Cultural Capital and Constituency Theory

HISTORIA CHICANA13 January 2014

CULTURAL CAPITAL, CONSTITUENCY THEORY, AND THE EPISTEMIC MATTRIXA CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGING HISPANIC CONSTITUENCIES IN HSI’s*

*Hispanic Serving Institutions

Abstract: Presentation of how “cultural capital” and “constituency theory” are criticalconsiderations in the instruction and retention of a diverse mix of students. Alsodiscussion of the presenter’s concept of the “Epistemic Matrix” as a basic factor ofinstruction and retention in that mix. In substance, this text reflects a litany ofdifficulties encountered by Hispanic students in HSI’s which on reflection spur the needfor realistic assessment of these difficulties and their urgent solutions.

By Felipe de Ortego y GascaScholar in Residence (Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Public Policy) Western

New Mexico University

CULTURAL CAPITAL IN THE AGE OF HISPANICITY

What gives rise to this text is the change currently underway atWestern New Mexico University where I’m Scholar in Residence(Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Public Policy). The change isprecipitated by a new President and his assembly of top-tieradministrators. For the most part there is receptivity to thechange initiatives of the President though there are pockets ofskeptics and naysayers among faculty and staff. Student responsesto the change are not yet evident, although the new presidentmaintains an open-door policy for students. This text is notmeant as an excursus or “case study” of the change occurring atWestern New Mexico University but, rather, as personal thoughtsabout managing change in general garnered from my life experienceswith change in various contexts and how they have come to shapethemselves into an epistemic matrix that influences my perceptionsof life and how to deal with the challenges and realities ofchange.

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For example, my background in Academia cuts across a swath ofdisciplines (literature, linguis-tics, history, social work,information studies, urban studies, journalism) and administrativeap-pointments spanning almost 50 years in higher education, notcounting my years as a highs school teacher of French, and myyears as a student— University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas,and the University of New Mexico where I earned the Ph.D. inEnglish (British Renaissance Studies). I’ve held posts as ProgramDirector, Department Chair, Dean, and Vice Chancellor for AcademicDevelopment of a developing institution. Fortuitously, I did post-doctoral study in Management for Higher Education at the HarrimanInstitute, Graduate School of Business at Columbia Univer-sity inthe City of New York.

Prologue: Students are not like a tubful of laundry waiting forany cup of detergent soap, the all-purpose bleach, and the clothessoftener. Just as we sort clothes for washing by color and by typeof fabric (cotton, silk, linen, wool, leather, hemp, jute), weneed to be aware of our students per a battery of considerations Irefer to as the Epistemic Matrix—the basic considerations thatthat influence our induction of information and its process intoknowledge, necessary for individual growth and effective change.In the aggregate the Epistemic Matrix determines the learningstyles of students. That matrix includes: age, gender, ethnicity,class, religion, education, identity, and genetics. These are byno means the only considerations in the matrix. However, for ourpurposes in this presentation, these will suffice.

I’m not suggesting that like laundry we group our students in theclassroom. I am suggesting that as teachers we can deliverinstruction more toxicologically directed to our students bycomprehending them in terms of the considerations inherent in theEpistemic Matrix. In other words, one size of instruction does notfit all students. Every student’s learning style is unique to thatstudent.

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Defining the Terms

Cultural Capital: Let’s consider what “cultural capital” is: Inits “embodied” form, cultural capital is a “competence” or skillthat cannot be separated from its “bearer,” that is, the personwho “holds” it (Bourdieu 241). What this means is that studentscome to universities or colleges with competencies or skills thatare culturally-bound. In effect, these culturally-bound compe-tencies or skills are part of their cultural identities. Wecannot, therefore, deal with Freshmen students as if they are onehomogeneous group. They are an aggregate group of myriad culturalidentities and cultural capital.

Constituency Theory: “Constituency theory” focuses on theconstituencies present in an organization, that is, the people,the stakeholders, rather than the traditional hierarchies oforganizations. Important to bear in mind, however, no matter thesize, all organizational entities reflect constituencies. Arelationship of two, for instance, entails two constituencies. Anentity like a university entails myriad constituencies—more thanjust administration, faculty, staff, and students. For example,female administrators (faculty, staff, and students) constituterespective constituencies, as do females from various racialgroups, age groups, religious groups, ethnic groups, linguisticgroups, et al. The same is true for males of the entity as adistinct constituency.

Constituency Theory draws from the apperception principle ofunderstanding something new in terms of previous experience.Apperceptively, then, institutional hierarchies are important, butthe outcomes of focusing on traditional hierarchies in the processof change can be much like Ein-stein’s definition of insanity:doing the same thing over and over again, expecting differentresults each time. Constituent theory considers first the

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demographic makeup or diversity of the entity in the process ofchange.

The Epistemic Matrix: The demographics include age, gender,education, race, and other elements from the Epistemic Matrix—thisis a matrix of elements that influence our induction of infor-mation and its process into knowledge, necessary for individualgrowth and effective change. The epistemic matrix (theepistemological elements) that in the aggregate determine how eachstudent learns impinges on the learning styles of students. Thatmatrix includes (though not exclusively) age, gender, class,education, religion, ethnicity, identity, genetics, and income.

Growth and effective change call into question time-honoredtraditions or established ways of doing things. Growth andeffective change intrude into comfort zones. They break thehistoric flow or rhythm of workplace processes. The most fearfulaspect of this reappraisal is that it invokes an “uncertaintyprinciple”—feeling uneasy about what growth and effective changeaugur. For many individuals, changing the way things are donedestabilizes the work environment, questioning the cathecticrelationship between those who resist change and the status quo.In effect, for many, change creates emotional fear of the unknown.

Just as resistance to change is predicated by the inherent inertiaof stakeholders, organizational logic also adds resistance tochange. In that organizational logic, historical process trumpsefforts to institute change, no matter how more effective changemay be compared to the historical process. All of the above makeschange a daunting process but not insurmountable. Change can belikened to the process of metamorphosis experienced by acaterpillar. After its pupal stage it emerges as a butterfly oftransmographic design, color, and function.

More often than not, change is a product of vision predicated onthe social parameters of what the French historian and philosopherHippolyte Taine called “moment” and “milieu” and includes four

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pillars of consideration: task (mission), structure (organization),people (workers), and (techno-logy). Moment is a question of timing—is the time right for change? At Western New Mexico Universitythe change of presidents seems like the right moment for changethough there were previous moments that seemed appropriate forchange—more a change of process than a change stemming from areplacement of CEOs. Milieu is a bit harder to ascertain. Aboveall we need to keep in mind that there is a cathectic relationshipbetween those who resist change and the status quo.

FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS: Few would disagree, that after“recruitment” the most important consideration of a university isthe retention of its students. While there are many factors thatimpinge on retention of students, there are particular factors inthe retention matrix for Hispanic students as a cultural constituencythat differ from the retention matrix of other studentconstituencies. Some of those factors focus on heritageconsiderations (language and culture) and socioeconomic status, aswell as dysphoria—the eiconic internalization of rejection basedon self-image engendered by social factors of race, class, andculture. Many, if not most, of the Hispanic students at Americancolleges and universities today are still first-generation collegestudents--the first in their families to go to college.

For myriad reasons, many of those Hispanic students arrive atcollege or university considerably under-prepared for the demandsof college work. A large percentage of those Hispanic students areadmitted as provisional or probationary students and assigned todevelopmental leveling courses that ostensibly will prepare themfor “real” college work. More often than not, their expe-rienceswith college developmental leveling courses only exacerbate theirlack of confidence to succeed with college work, adding fuel todysphoria.

Academic folklore posits that college is not for everyone. Likeother underprepared students many Hispanic students are indeed not

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ready for college work, nor are they ready for the elitist sortingthat takes place on many, if not most, college campuses, targetingstudents of color in particular, whether consciously orsubconsciously. That perception notwithstanding, many first-generation Hispanic college students bring with them dysphoricself-concepts engendered perennially by persistent discouragementby teachers and subliminal discrimination at large (just asdetrimental as de facto or de jure discrimination). The effects ofsubliminal discrimination on self-concept impede many of thedevelopmental processes of Hispanic students on college campuses.

Back in the Day

Speaking of discouragement, I still remember that first day of alarge history class at the Uni-versity of Pittsburgh in 1948 whenI was a freshman student as a World War II Marine Corps veteran onthe G.I. Bill. With the solemnity and intonation of Thomas àBeckett and with a perverse Darwinian pride, the professorinformed us of his attrition strategy: that within a week half ofus (the students) would not make it, let alone to the end of thesemester. Forget about making it to the end of the year. He wasright. I was lucky. I made it to the end of the first week. But atthe end of the semester I had two A’s (both in Spanish) and threeF’s (Chemistry, History, and English). The Veteran’s counselingservice at the university notified me that since I was aprovisional student (admitted with only 1 year of high school) andon the GI Bill (as a World War II Marine Corps veteran) one of theF’s had to be changed to a D in order for me to register as aprobationary student for the Spring term of 1949. Otherwise I’d beout. That got my Mexican dander up. I was determined not to bethrown out.

The Chemistry and History profs turned me down. The Englishprofessor, Abraham Lauf, (Ortego, 1986) heard me out when I toldhim I had served in the Marines in the Pacific during the war. Hetoo had served in the Marines as a 1st Lieutenant in the Pacific

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during the war. Cautioning me not to be too hopeful, he told mehe’d look at my work again to determine if in good conscience hecould change my grade in his course from an F to a D. A couple ofdays later he informed me he had changed my grade to a D. Was thisa random act of kindness? Or did he see me “father to the man” asWordsworth put it? In the Spring semester of 1949 I signed up forprofessor Lauf’s English 102 class—and earned a D. That was thehighlight of my first year at Pitt. I’ve often wondered if thatact of kindness steered me toward the Ph.D. in English? There isno doubt I was not prepared for Pitt. But the University embracedme and nurtured in me the spirit of inquiry first ignited by myparents. For our students to succeed, we must nurture them—all ofthem.

Though more than 60 years have passed since then, those attritionstrategies of the academy are still with us, unfortunately (Ortego2006). I know this is a broad-brush stroke, for there are manycolleges and universities that have succeeded in the retention ofstudents. However, there are still far too many students whomcolleges and universities have failed to retain, having failed tosee their promises and to nurture in them the spirit of inquiryand success. I say this after almost half a century as a teacherin higher education. This text is not to negate nor diminish theefforts of all who labor in the groves of academe.

Performance Measures

What are the performance measures that indicate the success ofstudent retention in colleges and universities? Though good bricksare important in the construction of a building, it’s not thebricks of a building that determine its durability—it’s the mortarand competencies of the builders that are equally important. Thatmeans that while bricks and mortar determine the physicalendurance of a college or university campus, students are the

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life-blood of those institutions, representing the longevity ofthose institutions.

At our institution we are grappling with the problem of studentretention: particularly the retention of Hispanic students. Sincewe are an Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), how do we stanch thereflux of this tide flowing-out to the immensity of the world?What exactly is an Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI)? Unlikehistorically Black colleges and universities (HBCU’s), in federallegislation HSI’s are defined as “public or not-for-profitinstitutions of higher education that enroll 25 percent or moreundergraduate Hispanic full-time equivalent students, have low-educational and general expenditures, and a high enrollment ofneedy students” (Higher Education Amend-ments of 1998). Of thealmost 4,000 students at our university 57 percent are Hispanic.Counting Native American and African American students, 65 percentof our students are minority students. That speaks well for ourinstitution. I’m well aware there are no easy answers. But Iproffer a constituency matrix that posits the following: everyoneat a college or university bears a responsibility in retainingstudents, everyone—in other words, it takes a university to retainand educate a student.

All well and good to review Mission Statements and tidy up theirjargon. Institutional renewal is not carried out by committees,certainly not by words alone. “Talking the Talk” requires “Walkingthe Walk”. That means a “student-centered” attitude, made manifestby service-oriented behaviors toward students, permeatinginstitutional practice until it becomes ingrained as part ofinstitutional philosophy. Here’s an example of one institutionTalking the Talk:

Provide student-centered programs, policies and procedures which focus onstudent retention.

Provide support services to enable students to succeed in coursework,especially those courses identified

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as having high attrition.Create a faculty and staff development program which includes trainingconcerning university programs,

services and policies to prepare faculty and staff to assist students. Redefine and restructure the academic advising system and provide

professional training for faculty and staff involved in academic advising.

Build university community by improving internal communication programs,services and activities.Review and adjust course offerings and scheduling, including for-creditdistance learning offerings, and

increase the use of technology in all classes to better meet studentneeds.

Enhance and expand orientation, mentoring and early alert programs to reducethe incidence of attrition

due to lack of motivation, knowledge, and skills.Conduct research to identify contributing retention factors andinterventions to prevent student attrition.Expand and/or create programs connecting students to their academic majors.

All of this doesn’t really get to the heart of retention as wedefine it in terms of cultural capital and constituency theory.“Talking the talk” is all talk. Institutions must also “walk thewalk.” That is, incarnating the word by action. The Greeks called“talking the talk” praxis; “walking the walk” was pragma—from whichwe get the word pragmatic. In a relatively recent academic meetingat my institution, one of the professors was bemoaning the dismalpreparation of our students. I suggested that his rant made himout to be an elitist, to which he replied within earshot of theProvost “I am!”

How much of that attitude does the professor project to students?There are still far too many professors like Professor X in the nameof academic standards projecting showers of negativity on far toomany students. The rant was really directed at our minoritystudents, most of whom are Hispanics. This seems to be aconsistent complaint about our university—the poor preparation ofour students. The fault always devolves ad nauseam on the usual

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suspects: the teachers, the parents, society—never the university.And certainly never the faculty. If the expectation is thatstudents come consummately prepared for college work, then whycome at all? Given that, why would the university need us asprofessors?

“At Risk Students”

It bears repeating that at our institution there are faculty whoconstantly lament the poor prepa-ration of our students who intheir opinion have no business being in college. This is “code”for “Hispanic students.” I’m reminded of my own poor preparationfor college. On the face of it, I had no business being at Pittwith only one year of high school. My parents were itinerantworkers from Mexico with minimum education. But they understoodthe value of education for their chil-dren, contrary to thestereotype that Hispanic parents don’t value education. To dispelthis stereo-type, in the 1960s I investigated the conditions ofeducation for Mexican Americans in the Hispa-nic Southwest,culminating in a piece on “Montezuma’s Children” published in 1970as a cover story by The Center Magazine of the John Maynard HutchinsCenter for the Study of Democratic Institutions; read into TheCongressional Record 116 No. 189 (November 25, 1970), S18961-S18965 bySenator Ralph Yarbrough (D-Texas) who recommended it for aPulitzer that year. The following year the piece won a JohnMaynard Hutchins Citation for Distinguished Journalism.

Some obstacles to retention may have little to do with facultysensitivity or improved academic programs. This is not to say thatAmerican colleges and universities are utopic institutions. Forcultural and linguistic minorities may feel alienated from themajority campus culture and environ-ment even when notexperiencing overt forms of prejudice or discrimination. Thisanomie may be the result of poor self-esteem or dysphoric locus ofcontrol. While these are important consider-ations in the

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recruitment, retention, and graduation rates for Hispanicstudents, let me focus on the “tangible” considerations in therecruitment, retention, and graduation rates for Hispanic stu-dents—that is, the realities of academic performance that areequally significant in the recruitment, retention, and graduationrates for Hispanic students.

With decreasing resources for higher education, emphasis onrecruitment and retention has become more critical, opening thusthe aperture for admissions. While open-enrollment is not the normfor colleges and universities across the country, more and morecolleges and universities have moved toward open-enrollment or alimited form of open enrollment, providing spaces forunderprepared students, or less stringent requirements foradmission. This shift to attract students has created a plethoraof considerations to retain them, particularly “at risk” students.The success of retention strategies for “at risk” students runs agauntlet of endeavors, some of which pan out, some don’t. Theproblem seems to be one of definition. What exactly is an “at-risk” student?

In the 60’s, “at risk” students were identified as those who camefrom low-income families most of whom lived in ghettoized minorityor ethnically/racially enclaved neighborhoods. These were usuallyAfrican American or Mexican American students who were thought tobe culturally deprived. Their remediation was to provide them withdeficit-driven middle-class experiences: taking them to zoos,museums, and middle-class civic activities. This perspective of“at risk students” gave way to a conclusion that the primary causeof “at risk” students was the poor fit between “minority childrenand their schools” (Pallas). Most of all, this perspective led tothe conclusion that what these students needed was culturalremediation by exposure to zoos, museums, classical Europeanmusic, and other forms of high Anglo culture. This is still apreva-lent attitude in academia’s interaction with “at risk”students, thinking that the problem with “at risk” students—

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especially Mexican Americans—is their culture. They are the waythey are because of their culture. They would be better Americansif they would just assimilate.

Later, more militant conclusions for the presence of “at risk”students were drawn from a logic that perceived “the failure ofall social institutions charged by society with educating youth”—the schools were the problems (Ibid.). A prevailing view ofAfrican American and Mexican American “at risk” students was thatthey were “at risk” because their culture made them that way. Thesocial studies literature of the 60’s and the 70’s anent “at risk”students was replete with cultural determinism as the culprit forminority students being “at risk” educationally. Ergo, if theschools could help those students get rid of their culture theycould be educated to succeed as “good” middle class Americanstudents. This meant educating minority students in anapodictically rigorous white middle-class American curriculum—inother words, turning them into brown Anglo Saxons. That may oncehave been the mission of American universities; in the 21st

century that cannot be.

More recently, the definition of “at risk” students is based on“the probability that they will fail academically, and/or drop outof school,” a concept “operationalized by identifying sub-populations likely to perform poorly or drop out [of school]”(Ibid.). The most au courant perspective about “at risk” studentsis that “none of the earlier perspectives about at-risk [students]convey[s] (sic) precisely enough the full complement of factorsthat put a student at risk” (Ibid.).

Since education is a process that goes on both inside and outside ofschools, schools are just one of several social institutions thateducate—or can fail to educate—our children. Families andcommunities, along with schools, are the key education institutionsin our society. Any definition of risk needs to be sensitive to theseother educating factors.

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Thus, young people are at risk, or educationally disadvantaged, ifthey have been exposed to inadequate or inappropriate educationalexperiences in the family, school or community.

Pallas

However, no greater risk was incurred by “at risk” students thanin the years leading up to the 60’s when they were assigned toclasses for the mentally retarded for the slightest deficiency,especially Mexican American students for whom speaking Spanish wasa death knell (Ortego, 1970). A comment by a participant at arecent discussion of the definition of “at risk” students positedthat the definition in question was the accepted definition for“at risk” students. The comment was met with ripostes by theChicano faculty at that discussion: “that doesn’t make it right,”we said, just as the lie of the 60’s and 70’s about the mentalretardation of Mexican American students didn’t make it right. Theproposed definition of “at risk” students by the Hispanic facultywas vetoed by the participants in a prime example of non-Chicanossaying who we are instead of accepting the self-identification ofChicanos as the rationale to this text makes clear:

The tone of this work owes its genesis to Octavio Romano, founder ofQuinto Sol Press and El Grito in 1967, first journal of Mexican Americanthought in which he proclaimed that only Mexican Americans could saywhat they could accomplish and who they were, no one else.

To solve the problem of “at risk” students we need a morecapacious understanding of what “at risk” means. Toward thissolution, The National At-Risk Education Network (NAREN) hasproposed the following definition of “at risk” students:

Students are placed at-risk when they experience a significant mismatchbetween their circumstances and needs, and the capacity or willingnessof the school to accept, accommodate, and respond to them in a mannerthat supports and enables their maximum social, emotional andintellectual growth and development (http://www.atriskeducation.net/ ).

This definition focuses on the mismatch at the nexus where thestudent and the school (university) make contact, where

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institutional expectations confront student preparation. Thisreality prompts the institution to personalize the learning of “atrisk” students and to discard the historical notions underlyingthe lack of preparation of “at risk” students set forth first inthis presentation.

NAREN makes its case for this capacious approach to “at risk”students as follows:

Supposedly an aeronautical expert had once determined that, due to itsunwieldy body and disproportionately small wing size, the bumblebee wasincapable of flying. Yet fly it does (NAREN).

Many people, including some school personnel, believe that attempting totrain and educate at-risk children and youth is a waste of time because"they will never amount to much anyway." At times, even some dedicatededucators, counselors, and social workers feel helpless and inadequatein reaching the at-risk population due to lack of resources, fundingshortfalls, insufficient training, or other impediments to providingappropriate services. Many at-risk children and youth, with the help ofcommitted professionals, do still learn to fly despite the great weightsthey often carry with them.

The objective here “is to support educational stakeholders inhelping at-risk children and youth to develop their naturalabilities and soar toward their highest dreams” (Ibid.). A strategymissing from the armory of boosting the retention and graduationrates of “at risk” students is boosting their confidence andmotivation by encouraging them, assuring them they can do betterthereby boosting their level of dopamine because they come tobelieve they can do better rather than telling them they can’t dobetter because of who they are thereby flooding them with cortisol—the stress inducing hormone that ultimately destroys anyconfidence they may have, forcing them to abandon school. In otherwords, encouraging them rather than discouraging them.

Cortisol vs. Dopamine

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There is hope in encouraging Hispanic: students. We are learningmore and more about the cogni-tive functions of cortisol (Scott)and dopamine (MedicineNet), a forerunner of adrenaline, aneurotransmitter that helps regulate emotional responses. “Atrisk” students who believe they are valuable and worthy will morethan likely live up to those expectations. “Being told that youbelong to a group that does very well on a test tends to let youdo better than if you’re told you belong to a group that doespoorly” (Begley) promotes a sense of confidence that fansmotivation to full potential, thus averring the bromide of “mindover matter.” Confidence is the elixir of neuro-plasticity andcognitive flexibility. I’m not suggesting a drug therapy as theresolution for ameliorating “at risk” students—just a kinder,gentler consideration of their plight. An encoura-ging word is agreat motivator. I learned that in the Marine Corps. The greatherds of buffalo on the American plains of the 19th century knewthe significance of a discouraging word.

Difficult and Arduous Times

Paraphrasing Thomas Payne, these are difficult and arduous timesbesetting the academy, times that ask us to do more with less,times that make the task of student retention weightier and moreproblematic. Where are the funds for this task whose successdetermines the survival of the institution and of the Americanmiddle class? Retrenchment is a strategy as old as the MaginotLine the French built to protect themselves from the Germansduring World War I. The Maginot Line was not prepared forairplanes. In other words, seemingly impenetrable situationsrequire creative solutions. For example, when the Chinese builtthe 12 foot high Great Wall of China to keep Mongol hordes at bay,the Mongols constructed 13 foot ladders to vault the wall (seeOrtego, “Bridges not Walls: The Great Wall of China in the UnitedStates,” The National Hispanic Forum: Perspectives on National Hispanic Issues,July 14, 2007)

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The issues of poverty, race, class, ethnicity, gender, dysphoria,and mental illness are not excuses for an unwillingness to makebasic changes or to seek creative solutions. Breaking out of pov-erty is not just a matter of getting a job. Escaping racism is notsimply a matter of becoming white. Learning English is notsomething that happens overnight. Newt Gingerich’s message toOccupy Wall Street protestors to take a bath and get a job soundslike Mari Antoinette’s solution to the French revolutionists “Letthem eat cake.” To suggest easy remedies for these ills propoundsa sophistry engendered by a crass cynicism that cloaks itself instealth platitudes. The human condition is much too complex forthe pabulum of political aphorisms. But the problem is not justpoverty, as many contend. And it’s more than just ignis or ganas, themotivating fire within us. It’s about the common weal: what isbest for the common good. Indeed improving education is a good wayto fight poverty by offering the prospects of improving one’s lifeand attaining one’s goals and/or dreams.

Why is it that when the question of academic performance comes upin connection with African Americans and minority territorialAmericans (MTA’s: Indians, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans,Pacific Islanders) the thrust is parried by rejoinders aboutraising academic standards rather than dealing with the problemsbesetting these students and how those problems affect academicperformance, retention, and graduation? (Ortego 1998). There arecurricular changes that can be made in colleges and universitiesto improve performance, retention and graduation rates for low-income first-generation Hispanic students. To this end, Engle andTinto emphasize the need for institutional faculty and staff toapply a broader range of pedagogical skills to better engage lowincome first-generation students (26) rather than regurgitate deadmaxims about students who don’t belong in college.

Unfortunately, “improving education” has become a code word forraising standards and making education an even more difficultprocess for African Americans and MTA’s, clouded by the assumption

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that helping African American and MTA children through the rocksand shoals of American public education adds to the welter ofmediocrity. Therefore, when African American and MTA children getthrough the school system the inference is that it’s becauseschools expect little of them: in other words, they get by onmediocrity while white students make it on diligent study andmerit.

What does all this have to do with higher education? It adds tothe perception that college Fresh- men —especially AfricanAmerican and MTA (Minority Territorial American) students—comingto college are not prepared for college work and, therefore, don’tbelong in college. They could better spend their time studying atrade. Our history is replete with this kind of discouragement.Dr. Gilda Baeza Ortego (B.A. Biology, Texas Woman’s University,1974; Ph.D. 2001) recounts being advised by a biology professor atthe University of Texas at El Paso to forego studying biologybecause women of her culture were not suited for science.Recently, a senior Hispanic student in Environmental Studies atour university came to my office in tears, ready to quit theinstitution because the chemistry lab instructor berated her forpursuing such an innocuous major as Environmental Studies whichhad no prospects for a real future. This kind of bullying is notan isolated incident; it happens to far too many of our Hispanicstudents because of their status as a cultural constituency. Thereseems to be, in fact, allelopathic tensions between many Angloteach-ers and Mexican American students. In plant biology“allelopathy” is the suppression of plant growth by plants thatrelease inhibiting toxicities. In non-allegorical terms, there areallelopathic faculty doing harm to our students.

Constituencies and Institutional Culture

Shifting the focus a bit, study and analysis of staffing patternsof American universities both pub-lic and private disclose thedisparities of Latino administrators, faculty, and students as a constituency even

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within those institutions identified as Hispanic ServingInstitutions (HSI’s). That is, Latino representation ininstitutions of higher education does not correlate to the repre-senttation of Latinos in the American population. Most egregiousis when the Latino representation in those institutions does notcorrespond to the Latino numbers in the immediate population areasof those institutions. Oftentimes the converse is the reality: Ina community, say, where Latinos are 70 percent of the population,non-Latino administrators, faculty, and students are often themajority in the staffing patterns, with Latinos indisproportionate numbers in the occupational jobs of janitors,gardeners, maintenance workers, food handlers, and jobs of “lastresort.” When I arrived at the University of Texas at El Paso in1970 as Founding Director of Chicano Studies, “Mexicans” (we wereall Mexicans, whether born in the United States of not) wereeverywhere sweeping floors, cleaning windows, cutting the grass,serving food in the cafeteria—everywhere but in the classroom asfaculty. My arrival there boosted the Chicano faculty to 4.

The conclusion cannot be that there are no qualified Latinos foradministrative posts or faculty positions. Nor that Latinos don’tqualify for admission as students. For Latinos, the inescapableconclusion is that the barriers they face in those institutionsare vestiges of “the Black Legend” (which since 1588 posits thatHispanics are by nature cruel, ruthless, untrustworthy andtherefore not worthy of consort) transmogrified intodiscrimination whose presence has not been nullified by CivilRights laws. To apprehend the specter of “the Black Legend”working at its most insidious in institutions of higher education,one needs only to consider the civil rights struggle of Latinos inArizona and the plethora of states enacting comparable draconianrestrictions on the civil rights of Latinos in theirjurisdictions. As the fastest growing minority group in thecountry, Latino students must see themselves in their instructors.The most egregious vista of American colonialism is an HSI

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institution teaching Mexican American students with apredominantly Anglo faculty.

Vestiges of the Black Legend

With the specter of “the Black Legend” (Ortego, 2008) permeatingthe halls of academe, arguably that specter taints theperspectives of white non-Latino stewards of colleges anduniversities converting them from stewards to gate-keepers, thusinstitutionalizing their purview as gate-keepers. That purviewmakes them templars of the institutions, committed to regulatoryprotocols that “safeguard” the philosophical ambience of theirinstitutions against encroachment by those not deemed worthy ofassociation with the institutions. Per this scenario, Latinos arenot deemed worthy of association with the institutions: ergo, TheBlack Legend. While New Mexico has a history distinct from theother regions of the Hispanic Southwest, it’s still not exemptfrom the ravages of the Black Legend and Hispanics captured by theBlack Legend playing roles in their own oppression. This is thetragedy of colonialism.

Three years ago I investigated an incident at our school involvinga staff-faculty conflict. On the basis of my findings in thematter, I concluded that allegations against the Hispanic staffmember by an Anglo professor were not founded on fact or proof buton grounds not pertinent to the matter in question, groundsperilously actuated by The Black Legend—that historicallypersistent defa-mation of Hispanics. This situation struck me as aclassic case of post hoc ergo propter hoc; that one event causes anothersimply because the proposed cause occurred before the proposedeffect. More formally, the fallacy involves concluding that Acauses or caused B because A occurs before B. This is considered alogical fallacy when there is not sufficient evidence to actuallywarrant such a claim. Typically, Post Hoc fallacies are committedwhen people are not careful with their reasoning. Leaping to acausal conclusion is always easier and faster than actually

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attempting to ascertain cause and effect. This was the case I wasinvestigating: the Anglo professor was accusing the Hispanic staffmember of having caused serious damage to the interior of auniversity building stemming from an event in the building hostedby the staff member: A caused B because A occurred before B. Thedefamation of Hispanics alarmed me.

The vituperous defamation and thinly veiled integuments of racismtoward Mexicans and Mexi-can Americans (as an institutional constituency)by the Anglo faculty member was and continues to be a matter ofgrave concern to me. This is the institutional culture that mustbe changed in order to effect improvement in the recruitment,retention, and graduation rates of Hispanic stu-dents. Though thereport was sent to the Provost, the President, the Regents, andcirculated among Hispanic elected officials, nothing came of thereport. As a minority faulty member this does not surprise me.Only repudiation of that defamation by the highest authority ofthe University can allay the presence and continuation ofcretinous racism, defamation, and slander of Mexicans and MexicanAmericans on campus. The same people guilty of the above behaviorare still on campus in their institutional positions. It appearsthat only a clean sweep will rid the campus of that ingrainedbehavior.

Madame Defarge and the Plagiarism Police

Then there is the relentless Madame Defarge who has taken refugein our institution. In Dicken’s Tale of Two Cities, Madame Defarge isthe French tricoteuse who, representing Atropos in the story—one ofthe three fabled Greek fates—cuts the thread of her knitting as asignal to the executioner of the guillotine to drop the blade onthe hapless victim whose head is on the block. But who cares aboutRoyalist beheadings? Or bourgeois groups Madame Defarge hates?

Anyway, MD (Madame Defarge) at our institution is head of theposse comitatus sniffing out plagiarism and sending its culprits tothe academic guillotine—preferring expulsion, instead of using the

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transgression as a teachable moment. But who cares aboutplagiarist students since they are mostly Hispanic? In a recentstudy by professors at Swarthmore College and the University ofMichigan the determination that “I didn’t know!” is a legitimateexcuse for student cheating, concluding that “students don’tunderstand what plagiarism is—but with more education, they willlearn to avoid those pitfalls.” In our roles as teachers it’scriminal not to help our students navigate the rocks and shoals ofacademic perils like plagiarism in order for them to succeed.Extirpating them reduces our student numbers, especially whenthose numbers are Latino students (see Orte-go, Lies like Truth,Plagiary, 2006).

Historically, well into the 18th century, writers regularlyembellished the works of well-known figures much the way Dryden“improved” Shakespeare. Or the way the “immortal bard” altered theplays of others for his own purposes. In science, for example,breakthroughs are almost always predicated on previous work.Attribution is taken for granted. In the realm of ideas, I’m re-minded of Stephen Jay Gould’s public acknowledgment in Time’s Arrow,Time’s Cycle (1988):

I owe a more profound and immediate debt to colleagues who havestruggled to understand the history of geology. I present this book as alogical analysis of three great documents, but it is really a collectiveenterprise. I am embarrassed that I cannot now sort out and attributethe bits and pieces forged together here. I am too close to thissubject. I have taught the discovery of time for twenty years, and haveread the three documents over and over again (for I regard such rep-etition as the best measuring stick of an intellectual life–when newinsights cease, move on to something else). I simply do not rememberwhich pieces came from my own readings of Burnet, Hutton, and Lyell, andwhich from Cooykaas, or Ruwick, Porter, or a host of other thinkers whohave inspired me–as if exogony and endogeny could form separatecategories in any case.

“Bits and pieces forged together”–that’s the process of learning(Ortego “Lies Like Truth,” study of plagiarism, 2006). Yet, at a

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recent faculty meeting to discuss the issue of plagiarism, theroom permeated with attitudes that regarded students accused ofplagiarism as hardened criminals who could not be rehabilitated.Three graduate students working at one of our Writing Centersinformed the group that 85% of the student papers brought to themwere plagiarized, delivering the coup de mort to our students, allof whom were Hispanic students.

Writing Center Tutors need to be aware of how Hispanic students—especially Hispanic DELL students (Domestic English LanguageLearners)—negotiate their identities to learn academic writing.They get no help from Writing Center Tutors who are not culturallysensitive to that negotiation. Writing, as a literacy process,helps the constituencies of bilingual and monolingual Hispanicstudents to navigate the rocks and shoals of constructing arequisite knowledge base for succeeding in higher education—thisneeds to be a significant change in our attitudes toward Hispanicstudents and their needs.

Natural Selection

There’s a lot to be said about “natural selection” in academia andits production of intellectual variety. Sometimes, however,“natural selection” needs some help. We can’t just expect “atrisk” students in colleges and universities to sink or swim. Notlike William Saroyan’s instruction to his students of creativewriting. He would tell them that the best way to learn how towrite was by jumping into the middle of the river and startswimming. Teaching them to swim in academic waters is liketeaching someone to fish for him or herself so they can eat for alifetime. Unfor-tunately, far too many students don’t know how toswim. Our role, then, as teachers in colleges and universities isto teach our students how to swim so they can navigate not onlythe rocks and shoals of academia but the rocks and shoals of lifeas preparation for whatever they may en-counter.

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Unfortunately, like a Pareto distribution—where 1% of a populationcontrols the wealth—90% of a population will believe a lie despiteits patent falsity, and like lemmings will march off a cliff withit. That’s what has happened to the lie(s) about “at risk”students, especially the lie about the roots of “at risk” factorsvis-à-vis Mexican American and African American students. The liehas been so hardened by repetition for so long that neither theliar nor the victim can silence it. This is reminiscent of WinstonChurchill’s maxim that a lie can get half-way around the worldbefore truth can get its boots on.

Casualties of Discouragement

In a recent round-robin email discussion on the merit of an ExitExam for English 101 and English 102, one of the Englishinstructors commented on information that some students have takeneither English 101 or 102 three or four times, saying that anystudent who has taken English 101 or 102 that many times “shouldnot get a degree.” I'm appalled by what appears to be an elitistperspective on our responsibilities to students in comp/rhet(Composition/Rhetoric). What is meant by "a student who has totake the course four or five times probably should not get adegree”? There are two meanings resident here: the literal and themetaphoric. The literal meaning is clear; the metaphoric, inferredfrom the text, points to Mexican American students who ob-viouslydo not have the capacity to pass the course no matter how manytimes they take it. It seems our faculty would not heed MarcAntony’s peroration that “the fault lies not in the stars but inourselves.”

It seems to me, however, that the problem is the “Exit Exam,” anotiose exercise full of sound and fury signifying nothing. At NewMexico State University, a neighboring institution, the EnglishDepartment used a holistically scored timed Common Exit Essay toassess student prospects for success in college writing. Thattimed Common Exit Essay was abandoned as a result of concerns that

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the timed writing essay did not actually reflect student learningin the course. That was the conclusion of the faculty almost 50years ago at a university where I was Associate Director of theFreshman Writing Program. We abandoned the Common Exit Essay ongrounds that it proved nothing and was a complete waste of time.Yet this is the medium defended vociferously by the Englishfaculty at my university.

Let me recount an experience when I was at New Mexico StateUniversity from 1964-1970 as Associate Director of the FreshmanWriting Program. In the Spring of 1965 a Senior Art student was inmy English 102 class, taking the course for the 3rd time. Hedidn't fare particularly well in English 101 either, havingrepeated the course 3 times also. When the Chair of the Englishdepart-ment inquired at mid-term why the student was making A's inmy course, I told him the student was writing well--doing A work.The Chairman proceeded to tell me the comp/rhet history of thestudent, to which I pointed out that perhaps the reason thestudent had had such difficulty with comp/rhet was because he wasblack. The student went on to earn a Ph.D. in Art History and hada successful career in teaching. In a pique, the Chairman didn’ttalk to me until the end of the semester.

Recently, Angela (name changed to protect the identity of thestudent) is an Hispanic student in one of our Creative Writingclasses. In the first week of a new semester, Angela came to myoffice, crying, seeking my advice about the dynamics she wasencountering in her efforts to negotiate the requirements of theclass. She showed me her work for the class with the instructor’scomments. Indeed, Angela’s work abounded with grammatical errors,misspellings, and lack of punctuation control—all of which pointto the difficulties a second language learner encounters with asecond language—in this case, English. For the experienced second-language teacher, these difficulties are easy to note and torecommend a program for progressive improvement. Important to bearin mind is that Samuel Clemens had trouble with grammatical

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errors, misspellings, and lack of punctuation control—all mediatedby editors at his publishing house. These faults did not diminishhis prowess as a writer. These faults do not diminish Angela’scapacity as a writer, for she is an exceptionally talented writerin Spanish.

Instead of positive feedback for her work, Angela’s instructordemeaned her, encouraging her to drop the course since given thewriting failures mentioned above the instructor saw no hope ofAngela passing the course. In fact, the instructor wondered, howshe got that far in English. Angela passed both English 101 and102 with C’s. Most notable about the Instructor’s commentary onAngela’s papers was the absence of rubric scoring. Writingassignments from my students in all my classes are graded onCONTENT, ORGANIZATION, DICTION, EFFECTIVE-NESS, and FUNDAMENTALS,a rubric that has worked well for me since the days when as anAssistant Professor of English I was also Assistant Director ofthe Freshman Writing Program at New Mexico State University.

What is troubling in the matter of Angela is not the seeming mal-preparation of the student but the lack of preparation on the partof the instructor to deal with ELL (English Language Learner)students—in this case Domestic English Language Learners (DELL).This is not a graduation requirement for prospective teachers ofEnglish. But it ought to be part of the linguistic toolbox ofthose teachers of English in schools with significant numbers ofELL and DELL students—principally Hispanic Serving Institutions(HSI’s).

David, another student, came to my office with an equallyhorrendous encounter with his English 102 teacher, an adjunct witha Ph.D. in Philosophy and no apparent training in the teaching ofEnglish Composition and Rhetoric. David’s story, like Angela’s wasthat in the second week of the semester the instructor informedhim that he should drop the course since given his work thus farhe was certainly not going to pass the course. In my opinion,

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David’s work was passable. He took English 101 with me theprevious Fall semester and passed the course competently with a C.

Diana, a non-traditional 52 year-old Hispanic woman in an English102 class of mine informed me that she had attempted English 102three times previously, having been told by those teachers thatshe was not college material and that she should abandon herefforts at achieving a college degree. She informed me that shewas only three courses short of completing her degree, one ofwhich was the English 102 course she was taking with me in whichshe was doing B work. In Diana’s case I’m struck by the “pushout”verbiage she was subjected to by her three previous teachers ofEnglish 102: that she was too old to be in school. This iscertainly a case of “age discrimination,” a prohibitedinstitutional behavior.

These are only three recent instances of prospective casualties ofdiscouragement at a time when the university is struggling to holdon to its students. Over the last five years the list is long. Notonly does the university need an Ombudsman that advocates forstudents encountering these problems but it needs teachers ofFreshmen Composition and Rhetoric enlightened (preferably trained)in the difficulties Domestic English Language Learners encounterin second language writing. I’m not talking here aboutDevelopmental English classes.

At an end of semester grading session of English Exit Exams,taking issue with the grades I was assigning the essays, the leadprofessor of the grading group besought me to consider loweringthe scores of the essays I had graded on the grounds that I wasdoing the students a disservice by pass-ing them. They needed torepeat the course and acquire the appropriate skills of the coursein order to succeed in their future college courses. I protested,citing the experience of Diana, the non-traditional studentmentioned above, who was repeating English 102 for the fourthtime. This attitude of holding back students—in this case,

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Hispanic students—is far too prevalent in many institutions ofhigher education. This is the same attitude prevalent in thepublic schools where students are held back in grades when theyfail to score appropriately on standardized tests. In theseinstances, the test is more important than the student. Perhapsthe student is not the problem, but the test. The outcome here isa macerated swarf of students pushed out of the university tobecome a macerated swarf of dependent adults who could have beenhelped in becoming self-sufficient and independent citizens,contributing not only to their own well-being but the well-beingof society. These are constituent students who need help, notopprobrium. Sending DELL students to the Writing Center is no helpfor they encounter there more of the same that they encounter intheir classes. This is a post-modern perspective of the WritingCenter—training the Tutors in cultural competency.

Sin Pelos en la Lengua—Straight Talk About the Cultured Garden

Loathe as I am to say it, the situations of Angela, David, andDiana border perilously on “bullying.” Harassment, yes. Studentsare intimidated, rendered thus into abject feelings ofpowerlessness by teachers who have power. As a consequence of ascabrous university expe-rience, these students regard droppingout of school as their only choice. Elsewhere, students subjectedto this kind of bullying resort to suicide. In New Jersey,colleges are adapting to an anti-bullying law. Other schools aretaking aim at the bully at the blackboard. So should we.

For being an HSI, our university is exhibiting highlydysfunctional behavior anent its Hispanic students, owingprincipally to the attitude that we have a great university butthe wrong students show up. Instead of watering the seeds oflearning, many of our professoriate are busy pulling out the weeds—alien species of fungi—in what they perceive as an exclusivelycultured garden.

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One area of egregious neglect concerns the university’spreparation for those students with cognitive challenges. Thelargest number of these students are Veterans, men and women whoserved in the Armed Forces in battle zones that affected thememotionally and psychologically. Access Services for thesestudents is woefully nil. Not all cognitively challenged studentsare Veterans. One cognitively challenged black graduate studentwith heightened manifestations of cognitive dissonance was deniedattention and service by I.T. on grounds that her presence madethem uncomfortable. Neither Access Services nor the UniversityOmbudsman was able to help this student. The student’s threat tofile a Federal grievance and my intervention in this matterbrought the situation to a suitable conclusion. This is an arearequiring immediate remediation and change in order to betterserve this constituency. Our cognitively-challenged studentsdeserve to be treated with respect and the attention theirchallenge requires. They cannot be left to wander the halls ofacademe looking for help. We need an office dedicated to “AccessServices” where stu-dents feel confident their needs will be met.

The First Year Experience and Student Success Seminars

The problems we've encountered with our First Year Experienceprogram stem from what appears to be unwillingness to deal withHispanic students as "others".  Our First Year Experience reflectsresistance to Hispanic proposals to lubricate the program perHispanic realities—in other words, Hispanic content. A solutionthat “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander” is not agood solution. That is, offering one fare for all of the students.We need to remember that “different folks need different strokes.”That’s the heart of Constituency Theory. Considering femalestudents as only female students cloaks the constituency of femaleHispanic students and female native-American students and femaleblack students.

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My wife, Dr. Gilda Baeza Ortego, and I attended John Gardner’s2007 North Carolina Launch Conference on the Foundations ofExcellence (FoE) First Year Experience and are distressed by theprogram’s content and emphasis at our university which seems toplace no material value on the Hispanicity of the Hispanicstudents in the Student Success Seminars of the program. A morepronounced presence of Hispanic faculty and advisors in thatprogram would be an improvement.

Despite hardened faculty attitudes toward our Hispanic students,The First Year Experience can work for Hispanic students at ouruniversity but the organization, curriculum, and staffing must beconsonant with the needs of the students, taking into accounttheir high mortality rates in particular disciplines. Supportingstudents in achieving their academic goals should be at the heartof our university’s mission ligated to teaching excellence andenhanced pedagogy, especially for first-year Hispanic students. Tosupport teaching excellence and enhanced pedagogy we ought notentrust the program solely to adjunct instructors. We should berecruiting faculty committed to teaching students “where theyare,” as John Dewey posited, not recruiting faculty who want tochange our university to a Harvard on the Gila. We are auniversity serving a population of extraordinary diversity andstrength. Let’s not hide the light of that diversity and strengthunder a bushel.

Student Success Seminars: Observations, Comments, Recommendations

The point of my attending a Student Success Seminar AnnualTraining on June 26, 2012 was to ascertain the extent of Hispaniccontent, if any, in the Student Success Seminars required by WNMUstudents. At a May 2, 2012 meeting with our Provost/VicePresident for Academic Affairs and the Executive Committee of ourDepartment of Chicana/Chicano and Hemispheric Studies faculty, Ibrought up my concern that in terms of my understanding of theFirst Year Experience Student Success Seminars the program lacked

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Hispanic content. Inasmuch as our university is an HispanicServing Institution with more than 50% of its students identifiedas Hispanics, my view is that the Student Success Seminars oughtto help students not only acquire the standard academicwherewithal for academic success but should also serve as a mediumfor validating the identity of our first year Mexican Americanstudents. Our university does not rank high in state and nationalstatistics in retention and graduation rates of Hispanic students.That validation per Hispanic content in Student Success Seminarscan help improve the retention and graduation rates of Hispanicstudents at our university.

Since attending John Gardner’s First Year Experience conference inCharlotte, North Carolina in August, 2007—as part of a contingentof faculty and Student Affairs personnel from our university—I’veestablished a collaborative relationship with John Gardner. Gildaand I both came away from that conference buoyed by the prospectsof that First Year Experience at our school, especially as theimperatives of the First Year Experience Conference could beapplied in the retention and graduation rates for our Hispanicstudents, since our school is an Hispanic Serving Institution.

Unfortunately, in hammering out the First Year Experience programat our school, a configuration emerged that established the FirstYear Experience at as a pallid program of what the majority ofAnglo planners of first year experience thought was appropriate.There was limited input by the Chicano faculty and Caucus oncampus into that configuration. It was effectively blocked frominput that would have included Hispanic Content in Student SuccessSeminars of the First Year Experience. It occurs to me thatChicanos lost out in hammering together the First Year Experi-ence. In retrospect, instead of emerging as a confluence ofcultures, the plan for the First Year Experience emergedprincipally—a huevo (by design)—as an apodictic white cultural planfor indoctrinating Latino students into the white mainstreamcurriculum. This may sound harsh, but it’s time to be frank about

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how to improve retention and graduation rates of Latinos atpredomi-nantly white HSI’s. And that frankness involvesconfronting the racial issue head-on and acknowledging themainstream ideologies tied to academic instruction.

Summing Up

While there are many factors that impinge on retention of anystudent, there are particular factors in the retention matrix forHispanic students as a constituency that differ from the retentionmatrix of other students. Some of those factors focus on heritageconsiderations (language and culture) and socioeconomic status, aswell as dysphoria—the eiconic internalization of self-imageengendered by social factors of race, class, and culture. Many, ifnot most, of the Hispanic students at American colleges anduniversities today are still first-generation college students--the first in their families to go to college.

Important to bear in mind is that a First Year Experience islarger than a single seminar course and represents an intentionaland comprehensive program that consists of different componentsworking together to increase academic performance, provide acohesive learning experience, increase student persistence, assistin the transition to college, facilitate a sense of commitment andcommunity to the university, and increase personal development. Asa Chicano faculty mem-ber I have no quarrel with these objectives.It seems to me, however, that these objectives would be betterbundled under a canvas of Hispanic Content under the management ofa committed faculty member. In a recent poll of HSI presidents,they concurred that student success at their institutions is“defined by institutional retention and graduation rates”(www/EdExcelencia.org). While this is not a “be-all” measure ofsuccess, the definition addresses the critical issue facing highereducation: how to retain and graduate Latino students.

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What is not clear nor did it emerge at the Training of July 26,2012 are the objectives of the Student Success Seminars. TheTraining was hum-drum. While the content of Student SuccessSeminars can certainly help students avoid the rocks and shoals ofacademic waters, how do Hispanic students get information abouthow to succeed in college as Hispanics? I’m troubled by what Iperceive as a pattern of faculty disdain for Mexican Americanstudents at my university that has become more evident in the lastfive years—though, I suspect that pattern has been emerging formuch longer than I’ve posited. And that it exists at manyuniversities and colleges.

I’m sure that not all of the Student Success Seminar instructorswere at the Annual Training, nevertheless, it seemed to me that ofthose attending the Training most of the SSS instructors wereAnglo. That notwithstanding, nothing in the SSS Annual Trainingaddressed specifically the needs of Latino First Year students.The program could be strengthened by the presence of moreinstructors who look like the students. The SSS Syllabus does notaddress Hispanic content; nor does the Class Schedule. For thatmatter, the planning for Student Success Seminars does not takeinto account cultural capital nor constituency theory.

To adduce the efficacy of Student Success Seminars, I thought itbest to teach a Student Success Seminar myself in order toascertain the presence of Hispanic content in the instruction. Notin the training nor the materials for the course did I see anyHispanic content. I therefore imbued my course with that content,being well aware that Hispanic content would most likely not bepart of the content in those seminars when a non-Hispanic wasteaching the course. However, what I was looking for was howembedded the mandate for Hispanic content was in the curriculum,the extent to which instructors of the Student Success Seminarswere encouraged to provide Hispanic content. There was no setguidance in providing Hispanic content in the Student SuccessSeminars. This is why Cultural Capital and Constituency Theory

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should be a vital part of any student success program; and anintegral part of planning for any post-modern academic change inwhich Hispanic students are an essential part of the mix.

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Ortego, Philip D., “Montezuma’s Children” (Cover Story), The Center Magazine of The John Maynard Hutchins Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions), Santa Barbara, California, November/December 1970. Recipient of John Maynard Hutchins Citation for distiguished journalism. Entered into The Congressional Record, 116 No 189 (November 25, 1970), S 18965 by Senator Ralph Yarbrough (D-TX) whorecommended it for a Pulitzer.

Ortego, Philip D. (Ortego y Gasca, Felipe de), The Linguistic Imperative in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, Center for Applied Linguistics, 1970. Funded by a research grant from the Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC.

Ortego, Philip D. (Ortego y Gasca, Felipe de) and Carl L. Rosen. Issues in Language and Reading Instruction of Spanish Speaking Children, International Reading Association, 1969. ERIC Report ED 075804.

Ortego, Philip D. (Ortego y Gasca, Felipe de) and Carl L. Rosen. Problems and Strategies in Teaching Language Arts to Spanish Speaking Mexican American Children. U.S. Office of Education, 1969. ERIC Report ED 023368.

Ortego, Philip D. (Ortego y Gasca, Felipe de) and Carl L. Rosen, “Language and Reading Problems of Spanish- speaking Children in the Southwest,” Journal of Reading Behavior, Winter 1969. ERIC Report ED007382. Found in the Journal of Literacy Research 1554-8430, Volume1, Issue 1, 1969, pages 51-70.

Pallas, “Aaron M., “Making Schools More Responsive to At-Risk Students, ERIC/CUE Digest No. 60, ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education, New York, NY, 1989. ED 316617.

Scott, Elizabeth, “Cortisol and Stress: How to Stay Healthy—Cortisol and Your Body,” About.com Guide, February 5, 2008.

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Starns, Bobbie Ann, “Thoughts on Teaching,” Phi Delta Kappan, February 2008, 460-461.

Historia ChicanaMexican American StudiesUniversity of North Texas

Denton, Texas

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