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ollsters tell us that immigration issues are not a top priority of Hispanics in the U.S. – but conditions in ICEdetention centers scream for attention. Author Edwidge Danticat, in the March 28 New York Times, describes the deathof her asylum-seeking uncle one day after the Krome Center in Miami, which she says took away his medications, finally sent him to a hospitalprison ward for treatment. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last May that public health officials “could not be held liable for failing to providemedical care to detainees …” such as her uncle and others who underwent some bloodcurdling scenarios. Surely we can do better?

Last month, 200 unionized postdoctoral researchers at the University of Massachusetts ratified their first contract, gaining health care,increased wages, sick time, holidays, vacation and opportunities for professional development, career services and teaching experience.

And in Boston’s Jamaica Plain, the Student Immigrant Movement, SIM, is calling for all “forumistas and forumistas” to attend publicmeetings that describe the plight of undocumented students, only 3 percent to 5 percent of whom enroll in college. SIM, there and inother parts of the country, trains students to take the lead in this fight.

New York Supreme Court Judge Melvin L. Schweitzer ruled recently against nine graduates of New York Law School who sought$225 million in damages, wrote Peter Lattman, The New York Times, “accusing their alma mater of misleading them about theirpostgraduate employment prospects.” The judge noted that recent law school graduates are facing “the most severe contraction indemand for legal services that this court can recall since the early 1970s,” but that those considering law school are a “sophisticatedsubset of education consumers” and “capable of weighing” their options.

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Mitt Romney is the Latino’s kindof man: the archetypical leaderof high morals, public probity,

strong family and religious values anda defender of the public trust.

There’s just one problem.Romney might not be Latinoenough, or sufficiently sympathetic,at least in the political sense thatgets you elected to high publicoffice like U.S. president.

If this sounds contradictory, it’sbecause Latinos also like theirpoliticians with a little bit of salsa.On this, Romney fails, compared toa social rascal like Newt Gingrichand that altar boy, Rick Santorum,who persists in depriving Romneyof the Republican Party nomination.

They and the other rejectedpresidential aspirants have donesuch a good job of tearing downRomney’s fitness to be presidentthat the incumbent, PresidentObama, said to remind him tothank them for making his cam-paign against the presumed chal-lenger that much easier.

All he has to do in his re-elec-tion campaign, Obama said, is justplay back some of the nasty thingsRomney’s Republican friends havesaid about his capacity to lead thenation.

On the personal side, there arereally not very many negative thingsyou can say about Romney exceptthat he became rich and successfulnot so much because of his Mormon

principles but by being a smart capi-talist, although some of his detrac-tors have tried mightily to link himto the unsavory Wall Street culture.

By the way, there’s nothing inthe Mormon doctrine that says youcan’t be successful and makemoney, as many Mormons do, aslong as you remember your duty tothe church and to tithing.

As for his political demeanor,Romney is about as straight arrowas they come, perhaps too conserva-tive for some and too uninspiring toothers. He doesn’t convey the local-guy message that well even when hedresses down for political rallies inblue jeans and open-collared shirtsand makes like Joe the Plumber.

Romney can’t help always look-ing neatly pressed. His touched-uphair is never out of place and tintedwith just the right amount of whitehighlight down the sideburns to givehim an avuncular appearance, andyet that macho look of someonewith many good days still ahead.

He doesn’t have that spent lookof ordinary politicians who spendtoo much time with lobbyists atcocktail receptions and steakhous-es. Socially, he looks at times to beawfully dull and nerdy.

The question is if the country isready to elect a Mormon presidentjust as it did its first Black presi-dent in 2008 – and will Latinosvote for him?

The Mormon faith hasn’t beenaired in the Republican debatesand probably won’t come up in thepresidential encounters. It will ulti-mately be left to the American vot-ers to weigh this, but there seemsto be little reason for it to becomea paramount issue.

Yet, it is an important part ofRomney’s character, although heseldom refers to it in his presiden-tial quest, perhaps because itinvites prejudicial observations of a

close-knit religion.One controversial concept long

discarded is the polygamy of itselders in an earlier period thatincluded Romney’s great grandfather.

Mitt Romney’s father, GeorgeRomney, a former Michigan Repu-blican governor and presidentialcandidate in 1968, was born inChihuahua, Mexico, to monoga-mous parents after his extendedfamily fled to Mexico to escape U.S.polygamy charges.

They returned to the U.S. in1912, this time escaping theMexican Revolution.

In the tradition of his church,Romney did his two-year stint as ayoung Mormon missionary inFrance in 1966-68.

He is a devout Mormon in all itstraditions but not one to wear it onhis sleeve, and he is strongly linkedto generic Christian values.

In an interview with The AtlanticMonthly, when asked about hisMormonism in concert with otherreligions, Romney replied, “Theprinciples and values taught to me byfaith are values I aspire to live by andare as American as motherhood andapple pie. My faith believes in family,believes in serving one’s neighbor,and one’s community. It believes inmilitary service ... in patriotism, itbelieves this nation had an inspiredfounding. It is in some respects aquintessentially American faith andthose values I aspire to live by.

“I am not perfect, but I’m oneaspiring to be a good person asdefined by the biblical Judeo-Christian standards that our societywould recognize.”

Some religions, like theEvangelicals and traditionalProtestants, wonder about theimpact of the Mormon religion in aRomney White House, without anyreal basis for concern.

Christians comprise 78.4 per-

cent of the U.S. religions, 51.3 per-cent of which are Protestants and23.9 percent of which are Catholic.Mormons make up 1.7 percent, thesame as the Jewish faith, but are notas politically active or influential.

Latinos make up an infinitesi-mal amount, 7 percent of theMormon infinitesimal U.S. religiouspopulation.

Romney has all the qualities tomake him attractive to the Latinoconstituency. What he lacks issmarter politics and good karma indealing with Latino issues, particu-larly immigration, that in the schemeof things has been given more politi-cal prominence than it deserves.

One of his Latino advisors, for-mer Puerto Rico attorney generalJoe Fuentes, told Politico.Com thatHispanic immigration is importantbut not the most important issuewith Latinos, like the economy,education and health care.

Nevertheless, Romney dug a holefor himself on this issue in which hemight find it difficult to get out.

He not only supports Arizona’stough immigration policy but hasadded one of his own: self-deporta-tion, which is the brainstorm of ananti-immigration radical and servesmore as material for Jay Leno.

“The answer is self-deporta-tion, which is people decide theycan do better by going homebecause they can’t find work herebecause they don’t have legal doc-umentation to allow them to workhere,” he proposed.

In a pig’s eye!

Romney’s Mormonismand Latinos

PoliticalBeat

Carlos D. Conde, award-win-ning journalist and commentator,former Washington and foreignnews correspondent, was an aide inthe Nixon White House and workedon the political campaigns ofGeorge Bush Sr. To reply to this col-umn, contact [email protected].

by Carlos D. Conde


Page 8

Page 10

MAGAZINE®

CONTENTS

APRIL 23, 2012

Minority Student Shortage in Science andTechnology by Angela Provitera McGlynn

8

Notre Dame de Namur University Receives $2.9 Million ED Grant by Jeff Simmons

Community Colleges Growing Importance in STEMEducation Benefits Hispanics by Marilyn Gilroy

NSF Report Shows U.S. Slipping in STEMDominance by Mary Ann Cooper

STEM Initiatives at City College of New York: A Formula for Success by Paul Hoogeveen

Latino Engineering, Science Students IncreasinglyActive on U.S. Campuses by Peggy Sands Orchowski

10

14

16

15

Global STEM: Preparing Hispanics and OtherMinorities for the Global Marketplace by Thomas G. Dolan

Researchers Look at Women of Color in STEMFields by Michelle Adam

HETS Helps HSIs Collaborate on Online Learning by Gary M. Stern

23

19

25

To view this and other select articles online, go to our website: www.HispanicOutlook.com.

Online Articles


Page 16

Page 23

DEPARTMENTSPolitical Beat by Carlos D. Conde

Romney’s Mormonism and Latinos 5

SScchhoollaarrss’’ CCoorrnneerr by Antonio G. Estudillo 22

FYI . . .FYI . . .FYI . . . 30

HHiissppaanniiccss oonn tthhee MMoovvee 32

PPrriimmiinngg tthhee PPuummpp...... by Miquela Rivera

Helping Disorganized Latino Students Prepare for HigherEducation

Back Cover

HO is also available in digital format; go to our website: www.HispanicOutlook.com.

HHiigghh SScchhooooll FFoorruummHHiigghh SScchhooooll FFoorruummHispanic High School Students Lured into STEMCareers by Mary Ann Cooper

28

IInntteerreessttiinngg RReeaaddss 33

Book Review by Mary Ann Cooper

I Got My Dream Job and So Can You

33

Inorder for more Hispanics and underrepresented minorities to enterSTEM careers, the academic pipeline needs to be fixed on many levels.

This is the conclusion of a recent report from the National Academy ofSciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine,Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America’s Scienceand Technology Talent at the Crossroads. The report makes recommen-dations on issues specific to underrepresented minorities in general and toSTEM fields in particular, focused on preparation, access and motivation,financial aid, academic support and social integration.

The report definitively shows that this expansion cannot happen withoutmore minority student representation since these students are the fastest-growing demographic in the United States but the most underrepresentedin science and technology education and careers.

“The minds and talents of underrepresented minorities are a great,untapped resource that the nation can no longer afford to squander.Improving STEM education of our diverse citizenry will strengthen the sci-ence and engineering workforce and boost the U.S. economy,” says Dr.Freeman Hrabowski, chair of the committee that wrote this report andpresident of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation states thatSTEM fields are expected to be the fastest-growing sector in the U.S. labormarket and yet the fields are dominated by non-U.S. students – particularlystudents from India and China. Indeed, almost all the growth in STEM doc-torates awarded is accounted for by international students. Additionally, anumber of science and engineering disciplines are made up mostly ofinternational students.

What makes this troublesome is that America cannot rely on interna-tional students’ expertise in STEM fields because of stricter visa require-ments and the fact that many international students return to their coun-tries of origin after completing their American education.

Given the uncertainty regarding the future of international students’participation in our workforce beyond their American educations, thereport says that we must draw on all demographic sources in America.With the dramatic changes in the American population, particularly among

the school-age population, the challenge of increasing diversity amongAmerica’s STEM students is an urgent one.

The report, following on the heels of the landmark 2005 publicationRising Above the Gathering Storm, which also warned of the need formore STEM minority students to sustain American leadership in scienceand technology, states that Hispanics, African-Americans and NativeAmericans comprised a bit more than 9 percent of minority college-edu-cated Americans in science and engineering careers in 2006.

According to a 2011 news release from the National Academies, toreach the national target that 10 percent of all 24-year-olds complete abachelor’s degree in science or engineering fields, minority representationin STEM fields would have to quadruple and maybe even quintuple.

This in-depth report offers solutions for both the near and long term. Thereare recommendations and implementation strategies that cover the entire edu-cational system and the full gamut of stakeholders. Of myriad suggestions, thetwo top priority recommendations for near-term action include the following:

Undergraduate Retention and Completion: “We propose, as ashort-term focus for increasing the participation and success of underrep-resented minorities in STEM, policies and programs that seek to increaseundergraduate retention and completion through strong academic, socialand financial support. Financial support for underrepresented minoritiesthat allows them to focus on and succeed in STEM will increase completionand better prepare them for the path ahead. This financial assistance shouldbe provided through higher education institutions along with programs thatsimultaneously integrate academic, social, and professional development.”

Teacher Preparation, College Preparatory Programs, andTransition to Graduate Study: “We propose also an emphasis onteacher preparation, secondary school programs that support preparationfor college STEM education, and programs that support the transition fromundergraduate to graduate work.”

Hrabowski outlined the essential recommendations of the report in anexcellent PowerPoint format. He discusses elements necessary for under-represented minority students that require attention at every stage alongthe STEM educational trajectory.


REPORTS

MinorityStudent

Shortage inScience andTechnology

by Angela Provitera McGlynn

Those ingredients include preparation, access, motivation, financialassistance, academic support and social integration. Bringing those ingre-dients for success in STEM fields requires: • The acquisition of knowledge, skills, and habits of mind• Opportunities to put these into practice• A developing sense of competence and progress• Motivation for and a sense of belonging to the field• Information about stages, requirements, and opportunities

Hrabowski specifies what would be needed in major areas along theSTEM pipeline. In preparation, there is a need for strong preschool pro-grams. Underrepresented minority students often lack preschool educationor receive inadequate preparation for kindergarten, and this puts thembehind the eight ball when they start their K-12 education.

Preparation also involves educating, training, and hiring more qualifiedmathematics and science teachers in predominantly minority and low-income schools. And as so many other studies have shown, all students, andunderrepresented minority students in particular, are challenged and moti-vated by rigorous high school curricula. As many other researchers havealso noted, high school programs should emphasize college readiness.

Interestingly, without college readiness, few students who need remedi-ation when they start college actually complete STEM degrees. How couldsecondary education enhance college readiness? High schools would needto offer programs guaranteeing that all students have access to advancedcourses and intrusive academic advising. To accomplish this, the reportsuggests that the federal government, industry, and colleges and universi-ties should all work together with high schools and school systems toincrease access for minority students for postsecondary STEM educationand technical training.

Long-term solutions to the minority student STEM shortage includeoffering stronger programs that develop reading, math skills, and creativityin preschool through third grade, and improving the quality of K-12 math-ematics and science education for underrepresented minority students.

Hrabowski discusses the roles access and motivation play in STEMcompletion rates. He suggests:• Improving college awareness activities for prospective college students• Focusing on college admissions policies that support matriculation ofqualified underrepresented minority students• Raising awareness of STEM careers through K-12 activities, improvedcounseling for science and mathematics, and activities that promote STEM• Promoting STEM outreach that specifically targets underrepresentedminority students

Affordability is another key issue in raising the numbers of STEM grad-uates America produces. Tuition has risen dramatically over the last sever-al decades, putting a college education out of reach for many underrepre-sented minority students. Since financial support that meets students’needs strongly relates to attendance and persistence in college and inSTEM fields, underrepresented students require financial aid if we are tosee an increase in their graduation rates. Financial aid would allow minor-ity college students to complete their degrees and would better preparethem for graduate school or the work force.

Hrabowski notes that financial aid is most effective in promoting reten-tion among this demographic when it is offered along with academic sup-port and campus integration programs.

The report notes that although underrepresented minority students atfour-year institutions major in a STEM field at the same rate as other groups ofstudents, their completion rate is lower. Two key factors to improve minoritystudent completion rates are academic support and social integration into thefabric of the institution. Academic support and social integration (sense of

social belonging) greatly contribute to persistence and completion rates.Academic and social support requires strong leadership from boards

of trustees and regents, from institutional presidents, provosts, deans, anddepartment chairs – possibly adding faculty leaders to the report’s list.Additionally, there must be a campus-wide commitment to inclusiveness –and to add to inclusiveness, a student-friendly campus climate.

The report notes that since campus climate is so critical to student suc-cess, especially minority student success, and most especially to minoritystudent success in STEM fields, there should be a deliberate process ofinstitutional self-appraisal and further accountability.

Transforming an institution to meet the challenges outlined in thisreport involves the need to develop a plan to implement constructive

change, along with ongoing evaluations of implementation efforts.Essentially, the report is calling for institutional transformation of all

types of postsecondary institutions, from community colleges to large stateschools and universities. Change needs to occur at predominantly Whiteinstitutions and at those colleges and universities that historically serveminority students. The report calls for accountability of all these institu-tions to increase minority enrollments, enhance the quality of the educa-tion they receive, and increase minority student STEM completion rates.

The leadership required for successful institutional transformation thatserves minority student recruitment and retention programs, especially inSTEM fields, must include all stakeholders. Stakeholders are all of us con-cerned with the future of our nation’s standing in the world, and specifical-ly include the entire range of the school system (P-12), government agen-cies, employers, and professional societies.

Minority student recruitment and retention, and again especially inSTEM fields, must be part and parcel of every institution’s mission. Thereport also emphasizes the importance of the presence of underrepresent-ed minority teachers, faculty members, and administrators to serve as rolemodels and leaders for underserved minority students.

The challenge to increase minority STEM graduates is multifaceted. It isno surprise that the solutions to the challenge would be so as well.Although the task may seem daunting, the price America would pay for notaddressing the challenge has far-reaching negative consequences for theUnited States’ standing as a nation and in the world.

Angela Provitera McGlynn, professor emeritus of psychology, is anational consultant/presenter/author on teaching and learning.


Notre Dame de Namur University Receives $2.9 Million ED Grant

ForNotre Dame de Namur University, the news was twice as nice.Last fall, the independent Catholic institution in Belmont,Calif., received word it was receiving a multimillion-dollar

grant to expand services to Hispanic students.Then, only days later, word came that a second grant – an even larger

one – designed to strengthen support services and scholarships forHispanic students would go to the nearly 2,000-student university, alsoconferred by the U.S. Department of Education.

“We learned through a representative in Congressmember BarbaraBoxer’s office, who told us we would be hearing within a couple of daysthat we did receive the second grant, which was the first one we hadapplied for,” explained Peggy Koshland-Crane, director of Notre Dame’sAcademic Success Center. “That one came as an even bigger surprise.There was jubilation on campus.”

The total academic haul: $6.1 million.The elation was not simply because of the impact such substantial fund-

ing would have on the campus, but because it validated the hard work andperseverance of an institution that acknowledged it needed to improve itsefforts to attract and assist Hispanic students.

“When we first became a Hispanic-Serving Institution, and I would sayeven before then, we realized that a number of students who were comingto the university had very specific needs, and we needed to increase our

services in order to help make these students really successful academical-ly,” Koshland-Crane said.

“To me, this was an affirmation of the work that we are doing and just areally solid vote of support,” said NDNU President Judith Maxwell Greig.“We have a historic mission of access from the Sisters of Notre Dame, andI am proud that we have received both of these grants at this time. I ammost proud of the fact that at most institutions Latino retention and gradu-ation rates lag those of White students by 10, 20, or 30 percent, but that’snot true at Notre Dame. They are virtually equivalent over the last decade.”

Founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in San Jose in 1851,the university moved to a 50-acre campus nestled in the peaceful, woodedcommunity of Belmont, Calif., just south of San Francisco, in 1923. NDNUendeavors to serve students and the community by providing stellar profes-sional and liberal arts programs in which community engagement and thevalues of social justice and global peace are integral to learning.

NDNU, which is fully accredited and offers 21 liberal arts and careerpreparation undergraduate programs and 12 graduate degrees and fivecredentials, is the only four-year, private university in Northern Californiato hold the Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) designation, which meansthat at least 25 percent of its undergraduate population is comprised ofstudents who identify as Hispanic.

Of the 1,967 students on campus, 1,147 are undergraduate and 820are graduate students. Hispanics comprise about 20.7 percent of all stu-dents, including about 26.4 percent of all undergraduates and 12.7 per-cent of graduate students. Female enrollment, at 69 percent, is more thandouble that of male enrollment, at 31 percent.

Retention rates for Hispanic students, as Greig said, have outpacedthose of their non-Hispanic peers. The retention rate of undergraduateHispanic students for the fall of 2010 cohort was 80 percent, while theoverall retention rate of undergraduate students was at 76 percent.

Hernan Bucheli, NDNU’s vice president for enrollment management,was one of the driving forces behind NDNU becoming a Hispanic-ServingInstitution, a designation that paved the way for the lucrative grants.

About four years ago, when he started at NDNU, he spoke with the pres-ident about the region’s demographics and the troubling trend that manyHispanic students graduating high school were not proceeding to college.

“It became very clear that the growth in college-bound Hispanics wasstartling, and we started to think from a strategic perspective,” Bucheli said,“that focusing on serving Hispanics would help with enrollment but alsomeet our mission. It was a nice tie-in to what Notre Dame was about, andhow we could help a growing segment of the population attain a degree.”

The school examined the models of other institutions designated asHSIs, exploring the steps they undertook to elevate Hispanic enrollment,while taking a hard look at its own weaknesses and strengths.

“What we found out was that at Notre Dame Hispanic students retainedbetter than non-Hispanics, which was really neat,” he said. “It was syner-gistic in terms of the demographics we were looking at.”


INNOVATIONS/PROGRAMS

by Jeff Simmons

The campus was about 20 percent Hispanic at the time. NDNU subse-quently concentrated greater efforts on Hispanic recruitment and reten-tion, and within one year its numbers jumped by 5 percent. And, in 2009,NDNU applied successfully for the HSI designation.

“We were elated,” Bucheli said. “It was fantastic news. The institutionhad focused strategically on an underserved population and was really ableto grow enrollment in that segment and help those students. For us, it wasa milestone.”

That meant that NDNU’s Academic Success Center provided strongertutoring, mentoring and academic support for students, particularly throughNDNU’s relatively new Gen-1 program assisting first-generation students.

“What we saw from the fall of 2010 to the fall of 2011 was that theretention rate from the group we were serving was the highest of anydemographic group,” Bucheli said. “So those were the steps to build infra-structure. This showed that it is possible for institutions to serve low-income and Hispanic students and still be successful in providing educa-tional attainment, and that students can actually flourish from being inschool and from being academically challenged.”

The Gen-1 program began with a small grant from the Wal-MartFoundation, and was initially anticipated to accommodate about 40 stu-dents. Instead, in its first year, 65 students participated. While a handfuldropped out of the program, the majority stuck with it – and this year theprogram involves 91 students.

“All of these students take learning strategies courses, and we have 11mentors who are upperclassmen that each have between six and ninementees,” Koshland-Crane said. “We have group meetings each month and fol-low the students closely. Each spring, we have a Call to Action day in whicheverybody goes out and performs community service, such as at a food bank.”

This engagement allows freshman students to find a place where they arecomfortable, and allows them to learn about campus life, get academic sup-port, and discuss external issues and obstacles, such as thorny family situa-tions, with older classmates who may have experienced similar challenges.

This program and other academic strides added muscle to NDNU’s federalgrant applications, which will help Hispanic and other underserved studentpopulations more generally in campus, and also specifically those pursuingdegrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fields.

One grant, for $2.9 million, was awarded under the U.S. Department ofEducation’s HSI Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics andArticulation programs. The grant is aimed at funding an expansion of ser-vices and programs to Hispanic students and other underserved popula-tions interested in pursuing careers in STEM programs.

NDNU offers majors in biology, biochemistry, kinesiology and computerand information science. About 34.6 percent of NDNU students pursuingstudies in STEM fields are Hispanic.

Over five years, the grant will finance the university’s “Building aPipeline to STEM Success at Notre Dame de Namur” project, which aims toboost the number of Hispanic and other low-income students attaining


Notre Dame de Namur University Receives $2.9 Million ED Grant

Retention rates for Hispanic

students have outpaced those

of their non-Hispanic peers.

Notre Dame de Namur President Judith Maxwell Greig

degrees in the STEM fields by providing increased academic support, pro-fessional development for instructors, mentoring and other programs.

Additionally, the grant allows NDNU to create model transfer and articu-lation agreements with two-year HSIs, such as nearby Cañada College inRedwood City. Such collaboration eases the passage of students from com-munity colleges to NDNU because they better understand which coursesare necessary to move to the four-year college.

Finally, the grant allows NDNU to bolster data collection and analysis toimprove enrollment, persistence and completion outcomes for Hispanicand other low-income NDNU students.

NDNU has striven over the last five or six years to increase the numberof Hispanic and low-income students pursuing degrees in math, science,engineering and technology. The school has successfully sought grantsfrom charitable organizations to renovate science labs and classrooms.

Laboratories dated back to the 1950s and were functional but notattractive. “They needed an update in both appearance and in functionalityof the equipment,” said Associate Provost Greg White. Noting how theschool also equipped classrooms with the latest technology, he said they“looked old and tired before.”

Nicole A Molina, a 20-year-old senior, is majoring in kinesiology, with aminor in psychology at NDNU. She identifies as Hispanic, Asian and Indian,and is the first in her family to attend college, let alone pursue a career ina STEM field.

“I am working towards becoming a physical therapist. I’ve been inter-ested in physical therapy and the related kinesiology field since highschool,” Molina said. “In high school, I was always involved with sports

and enjoyed learning about the care and prevention of athletic injuries. Aresearch project during my sophomore year in high school allowed me toshadow a physical therapist and solidified my interest in physical therapy.”

NDNU, she said, was a perfect fit because of the nearby location, inti-mate campus setting, and range of services that smoothed the transition tohigher education.

“I can always sign up for the classes that I need, and I receive personalattention in class,” Molina said, citing another bonus: “NDNU granted me abeneficial financially aid package. It has not been easy for my parents tosupport me financially, and NDNU has helped a great deal.”

“As a first-generation student coming from a Hispanic background, Ican understand the difficulties of receiving a higher education,” she said.“Many times families don’t understand the importance of education or cannot financially, emotionally, or intellectually support a student. Attending anHSI means that Hispanic students can find people much like them goingthrough the same type of hardships. This institution creates a supportivecommunity for all students, including those who are Hispanic.”

Such support services are similarly pivotal to help Hispanic studentspursuing other studies across campus, and key to the second grant thatNDNU received.

That grant amounted to $3.2 million – the largest federal grant in theuniversity’s history – and was specifically tied to funding expansion of sup-port services and scholarships for Hispanic and low-income students. Thegrant, awarded under the department’s Developing HSI program, was onlyprovided to 13 institutions.


Associate Provost Greg White, who wrote both grants

Peggy Koshland-Crane, director, Academic Success Center, Notre Dame de Namur

The grant will finance the university’s “Improving Student Retentionand Academic Success at NDNU” project, which aims to support the suc-cess, retention, and graduation of its Hispanic and low-income students.

Academic and administration leaders at NDNU said the grant will helpstudents navigate the college environment with student success coaching,identify academically at-risk students and provide academic support ser-vices to help those students overcome poor preparation, and help NDNUdevelop and raise endowment funds for scholarships to support students.

Additionally, it provides funding to remedy concerns about languagebarriers and access to information by financing translation and interpreta-tion services.

Bucheli is ensuring the grant process runs smoothly and adhering toreporting requirements. “It’s a big grant to manage, so obviously we haveto be cognizant in doing due diligence, of crossing the T’s and dotting theI’s,” he said.

One component involves Success Coaching, in which certified andtrained coaches work with all incoming freshmen and some transfer stu-dents. During the first academic year, they meet once a week, for about 20to 30 minutes, and help with financial literacy, community building andtime management.

“These are areas that can really help students integrate themselves intothe institution,” Bucheli said, a few weeks before the program was due tokick off this January. “We do feel that coaching provides an additional toolin our toolbox to help with retention.”

White, who wrote both grant applications, said their goals are rooted inthe institution’s history of social justice and community engagement.

“It was founded back in 1851 to serve the population of San Jose,which included a large Native American population that wasn’t beingserved, as well as a female population that did not have access to highereducation,” White said. “Over time, we attracted a larger and largerHispanic population.”

“The idea that we were going to support students with scholarships,with academic support, additional pedagogical training for faculty – allwere really aligned with what we are trying to accomplish,” White noted.

NDNU already enjoys a strong relationships with Cañada College, whichalso is designated an HSI and watches as many of its students progress toNDNU.

“We work with students before they ever step onto our campus to makesure they are taking the right courses and can transfer quickly without hav-ing to take any extra ones,” White said.

In five years, leaders at NDNU are hoping to witness even moreprogress in Hispanic enrollment, retention and graduation, as well asengagement in STEM fields. It’s a vision that will be displayed not just innumbers but also in the climate on campus, and beyond.

“I see us being respected as a leader in how one recruits, welcomes,retains, and graduates Hispanic and low-income students,” White said.

“We are very blessed to get these grants, and they are going to be awonderful support for our students,” he added. “We are very happy thatwe’ve been able to achieve the status of a Hispanic-Serving Institution andhope to make everyone proud that we are one, and we will do very well bythese students.”


Hernan Bucheli, NDNU’s vice president for enrollment management

NDNU endeavors to serve students and the community by

providing stellar professional and liberal arts programs in

which community engagement and the values of social

justice and global peace are integral to learning.


by Mary Ann Cooper

TheUnited States has long prided itselfon its superiority in its support ofscience and technology research

and development, but arguably less investment byAmerica in these fields coupled with intenseinvestment by Asian countries in STEM fields hastaken away our advantage in the world. This is theconclusion reached by the National Science Board(NSB), the policymaking body for the NationalScience Foundation (NSF), in a report on thetrends in the science, engineering and technologyworkforce, education efforts and economic activityin the United States and abroad.

The report, Science and EngineeringIndicators 2012, is a sobering assessment of howthe science and technology segment of Americansociety is slowly losing its global dominance. NSFDirector Subra Suresh says the findings in thereport show that “We must take seriously newstrategies for education, workforce developmentand innovation in order for the United States toretain its international leadership position.”

The NSF is an independent federal agency thatsupports fundamental research and educationacross all fields of science and engineering. Infiscal year (FY) 2012, its budget is $7.0 billion,which is awarded by Congress. Each year, NSFreceives over 50,000 competitive requests forfunding and makes about 11,000 new fundingawards. NSF also awards nearly $420 million inprofessional and service contracts yearly. Sureshoversees NSF’s $7 billion budget that funds basicresearch and education across all fields of sci-ence and engineering, including some 15 per-cent of federally supported basic research con-ducted at nearly 2,000 American colleges anduniversities. NSF funds reach all 50 states.

It’s not just that the $7 billion is either notenough or not utilized well enough to help theUnited States maintain its global superiority, it isthat Asian countries, most specifically what arecalled the Asia-10 countries, are finding ways tointegrate science and technology into their blue-prints for their own economic growth. Accordingto the Science and Engineering Indicators 2012report, the biggest gains in global science andtechnology sectors occurred in China, India,

Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines,Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. Andit hasn’t happened overnight. Over the last decade,the decline for America and the rise of the Asian-10 in terms of the United share of global researchand development (R&D) dropped from 38 per-cent to 31 percent, whereas it grew from 24 per-cent to 35 percent in the Asia region during thesame time. These figures reflect the period from1999 to 2009. The most dramatic example of thechanging of the guard in this regard can be foundin China where research and developmentincreased 28 percent between 2008 and 2009.This pushed China into second place behind theUnited States and in front of Japan in this category.

“Over the last decade, the world has changeddramatically,” said José-Marie Griffiths, chair of theNSB committee that oversees production of thereport. “It’s now a world with very different actorswho have made advancement in science and tech-nology a top priority. And many of the troublingtrends we’re seeing are now very well established.”

Washington, D.C., has been taking note of thedeclining global position of the United States inscience and technology and is trying to stem thetide. Even during trying economic times inAmerica, President Obama released A Strategyfor American Innovation in 2009, which re-emphasized the need to prioritize the impor-tance of science and engineering. The strategypointed out that science and technology were“drivers of innovation and identified a strongfundamental research base as critical to innova-tion, economic growth and competitiveness.”

In releasing the strategy, the president said,“Maintaining our role as the world’s engine ofscientific discovery and technological innovation[is] absolutely essential to our future.”

The NSF has not only issued a clarion call tore-establish America’s global leadership in sci-ence and technology, it also has launched someinitiatives designed to improve the United States’standing in this area both at home and abroad.The NSF is actively seeking international collabo-rations, stepping up his education initiatives andcreating new partnerships between industry andNSF-supported researchers.

For example, their Science Across VirtualInstitutes (SAVI) promotes creating an interfaceamong scientists, engineers and educators all overthe world. The value of such an interface meansthat advances in science and technology can befast-tracked when scientists and engineers canwork without international boundaries hamperingtheir interaction. The report cites the workbetween the United States and Finland working onthe Wireless Innovation, that studies dynamic radiospectrum access. These same kinds of virtual labo-ratories are being built by U.S. research teams andtheir colleagues in India, Brazil, France, Germany,Israel, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Another example is the NSF Innovation Corps(I-Corps) program, a public-private partnershipthat seeks to bring together scientific researchfunded by the NSF with technological, entrepre-neurial and business communities as a healthybreeding ground for innovation. NSF, theDeshpande Foundation, and the KauffmanFoundation are founding members of this initia-tive along with a national network of advisors andpartnering institutions. This program hopes toattract technology developers, business leaders,venture capitalists and others from private indus-try to consult on projects that will hopefully resultin a host of new and successful technologies.

NSF is also mindful that science and technolo-gy advances must be accomplished in a responsi-ble way. Another initiative, Science, Engineeringand Education for Sustainability (SEES), takes thatinto account. According to the report, SEES is “across-disciplinary approach to sustainability sci-ence designed to spark innovations for tomor-row’s clean energy. It will also improve our capa-bilities for rapid response to extreme events.”

“NSF’s support of fundamental research,which propels intellectual curiosity in everybranch of science and engineering, and ignitesthe passion to uncover the inner workings ofnature, is more precious now than ever before,”Suresh said. “At the same time, scientific discov-eries from fundamental research have theirwidest impact when they engender innovations,products and processes that transform societyand help solve global challenges.”

REPORTS

NSF Report Shows U.S. Slipping in STEM Dominance

Latino Engineering, Science StudentsIncreasingly Active on U.S. Campusesby Peggy Sands Orchowski

TheUniversity of California-SantaBarbara (UCSB) is a beautifuland popular ocean-side campus

in Southern California, known for decades as afriendly fun school with an active outgoing cam-pus life and many student organizations that com-pete for members and recognition. In the past 15years, UCSB also has become a destination forserious science majors, particularly engineers ofall kinds with new hybrid specialties in environ-mental, robotics, new materials, biomedical andhuman factors engineering, among many others.

Last year at UCSB, the club that won the“Student Organization of the Year” award wasLos Ingenieros, a club for low-income first-gen-eration mainly Hispanic engineering students.

Los Ingenieros is a part of MESA, theMathematics, Engineering, Science Achievementprogram (formerly the Mexican EngineeringStudents Association) at UCSB. “The groups haveexperienced enthusiastic growth over the past fewyears,” said Mario Castellanos, program director.“We often have several activities a month both onand off campus doing everything from career men-toring, to outreach to Latino students in junior highand high schools in the area, to joint workshops onengineering specialties with students at Cal Poly inSan Luis Obispo (the foremost engineering stateuniversity). Our goal is to help our students gradu-ate and go on to advanced degrees.”

The MESA programs are part of a nationalsystem of regional organizations sponsored bythe Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers(SHPE). There are SHPEs in every state withactive monthly mentoring and academic supportprograms. The highlight is the annual conferencewhere thousands of SHPE club members partici-pate in competitive projects, games and activitiesas well as hear motivational speakers who areengineers. The SHPE Foundation offers morethan $500,000 in college scholarships every year.

Many SHPE college students are Latinos, ofwhich 54 percent attend an HSI (a Hispanic-Serving Institution), according to Excelencia inEducation. Currently, almost 300 colleges anduniversities have been designated as HSIsbecause at least 25 percent of their undergradu-

ates are Hispanic heritage students. To date, 52percent of HSIs are community colleges.

The Hispanic Serving Health ProfessionsSchools (HSHPS) organization is also trying toincrease the number of Latinos who study in thehealth fields, according to Deanna Wathington,MD, MPH, of the University of South Florida.“There is increasing need for recognition of cul-turally competent health professionals,” she said.

But Hispanics who major in engineering andsciences probably more often than not do notattend an HSI. Currently, only 112 HSIs havegraduate programs, not all in science and engi-neering. Graduate program HSIs are concentrat-ed mainly in four areas (32 in Puerto Rico, 28in California, 18 in Texas and 10 in Florida).

Organizations such as SHPE, MESA and HSHPSprovide support needed for Hispanic students onall campuses, and the census figures may reflecttheir slowly growing success. The 2010 Censusshows that 10.6 percent of Hispanics areemployed in professional, scientific and manage-ment positions (compared to 8.8 percent of theBlack population). Department of Education sta-tistics show that more Latinos are majoring inengineering and more Hispanics are graduatingfrom high school than African-Americans.

But the percentage of Hispanics graduatingfrom college is lower than the percentage ofBlacks, despite their greater numbers. This ispartly a reflection of the immigration and workstatus of many young Latinos in the UnitedStates, Castellanos and others point out. About34 percent of the total Hispanic population of50.5 million is under 18, according to the 2010Census (about 18 million), and while no oneknows for sure, it has been estimated that agood 30 percent of the total Hispanic populationare immigrants – legal permanent, temporaryand illegal. While HSIs in some states will notask for the immigration status of their highschool graduates, temporary or unauthorizedimmigration status does affect whether somestudents can attend public colleges as in-statestudents and receive federal and state financialaid. It also affects who can take jobs after gradu-ation; legally, immigrants on many temporary

immigration visas or without any legal immigra-tion documents at all face severe restrictions forgetting a job legally after graduation.

A further complication is that at manyresearch universities, statistics about Latino col-lege students may be intermixed with those offoreign students from Latin America. In the lastthree annual Open Doors reports on foreign stu-dents by the Institute of International Education,Mexico placed among the top 10 (as high asseventh) source countries of foreign studentsbeing granted F and J temporary nonimmigra-tion foreign student visas.

The numbers of foreign grad students inengineering will likely grow exponentially in thenear future. Those who major in engineeringand sciences may be on the fast track for perma-nent residency permits. There are at least threebills currently in Congress that would give for-eign students an automatic green card once theygraduated with an MA degree or a Ph.D. in aSTEM field: the STAPLE Act sponsored by Rep.Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.; the SAVE Act sponsored byZoe Lofgren, D-Calif.; and the newest one,INVEST in America Act co-sponsored by AdamShiff, D-Calif., and Charles Bass, R-N.H.

Foreign students who have specialized inmath and sciences since junior high school andwho pay three times more tuition thanAmericans increasingly could pose a challengeto minority students who want to get researchand teaching assistant positions and even a placein a graduate degree program, say minorityengineering advocates Shirley Malcolm,American Association for the Advancement ofScience, and Richard Tapia, Rice University pro-fessor of engineering and director of their EquityCenter. Since the high tuition of these students isnever waived (as it is for many out-of-state andillegal immigrant students in states likeCalifornia after a year’s residency), foreign stu-dents are seen increasingly as a crucial revenuesource for cash-strapped public universities.

“But right now our biggest challenge is to getthe grade points up of our MESA members,”said Castellanos. “That will help them get intograd school more than anything else.”



SSTTEEMM IInniittiiaattiivveess aatt CCiittyyCCoolllleeggee ooff NNeeww YYoorrkk:: AA FFoorrmmuullaa ffoorr SSuucccceessssby Paul Hoogeveen

Asthe largest urban college in the U.S.,and as a leading Hispanic-ServingInstitution, City College of New York

(CCNY) has a strong history of creating pro-grams that have increased the participation andretention rates of Hispanics, as well as womenand other underrepre-sented groups. This isespecially true of severalinitiatives at CCNY aimedat improving participationin the STEM disciplines.Many are designed to notjust improve participationat the undergraduate levelbut to open the pipeline atevery level, through post-graduate work.

At the end of 2011, apromising new partner-ship between CCNY andStanford University suf-fered a setback whenStanford pulled out of itsbid to build a new $2.5billion applied scienceand engineering schoolon Roosevelt Island. (Thecontract was ultimatelyawarded to CornellUniversity in conjunctionwith Technion-IsraelInstitute of Technology.)Nevertheless, Stanfordand CCNY have pledged tocontinue working togeth-er and will be developing a more modest part-nership in 2012, with the aim of establishing anon-campus Stanford presence at City College.

While disappointing, this setback does notdiminish the significance of CCNY’s impressivearray of initiatives aimed at supporting minority

participation and retention in STEMs. Amongthese initiatives are three that particularly standout, whether for their ambitious goals or fortheir proven success: the brand-new Alliance forthe Continuous Innovative LearningEnvironments in STEM (CILES) Initiative, to be

implemented in the fall of 2012; Partnerships forResearch and Education in Materials (PREM),established in partnership with the University ofChicago and aimed at supporting minority par-ticipation in materials research; and lastly, theNIH Minority Scholars program, now in its final

year, but having established highly successfulmethodologies for improving minority participa-tion in STEM.

These initiatives were developed to addressan ongoing issue in the STEM disciplines.Minorities, while already underrepresented in

higher learning relativeto their numbers in thegeneral population, areeven more underrepre-sented in science andengineering. Hispanicsare particularly under-represented; while theyrepresent more than 16percent of the nation’spopulation, fewer than14 percent of engineer-ing degrees awarded byU.S. colleges and univer-sities in 2008 went toHispanics. As Hispanicscontinue to gain an ever-increasing share of theoverall population, theissue of underrepresenta-tion in STEM disciplinestakes on greater urgency.

CILES InitiativeOne of the newest

STEM initiatives at CCNY,the CILES program, theAlliance for theContinuous InnovativeLearning Environments in

STEM, will be run in partnership with two CUNYcommunity colleges, Hostos and LaGuardia.Funded by a five-year, $4 million grant throughthe U.S. Department of Education, it will be pri-marily housed at the City University of New YorkCREST center (the Cooperative Remote Sensing



CILES will address several objectives,

including improving articulation programs

designed to help STEM students transfer to

CCNY from Hostos and LaGuardia

Science and Technology Center). Six new class-rooms, two at each campus, will also be con-structed to support the program.

CILES will address several objectives, includingimproving articulation programs designed to helpSTEM students transfer to CCNY from Hostos andLaGuardia; attracting students to the STEM fieldsvia outreach at elementary and high schools; andsupporting students’ learning needs at every stageof the process, from high school through graduateschool. In terms of numbers, the initial goal isambitious: increase the number of majors in earthsystem science and environmental engineeringfrom 81 to 160 by fall 2016.

Dr. Jorge González, NOAA-CREST Professorof Mechanical Engineering at CCNY, said of thenew initiative: “That is the key of theprogram – to improve retention ofthe student undergraduate popula-tion in STEM and at the same timeopen the pipeline all the way to highschool. Part of the reason is we’velearned that about half of our under-grad population is coming fromtransfers from community colleges.And since they are coming here any-way, we’ll do it such in a way thatthey’ll have a real chance to suc-ceed.”

“CILES is focused initially onenvironmental sciences and engi-neering as model cases,” he said,explaining that these are rapidlygrowing fields at present. “Fromthere, we will expand immediatelyinto biomedical engineering.”

A major goal of the CILES pro-gram is to create a more seamless,continuous learning experience thatbreaks down the barriers that cancause students to leave STEM areas.Toward that end, González said,CILES curriculum will be revised toemphasize critical thinking, hands-on work and an interdisciplinaryapproach. Labs will be developed ina parallel way across all three cam-puses, to facilitate a seamless experi-ence. And both students and facultywill be trained to utilize virtuallearning environments, which will furthercement a sense of continuity and a collaborativelearning process.

To sum up the central theme of CILES,González stated: “We’re saying, ‘Can we reallyput all this together into a very central program

that identifies the students that are interested inthese fields, and supports them all the way fromthe time they are thinking of applying until theygraduate here at the CCNY campus?’”

PREM: Establishing a ResearchCollaborative and Training Educators

“At City College, overall we’re about 60 per-cent underrepresented minorities – African-American and Hispanic,” said Dr. Jeffrey Morris,professor of chemical engineering at CCNY. “Butin engineering, we’re a total of 34 percent. Whenyou get to the Ph.D. level, that figure declines toabout 5 percent of the total graduate populationin the overall engineering college.”

Enter PREM, Partnerships for Research and

Education in Materials, a program now in itsthird year at CCNY aimed at improving minorityparticipation in materials research by establish-ing research partnerships between minority-serv-ing institutions and centers supported by theNational Science Foundation Division of Materials

Research. (In CCNY’s case, that partnership wasformed with the University of Chicago.)

One of the National Science Foundation’s pri-mary goals with PREM is to improve the qualityand quantity of opportunities research opportu-nities for both faculty members and students atMSIs that have received PREM awards.According to Morris, CCNY is already showingpromising results toward that end.

“We have two women Hispanic Ph.D.s – onewho’s gone on to a faculty position at our sisterCUNY school New York Tech, and one who’sgone on to a post-doc at the University ofChicago,” he said. “And we’ve just recruited twoAfrican-American men into chemical engineer-ing, out of eight entering Ph.D.s. I think we’re

doing very well relative to the num-bers.”

Morris also discussed two waysin which CCNY is utilizing PREMfinds to approach the specific needsof underrepresented students atCCNY: living stipends and outreachprograms. First, he pointed out thatstudents in underrepresentedgroups often face significant finan-cial challenges and need to workwhile studying – a factor that canimpact both academic performanceand completion rates, especially atthe graduate level.

“People fail to see the opportu-nities at the end of the tunnel,” saidMorris. “One of the things thatwe’re able to do because of thefunding we have is to offer under-graduates stipends which allow stu-dents to work in research labs.They’re working on research pro-jects, they’re intellectually engagedon the project they want, but they’repaid at a level that allows them tonot need another external job.”

Morris also explained how CCNY-UChicago PREM has also developed apilot outreach program using themathematics and engineering highschool conveniently located on theCCNY campus.

“We were very lucky in thedevelopment of our outreach programs to highschools. This was a peer-teaching programwhere chemical engineering undergraduateswere trained to give lectures and demonstra-tions. They went into classrooms, worked withstudents, and had some level of feedback on the


CCNY President Lisa S. Coico

quality of the teaching from the abilities of thestudents both before and after. The peer teach-ing has been nice because these are people whoare not very different in age, and very often notthat different in high school background.”

From there, said Morris, he and other mem-bers of the PREM program fleshed out a broaderoutreach program.

“We developed a high school teachers’ acad-emy, with help from one of the teachers at thehigh school, in terms of thinking about how to

structure the system, and in terms of knowingwhat high school teachers tend to be looking forin a summer academy,” he explained. “Webrought in teachers from very different schoolsaround the city. We let them help us understandhow what we do can be used to drive highschool laboratory modules, and to bring theexcitement of these scientific issues to a placewhere they can be used in a high school lab, butare also inexpensive enough to be used across abroad range of schools.”

According to Morris, CCNY’s PREM program,while still somewhat new, is already proving suc-cessful. “We’ve made an extremely large effort toreach out and involve minorities as much aspossible,” he said. “In the PREM program, todate we’ve graduated four Ph.D.s and of those,two were Hispanic women.”

NIH Minority Scholars Program: ASuccessful Experiment

For the Grove School of Engineering at CCNY,the year 2012 sees not only the beginning of new

initiatives like CILES, but also the end of a highlysuccessful program: the National Institutes ofHealth Minority Scholars program. According toDr. Sheldon Weinbaum, professor emeritus ofbiomedical engineering at CCNY, two institutions(including CCNY) received the first NIH grant forthe program when it was first launched in 2002,but CCNY was the only one to receive a renewal.

“When we started, we had something in theorder of 25 undergraduates,” he added. “As ofright now, we have about 190 undergraduates.The Ph.D. program has 37 students.”

Weinbaum, like his colleagues in other pro-grams, pointed out that many of CCNY’s studentscome from economically disadvantaged back-grounds. With the inception of NIH MinorityScholars program, the Biomedical EngineeringDepartment (also formed in 2002) set a goal toenable its minority students to perform at thelevel of a top-tier institution and even pursuegraduate studies. They accomplished this primar-ily through two interventions that were later car-ried into other STEM initiatives at CCNY: livingstipends that freed students from the need towork and allowed them to focus on their educa-tion, and establishment of an intensive researchexperience requiring significant time spent onlab work – which created something parallel to aPh.D.-level experience for undergraduates.

In the first NIH grant’s run, Weinbaum’s newdepartment met with moderate success, but withundergraduate retention at 54 percent at the endof 2006, the department decided to implementsomething fairly unique at the time – a near-peermentoring system in which graduated studentswere paired with undergraduates. It proved tobe the missing ingredient, and by 2011, under-graduate retention rose to 74 percent. What’smore, the CCNY Biomedical EngineeringDepartment ranked first in student and facultydiversity and seventh in research productivity.

“We also got an award this year fromNational Association of MulticulturalEngineering: the Outstanding CollegiateRetention Award,” Weinbaum added.

With the second and last NIH grant expiringthis year, the Biomedical EngineeringDepartment isn’t waiting for new funding to fallinto its lap. According to Weinbaum, the depart-ment has applied for a grant from the HowardHughes Medical Institute.

City College has done much to improve itsphysical infrastructure in support of its studentsin STEM programs (and students in all its pro-grams, for that matter). CCNY President Lisa S.

Coico is particularly proud of the recently estab-lished Tech Center, which provides more than 300workstations for students, as well as opportunitiesto create virtual learning environments for faculty.

But beyond the new facilities, and beyondhopes of a new partnership with a top-tier insti-tution like Stanford, lies a well-established cul-ture of commitment to continuously improvingaccess to higher education for minorities andwomen. And within this culture initiatives suchas CILES, PREM and the NIH Minority Scholars

program share some common threads, such asoutreach into the educational community; aseamless educational experience at all levels;and student support through mentoring andclose collaboration. It’s a formula for successthat warrants both positive scrutiny and greaterrecognition.


Dr. Jorge González, NOAA-CREST Professor ofMechanical Engineering, CCNY

Dr. Sheldon Weinbaum, professor emeritus, biomedical engineering, CCNY

Macomb Community College, located inthe NE area of Metro Detroit, seeks twoInstructors of Mathematics, # 001236.

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Researchers Look at Women

of Color in STEM Fieldsby Michelle Adam

Thirty-six years ago, the plight ofwomen of color in careers inscience, technology, engineer-

ing, and mathematics (STEM)received national attention for whatseemed the first time. Back then, theHarvard Educational Review pub-lished a report, The Double Bind:The Price of Being a MinorityWoman in Science, in an effort toshed light on women who face dou-ble oppression and severe under-representation in STEM fields. Inaddition, 30 minority women scien-tists met to share their experiencesin a unique gathering.

Last summer the HarvardEducational Review (HER) tookanother look at women of color inthe STEM fields. The publicationdedicated much of i ts summerissue to the symposium theme of“Unravel ing the Double Bind:Women of Color in STEM.” WhatHER and i ts mult iple reportauthors wanted to find out waswhether much had changed since35 years ago for minority womenin these fields, and what kind of lit-erature had been published to shedlight on them.

A conclusion drawn from theprocess was presented in thereport’s introduction, with a quotein 2010 by Double Bind organizerand principal writer Maria Ong: “Wefound many, many dissertations.When I asked my researcher to findout how many had been published,what they had published, the answercame back as zero. I asked some-body else to do the same research;the answer came back as zero.There’s not a knowledge gap. It’s a

serious gap in publishing, in beingable to get the word out.”

The Harvard EducationalReview has been no exception.According to the publication, “from1976 to 2010, HER has publishedonly 16 articles that relate specifical-ly to women of color in higher edu-cation or minority participation inSTEM. None of these articlesaddressed this intersection – the‘double oppression of sex and raceor ethnicity plus the third oppres-sion in the chosen career, science.’”

Despite the dearth of publishedworks focusing on this population,the “Unraveling the Double Bind”symposium provided important datafrom unpublished studies on minor-ity women in STEM fields, and onpossible factors in higher educationthat have contributed to their suc-cess or failure.

HER’s symposium on Women ofColor in STEM fields provided anoutlet for information on thesewomen to be released to the publicat large. The publication of thesereports is especially timely, dovetail-ing with a larger national concernover the dwindling numbers ofAmericans, and especially minoritygroups, graduating into STEM fields.Increasing the number of citizensinterested in STEM fields has been akey priority for President BarackObama, the National ScienceFoundation and many other groupsand policymakers nationwide.

“The STEM fields at large arehaving a problem attracting anddrawing students of all back-grounds,” said Lorelle Espinosa,senior analyst at APT associates, and


Espinosa’s research and that ofothers brought to light throughHarvard Educational Review is afirst step in understanding what’s

happening for Latinas andwomen of color in STEM fields.


one of the leading authors of articles published under “Unraveling theDouble Bind.” “One reason for this is that K-12 is not preparing studentsto meet the demands universities require in these fields. And universitiesaren’t putting in place the right systemic practices that promote success inSTEM. We have a weed-out cultureand ancient pedagogy that doesn’tspeak to the majority of students,and people in STEM fields still carrya stigma of being labeled a geek or anerd.”

Looking at Americans in STEMfields compared to those of othernations, Maria Ong wrote the follow-ing in HER: “Currently, only about16 percent of undergraduates in U.S.institutions receive degrees in natur-al sciences and engineering, com-pared to 47 percent of undergradu-ates in China, 38 percent in SouthKorea, and 27 percent in France.With American and internationalcorporations searching globally forthe best and brightest workers in thescientific and technological sectors,an emergent question is whetherAmericans will be able to competefor such quality jobs. Furthermorethe urgency of regaining U.S. globalleadership has been noted repeated-ly by American presidents.”

Ong points out the importance ofeducating all Americans – and espe-cially minority populations andwomen – for potential work inSTEM fields. She addresses the factthat White men, “the traditionalsource of STEM professionals,” aredeclining in numbers, yet theincreasing number of women andminority students are not achievingparity in higher education levels.

“In the growing non-White popu-lation, women drastically outnumbermen in terms of the number attend-ing college (College Board, 2010)[White women make up 32.47 per-cent of the population; Hispanicwomen, 7.03 percent; and African-American women, 7.03 percent]. ...Yet ... the awarding of bachelor’sdegrees to women of color is not atparity with their respective represen-tations in the U.S. population,”wrote Ong. “Unfortunately, the lackof parity is even more severe at the

doctoral level. When comparing the representation of women of color inSTEM to that of all men, White women, and women of color (not in STEMfields) in the United States at the Ph.D. level in 2006, women of color wereseverely underrepresented [Asian-American and Pacific Islander women

were the exception]; they collective-ly earned only 9.9 percent of alldoctorates awarded in science andengineering, while their representa-tion in the general U.S. populationwas 16.5 percent.” [Only 2.53 per-cent of Hispanics women receiveddoctoral degrees in STEM fields,while they made up 6.86 percent ofthe U.S. population.]

The disconnect between thepopulation of minority womenmaking up the U.S. population andtheir numbers actually representedin STEM fields was cause for worryand investigation in “Unraveling theDouble Bind: Women of Color inSTEM.” The report authors set outto determine why so many women,and especially minority women,were not completing higher educa-tion into STEM fields.

Espinosa specifically looked atfactors that seemed to contribute tothe success and failure of minoritywomen, and at times women atlarge, in undergraduate STEMmajors. Through her report,Pipelines and Pathways: Women ofColor in Undergraduate STEMMajors and the College Experiencesthat Contribute to Persistence, shereported the persistence rates fordifferent groups of women in STEMmajors: Latinas, 52 percent; African-Americans, 54 percent; Asian-Americans, 70 percent; and 57 per-cent overall for women of color andWhite women. Espinosa also lookedat how pre-college characteristics,college experiences, and institution-al setting impacted a cohort of 1,250women of color and 891 Whitewomen at 135 institutions nation-wide.

The results of her research wereeye-opening. She discovered that thefollowing factors positively impactedthe retention of women of color inSTEM majors (and thus supporting agrowth in them entering STEM fields

“Usually there were more malesthan females in graduate

courses, and mostly White males.

It was also tougher for me

to join the study groups and

things like that.”

Elsa Ruiz, assistant professor, College ofEducation, University of Texas-San Antonio


down the line): having personal goals; effective instruction; experiencingthe relevance of STEM fields to everyday life; peer discussion and relation-ships; being in clubs related to their STEM area; beginning with an engi-neering focus (even if they then transferred into other STEM arenas);research involvement with faculty; being in a private institution; and havingothers like you in your area of study. Factors that contributed to leaving theSTEM disciplines included attending highly selective colleges and being inprograms that weed out students (these often occur together).

“The biggest takeaway in this study is that institutional selectivity is anissue. There has been a debate going on in the higher education commu-nity as to the value of highly selective institutions. Well-respected researchhas shown that these highly selective schools can be very beneficial forunderrepresented students. Opponents around affirmative action havesaid otherwise,” said Espinosa. “In terms of STEM fields, there is a nega-tive relationship between persistence in STEM and highly selective institu-tions. There is something about the STEM environment for minoritywomen that is unfriendly, to the point at which women of color have ahigher propensity to leave the STEM field.”

According to Espinosa’s research, women of color who attended highlyselective colleges and universities were more than 14 percent more likelyto switch out of STEM by the fourth year of college. The opposite held truefor those attending private colleges – they were 10 percent more likely topersist in STEM. Much of this reality was attributed to the fact that there’s“a greater propensity to grade on a curve and to ‘weed’ students out ofSTEM majors” than other majors – and this is especially true in highlyselective schools. And women who switch out of STEM tend to receivehigher grades in their major discipline as a result.

On a positive note, Espinosa also discovered that women of color, moreso than women at large, perform better in STEM majors when they have asocial network or club in their area of study. According to her research,“women who engage in peer discussions (on course content) outside theclassroom are more likely to persist in STEM ... which affirms theories oflearning specific to women that espouse the importance of interpersonalrelationships in and around academic settings ... Second, women of colorwho join a major-related club are 7.38 percentage points (p<0.05) morelikely to persist in STEM than those who do not join this type of club.”

“Anyone would say that joining a club could enhance the academicexperience for all. But when you think about the level at which it benefitsone group as compared to another, this is where you’ll find the nuance,”said Espinosa. “If you happen to be from a group that has a hard timefinding community because there aren’t many like you [this is especiallytrue for minority women in STEM], then if you find a community, this canbe very beneficial. I do think there’s a sense of community found there,even if others don’t speak the same language or have the same culturalbackground.”

Another factor that positively impacted the success of women of color –and women as a whole – was finding personal importance in the goalsestablished by them in their fields. In other words, women were more likelyto persist in the sciences, math, engineering and technology if they felt theycould make a theoretical contribution to science or find a cure to a healthproblem. In addition, women of color were more likely to succeed in thesearenas if they found satisfaction with their institution’s science and mathcurriculum, and if this curriculum had a relevance to their everyday life. Itseems some women opt out of these courses and join non-STEM majorsbecause the math and sciences are taught and approached in a cold, low-

context approach, rather than with a connection to community and people.Other findings included the following: Women of color who participat-

ed in research programs with faculty were nearly 12 percentage pointsmore likely to persist in STEM. Women who enter college with the intent ofmajoring in engineering are nearly 19 percentage points more likely tocontinue in STEM on the whole than women who aspired to other STEMmajors. In addition, “peer environment contributes to persistence at theinstitutional level. For each percent increase in the number of studentsmajoring in STEM at a given institution, women of color are thirty percent-age points more likely to persist to year four.”

The degree to which women of color were prepared for STEM majorsduring their high school careers also played an important role, accordingto Espinosa. Being prepared with the appropriate math and sciencecoursework in high school greatly impacted their success, as well as earlySTEM exposure. Surprisingly, Espinosa also discovered the following,“Although father’s education (less than college) and financial concern(college affordability) were significant for White women, none of theparental socialization measures proved significant for women of color.”

This finding may be attributed to the fact that once women of color doattend higher education (versus not enter at all), other factors in collegeplay a more important role. Elsa Ruiz, assistant professor in the College ofEducation of the University of Texas-San Antonio, experienced some ofthese challenges and more as a Latina in the STEM fields.

“I came from a family of 11. My father was a traditional Latino machoman who didn’t see there was a need for us girls to have a higher educa-tion. Later he changed his mind, although we didn’t have the resources,”said Ruiz, who currently teaches math teachers how to teach math (shetaught middle and high school math for 27 years). “I went to school inLaredo, Texas, where there are 99 percent Latinos. I felt we did not havethe proper college-prep courses to attend college. The teachers were notprepared, courses were not rigorous, and there was a lack of role models.I didn’t know then what a Ph.D. was. Role models are crucial.”

When Ruiz attended college to study math, she felt alienated in coursesthat provided no relevance to life experiences. “Usually there were moremales than females in graduate courses, and mostly White males. It wasalso tougher for me to join the study groups and things like that,” she said.“I’ve since discovered how few Latinas there really are in STEM fields. Thishas been the case since 1976. Many Latinas have the desire to achieve, butbecause of cultural, economic, and other factors they don’t succeed ordon’t in a timely manner. They need mentors and activities where they cansee others who have succeeded.” (In an effort to document the role mod-els that do exist in STEM fields, Ruiz published a book called Paths toDiscovery: Autobiographies from Chicanas with Careers in Science,Math and Engineering.)

While Espinosa didn’t make mention of Latinas specifically in herreport, she has discovered similar barriers for Latinas in STEM fields.“One of the major considerations for this group includes the home envi-ronment – the culture in the home and the parental expectation forwomen. There remains an expectation that daughters have a different edu-cational trajectory than sons,” she said. “I think also, for many immigrantfamilies in general, the idea of studying STEM is very foreign, and familiesdon’t understand how they can get jobs in these fields.”

When Latinas do choose to attend college, they often start out at com-munity colleges, added Espinosa. This has a positive impact on thembecause Latinas often find them more nurturing than four-year institutions.


I cannot understate the importance of simultaneously developing strong networks and meaning-ful connections with peers and colleagues throughout one’s schooling. My own educational journeyhas been greatly enhanced in part due to a number of mentors, both personal and academic. As theson of Mexican immigrants, born and raised in the Yakima Valley region in Washington, and a first-generation college graduate, I have always had a deep understanding of cultural, familial and com-munity identity. This upbringing has stayed with me well throughout my present doctoral studies, asI am interested in examining developmental and academic trajectories of United States Latino stu-dents. As a 2011 Graduate Fellow of the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education(AAHHE), I was reminded that other emerging and seasoned Latina/o scholars share my commit-ment and passion not only in research interests, but also in reflecting upon personal stories andhaving a sense for never forgetting from where one comes.

I first heard of AAHHE when I began my doctoral studies at Indiana University through a col-league of mine who had previously attended and earned his Ph.D. from Indiana University and was aprevious graduate fellow recipient. His initial endorsement of AAHHE sparked my interest, but at thetime I had limited knowledge of the mission and activities of AAHHE. Then in 2010 while attendingthe American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting in Denver, another previous graduate fellow recipient introduced me again to theAAHHE Graduate Fellows program. This subtle yet encouraging description of the advocacy work of AAHHE in supporting Latina/o graduate studentsand faculty alike motivated me to submit an application. Having been selected, I was extremely pleased and very proud to be associated with AAHHE,in particular because I strongly believe AAHHE reinforces the advancement of social, economic, educational and even political affairs of Latina/osthrough higher educational means. One real strength of the graduate fellows program is that it is on the forefront of ensuring the success of Latina/ograduate students by modeling the skills, strategies and experience necessary to effectively maintain a balance between working in academia and pol-icy – while also maintaining a personal sense of self.

A goal of mine is to become a university professor. I am well aware of the current trends in relation to students and faculty of color in higher edu-cation that presently lay before me, particularly the presence of Latina/os, and yet participating in the graduate fellows program has helped me toseriously consider how my own progress is in fact rooted in the success of others. I view AAHHE’s Graduate Fellows program as ultimately providing

a transformational pathway for Latina/o scholars to continue to develop well-rounded careers, both in terms of potentialimpact in academia as well as our societal roles. As a 2011 Graduate Fellow of AAHHE, what I gained most was an

empowering reaffirmation to being one of many links that are ultimately helping to secure the critical success ofLatina/os in higher education and beyond.

BByy AAnnttoonniioo GG.. EEssttuuddiillllooPh.D. Candidate, Learning and Developmental Sciences, Indiana University, 2011 AAHHE Graduate Fellow

SScchhoollaarrss’’ CCoorrnneerr

An important change that needs to be addressed, though, is making thetransition for Latinas from two-year to four-year colleges more fluid. Inaddition, community colleges are often more resource-poor and might notbe able to prepare students for STEM courses at universities. Providingadditional support at universities is key to bridging these differences forminority students.

Espinosa’s research and that of others brought to light through HER is afirst step in understanding what’s happening for Latinas and women ofcolor in STEM fields. The journey won’t stop here, though. She’s part of ateam that will soon complete a National Science Foundation study called

Beyond the Double Bind that documents positive programs and STEMsuccesses taking place on campuses nationwide.

Ultimately, this research will provide colleges and universities a chanceto learn from each other, and shift their curriculum, teaching styles, andsystems to ensure greater retention and success of students in STEM fields.After all, if, as a nation, we are to increase the number of people in math,science, technology and engineering, then higher education will need toinvest in women of color and all students, and thus improve the successrates for those in STEM.


by Thomas G. Dolan

There are three somewhat contradictoryforces affecting higher education. One isthe unacceptably high Hispanic dropout

rate. Second is the need for graduates who cancomplete in the global marketplace. And third isthe additional special need for graduates trainedin the difficult STEM disciplines.

The obvious solution to these contradictions isto improve performance in all three areas. Here ishow three different universities are going about it.

As illustrated by the University of Texas (UT)-San Antonio, the situation is complex. At UT-SanAntonio, roughly 60 percent of the 31,000 stu-dents are Hispanic, about 8 percent are African-American, and the rest are other minorities orWhite.

But, as Edwin Barea-Rodríguez, Ph.D., chairof the department of biology, with some 3,000students, reports, recruiting students into STEMprograms is not a new idea. “For over 30 years,we’ve received grants from the NationalInstitutes of Health and have formed programsthe point of which has been to encourage andtrain more minorities into various technologies.”Barea-Rodríguez, who for the past five years hasbeen the program director of theMBRS/RISE/MARC student training programsfunded by the National Institute of GeneralMedical Scientists (NIGMS), says, “It’s still achallenge to attract students to STEM. ManyHispanics want to go into health care, especiallynursing, to care for patients. We want to intro-duce them to think critically, to show how work-ing in research can lead to cures that can help

patients in a different way.”To this end, UT-San Antonio has outreach pro-

grams to high schools, an introductory freshmancourse in STEM, as well as speakers who come into show students the opportunities in these fields.

Yet, despite these long-term efforts, and thechallenges still inherent in attracting enough stu-dents, especially minorities, into STEM, anadded dynamic, Barea-Rodríguez says, must alsobe added.

“We began to make some major changesabout eight years ago,” says Barea-Rodríguez.“Before we just put a student in a lab, but now weknow it’s not enough to make him successful.”

The changes the school has gradually intro-duced over time have been to broaden the STEMstudent’s personal development in many ways.The student now takes literature and writingcourses, is taught leadership skills. Students aretaught how to speak effectively, to write anddeliver presentations, and to attend nationalconferences in their area, such as those inmicrobiology for those in the biology depart-ment. These liberal arts and communicationsskills are directed not simply to STEM studentswho will go on to work in corporations increas-ingly engaged in the global market, but alsothose who want a Ph.D. to teach.

“When a student graduates from here with anundergraduate degree, we welcome him here forgraduate work, but also encourage him to studyat another university, especially one outside theU.S.,” Barea-Rodríguez says.

“We’ve all heard of the brain drain of the

U.S., of students coming from countries likeChina and India to receive training – then goingback home. We have to train our own studentsnot only in the STEM disciplines but in a holisticway so they can relate to the larger world. If wedon’t, we will be in trouble as a nation.”

At the University of Illinois at Chicago, thelargest university in that city, the student popula-tion is about 40 percent White, 25 percentHispanic, 20 percent Asian-American, and therest African-American, Native American andother. Verónica Arreola, as director of thewomen in science and engineering program aswell as assistant director for research on womenand gender, has a special focus on attractingwomen, especially minority women, to STEM.

“At a recent conference of the Society ofWomen Engineers, it was pointed out that justabout every major company has some sort ofglobal access, and how students who go to workfor them with degrees in STEM will be travelingall over the world, as well as finding importantpositions in academia,” Arreola says.

“As a good example of what is going on,Chicago has recently closed down its super gen-erator, the particle accelerator built by EnricoFermi,” says Arreola. “Why? A better and biggerone has been built in Europe. Science and engi-neering are crossing all borders and our facultyis now going to Europe to collaborate in globaland academic research.”

The campus has had two grants to furtherthese goals, both from the National ScienceFoundation, one for computer science and the


Preparing Hispanics and Other Minorities for the Global Marketplace


other for chemical engineering. These have beenbroken down into scholarships that are stillavailable for the next couple of years.

But this, again, is undermined somewhat by,as Arreola says, “our long-term concerns ofHispanics and African-Americans getting intocollege, with equal aspirations, but then drop-ping out. We’re doing pretty good in terms of thenational average, and things have improved. Butthere’s still a big gap, and it’s going to take awhile to narrow it down.

A key dynamic in closing this gap, Arreolasays, “is helping Latinas, Latinos and otherminority students find a mentor as early as highschool. We work with high school science teach-ers on emerging technologies. From my office,we run an online mentoring program for highschool girls, trying to connect them to differentprograms, as well as a specific mentor. So whenthe student asks who’s going to support me aca-demically, emotionally and financially when I getto campus, she’ll have an answer.”

At the City College of New York (CCNY), ofthe student population of about 14,000, about35 percent are Hispanic, 25 percent are African-American, and the remaining are Asian-American or White.

CCNY’s successful venture into STEM studiesfor minorities is demonstrated by the fact thatthe NOAA-Cooperative Remote Sensing Scienceand Technology Center (NOAA-CREST), locatedat CCNY, has begun its second decade of opera-tion, supported by a new five-year $15 milliongrant from the National Oceanic andAtmospheric Administration.

The CCNY center also includes four otheruniversity partner institutions in California,Maryland, Virginia and Puerto Rico; and aims tobecome an international and national center thatwill serve government agencies as well as theacademic and scientific communities.

“In less than 10 years, NOAA-CREST has beenable to establish itself as one of the country’spremier research centers,” says RezaKhanbilvardi, the center’s director and a NOAA-Chair professor of civil engineering in CCNY’sGrove School of Engineering.

“Most of our graduates are finding jobsbefore they graduate. Our research products arebeing used not only by NOAA, but by other agen-cies at the federal, state and local level, such asNASA and the EPA.”

Jorge González, Ph.D., professor of engineer-ing at CCNY’s school of engineering, and one ofthe principal researchers at the center, adds,

“The center has established a proven trackrecord in recruiting, educating, training andgraduating students from diverse backgrounds.To date, it has produced 350 graduates, 82 per-cent of whom are from groups underrepresent-ed in the remote sensing sciences.” He explainsthat NOAA-CREST was one of five cooperativescience centers established nationwide throughthe agency’s educational partnership programwith minority-serving institutions.

“The center’s research agenda, Gonzálezsays, “is focused along four broadly based andinterconnected themes: climate; weather andatmosphere; water resources and land process-es; and ocean and coastal waters.”

The center owns and operates an array ofsophisticated instrumentation that addresses allfour remote sensing monitoring thrusts. Theyinclude:• The Microwave Observation Unit, which mea-sures snowmelt, soil conditions and tropospher-ic weather conditions• The Long Island Sound Coastal ObservationUnit, the only facility of its kind in the U.S. thatmeasures radiance from coastal waters• A satellite earth observation station thatreceives and analyzes data directly from polarorbiting and geostationary satellites• NYC MetNet, a network of sensors that mea-sures air quality in New York City and the metro-politan region

González says the center envisions becomingthe national remote sensing of earth institute forthe U.S., especially the Northeast, over the nextdecade. It expects to provide research and train-ing that will be used by government agencies,scientists and academics. Models being devel-oped by CREST scientists will address global andregional issues related to climate change includ-ing: disaster management, water resourcesassessment, coastal water management andsevere storm tracking.

Partnership among CREST faculty, NOAA sci-entists and industrial partners Raytheon,Northrup Grumman and ERT Inc. enhanceCREST activities by engaging scientists from offcampus as co-mentors for CREST students. Inaddition, the CREST center has a robust researchagenda with 18 major projects and 104 tasksnow underway.

To date, CREST scientists and students havepublished more than 150 papers in peer-reviewedjournals and presented at more than 300 scientif-ic conferences in the U.S. and abroad.

But CREST is also working to expand its educa-

tion agenda beyond providing support for studentspursuing bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees.It aims to provide a “K to grey” menu of offeringsthat will include professional development forengineers, pre-service and in-service training forteachers, summer research training for highschool students through paid internships, and sci-ence enrichment activities for younger students.

González says that, because of programs like

NOAA-CREST, CCNY does better than the nationalaverage in terms of both STEM students andattracting minorities to same, but there is stillmuch room for improvement at his school.

Looking at the broader picture, Gonzálezpoints out that in China close to 50 percent of thestudents study STEM. In South Korea, it’s 38 per-cent; and in Germany, it’s 28 percent. And in theU.S.? “Only about 16 percent of our students takeSTEM, and only a fraction of these are Hispanics.”

In closing, González says, “The latest statisticsshow that today only about 15 percent of all ourdegrees go to Hispanics, yet by 2050 the U.S. pop-ulation will be 50 percent minority, primarilyHispanics. So you can imagine what’s going tohappen to the U.S. in terms of global competition,unless we educate our students to become trainedin science and technology, become savvy in morethan one language, and have a high degree ofadaptability through the development of personal,communication and leadership skills.”


Helps HSIs Collaborateon Online Learningby Gary M. Stern

In1993, five years before Google began, seven Hispanic-ServingInstitutions (HSIs) launched the Hispanic Educational TechnologyServices (HETS). This nonprofit consortium trains faculty to use

technology, encourages using best practices in distance and online learn-ing, and inspires collaboration among the schools. Leaders of HETS didnot possess a crystal ball or know that the Internet would shape the nextdecade, but were ahead of the curve in promoting the use of technologyand helping Latino students’ master online learning.

The seven HSIs that started HETS were Lehman College and HostosCommunity College in New York, Ana G. Mendez University and theUniversity of Puerto Rico in Puerto Rico, University of Texas (UT)-Brownsville and UT-Pan American, and the University of New Mexico. HETSearned a grant from the Department of Commerce, which helped lift it offthe ground.

By 2011, HETS has expanded to 30 HSIs, including a dozen communitycolleges. Member colleges have 500,000 students, and Latinos constitute60 percent of their population. To become members, colleges pay $5,000a year for four-year institutions and $3,000 for two-year colleges. HETSruns lean since it only has two full-time staff members, including its execu-tive director, and relies on several freelancers, including a Web designer.

Primary GoalsHETS defines its goals as helping Latino students and Hispanic colleges

in several ways: 1) developing and implementing technological approachesto education, 2) encouraging collaboration and best practices amongmember colleges, and 3) introducing technological projects.

HETS Executive Director Yubelkys Montalvo, who is based at MendezUniversity in San Juan, says the consortium has been concentrating onimproving the way HSIs deliver online learning and enhancing the wayLatino students learn so they can use technology as a tool to further theirhigher education goals.

HETS’ board established a five-year plan in 2010 to focus on accomplish-ing three goals: 1) increasing access to higher education, 2) assessment ofstudents, and 3) improving retention to increase Latino graduate rates.

DISTANCE LEARNING

René Sainz, assistant director of online learning, UT-Brownsville


Why focus on Latino students since all students – Latinos, Whites,African-Americans and Asians – need help in distance learning? Montalvosays the educational gap between the achievement of Latino and majoritystudents existed back then and still operates. HETS aims to “overcomeHispanic barriers, help students gain access to new technologies and findways to achieve their educational goals,” she said.

“Our services work perfectly for all students, whether Hispanic or not,”explained Montalvo. Some training is geared toward students in onlineclasses who are bilingual and learning English as their second language,but that could help Asian students as easily as Latinos.

Focusing on Online LearningOne of HETS’ primary ways of achieving its goals involves improving

Latino students’ performance in online learning. It offers online and inperson training of faculty to improve their teaching techniques online.Moreover, it runs a best practices conference, held in Puerto Rico, thatalso inspires faculty on how to reach Latino students via online learning.

Most of what HETS achieves comes directly through dealings with facul-ty, rather than directly with students. However, it offers online practice testsfor students to improve their scores on GRE, LSAT and other graduateexams. And it lists hundreds of scholarships online that can enable stu-dents to lower their financial aid, offers a list of internships, and includes adatabase career transition, which helps them choose the right jobs. HETSalso provides several online resources for faculty, including a peer reviewjournal about online learning. Its online videos include a primer for timemanagement and another providing an overview of teaching online.

Though Montalvo is based in San Juan, she keeps in close touch withHETS’ 30 member colleges. Indeed, she attended conferences and visited75 colleges in the United States over the last two years.

HETS also has been forming partnerships with for-profit businesses thatoperate in online learning such as Blackboard, which provides technologi-cal products, and Cengage Learning, which offers eBooks and Web-basedproducts.

“We think our mission is aligned; they also provide services to stu-dents,” Montalvo noted. The companies are invited to events, but there areno commitments that members must buy any of their products. Moreover,HETS has a partnership with the Hispanic Information andTelecommunications Network, a nonprofit that provides educational televi-sion and works with community-based organizations.

As college budgets shrink due to state cutbacks, HETS has more of animpact on online learning, Montalvo said. “Collaborating with a consor-tium becomes a must. Colleges can provide resources to each other,” shesaid, saving time and money. Any new techniques developed that improveonline learning are disseminated among members, enabling faculty toavoid reinventing what has already proved effective.

How HETS Operates at Lehman CollegeRobert Whittaker, associate provost for undergraduate studies and

online education at Lehman College, in the Bronx, N.Y., and part of the CityUniversity of New York, has been a liaison with HETS since its inception.“HETS began as a way to share educational opportunities for Latino stu-dents,” he said. At the outset, HETS focused on improving internationaleducation, which was just taking hold at Lehman. Its journalism program,which stressed multilingual studies, also was at the forefront of workingwith HETS.

But as distance education grew in influence, HETS zeroed in on helpingcolleges deliver online education more effectively. Its concentration washow to make it effective with Latino and bilingual students. Indeed, by2011, 14 percent of all classes at Lehman were being taught via onlinelearning. And some classes involve hybrid learning, delivered half in theclassroom and half online.

Whittaker said that HETS inspires collaboration among the colleges.For example, at one workshop, a faculty member at John Jay College inNew York discussed specific online techniques for helping foreign-bornstudents write in English, a strategy that several Lehman faculty membersadopted. “Even though we’re both part of CUNY, we don’t normally talk topeople at John Jay,” Whittaker said, so the collaboration was useful.

While students can attend some of HETS’ workshops on online learn-ing, Whittaker said that “HETS does not do any teaching.” However, itsimpact is strongly felt by students, through the online test-prep programs,for example.

When faculty members return from attending a HETS workshop, “theybring back techniques of how to use technology better, ways of supportingstudents, particularly those who have difficulty with language acquisition,”Whittaker noted.

HETS Executive Director Yubelkys Montalvo


Not Much Digital Divide at LehmanDigital divide refers to the fact that a larger number of minorities don’t

have access to the Internet and computers at home, and that creates prob-lems for doing research when studying at a college. The FederalCommunications Commission in 2010 reported that only 45 percent ofLatinos have access to broadband at home compared to 52 percent ofAfrican-Americans and 65 percent of Whites. Despite those numbers,Whittaker said surveys at Lehman reveal that 96 percent of Latino studentshave broadband access. Latinos constitute about two-thirds of Lehman’s stu-dent population, Whittaker said, so there’s little digital divide at that college.

Whittaker sees HETS “as a clearinghouse. It’s about sharing of informa-tion and collaboration between colleges,” he said. He reads articles aboutbest practices in teaching online learning in the journal on the HETS website.

“We’re in the business of teaching. They help us with determiningwhat’s the best way to teach something,” he said. Teaching critical thinkingskills, a key attribute at a time when media are so dominant, has also beenfurthered by HETS.

HETS Teaching Technology at UT-BrownsvilleWhen UT-Brownsville became a founding member of HETS in 1993, it

wanted to be in the forefront of “interconnecting institutions via satellite,”explained René Sainz, assistant director of online learning at UT-Brownsville, and involved with HETS since it launched. Of course, satellitelearning morphed into online learning, and UT-Brownsville continues to beactively involved with HETS.

HETS was ahead of the curve since it focused on two factors: usingtechnology for pedagogical purposes and concentrating on Hispanicsinvolved in this kind of learning, Sainz suggested. Because of its relation-ship with HETS, “We’ve learned best practices in distance education basedon videoconferencing.”

Latinos dominate UT-Brownsville. Sainz says that about 95 percent of its15,000 undergraduate and graduate students are Latino. And the numberof students studying online has been steadily increasing now that 17 per-

cent of all classes are delivered via online. Just as at Lehman College, thedigital divide hasn’t been affecting most Latino students on the UT campus.About 85 percent of Latinos surveyed own their own computer. The minor-ity of students who don’t own a computer can use one of the many laptopsor PCs available at computer labs, kiosks and libraries on campus.

UT-Brownsville earned a $750,000 U.S. Department of EducationMinority Science and Engineering Improvement grant in October 2011 toboost the number of students graduating in STEM areas. The grant willenable it to create a summer bridge program to prepare students to suc-ceed in engineering. HETS training could also help in this area.

Though all students may need help making the most of online learning,Sainz, who was born in Mexico City, said that cultural issues can affectLatino students learning online. Latinos are “people-centered. We want toestablish a personal relationship when we speak to somebody else.Technology doesn’t often allow for that.” Hence the faculty is trained inhow to develop personal relationships during online classes.

HETS knows its audience, Sainz suggests. One of its portals was called avirtual plaza. Sainz said that plazas are usually the city center in manyHispanic cities and known as a meeting place where people gather. So ifLatinos could congregate in a plaza, they could also come together online.

When UT-Brownsville students attend a HETS conference, it can have avery powerful impact on them. HETS’ conferences “provide a role modelfor our students. They help students to see successful Hispanic profession-als and communicators,” Sainz noted.

Ultimately, Sainz sees technology as another tool to reach Latino stu-dents and as a way to boost graduate rates and achievement levels. “Theobstacles and challenges online are the same as face-to-face,” he said. Butif students can listen to lectures via videocapturing, return to view lecturesonline, converse with other students on online discussion boards, it canimprove their performance.

Sainz sees HETS continuing to adapt to technology in the future. Soonclasses may be delivered on smartphones and iPads, and HETS will bethere to train faculty to use these devices.

High Tech – from the beginning ...2500 BC

TheMesopota-mian

Sumerianabacus isinvented.

1440Gutenberginvents themovable typeprintingpress.

1613The first useof the word computer,which meantsomeonewho com-piled andanalyzeddata.

1792ClaudeChappe

invents theoptical telegraphusing fiberoptic tech-nology.

1890Punch cardswere usedfor the firsttime to

compile theUnited StatesCensusReport.

1925John LogieBaird heldthe first pub-lic demon-stration ofthe first televisionshow.

1936In GermanyKonrad Zusecreates oneof the firstbinary digital computers.

1943The

Colossuscomputer isborn and isused by theBritish toread

encryptedGerman messages.

1950The first UNIVAC

computer isdelivered tothe UnitedStates

Government.

1971Intel inventsits first Intelprocessor.

1975The firstportable

computer ismade by

IBM. It is the5100 andweighs 55pounds.

1976Steve

Wozniakdesigns thefirst Applecomputer.

1982The Internetlaunches.

1983Cell phonesgo on thecommercialmarket.

1984Dell

Computer isfounded byMichael Dellin Austin,Texas.

1992AmericaOnline

creates anemail gate-way for itssubscribers.

1996The first

public HDTVbroadcastwas carriedin the United

States.

1998Larry Pageand SergeyBrin unveilGoogle.

2001Apple

markets itsfirst iPod.

2004Facebookunleashes anew wave of

socialmedia.

2006Twitter

tweets forthe firsttime.

2007Apple intro-duces theiPhone,

while Googlelaunches itsAndroidoperatingsystem.

2008Apple’s AppStore opensas well asGoogle’sAndroidMarket.

2010Apple

launches the iPad.

HHIIGGHH SSCCHHOOOOLL FFOORRUUMM

Hispanic High School StudentsLured into STEM Careers

by Mary Ann Cooper

With all the talk about a lack of jobs in themarketplace, very little is being writtenabout the glut of job openings in the sci-

ence, technology, engineering and math fields(STEM). But according to industry analysts,more than three million available STEM jobs inthe United States are not being filled becausethere is a lack of qualified applicants to takethose jobs. Organizations such as the Society ofHispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) say thatthese jobs could be filled by Hispanics – with anappropriate associate degree.

SHPE was founded in Los Angeles, Calif., in1974 by a group of engineers employed by thecity of Los Angeles. Their objective was to form anational organization of professional engineersto serve as role models in the Hispanic commu-nity. It has grown to become an independent net-work of professional and student chaptersthroughout the United States. These chaptershave mentoring programs, scholarships and sci-ence-related events for students and their fami-lies. One of the programs it has created is an adcampaign called For Inspiration and Recognitionof Science and Technology (FIRST) featuringcelebrities promoting science as an attractiveprofession for Hispanics to enter.

Getting the word out to Hispanic high schoolstudents about how attractive the STEM job mar-ket is makes great economic sense for these stu-dents, beyond just finding gainful employment.According to a report released by theGeorgetown University Center on Education andthe Workforce, 65 percent of bachelor’s degreesin STEM occupations earn more than master’sdegrees in non-STEM occupations. Similarly, 47percent of bachelor’s degrees in STEM occupa-tions earn more than Ph.D.s in non-STEM occu-pations. Furthermore, even people with onlySTEM certificates can earn more than peoplewith non-STEM degrees; for instance, certificateholders in engineering earn more than associatedegree holders in business and more than bach-elor’s degree holders in education.

For women and minorities, STEM is a goodnews/bad news story. Women and minorities areunderrepresented in STEM. But for those who

do persist, the pay gap in STEM between womenor minorities and White men is smaller.

More than two-thirds of associate degreeholders in STEM make more than the average forall associate degree holders. STEM training paysmore – even if you don’t work in a STEM occupa-tion. Workers majoring in STEM in college earnmore than all other majors over their lifetimes,even if they work in non-STEM occupations.

So, with all the economic advantages and theprospect of fast-tracking into a career withample employment possibilities, why aren’tmore students, Hispanics in particular, optingfor STEM training?

The University of Sciences in Philadelphiacites the following statistics about the studentmindset that stands in the way of choosing STEMcareers. In a survey of 604 high school-age stu-dents, conducted on behalf of the university byHarris Interactive, 45 percent of 13- to 18-year-olds surveyed said they are not consideringentering the field of health care or science. Oneof the reasons these students expressed for theirdisinterest was that they felt they did not knowenough about the field of health care or science(22 percent). Another, cited by 21 percent, wasthat students felt “intimidated” by sciencecareers because they didn’t feel that they were“good at” science. A third reason, expressed by19 percent – they felt unprepared in high schoolto study these subjects in college. And 12 per-cent thought that the subject matter would betoo difficult for them to master.

There is good reason for many Hispanics tobe wary of STEM careers. The root cause of theirtrepidation could be a lack of confidence.

There is consensus in the academic commu-nity that challenges in academic achievementamong Hispanic high school students must beaddressed in order to increase interest by thesestudents in STEM careers. First and foremost,Hispanic high school dropout rates have to bedramatically lowered. Nearly 40 percent ofHispanics 20 years old or older don’t have a highschool diploma. In 2008 alone, upwards of 20percent of Hispanic males dropped out of highschool. A poor mastery of English is a strong

influence on the decision to drop out, but theneed to make money to support their families isan even more compelling reason to quit school.

Persuading potential dropouts to “hang inthere” and complete their high school educa-tion, with an eye on the prize of a lucrative STEMcareer, is a tough sell. This is particularly truebecause at-risk students traditionally have poormath and science skills. The challenge is to tar-get these students and work with them toimprove not only their reading skills, but theirmath and science skills. An advantage in thisarea could sway students to persevere when theyreach an education crossroad – whether to stayin school or drop out. This approach may bemost effective for ESL students, since math skillshave fewer language barrier issues than otheracademic subjects, once basic principles aremastered.

Another obstacle to Hispanics choosing aSTEM career is the “geek” factor. Many studentsdon’t see STEM careers as exciting or interestingdespite the financial rewards. They think there isnothing “cool” about wearing a white lab coat.SHPE is working to infuse some enthusiasmamong Hispanic students for STEM careers. Itsevents such as Family Science Nights (Noches DeCiencias) are designed to inform K-12 studentsand family members about the possibilities ofSTEM careers. Students and families are invitedto participate in these events across the U.S.Everyone learns more about study and careers inthe science, technology, engineering and mathfields. Attendees receive information aboutscholarships and preparation for colleges andtake part in grade-appropriate activities. Parentsmay participate in bilingual workshops on thefinancial aid process and college choices.

Every year, SHPE sends teams to the NationalScience Bowl competition, where teams competewith their peers across the United States. Thewinning teams attend the National Science Bowlin D.C.

SHPE also sponsors an annual conferencethat brings together educators, students, andleaders in government and industry. The pur-pose of this summit is to advance scientific and


technical education, career paths, and life goalsfor a variety of Hispanic and Latino studentsacross the United States. This annual conferenceis an opportunity for Hispanic and Latino highschool students who are focused on careers intechnological fields to see what college is allabout, prepare for SATs, learn how to writeeffective essays, and obtain a wider view of thejobs available in the technical fields. High-profilegovernment agencies, such as NASA and theDepartment of Energy, participate in this confer-ence. Representatives of these and other agen-cies and companies attend this conference tospeak directly to students aspiring to work inscientific and technical fields and study at col-leges and universities across the U.S.

The SHPE Foundation also hosts a TeacherProgram during the conference at which 100middle and high school science and math teach-

ers who teach in predominantly Hispanic-servingschools are apprised of opportunities for theirmost talented students. During the conference,high school seniors participate in seminarswhere they take a closer look at the collegeapplication process and learn about scholarshipopportunities. Graduate students learn how toimprove their résumés and are given anoverview of internship opportunities. Deans ofcolleges and universities discuss matters affect-ing science, technology, engineering and mathe-matics students at the college and graduate level.

In the area of financial aid, the Science,Mathematics And Research for Transformation(SMART) Scholarship for Service Program hasbeen established by the Department of Defense(DoD) to support undergraduate and graduatestudents pursuing degrees in STEM disciplines.The program aims to increase the number of

civilian scientists and engineers working at DoDlaboratories. It provides a full scholarship andpaid internship at the DoD. After receiving theirdegrees, students are required to work for theDoD a year for every academic year theyreceived scholarship monies from SMART.

The National Science Foundation seeks toencourage talented science, technology, engi-neering, and mathematics majors and profes-sionals to become K-12 mathematics and sci-ence teachers. Toward this end, it offers theRobert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. TheNoyce Scholarship Track provides funds to insti-tutions of higher education to support scholar-ships, stipends, and academic programs forundergraduate STEM majors and post-baccalau-reate students holding STEM degrees that earn ateaching credential and commit to teaching inhigh-need K-12 school districts.


Theory into PracticeTheory into Practice

Getting Hispanic teens interested in pursuing careers in STEM careers takes a concentrated effort by parents and teachers. Here are some suggestionsfrom the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities report Overview of Hispanics in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology: K-16Representation, Preparation and Participation.

1. It’s Never Too Early to Start – Students should be exposed to information about STEM careers at an early age. Most never consider a STEM careerbecause it seems foreign and strange to them. Students should be encouraged as early as elementary school to explore math and science as viable forcareer options. Make math and science relatable to the lives of the students in your charge. Many students ignore STEM careers because they think thesecareers are boring and not fulfilling. Science and math fairs challenge the imagination of students. Remember the excitement at the White House when astudent at a science fair there demonstrated a cannon that shot marshmallows?

2. Level the Playing Field – Another barrier to Hispanics pursuing STEM careers is the achievement gap in math and science between Hispanic andnon-Hispanic students. The development of preschool programs promoting math and science helps Hispanics remain on par with their non-Hispanicpeers. According to the report, “Participation and success in mathematics and science in middle school leads to participation and success in mathemat-ics and science in high school. The key to increasing the number of STEM majors and graduates at the undergraduate level is to increase the overallmathematics and science competencies among all high school students, particularly Hispanics and African-Americans.”

3. Change Negative Influences – Unless family and peer members are positive influences when it comes to STEM careers, a student will be more reluc-tant to choose them. The job of teachers and counselors is to reach out to family members and educate them about all the opportunities and possibilitiesthat exist in math and science fields. This could be accomplished by involving family in student science projects. Also, students often choose a majorbased on the number of peers in that field. There is strength in numbers.

4. Look to Community Colleges for Help – A great partnership between high schools and community colleges can lay the groundwork for studentinterest in STEM degrees or certificates. It’s not only a case of creating programs for these students, it is also linking them with Hispanic faculty membersand undergraduate students in the science and math disciplines who can perform the duties of mentoring and explaining these fields to interested stu-dents. The study explains, “One means of initiating those connections is by establishing a series of brown bag seminars, lectures or presentations byresearch faculty (minority and non-minority) where several classes during a specific time period would be required to attend.”

5. Show Them the Money – Financial considerations are always factors in the minds of students and families as they chart higher education goals.Counselors should begin conversations about funding a college education early in the high school experience. There are a variety of scholarships avail-able for students pursuing a STEM career. When President Obama won the Nobel Prize in late 2009, he donated his $1.4 million winnings to 10 charities.The $125,000 donated to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund was divided into 24 $5,000 scholarships for Hispanic students studying STEM-related fields.There is a new emphasis on encouraging STEM careers through scholarships and grants programs. Students and their families should be aware of themlong before higher education planning begins.

Hispanic Bachelor’s DegreeAttainment Increases 80 Percent,Census Bureau Reports

WASHINGTON, D.C.

In March 2011, for the first time ever,more than 30 percent of U.S. adults 25 andolder had at least a bachelor’s degree, theU.S. Census Bureau reported in February. Asrecently as 1998, fewer than one-quarter ofpeople this age had this level of education.

From 2001 to 2011, the number ofHispanics with a bachelor’s or higher educa-tional degree increased 80 percent from 2.1million to 3.8 million. The percentage ofHispanics with a bachelor’s or higher educa-tional degree increased from 11.1 percent in2001 to 14.1 percent in 2011. Overall, theincrease in the proportion of the populationwith a bachelor’s degree or higher wentfrom 26.2 percent to 30.4 percent.

“This is an important milestone in ourhistory,” Census Bureau Director RobertGroves said. “For many people, education isa sure path to a prosperous life. The more

education people have the more likely theyare to have a job and earn more money,particularly for individuals who hold abachelor’s degree.”

This information comes from EducationalAttainment in the United States: 2011, acollection of national-level tables from theCurrent Population Survey Annual Social andEconomic Supplement (CPS ASEC). Thesetables present statistics on the levels of educa-tion achieved by various demographic char-acteristics, as well as changes over time.Historical tables go back to the late 1940s,when the CPS first began collecting data onattainment. This table package is one of fiveeducation-related statistical products releasedin February. Here are the other four:• Educational Attainment in the UnitedStates: 2009, a report that shows themonthly employment rates by educationalattainment from January 2008 to December2010, along with other information on edu-cation from the American CommunitySurvey (ACS), the Current Population SurveyAnnual Social and Economic Supplement(CPS ASEC) and the monthly Current

Population Survey• Field of Bachelor’s Degree in theUnited States: 2009, the first report toexamine results from the ACS question thatasked respondents who held a bachelor’sdegree or above to indicate their major; thequestion was added to the ACS in 2009• What It’s Worth: Field of Training andEconomic Status in 2009, a report thatexamines the relationship between educa-tional attainment, fields of study, and even-tual occupation and earnings; the statisticswere collected between January and April2009 from the Survey of Income andProgram Participation• Measurement of High SchoolEquivalency Credentials in Census BureauSurveys working paper

People with a bachelor’s degree hadlower rates of unemployment than thosewith less education in every month fromJanuary 2008 to December 2010. This peri-od included all but one month of the recentrecession, which began in December 2007and ended in June 2009.

Pew Hispanic Center: IntermarriageRates Highest Among Hispanics andAsians

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Marriage across racial and ethnic linescontinues to be on the rise in the UnitedStates, according to a recent report by thePew Research Center’s Pew Social &Demographic Trends project. The share ofnew marriages between spouses of a differentrace or ethnicity increased to 15.1 percent in

2010, and the share of all current marriagesthat are either interracial or interethnic hasreached an all-time high of 8.4 percent.

According to the report, intermarriagerates are highest among Hispanics andAsians. In 2010, more than a quarter (26percent) of Hispanic newlyweds and 28 per-cent of Asian newlyweds married someoneof a different race or ethnicity, or “marriedout.” By contrast, about one in six (17 per-cent) newlywed Black non-Hispanics mar-ried non-Blacks, and less than one in 10White non-Hispanics (9 percent) married

someone who is not White, the lowestamong all groups. Whites are by far thelargest racial group in the United States,meaning that marriages between Whites andminority groups are the most common typesof intermarriage.

The report, The Rise of Intermarriage:Rates, Characteristics Vary by Race andGender, authored by Wendy Wang, researchassociate, Pew Social & DemographicTrends, is available at the Pew Social &Demographic Trend’s website, www.pewso-cialtrends.org.

The Hispanic Outlook In Higher Education www.hispanicoutlook.com April 23, 2012


What Happens to Borrowers WhoDrop Out?

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The stories of college graduates burdenedwith mountains of debt and poor job prospectshave been well documented in this recessionyear. But while these students do face realproblems in today’s tough economy, theirdegree will still likely prove to be a wise invest-ment even as the recession draws to a close.

This isn’t the case for another group ofborrowers who may have bigger financialproblems, even if the economy rebounds.What is happening to borrowers who didnot graduate, but still have loans to repay?

In Degreeless in Debt: What Happens to

Borrowers Who Drop Out, EducationSector Research Assistant Mary Nguyentakes a look at an often overlooked group:students who took out large loans but failedto complete a college degree.

Their prospects are bleak. “Many ofthose who drop out are saddled with highloan payments even as they are more likelyto be unemployed and earn less than theirdegree-holding peers,” Nguyen notes.“When they default, as many do, they expe-rience devastating financial consequences.”

Nguyen found several disturbing trends:• Student borrowing has increased to thepoint that a majority of freshmen at all insti-tutions now borrow to pay for their educa-tion; borrowing has grown the most at for-profit institutions; this is especially signifi-

cant because for-profit institutions enrolljust 9 percent of all college students• While borrowing is on the rise, dropoutrates among borrowers are also increasingacross all institution sectors; for-profit,four-year institutions, however, have thehighest dropout rate among borrowers; in2009, 54 percent of borrowers in theseinstitutions dropped out, an increase of 20percentage points from 2001, when therate was 34 percent• Borrowers who drop out face higherunemployment rates, lower medianincomes, and higher loan default rates thanthose who graduated

Degreeless in Debt is part of a largerbody of work by Education Sector analystsfocusing on the issue of college affordability.

Excelencia in Education LaunchesNew Project to Help EmployersLook for Latino Degree Holders

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Excelencia in Education has unveiled anew project to help employers look forrecent Latino degree recipients in key sec-tors. Called, Finding Your Workforce, theproject launched in March with the releaseof an analysis of the top 25 institutions grad-uating Latinos. During the coming months,the project will include a series of releasesrevealing and analyzing the top 25 institu-tions enrolling Latinos overall and in keysectors, such as health, science, technology,engineering, math, business, education andliberal arts.

“Corporate leaders have expressed boththeir desire to hire more Latinos and theirfrustration at not knowing where to find

Latinos with the necessary educational cre-dentials in their sectors,” said Sarita Brown,president of Excelencia in Education.“Therefore, we are using our unique analyt-ical focus to provide practical informationto address this need and make the directconnection between Latino college comple-tion and America’s future workforce.”

“Business leaders know that America’sworkforce cannot be competitive in thefuture without a significant influx of Latinoswho have the educational credentials neces-sary for the jobs of tomorrow,” said EmilyStover DeRocco, president of theManufacturing Institute. “Excelencia is giv-ing us practical information so we can meetthat need.”

The recent analysis points to some inter-esting conclusions:• For-profit institutions are well represent-ed among schools graduating Latinos withcertificates

• Nearly all top 25 schools at the bachelor’sdegree level are public colleges or universities• Latino graduates earning master’sdegrees come nearly evenly from privatenonprofit and public colleges• Private universities are well representedamong schools graduating Latinos with theirfirst professional degree, but Latinos earndoctoral degrees disproportionately at pub-lic universities

“This analysis literally points recruitersto where they can find Latino degree hold-ers for their workforce,” said Sarita Brown,president of Excelencia.

Finding Your Workforce is a project ofExcelencia’s national initiative calledEnsuring America’s Future by IncreasingLatino College Completion, which bringstogether federal, state, institutional andcommunity leaders to develop and providespecific tools and information to acceleratedegree attainment among Latinos.

The Hispanic Outlook In Higher Education www.hispanicoutlook.com April 23, 2012



CSU Dominguez Hills NamesTorrecilha New Provost

California State University-DominguezHills President Mildred García recentlyannounced the selec-tion of RamónTorrecilha as the uni-versity’s provost andvice president for aca-demic affairs. He willoversee all academic-related divisions, pro-grams and activities,including recruitmentand retention of faculty. “Dr. Torrecilha bringswith him a wealth of experience and a strongtrack record of working collaboratively acrossdivisions and in the external community todevelop innovative programs that benefit stu-dents,” said García. Torrecilha has bachelor’sand master’s degrees in sociology fromPortland State University and a Ph.D. in sociol-ogy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Rodrigues Saturn ReceivesPrestigious NSF Career Award

An Oregon State University neuropsycholo-gist has received a prestigious National ScienceFoundation CAREERAward designed to sup-port emerging influen-tial scholars andeducators. SarinaRodrigues Saturn, anassistant professor ofpsychology, will use thefunding to investigatehow naturally occur-ring variations in the oxytocin hormone (alsoknown as the “love hormone”) influence theexperience and expression of uplifting emo-tional states and altruism in young children,young adults and older adults. The CAREERaward is the NSF’s most prestigious award fornew faculty members, designed to recognizeand support the early career-developmentactivities of the academic leaders of the future.Rodrigues Saturn has a doctoral degree fromNew York University and conducted postdoc-toral research at the University of California-Berkeley.

LISTA and LatinoHIT HonorGonzález with “Lifetime AchieverAward”

Latinos in Information Sciences andTechnology Association (LISTA) and theNational Latino Allianceon Health Informa-tion Technology haveannounced that therecipient of their 2011Government BeaconLifetime AchievementAward is Rep. CharlesGonzález of Texas. Theaward recognizes agovernment official who has gone above andbeyond to represent his community. Gonzálezis currently in his seventh term in the UnitedStates Congress as the representative from the20th Congressional District of Texas. He nowserves on the House Committees on Energyand Commerce and House Administrationand is the chairman of the CongressionalHispanic Caucus.

López Receives MalaveOutstanding Student Leader Award

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein of the CityUniversity of New York (CUNY) recentlypresented the inaugur-al Ernesto MalaveOutstanding StudentLeader Award toLiliete López, HostosCommunity Collegeclass of 2010 andpresently at QueensCollege majoring inpolitical science andurban studies. The ceremony took placeduring the New York State Association ofBlack, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and AsianLegislators Annual Conference held inAlbany. The Ernesto Malave Award is namedafter the former CUNY vice chancellor forbudget and finance. The award recognizes astudent leader who inspired others by theiractions. López, who has been legally blindsince she was nine months old, emigratedfrom Nicaragua when she was 13. She couldspeak Spanish but could not read or write.Yet she went on to graduate from Hostoswith a 3.8 GPA.

Sotomayor Attends Jurist-in-Residence Program at Hawaii-Manoa

U.S. Supreme Court Justice SoniaSotomayor took part in a jurist-in-residenceprogram at the WilliamS. Richardson Schoolof Law at the Universityof Hawaii-Manoa inlate January/earlyFebruary. During hervisit to the law school,Sotomayor taughtclasses, judged a MootCourt practice and metwith faculty and students. She also was a guestat an event for the Hawaii Bar and guest ofhonor at a breakfast with Hawaii WomenLawyers and the Hawaii Women’s LegalFoundation.

National Hispanic UniversityHonors Villaraigosa

The National Hispanic University (NHU)honored Los Angeles, Calif., Mayor Antonio R.Villaraigosa during its30th anniversary cele-bration event inFebruary. Villaraigosawas the keynote speak-er, addressing stu-dents, faculty, alumniand members ofthe community. NHUPresident Dr. David P.López presented the mayor with an honorarydoctoral degree in recognition of his com-mitment to education and for his involvementin improving access to education on behalfof the Hispanic community. “MayorVillaraigosa is a reform-minded leader inurban education and a champion for qualityeducation,” said López.

HHIISSPPAANNIICCSS OONN TTHHEE MMOOVVEEHHIISSPPAANNIICCSS OONN TTHHEE MMOOVVEE


Inthis tough economy, it’s hard enoughto land any job, let alone a dreamjob. But the author of this self-help

book believes that job seekers can aim highand be happily and gainfully employed by fol-lowing his example and the system he’sdeveloped.

When he was only 21 years old, PeteLeibman fulfilled his lifelong ambition ofworking in the front office of the NBA’sWashington Wizards. He went on to be theirNo. 1 salesperson for three straight seasons and was promoted tomanagement in under two years. In I Got My Dream Job and So CanYou, Leibman shares what he did to achieve this success and land hisdream job.

The book is filled with success stories of other young professionalswho have used Leibman’s methods. It’s a guide that includes creativestrategies for leveraging social media in the job search process. Liebmanthen offers job seekers tips on how to quickly move up the corporate lad-der once they get their foot in the door with an entry-level job.

The author says he combines creative tips on traditional job-huntingtools and tactics with little-known secrets for advancing a career throughsocial media and innovative online resources. He uses the acronymS.I.M.P.L.E. to describe this process. S stands for Start – the idea that jobhunters shouldn’t make any excuses or delay the job search even if theydon’t know what exactly they are looking for. I stands for Identify. The ideais to identify your passions, talents and values and apply to them to a long-term career goal. Makeover is the M in S.I.M.P.L.E., and it stands for theMakeover that needs to happen once job seekers do an honest assessmentof their assets and liabilities in terms of their talent, appearance, and pub-lic profile. Plan (P) refers to the strategy a job seeker should employ interms of using social networks, attending networking events, and findingways to target and distribute résumés. Look (L) for experts and influentialpeople to help get a foot in the door. Execute (E) a perfect interview byanticipating the questions and avoiding what the author calls the six deadlyinterview sins.

The author’s book is a grooming guide of sorts for job seekers. Thekey, he says is being professional. It’s not only the way a job seeker acts,it’s a highly developed mindset. The book includes Q&A’s addressingcommon job-seeker concerns and Leibman Life Lessons. Theauthor believes that job seekers in any economic envi-ronment can not only get a job, they can get thejob they want if they follow his lead.

Reviewed by Mary Ann Cooper

I Got My Dream Job and So Can Youby Pete LeibmanAmacom Books. www.amacombooks.org. $15.95 paper. 256 pages.ISBN: 978-0-8144-2020-1.

IInntteerreessttiinngg RReeaaddss

Halls of IvyBy Roland Núñez

Three students commit suicide and nothing seems toexplain their actions. University administrators are baffled.The novel’s fast pace and detail of college life provide alook at the inner workings of the modern American uni-versity and the struggles students face to earn a degree.

2011. 286 pgs. ISBN: 978-1466284432. $10.99 paper.CreateSpace, (206) 266-7180. www.Createspace.com.

Lou: From Brooklyn to BroadwayBy Patricia A. Watkins

When Lou Agnese was hired as the eighth president ofIncarnate Word College in 1985, he was one of the youngestuniversity presidents in the United States. At 33, theBrooklyn native faced the daunting challenge of reviving aninstitution with a shrinking enrollment and an uncertainfuture whose student demographics were out of step with

San Antonio.2011. 232 pgs. ISBN: 978-1893271609. $26.95 paper. Maverick

Publishing, (210) 828-5777. www.maverickpub.com.

Narrowing the Achievement GapEdited by Thomas B. Timar and Julie Maxwell-Jolly

Closing persistent gaps in educational outcomes betweendifferent groups of students has been a central goal of edu-cation policy for the past 40 years. The commitment to closeexisting achievement gaps poses an unprecedented chal-lenge to policy makers, school leaders, and teachers alike,since the causes of those gaps are multiple and complex.

2012. 336 pgs. ISBN: 978-1612501239. $29.95 paper. HarvardEducation Press, (617) 495-3432. www.hepg.org.

Trans-AmericanityBy José David Saldívar

A founder of U.S.-Mexico border studies, José DavidSaldívar is a leading figure in efforts to expand the scope ofAmerican studies. In Trans-Americanity, he advances thatcritical project by arguing for a transnational, antinational,and “outernational” paradigm for American studies.

2011. 304 pgs. ISBN: 978-0822350835. $23.95 paper.Duke University Press Books, (919) 688-5134. www.dukeupress.edu.


Founded in 1956, the University of South Florida is a public research universityof growing national distinction. The USF System is comprised of memberinstitutions; USF Tampa, the doctoral granting institution which includes USF

Health; USF St. Petersburg; USF Sarasota-Manatee; USF Polytechnic, located inLakeland, separately accredited by the Commission Colleges of the SouthernAssociation of Colleges and Schools (SACS). USF is one of only four Florida publicuniversities classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching inthe top tier of research universities. More than 47,000 students are studying on USFcampuses and the University offers 228 degree programs at the undergraduate,graduate, specialty and doctoral levels, including the doctor of medicine. USF is amember of the Big East Athletic Conference. And, USF is listed in the PrincetonReview as one of the nation's 50 "Best Value" public colleges and universities.

The university is currently recruiting for the following positions; the number inparentheses represents the number of positions available to that specific title:

Administrative Positions:Director of Parking Service

Director of Counseling Center

Director of Housing Facilities (Student Affairs)

Assitant Vice President Student Services (COM)

Director of Engineering Operations (Public Broadcasting)

Director of Human Resources/Payroll

Faculty Positions:

College of Arts and Sciences Engineering

Assistant Professor (1) Assistant Professor (4)

Chair, Associate/Full Professor (1)

College of Arts Business

Dean (1) Assistant/Associate Professor (1)

St. Petersburg Campus Sarasota

Assistant/Associate/Full Professor (1) Assistant Professor (1)

Division of Administration Pharmacy

Assistant/Associate Professor (1) Assistant/Associate Professor (1)

Director (1)

College of Medicine College of NursingAssistant Professor (12) Nursing Faculty (2)

Assistant/Associate Professor (2) Associate to Full (1)

Assistant/Associate/Full Professor (1) Assistant/Associate Professor (1)

For a job description on the above listed positions including department,

disciple and deadline dates: (1) visit our Careers@USF Web site at

https://employment.usf.edu/applicants/jsp/shared/Welcome_css.jsp; or

(2) contact TheOffice of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, (813) 974-4373; or

(3) callUSF job line at 813.974.2879.

USF is an equal opportunity/equal access/affirmative action institution,

committed to excellence through diversity in education and employment.

www.usf.edu • 4202 E. Fowler Ave,Tampa, FL 33620


DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERINGUNIVERSITY OFWISCONSIN-MADISON

The University of Wisconsin-Madison invites applications and nominations for the position of dean of itsCollege of Engineering. UW-Madison is a major land-grant university committed to excellence in teaching,research and public service, with revenues of $2.7 billion, a student body of approximately 42,000 andfaculty/staff of approximately 18,000.

The College of Engineering currently offers research programs as well as graduate, undergraduate, andoutreach instruction in a wide range of fields organized through nine academic departments: biomedicalengineering, chemical and biological engineering, civil and environmental engineering, electrical andcomputer engineering, engineering physics, engineering professional development, industrial and systemsengineering, materials science and engineering, and mechanical engineering, five interdisciplinary degreeprograms: environmental chemistry and technology, geological engineering, manufacturing systemsengineering, materials science, and limnology and marine science, as well as a number of certificateprograms, professional master’s degrees, and thriving continuing education and lifelong learning programs.The college enrolls approximately 1500 graduate and 3800 undergraduate students. More comprehensiveinformation about the college and the university can be found on the following websites:

http://www.engr.wisc.edu http://www.wisc.edu

The college has a total annual budget of $160 million with over $100 million in annual extramural researchsupport, and ~200 faculty, 1100 research and support staff, 1500 graduate assistants, and 500 undergraduateemployees. The dean is the chief academic and executive officer of the college, with responsibility for personnel,curriculum, academic affairs, research, budget, fund raising, community relations, and physical facilities.

Interdisciplinarity is a strength of the UW-Madison campus, and the College of Engineering has extensiveresearch and teaching collaborations with other outstanding schools and colleges including the schools ofbusiness, education, and medicine and public health, the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, and manyphysical and life science departments in the College of Letters and Science. The College of Engineering alsohas strong connections to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), which facilitates thepatenting of research discoveries and licensing of technologies.

Candidates will be evaluated on the following professional and personal characteristics: a record of successfulvisionary and collaborative leadership; a comprehensive appreciation of the complex issues in the fields ofengineering; a demonstrated commitment to advance the quality of undergraduate and graduate instruction,research, technology transfer, and public service; strong management, communication and fund-raising skillsand success including a talent for identifying and supporting entrepreneurial opportunities; commitment andability to work with faculty, staff and students within one of the strongest shared governance environments inthe United States; an understanding and appreciation of the diverse missions and constituencies of a majorpublic research university; proven ability to build interdisciplinary coalitions and engage diverse constituenciesto advance the college; a commitment to the diversity of students, faculty and staff, and to advancing aninclusive diverse climate that stimulates excellence; experience with governmental agencies, industry andphilanthropic foundations; the ability to represent the college and university effectively in educational,governmental, business, alumni, and public forums; and a record of scholarship and teaching that qualifies thecandidate for a tenured appointment at the rank of full professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Electronic applications and nominations must be received by 23 May 2012 to ensure consideration. Laterapplications and nominations may also be considered. The committee encourages applications andnominations of women and individuals from underrepresented groups. Applicants should include a currentcurriculum vitae and a comprehensive cover letter that addresses how their strengths and experience matchthe qualifications for the position, and what they see as challenges and opportunities of the position, as wellas the names, addresses, email addresses, and telephone numbers of five references. Candidates will beconsulted before references are contacted. Please note that in accordance with Wisconsin statutes the namesof nominees and applicants who explicitly request confidentiality will not be made public, although theuniversity is required to release the names and titles of the finalists who will be interviewed by the chancellorand the provost. Submit applications and nominations electronically to the College of Engineering DeanSearch and Screen Committee at:

[email protected]

Questions may be directed to the search committee office at 608-262-1677 or [email protected]

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer.!!"

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Bunker Hill Community College

The CollegeBunker Hill Community College (BHCC), a dynamic institution with more than 13,000 credit students, is the largest community college in Massachusetts. It is also one of the most diverse institutions of higher education in New England, with 63% students of color and international students from more than 95 countries. A multi-campus urban institution, BHCC has locations in Boston and the adjacent city of Chelsea as well as satellites in several nearby communities. Students choose from more than 94 degree and certificate programs as well as Adult Basic Education, an online college and programs offered through the Center for Workforce Development and Community Education. Courses are offered days, evenings, weekends, and at midnight. College GoalsBHCC is a progressive institution guided by seven goals: to create pathways and partnerships to promote student success; to demonstrate strength through diversity; to develop and cultivate college-wide sustainability initiatives; to expand technology throughout the College; to foster wellness, growth and life-long learning; to identify and close workforce gaps; and to institute a culture of evidence and accountability. The College is committed to a learning community teaching/learning environment and, as an Achieving the Dream institution, is focused on data-driven student success.

Reporting to the Vice President of Academic Affairs and Student Services, the Dean is responsible for the administration and leadership of the Division. These responsibilities will include faculty recruitment, evaluation and development, implementation of academic policies, new program and curriculum development, program assessment, establishment and maintenance of articulation and clinical affiliation agreements, budget development, compliance with accreditation bodies and agencies including reports, and maintenance of appropriate standards of admission for all programs in the Division.Required Qualifications:

experience in health care;

professional staff;

and innovative teaching pedagogy;

to teaching;

collaboration among the departments;

Demonstrated commitment to the mission of a community college and student-centered learning environment.

Salary Range: $105,000 – $110,000

www.bhcc.mass.edu

DEAN OF NURSE EDUCATION, MEDICAL IMAGING, RESPIRATORY THERAPY

Bunker Hill Community College is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Women, people of color, persons with disabilities and others are strongly encouraged to apply.

Review Date: Applications will be accepted until position is filled. To ensure consideration, applications must be received by April 26, 2012.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE:Submit cover letter and resume

BHCC.InterviewExchange.com

Expand position then click on “Apply Now” and follow instructions.

250 New Rutherford Avenue, Boston, MA 02129-2925

WESTCHESTER COMMUNITY

COLLEGEFINANCIAL OFFICE

POSITIONDirector of Student Accounts

Oversee payroll, includesBursar responsibilities.

TELECOMMUNICATIONSPOSITION

Senior MaintenanceMechanic I, Information

Technology DivisionTelecomm installation,

relocation, maintenance.

Details at www.sunywcc.edu/jobs.Resumes to Human Resources,

Westchester Community College,75 Grasslands Road, Valhalla, NY

10595; fax 914-606-7838;email Word documents to

[email protected].


Vice President for Instruction &Vice President for Student Support Services

Exciting leadership opportunities exist at a diverse and highly regarded community collegelocated in the heart of the Piedmont Triad! GTCC is the third largest community college inNorth Carolina and offers over 100 programs of study within our academic curriculum. GTCCis accessible to all the great things that High Point, Greensboro and Winston-Salem have tooffer. With three conveniently located campuses, one under construction, an Aviation Centerand a small business center, it’s easy to see that GTCC has a plan for an exciting tomorrow.

• GTCC is an accredited two-year community college serving approximately42,000 curriculum, continuing education & Adult Basic Education students.

• GTCC is one of just four colleges in the nation taking part in a nationalinitiative entitled Completion By Design funded through the Bill & MelindaGates Foundation.

• The college campus locations include: the main campus in Jamestown, theGreensboro Campus, the High Point Campus (home to the Larry GatlinSchool of Entertainment Technology), the Aviation Center at the PiedmontTriad International (PTI) airport, a Small Business Center in Greensboro anda fourth site, the Cameron Campus, is being developed as future home of theNorth Carolina Center for Global Logistics (NCCGL).

From the scenic overlook of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Parkway through theAppalachianMountains to the call of the North Carolina coastline, you’ll have easy access fromJamestown, NC, homestead to GTCC.

GTCC invites applications for the positions of Vice President for Instruction& Vice President for Student Support Services, for additional information

please visit us @ www.gtcc.edu.

JOIN A LEADER!As an Equal Opportunity Employer, GTCC is strongly committed to diversity &welcomes applications from all qualified candidates, particularly minorities and

faculty under-represented in higher education. EOE

SYRACUSE CITY

SCHOOL DISTRICT

Syracuse City School District is accepting applications for anticipatedteaching openings for the 2012/2013 school year in the following areas:

English Language Arts Math (7-12)ESL (K-12) MusicFamily and Consumer Science Special Education (secondary)Literacy

To Apply: 1) Submit cover letter for the specific position for which you areapplying

2) Include updated resume with a current contact number3) Enclose copy of teaching certification4) List at least three references, their titles, and their current

contact information

Please send to: Randolph Williams, Director of Personnel,1025 Erie Blvd., W., Syr, NY 13204

Or deliver in person to: Randolph Williams, Director of Personnel,725 Harrison St., Syr, NY 13210

FAX: (315) 435-4023FOR INFO: (315) 435-4525

IMPORTANT: If you have applied for the 11/12 School Year you neednot re-apply.


22 YEARSSSaavvee tthheessee

ddaatteess& Reserve your space

Use The Hispanic Outlook to promote:

� Faculty/Staff Recruitment� Institutional Advertisement� People, Places, Publications and Conference announcements and acknowledgements

Call Hispanic Outlook advertising representatives at1-800-549-8280, ext. 102 / 106

or e-mail your ads to [email protected]

Covering Hispanic andminority topics

in higher education.ISSUE DATE THEME ISSUE AD DEADLINE

• April 23 April 3

• May 7 Colleges for Hispanics April 17

• May 21 May 1

• June 4 Health Professions Issue May. 15

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• Sept. 3 Aug. 14

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Volume 22 Editorial Index

Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine®P.O. Box 68 • Paramus, NJ 07652

1-800-549-8280

2012

Publication Dates Ad Deadlines

SPECIAL ISSUES Coming your way this Fall

• Colleges for Hispanics May 7Ad Deadline: April 17

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P.O. Box 68 Paramus, NJ 07652-0068

CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

Tothe parents and teachers of woefully scattered Latino adoles-cents who just can’t seem to get it together: help is in sight.Organizational skills require an early start (say, around birth),

time to develop and effort to maintain for any child, but for those whoare challenged because of personal issues like ADHD or pressures athome, more diligence, patience and other strategies are needed.

One can argue that teens should be allowed to live by natural andlogical consequences: if you lose your phone, replace it yourself or gowithout. Forget to turn in your homework? Live with a lowered grade.

For those willing to lend more support for the organizationally chal-lenged Hispanic adolescent to develop self-structure skills, there aresome options.

Latino parents can provide additional support at home to help theirteen stay organized. Parents in some low-income families, familiesundergoing divorce or those experiencing frequently changing situationsat home, though, may not have developed or maintained a routine fortheir children. For Hispanic families whose routines have loosened“because the kids are older,” and appear to be more self-sufficient, rou-tines should be kept anyway.

A basic structure at home is still one key to helping adolescents getand keep it together despite busy schedules, many demands and increas-ing independence. Designated family time and home-based schedulesthat include study time or quiet hours may be met with some sighs, com-plaints or resistance by teenagers, but such structure at home lends sup-port to the middle and high school student who is trying to meet thedemands of school and social life.

For busy Latino homes with many people coming and going, suffi-cient space, routine and quiet are not always easy to come by. Earlychildhood program staff members who work directly with families canhelp parents build and maintain routine and structure to help theiryoung children develop early self-organizational skills. Since school-ageprogram staff typically do not work as closely with parents, the emphasison routine takes a backseat. By high school, few teachers or administra-tors mention the need for structure to parents, but that phase is often

when the parents and teen need helpmost.

If possible, teachers can help theorganizationally challenged Hispanic teen by having duplicate materialsavailable. Allowing a student to have two textbooks – one at home andone at school – can help that high schooler who would otherwise forgetthe materials needed for a homework assignment. Providing a URL thatcan be bookmarked for the student to use to complete a homeworkassignment means that the needed information is a click away.

Teachers using the Internet to load calendars with assignment specificsand ancillary materials are also wise to automatically link or load school-wide deadlines or school closings onto that same calendar. Allowing par-ents access to those school and individual class-based calendars offersthem the opportunity to coordinate events or deadlines from home withschool-provided calendars so the student can see at a glance all theresponsibilities for which he is responsible. Latino parents who are cau-tious about or unable to approach the school can be current on theirteenager’s school activities and demands via the Internet. This reduces thenumber of double-bookings, missed deadlines and last-minute changesthat occur when multiple calendars are managed by a family.

Teaching Hispanic students to book assignments, meetings, deadlines,important family days, and holidays can help them pull together all theaspects of their own lives. Automated tickler reminders on phones orcomputers, alarms, text messages, e-mails or other notifications are goodreminders. Most important, ask the Latino middle or high school studentfor his own suggestions on what would help them get and stay organized.(Of course, this needs to be conveyed as an honest question lest the sensi-tive adolescent takes it as an adult’s sarcastic statement of exasperation.)They may have some techniques that would fit their needs and do the trick.

Whether a Hispanic student is organizationally challenged because ofa chaotic home environment, lack of supervision, basic temperamentand style or ADHD, getting and keeping it together is a lifelong chal-lenge. Learning to keep on top of things does a student good early in lifeand well beyond college.

HELPING DISORGANIZED LATINO STUDENTS PREPAREFOR HIGHER EDUCATION

PPrriimmiinngg tthhee PPuummpp......

Miquela Rivera, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist withyears of clinical, early childhood and consultativeexperience. She lives in Albuquerque, N.M.

This article appearedonline only in the

04/23/12Issue

by Marilyn Gilroy

Community colleges have become key playersin the effort to train a highly skilled anddiverse workforce in STEM fields.

Organizations such as the National ScienceFoundation (NSF), have acknowledged theimportance of the two-year sector by awardingmillions of dollars to community colleges tofund scholarships in STEM areas, especially forunderrepresented students. In addition, the NSFplans to give $100 million to Hispanic-ServingInstitutions (HSIs) for Stem and Articulation

Grants to support transfer between two- andfour-year colleges and to enhance STEM educa-tion at these institutions.

The National Academies, the collective orga-nization that includes the National Academies ofScience and Engineering, the Institute ofMedicine and the National Research Council,also focused on community colleges by sponsor-ing a summit last December in Washington, D.C.,titled “Community Colleges in the Evolving STEM

Education Landscape.” The event featuredspeakers from several government agencies whodiscussed how community colleges can broadentheir STEM programs and minority participationin those fields of study.

“There are many new opportunities for com-munity colleges to advance STEM education andto form strategic cross-institutional partnershipswith four-year schools,” said Jay Labov, senioradvisor for education and communication forthe National Academy of Sciences and the

National Research Council, who was one of theorganizers of the summit.

Community college STEM programs gotanother boost last fall when Department ofLabor Secretary Hilda L. Solís announced that a10-college consortium, led by Anne ArundelCommunity College (AACC) in Maryland, willreceive a $19.7 million grant to provide trainingfor high-demand jobs in science, technology,engineering and math fields.

“We in this country need to encourage ouryoung people to pursue STEM careers,” Solíssaid, calling these jobs vital to economic growthand moving the country forward.

There are several reasons why communitycolleges are seen as an increasingly viable path-way for educating a STEM workforce. The two-year sector has always been noted for its flexibil-ity in developing curricula based on the needs ofemployers and it is doing so now with dozens ofnew science, health and technology programs.

But experts say community colleges also mightbe a partial antidote to the high attrition rate ofSTEM students. Studies show that almost 40 per-cent of STEM students switch majors after the firstyear because of the rigorous curriculum that oftenincludes a concentration of math and sciencecourses. As one analyst said, “The STEM grindwears down even the brightest students.” Thesecourses can be more daunting when first-year sci-ence classes at universities are large lectures,sometimes with as many as 400 students, whereindividuals must “sink or swim” on their own.

In contrast, community college classes aresmaller, often limited to 25 to 40 students. Thisgives students more opportunity to interact withprofessors, participate in “hands on” lab pro-jects, and receive support at tutoring centers.The ability to engage STEM students early intheir studies helps maintain interest and couldlead to increased retention by overcoming “thefear factor” associated with these fields of study.In addition, the diverse student body at mostcommunity colleges is viewed as a more wel-coming environment to minorities and older stu-dents who might seek STEM careers.

STEM Programs Benefiting HispanicStudents

At large and small community collegesacross the nation, programs funded by grantsthat will serve as the new pipeline for Hispanicsand underserved students to access STEMcareers are in place or underway.

INNOVATIONS/PROGRAMS/COMMUNITY COLLEGE


Student from Hillsborough Community College

Community Colleges Growingin STEM Education Benefits

Last year when 10 graduates of theCommunity College of Allegheny County’s (CCAC)Biotechnology Workforce Collaborative inPittsburgh walked across the stage to get theirdegrees, it was the culmination of an initiativethat began in 2009 with a grant of $598,000from the National Science Foundation. The grantwas designed to support the expansion of aneducation and career development program thatoffers local disadvantaged women and veteransthe chance to develop occupational skills in thebiotechnology and health sciences fields.

The college currently enrolls several cohortsof students in the program and expects eightmore graduates this spring.

“The students are at various points in theirstudies, but all look to the day when they cangraduate and begin a rewarding career inbiotechnology,” said Christine Compliment, stu-dent support coordinator for the program. “Formany, this has been their only chance to get aneducation that will allow them to become self-suf-ficient and earn a living wage for their families.”

In addition to CCAC, the collaborative alsoincludes Allegheny General Hospital (AGH), theAllegheny Singer Research Institute (ASRI), thePittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative (PTEI) andthe North Side Leadership Conference. Its goal isto widen the spectrum of available skilled healthcare and biotechnology workers in the region.

The program was originally funded by, andcontinues to receive money from, privatesources in Pittsburgh. The NSF grant has beenused to fund scholarships that cover tuition,fees, books and supplies.

But the program goes beyond scholarshipsand includes support for students who comefrom disadvantaged backgrounds. It offers a six-week bridge program to prepare students forcoursework, followed by a two-semester learningcommunity in which students create study groupsand build friendships with fellow students, facultyand staff. In addition, each student works with amentor through internships in the labs of biotech

companies. CCAC also provides job placementassistance as students prepare to graduate.

Compliment says the learning communityconcept has been a key element in helping thestudents stay engaged and focused.

“The learning community model buildscohesion among the group,” she said. “Theirsupport of each other has been very important inretention.”

College officials say some graduates havegone on to full-time employment, allowing themto leave the public assistance system or a mini-mum wage job. Others have enrolled in bache-lor’s degree programs, continuing their educa-tion toward science or health careers. In gener-al, these students have stories that reflect hardwork, perseverance and a desire to overcomeobstacles when they occur.

Liz (who does not want to use her last name)is typical of the students who are benefiting fromthe program. She is a 30-year-old Hispanicwoman, a single mom to a son, age 7. Liz wasborn and raised in New York but attended highschool in the Dominican Republic. She waslooking for a fresh start when she moved toPittsburgh and enrolled in the biotech programin fall 2011. Although she still works at night tosupport herself and her son, she has earned a

3.25 grade average.As Compliment explains, Liz is motivated by

several factors.“She looks forward to her own career in

research,” said Compliment. “But she also isvery committed to connecting with and helpingother Hispanic women in Pittsburgh, especiallythose who find themselves newly single andneeding to support a family alone.”

Mesalands Community College in NewMexico hopes to have a similar success as itundertakes projects to increase its STEM oppor-tunities for Hispanic and low-income students.Mesalands was one of eight institutions in thestate to receive funding under the U.S.Department of Education’s HSI Science,Technology, Engineering and Mathematics(STEM) program. It was awarded $777,154 forthe first year of a five-year period, which willbring the total funding to $3.8 million.

College officials say the region has beenimpacted by economic distress common to manyrural areas, as is evident by the high rates ofpoverty and unemployment, and low rates ofhigh school graduation and postsecondary edu-cational attainment.

The funds will be used in a variety of ways,including adding more computer and science

0 4 / 2 3 / 2 0 1 2 • H I S P A N I C O U T L O O K

U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solís (pictured l.) on tour at Anne Arundel Community College

ImportanceHispanics

labs, more support staff, more scholarships forstudents, and enhanced multimedia support inthe classroom. The college offers degrees inSTEM-related areas such as wind energy tech-nology, animal science, mathematics, and otherphysical science disciplines.

“Our goal is to assist our students in success-fully completing an associate degree in a relatedSTEM program and to encourage them to furthertheir education at a four-year university,” said

Dr. Mildred Lovato, president of Mesalands.“Overall, this grant will impact not only econom-ic development in our region but throughout theentire state.”

Hillsborough Community College (HCC) inFlorida received a $4.3 million grant to increasethe number of science, technology and mathe-matics courses and to improve its success ratesin gateway STEM courses. The funds are beingused to renovate STEM classrooms and labs atHCC’s Dale Mabry campus. Plans also call forexpansion of STEM support services with theultimate goal of increasing the degree comple-tion rates of Hispanic and at-risk students. Thecollege’s “Learning Commons,” which housesthe tutoring area, also is slated for infrastructureimprovements.

Like many community colleges, Hillsboroughalready has a number of STEM academic pro-grams that will benefit from upgrades andenhancements. HCC student Emilio Sánchez,who is enrolled in engineering technology,

recently appeared in a video spot sponsored bythe American Association of Community Collegesand the National Science Foundation to highlightthe role community colleges are playing in STEMeducation and careers.

Sánchez has served in the Coast Guard for 11years and is preparing for a career when heleaves the military. He recalls that his interest inengineering was sparked when he played withLegos as a kid. Sánchez clearly loves the chal-

lenge of his classes and the projects that are partof course assignments.

“I look at engineering as a puzzle,” he said.“It is always dealing with something that needsto be put together or taken apart and then putback together.”

The video shows Sánchez in a well-equippedlab working on models and being supervisedclosely by his professor. Sánchez explains enthu-siastically that he hopes to have a career inresearch and development.

“Problem-solving never gets tedious to me,”he said. “It’s fun.”

It is an attitude such as Sánchez’s that offi-cials hope will inspire others to follow similarpaths. At Anne Arundel Community College inMaryland, a $598,000 grant from the NationalScience Foundation has been awarded to sup-port the college’s Engineering Scholars Program:Increasing Access and Diversity (ESP Scholars).This program will provide scholarships of up to$4,000 each year to financially needy, academi-

cally talented students to help them graduatefrom AACC engineering programs, transfer to afour-year institution and enter the workforce.About 50 percent of participants will come frompopulations underrepresented in STEM fields,such as including women, African-Americans,Hispanics and Native Americans.

“We are all very excited,” said Dr. AlyciaMarshall, associate professor of mathematics,who will oversee the program. “I hope it’s goingto help people who want to come to AnneArundel Community College, who are gifted andhave the raw material there. We want to be ableto provide the support system to help them besuccessful and get them into a four-year collegeand then into the workforce.”

The college will market the scholarship pro-gram throughout the county including publicand private high schools. They will also recruitfrom the college’s minority summer bridge pro-gram and new student orientation sessions. ESPscholars will have special academic support aswell as workforce placement services and/ortransfer advisement to four-year engineeringdegree programs.

“We’re going to help more and more stu-dents succeed in completing their programs,”said Marshall. “We’re increasing the number ofgraduates who will continue in the engineeringfield, which will benefit the community as well.”

At the same time, Anne Arundel is workingwith its National STEM Consortium partners todevelop one-year certificate programs in fiveindustries: composite materials technology,cyber technology, electric vehicle technology,environmental technology and mechatronics, amultidisciplinary field of engineering rangingfrom electronic engineering to computer andsoftware engineering. The first group of studentsis projected to begin training in September2012, with each new certificate designed to takenine to 12 months to complete.


Hilda Solís (l.) on tour at Anne Arundel Community College

04/23/2012 S.T.E.M

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