Abstract
I am pleased to introduce the eighth annual collection of scholarly articles commissioned by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE), which were presented at its National Conference on March 6-8, 2014, in Costa Mesa, California. This year’s theme was “America’s Prosperity: The Academic Success of Hispanics.” Given the rapidly increasing number of Hispanic students enrolling in colleges and universities, along with a decreasing White, non-Hispanic student population over the next several decades, institutions of higher education enrollment growth or enrollment stabilization will depend on the Hispanic population.
Educators, led by the senior leaders in institutions of higher education, will need to work to change policies and programs, as well as forge new ones, that will help promote the success of Latino students in higher education. The thought-provoking research studies in this year’s journal help bring these vital issues to the light and provide recommendations for further research, policy, and programs that can help advance Hispanics in higher education.
In their study, “Latinas/os in Community College Developmental Education: Increasing Moments of Academic and Interpersonal Validation,” Nancy Acevedo-Gil, Daniel G. Solorzano, and Ryan E. Santos examine the experiences of Latinas/os in developmental education to understand how institutional agents support and/or hinder Latina/o students attempting to complete developmental education course sequences. This qualitative case study examines the experiences of Latinas/os in English and math developmental education courses. A critical race theory in education framework and the theory of validation serve as guiding theoretical frameworks. The authors find that institutional agents provide academic validation by emphasizing high expectations, focusing on social identities, and improving academic skills. The authors conclude by conceptualizing a critical race validating pedagogy to implement among students who place in community college developmental education courses.
Switching gears a bit, in higher education, Latinas/os continue to face issues of access, remediation, financial aid challenges, retention, (low) expectations, and mentorship options from faculty and other leadership who recognize their specific challenges, strengths, and potential to thrive as college-level students. These challenges, among many, directly impact the opportunity landscape available to Latina/o students and suggest the need for a major transformation in the ways in which Latinas/os are served not only in higher education but also across the educational pipeline. In “Nothing but the Best: Recognizing What Works for Latina/o Students Across the Educational Pipeline,” Leticia Oseguera and Louie F. Rodríguez identify the best practices across the K-20 pipeline that work for Latina/o students for the purposes of developing a framework for Latina/o student success. The authors suggest that the field needs to be explicit when it comes to recognizing “what works” and encourage researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to embrace an additive approach when examining and creating future directions for Latina/o student success.
Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) have grown substantially across the United States in states with sizable and rapidly increasing Latino populations. However, while HSIs provide access to higher education for Latinos, many fall short when it comes to student success and completion rates. In “Raising the Bar for Hispanic Serving Institutions: A Report Card and Analysis on Completion and Success Rates,” Frances Contreras and Gilbert J. Contreras propose that if states, such as California or Texas, that possess a substantial number of HSIs in their postsecondary sector invested in Latino students in these institutions and these institutions make concerted efforts to raise college success rates, a socioeconomic transformation in the next generation of Latinos is possible. That is, investing strategically in HSIs to produce a greater number of degree completers might serve to transform the next generation of Latino families and the communities in which they live.
AAHHE is again proud to sponsor the annual scholarly papers and thanks our partnership with the Journal of Hispanic Higher Education. Our mission to bring the findings of these papers to policy makers and leaders in higher education continues.