02/04/2013 Attracting Minorities and Eliminating Loans

FEBRUARY 04, 2013

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www.HispanicOutlook.com

VOLUME 23 • NUMBER 09

Also available in Digital Format

Diversifying the Library

MALDEF – 45 Years

Study Abroad Programs

Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College is a residential state college located in Tifton, Georgia, named one of the best 100 small towns in America. The college offers associate and baccalaureate degrees and has an approximate enrollment of 3300. A cover letter, a current CV, unofficial transcripts of all college work, and a list of at least three references with address, telephone and email contact information should be sent to: Human Resources ABAC 33, 2802 Moore Highway Tifton, GA 31793-2601 Phone: (229) 391-4890 Fax: (229) 391-4891 Email: hr@abac.edu An Equal Employment Opportunity Institution School of Business - Lecturer (Two positions) The position will be responsible for teaching baccalaureate level classes such as International Business, Leadership and Ethics in Rural Societies, Selling and Negotiating, Family Business Management, Social Media and Business, Business Finance, Small Business Management, and potentially some Core classes such as Environment of Business, Communicating in the Business Environment, Introduction to Business, and Economics.

Assistant Professor of Psychology The School of Human Sciences at Abraham Baldwin College invites applications for an Assistant Professor of Psychology. This is a 10 month, tenure-track position beginning on August 1, 2013. Teaching responsibilities may include introductory courses such as Introduction to General Psychology and Introduction to Psychology of Adjustment. Additionally, the position may have shared responsibility for the teaching of upper division courses within the Rural Studies baccalaureate program.

Forest Resources Department Head The Forest Resources Department Head position is a 12-month Faculty position and reports to the School of Agriculture and Natural Resources Dean. The position is 60% Faculty and 40% Administration, and includes teaching at least one course during the summer semester. The incumbent leads a team of employees (currently six faculty and one support staff member) and has budgetary responsibilities and assists with external development. Other duties include: Directs, supervises, and observes/evaluates faculty; Academic advising and Career counseling; Responds to student concerns and issues; assists with recruitment; Monitors public resources of the Department and assists with private development; Develops and reviews academic curriculum and programs- Advisory Committee utilization; Assesses student learning within the Department and conducts other research related to the Institution; Teaches classes in department, including summer; Schedules Departmental classes in concert with other departments and supervises material selection; Manages academic advisement; Manages Club Advising responsibilities of faculty and staff; Supervises part-time instruction; Participates in institutional and USG committees/advisory groups as needed.

Assistant Professor of Forest Management Candidates must have an educational background in the area of forestry and natural resources. Professional work experience and college teaching experience is highly desired. This is a 100% teaching appointment. Course assignments will depend on the successful candidate’s areas of expertise but will include instruction in at least some of the following areas: dendrology, forest measurements, forest surveying, GIS, silviculture, timber procurement, timber harvesting, timber management and forest business management. Most courses have both lecture and lab components, and often include extensive field exercises. The individual hired will serve as an academic advisor to students in the department’s programs and advisor to student organizations, participate in administrative and service activities, and work effectively as a member of a faculty team to continually update and improve the content of degree programs

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in the department. There is an expectation for faculty members to be involved and engaged in professional organizations such as the Society of American Foresters and Georgia Forestry Association, and work cooperatively with agencies such as the Georgia Forestry Commission.

Assistant Professor of Agronomy This is a 10-month tenure track position at the rank of assistant professor.

Duties include: Instructing courses in Agriculture to potentially include Soils and Fertilizers, Soil Management, Weed Management, Disease Management, Crop Physiology, Plant Science and other agronomy areas. Teaching responsibilities include four classes with laboratories each semester. Student academic advisement; Turfgrass & Golf Course Management and/or Diversified Agriculture students.

Committee assignments at the Department, School and College level. Expect active involvement in agriculture industry by working with organizations such as Farm Bureau, Agribusiness Council, Georgia Plant Food Educational Society, Georgia Association of Professional Agricultural Consultants, Georgia Green Industry. Work with other faculty and staff members to utilize the ABAC Farm facilities for educational purposes. Other duties associated with the advancement of the Department of Agriculture, School of Agriculture & Natural Resources, and ABAC. Assistant Professor of History Teaching responsibilities include both halves of the US survey, as well as upper division courses within the Rural Studies baccalaureate curriculum. Preference will be given to Americanists with a secondary field in Latin America or Latin Americanists with a secondary field in modern American history, including the history of religion. ABAC is a teaching institution with a regular 5/5 teaching load; upper division courses carry redistributed time. Evidence of successful teaching and scholarly activity is advantageous. The successful candidate will also serve as an academic advisor to students in the department’s programs and advisor to student organizations, participate in administrative and service activities, and work effectively as a member of a faculty team to continually update and improve the content of degree programs in the department. Ph.D. required.

Professor and Dean of School of Science and Mathematics The Dean is responsible for overseeing the operation of the School, the major responsibilities of which are to manage the administrative, fiscal, and instructional resources of the School, including, but not limited to: recruiting and hiring full and part time faculty, providing for the ongoing professional development and evaluation of the faculty, overseeing curriculum development and assessment, teaching classes in the School, external development, recruiting, and responding to student needs as they arise. Further, the Dean supervises staff and faculty within the school. The Dean reports to the Vice President for Academic Affairs and is also responsible for implementing unit goals that correspond to the strategic goals and mission of ABAC. This is a 12-month, tenure-track position, and requires a terminal degree in the appropriate discipline.

Counselor Under the direction of the Director of Student Development, incumbent will provide direct clinical services to students, emphasizing the psychological, emotional, academic, career and social development of the college population.

All faculty positions require a commitment to teaching; research, scholarship, creative activities, or academic achievements; service to society, the college, and the profession; and professional growth and development. In addition, all applicants must possess strong interpersonal communication skills and demonstrate written and oral competence in English.

Salary: Commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until all positions are filled.

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Rosie Carbo, Frank DiMaria, Marilyn Gilroy, Paul Hoogeveen, Veronica Montalvo, Miquela Rivera, Alexandra Salas, Jeff Simmons, Gary M. Stern

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Esquina E ditorial

We

aren’t about to break into a chorus of “Happy Days Are Here Again,” but there seems to be some hopeful signs that higher education might be rebounding as we all put the Great Recession in our rearview mirror. Of course, it is not just the slowly improving economy that is boosting the fortunes of colleges and universities; it is also the soul-searching process these institutions have gone through to reinvent themselves to keep pace with our changing world. One of the so-called “green shoots” that we will be monitoring this year is job prospects for recent college graduates. Employers surveyed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) say they expect to hire almost 10 percent more graduates from the class of 2012 than they did from the previous graduating class. In this issue, we discuss recent historic high college enrollment of Hispanic students. Increased enrollment plus increased employment adds up to very good news, indeed, for Hispanic students.

Increased enrollment can be attributed to many factors, including more distance learning choices, making it more economically feasible for students to attend college through the use of endowment funds and grants, and creating a campus atmosphere of diversity and inclusiveness. We highlight some of these efforts in this issue as well, shining a spotlight on Davidson College, for instance, as well as the tireless efforts of MALDEF, advocating against discrimination and hate crimes for almost a half a century.

But one of the most interesting and intriguing recent developments in higher education is the introduction of MOOCs. It might be a strange sounding acronym, but there is nothing strange about how MOOCs – also known as “Massive Open Online Courses” – are changing the way students are learning and participating in the college experience. They’re easy to sign up for, have been around since 2008, are sometimes free, and students only need a computer and an Internet connection to participate. MOOCs can be found in nearly 200 countries in 44 different languages. And you can read more about MOOCs in this issue, as well. Next up for HO, mujeres rule! It’s our annual Women in Higher Education Issue. Until then, feliz lectura. ¡Adelante!

Suzanne López-Isa Editor In Chief

Hispanic Outlook....

OPEN FACULTY POSITIONS in Leadership and Marketing

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Applicants for a position as an assistant professor must have a doctoral degree and show potential for excellence in research and teaching. Applicants for more senior appointments must have a doctoral degree and demonstrated an outstanding record of research productivity and impact. We are very interested in research that is managerially relevant. A record of success as a teacher, both in the MBA and executive programs, is preferred, especially for the senior applicants.

The Darden School of Business is a top-rated global business school. The University of Virginia is regarded as one of the nation's finest public universities. Charlottesville is consistently ranked among the best places to live in the United States.

To apply, go to http://jobs.virginia.edu, search for posting number 0611134 (Leadership) or 0611208 (Marketing) and complete a Candidate Profile online.

Under separate cover, please send a curriculum vitae to: LOapply@darden.virginia.edu (Leadership) or MKTapply@darden.virginia.edu (Marketing).

The Darden School of Business is committed to fostering a diverse educational environment and encourages applications from members of groups under-represented in academia.

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Po

lit

The Grand Old Party Not Too Grand with Latinos

i cal Beat

by Carlos D. Conde

It

might seem insignificant and pretentious that I hesitate to broach the matter, but in a way it’s illustrative of why Democrats bashed the Republicans in the 2012 presidential elections with the help of the Latino constituency and why the GOP seems politically tone deaf on matters Hispanic.

I was a press aide in President Nixon’s White House, the first and only Latino up to that time in that capacity after stints in the President’s Hispanic Committee and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

I was a minnow in the 1600 Pennsylvania bowl of big fishes but nevertheless one of them, capping it with an unpleasant appearance before the Watergate Grand Jury.

Like TV’s Sgt. Schultz, I saw nothing or knew nothing, so the prosecutors let me go.

Nonetheless I am connected to the Nixon legacy and proud of my stint in his administration along with other more illustrative Latino Nixon appointees such as Hispanic Committee Chairmen Martin Castillo and Henry Ramírez, Small Business Administration director the late Hilary Sandoval, anti-poverty director Phil Sánchez, U.S. Treasurer Ramona Banuelos and over 70 other Latinos who received appointments.

It was the most Latino appointees up to that time by an administration.

Nixon’s legacy lives on as in his recent Centennial Birthday Gala at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel. I was invited, but that’s not the point.

Henry Kissinger was the event’s chair, and among those in that rarefied air were the Nixon girls and their husbands and once ranking appointees and White House staff members like Fred Malek, Steve Bull, Barbara Franklin, Dwight Chapin and Ron Walker.

But nary a Latino from the Nixon era was listed among the host group, which is illustrative and telling of the Republicans omitting an association with a minority group that’s on its way to becoming the dominant player in national politics, particularly when it’s about an era when Republican inclusion of Latinos really started.

Perhaps the Nixon gala organizers thought Latinos of any generation would rather not celebrate that milestone or maybe Latinos would want to leave things well enough along. It seems trivial and passé but, nonetheless, revealing.

The Nixon legacy event is but one, even if a seemingly minor one that has disarmed what was once envisioned as the Republicans’ embrace of the Latino minority.

Though I reference a long-ago era, it’s symptomatic of Republican woes today with Latinos as told in the last presidential election.

The only ones who have come the closest to maintaining what Nixon sowed are the father and son Bushes.

The rest seems unable to fathom the sociopolitical depth, contributions and involvement of the Latino constituency, nor have they tried very hard or showed any grand vision on how to again win over this minority group, many of which share the basic political philosophy of the GOP. Maybe it was not meant to be, and we deceive ourselves in thinking we would ever sit at the table with Republicans.

President Obama deserves the Latino vote because even though some of his program might seem specious and demagogic, his admin-

istration has given the Latino at least the appearance of inclusion while the Republican reputation among Latinos is mostly about chasing after illegal immigrants and hammering welfare malingerers and cheats.

The Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, a capable, decent guy, got clobbered and rejected so spectacularly and so decisively by the Latino voter that recovery and amends with the Latino community might take time unless the Republicans come up with a plausible quick-action plan and candidates to make their politics attractive to Latinos.

It wasn’t so much about Mitt Romney the man, but Mitt Romney the Republican and what Latinos, seizing on his affiliation, presumed him to be and the political baggage that the Democrats did a superb job in loading him up with.

In a post-mortem speech in Los Angles, Romney, seemingly a person not given to whining, said one of the reasons he lost was because Obama became a Santa Claus for special interest groups like a 12thhour stopgap policy on deportation of Latino students and deferred actions for childhood arrivals.

Romney said that the Obama campaign to depict him as antiimmigration was spurious but ultimately effective.

“The president’s campaign focused on giving targeted groups a big gift, so he made a big effort on small things ... which, by the way, add up to trillions of dollars,” Romney said.

What’s imperative to any GOP’s re-engineering is that Latinos are not going to go away. In fact, population trends show the Latinos are on their way to becoming the dominant society and to shedding its current role of a minority group dependent on the largess of the political parties that manage the election process.

The Republicans need mightily to improve their image among Latinos,

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and one way to do it is to attract and promote the imagery of up-andcoming Latinos who adhere to and preach their political philosophy.

The truth, and the problem, is that it’s a very limited field in the Latino community when you consider the prerequisites and the demands of becoming a major player.

I can count only four probable potential Latino hopefuls who currently hold highly visible political offices, but none yet with the national credibility they would need to reach these political heights.

Sen. Marco Rubio is a first-term Cuban-American senator from Florida linked to the reactionary Tea Party and with no links to the dominant Mexican-American faction. Recently elected senator from Texas Ted Cruz is also a CubanAmerican with the same identity contretemps, and he has yet to achieve national stature.

Govs. Susan Martínez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada are local heroes but haven’t created any national excitement among Latinos, and any prognostication about them in the 2016 elections is highly premature.

But in precedent, there is hope.

If a once-unknown community worker from Chicago can rise to be president, how about 36-year-old George P. Bush, son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and the scion of two former presidents who hints about following his illustrative elders in politics.

Our current president wrote a book, the Audacity of Hope about this so why not a George P.?

Actually, I’d prefer his father.

Carlos D. Conde, award-winning journalist and commentator, former Washington and foreign news correspondent, was an aide in the Nixon White House and worked on the political campaigns of George Bush Sr. To reply to this column, contact Cdconde@aol.com.

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MAGAZINE® FEBRUARY 04, 2013

CONTENTS Davidson College Beefs Up Endowment Trust to Eliminate Loans and Attract Minorities by Gary M. Stern

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From a Distance:The Value of an Education at Excelsior by Jeff Simmons

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The Emergence of Free Online Education

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by Alexandra Salas

MALDEF: Fighting Discrimination and Hate Crimes for 45 Years by Rosie Carbo

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Mixed Messages About Study Abroad Programs

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by Frank DiMaria

Page 10

Mock into Democracy at CGS Conference

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by Peggy Sands Orchowski

Hispanic Student Enrollments Hit Historic Highs

by Paul Hoogeveen

Online Articles ALA Diversifying the Library Profession

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

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DEPARTMENTS Political Beat

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by Carlos D. Conde

The Grand Old Party Not Too Grand with Latinos

In the Trenches ...

by Veronica Montalvo

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Achieving Professional Success Before Age 40

Uncensored

by Peggy Sands Orchowski

Interesting Reads

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27

Page 16

Book Review

by Mary Ann Cooper

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Don’t Stalk the Admissions Officer

Hispanics on the Move Priming the Pump...

by Miquela Rivera

Encouraging Latino Students to Use Professors’ Office Hours

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Back Cover

Targeting Higher Education College Loans

by Gustavo A. Mellander (Online only)

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

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INNOVATIONS/PROGRAMS

Davidson College Beefs Up Endowment Trust to Eliminate Loans and Attract Minorities

A

by Gary M. Stern dministrators at Davidson College, a respected private liberal arts college with 1,900 full-time students, located in Davidson, N.C., saw the effect that taking out expensive loans was having on its students. Its annual fees of $40,000 in tuition plus $12,000 in room and board or $52,000 annually were causing middle-class students to take out costly loans and making it difficult to attract low-income and minority students to maintain its diversity.

Irma Navarro, assistant dean of admissions and financial aid, and a Davidson alum

To make Davidson more affordable and appeal to a wider range of students, its trustees devised a solution: expand the number of needbased grants to students by raising more money for its endowment and reducing and, in most cases, eliminating loans. Need-based grants would rise, making Davidson competitive against the cost of in-state and public colleges.

To accomplish that, its trustees raised $70 million toward the Davidson Trust, which is funding $20 million a year in grants to students.

Nearly 45 Percent of Davidson’s Students Receiving Grants

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Of its incoming freshman class of 2012, nearly 45 percent of students qualified for needbased grants, and the average grant amounted to $32,550. The financial aid package covers the total cost of education, including room and board, books and additional fees.

Sparked by the grants, the number of minority students accepted at Davidson has been rising.

Of its incoming freshman class, 7.4 percent are Latinos – up from 5.9 percent of the 2011 class, 8 percent are African-Americans – up from 5.7 percent, 6 percent are international – up from 5 percent, and 8.6 percent are Asian-American – up from 5.2 percent in 2011.

Gaining acceptance to Davidson is demanding. It accepts students who take challenging courses in high school across all disciplines, explains Irma Navarro, assistant dean of admissions and financial aid and a Davidson alumni and former recipient of Davidson Trust grants.

Students must demonstrate a strong GPA, involvement in their community, strong writing in their essay, four letters of recommendation, and competitive SAT or ACT scores.

When Christopher Gruber, dean of admissions, tracked why students weren’t choosing Davidson, in 2005, “sticker shock” was one of the major factors, explains Eileen Keeley, vice president for college relations at Davidson. “We realized we were losing talented kids that we wanted to come to Davidson, before they applied,” she says. Demographics were changing, and the number of academically gifted students who couldn’t afford Davidson was rising, not falling. “How can we make a commitment to diversifying the student body, geographically, ethnically, racially and socioeconomically?” the administration asked, she says.

Maintaining a diverse study body was critical to Davidson’s commitment to educate its students and prepare them for the world, explains Navarro. “If you want to survive in the work force, you need to learn how to interact with other people who are different from you,” she says.

The Davidson Trust has exerted a major impact

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on all students with financial need, and Latino students in particular, Navarro says. “For Latino families, even a couple of thousand dollars can be the difference between affording a school and not affording a school,” she says. In fact, a record number of students of color and first-generation students have applied to Davidson College in the last few years because of the need-based grants.

“People now feel that Davidson is affordable.”

In 2006, Davidson was awarded an $875,000

Eileen Keeley, vice president for college relations

grant from the Duke Endowment, which allowed the college to cap its student loans. But even limiting a student’s debt to $12,000 for a four-year college degree didn’t encourage enough academically gifted students to choose Davidson. “Many families, particularly of first-generation students, are risk adverse. They don’t know where their next job will be and how they will pay for college,” Keeley said.

When its trustees made the commitment to expand its endowment, they didn’t know exactly how they would raise $70 million, particularly during an economic slowdown. Keeley notes that 60 percent of alumni donated to the Davidson endowment, a very high number. Alumnus Ted

Baker, former chairman of Florida Rock Industries, donated $25 million, sparking a series of $50,000 donations and a slew of smaller ones. Davidson raised its endowment to $90 million, enabling it to provide $20 million to cover the cost of funding the grants annually.

Keeley says the college must raise at least $5 million annually to sustain need-based financial.

Thomas Okel, a Davidson trustee and executive director of the Catawba Lands Conservancy in Charlotte, N.C., said the trustees decided to raise the money because “We want to attract the best students out there; you don’t want financial aid to be the determinant. And we didn’t want students to be burdened with debt that steers them to make the most money.” Ann Browning, another trustee, said that to raise the funds, “We set our sights, worked hard, found large donors, and we continue to raise money.”

The amount of the grant a Davidson student receives is based on several factors revolving around a family’s ability to pay, including their income, assets and number of children attending college. “In every case, what we start with is, what can your family afford to pay?” Keeley says. Some families pay full fees; some, $30,000; and some, less. The remainder is covered by Davidson Trust grants and work study. Most work-study students spend around 10 hours a week working in the library or office. If the parent loses a job or income changes, the grant is re-evaluated.

Explaining to parents how the financial aid package operates is complex and often difficult.

But Davidson created Financial Aid 101, a workshop that enables admissions staff to demonstrate to parents and guidance counselors how the financial aid formula is reached. Financial Aid 101 covers the gamut including strategies of need-based financial aid, grants and scholarships, information on filling out FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and CSS (College Scholarship Service) profiles, supplemental loans, payment plans and merit-based scholarships.

“Every student who qualifies for financial aid will have no loans in their package,” Keeley asserts. However, some parents take out loans to finance their portion of the financial aid package, based on their income and assets.

The effect of receiving these grants is that Davidson students will “graduate without any packaged loans. That opens up possibilities when they graduate. Maybe they can attend graduate school, work for a nonprofit or go into the Peace Corps. It means they have more options,” Keeley says.

In addition to the grants, Davidson is taking other action to raise the number of minority students from 7 percent Latino and 8 percent African-American. Navarro, who also serves as

assistant director of multicultural admissions, says when Davidson recruiters visit Chicago or any major city, they visit the strongest high schools that contain the most likely candidates to meet its rigorous criteria for entrance. But they also make sure to visit schools in minority neighborhoods with a large number of achieving students of color. Davidson also partnered with KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program), a chain of charter schools, to invite 10 of their minority students to a special summer program at the college.

Navarro notes that being a “sleep away college” is one obstacle to attracting Latinos. Many Latino students, particularly females, are expected to stay at home. Moreover, many of the students Davidson wants to recruit are also being offered grants from better-known colleges such as Brown, Princeton, Stanford and Northwestern. But the Davidson Trust levels the playing field in major ways.

Gabriel Pureco, undergraduate at Davidson College

Making the Difference One student that Davidson successfully recruited was Gabriel Pureco, a freshman who is majoring in economics, is interested in international studies and plans to work for an international company. Pureco was born in Mexico City but came to the U.S. at age 1 when his father’s computer programming job at Citigroup was transferred to the U.S. At high school in Charlotte, Pureco says he received all A’s and B’s. In addition, he took six AP classes, the challenging curriculum that Davidson expects.

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The Davidson Trust “was the difference between being able to attend or not,” Pureco says. The need-based grants covered half of the actual tuition, and he financed the rest of the college’s cost through scholarships. “Without the Trust, I wouldn’t be here right now,” he says.

Knowing he can graduate Davidson debt free also frees him up. “That takes away so much pressure on me once I graduate. I won’t have to think about making the money to pay off debts.

Most students take several years, if not a decade, to pay off theirs,” he says. Moreover, he can consider all of his career options.

Once a Latino student is accepted, Davidson offers STRIDE (Students Together Reaching for Individual Development in Education), a preorientation program to acculturate them to campus. Students are assigned minority mentors to steer them in the right direction, explain how the campus operates, and provide a safe haven.

Latino students mix with other students at Davidson. Navarro notes that 96 percent of undergraduates live on campus in dormitories.

“You’re surrounded by different people in your classes, in your dorms, on weekends,” she says.

Proximity encourages intermingling.

Though only a freshman, Pureco says that so far Davidson students have been “very approachable.

They’ve introduced themselves and try to get to know you. The majority of students are very open-minded and interested to learn about other cultures.”

Pureco recognizes how important the Davidson Trust has been to him, and intends to give back after he graduates and launches his career. “I have to work hard and get the highest grades possible.

I’d like to give some of my salary to the school to help other students like me who wouldn’t be able to come here without Davidson Trust,” he says.

Other colleges looking to offer needs-based grants to all students, says Navarro, must consider three factors: 1) Everyone, including the board of trustees, alumni, faculty and students, must be on the same page and collaborate on raising funds; 2) Investments must be strong to raise the endowment, and trustees must show a track record of raising funds; 3) The cost benefit must be articulated so that everyone understands the positive impacts on the college.

Because of these grants, Navarro suggests, Davidson is more diverse than ever – racially, ethnically and socioeconomically – which changes the experience of every student for the better.

Carol Quillen, the president of Davidson College, has said that through the Davidson Trust, admission is determined by educational talent, not parental wealth. And that “while they’re here, we want to transform their lives and send them out to lead and serve in the world.”

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DISTANCE LEARNING/TECHNOLOGY

From a Distance: The Value of

R

by Jeff Simmons

ocio “Rosie” Ville and Manuel Yañez arrived at Excelsior College’s virtual doorstep for different reasons, but with similar passions – the pursuit of a higher education degree.

The two have vastly different backgrounds and challenges. Yet they are joined by a desire to acquire a competitive edge by advancing along the higher education pipeline. The tracks are similar: study hard, get a degree and achieve one’s goals.

“I always tell people that a degree gives you the confidence to knock on any door without having any fear,” Ville said recently. “You feel better about sending your résumé in to get an

Rocio “Rosie” Ville, Excelsior College graduate, crime specialist and victim advocate, New York State Office of Victim Services

interview, and there is a better chance they will call you.”

Ville moved to the United States when she was 30 years old, settling with her husband and children in upstate New York in 1997. She had always valued higher education, but found the courses she had taken in international relations were not helpful when she arrived here. She sought a bachelor’s degree from the outset.

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“I needed a bachelor’s degree from the United States,” she said. “I wanted to go forward with my education and get a better job, and they require a better degree from the United States, so I knew what I had to do was get one. I went on a few interviews, and most of them asked if I had a degree from [a college in] the United States.”

But transferring those credits was difficult, and she said she confronted myriad obstacles attempting unsuccessfully to transfer course credits from a college in the Ukraine and one in her native Colombia to an institution in New York state.

A friend recommended she consider Excelsior, because of its accessibility and convenience. Her subsequent experience was light years beyond her expectations, she said, as the transfer process readily granted her access.

“I chose Excelsior because I knew I could take classes online, and it was very convenient for me,” she said.

It allowed her to more fluidly manage her busy schedule. In addition to caring for her children, she worked both full- and part-time jobs and took care of her mother, who is disabled, and was involved in community activities.

“I started with Excelsior, class by class,” she said, methodically completing work, finishing chores at home, and then setting aside a minimum of two hours every weeknight to click onto the computer and engage in coursework in the fields of criminal justice and homeland security. “I was doing it little by little every day, but I usually handed in my assignments on time, by the deadline!”

Ville said she always valued education, even when finances and time were tight. She set goals, always sought to challenge herself, and studied hard. “Education,” she said, “changes every day, so I wanted to advance in my career professionally and also in education.”

Her persistence has paid off. In 2011, Ville earned a Bachelor of Science in liberal studies and a certificate in homeland security, and brimmed with enthusiasm when discussing her graduation ceremony in the Empire Plaza in Albany, along with thousands of other graduates.

“I did it,” she said, “and it was my achievement. Nobody can take this away from me. It was a very good feeling of accomplishment, that I

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had reached the goals I had set for myself.”

She currently works as a crime specialist and victim advocate for the New York State Office of Victim Services. But she isn’t stopping anytime soon; Ville will soon start pursuing a master’s degree from Excelsior College.

“I was really satisfied with everything at Excelsior,” she said. “The professors and advisors helped me on the phone, and they were all very organized and put everything on track for me,” she said. “I think I am very prepared now for anything.”

Founded as Regents College in 1971 and chartered as a private, nonprofit institution in 1998, the accredited institution was renamed Excelsior

Dr. John Ebersole, president, Excelsior College

College. The college, which is expert in online and distance learning, awards degrees at the associate and bachelor’s levels in liberal arts, nursing, business, technology and health, and at the master’s level in liberal studies, nursing and business.

Additionally, Excelsior offers certificate programs from its schools of Business & Technology, Health Sciences, Liberal Arts and Nursing.

“The typical student at Excelsior is a 39-yearold working adult who is trying to earn a degree while juggling the many demands of jobs and

an Education at family life. So the ability to complete their education at their own pace is important,” said its president, Dr. John Ebersole.

“Most have earned some prior college credit and want to use as much of this as possible as transfer credit toward degree requirements. The more transfer credit that is accepted, the closer a student will be toward earning a degree, and by not having to repeat coursework already completed, fulfilling degree requirements will be less costly overall.”

Excelsior has considerable experience in serving students from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds. For example, more than one-third of its 37,000 students self-identified as having

Andrew Wheeler, assistant dean of the School of Business and Technology, Excelsior College

non-White backgrounds, and more than 3,000 are of Hispanic heritage. The school reports that more than 35 percent are from groups historically underrepresented in higher education.

“All our students, regardless of their backgrounds, have to meet the same rigorous academic standards to graduate,” Ebersole said. “Our mission is to provide access to a college degree, especially among those that historically may have been underrepresented in higher education.”

Andrew Wheeler, assistant dean of the School of Business and Technology, started at Excelsior eight years ago, first as a counselor in admissions, his interest piqued by distance learning.

The perception of distance learning, he said, has evolved over time.

“When I started, folks were very doubtful about it; adults returning to school don’t have a lot of money to spend, and they have to spend their money very carefully,” Wheeler said.

Additionally, some less-reputable distance-learning operations generated negative media attention, casting a cloud over the practice. “Online education and distance learning were really put under the microscope.”

However, amid lingering national economic woes, the validity of a degree has shifted, and technological advances have helped potential students to become better expert in screening schools and achieving more appropriate financial arrangements. Barriers erected by brickand-mortar schools often carry obstacles for non-White and nontraditional students, who often migrate to distance or online learning.

“Convenience,” he said, “is a huge, huge factor.”

The School of Business and Technology, which enrolls close to 600 students, has seen incremental growth in its Hispanic enrollment, which now stands at 10 percent in business and 8.4 percent in technology.

While not at the level yet to achieve a Hispanic-Serving Institution designation, Excelsior is displaying continued growth on the path to that achievement. It recently joined the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, and has forged an academic partnership with a college in Ecuador.

Recognizing the urgent need for English as a Second Language training, Excelsior recently launched ESL-WOW, a free, publicly available resource for all non-native English speakers struggling with college-level writing. The project, funded with a $581,600 grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, is housed within Excelsior’s Online Writing Lab. The institution also is finding that strategic partnerships with Hispanic associations better display the value of a higher education degree.

Excelsior has forged partnerships with a number

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of Latino associations, such as the National Association of Hispanic Nurses and the National Latino Peace Officers Association.

“We have joined forces with Latino organizations so that we can reach out as far and wide as we can to fulfill our mission and to help those organizations achieve their own respective missions,” Ebersole said. “We have degree programs that meet the needs of persons working in these fields so working with organizations serving persons in these professions is a natural fit for all.”

Edwin Maldonado, president of the National Association of Latino Peace Officers, said the partnership with Excelsior has provided a vehicle to its membership to enhance their educa-

Manuel Yañez, Excelsior College graduate

tion. Such affiliations provide a reduction in registration fees.

A former Plainfield, N.J., police officer, he currently is a detective in the Union County Prosecutor’s Office’s homicide division. He valued the promise of a degree, and has been an Excelsior student as well.

He is now four classes away from a bachelor’s degree in public administration, and hopes to complete his studies later this year.

“We all have an equal opportunity to take

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advantage of education,” he said. “The important thing is that people get their education, no matter if it’s right out of high school or if they are in their 30s or 40s; it’s never too late to seek educational guidance.”

Overall, Excelsior’s Hispanic population stands at 8.32 percent; African-American, at 22.6 percent; and White, at 60.1 percent. Female students outnumber male ones, 59 percent-to-41 percent.

Unlike four-year institutions, the traditional measure of graduation rates doesn’t apply to a distance learning institution like Excelsior. All students are part-time, and the average enrollee arrives with 70 credits already completed at other institutions.

Accordingly, Excelsior applies a six-year (72month) window for its bachelor’s programs; the current completion rate over this time is 61.57 percent, with Hispanic students far outpacing their non-Hispanic colleagues: 66.6 percent of Hispanic students graduate within six years, where 61.9 percent of African-American students do so, and 61 percent of White students do so.

The majority of Excelsior students are from out of New York state, at 85.3 percent, whereas only 14 percent live in the state.

Additionally, about 30 percent are active-duty or reserve military personnel. With many veterans hesitant to seek help from administrators or even professors, Excelsior has looked to establish mentorship programs to pair up veterans with others who’ve already gone through the academic process.

Excelsior’s program, available within its Online Veterans’ Center, is open to all veteran students returning to college.

Yañez falls into two of those boxes: he has been on active duty for some time, and has moved from state to state – able to continue his studies no matter where his service has deployed him.

Yañez, a native Californian who is 41 and of

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Recognizing the urgent need for ESL training, Excelsior recently launched ESLWOW, a free, publicly available resource for all non-native English speakers struggling with college-level writing.

Mexican descent, first discovered Excelsior after he left the Air Force in 1992.

A Desert Storm veteran, he started at a junior college, envisioning a career as a registered nurse, and was accepted to a program. But a teacher told him he should pursue welding, which did not interest him.

“I was the only Hispanic male at the time,” he

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said, acknowledging financial obstacles that caused him to struggle to achieve his aspirations.

He then attended a career institute in the mid- to late ’90s and became an LVN nurse. He had enrolled in Regents College at the time, receiving an associate degree in science and nursing from Excelsior in December 1998.

“I had a dream to become a registered nurse, and they fulfilled it,” he said.

In 2000, he had enlisted in the Army Reserves, and was inactive for four years. But he enjoyed the field and envisioned escalating the military ladder. He took work as a hospice nurse and as a home health aid. During this time, he recognized that higher education was a valued necessity to accomplish that goal.

“If I wanted to make major, I knew I needed a bachelor’s degree,” he said. He had been out of school for about 10 years but “gave it a shot.”

So he returned to Regents, by this time called Excelsior, and had started pursuing his courses online. He had been stationed in Maryland, but left there for Fort Lewis in Washington.

“When I started, the teachers were very encouraging, and I didn’t feel like I had to go to a [traditional] college. I didn’t have the time because I was working a lot of hours, so I needed the flexibility and encouragement that teachers there gave me,” he said.

He now envisions achieving a higher rank as colonel in the Army and strongly insists his degree will position him well for the promotion.

Now equipped with his bachelor’s, he is en route to completing a master’s sometime later this year.

“Thanks to the support from Excelsior – it will help where I want to go,” he said. “I was the first guy to graduate in my family,” he said. “I wish I could inspire more people to go to college, if you want to compete in this world.”

In the Trenches...

Achieving Professional Success Before Age 40

by Veronica Montalvo

When

it comes to achieving professional success, many people will tell you it’s about understanding your purpose and following your passion. Others will tell you it’s about working hard and being goal-oriented. Still others will tell you it’s about getting a good education and building your network.

They’re all right. All of these things are essential ingredients for success.

But for me, the most important ingredient for success has been people.

Throughout my career, I have realized that my ability to achieve my goals, follow my passion, build my network and constantly learn and grow is directly tied to the relationships I’ve developed with other people.

Not long ago, I was invited to give the keynote address at the annual National Society of Hispanic MBAs Connecticut Chapter. I was asked to share my thoughts on achieving success with a group of young adults who are just starting out in their careers. Similarly, the Hartford Business Journal’s “40 Under 40’ program is focused on recognizing young professionals who have had a significant impact on the businesses and communities in which they live and work. As I was preparing for the keynote address and getting to know my fellow “40 Under 40” award winners this year, one thing was clear: There is indeed a “recipe” for success.

Here are the top five things I recommend for achieving professional success before (or after) age 40: Start with People. It’s nearly impossible to achieve any kind of success in life without the wisdom, guidance, intelligence and support of others. The relationships you build with others are the foundation on which your knowledge, skills, abilities and ultimately your professional success can grow. So while it’s important to recognize and capitalize on your own strengths, it’s equally important to embrace the strengths of others. As you reach for your dreams, remember to reach down and reach up to help others achieve their dreams, as well.

Be Demanding. Demand the best of yourself and others, and don’t apologize for wanting to be the best at what you do or expecting others to be the best at what they do. At the same time, it’s important to know that you’re not going to be good at everything. That’s why it’s essential to surround yourself with people who bring a diversity of experiences and skills to your team.

Get Out of Your Own Way. Most of us are subject to moments of doubt and uncertainty. Am I good enough? Do I know enough to do this well? Failure and mistakes are part of everyone’s life. They can be barriers or steppingstones to success. Don’t let obstacles or setbacks define or deter you from your goals. Instead, let them drive and motivate you to work harder, try something new, and/or reach out to someone else for assistance. A critical part of my transition from employee to young execu-

tive was the need to remove myself from the trenches, so to speak, and remember to stay out of the weeds long enough to look over the horizon.

It’s also essential to be a troubleshooting “futurista,” someone with the ability to forecast and prepare for what’s just around the corner. Your ability to do so effectively will help you and your organization respond to the unexpected, overcome the undesirable and seize new opportunities. One of my favorite mottos is, “progression is the new perfection.” So, believe in yourself, stay on top of your game, and get out of your own way.

Learn from the Best. Creative, fresh and innovative ideas can come from all people, across all industries, and at any time. If you hear or read about someone who has achieved something that you’d also like to achieve, find a way to make a connection with that person. Send a note of congratulations or ask for an introduction. If you want to learn from the best, you have to be courageous enough to reach out to them.

Be a Lifelong Learner. At Post University, we like to say that “we want learners, not just knowers.” This applies to our students and to our employees. To be successful, each of us needs to be a leader, a mentor, a teacher and a learner. Growing up, my parents would say, “Always help bring out the best in others. But don’t just teach everyone around you.

Surround yourself with brilliant minds that will also feed yours.” It’s also important to stay ahead of your personal “industry” learning curve. Set short-term and long-term learning goals for yourself and invest in learning opportunities, even if it is on your own time and dime. Do you know a second or third language? Are you well versed in the latest industry developments and trends? As the world keeps changing, successful young executives know that it’s not enough to just keep up; you have to set the pace!

Whether it’s formal education offered through a college or university or informal education provided by colleagues, friends and family members, always keep learning. It’s a great way to grow and innovate. And it’s the best way to ensure you have the tools you need to achieve your professional goals.

As the enrollment team for Post University’s accelerated degree programs has grown from one full-time employee (me!) to more than 300, I have learned a lot about what it takes to achieve my own personal goals, as well as to help others achieve theirs. All the skills, experience and drive in the world can’t take the place of building strong relationships with other people. At the end of the day, our individual success is reliant on the relationships we have with the people who surround us – whether they are employers, employees, customers or those who simply inspire us from afar.

Veronica Montalvo, vice president of enrollment management, Online Education Institute, Post University, is a skilled human and organizational development professional and former executive recruiter.

Montalvo joined the university in 2005 as the first admissions counselor in its reorganized Accelerated Degree Program, was promoted to director of ADP Admissions in 2007, and promoted in 2011 to her current position. She has a master’s degree in business management and plans to pursue a Ph.D. in organization and performance development.

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INNOVATIONS/PROGRAMS

The Emergence of Free Online Education

The

by Alexandra Salas Free education movement spearheads free online courses and scholarship opportunities that can help students and faculty advance in higher education as learners and professionally. At the core of this prolific and disruptive trend is an academic triad: MOOCs – massive open online courses, OER – open education resources, and exams for college credit.

With consecutive annual tuition increases as detailed in the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center’s Trends in College Pricing reports, as well as attrition, unemployment and career changes, the free education movement brings some industrious opportunities for those willing to put in the time and commitment necessary to succeed. Demographics benefiting are widespread across all ethnic groups – from disadvantaged students, working adults looking to hone or refresh skills, to learners seeking to minimize college costs.

Stacy Redd, content development coordinator, Education Portal (http://education-portal.com/), which offers free online courses in a variety of subjects, says that students who take this route have to be self-motivated and organized, and they have the potential to “really save thousands of dollars” in college tuition.

NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook segment titled “Big Changes in Higher Education,” aired on Sept. 10, 2012, discussed some of the issues affecting higher education including MOOCs. Among the guests, Jeff Selingo, editor-at-large at The Chronicle of Higher Education, commented during the interview about some of the most recognized MOOCs and speculated about the future. One of the most recognized MOOCs “was started by two Stanford professors in 2011, whose course about artificial intelligence attracted over 160,000 students from over 190 countries; 23,000 completed the MOOC 10 weeks later. They received a certificate of accomplishment.” Subsequently, successful completion of this particular MOOC earned these students professional opportunities and recruitment in Silicon Valley.

While not all MOOC learners might be recruited, the purpose of the MOOC is the same across disciplines: to provide learning opportunities for any person interested free of cost. The burden of success, however, rests on the learner. Benefits of open education resources transcend state and country lines. Mika Hoffman, executive director for Excelsior College’s Center for Educational Measurement, notes, “Even in Third World countries, the nice thing about open education resources is that they are not limited to the U.S. They are available to anyone who can get on the Internet. ... I have heard stories of people in remote areas of Mozambique or Brazil where they don’t

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have access to education.” But with MOOCs and OER, “they have access to free education and learn on their own, and then if they decide to get college credit,” it is something they can pursue. “We do have students who earn degrees while sitting in another country, and exams can be taken at Pearson testing centers – there are over 4,500 testing center around the world.”

Exams used to test out of college courses include Advanced Placement (AP), the College Board’s College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) that is accepted by more than 2,900 higher education institutions, Excelsior College Examinations, and Excelsior College’s UExcel. UExcel exams are offered for political science, sociology, spanish, college writing, physics, psychology, calculus and statistics.

Learning for Its Own Sake The opportunity of getting college credit is not the only reason students avail themselves of OER and take qualifying exams. Validation of credential instead of college credit might be another reason why people try MOOCs. Hoffman notes: “There are people who already have a college degree and are eager to learn about a given subject, and they don’t need college credit.

They don’t have to pay a lot money to get college credit they don’t need.

Instead, they can explore online for free and learn what they want to learn.”

Another benefit of OER is the opportunity for testers to validate skills and become more marketable; however, there is a downside. “Their very openness makes it hard to tell whether some actually learned anything. If I have a college degree already and I’m looking for a new job ... I can say I took an online writing or accounting course. ... But if I take an exam, you can use the exam for other than college credit.”

Another selling point about MOOCs and OER is convenience. Hoffman adds: “The two things I find attractive about open education is that they are free and that they are completely flexible; you can take them in your own time; people who are working, raising a family and don’t have time” can complete these.

Who Benefits?

The Education Portal targets high school students who want to get a head start on college. Students of these open courses can complete them to expand their skills set, and if they wish to validate what they’ve learned, they can take an exam.

Hoffman notes: “If they are motivated and energetic, they can get a

semester to a year’s worth of college credit before they even start college, which obviously can lower college costs a little bit. That is one potential market for open educational resources.”

These open resources also benefit nontraditional learners. “Another group is post-traditional students – these are not the 18- to 22-year-olds who go to a residential college and live in a dorm. They might be working adults who might have gone to college but then life got in the way and they couldn’t finish. They are also often mature, technically savvy and experienced, and learn on their own.”

It’s open, and it’s free. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing. ... But as long as the MOOCs and the OERs are there for people to learn, people who really want to learn are going to learn.”

An advocate for the free education movement, David Thornburg published in Edutopia a bylined article in January 2011, “David Thornburg on Open-Source Textbooks,” that “Many of the developers and maintainers of open source materials are people who use these materials themselves, and thus have a strong interest in keeping the quality as high as possible.” So while open source materials, the likes of Wikipedia, for example, run the risk of error, the benefits are paramount.

To validate learning, take an exam. “If you want to prove that you know it, don’t reply on a certificate from a MOOC; take an exam, which is built by people who are naturally suspicious and want to make sure they verify your identity,” concludes Hoffman. Hoffman shares an anecdote about a student from Colombia who had a bachelor’s degree, but it was not recognized in the U.S. The student took “Excelsior exams to get recognition and got a degree essentially through doing that. It can be an advantage.”

Education Portal and Excelsior College Exams The Education Portal offers free courses in math, business, psychology, history, science that can help students prepare to take college-credit-granting exams. Its mission on the Educationportal website reads: “Over 50 world-class educators, video editors, and animators are working to create the fun and engaging 10minute video lessons that make up each course. More than one million students have flocked to our courses, and both students and instructors alike are hungry for The Future of Free Education more.”

Stacy Redd, content development coorThe jury is still out on what the future dinator, Education Portal, comments: “Our holds regarding this disruptive movement. main goal is to create lessons. There are 33 “Most of the large universities are throwing CLEP exams students can take for college a lot of things against the wall to see what credit. Our initial model is to create sucworks. ... It’s unclear what the exact busicessful lessons to prepare students to pass ness model is, but if you want the credenthe test. We have 16 different subjects. We tial, you can sit and pay for the exam. It can are looking into other avenues.” be an alternative admissions system, for As of August 2012, Education Portal, elite universities. It can be a different door which has been offering video courses since into these universities,” says Selingo during October 2011, tracked “320,000 unique visithe NPR interview. tors, and it is growing consistently every Ongoing content development, however, month,” says Redd. “Our courses are availis providing opportunity for learners and able around the world, and enrollment seems faculty to add to open instructional reposiwell distributed around the country.” tories. Hoffman adds, “MIT and Harvard Upcoming subject areas for portal are faculty, for example, are creating open eduSpanish, humanities, microeconomics and cation resources essentially as marketing other business topics, notes Redd. for themselves. Faculty at these big universiAs an incentive for teachers to share Stacy Redd, content development coordinator, Education Portal ties are producing OER; they are confident their content, Redd notes how “The that their courses are so good that people Education-Portal.com Teacher Grant prowill flock to them and more people will vides two $500 grants per month to teachers who creatively and effectively want to come. You also hear professors say how personally gratifying it is incorporate Education-Portal.com’s free online video lessons into their to teach so many students.” curriculum to improve student engagement and comprehension.”

In the spirit of open education, faculty who are interested in sharing In partnership with Pearson, Excelsior College offers the UExcel pro- their knowledge can post on Creative Commons. Hoffman adds, “You are gram, a credit-by-examination program. allowing your ideas to be spread freely and hopefully get attributed back to Hoffman acknowledges certain challenges of the free education move- you. It doesn’t have to be a full course; it can be a lesson or a lecture of ment but believes that benefits outweigh the risks. “A concern in the OER some supplemental material, and what is great is that people can go debate is authenticity; like Wikipedia, there isn’t a check on authenticity. ... through, pick and choose, and find good ways to use it in a way that makes There is a certain danger of misinformation. ... But that is a danger no sense for their own purposes.” matter what field you are in. The main debate is how do you show that you Other open education sites include Open Education Commons know what you learned in one of these things. ... Cheating is an issue that (www.oercommons.org) and Open Culture (www.openculture.com/freeon does happen. ... It’s going happen when you allow that kind of freedom. linecourses).

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ORGANIZATIONS

Fighting Discrimination and Hate Crimes for 45 Years

F

by Rosie Carbo

our years after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a result of nationwide protests and lunch-counter sit-ins by African-Americans, some states maintained the status quo. In Texas, where Mexican-Americans have historically been the largest ethnic minority, discrimination continued in all its forms.

In 1968, fed up with overt jury discrimination, San Antonio attorney Pedro “Pete” Tijerina founded the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). His goal was to eradicate racially discriminatory jury selection in the courts. But MALDEF evolved beyond that initial desire for justice.

Tijerina knew firsthand about pervasive discrimination in the Alamo city. He had witnessed it in housing, schools, businesses and even cemeteries. The Laredo native once said he had not experienced racial prejudice until he returned from serving in the Army Air Force during World War II. A personal injury case inspired Tijerina to start MALDEF when his client faced an all-White jury. The only two Mexicans named as potential jurors were purged because one was dead and the other did not speak English.

Tijerina’s client, an amputee, was forced to settle out of court for a nominal amount.

Now, nearly 45 years since its inception as a nonprofit civil rights organization, MALDEF remains the leading legal voice for Latinos. Through advocacy, leadership development and litigation, MALDEF defends the constitutional rights of Latino clients across the country.

“There’s an increasing demand for the work we do because the Latino community is growing. So I predict we will continue to have a lot of work to do,” said Thomas A Sáenz, a summa cum laude graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School, and MALDEF president and general counsel.

Sáenz heads a staff of 55 legal professionals from the national headquarters in Los Angeles. MALDEF continually files lawsuits challenging state laws obstructing Latino civil rights, from its regional offices in San Antonio, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and satellite offices in Atlanta and Sacramento.

In 1973, the murder of 12-year-old Santos Rodríguez by a Dallas police officer became a symbol of police brutality taken to extremes. The shooting death galvanized the Hispanic community to take to the streets in protest. Equally important, the incident confirmed the need for MALDEF to

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MALDEF president Thomas Sáenz heads a staff of 55 legal professionals from its national headquarters in Los Angeles.

fill a legal void.

To that end, MALDEF began its historic journey with advice and guidance from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, support from the League of United Latin American Citizens and a $2.2 million grant from the Ford Foundation.

The Ford Foundation’s seed money was intended to help finance the legal careers of future Hispanic/Latino attorneys committed to advocating for social justice and civil rights of those who cannot defend themselves.

Other attorneys and professionals joined the cause, but one became a leading voice.

Mario Obledo, appointed Texas assistant attorney general in 1965, joined Tijerina as MALDEF’s co-founder in 1968. Together they resolved to challenge decades of police brutality, voting rights abuses and overall institutional racial discrimination toward Mexican-Americans and Mexican nationals.

At first, the San Antonio base of operations was mired in legal aid cases. In 1972, headquarters were moved to California. Obledo replaced Tijerina as the first general counsel. Under his leadership, MALDEF began addressing other issues and advocating for Latinos through friend-of-thecourt briefs.

From there, the organization evolved into a major litigation force.

MALDEF began mounting legal challenges in reapportionment, public school financing, the right to a free public education, and other areas.

In 1973, MALDEF had its first victory in the landmark White v.

Regester case. Here the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with MALDEF that single-member election districts in Texas violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

The high court further said that Texas had violated the Constitution’s 15th Amendment banning race-based voter discrimination. The court said the system was unconstitutional. Consequently, Texas was forced to finally comply with the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court issued an unprecedented mandate that the Texas Legislature consider equal population in reapportionment. The decision resulted in the creation of single-member districts in city council, school districts and county offices.

Prior to the ruling, Texas had held at-large elections that diluted the strengths of Hispanics and Blacks statewide. White was the first case in which the Supreme Court said at-large elections were discriminatory. Prior to the decision, only five Mexican-Americans had served in the Texas Legislature since the 1880s.

In 1975, Texas passed a law denying funding to school districts that educated children who could not prove they were in the country legally. In 1977, MALDEF filed a class action lawsuit against the Tyler Independent School District and James Plyler, superintendent, on behalf of undocumented Mexican immigrant school-age children. Plyler v. Doe has become a celebrated case whose reverberations are being felt even today.

In 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a district court’s decision that the 1975 Texas law had violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The court said: “the illegal alien [sic] of today may well be the legal alien of tomorrow. And without an education, these undocumented children, already disadvantaged as a result of poverty, lack of English-speaking ability and undeniable racial prejudices, will become permanently locked into the lowest socioeconomic class.”

MALDEF’s victory was once again a historic milestone in American jurisprudence. But this would not be the last time MALDEF would file a

MALDEF demanded justice for Mexican immigrant Luis Ramírez, bludgeoned to death by White teens in Shenandoah, Pa., and acquitted by an all-White jury. lawsuit to prevent discrimination in primary and secondary equal-educational opportunities for Latinos regardless of legal status.

In 1989, MALDEF won another education victory in Edgewood Independent School District v. State of Texas. The Supreme Court held the system of financing public education unconstitutional. It compelled rich districts to give to poor districts. The media dubbed the remedy the “Robin Hood” Plan.

For people who lived through segregation in the schools, memories of discrimination and racial prejudice surface each time Texas and other states propose draconian anti-immigrant laws reminiscent of bygone days.

“I actually went to segregated schools in Texas. It wasn’t until the 1960s that they integrated our schools. But you still see the vestiges” of

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that racism, “even today,” said Frank Herrera, a MALDEF board member for 25 years.

Herrera, a personal injury attorney and founder of Frank Herrera Law Firm in San Antonio, still recalls a humiliating incident that occurred when desegregation was being implemented in his hometown.

“I was born and raised in Edna, Texas, which is about 125 miles south of San Antonio. I was in the fourth grade when we began segregation. I remember teachers looking in my hair for lice, but at the time I didn’t understand what was going on,” he said.

Based on personal experience and due to his affiliation with MALDEF, Herrera is keenly aware of some of the many legal battles the organization has litigated and won. But he does not believe that MALDEF, which celebrates 45 years since its founding in 2013, has seen an end to its legal work.

“MALDEF has some of the best and brightest lawyers. These lawyers could be earning a lot more in private practice. But they want to work for social justice; they want to help the Latino community. So even though it has been around a long time, unfortunately, its work is not yet done,” Herrera said.

David Hinojosa, regional counsel for MALDEF’s Southwest San Antonio office, which serves nine states, agreed that the organization’s extensive advocacy, litigation, policy and educational work will continue indefinitely.

“We are in need of some expansion. Our San Antonio docket has grown considerably. Our policy work has expanded beyond the borders of Texas.

Our work has expanded to Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Mississippi as the Latino population has continued to grow,” said Hinojosa, who joined MALDEF in 2003 and served as staff attorney and senior litigator.

Hinojosa, who earned a law degree in 2000 from the University of Texas, is also a graduate of Edgewood High School in San Antonio. He said one reason for the increase in blatantly anti-immigrant state laws is a burgeoning Hispanic population.

Its anti-Latino sentiment “has reached a level that hasn’t been reached before. The core of it may be the growing Latino population. It’s a fear of this growing minority population,” said Hinojosa, whose educational civil rights expertise will be tested when he argues before the Colorado Supreme Court in Lobato v. Colorado.

Draconian laws have emerged nationwide due to fear of a growing Latino population. This fear has been manifested by an increase in hate crimes. In recent years, there’s been a 40 percent surge in hate crimes against Latinos, according the FBI Hate Crimes Statistic Report.

In 2008, Mexican immigrant Luis Ramírez was the victim of a hate crime in Shenandoah, Pa. Ramírez, 25, and father of two infant children, was bludgeoned to death by White teens. An all-White jury acquitted them.

MALDEF demanded justice and urged the U.S. Justice Department to intervene on behalf of the Ramírez family. As a result, the teens received jail time instead of outright acquittal.

But legal action requires funding, and MALDEF does not receive federal funding. Instead, it relies on private donations from foundations, corporations and individuals who support its programs. Those programs include but are not limited to law school scholarships and voter education.

Early this year, the Supreme Court again grappled with affirmative action. In Fisher v. University of Texas, a White student challenged the use of race as a consideration in being admitted to the state university in Austin.

The University of Texas had created a special program in which race

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was one of the deciding factors for admitting poor students. Sáenz said that regardless of which way the Supreme Court ruled, MALDEF will continue to challenge laws that infringe on the rights of all Latinos.

“MALDEF will do what we’ve always done, and that is to continue to challenge these laws, whether it’s test scores, freedom of speech or failure to provide K through 12 equal educational opportunities,” said Sáenz, who has been at the helm since 2009.

Although discrimination has flourished in many states recently, Texas leads the way in attracting MALDEF lawsuits. Voter ID and redistricting laws were two important laws deemed discriminatory by federal courts.

“The court found Texas had not only enacted the strictest voter ID law in the nation, but also that the state Legislature, rejected amendments that would have lessened the burden on voters, by allowing them to present student and Medicare ID cards,” said Nina Perales, MALDEF’s vice president of litigation.

Arizona v. United States is yet another case in which a state sought to usurp federal law. Also known as SB 1070, the Arizona law called on local law enforcement to detain those suspected of being here illegally. Except for the “show me your papers portion,” the Supreme Court struck down several provisions of the law.

Sáenz said the media hailed the controversial part as a victory for Arizona and its Republican governor, Jan Brewer. But Arizona did not prevail, and the issue will be revisited by the high court as Hispanics are singled out and forced to prove their U.S. status.

Even so, Arizona is not the first state to propose laws aimed at undocumented immigrants in the United States. A 1994 California ballot initiative, Proposition 187, is another example of anti-immigrant laws that prompted MALDEF to take action.

Although voters passed the law, making California the first state to enact immigration legislation, the court declared it unconstitutional. Had the law been upheld, the state would have prohibited health care and other social services to undocumented residents. Despite the victory, a MALDEF official said it was a “wake up call” for the Latino community nationwide.

Across the board, MALDEF has successfully risen to the occasion, prevailing when states trump federal laws and the U.S. Constitution. But as long as discrimination and hate crimes against Latinos continue, MALDEF will be the voice of the voiceless, and the Latino community’s national law firm.

UNCENSORED

by Peggy Sands Orchowski

FOREIGN STUDENTS BEING “KICKED OUT?” NOT! – 764,500! That is the record number of foreign students who enrolled in U.S. colleges in 2011, according to the latest International Institute of Education (IIE) Open Doors report. It is an astounding number representing 31 percent growth in 10 years. But thanks to aggressive recruiting by the U.S. foreign student industry and a university system that is open to just about any student of any level who can pay the fees, the U.S. continues to attract almost double the number of foreign students than any other country.

There is no limit to the number of foreign student visas that can issued. That is because they are NON-immigrant TEMPORARY visas. “Foreign students have always been expected to return home. We are not trying to drain the brains of other countries,” declared Peggy Blumenthal of the IIE. “These students return home with strong skill sets and a new perspective of partnership with America,” said Ann Stock, assistant secretary of state. But these statements contradict President Obama’s major immigration reform initiative: to give automatic green cards (permanent residency leading to citizenship) to any foreign student getting an MS or Ph.D. in the STEM fields. More than 300,000 foreign students could qualify in 2013. Four bills to that effect are presently making their way through the House and the Senate sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats. “These students are the best and brightest in the world and have the potential to create millions of jobs for Americans,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., at a University of Virginia Miller Center roundtable in Washington, D.C. “It is ridiculous to kick them out.” “But we’d be crazy to make the foreign student visa an immigration card,” Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., ranking member of the House immigration sub committee, said in a private interview. Why? Because then we’d have to limit the numbers.

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LAW SCHOOL MIGHT BE A BETTER CHOICE THAN A PH.D. – Going to law school has been getting a bad rap lately as rising tuition and stories of unemployed lawyers increase. The tales make earning a Ph.D. look good. Law school defenders argue there soon will be more scholarships and more jobs because of the graying of current lawyers and outreach by many law firms for diversity. But in state capitols and in Washington, D.C., a law degree might actually be a better investment than an MA or a Ph.D. For top jobs in lobbying firms, trade associations, nonprofits doing trusts and certainly on legislative staffs and committees (where, after all, laws are made), having a law education can be an advantage even if one doesn’t pass a bar exam or one doesn’t ever practice law.

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MOOCS MIGHT BENEFIT RETURNEES MOST – It is almost like watching a huge wave sweeping through elite and wannabe elite colleges today. In the past year, it seems like

every college who is anywhere near elite is joining a MOOC (massive open online courses) system. Partly puffed-up, partly astounded professors compete with stories of classes with ten thousand, fifty thousand, over one hundred thousand students. University of Virginia President Theresa Sullivan (who lost her job for a while because of the furor over MOOCs) proclaimed at a recent roundtable in Washington, D.C., that MOOCs would open the doors of elite education to the world’s young people – and for free. But no one is really suggesting that an elite college confer their degree on a MOOC student. And while many young students are taking MOOCs to fill a résumé or an application, it might be that those who will benefit most from the online courses are the over 50-somethings. After all, everyone will see their career fields change, expand or even disappear over a lifetime; hence everyone will need continuing education and retraining.

MOOCs might find their biggest boon with the AARPers who don’t need another degree.

“DREAMERS” ARE NOT ALL LATINOS – It appears that at year’s end there were some surprises about the applicants for deferred action for undocumented youth who are high school graduates and want to go on to college. One is that by the end of 2012, while only one applicant had been totally rejected according to some sources, the total number of applicants was way below expected levels: only about 100,000 had applied of the some two million “DREAMers” said to be potentially eligible. And it seemed that a good proportion of the early applicants were of Asian heritage, not Hispanic. Some speculated that Latino action activists were advising youths not to apply yet but to wait to see if a comprehensive blanket DREAM Act might be passed early in the 113th Congress. Such legislation probably would not require case-by-case documentation.

IF IT’S WORTH DOING, IT’S WORTH DOING OVER! – Some people say that one unique quality in America is that there is not a universal fear of failure. If you fail a course, or go bankrupt, or lose a game, a second chance is usually possible.

Margaret (Peggy Sands) Orchowski was a reporter for AP South America and for the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. She earned a doctorate in international educational administration from the University of California-Santa Barbara. She lives in Washington, D.C., where she was an editor at Congressional Quarterly and now is a freelance journalist and columnist covering Congress and higher education.

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Mixed Messages About Study Abroad Programs REPORTS

All

by Frank DiMaria

colleges promote diversity within their student bodies, faculties and staffs. Study abroad programs, by their nature, can be the epitome of diversity promotion and the vehicles by which colleges allow their students to immerse themselves in cross-cultural environments. Those schools that offer study abroad programs market them zealously in their view books, brochures and on their websites. Visitors to the Harvard website can subscribe to a listserv of study abroad programs.

Information about study abroad programs at Princeton is only one click from the university’s home page.

Mark Salisbury, director of institutional research and assessment at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill., has researched study abroad programs. Recently, he and three other authors published a book about them, Renewing the Promise, Refining the Purpose: Study Abroad in a New Global Century.

Salisbury says interest in study abroad programs is on the rise at America’s colleges, but a very slow rise. “The same subset of students who have always studied abroad continue to study abroad. There might be some changes in the margins, like more students coming from business majors than there used to be, but there are more business majors than there used to be.” Still, “the absolute number of students who study abroad continues to go up with great fanfare,” he says.

Although valuable in its own right, study abroad is becoming more and more exclusive, an opportunity for a select few on campus. Only about 2 percent of undergraduates nationwide participate in these programs, disproportionate when compared to the media and promotional attention these programs receive.

The profile of study abroad students continues to be mostly White and female.

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“These demographics have been a real thorn in the side of the study abroad world,” says Salisbury. For the past 30 years, these programs have remained one-third male and two-thirds female, no matter what lengths the schools go to boost male participation. About 81 percent of study abroad students are White, certainly not a reflection of the demographics at America’s colleges. Yet the programs “have maintained this demographic profile for a very long time, and it has been a challenging thing to shift,” says Salisbury.

Several factors are at play here. Women attend college at a higher rate than men, women are retained past the first year at a higher rate than men, and women graduate at a higher rate than men.

“This gap appears in high school and slowly gets wider and wider as you go through. For example, at Augustana you might have a freshman class that comes in that’s 55 percent female and 45 percent male, and by the time you get to graduation it’s 60 percent female and 40 percent male,” says Salisbury.

Researchers have spent considerable time and resources to understand how men experience college and how women experience college and how their experiences influence the decisions they make while in school.

Stereotypes painted males as lone wolves who stand on their own as heroic figures and females as individuals who seek out peer groups and rarely fly solo. It turns out, however, that these stereotypes might be inaccurate – at least as they relate to smart decision making about those college experiences that could benefit one in the future – such as study abroad. “Men get in with their peer groups, and those become pretty powerful for men – and undermine the likelihood of them choosing to do something that could require them to leave the peer group,” says Salisbury.

Women have peer groups too. But they don’t allow their position in the peer group to influence their interest or willingness to participate in something positive that would take them away from it, like studying abroad. One institution noticed that its men were apprehensive about participating in study abroad programs, so it convinced some of its baseball players to study abroad. Today that program is predominantly baseball players.

“Once one or two went. Now a whole bunch of them go. It just became part of the meme,” says Salisbury. The institution is using its baseball team to market its study abroad programs to the men at the school.

But institutions are sorely missing the mark with minorities, Hispanics in particular. Study abroad is largely promoted as the ideal way to develop and hone the cross-cultural skills necessary to succeed in a diverse and global society. Minorities at today’s predominantly White institutions, however, develop and hone their cross-cultural skills every day. They’re already in a cross-cultural setting. Yet schools continue to use this sales pitch.

Salisbury and his colleagues who observe the differences that influence study abroad interest and intent across racial and ethnic groups presented at a symposium focused on increasing participation amongst minority students at the University of Texas (UT)-Austin. Many institutions market their study abroad programs to their student body populations as though all the students are White and of European descent.

Salisbury says this type of marketing isn’t always effective, and he offers UT-Austin’s demographics as an example. It’s misleading to refer to Hispanics as a minority on the UT-Austin campus because Hispanics comprise the largest non-White group on campus.

“A non-White student hearing a study abroad sales pitch comes to that sales pitch from a very different set of experiences than a White student. If the sales pitch is just saying to them, ‘You have to go across the world to get a cross-cultural experience,’ that’s not going to ring very true. It’s going to sound idiotic in a way because for most minority students, especially minority students at majority White institutions, as a function of being a minority you are having a cross-cultural experience much more often than a White person living in the suburbs of Chicago,” says Salisbury.

He suggests the study abroad community analyze its own marketing messages to determine how they sound from a variety of perspectives, not just that of the White, upper-class student. The primary goal of study abroad programs is to offer their participants a cross-cultural experience and the opportunity to hone their cross-cultural skills. Salisbury asks, “Why stop there?”

Schools need not limit their programs to this single goal. Many Hispanics are the first in their family to attend college and, as a result, are in the process of expanding their scope in their life experiences. Study abroad, says Salisbury, can offer these individuals the opportunity to develop a sense of initiative, self-confidence, self-worth and the sense of accomplishing something difficult. “These are powerful things for a college student to experience, and they light a lot of fires for a person that they can then apply in a lot of different ways after the study abroad experience is over,” says Salisbury.

Institutions often don’t recognize or seldom publicize the positives study abroad has to offer beyond the cross-cultural experience. White American students who travel to London, for example, might experience a small degree of cross-cultural awareness as a result of the trip. But that can’t be compared to the degree to which White American students will experience cross-cultural awareness if they were to travel to Central Africa.

That’s not to say that a study abroad program does not have something to

“Initiative, self-confidence,

self-worth and the sense of accomplishing something difficult – these are powerful things for a college student to experience, and they light a lot of fires.”

Mark Salisbury, director of institutional research and assessment, Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill.

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offer the White American student visiting London. Good study abroad programs, says Salisbury, can offer far more than cross-cultural experiences and skills, and these are equally important developmentally.

Salisbury encourages study abroad programs to develop a lucid sense of the developmental outcomes expected by those who participate in the program and a clear idea of how these outcomes can be useful for all students, no matter their race or background.

Twenty years ago, institutions attempted to increase minority participation in study abroad programs by creating what they called heritage-seeking programs. Institutions encouraged African-American students to participate in study abroad programs in Africa, while encouraging AsianAmerican students to participate in study abroad programs in China. But their plans backfired. These programs, it turns out, caused at least as much harm as good.

“Asian-American students would think, ‘I’m sort of not quite American living here in San Francisco, and I’m of Chinese descent, so I’ll go back to China and sort of feel at home in a way.’ But they’d go to China and feel just as much out of water as they did in San Francisco for the opposite reason they felt out of water in San Francisco. So they had this tremendous cultural disconnect or disruption because they didn’t feel at home in either place – that’s not a particularly healthy feeling,” says Salisbury.

Those who developed heritage-seeking programs made an entire series of foolish presumptions about how to implement them and created more identity disconnects with their students than they solved. “One of the presumptions is that the primary outcome of study abroad programs is intercultural skill development, and I just think that that is a silly presumption that undersells the possibilities of study abroad,” says Salisbury.

Successful study abroad programs do not make this mistake. Instead they broaden their approach by tying the study abroad program to a student’s major. For example, as part of an international business course, study abroad students might work with corporations halfway around the world to learn product development and marketing as they develop a cross-cultural understanding within these disciplines. Naturally, the student is exposed to the cross-cultural aspect of product development and marketing, but in this context the student is learning more than just cross-cultural competence.

“Students learn deep skills about innovation and creativity, the things one would have to know to market effectively to different audiences.

There’s all kinds of really cool things that come out of that program. ...

Once you start thinking about study abroad programs in that way, you can talk about those things in a very specific way, as they relate to the major.

Every student has to have a major, and there are very interesting ways to work study abroad into the major that shouldn’t be less valuable across race, ethnicity or gender, for that matter,” says Salisbury.

In Salisbury’s view, the greatest flaw of study abroad programs is that they have “sold their souls” to increasing participation in their programs and have thought little about the back end of the program. To make learning deep, sustainable and influential, says Salisbury, study abroad programs have significant work to do when the students arrive back home.

The difference between making a study abroad program just another interesting college experience and making it an experience that changes a student’s view of himself and his role in the world is the result of what happens after he arrives home. “Way too often, colleges and universities just leave it to chance,” says Salisbury.

There are several reasons for this. First, study abroad tends to function

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within the curricular model of higher education, in which it is viewed as a class for which students earn credits for their participation. “When the class is over, the class is over and you move on to the next set of classes, with the presumption that all the learning that you were going to get from that class happened by the time you finished that final,” says Salisbury.

Learning, as it relates to study abroad, doesn’t fit into that curricular model. The time a student spends abroad is a disequilibrating experience and must be followed by a period of reflective meaning making. If it’s not, students will not be able to make sense of what they just experienced, who they met, who they interacted with and how they changed as individuals, says Salisbury. The problem is that this approach to education does not fit neatly into the traditional curricular model. “Colleges just have to do something different in the way they think about study abroad and its effect on learning,” says Salisbury.

Salisbury says that colleges and universities must create mechanisms at the back end of study abroad programs to round out the experience.

Simpson College in Iowa, for example, has a required course that has a prerequisite of studying off campus. To satisfy this prerequisite, students can participate in a study away program (that means they stay in the U.S. but study off campus), or they can participate in a true study abroad program. The course then helps students make sense of what they experienced and reflect on it. “They’re back on their home campus, they’re in familiar territory, so they can focus on that process,” says Salisbury.

Simpson is not the only school that takes this approach to study abroad.

Other schools have implemented international ambassador programs.

Students who participate in these programs spend time abroad, and when they arrive back in the states they go through a series of debriefings or exercises. These students then work as peer advisors to students interested in studying abroad. They discuss the study abroad experience with these students, and that in and of itself forces them to reflect upon their own experience. “It’s a guided process, and there are some reflective components, and this helps students process their own experiences,” says Salisbury.

Using the power of technology, some institutions encourage their study abroad students to gather virtually. They blog, message and communicate using chat rooms. “I don’t know that there is necessarily an ideal model; there are lots of different ways to do this. But it takes an intentionality from the college or university to say, ‘We know that this is important, and we are not going to allow that part of the process to slip,’” says Salisbury.

Renewing the Promise, which Salisbury wrote with Susan Twambly, Shanon Termut and Paul Klutt, gathers all the research performed on study abroad programs into one title. Study abroad, in a way, is a field without a home. Most of the published research on study abroad programs ends up within the discipline under which the study abroad program took place, says Salisbury. The goal of Renewing the Promise is to get a handle on the study abroad research, put it in the context of the current predominant narrative about study abroad and present the rich history of study abroad.

Salisbury says the authors wanted to “pull it all together and, at the end of it, see what we learned from all of that. That’s how we ended up with the title. We’re really trying to hearken back to why was study abroad created and developed as this potentially powerful experience and then refocus that in the current context, given all the changes that have happened in higher education, so study abroad might be able to realize its potential.”

Mock into Democracy at CGS Conference CONFERENCES/CONVENTIONS

The

by Peggy Sands Orchowski

Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) met for three intense days in Washington, D.C., this December to focus on creativity and innovation in graduate education. Considering the many serious challenges involved, including global competitiveness, rising costs and increasing demands for quality assurance, more diversity and jobs outside of academia, you would think that the three days of panels, keynote speakers, presentations and discussions of new data from recent studies would have been endlessly serious. But actually, the hundreds of graduate deans, administrators and professors in attendance from across the country and abroad had some fun too. After all, it’s hard to be unfailingly serious when your first night’s entertainment is the Capitol Steps (whose theme is “we put the ‘mock’ into Democracy”); your keynote speaker is political liberals’ favorite conservative pundit and humorist, David Brooks; and you have to talk about things called MOOCs. “University community voters were the key demographic in the 2012 elections,” Brooks noted the first day of the conference. “The presidential candidates spent hundreds of thousands of dollars testing sliced targets of 18- to 26-yearolds to determine what messages, images and words best attracted this demographic and would get them to respond. It turns out that all that money, all the analysis and the crowd sourcing agreed that one word was the most important and attention-getting for this entire political demographic,” Brooks said to the gathering of now raptly attentive high-level university educators. “It was the word ‘Hey!’” As for issues, America and universities face the same three interrelated challenges, according to The New York Times columnist. They are: growing debt, growing inequality and a rapidly changing national demographic and work force. Education is almost universally seen as the way to fix it all.

Which got Brooks and the CGS quickly to the subject of MOOCs (massive open online courses) and to just exactly what is a university and a graduate school anyway? Brooks pointed out what he considered the three essential views of universities: 1) a facility for teaching job skills – which in many cases MOOCs can do fairly well; 2) a status goal provider and social sorter – which is best

done by some 150 elite campus-based colleges, the other 4,850 or so campuses who don’t will be swamped by MOOCs; and 3) (David’s preferred role for universities) “the purveyor and shaper of a lifetime ethos and culture of a face-

David Brooks, New York Times columnist

to-face intellectual society. It is that community that for many is the biggest motivator for learning – that is done better by bricks-and-mortar colleges and on-campus learning – so far.”

People who attend college speak a college language, have college values. Those who graduate from the same college often have a special bond, Brooks noted. It is a college’s general and each one’s unique culture that Brooks is most concerned should be passed on, as universities enter and develop their own MOOCs. “I travel around the country to speak at various universities,” Brooks said. “I am always struck by how unique each campus is, how different they are even in the same system. Colleges must be tremendously sensitive that their own mystique, call it a brand if you will, their own college community needs to exist online as well.”

The president of edX, Anant Agarwal, and the president emeritus of Tufts University, Lawrence Bacow, agreed. “Online education is an inevitable force, it seems, but education is a lot more than content mastery,” said Bacow. “The new technologies are allowing us to learn and teach teachers how we all learn – and remember and analyze information – better. It also teaches us how college students can live independently in widely diverse environments, but become part of a college label, part of its network.”

Of course, there are many excruciating issues

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to be worked out about MOOCs. They range from how to evaluate the quality of the actual learning that takes place, to whether a professor is to be paid more for teaching (or even being trained about how to teach) an online “classroom” of 100,000-plus students to a spectrum of questions regarding degrees and certificates.

“Certificates will certainly be part of the mix,” said Agarwal. “A MOOC certificate someday could be used as currency for advancement in universities just like the SATs or GREs are. They may become a normal part of admissions and transfer qualifications.” Discussion about the impact of MOOCs on everything from grading, attrition, mid-career, senior citizen and junior high school students, payment and even professorial tenure is just beginning, everyone agreed.

“Obviously, one size will not fit all, said Bacow, “but the process will make us consider even more just what does, say, a ‘Duke course’ look like?”

While diversifying students online was a focus of the CGS conference, the issue of minority student enrollment and completion of doctoral degrees in the STEM fields at all institutions was discussed separately. The council has just completed a longterm study on “Doctoral Initiatives on Minority Achievement and Completion” (DIMAC), which found that the percentage of underrepresented minority students (URMs) completing STEM doctoral programs had increased nationally from 8.5 percent in 1995 to 12.8 percent in 2011. But URM faculty and tenured professors were still below parity at most institutions. Some institutions with outstanding practices that were featured included the STEM graduate programs at the universities of California-San Diego, Iowa, South Florida and Maryland Baltimore County.

The DIMAC study did not include foreign students and faculty, who are, in many research universities, the majority in STEM graduate programs.

International scholars are considered to be part of the “geographic diversity” mix by the National Association of University Diversity Officers.

“There are reports that the overall numbers of Americans studying for science and engineering Ph.D. degrees have decreased while the number of foreign students have increased,” acknowledged Subra Suresh, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) at the conference’s final plenary session.” But NSF has increased funding for its Graduate Research Fellows grants, which go to American citizens only.”

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REPORTS

Hispanic Student Enrollments Hit Historic Highs

F

by Paul Hoogeveen ollowing a 24 percent spike in Hispanic college enrollment in 2010, Hispanics achieved a number of school enrollment records in 2011.

Most significantly, according to the report Hispanic Student Enrollments Reach New Highs in 2011 released by the Pew Hispanic Center in August 2012, at nearly all levels, from K-12 to four-year postsecondary institutions, Hispanic enrollment has reached historic highs.

Written by Dr. Richard Fry and Dr. Mark Hugo López of the Pew Hispanic Center, the report provides a clear picture that shows Hispanics increasingly gaining new ground, particularly at the four-year college level.

But while they continue to outpace other groups in college enrollment, Hispanics – the largest minority group in the United States and now the largest minority group on college campuses – still lag behind other groups relative to their percentage of the general population. And it’s not apparent that the current upward trend at the college level will be sustained in the future. Nevertheless, what is clear is that in recent years young Hispanics have been making ever greater progress in catching up educationally to their peers in other groups. Today more than 16 percent of young college students are Hispanic.

Public School Enrollment: How the Pipeline to College Is Changing Among its findings, the report cites significant changes at the public school level that have contributed greatly to growth at subsequent levels of Hispanic Share of Pre-K through 12th Grade Public School Enrollment and 18 - to 24-Year-Old College Enrollment, 1972-2011 25%

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23.9

Pre-K through 12th grade public school enrollment, ages 3 and older 16.5

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College enrollment, ages 18-24

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0 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2011 Notes: “Pre-K through 12th grade public school enrollment, ages 3 and older” shows the Hispanic Share of enrollment in public schools from pre-K through 12th grade.

Public school enrollment figures for 1980 are not available. “College enrollment, ages 18-24” shows Hispanic share among college students ages 18-24.

Source: Pew Hispanic Center analysis of the October Current Population Survey (CPS)

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education. Based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the authors found that 12.4 million Hispanics were enrolled in the nation’s public schools from pre-K through 12th-grade level in October 2011.

Approximately one-quarter (24.7 percent) of all public elementary school students nationwide in 2011 were Hispanic – a trend reached at the kindergarten level in 2007 and the public nursery school level in 2006, according to the report. And across the entire public school spectrum, 23.9 percent of all pre-K through 12th-grade public school students were Hispanic – a record high for Hispanic public school enrollment. For the sake of comparison in terms of growth, Hispanic K-12 enrollment share in 2011 was about 8 percent higher than in 2000, and 18 percent higher than in 1972.

The report points out that while Hispanic population growth has played a role, it does not in and of itself fully explain the growth in enrollment.

Beyond growth in the share of students at the K-12 level, Hispanics have also gained more ground in terms of secondary level completion and college enrollment eligibility. In 2011, 21 percent of all public high school students were Hispanic. Also, a record 76.3 percent of all Hispanics between the ages of 18 and 24 (3-plus percent more than in 2010) had either a high school diploma or General Educational Development (GED) degree – the highest high school completion rate ever attained by Hispanics.

As a result, these changes at the public school level have set the stage for growth at the postsecondary level. Among these young secondary level completers, 45.6 percent were enrolled in either two-year or four-year colleges – another record.

College Enrollment: A Number of Milestones College enrollment among all students ages 18 to 24 grew by 3 percent between 2010 and 2011, reaching a record high of 12.6 million. But there was a vast difference in enrollment trends among the groups compared in the report. White non-Hispanic enrollment, for example, hit 7.9 million in 2011, up 3 percent from 2010. Meanwhile enrollment among Blacks actually fell by 3 percent to 1.6 million, while Asian-American enrollment dropped even further – down by 8 percent to about three-quarters of a million students.

Hispanics in the same age bracket, on the other hand, made significant gains, increasing by 15 percent to a total of 2.1 million. Hispanic enrollment growth alone accounted for about three-quarters of the overall increase in enrollment across all groups. The 15 percent surge follows an earlier spike in Hispanic enrollment of about 24 percent between 2009 and 2010, as reported early last year (see “Closing the Education Gap: A Surge in Hispanic College Enrollment” in the Jan. 30, 2012, issue of The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine).

“Given the growing absolute numbers of young Hispanics, I would expect that the absolute levels of young Hispanic college students will continue to rise,” said Fry of the recent upsurge. “So rising numbers of young Hispanic students may continue in the future.” But what is more interesting, he noted, is that “in 2011, young Hispanics also reached new milestones in terms of rates of college attendance.”

The rate of growth in Hispanic enrollment has been stunning, surging past not just other groups of young adults, but the growth rate of the overall Hispanic population as well. The share of Hispanic college students between the ages of 18 and 24 grew by nearly 50 percent between 2006 and 2011. Hispanics now comprise 16.5 percent of all 18- to 24-year-old college students in the United States, marking the first time in history that the share of Hispanics enrolled in college matched overall Hispanic population representation.

“It is very clear that the growth of young Hispanic college enrollment markedly outpaces the growth of the young Hispanic population,” Fry emphasized while explaining the significance of this milestone. “For example, from 2000 to 2011, the young Hispanic population – ages 18 to 24 – grew 45 percent. But the number of Hispanic college students – ages 18 to 24 – grew by 131 percent, or more than doubled, over the same time period. So Hispanic college enrollment growth is not paralleling Hispanic population growth, but strongly outgaining it.”

Changes in enrollment of 18- to 24-year-olds at two-year colleges in 2010 also showed significant growth among Hispanics. Two years ago, 835,000 young Hispanics were enrolled at two-year colleges; in 2011, that figure grew by 20 percent to 908,000, making Hispanics a full quarter of all students between the ages of 18 and 24 (by comparison, 630,000 Black students were enrolled at two-year colleges in 2010).

Perhaps even more significantly, enrollment growth of young 18- to 24year-old Hispanics at four-year-colleges also achieved new milestones in 2011. Their numbers increased by 20 percent between 2010 and 2011 to a historic high of 1.2 million, surpassing enrollment of young Black stuNumber of Hispanics Earning Associate and Bachelorʼs Degrees, 1977-2010 (thousands) 160

140

140

112

120 100

Bachelorʼs degree

80 60 40

Associate degree

20 0 1977

1981

1991

1995

1999

2003

2007 2010

Notes: 1997 and 1981 date excludes some cases for which race/ethnicity was not available. Degree-granting institutions are those that grant associate or higher degrees and participate in Title IV federal financial aid programs.

Source: Tables 297 and 300 in U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, “Digest of Education Statistics, 2011” PEW RESEARCH CENTER

18-to 24-Year-Old Enrollment in Four-Year Colleges, 2010-2011 (millions)

White

Hispanic

Black

Asian

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

2010

2011

Notes: “White” includes only non-Hispanic whites. The figures above refer the white-, black- and Asian-alone populations.

Source: Pew Hispanic Center analysis of the October 2010 and 2011 Current Population Survery (CPS) PEW RESEARCH CENTER

dents (1.1 million) for the first time. Today 13.1 percent of all students enrolled at four-year colleges and universities are Hispanic, making Hispanics the largest minority group represented at four-year institutions of higher learning.

Nevertheless, Fry also pointed out that despite this significant upsurge, at 16.5 percent, the Hispanic share of college students continues to lag behind their 20 percent share among all young people ages 18 to 24.

Completion Rates and Degree Attainment According to the report, Hispanics have seen their rate of attainment of either an associate or a bachelor’s degree increase by a factor of seven over the last 40 years. Consequently, not only did Hispanics reach a far higher number of degree recipients by 2011, but they made up a greater portion of all college undergraduate degree recipients as well.

Citing data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, Fry and López stated that in 2010 a record number of degrees – a total of 252,000 – were conferred on Hispanic students of all ages. Of these, 112,000 were associate degrees and 140,000 were bachelor’s degrees – both new highs in and of themselves.

But despite their extraordinary gains in degree attainment, the number of Hispanics awarded college degrees still fell behind that of other groups.

This is evident, for example, when comparing the attainment of four-year degrees among the various groups included in the report. Of the total 1.7 million bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2010, 1.2 million were awarded to White students and 165,000 were awarded to Black students. With Hispanics trailing these groups at 140,000, clearly there is still plenty of room for progress.

Meanwhile at the associate level, Hispanics (112,000) still lagged behind White students (553,000) by a significant margin of 441,000 degrees in 2010. But Hispanics came close to matching associate degree attainment of non-Hispanic Black students, on whom 114,000 two-year degrees were conferred in 2010.

In terms of overall share of degree recipients at two- and four-year colleges, the Hispanic portion also reached a record. In 2010, 1.7 million

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Hispanic Whites, and 10 percent were awarded to non-Hispanic Blacks.

At the associate level, 13.2 percent of all degree recipients in 2010 were Hispanic – yet another record. The Hispanic share matched that of non-Hispanic Blacks; meanwhile, 65 percent of all associate degree recipients that year were non-Hispanic White.

The report did not touch upon enrollment or degree attainment trends at the advanced degree level. Asked whether similar upward trends had occurred at the master’s or doctorate level, Fry said, “I have not looked at enrollment at the graduate level recently. However, Hispanic attainment of advanced degrees (master’s, professional and doctorate degrees) was not at a record high level in 2012.”

“So Hispanic college

enrollment growth is not paralleling Hispanic population growth, but strongly outgaining it.”

Dr. Richard Fry, Pew Hispanic Center bachelor’s degrees were awarded in total. Of these, 8.5 percent were Hispanic – an increase from 8.1 percent in 2009. But while this is a record high, Hispanics still trailed other groups; by comparison, 71 percent of all bachelor’s degrees conferred in 2010 were awarded to non-

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Other Driving Forces: Unanswered Questions While a rapidly growing number of college-eligible young Hispanics might in large part account for growth in college enrollment, it is likely not the sole factor, nor does it account for a growing share of degree attainment. The Pew report did not address any other contributing factors, however.

A report released by Pew Hispanic in November 2012, Latinos Express Growing Confidence in Personal Finances, Nation’s Direction, shows that Hispanics have regained a significant level of confidence in economic outlook since 2008. While this might possibly indicate a greater willingness to take on debt, this report did not explicitly establish any relationship between perceived financial conditions and college enrollment.

“We have not performed extensive analysis of the causes of growing Hispanic college enrollments,” Fry commented. The Pew Hispanic Center does not know how much of a role the better financial conditions are playing.”

Fry did speculate that while Pew Hispanic has not conducted an indepth study on the relationship between the labor market and college enrollment, a dearth of employment opportunities might be a contributing factor to the recent upswing in enrollment.

“Some of the growth in young Hispanic college enrollment is likely associated with the weak job market facing young adults since 2007,” explained Fry. “Upon high school graduation, some youth would prefer to work rather than pursue college, but given that they cannot find suitable work, they go to college. However, I have not quantified how important a factor the weak job market is.”

Of course, while the general upward trend in Hispanic enrollment growth has been fairly constant for years and the percentage of publicschool-age Hispanics is projected to reach more than 30 percent by 2036, the recent increase at the two-year and four-year college level – while encouraging – does not yet a trend at the college level make. Nor does the report provide any indication that growth in enrollment will slow or continue to increase in the future. As Fry cautioned: “I have no expectation whether growing rates of college attendance among young Hispanics have peaked or will continue in the near future.”

It’s an important question with regard to higher learning trends among Hispanics. But given current Hispanic population growth projections, along with steady gains in enrollment over the past several years, it seems unlikely that the current upward trend is going to stop any time soon.

Interesting Reads Celebrating Insurrection: The Commemoration and Representation of the Nineteenth-Century Mexican Pronunciamiento (The Mexican Experience)

By Will Fowler (Editor) The pronunciamiento, a formal list of grievances designed to spark political change in 19th-century Mexico, was a necessary practice, but fraught with problems. The third in a series of books examining the pronunciamiento, this collection of essays addresses the complicated legacy of pronunciamientos and its place in Mexican political culture. The essays explore their leaders in the nation’s history and consider why they proved ultimately ineffective in consecrating the pronunciamiento as a force for good, rather than one motivated by desires for power, promotion and plunder.

2013. 360 pgs. ISBN: 978-0803225411. $45.00 paper. University of Nebraska Press, (800) 755-1105 www.nebraskapress.unl.edu.

First in the World: Community Colleges and America’s Future

By J. Noah Brown From his vantage point as president and CEO of the Association of Community College Trustees, J. Noah Brown writes about the intersection between community colleges, America’s need to regain economic momentum, and its position as first in the world with respect to college attainment.

By connecting past economic and education policies and investments to possibilities for the future and continued national progress, Brown reminds us that restoring America’s prominence is within reach.

2012. 152 pgs. ISBN: 978-1442209978. $49.95 cloth. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, (800) 462-6420. www.rowman.com

Fun and Games on Campus: And How College Presidents Earn Their Big Dollars

By Robert V. Iosue Fun and Games on Campus is a collection of 22 essays depicting what goes on outside of classes, and how the author, who was president of the college, handled this wide assortment of situations. These incidents could have happened on any college campus. How they are handled usually depends on the style of the main man or woman. Topics covered include fraternities, sororities, faculty hitting on students, fundraising, visiting guests and interlopers of all kind.

2012. 308 pgs. ISBN: 978-1475250725. $12.99 paper. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, (206) 266-7180. www.createspace.com.

Don’t Stalk the Admissions Officer: How to Survive the College Admissions Process Without Losing Your Mind

by Risa Lewak ISBN: 978-1-58008-060-6. $13.99 paper. Ten Speed Press, (212) 782-9000. www.tenspeed.com.

The

title of this book would perhaps give the impression that it is a humorous and not substantive how-to book about navigating the application and admissions process in higher education.

However, although this book is written in a simple-to-understand and witty way, it is anything but insubstantial. This book is certainly not designed for parents; it is specifically targeted to the wheelhouse of the prospective student. It is a quick read, less than 200 pages, and its handy index allows the reader to re-read and refer to various chapter points as they become relevant to the application and admission process the student is going through at any given time.

Covering all bases, the author begins the instruction guide in the high school years, advising students not to go overboard when it comes to being an overachiever in secondary school. Pointedly, the author points out that the word loser and the word overachiever have the same Latin root word. Don’t, she says, pursue activities that you think will look good on a college application. If you don’t really have an interest in an activity, you won’t fool the admissions officer when you are questioned about it during the interview process. And by all means, don’t miss out on summer vacations trying to rack up extra credits. She hastens to add, though, that vacations are opportunities to pursue activities that will allow you to grow as a person and hone your life goals. It is not a time to become a couch potato.

Next, the author goes through the mating game of matching the student to the school, showing the reader how to ace the tricky application process – while maintaining a sense of humor and sanity. As a pre-admissions counselor, Lewak shares her experiences and expertise to empower readers with tips to craft a killer essay, choose between the SAT and ACT, score stellar recommendations, nail the interview, handle overly involved parents, and more. Prospective students will also gain insight into how to navigate crucial post-application issues like financial aid, rejection and deciding whether to take a year off.

With chapter titles like “Hot Sweats, Cold Sweats, and Difficult Breathing – Either You’re Applying to College or You Have Malaria” as well as “The Envelope Arrives: Whatever Happens, Don’t Take It Out on the Mailman,” it’s clear this is not your parent’s guide to preparing for the college experience. But on the other hand, it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s designed to be a handbook that gives students the know-how and confidence to, as the author explains, “conquer this stressful rite of passage ... and minimize nervous breakdowns. With more than two and a half million young people applying for college in this country, and the competition getting fiercer every year, perhaps a little levity is welcomed.

Reviewed by Mary Ann Cooper

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HI S PAN I C S O N T H E MO VE Baca Elected President of California Community Colleges Board of Governors Rio Hondo College Professor Manuel Baca has been elected the new president of the California Community Colleges Board of Governors for the 2013 term. Every year, the board, appointed by the governor, nominates and elects its president and vice president for a oneyear term. Baca currently teaches government and business law at Rio Hondo where he has served on the Academic Senate Executive Committee and as interim president. In recognition of his service and contributions to Rio Hondo College, he was named a fellow of the college. Baca has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from California State University-Fullerton and a doctorate from the University of Southern California.

Flores Named “Male Senior Executive of the Year”

Barea-Rodríguez Named Fellow in National PULSE Program

In Texas, the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (HHCC) recently honored Dr. William Flores, president of the University of Houston-Downtown (UHD), with its “Male Senior Executive of the Year” (2012) award.

“I am so humbled to receive this award from the HHCC, the largest Hispanic chamber in the country,” said Flores. “Some of the nation’s most respected Hispanic business leaders live in Houston and to be recognized among them is a tremendous honor.”

Flores is the fifth president of UHD, a federally designated Hispanic-Serving Institution and Minority-Serving Institution. He also was recognized by Hispanic Business Magazine as one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the country for his service to education.

Edwin Barea-Rodríguez, professor and chair of the University of Texas-San Antonio (UTSA) Department of Biology, has been selected as a Vision and Change Leadership Fellow for the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education (PULSE). Since 2006, Barea-Rodríguez has led the UTSA Minority Biomedical Research Support, Minority Access to Research Center and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Minority Ph.D. programs designed to increase the number and support undergraduate minorities pursuing advanced degrees in biosciences by providing research opportunities, a challenging curricula and various enrichment activities.

García Receives Inaugural Award Cisneros to Head Advisory Board for National Hispanic University

The newly formed Viet Foundation honored California State University-Fullerton President Mildred García with its first “Local Hero in Educational Excellence Award” at its inaugural benefit concert and fashion show. Eduardo M. Ochoa, president of Cal State Monterey Bay, introduced García to an audience of more than 200, calling her “a colleague who promotes higher education and business development training in the Vietnamese and minority community, and a person who is a staunch advocate of the mission of this new foundation.”

The National Hispanic University (Calif.) recently announced that it has formed an advisory board composed of prominent leaders from across the country. The board will be chaired by the Hon. Henry Cisneros, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1993 to 1997. The board will provide guidance on overall strategy and serve as the university’s ambassadors to the public, private and nonprofit sectors. As the executive chairman of CityView, Cisneros is actively involved in urban investing and building for community revitalization projects in large cities throughout the United States.

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Gutiérrez Returns to Virginia Tech Veterinary College as Anatomy Instructor Dr. J. Claudio Gutiérrez has returned to the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University as an anatomy instructor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology.

Gutiérrez was previously an assistant professor of anatomy at the Universidad Austral de Chile. He first came to the veterinary college in 2004 as a Ph.D. student under the Fulbright Scholarship program and has been an adjunct professor there since 2009.

Gutiérrez has a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the Universidad de Concepción in Chile and a doctorate in teratology from the veterinary college at Virginia Tech.

#1 The

Hispanic Outlook MagazineÂŽ

MAGAZINE for multicultural professionals in higher education Please visit

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For more advertising information call us at (201) 587-8800 ext. 102 or 106

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Visit our website at http://www.skagit.edu for further information. EE0/AA

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Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, a state-owned college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is seeking applications and nominations for the position of Vice President for Academic Affairs. As the chief academic officer of the institution, this position reports directly to the President and is charged with the supervision, development and implementation of all Certificate and Associate degree programs.

The academic support areas of institutional assessment, career services, student retention, library services, multi-cultural affairs, financial aid, student registration, tutoring, workforce development, and continuing education report to this position.

Qualifications for the position include an earned doctorate in education administration or a closely related area, substantial teaching experience, and demonstrated excellence in all aspects of the administration of technical education including but not limited to scheduling, curriculum development, and the employment and evaluation of full and part-time faculty. In addition, the ideal candidate will possess strong interpersonal skills, effective written and oral communications skills, a strong work ethic, organizational skills, and a passion for the mission of the College. For a more complete job description and a list of essential job functions, look under Employment Opportunities on the College website.

Interested candidates should submit a letter of interest, a current resume, and copies of their college transcripts to: Ms. Betty Tompos Vice President for Finance and Administration 750 East King Street Lancaster, PA 17602-3198 Email: tomposb@stevenscollege.edu www.stevenscollege.edu

Applications and nominations will be received beginning immediately and until the position is filled. Review of applications will begin February 15, 2013. Application by persons from underrepresented groups is particularly encouraged.

The

University of South Florida System is a high-impact, global research system dedicated to student success. The USF System includes three institutions: USF Tampa; USF St. Petersburg; and USF Sarasota-Manatee. The institutions are separately accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. All institutions have distinct missions and strategic plans. Serving more than 47,000 students, the USF System has an annual budget of $1.5 billion and an annual economic impact of $3.7 billion. USF is a member of the Big East Athletic Conference.

Administrative and Executive Positions: Director of Financial Management (University College) Sr. Director of Development-Gift Planning (Foundation) Sr. Director of Development-COB (Foundation) Regional Chancellor (St. Petersburg Campus) Sr. Director Academic Learning Design & Technology (University College) Director of Counseling Center (Student Affairs) Assistant Vice President-Dean (Student Affairs) Director of the Center for Student Involvement (Student Affairs) Director of Quality Enhancement-Academic Success (St. Petersburg Campus) Faculty Positions: College of Arts and Sciences College of Education Assistant Professor (7) Assistant/Associate Professor (1) Assistant/Associate Professor (3) Assistant Professor (3) Assistant/Associate/Full Professor (1) Dean (1) Associate Professor/Professor (1) College of Business College of Engineering Assistant Professor (3) Open Rank (Full Professor) (4) Associate/Full Professor (2) Assistant Professor (3) Assistant/Associate Professor (2) Open Rank (Full/Associate/Assistant) (2) College of Arts Assistant Professor (2) Director & Professor (1)

St. Petersburg Campus Assistant Professor (3) Assistant/Associate Professor (1)

College of Public Health Assistant Professor (1) Assistant/Associate Professor (1)

Sarasota Campus Assistant Professor (1)

College of Medicine Assistant/Associate Professor (5) Assistant Professor (11) Assistant/Associate/Full Professor (4)

College of Nursing Nursing Faculty (2)

Mental Health Law & Policy Assistant Professor (2) Professor (1)

Coll. of Behavioral and Comm. Sciences Professor (1) Assistant Professor (3) Associate/Full Professor (2)

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 The Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, (813) 974-4373; or (3) call USF 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

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The Hispanic Outlook Is Also A

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California State University, Bakersfield Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs California State University, Bakersfield seeks an outstanding and talented professional to join our campus community as the Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs (AVP-FA). We seek an individual who is committed to the mission and vision of the University, who has a demonstrated commitment to academic excellence, who is experienced in research and publication, and who has a record of integrity and ethical leadership.

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As the Faculty Personnel and Diversity Officer for the campus, this individual will provide strong, experienced collegial leadership in administering faculty human resource programs, including monitoring and promoting the campus’ commitment to increasing faculty diversity.

Under the direction of the Provost, the AVP-FA has primary responsibility for overseeing matters related to faculty personnel and for initiating activities that support faculty development and advancement.

For complete advertisement, application instructions, and detailed job description for this position, please visit our webpage at http://www.csub.edu/provost/MPPSearches.shtml CSUB fosters and appreciates ethnic and cultural diversity among its faculty, students, and staff.

Applications from women, ethnic minorities, veterans, and individuals with disabilities are welcome.

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P.O. Box 68 Paramus, NJ 07652-0068 CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

P ri min g the Pump. ..

ENCOURAGING LATINO STUDENTS TO USE PROFESSORS’ OFFICE HOURS

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Miquela Rivera, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist with years of clinical, early childhood and consultative experience. She lives in Albuquerque, N.M.

ffice hours are a value-added – yet underutilized – resource for Latino college students. Attending college but not using office hours is like spending a small fortune on a smart phone but only using it for outgoing calls. Professors are a prime source of information and opportunities, but the student must access the resource and the professor must engage effectively with the student for office hours to be used effectively.

Why do Hispanic students often underutilize office hours?

Perhaps they don’t know about them. Some possibly think office hours are for experienced students who already know the professor.

Others might fear imposing on the instructor, being rejected or appearing “dumb,” so they don’t cross the professor’s threshold. If more Hispanic students knew the benefit derived from office hours – information, personalized guidance, performance feedback and developing a connection for future leads or references – they might show up to use them.

Start in high school. Teachers who are available and approachable narrow the teacher-student gap by inviting Latino students to stop by the faculty office to receive personalized instruction on a given topic. It might take a few direct invitations before a Hispanic student decides that the teacher is genuine, so faculty members are wise to continue inviting.

Regularly scheduled feedback sessions help high school students receive progress updates directly from teachers early enough to guide their performance for the rest of the term. Whether a student needs strengthening in some areas of the subject or she is performing well in the class, an invitation to stop by and talk is the best way to build the student-teacher relationship that is crucial in retaining Hispanic students in school. Monthly feedback sessions throughout a 16-week semester are time-consuming for teachers, but the frequency increases the chances that students will connect with the teacher. Knowing they will meet regularly with the teacher gives Hispanic students an unspoken nudge to keep up with the assigned work or seek help early.

The first office visit for a student is the prime opportunity for the instructor to provide information and encouragement. After that, the

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instructor can then engage the student in more casual conversation that develops the personal relationship, which increases the chances that the Hispanic student will stay in school. It is the prime opportunity to catch students at their best and challenge them to go even farther.

Giving the student something to take away from each office visit also helps. Lending a book, providing an additional reference handwritten on a piece of paper, or asking the student to do something and return for another visit can solidify the student-teacher connection. The subtle message of giving shows the student that the teacher is invested in their learning while politely handing the responsibility back to the student with coaching and encouragement.

Undivided attention is also crucial. While high school students do not fully understand the demands placed on faculty, and they will often be self-absorbed, they will also be sensitive to any slights, intentional or not.

A subtle brush-off will take a long time to overcome, so teachers and administrators are wise to stop what they are doing and attend to the student’s needs. If undivided attention is not possible when the student approaches, explaining what the competing demands are and offering a set time to return can help assure that the student will try again.

Offering more listening than talking to any student is crucial during office hours, but for Hispanic students, the polite attention to what they say and probing questions to follow up show the teacher’s genuine interest in the student’s goals. Listening also enables the instructor to gather information to guide future teaching and to structure follow-up feedback and office visits. That information gleaned from the student’s conversations helps empower the student while meeting them “where they are” – a natural bridge for assuring that the student will return.

High school counselors and teachers can also explain to upper-classmen in high school how office hours work in college and coach them in using that resource effectively. College orientation and student services in universities can reinforce that message, too.

This article appeared online only in the 02/04/13 Issue

Diversifying the Library Profession

ORGANIZATIONS/INNOVATIONS/PROGRAMS

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by Marilyn Gilroy

more than a century, libraries have been a cornerstone of the American Dream, providing equal access to information and offering a place for education, self-help and lifelong learning. As the American Library Association (ALA) points out, libraries often are the first place immigrants turn for help in learning English and assimilating into their new communities.

“Libraries are places that are trusted because they are open and accessible to everyone, which is why so many different groups feel welcome,” said ALA president Maureen Sullivan. “In our profession, we often refer to immigrants as ‘new Americans’ to show how much we value them and want to serve them.”

Many libraries extend the welcome mat to non-English-speaking populations by offering ESL classes and bilingual materials in their collections. Some libraries host conversation circles and provide a place for language tutoring.

“Librarians make sure there are languagespecific parts of the collection,” said Sullivan. “I recently visited a library in San Francisco and was amazed to see how many different languages were represented in the collection.”

But although libraries have done a remarkable job of responding to the changing demographics of American communities, the library profession has been slower to change, remaining predominately White. ALA membership, which mirrors the profession, is 89 percent White.

However, the ALA has been taking proactive steps to make the library profession a reflection of the diverse communities it serves.

One of the ALA’s most successful initiatives is the Spectrum Scholarship Program. The program is designed to increase graduate school enrollment and employment of underrepresented populations in the library field. It provides 50 students from racial and ethnic underrepresented groups with a $5,000 tuition scholarship and $1,500 in professional development funds as they pursue a master’s degree in library and information science (MLIS). Funding for the scholarships comes in part from the Bill & Melinda

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Gates Foundation. Since 1997, the ALA has awarded more than 730 Spectrum Scholarships.

“It’s our strongest program for diversifying the profession,” said Sullivan. “These are individuals who come in motivated and leave even more motivated because they want to serve their

ALA president Maureen Sullivan

communities and make sure everyone has access to libraries.”

Spectrum Scholars are very talented, says Sullivan, and they are highly sought after by employers who recognize the program chooses only the best applicants.

“Spectrum Scholars are given scholarships because they are seen as effective candidates for positions,” she said. “They are committed to meeting the challenges of being librarians. Not only do they get jobs, but they also tend to stay in the profession.”

Educating Library Leaders Marissa García of Chicago was awarded a Spectrum Scholarship to Dominican University’s

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Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) in summer 2011. Dominican is particularly attractive to Spectrum Scholars because it matches the ALA tuition scholarship 100 percent.

García describes herself as a “bookworm” who has been passionate about literature and writing since she was a child.

“I was the kid who read at recess,” she said.

“My parents gave me freedom of choice when it came to library usage. I was allowed to read whatever I wanted.”

García spent many hours at the library, wandering through the shelves, looking at the books and enjoying what she felt was the atmosphere of “hushed magic.” Her passion for reading was coupled with a desire to write, and after high school, she attended Columbia College in Chicago and majored in fiction writing. In her last year of undergraduate school, García was hired as an assistant librarian in the youth services department at the Berwyn Public Library, a branch of the Chicago Public Library. It was then she decided that a future in librarianship would be the right fit for her.

“Getting my MLIS is a way of combining my love of literature and writing with a career,” she said.

García decided to come to Dominican in part because of its strong programs in children’s literature and youth services. The graduate school’s certificate in library service to young people is offered to both MLIS and post-MLIS students.

With Dominican’s School of Education, it also cohouses the Butler Children’s Literature Center, one of the nation’s premier centers for the study of children’s and young adult literature.

García says she has loved taking courses in children’s literature and has put her knowledge to use as she continues to work in the Berwyn library, which serves a predominately Hispanic population.

“I love working in a public library because if I come up with a good idea, I usually can see it to fruition,” she said. “Right now, I am running a program for groups of children and young adults to encourage and inspire them to write.”

Attracting diverse scholars and new talent such

as García to the library profession is part of the mission of Dominican’s graduate library school.

“The university strives to position its students for success on a global scale, so it’s important to attract students of this caliber and experience,” said Susan Roman, GSLIS dean. “Libraries continue to serve many purposes to people in different areas, and we want to incorporate all of those new and different ideas into our teaching and learning.”

Dominican has made vigorous efforts to attract Hispanics to the library school.

“We encourage Hispanic students to apply, and we are proactive in recruiting, even among undocumented students,” said Roman. “We have an engaged and smart faculty who understand the importance of diversity.”

One-third of the GSLIS faculty at Dominican is from underrepresented groups, but Roman says the school also has diversified the staff members who recruit students and greet them when they come on campus to visit.

“It is important for students to see themselves reflected in the faces of faculty and staff,” she said.

The library master’s degree curriculum includes courses that speak to new priorities and a global outlook in libraries. The traditional degree offerings in reference, online services and organizing materials are still the basics, but an array of courses, including international librarianship, multicultural communication and management of cultural heritage resources, has been added.

Roman said the emphasis on serving diverse communities is infused into the curriculum.

“Even in our standard courses, such as materials for young adults, we talk about the importance of balancing the collection for different cultures,” she said. “For example, the Chicago Public Library has branches in Chinatown and others that are in largely Hispanic neighborhoods.”

Roman acknowledges that today’s librarians are working in an environment that is far different from that of their predecessors. The individuals attracted to the profession are a new breed, often seeing themselves as “information activists” who are passionately committed to protecting the right to know and freedom of access to information. The library school at Dominican prides itself on preparing graduates to play an active role in serving their communities by meeting the need for informed citizens.

Roman says she is amazed by the high caliber of students in the graduate program, some of whom are lawyers or law enforcement personnel coming back to school to start a new career.

“I am so impressed with our students,” she said. “They are the brightest and most commit-

ted I have ever seen, and our faculty and adjunct faculty say the same thing.”

Dominican has expanded its library programs by offering a Ph.D. in library science for those who want to pursue careers in teaching, research or management. The three-year program is structured so that all courses take place on weekends, thus allowing students to keep their current jobs while earning a doctorate.

Elizabeth García was in the first cohort of students who received her Ph.D. from Dominican last August. With a bachelor’s degree in communication and a master’s in library science, she enrolled in the program while working in the adult services area of a public library.

After completing her coursework, she wrote a dissertation on the use of bibliotherapy.

Marissa García, Spectrum scholar

“The basic premise of my research is to examine the relationship that occurs between school social workers and librarians when the social worker is using bibliotherapy as a counseling technique,” she said. “In a nutshell, bibliotherapy consists of selecting reading material that has relevance to someone’s life situation. A few good examples are abusive relationships, loss of a parent, same-sex marriages and other family situations.”

After receiving her degree, García applied for and was selected for the position of manager of the West Lawn Branch of the Chicago Public Library. It is a role she clearly enjoys.

“I learn something new every day,” she said.

“People ask me different questions, and it’s my job to help them find the answers.”

The job is not without its challenges, and like many other libraries, there are limits to financial resources available due to the tight city budget.

“We have to do less with more,” she said. “It forces us to be creative.”

Helping New Americans One of the areas in which libraries have been applying resourcefulness and creativity is service to non-English users. Three years ago, an ALA study found that approximately 21 million people in the United States speak limited or no English, 50 percent more than a decade ago.

The study, Serving Non-English Speakers in U.S. Public Libraries, described the range of library services and programs for non-English speakers and analyzed effectiveness of services, barriers to library use, most frequently used services and most successful library programs by language served. Libraries reported the most successful library programs and services developed for non-English speakers were English as a Second Language (ESL), language-specific materials and collections, computer use and computer classes, story time and special programs.

Many of those services have been expanded under programs promoted by the ALA Office for Literacy and Outreach Services, which focuses attention on underserved populations. More than 100 libraries in 28 states have taken advantage of a grant program, The American Dream Starts @your library, to add or improve literacy series to adult English-language learners and their families. For example, funds were used by the El Paso, Texas, library to create a bookmobile to bring books, digital resources and Internet access to remote areas of the city and county. The Irving, Texas, public library created Conversaciones, a program for bilingual and Spanish-speaking adults, while the CharlotteMecklenburg, N.C., public library offered technology classes for adults in Spanish.

Several of the American Dream libraries used grant funding to teach citizenship classes, often partnering with local agencies and community colleges to conduct the classes. Some of those libraries hosted naturalization ceremonies that welcomed the new citizens to their community. As Sullivan explains, it’s all part of the role of “helping hand” played by libraries and librarians.

“One of the most important characteristics of librarians is their desire to help, especially when people are struggling,” she said. “The people who work in libraries are knowledgeable and often have networks and ties to the community which are important resources for those who are pursuing the American Dream.”

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College Loans

by Gustavo A. Mellander here has been a lot written recently about the large loan obligations that many college students assume, almost of necessity, as they attend college.

That was virtually unheard of a generation ago. The exception then being newly trained medical doctors whose loans were blithely excused since it was assumed they would be high-income earners – that wasn’t entirely accurate, but that was the popular view.

What is accurate is that increasingly nowadays college students find themselves almost forced to take out loans to remain in college. Many have it woven into their financial aid packages when they are accepted to particular colleges. Others have to borrow to keep up with their growing expenditures while enrolled.

College expenses have simply exploded in the last 30 years. Some will argue that those unbridled college increases are not justified. They point out that for decades, college increases have outpaced the nation’s inflation rate by double-digit percentages points. It is a fair criticism that has been studied by a few but not really resolved.

Colleges respond they have lowered costs by better management, hiring more adjuncts, instituting faculty buyouts, etc. They note that given their heavy human resources expenditures and ever-reduced state funding, they really can’t lower their costs. Others have a different point of view. The Wall Street Journal has characterized college professors as the country’s “last leisure class.”

Other costs students must absorb are rapacious, ever-increasing textbook prices. They have been a legitimate complaint of many and another reason why some students have sought loans.

Predatory For-Profit Schools Another reality that has fallen mostly on low-income students deals with predatory for-profit institutions. Most for-profits, but not all, force heavy loans on hapless students. They prey on unsophisticated veterans as well.

To make matters worse, most of their students never graduate, and many who do can’t find relevant employment. This nationwide scandal is finally being addressed by Congress and others.

Meanwhile, thousands of former students remain stuck with heavy loan obligations that cannot be eliminated via bankruptcy.

How Did It All Begin?

Seemingly sensible reasons existed a decade or so ago to provide needy students with loans. It was during yet another period of financial higher education reductions and restrictions. Society was no longer wildly in love with higher education, and many voters were reluctant to tax themselves further to maintain costly colleges.

It was reasoned that those who benefit the most from higher education, students, should pay a greater portion of their educational costs.

Thus as tuition and fees continued to increase and if one did not have enough resources to pay, loans would be provided. Since there had been widespread abuse of previous government loan programs by thousands of students who dodged their obligations by filing for bankruptcy, Congress decided these new loans would not be discharged via bankruptcy. The gov-

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ernment would track those who received loans and secure repayment with interest one way or the other.

So am I going to rail against loans? No, not at all. I still believe borrowing for college is one of the best investments a young person can make.

What we need is vigorous truth in advertising, nonpredatory colleges and very educated consumers.

In spite of the fact that some college graduates haven’t secured suitable employment, government statistics continue to note that college grads still earn more than one million dollars during their lifetime, compared to high school graduates, who earn considerably less than that.

I will not list the legion of other tangible, nonfinancial benefits most people receive by attending college. They are legion although frequently overlooked. They exist nonetheless.

As I was wallowing in Pollyanna thinking, I was pleased to read a paper by university economists Susan Dynarski of the University of Michigan and Sarah Turner of the University of Virginia.

They have studied the college loan issue and have firsthand experiences with student loans, since they had them.

They note that “recent sensational stories about crushing student debt burdens leave the impression that borrowing for college is unwise. The reality is that few students carry enormous debt loads.”

Dynarski has more than 25 years of experience in paying off more than $40,000 in student loans, incurred for a BA and master’s degree.

As both researchers and participants in the loan market, they stated without hesitation that “borrowing for college is one of the best investments a young person can make.”

College graduates do earn more than other workers. They also secure “professional” jobs that provide intangible benefits such as prestige, respect and career options. They are more likely to have good fringe benefits such as health insurance and pensions, which is good since college graduates tend to live longer.

Debt Loads To the present: what about those graduates or former students who are

overloaded with debt? We shouldn’t minimize their predicament. It is serious for them, but the debt is less than usually reported.

A recent New York Federal Reserve Bank report states that fewer than one in 30 students have debt loads above $100,000. That would be crushing in most professions but manageable in others.

Since we are dealing with a small cohort, the solution is not to abolish the entire loan market as some have suggested. As I mentioned before, we need to provide more consumer protections and education to have more sophisticated consumers.

College loans, government or private, should be the last recourse for students. Delaying college, part-time enrollment and work, summer employment, borrowing from family members, grants and other possibilities should be explored first.

We have an example in the recent mortgage crisis. It spurred an overhaul of financial regulation and better consumer education. It did not lead the nation to decry home ownership as not “worth it,” or rally to forgive all outstanding mortgage debt. That would have been a disproportionate response to a serious but limited problem.

A Word About College Majors Students really have to give a lot more thought and attention to the majors they select. High school counselors, parents, graduates working in the chosen field and potential employers should be consulted before one selects a major.

Colleges for their part should try to divorce themselves from their desires and benefits of attracting more students and focus on the particular needs of each student when they apply. It’s not easy, and I know education is now a business more than ever before. But each student’s particular education should be our main motivator.

As to scare tactics, let’s remember that no undergraduate can acquire a $70,000 or $120,000 debt when borrowing from the federal government’s Stafford Loan programs. The caps in these programs hold total debt to $31,000 for dependent students and $57,500 for older independent students.

Undergraduates who get deep into debt typically do so through private borrowing. This is where consumer protection needs to be dramatically improved and predatory institutions disciplined.

In 2005, Congress granted the private loan industry the same denial of bankruptcy rights federal loans have. I know the bankruptcy right was previously abused. But is the answer to deny a class of citizens rights granted to all others? The issue should be re-examined.

Unfortunately, by trying to be helpful and by being sensitive to previous default problems, a classic moral problem was created. Lenders, some well meaning and some not, extended too much credit to students. Some were “generous” to borrowers who clearly were unlikely to repay. Were lenders influenced by the fact that the borrowers can never escape their debt?

Much Lower than Touted But let’s not hang black crepe paper. The facts are that for the overwhelming majority of students, debt loads are much lower than what the press reports. Bad news sells, I guess.

I return to the Federal Reserve study, which stated 43 percent of student borrowers have less than $10,000 in debt and 72 percent owe less than $25,000.

The College Board also reported that, in 2009-10, 56 percent of those graduating with a BA from a public college had taken a loan. The average debt of those borrowers, after adjusting for inflation, was $22,000.

Is $22,000 too much debt for a BA? I don’t think so. Paid off over 10 years, monthly payments would be $217 at the current subsidized rate of 3.4 percent.

Under the graduated payment plan, the initial payment would be only $140 a month and then increase thereafter. It helps people get established, and as the graduate’s income rises, they can absorb the higher payments.

Another policy option being discussed in Washington would allow students to pay their debt over 20 years instead of 10, thereby cutting the monthly bill to just $126. That makes a lot of sense.

By way of comparison, I read that the average new car loan is $27,000.

This corresponds to a minimum monthly payment of $500 (assuming an excellent credit score, which few students have).

The car loan has to be paid off over five years: No bank will let you spread a car loan over decades, because a car has little market value after just a few years.

But a college education pays off over a lifetime, which is why paying for it over a long horizon makes sense. Spread the payments over the lifetime of the asset: a basic economic principle that Washington should keep in mind when designing student loan policies.

Federal loans also provide some protections. Payments are deferred during the college years and periods of unemployment.

But some borrowers can’t find a decent job or have medical problems that keep them from working to full capacity.

In that case, the income-contingent option would make a lot of sense.

Payments can be capped at 10 percent of discretionary income (as of 2014) and the balance forgiven after 25 years. Yet less than 8 percent of borrowers choose this option. Washington has been trying to make it simpler for borrowers to apply to this program.

College for Everybody?

There are good reasons not to go to college: first and foremost lack of motivation, low grades in high school, a real interest in a profession that doesn’t require a four-year degree such as carpentry, computer technicians, etc. The list is really endless and always changing. Different from the past, most Americans will have seven different jobs in their lifetime and indeed three different professions.

Everybody need not go to college to succeed in this world. Students should not go to college in a lockstep fashion to please their parents or anybody else. They should weigh their interests, options, the costs and obligations as well as the benefits.

Students should focus and keep their job prospects firmly in mind.

Planning a career in the fine arts entails accepting real employment realities that aren’t that favorable. But that doesn’t mean you can’t follow that dream; just be aware of existing realities. It might be wise to attend lowertuition institutions and keep loans to a very minimum, since the earnings prospects are not great in the fine arts.

On the other hand, diverse fields such as medicine, engineering or economics among others have better job prospects. It might make sense to borrow, within reason, to train for those fields.

Bottom Line Students: Fear of student loans is a poor and unjustified reason to not attend college. Borrowing from the federal government is an intelligent choice for students who are ready for college.

Life is a gamble. College is too, but it’s a good gamble. The odds are in your favor.

Dr. Mellander was a college president for 20 years. More recently, he was a graduate school dean at George Mason University.

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