students who, as one participant suggested, may be forgotten by others. Those who may be forgotten happen to be the students who, as Bensimon (2012) argued, have been labeled “at-risk” simply because they are not self-directed and fall short of a normative ideal of what college-ready students look like. Operating from this deficit lens, however, is detrimental to student success as it places the blame on the students while failing to recognize the institution’s role in changing the outcomes of minoritized students (Bensimon, 2012). To enhance the institution’s ability to create equitable outcomes for students, both Dr. Hoffman and Dr. Canales approach their work from a perspective of “equity-mindedness,” which places responsibility for disparities in outcomes on institutions (Dowd, Malcom, Nakamoto, & Bensimon, 2012). When Dr. Hoffman arrived at NSU, he had a vision of transforming the institution into one that truly embraces its role in serving Latina/o students. He has an ideological commitment to redirecting resources and opportunities to intentionally serve minoritized students on campus, which requires the disruption of status-quo flows of social capital and a shift in NSU’s institutional identity. Dr. Hoffman’s purpose and values align with an empowerment agent’s commitment to “confront the rules of hierarchy and to envision a more democratic and humanistic social order” (Stanton-Salazar, 2001, p. 1091).

To successfully and continuously disrupt dominant and hierarchical flows of social capital and activate empowerment social capital, empowerment agents must possess a critical consciousness—an ideological awareness of the social and institutional structures that stand against their purpose as empowerment agents (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Dr. Hoffman’s understanding of the institutional structures and context enabled him to employ effective strategies, such as searching for the right empowerment agents, asking Dr. Diaz to coordinate grant-seeking activities to benefit Latino/a students and identifying appropriate times to make incremental changes through different agents. His intentions to both develop a network of empowerment agents and underscore the institution’s HSI designation reflect his consciousness of the structures that inhibit empowerment agents’ work and consequently the flow of empowerment social capital. However, his extensive professional experience and level of social capital enabled him to implement a strategic plan to elevate social capital available for students at NSU. Dr. Hoffman’s approach is in contrast to the perspectives of HSI leaders who hold deficit-based beliefs about their institutions and students (de los Santos & Cuamea, 2010). The connection between his “equity-mindedness” and a strategic plan for implementation reveal how one high-level agent can produce institutional-level change through positional resources and critical consciousness.

Dr. Arias was one of those actors that Dr. Hoffman identified as a key leader for expanding and integrating NSU’s HSI identity. Dr. Arias arrived at NSU at a time when they needed a leader with vision and foresight into what an HSI could truly be. To become a transformative institution that serves the most needy students on campus, leaders need vision and experience, both of which Dr. Arias possesses. The most valuable skills that she brought to NSU included her experience working with HSI grants in her previous position. Without hesitation, she immediately raised questions and challenged institutional actors to take note of the fact that NSU needed to change its structures for serving students. Her “willingness to not act on the established rules” at NSU reflects a motivational characteristic of empowerment agents (Stanton-Salazar, 2011, p. 1089). While others recognized the changing demographics of the institution, she challenged them to do something about it. HSIs need leaders like Dr. Arias who ask tough questions, integrate institutional efforts to support and empower students, and lobby on behalf of students. Like Dr. Canales, Dr. Arias is motivated to help students who look like her and have similar backgrounds to her. Similarly, they are both authentic empowerment agents who are willing to be recognized “by the larger [institutional] community” as advocates for minoritized students (p. 1089). Dr. Arias brings together her ideologies, skills, and experiences for enhancing the institution’s capacity for serving minoritized students.

As a long-standing advocate for social justice and equality, Dr. Diaz has the agency to share her knowledge and foresight with other institutional actors who can help advance the institution’s capacity for serving students. As the appointed coordinator of HSI activities, she brings the knowledge and skills necessary to educate others on the needs of Latina/o students. An institution that aims to be more Latina/o serving cannot expect that institutional actors will know how to serve students who have been traditionally oppressed throughout the educational pipeline. Dr. Diaz, as a result of her own scholarship, knows this well and spends a lot of time gathering resources that will help educate institutional actors on the needs of Latina/o and other minoritized students on campus. She focuses her energy on connecting other institutional actors to each other and to resources outside of the institution that can help them do the work that needs to be done to support students on campus.

Dr. Diaz’s efforts epitomize one characteristic of empowerment agents—to mobilize other institutional agents by providing them the knowledge and resources they need to become empowerment agents, disrupting status-quo flows of social capital and redistributing it to minoritized students in the institution (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Her efforts empower other agents on campus to develop programs and services that support students. Dr. Diaz’s work is also critical in transforming the campus climate into one that increases students’ sense of belonging, validation, development, and success (Dayton et al., 2004; Rendón, 1994).

Implications and Future Research

Although Stanton-Salazar’s (1997, 2001) work has focused primarily on the ways in which institutional actors empower minoritized youth through direct relationships, this study focuses more on the skills that institutional agents possess for empowering minoritized college students. There was little evidence of the direct support that institutional agents provide to students at NSU, which is likely the result of the methods used to collect data; however, there was strong evidence to show that institutional leaders are (a) empowering faculty and staff to become institutional agents whose actions directly and indirectly affect the students on campus and (b) facilitating their process toward becoming empowerment agents. Campus leaders must prioritize and determine the most pressing institutional needs on a regular basis, with little ability to address every concern of every campus constituent at all times. The four leaders highlighted determined that addressing the needs of Latina/o and other minoritized students on campus should be a priority, and therefore chose to use their agency to do so. These high-status empowerment agents provide resources and support to those constituents responsible for making changes within the institution. This is important because institutions striving to become more Latina/o serving need leaders with the vision, drive, and ability to transform the institution.

As the number of HSIs increases, particularly in urban areas with a larger percentage of residents of color, there is a need for more research that is relevant to both practice and policy. For leaders on campuses that are designated as HSIs, this study provides important information about the ways in which faculty and administrators can support and empower minoritized students using their own agency and social capital. Rather than assuming that increased access at HSIs will lead to increased graduation, leaders at HSIs must be more intentional in their efforts to develop support structures that lead to student success. This research is applicable to all postsecondary institutions that are experiencing changes in their racial demographics on campus, as it shows the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to create learning environments that are not only enriched with diverse people and perspectives, but create an institutional ethos that empowers minoritized students. Moreover, by centering the analysis of this study on administrators and faculty, the findings reveal the motivation, knowledge, and skills required by institutional leaders interested in advocating for students who have been historically oppressed by the educational system. This study suggests that multiple high-status empowerment agents must use their social capital networks to effectively support and empower minoritized students at HSIs, while striving to increase equitable outcomes for these populations.

It is worth noting that the empowerment agents in this study did not necessarily identify as such. Rather, they stressed the need for more institutional-level change that would lead to greater success for their students. Nonetheless, the quality and purpose of their work reflected their dedication to disrupting the oppressive structures that obstruct empowerment social capital networks and limit students’ opportunities for success. These findings have implications for institutional leaders who are committed to creating empowerment social capital networks to serve minoritized students and to those who are already empowerment agents at their institution. First, these findings provide insight into the incremental process of institutional change that is created by empowerment agents who work to disrupt structures that oppress and limit opportunities for minoritized students. Second, they illuminate the ways in which empowerment agents at HSIs interpret their own roles in creating institutional change. These findings are valuable because they provide portraits of what the process, purpose, and quality of HSI leaders’ work should be to create higher education institutions that “serve” Latina/o and other minoritized students.

Like previous studies that reveal the importance of perceived authentic care and socioemotional support for Latina/o and urban students (Dayton et al., 2004; McKillip, Godfrey, & Rawls, 2013), our findings illustrate how important authenticity is in affecting institutional-level change. Future research might bring the two together to explore how direct relationships between minoritized college students and empowerment agents influence students’ sense of validation within and beyond the classroom setting. In applying Stanton-Salazar’s (2011) framework to higher education, it became evident that institutional structures make the direct work between high-status institutional agents and low-status students scarce. Consequently, future research may extend his social capital framework to explore the roles of entry- and mid-level professionals in higher education. Such research may employ a grassroots leadership framework (Kezar & Lesther, 2011) to examine how these professionals use their social capital, networks, and resources to empower students at HSIs.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was partially funded by a dissertation fellowship from the University of California’s All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity.

Notes

Author Biographies

Gina A. Garcia is an assistant professor of higher education in the Department of Administrative and Policy Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research centers on issues of equity and diversity in higher education with an emphasis on understanding how Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) come to “serve” Latina/o students.

Jenesis J. Ramirez is a third year doctoral student in the Social and Comparative Analysis Education program at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on the gendered experiences and relationships of Latina college students and the women in their families.

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