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JULY 14, 2014
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VOLUME 24 • NUMBER 19
Motivating New Hispanic Scholars
MFA Program for Innovators
Latino Graduation Rates Propelled
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LATINO KALEIDOSCOPE
Let’s Hear It For The Bull By Carlos D. Conde omething unheard of happened in Madrid recently. They had a bullfight – a favorite blood sport of Spaniards and some aficionados in Latin Americans countries – with the spectacle as rigged as ever against those fuming, snorting monsters, but this time the bulls, in a rare outcome, won. The three matadors, appearing in the prestigious San Isidro Festival, ended up in the plaza’s infirmary with multiple gores and wounds and the bulls, all still standing, were retired to their stalls to be eventually slaughtered which is their fate, win or lose. The festival authorities had to cancel the rest of the day’s bullfighting program at one of the oldest and most renowned bullfight arenas in the world that features the world’s top matadors. They still had an arsenal of bulls awaiting their turn but all its prime-time bullfighters were in the arena’s infirmary licking their wounds and out of service. It was a shutout, bulls 3, matadors 0. It’s a rare occasion when a bullfight card is cancelled because the bulls put all the matadors out of commission. And it was unlike the movies when the hero, after being upended by a 1,000-pound brute, staggers up to cleanly thrust his sword in the bull’s dorsal as the fans roar their delight while a beguiling señorita sitting in the plaza’s front row tosses her hankie or a rose into the ring in adoring approval. This was for real and a bit surreal. There were plenty of aficionados and bulls left but no more matadors. This had never happened before. Most Americans look at bullfighting as barbaric but it’s been around since Mesopotamia days or before when the Greeks made a sport of taunting the beasts with a cape or stick and then running for their lives. The Spaniards refined it into a pageantry with the matadors prancing out with their entourage into the arena in their bead-spangled “traje de luces” and bow to the judges. Matadors are judged for skill and performance and rewarded with the bull’s ears after the kill. Two ears and a tail is superb work, the ultimate. The matador is granted a stroll around the plaza with his assistants while the fans roar in approval and beautiful young damsels toss out suggestive mementoes to him. One ear denotes so-so heroics which means the mata-
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dor probably goes home alone. A growing number of detractors in the few countries that still offer the traditional bullfights consider the sport cruel and inhumane and want it banned. Partisans say it’s not a sport but “fine art”; something like a tragic ballet between man and beast. Last year, Spanish legislation granted it cultural heritage status to protect it from any possible bans. Bullfighting is still popular in Latin American countries like Mexico, Peru, Columbia and Ecuador. Unfortunately, there is no half-way conciliation. Fighting bulls are bred to attack and kill and have no other purpose. A matador must kill the bull or be killed or maimed. That’s what happened to “Manolete,” the legendry bullfighter from Spain killed in 1947 by a bull, “Islero,” which became almost as famous as the man it killed. Spanish dictator, Gen, Francisco Franco declared three days of official mourning. There was the latter day Manuel Benítez, “El Cordobes,” the orphaned, rehabilitated petty thief known for his daring defiance of a bull’s horns. He was already a legend when I interviewed him in his hotel room in Lima as he dressed in his “traje de luces” for an afternoon performance. The only American bullfighter was Patricia McCormick, a brave lady matador never recognized as a bona fide torero because she was a woman and bullfighting is for machos. My best bullfighting story is an unsanctioned bullfighting event I attended in a slum community in Lima. The makeshift plaza consisted of flimsy, wire fencing. The bull, or what looked like a fighting bull, tore out of the corral into the ring. The dubious torero took one look at the snarling, snorting, highly agitated bull, dropped his cape and started running with the bull in hot pursuit and that’s the last we saw of them. 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速 JULY 14, 2014
Contents 6
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Lawsuits Against Fraternities Reveal Risks and Responsibility by Frank DiMaria
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Rebels with a Cause: An MFA Program for Future Innovators by Sylvia Mendoza
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Latino Graduation Rates Propelled by College Initiatives
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by Jamaal Abdul-Alim
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HISPA Helps Students Find Pathways to College by Marilyn Gilroy
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New PEW Findings Support the Value of Higher Education by Angela Provitera McGlynn
Cover photo courtesy of California State University San Bernardino
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Published by “The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Publishing Company, Inc.” Publisher and Editor Nicole López-Isa Executive Editor Marilyn Gilroy Senior Editor Mary Ann Cooper Administrative Assistant & Subscription Coordinator Barbara Churchill Washington DC Bureau Chief Peggy Sands Orchowski Contributing Editors Carlos D. Conde, Michelle Adam Contributing Writers Gustavo A. Mellander Art & Production Director Wilson Aguilar Arts & Production Associate Jenna Mulvey Advertising, Marketing & Sales Director Robyn Bland
Departments 3
Latino Kaleidoscope by Carlos D. Conde
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Scholars’ Corner
Article Contributors Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Frank DiMaria, Enmanuel Martínez, Sylvia Mendoza, Angela Provitera McGlynn, Miquela Rivera
by Enmanuel Martínez
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Targeting Higher Education Adjuncts: Walmart in Academia? by Gustavo A. Mellander
Editorial Office 220 Kinderkamack Rd, Ste E, Westwood, N.J. 07675 TEL (201) 587-8800 or (800) 549-8280 Editorial Policy
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Book Review Fires on the Border: The Passionate Politics of Labor Organizing on the Mexican Frontera by Mary Ann Cooper
Interesting Reads
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Uncensored by Peggy Sands Orchowski
Back Priming the Pump cover Learning to Ask for Help by Miquela Rivera
The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine® is a national magazine. Dedicated to exploring issues related to Hispanics in higher education, The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine®is published for the members of the higher education community. Editorial decisions are based on the editors’ judgment of the quality of the writing, the timeliness of the article, and the potential interest to the readers of The Hispanic Outlook Magazine®. From time to time, The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine® will publish articles dealing with controversial issues. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and/or those interviewed and might not reflect the official policy of the magazine. The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine® neither agrees nor disagrees with those ideas expressed, and no endorsement of those views should be inferred unless specifically identified as officially endorsed by The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine®.
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PERSPECTIVES
Lawsuits Against Fraternities Reveal Risks and Responsibilities By Frank DiMaria
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PERSPECTIVES
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court cases involving fraternities. For an entire year a 17-year-old freshman at the Univershe researched hundreds of court cases in which sity of Virginia in the early 1980s, Liz college students were seriously injured or even died Seccuro attended a party hosted by a in and around fraternity houses. fraternity on Greek row. She had one drink, became One of the more prominent cases involved dizzy and passed out. When she woke the next Amanda Andaverde, a freshman at the University morning, she was wrapped in a bloody sheet. of Idaho who attended a frat party at the Sigma AlSeccuro had been raped. pha Epsilon house in 2009. She arrived on foot, but She went to the Charlottesville police, but they left in a helicopter after falling out of an open winrefused to believe that she did not voluntarily drink dow on a sleeping porch and landing on cement too much. She went to the dean. He called the young about 25 feet below. Andaverde, who suffered perman who she believed had raped her to his office. manent brain damage from the fall, sued the Sigma He reprimanded the man for not being gentlemanly Alpha Epsilon house, the sorority she belonged to and told Seccuro not to drink so much. (Delta Delta Delta), the University of Idaho and Seccuro got little satisfaction from authorities, the Idaho State Board of Education. Her case, howbut eventually got on with her life. Still, the trauma ever, was dismissed because there was no evidence of being raped always haunted her. of an inherently dangerous condition in the house Twenty years later out of the blue she received a and because she clearly letter from the man who should have seen the winhad raped her. As part of his Alcoholics AnonyThe fraternities are very well dow was open. After a year of investimous recovery program prepared. They know these gation Flanagan wrote a he was making amends to incidents happen every year 15,000-word article for those he had wronged. Seccuro entered into an and they’re waiting for you to The Atlantic titled “The Dark Power of Fraterniemail correspondence bring a lawsuit and they’ve ties: A yearlong investigawith him. Through that developed many legal tion of Greek houses recorrespondence he admitveals their endemic, lurid, ted to drugging and raptheories to get out of it.” and sometimes tragic ing. He also shared with Caitlin Flanagan, author of problems – and a sophisher another disturbing The Dark Power of Fraternities ticated system for shifting fact: three others had the blame.” Her article raped her while she was sheds light on the growunconscious that night as ing number of injuries and deaths in and around well. frat houses and the lawsuits brought as a result. She Seccuro brought the emails to the Charlottesville writes that lawsuits against fraternities are becoming district attorney. Her rapist is now serving time in a growing matter of public interest, in part because Virginia. they record such lurid events, some of them ludiThis story fascinated Caitlin Flanagan, a freelance crous, many more of them horrendous. The fraterwriter living in Los Angeles who herself attended nity lawsuit, she writes, is a lucrative mini-segment the University of Virginia when Seccuro was there. of the personal-injury business. “The fraternity houses were so big and beautiful During her research she interviewed Douglas Fierand impressive and I instantly sensed that they were berg, who she calls the best plaintiff ’s attorney in also very powerful places. And yet I was always told the country when it comes to fraternity-related litnever to go there unless I was with friends because igation. He called fraternities “very risky organizathere was a lot of rape that went on in them. I retions for young people to be involved in. (They) member thinking this was all very astonishing that are part of an industry that has tremendous risk the university would have this very formal connecand a tremendous history of rape, serious injury tion with these institutions that had a lot of rape. and death, and the vast majority share common That interested me,” says Flanagan. risk-management policies that are fundamentally This interest in the power of fraternities comflawed. Most of them are awash in alcohol. And pelled her to investigate them, and in particular
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PERSPECTIVES most if not all of them are bereft of any meaningful adult supervision.” Flanagan calls Fierberg’s observation the most poignant in her entire article. Flanagan was determined to find out just how much money was being awarded in fraternity lawsuits. Try as she might, though, she could not dig up any numbers. “I saw there was huge amounts of money flowing. I kind of used that old Watergate idea of ‘follow the money’ but nobody has any numbers,” says Flanagan. In 1992, four fraternities created the Fraternity Risk Management Trust, a vast sum of money used to insure fraternities. Today, 32 fraternities belong to this trust. No one outside the fraternity industry knows how much money is in the trust’s coffers. “These settlements are almost always private and most of them are settled out of court because they are very clear cases and part of the settlement is confidentiality. So we don’t know exactly how lucrative it is. But we are seeing more and more of these lawsuits being brought and fancier and fancier legal talent accepting these cases, which is another indicator that there is a lot of money swimming around out there. But we don’t know how much,” says Flanagan. Although personal injury lawyers stand to reap enormous financial rewards from this segment of tort law, fraternity litigation is not for garden-variety personal injury lawyers. It takes special expertise to try such cases. “Big cases that could have brought in significant damages have been dismissed with summary judgment in the past because lawyers were so inexperienced,” says Flanagan. Many personal injury lawyers with little or no experience trying fraternity cases have a knee-jerk reaction and name everyone involved in their suits, like the fraternity chapter and the institution hosting the fraternity. This is a big mistake. “It’s very hard to recover money from the college or university because it’s protected by all sorts of things from sovereign immunity to damage caps. There’s a lot of ways institutions of higher learning are indemnified from the fraternity,” says Flanagan. Even a seasoned personal injury lawyer can have limited success suing fraternities, which over the years have become very clever at protecting their assets. Some lawyers make the mistake, says Flanagan, of suing the chapter. “The chapter doesn’t have any money. The chapter doesn’t even own the fraternity house. The fraternity house is owned by a housing corporation,” says Flanagan.
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Caitlin Flanagan, a freelance writer living in LA
The mid-1980s saw a sea change in tort litigation, as personal injury cases underwent a shift to the plaintiff ’s advantage. To protect themselves from personal injury litigation, fraternities began untangling their assets. Nowadays the most experienced personal injury lawyers representing clients injured in frat houses sue the national organization of the fraternity and almost no one else save the individual members involved in the incident. Lawyers are not the only ones who make mistakes in fraternity lawsuits. Frat bothers named in a lawsuit assume that the national organization will protect them legally. After all, a portion of their pricey fraternity dues goes to insurance. But they couldn’t be more wrong. The national organizations cleverly indemnify themselves from their own members by creating rules so strict and hard to follow that they make tax code read like a Dick and Jane book. When a frat brother is involved in an incident that causes injury or death and a lawsuit ensues, and if the national discovers the brother broke any of the fraternity’s rules, he is automatically no longer a member. Most incidents at frat houses that cause injury or death are linked in some way to alcohol. In fact, after studying hundreds of these cases, Flanagan couldn’t find one in which alcohol did not play a role. Rules about alcohol consumption at frat houses are very strict as outlined by the Fraternal Information and Programming Group (FIPG), which in the mid-1980s developed a comprehensive risk-management policy for fraternities. Currently 32 fraternities are members of the FIPG and adhere to this policy, or to their own even more rigorous versions.
PERSPECTIVES Contrary to popular belief, kegs and hard liquor are both forbidden at frat houses. Frat brothers who are 21 or older who attend parties and wish to drink alcohol have two options: beer in cans or bottles or wine coolers, as per the FIPG risk-management manual. According to the manual frat bothers can only bring six beers (or four wine coolers) to a party. Upon arrival the frat brother must hand his beers or wine coolers over to a “sober monitor” in exchange for a ticket indicating the precise type of beer or wine cooler he brought, and ideally affixes a “non-breakable except by cutting” wristband to his person. He can then retrieve his beers or wine coolers, one at a time, for his own personal consumption. The rules surrounding alcohol consumption at frat houses are so strict that on any given night of the week any number of rules are being broken by frat brothers. Therefore, when an injury occurs the nationals almost always have a legal loophole. “When someone tries to sue us as Sigma Nu because of what you did as a member they’ll say, ‘the minute (he broke a rule) he was no longer a member.’ So it’s a catch 22 for all involved. This is one of the reasons it’s hard to recover money from a fraternity,” says Flanagan. The national organizations are 10 steps ahead of those who try to sue them, she says. Most families who send their son or daughter off to college never think that their loved one could come to harm at a fraternity house. “The fraternities are very well prepared. They know these incidents happen every year and they’re waiting for you to bring a lawsuit and they’ve developed many legal theories to get out of it,” says Flanagan. To insulate themselves from legal troubles, national organizations keep their local chapters at a safe distance, and for good reason. If the nationals involve themselves in the rule-making process and actively ensure that these rules are followed, it establishes a duty of care. “So if you’re over there three times a year reviewing yet again the date rape policy and a girl gets date raped then the parents
who are suing can say, ‘you clearly knew date rape was a problem you gave three separate seminars.’ This is the motivation for the nationals to be hands off on the locals,” says Flanagan. If fraternities are such a problem at universities why do universities enter into relationships with them? The answer is simple: money. “Fraternities are connected to deep amounts of money that are given back to the colleges. The boards of trustees and the presidents are a little bit afraid to irritate the fraternity members. In a lot of ways the fraternities are more powerful than the colleges,” says Flanagan. In addition to donating money to colleges, frats make schools appear attractive to prospective students by acting as a powerful recruiting tool for them. When kids visit and see an active, lively Greek row they say “I like this school, there’s a lot of partying here. I’ll have fun here,” says Flanagan. Hook, line and sinker. One in eight college men belongs to a fraternity. After spending a year researching fraternities, Flanagan is still not sure if the dark power of fraternities outweighs the positive influence they have on their members. Many individuals reached out to Flanagan indicating that being a frat brother was the best thing that ever happened to them. “It’s where they learned about business and running something on their own. The leadership you get from a fraternity is matchless on campus. These guys are running the houses themselves. They’re given a budget, they collect the rent, they’re collecting the dues, they’re running the chapter meetings. In a sense, by joining a fraternity, you’re getting to run a small business,” says Flanagan. “What’s more not many clubs or organizations can match the connections one can make through fraternities in power fields like investment banking and politics.” Flanagan warns those who are interested in joining a fraternity to choose wisely. “You don’t want to join the Animal House of today where there is binge drinking every night. But there is a lot to be gained by (joining a fraternity).”
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PROGRAMS
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xpertise in the sciences, technology and math (STEM) is touted as the answer to the economic future of America – and can offer financial stability for students who follow that path. Emphasis focuses on how students need skills in these fields to compete in the globalization of world super powers and to be relevant. If that is the case, where is there room for the creative arts? For writers, poets, musicians, teachers? What is the value of a master’s of fine arts (MFA) degree in the midst of these expectations and vision? “We must be careful when we start thinking of universities as job mills – institutions that produce workers,” says Dr. Juan Delgado, professor of English and director of the MFA Creative Writing program at California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB). “Too many people divide education into the hard sciences and soft sciences, creating a false binary. I don’t think we need to reduce education to labor skills.” In this MFA program, students learn to practice valuable academic traits, says Delgado. These include preparation, creative awareness, originality, independence, curiosity, knowledge of literary and
cultural history, open-mindedness, flexibility, fluency, attraction to complexity, aesthetic sophistication, intelligent risk taking, confidence, and teamwork. “We also stress the importance of collaborating with others. All these strike me as key traits for any productive worker.” The value of the creative arts starts at a core level that can expand exponentially. Delgado himself started off as a business major many years ago. “The practical track,” he says. “But then there was trauma in my house, my father passed away and I needed to find an outlet. Once I took my first writing class, I never looked back. I found the food that stuck to my gut.” That “food” has sustained him. Now a poet with four books to his name and a father of three, he knows the value of a creative spirit and bringing forth new voices for expression, creativity, and critical thinking that can lead to community change, social justice and a higher purpose. Professor Chad Luck also makes a case for the value of humanities and the purpose of higher education. “Is it simply a form of advanced job training or is it also an opportunity for cultivating self-
Rebels with a Cause: An MFA Program for Future Innovators By Sylvia Mendoza 10 |
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Dr. Juan Delgado
PROGRAMS equal parts focus, determination, and intelligent awareness and awareness of other cultures and trarisk taking…we will fine-tune our critical abilities ditions? Is it a crucial part of maintaining a healthy to incorporate meaningful rebellion in our own democracy with critically-aware citizens? Is it an work. We will learn from the smartest and boldest opportunity to reflect on ways to serve your comrebels with a cause.” munity and country?” “This type of intelligent risk taking is an integral It is this critical thinking that brings about societal element of the social justice perspective on creative change. Luck also notes that even though the philowriting that is so unique about our program,” says sophical answer is that “life isn’t all about money,” Lemus. students of the humanities are highly sought after by It is these types of classes that seem to challenge law, industry, the corporate world, and other career Coyote grad students about the value of their own tracks because they possess high-level skills in critwork, and to become rebels with a cause, as well. ical thinking, verbal communication, creativity, and One such cause can be working with a unique collaborative work, which “encourages empathy and program developed with local elementary school affection for a broad range of human experience… teachers. SCIPP – Stuacross cultural bounddents and Coyotes: Inaries.” struction in Poetry and According to the Too many people divide Prose – focuses on grad CSUSB website, the twoeducation into the hard students bringing creative year MFA degree offers a writing to young students, concentration in either sciences and soft sciences, so that they can have a fiction or poetry, with a voice and be the shapers focus on literature or creating a false binary. of their own futures. It is teaching. Each student I don’t think we need to a collaborative effort with will complete a publishEnglish faculty, other deable manuscript of fiction reduce education to labor partments, elementary or poetry. Through workskills.” school teachers, students, shops, visiting writers, parents and activists. This seminars, the study of litDr. Juan Delgado, director of the MFA effort bridges the commuerature and hands-on exCreative Writing program at CSUSB. nity with CSUSB, an imperience in the commuportant factor in helping nity, the program helps young students – many of students actualize as writthem from poverty-stricken areas – see themselves ers in a changing world. as future college students. It is this “hands-on experience in the community” that is powerful and demonstrates the true value of Visionary Voices of Young Students and Coyotes an MFA program. CSUSB grad students – “CoyAfter MFA grad student and SCIPP volunteer Alex otes” – can get out of the classroom, out of their Avila saw the film, “Waiting for Superman”, alarming comfort zone and step into the community not only statistics struck him. He learned more than 80 perto share their works, but to teach younger students – cent of those incarcerated can barely read or write the next generation of creative thinkers – that their past a third grade level – and many of those are peovoices matter and that they, too, can be agents of ple of color. He works in juvenile and foster facilities, change. helping develop competency skills that will allow youth in these systems to change their lifestyles. “The Coyote Rebels with a Cause challenge has been tremendous and it feels like I’m Assistant Professor Felicia Luna Lemus offers a pushing a sleeping elephant up a hill,” says Avila. class, “Punk Nerd Revolution!: Taking Intelligent SCIPP, however, seems to give him hope. “SCIPP Risks in Fiction Writing,” which is about helping is breaking all cultural, social, and academic barriers students strive to create compelling works of ficthat prevent at-risk families from engaging in acation. The class description states that students are demia,” explains Avila. “It offers another alternative “guided by the notion that, like any truly brilliant that provides intervention and prevention to change act of insurrection, genuinely innovative writing is
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PROGRAMS the course of where young people end up in college and not in jail.” Involvement with SCIPP can bring possibilities never before imagined. This is the way Avila sees it: “The program develops young scholars to become future teachers, writers, lawyers, counselors, journalists, advocates, or future entrepreneurs. ‘Poets’ or literate scholars have been at the forefront of technology, politics, and sciences. Artists are being hired today by companies like Google, Toyota, and Apple to name a few, to assist with product design and marketing. Literate scholars are always in high demand to help write for presidents and government officials. SCIPP is just as important as any engineering project, not just in steering families away from poverty, but also in shaping future leaders.” These future leaders benefit from this partnership, learning different perspectives, having a voice and breaking chains of poverty to reach tangible goals. William Beshears, 2009 recipient of the Golden Apple Award, and teacher of the year at Salinas Elementary in San Bernardino, founded SCIPP with the intent of making opportunities more visible. “In our district, we have a rural component and gang violence at the same time. We are literally on the other side of the train tracks from the campus. Kids have never set foot at Cal State; didn’t even
dream they could. I kept wondering why there was such a disconnect, but I still wanted to bring college to the classroom.” Seeing the importance of collaboration and perspective, Beshears and co-founder Larry Light, approached Delgado. “You have to go toward your fear,” Beshears says. “We’re scared of poetry but that shouldn’t be a reason why our students don’t get that in the curriculum.” SCIPP came from a spirit of volunteerism, explains Delgado. Grad students worked with Beshears’ students two hours every Friday on their campus or at Cal State. Initially there was a loose pedagogy so they could analyze the situation and the students and develop their own approach. “It was a meaningful way of thinking of themselves and how they can contribute to an important population that needs it,” says Delgado. “They challenged them, had high expectations, and did not teach down to them. The students connected. When Alex goes out and works with kids, for example, they see themselves in him. Education seems more tangible.” For educators, it’s been a tough couple of years, says Beshears. “It was medicine for us. It refilled our spirit. I was shocked at the amount of writing that came from the kids that would have taken us
MFA Juan Delgado Team.
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PROGRAMS months and months of regular teaching to get to. What on earth is going on, I asked myself? I couldn’t explain it, but I knew it was magical.” Beshears was also humbled. “We think we know our kids very well,” he says. “I thought I knew Tamara and her family as well as a teacher can know them, for example. It was a slap in the face to see how much I didn’t know. One special ed student wrote a poem on bullying that silenced people in the room and made them cry. ‘What is it about me?’ he asked. ‘“Why me?’” I saw that this is not a supplemental program. It’s about excellence and higher education and that our students are already college material.” They see themselves as college material, too. “They already belong at the university,” says Delgado. “They’re not intimidated. They work here, study here, and it isn’t a scary place any more. Their families come here for the community events and music series and claim it as their own. They feel comfortable here. They were landlocked, but not anymore.” The SCIPP experience opens minds to more. Tristan Acker, another SCIPP volunteer and musician, wants to start an after school program that develops musical talent in downtown San Bernardino, the neighborhood where he also grew up. “If you weren’t a football player or in engineering,
there was nothing for you,” he says. “Geeky kids like me have to have something to do growing up in the hood. You need to exercise your mind.” His idea is to start a hip hop “gymnasium” where they can have a mental workout – writing and reading songs, making beats, thinking outside the box, and performing. “Creativity is the highest form of understanding,” says Beshears. “Students need to be creative to push through any field. Einstein was more an artist than a scientist. He thought critically. Look at NASA and how those scientists think. They play. They experiment. They’re okay with failure. That’s artistry. That’s success. That’s what our students learn. It’s part of the human experience.” Value of CSUSB MFA Program: Innovative Global Citizens Delgado believes his students are constructing their own careers and are actively being the “architects” of their futures while impacting others along the way. “We need people with drive, vision, and imagination, not just workers who have a set of skills that might be outdated within their own life time,” says Delgado. “We are graduating global citizens who are mindful and responsible to the communities that nurture them.”
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INNOVATIONS & PROGRAMS
Latino Graduation Rates
Propelled by College Initiatives
By Jamaal Abdul-Alim
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hen it comes to developing programs and services for students, South Texas College President Shirley Reed says her administration employs a “laser focus on commitment to student success.”
“And student success to us means you complete your course, you come back the next semester and you graduate and get a job,” Reed said. “That’s why we were created and we never lose sight of that mission.” That sharp focus on graduation is a major part of what makes South Texas College one of the top institutions of higher learning in the nation when it comes to awarding degrees to Latino students. A recent analysis by Excelencia in Education, a Washington, D.C.-based research and policy organization that advocates on behalf of Latino college students, found that South Texas was the fourth-highest granter of associate’s degrees to Latino students. Specifically, in the 2011-12 school year, South Texas granted 2,138 of its 2,292 associate’s degrees – or 93 percent – to Hispanic students. The highest granter of associate’s degrees was Miami Dade College, with 7,958 of its 11,959 associate’s degrees – or 67 percent – being awarded to Latinos. The other top five grantors of associate’s degrees to Latinos were: • El Paso Community College, which awarded 3,244 of its 3,790 associate’s degrees to Latinos. • University of Phoenix Online, which awarded 2,424 out of 39,341 of its associate’s degrees, or 6 percent, to Latinos. • Valencia College, which granted 2,129 of its 7,974 associate’s degrees, or 27 percent, to Latinos. The analysis also looked at top granters of bachelor’s degrees to Latinos. Those schools are: Florida International University; University of Phoenix Online; The South Texas College President Shirley Reed
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Mission CISD High School Grads 2014.
University of Texas at El Paso; The University of Texas - Pan American; and Arizona State University. Deborah Santiago, chief operating officer and vice president for policy at Excelencia, says her organization’s analysis, formally known as “Latino College Completion: United States,” shows that high completion rates for Latinos emanate from things that transcend the overall Latino population in a particular state. “Given that California ranks as the state with the largest Latino population, it was surprising to note no institution from the state ranked in the top five in the country in awarding associate or bachelor degrees to Latinos in 2011-12, the most recent data we had available,” Santiago wrote in an e-mail to Hispanic Outlook. The analysis also found that Latinos represent larger share of America’s K-12 public school population than they do of national and state populations overall. Specifically, Latinos represent 22 percent of the K-12 population versus 17 percent of America’s population overall. Be that as it may, the Excelencia analysis found that Latino adults have lower degree attainment levels than other groups. For instance, 20 percent of the Latino adult population had a postsecondary degree, as opposed to 36
percent of all adults in the U.S., the analysis found. Similarly, graduation rates for Latinos were lower than for whites, with a gap of about 9 percent. Santiago said the analysis is meant to help institutional leaders and policymakers better understand issues of Latino completion in order to develop more effective programming. “If I had a magic wand to change higher education policy … I would support the replication of evidence-based practices that retain Latino and other post-traditional students to increase completion,” Santiago said. South Texas College, which Excelencia cites as an effective institution for Latinos, employs an array of tactics and strategies. They include: Dual Enrollment: “We have a massive dual enrollment program,” Reed said of the program, which enables high school students to take college courses for free while still in high school and graduate from high school with an associate’s degree. During the spring semester of 2014, Reed said, 13,000 students were participating in the program at one of several dozen “early college” high schools. And of the 4,800 South Texas College graduates in 2014, Reed said, 1,500 are from the early college program. HISPANIC OUTLOOK
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INNOVATIONS & PROGRAMS “Those students have very high completion percentages,” Reed said. “On average, 70 percent of the students in the early college high schools stay in high school and earn their diploma and graduate from college at the same time. “To me that’s pretty incredible because these are students that come from the same circumstances as our traditional college students,” Reed said, explaining that lack of financial resources is often one of the biggest obstacles to completion. “The students are motivated,” Reed said of the early college students. “They know [they’ll] never get a better deal than this and the school districts are really encouraging them.” Reed said the program enables the college to cut costs by sharing faculty and textbooks through partnerships with the local participating public schools. GOT: Another initiative at South Texas College is called GOT, an acronym for “graduate on time.” Through the program, first-time college students are assigned a mentor, and school officials work closely with students to help them identify a major and develop a degree plan. “We stay in touch with them, follow up with phone calls, emails, text messages. ‘How are you doing?’ ‘Give us a progress report.’ ‘Anything I can do to help?’ “Just a lot of support,” Reed said. “And we’re find-
ing that it makes a difference.” DegreeWorks: A computer-based program known as DegreeWorks helps students select only courses that will keep them on track to graduate. “A student can go in, look up their record and see progress toward graduation and see the courses they need to complete,” Reed said. “And if they go to register for something not in their major, they get a warning: ‘This is not part of your major. You should not be taking this course.’” Reed said the program represents a technological way to provide much more intensive guidance and advising for students. Reed said her administration is working to establish a transportation system that includes a bus route with free Wi-Fi so that students who commute can use their travel time more effectively. Despite all the success South Texas College has enjoyed and the initiatives it has put in place to boost graduation, Reed said more needs to be done. The unfortunate reality is that despite the accolades from Excelencia, the overall graduation rate at South Texas College is only 16 percent, according to a federal online database. Reed noted that other community colleges had graduation rates of 30 percent or higher. “We’re not making as much progress as we feel we could make,” Reed said.
Starr County students.
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L PE A RD SP EE RC S THIIVP E/ SR O L E M O D E L S
W
Hispanic professionals who could share our stories hen Ivonne Díaz-Claisse was inducted to inspire Latino youth to work hard, stay in school into the New Jersey Women’s Hall of and pursue their educational and career dreams.” Fame this year, she was praised for supIt was an idea that led to the formation of HISPA. porting Latino youth by providing them with menNow in its seventh year, HISPA has recruited close tors and role models in their pursuit of higher edto 1,000 volunteers from ucation. She was selected companies such as AT&T, for this honor in recogniAccenture and Bristoltion of her work as Myers Squibb, conducted founder, president and 300 HISPA Role Model CEO of HISPA, Hispanics Program sessions and Inspiring Students’ Perhosted 10 Youth Conferformance and Achieveences. The Role Model ment, a nonprofit organProgram is an "on-deization that encourages mand” program that pairs student success by recruitHispanic/Latino role ing and coordinating model volunteers with Latino professionals’ parschools and other commuticipation in educational nity-based educational programs in the commuprograms. Its goal is to nities where they live and have professionals share work. information on their culDíaz-Claisse realized tural backgrounds, educathe power role models tional experiences and cacould have when she was reers. The volunteer working as an operations becomes a role model to research analyst at AT&T whom the students can reand was asked to speak at late, thus allowing them to a career day event at a By Marilyn Gilroy envision the possibilities of school in Newark. determining and achieving “I saw first-hand the their own dreams. power of sharing my own “Nothing can replace story with Latino stuthe power of a personal dents,” she said. “I call it story and teaching lessons one of my ‘ah-hah!’ moby example,” said Díazments.” Claisse. “It is so rewarding The school visit was to witness the extraordipart of her outreach work nary ripple effect as role as a participant in the Hismodels tell their friends panic Employee Resource and colleagues about their Group (ERG) at AT&T. positive experience relatShe eventually became ing their stories to stunational president of the dents and then more and group, and had another more people sign up to ‘ah-hah!’ moment when volunteer.” she was on a panel at an Although it originated ERG “best practices” conin New Jersey, HISPA has ference held at Microsoft. extended its programs to “I looked at the audiSan Antonio, Texas, and ence and panel members New York City. The purand I realized that we repDr. Ivonne Díaz-Claisse, pose of the program is to resented thousands of founder and president of HISPA
HISPA Helps Students Find Pathways to College
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P LEA RD SP EE RC S THIIVP E/ SR O L E M O D E L S
Dr. Ivonne Díaz-Claisse talks with several middle school students during a HISPA event.
help young Latinos set goals and inspire them to achieve their dreams. HISPA starts its programs in middle schools because research shows early intervention is the most effective way to reduce dropout rates which continue to be high among Latino youths. “Since research has shown that the middle-school years significantly affect whether children pursue higher education, it is vital for us to reach students during these highly impressionable years,” said DíazClaisse. Needless to say, Díaz-Claisse continues to be an active HISPA role model herself, leading by example, having shared her educational and career experiences with over 5,000 students nationwide. She regularly gives presentations at corporations such as Johnson & Johnson, Ogilvy, Novartis, Merck, UPS, Verizon and Viacom. She carries the HISPA message to college campuses and has spoken at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rutgers and Princeton Universities, as well as many national conferences including the College Board’s “Prepárate: Educating Latinos for the Future of America,” and the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute. Her resume includes some impressive academic credentials. She holds a BS in mathematics from the University of Puerto Rico; a master’s in engineering
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in operations research from Cornell University, a master’s in mathematics from the University of Maryland and a PhD in mathematics from Arizona State. Because of her studies and professional experience, Díaz-Claisse is particularly passionate about growing the pipeline of Hispanic students going into STEM fields. She is fluent in English and Spanish and has honed her skills as a lecturer and motivational speaker. It is easy for her to talk about her love of mathematics and science but she also knows what it is like to face challenges and obstacles in pursuing a dream. “Even as a girl growing up in Puerto Rico, I always loved mathematics, especially the beauty of the Fibonacci sequence and how it could be found in nature and art,” she said. “However, it is true that I had obstacles early on in the form of lack of role models to inspire me in this field and little support from teachers for my academic advancement.” One teacher told Díaz-Claisse that she probably would not be as academically strong as her brother had been in his class. Later on, a professor said he would not recommend that she pursue a PhD even though he indicated she was in the top 5 percent of talented math students he had taught during the last 30 years.
L PE A RD SP EE RC S THIIVP E/ SR O L E M O D E L S “But thanks to my mother who taught me ‘soñar no cuesta nada’ – feel free to dream, it is free of charge – I was able to pursue my dream of becoming a mathematician,” said Díaz-Claisse. “Happily, once I entered the telecommunications industry and pursued my graduate degrees, I enjoyed valuable support and mentorship as a professional woman in the STEM fields.” Although she admits being nervous when she stepped away from her 10-year career and started a nonprofit, she has no regrets and is absolutely passionate about HISPA’s mission. As HISPA became more established, her role expanded and since 2005, Díaz-Claisse has also been a consultant to various public and private entities. She works with the nonprofit Educational Testing Service (ETS), advising the company on programs that seek to increase educational opportunities for Hispanics, particularly in higher education, and helping to foster collaborative initiatives with selected organizations. ETS, in turn, has provided support for HISPA that includes gathering data about the impact and efficacy of the program. Students who participated in HISPA role model sessions were asked about their attitudes toward college and their impression of the sessions. Survey results showed that after participating in the HISPA Role Model Program: • 96 percent of students thought more seriously about attending college • 76 percent of students were more interested in attending college • 74 percent of students were more likely to believe they could attend college • 82 percent of students thought that attending college would be fun Students consistently rated the role model sessions as interesting and inspiring regardless of whether or not the career or job being discussed was something they would like to do. Additionally, the survey showed that students seemed to engage the most with role models who focused on their personal stories and seemed enthusiastic about college. The study also noted students were just as likely to in-
“
Nothing can replace the
power of a personal story and teaching lessons by example’”
Ivonne Díaz-Claisse, president, and CEO of HISPA
dicate that the cost of college and poor grades might keep them from attaining a higher education degree. Díaz-Claisse was pleased with the survey results but also said that the data might lead to some tweaking of the program. “When students say that attending college would be fun, it is a noteworthy attitudinal shift because they are indicating that college could be something they ‘want’ to do, not just ‘should’ do,” she said. “We also were delighted to find that students consistently rated the role model sessions as interesting and inspiring.” However, because students expressed concerns about grades and cost as barriers to college, role models are being encouraged to discuss how they might have personally overcome financial barriers and highlight that there are various alternative paths to college and career. Despite a demanding schedule of events and activities, Díaz-Claisse continues to embrace the joys and challenges of creating and building HISPA. For her, it is a labor of love. “My HISPA journey has been so rewarding and empowering. I would never have predicted that sharing the story of my own educational and professional journey would be a source of inspiration to so many students. I call it my unpredictable mathematical journey.”
Survey results showed that after participating in the HISPA Role Model Program students:
96%
Thought More Seriously About Attending College
76%
Weere More Interested in Attending College
74%
82%
Were More Likely to Believe They could Attend College
HISPANIC OUTLOOK
Thought that Attending College would be Fun
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REPORTS
New PEW
Findings
Support the Value of Higher Education
By Angela Provitera McGlynn
W
ith the rising costs of college tuition and debt incurred by many students, does a college education still pay off economically? The answer is an unequivocal “Yes!” In February 2014, the Pew Research Center released a report entitled, “The Rising Cost of Not Going to College,” in which they analyzed the labor market in terms of how people fared with and without a college degree. The Pew findings are based on a nationally representative survey of 2002 adults supplemented by a Pew Research analysis of U.S. Census Bureau economic data. Millennials are the generation born after 1980 (in some other analyses, 1982 is the date) and that would include all adults ages 18 to 32 in the year 2013. This report refers to Millennials between the ages 25 to 32 years old. Among people surveyed by the Pew Research Center, Millennials ages 25 to 32, their attitudes and experience make a compelling case for the advantages of a college education across a range of measures. On themes such as economic well-being in terms of personal earnings, career satisfaction, and the numbers who are employed full time, college degree holders outperform their less educated peers across the board.
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At first the data presented a puzzling finding. By early adulthood, about one–third of all Millennials, the best educated generation ever, has earned a college degree. And yet, the median, inflation-adjusted income of this age group overall had changed very little since 1965. While education levels of Millennials have risen dramatically compared to previous generations, median annual earnings have remained relatively flat. In a recent New York Times article, author Shaila Dewan explains the puzzle this way: “The reason, they [PEW] discovered, is that even though a college degree is worth more, a high school degree alone is worth a lot less. Its value, in terms of wages, has declined enough to cancel out almost all the gains by all the Millennials who have earned fouryear degrees.” Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center and editor of this multi-authored
REPORTS report, says that the gap between the college-educated and those with high school diplomas is “one of the great economic stories of our era, which you could define as income inequality.” Taylor states further: “The leading suspects are the digital economy and the globalization of labor markets. Both of them place a higher premium on the knowledge-based part of the work force and have the effect of drying up the opportunities for good middle-class jobs, particularly for those that don’t have an education.” The data clearly show the declining value of a high school diploma. The typical high school graduate’s earnings fell by more than $3,000 from $31,384 in 1965 to $28,000 in 2013, and this decline has been large enough to offset any gains of college graduates. Middle-class jobs that are available increasingly call for a bachelor’s degree or higher because the jobs require greater knowledge and diverse skills than they used to, and employers have become more selective over the decades. The net result is the widening earnings gap of young adults by educational attainment. Of course, the implications of class and race/ethnicity dramatize the inequality since low-income, first-generation to college, and blacks and Latinos are less likely to earn college degrees than their white, middle and upper-income peers. When this generation is compared to previous generations, the disparity in economic outcomes between college graduates and those with high school diplomas or less formal schooling has never been greater. The report found that Millennial college degree holders who are working full time earn more annually, about $17,500 more than employed young
“
…the disparity in economic
outcomes between college graduates and those with high school diplomas or less formal schooling has never been greater.”
Disparity among Millennials Ages 25-32 By Education Level in Terms of Annual Earnings... (median among full-time workers, in 2012 dollars) Bachelor’s degree or more
$45,500
Two-year degree/ Some college
$30,000
High school graduate
$28,000
Unemployment Rate... Bachelor’s degree or more
3.8
Two-year degree/ Some college
8.1
High school graduate
12.2
And Share Living in Poverty... Bachelor’s degree or more
5.8
Two-year degree/ Some college
14.7
High school graduate
21.8 Source: PEW RESEARCH CENTER, February, 2014, p.3.
adults with high school diplomas. In years past, that gap was smaller. In 1965, for example, the gap between degree holders and diploma earners was $7400 (all figures are in 2012 U.S. dollars). If we compare the first wave of Baby Boomers of the same age in 1979, the typical high school graduate earned 77 percent of what a college graduate earned. Millennials of today with a high school diploma earn only 62 percent of what typical college graduates earn. College-educated Millennials also are more likely to be employed full time than their less educated cohort (89 percent vs. 82 percent) and they are significantly less likely to be unemployed (3.8 percent vs. 12.2 percent). Here are some other findings from the PEW report: • Employed Millennial college graduates are more likely than their peers with a high school diploma or less education to say their job is a career or a steppingstone to a career (86 percent vs. 57 percent). • Millennials with a high school diploma or less are about three times as likely as college graduates to say that their work is “just a job to get [them] by” (42 percent vs. 14 percent). HISPANIC OUTLOOK
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REPORTS • Economic and career benefits of a college degree are not limited to the Millennial generation. The survey and economic analysis consistently find that college graduates of all generations tend to do better than those with less education. The report makes clear that Millennials in general have had a difficult time in the job market. The Great Recession of 2008 and the slow recovery hit young people particularly hard whether college educated or not. On some measures, as for example, the percentage that are unemployed or the share who are living in poverty, the Millennial generation of the college-educated is faring worse than GenXers, Baby Boomers, or members of the Silent generation (also known as “matures”) when they were in their mid-20s and early 30s. Millennial college graduates are having more difficulty finding work, are more likely to be unemployed, and are more likely to have to search longer for a job than earlier generations of younger adults. However, high school graduates are doing even worse when we compare them to their college-educated peers and when compared with other high
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school graduates of previous generations. Consider the following data: among those ages 25 to 32 years old with only a high school diploma, 22 percent live in poverty compared to 6 percent of today’s college educated young adults. In contrast, only 7 percent of Baby Boomers of the same age with a high school diploma lived in poverty in 1979. On a variety of measures such as unemployment rates, length of time looking for a job, number of hours worked, likelihood of full-time employment and overall wealth, the Millennial college-educated group fares worse than previous generations. At the same time, the report makes clear that those Millennials without a college degree fare worse than not only their own college-educated peers, but also fare worse than those without a college education in any previous generation. The Pew Research Center report could not have been more aptly titled – “The Rising Cost of Not Going to College.” Angela Provitera McGlynn, professor emeritus of psychology, is an international consultant/presenter on teaching, learning, and diversity issues and the author of several related books.
From the
Scholars’ Corner
By Enmanuel Martínez, PhD student, Program in Comparative Literature at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey As developing or established Latino/a professionals in higher education, we are oftentimes expected to imagine our academic and professional development in terms of clear-cut lines. Straddling the opposite ends of these linear, self-imagined paths of professionalization, we find a starting point (i.e., the day we first begin to consider graduate school to the day we successfully defend a dissertation) at one end and at the other, an imagined end point (i.e., the publication of the first academic article or book project to being awarded tenure or full professorship even). However, what would it mean for us to imagine our professional trajectories as Latino/a and Hispanic scholars, educators, and administrators not in terms of “lines” but rather, to play with the title of this column, “corners?” What all is in a corner, then? Webster’s dictionary defines a corner as, “the point where converging lines, edges, or sides meet.” A spatial-geometric configuration by definition, the concept of the corner, I would argue, represents an apt metaphor for encapsulating the ideal structure for our professional – as well as personal – growth as higher education professionals of color. All corners reflect moments of crossing that result in tangible forms of connection, intersection, and ultimately union. Lines that do not end in corners do not reflect such assemblage and joining, however. As Latino/a higher education professionals, it is imperative that who we are as a community and as individuals is reflected and affirmed in the structure of what we aspire toward, professionally speaking.
Before my participation as a graduate fellow in the 2013 AAHHE Graduate Fellows Program, I had imposed onto myself rather narrow expectations as to what my future in higher education ought to resemble. Since starting graduate school, I had developed interests in university administration work, yet I felt immense pressure from colleagues and professors to consider a future of only teaching and research as a university professor. My interactions with the other 2013 AAHHE Graduate and Faculty Fellows, as well as countless individuals who attended the association’s conference that year, provided me with the awareness and self-confidence to look beyond how others might expect I will ultimately use my graduate degree. A talk by AAHHE Director Josefina Castillo Baltodano in particular pushed me beyond any and all fixed, linear conceptions of what Latinos in higher education can become. Having been a first-generation Latino college student, I am deeply committed to improving the status of Latinos in higher education. Thanks to the AAHHE Graduate Fellows Program, I learned that my path toward giving back and paying it forward need not be linear or fixed, for I now recognize that the end point to my path of development as a Latino professional in higher education will lie not at the end of any one line of professionalization but, rather, at the point in which the two lines of university academics and university administration meet. To pose the question anew: What all is in a corner? I would suggest nothing short of potential and possibility.
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Adjuncts:
Walmart in Academia?
By Gustavo A. Mellander
C
ollege administrators nationwide have already created plans and procedures for the new academic year. Budgets are not only “in bed” but are already being implemented. Significant portions of operating funds have been allocated for adjuncts – part-time instructors nomenclature went by the boards years ago. But not the activity which is an enormous cash cow at most colleges. I recall as a young dean in the mid-1960s being appointed to a Middle States Accreditation Committee. I religiously read their manuals, underwent a rigorous day-long training session and later carefully studied the university’s selfstudy. What I remember vividly about the visit was the heavyvoiced committee chairman excoriating the university’s hapless president and his deans. Why? Was it because of poor academic standards, sloppy report, insufficient funding, or lack of a clear vision? No, none of those reasons. Instead the visiting team had discovered that 15 percent of the classes were taught by “part timers” – a term in vogue then. The team as forcefully expressed through its chair was aghast and ever so critical at that high number of part timers. In fact, although the university was easily reaccredited, they had to undergo another visit in two years so Middle States could gauge what progress had been made to correct the disparity between full-time faculty and the part-timers. How times change! Fast forward to the 1990s, another accreditation visit in another state. There the president boasted that 75 percent of their classes were taught by adjuncts. Not a whimper from anyone on the team. In fact, there were some smiles and nodding of heads. What happened in 30 years? Tightening budgets, shrinking state appropriations, a virtually defenseless and large adjunct pool and accrediting bodies looking the other way changed the college hiring landscape – perhaps forever. Many institutions discovered that a quick solution during difficult financial times was not to fill full-time vacancies. Instead simply hire more adjuncts. In a number of cases the president and deans vigorously affirmed that the hiring practice de jour was a temporary makeshift solution. Once finances improved they would stopped cannibalizing fulltime positions and, in fact, reinstate them. Many I am sure were sincere. But few returned to hiring the high percent of full-time faculty members they had before. The financial savings are simply enormous. In most cases adjuncts do not receive sick leave or vacation fringe benefits and receive much lower salaries in non-tenure track positions. Administrators enjoy massive flexibility in scheduling
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adjuncts and usually assign them different schedules every semester since a court ruling decades ago stated that if an adjunct has the same schedule year after year they have earned a degree of ownership of employment and that particular class schedule. Further, adjuncts are usually not hired in the summer terms since those opportunities are reserved for full-time faculty members. Given this flexibility and significant financial benefits many institutions hire as many adjuncts as they can get away with.
The beat continues. In February, Sean Patrick Hill wrote an insightful article for the Chronicle of Higher Education. He titled it: “Assignment: Research Your Adjunct Teachers” Hill holds an MFA in poetry, a terminal degree, but unable find a full-time faculty position he taught composition courses as an adjunct for eight semesters at a number of institutions in two states. To teach his five courses, he travelled 30 miles on a freeway still under construction. At one institution he taught two morning classes twice a week, and provided four office hours as contractually obligated. After the passage of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), staff was told that “hourly employees” which included “contingent faculty” would not be eligible for health care. That was predicated on the fact that ACA defines fulltime employees as those who work at least 30 hours a week. In an obvious proactive money-saving move the institution decided that all temporary positions would be limited to 29 hours per week. Such a decision was not unique to that institution. Many others have followed suit. In Hill’s case it meant he could no longer teach three classes, which paid $2,900 per class. He taught two and took on some classes at a community college that only paid $1,700 a class. His frustration led him to devise a new topic for his students’ final composition paper. He announced to his class that “they’d be writing about me. When the laughter subsided, I said no, really, you will be writing about me – and adjuncts as a whole.” From that ultimately came a detailed body of research about adjuncts and their working realities. At the beginning most students had no idea what an adjunct instructor was or how low they were on the academic totem pole. They thought all professors were the same. The research uncovered the simple economic mathematics which explains why adjuncts are so much a part of the American higher education landscape. The present system is needed to sustain the present reality. Many institutions would be forced to cut heavily into academic programs and
student services if adjuncts were paid on par with full timers. The students’ research “found a cumulative 22 research articles and 61 newspaper, magazine, and web articles to back up their theses that included arguments concerning exploitation, health care, unions, even the gender disparity in adjunct jobs.”(Many women had been kept as adjuncts for years and away from tenure-track positions.) Hill was affected by the research and noted that he was “somewhat ashamed of my predicament – that I could have languished so and worked in a job where I had been drained of passion, energy, and the will to actually try to help students in a far more profound way than I had time for.” Sean Patrick Hill has left teaching.
Reaction Many Chronicle readers responded to Hill’s piece. Some were very negative even though they were adjuncts themselves. They wrote it was unprofessional to dump your problems on students. Others defended Hill saying he had performed a service not only for his students by way of educating them but by exposing the soft underside of higher education. Some accused the Chronicle, which has published multiple stories about adjuncts, all negative, of being too involved in a crusade to take up the battle for adjuncts. Most respondents, however, were quite balanced and agreed adjuncts have never been treated equally. Some suggested they should unionize, nationwide. Others pointed out too many attempts along those lines have failed. Some respondents blamed our graduate schools for pumping out graduates for non-existent jobs. They have a point and I have railed against that myself. Many graduate schools hire a high percent of adjuncts, most of them very competent, to teach the classes, to serve on doctoral committees, etc. Graduate schools have morphed into effective and needed cash cows to cover other programs, athletics, student services and, yes, salaries and benefits for full-time faculty and administrators. One can rant and rave but it is a reality and those who condemn the system would probably do the same if they were in positions of authority. Why? Because flawed as it is, it works. It exploits adjuncts but the practice nourishes many intuitions. Solutions? None are easy for the culture – the way of life – is set. It works. But the key questions to be raised, I suggest, are: 1. Is it fair to the adjuncts? 2. Are students being well served? On adjuncts: clearly adjuncts are not, by and large, being treated fairly. There are just too many examples. It leads to frustration and cynicism among many adjuncts. Those beliefs on the part of many adjuncts can spill over and invariably affect their students. Not a pretty picture. I’m not saying that full-time faculty cannot be cynical, bitter or unhappy as well. Many are. But many people in all professions are not happy, some with reason, some with no good reason. Life is not a picnic – for anyone. Some adjust well to their changing realities, some don’t.
The Gallup-Purdue Index Report Getting back to serving students, yet another higher education report has surfaced which is germane to our question of whether or not students are being well-served by our widespread adjunct practices. The “Gallup-Purdue Index Report” studied 30,000 graduates on issues of employment, job engagement, and well-being. Who scored the highest
on satisfaction? Those students who found “old-fashioned values and human connectedness” on the campus they attended. From our individual experiences most of us can relate to that finding. What other outcomes did these lucky graduates reflect? Engagement. The report contends that college graduates, whether they went to an expensive elite private institution or a public one, had double the chances of being happily engaged in their work. What does engaged mean? Job title and salary doesn’t necessarily define this particular measurement. The report defines "engagement," as a term signifying that employees are doing something they are best at, something they like, work at a company/college where people care about their work. Engagement has positive effects on absenteeism, turnover, safety, productivity, and profit. The survey found that, while nearly 40 percent of graduates are engaged at work, half of them are not engaged, and 12 percent are actively disengaged. Further, graduates were three times as likely to be thriving in their well-being individual situation if they “connected with a professor on campus who stimulated them, cared about them, and encouraged their hopes and dreams.” Once again many successful people can relate to that. Most of us, I am sure, can relate to those sentiments. Our college mentor might have been a formal relationship or just an occasional office visit with a favorite professor. They might have had us over for a home-cooked meal or taken us to a concert. Or they might have merely been kind, respectful and most of all encouraging in our brief classroom encounters. The fact that they might have been “revered institutions” on campus or first-year rookies matters not at all. They were accessible and reached out to us as caring individuals. And to our point, they might have been tenured full timers or frazzled adjuncts trying to establish themselves just out of graduate school. It mattered not. Interestingly, those who majored in the liberal arts scored high in the survey: While people who had majored in science or business reported more full-time employment, those who had majored in the social sciences or the arts and humanities were more engaged and happier at their jobs. A counter thought. Were those college students who acquired meaningful faculty relationships in part or in large part responsible for that relationship? Were they good students who sought out their professors to discuss further details about a lecture, an assignment? Did they have an inquisitive mind that caught their professor’s attention? Were they the ones that took the first step to create a positive relationship? Did those same students upon graduation and subsequent employment intuitively act in a way to be noticed, to be appreciated? Of course, I don’t have the answers. It relates to the question of who succeeds. How much of success is predicated on our own efforts, conscious or not. And how much on those of persons who entered our lives at crucial moments? And how much on blind luck? I suspect all three variables and several others I haven’t mentioned are involved. Dr. Mellander was a university dean for 15 years and a college president for 20.
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Interesting Reads
Fires on the Border: The Passionate Politics of Labor Organizing on the Mexican Frontera by Rosemary Hennessy. 2013. 280 pp. ISBN: 9780816679621. $25.00. paper. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minn. (612) 627-1970. www.upress.umn.edu
Translocalities/Translocalidades: Feminist Politics of Translation in the Latin/a Américas by Sonia E. Álvarez, Claudia de Lima Costa, Veronica Feliu, Rebecca Hester, Norma Klahn, Millie Thayer (Editors)
Translocalities/Translocalidades is a collection of essays on Latin American, Caribbean, and United States–based Latina feminisms. The contributors come from countries throughout the Américas and are based in diverse disciplines, including media studies, literature, Chicana/o studies, and political science. Together, they advocate a hemispheric politics based on the knowledge that today are constructed through processes of translocation. 2014. 496 pp. ISBN: 978-0822356325. $29.95 paper. Duke University Press Books, Durham, N.C. (919) 6885134. www.dukeupress.edu.
The Latino Generation: Voices of the New America Hardcover by Mario T. García
Latinos are already the largest minority group in the United States, and experts estimate that by 2050, one out of three Americans will identify as Latino. Though their population and influence are steadily rising, stereotypes and misconceptions about Latinos remain. By presenting thirteen riveting oral histories of young, first-generation college students, García counters those long-held stereotypes. 2014. 288 pp. ISBN: 978-1469614113. $34.95 cloth. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, N.C. (800) 848-6224 www.uncpress.unc.edu.
Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution by Jeb Bush and Clint Bolick
The immigration debate has challenged our nation since its founding. But today, it divides Americans more stridently than ever. Bush and Bolick propose a six-point strategy for reworking policies that begins with erasing all existing, outdated immigration structures and starting over. From there, Immigration Wars details a plan for advancing the national goals that immigration policy is supposed to achieve. 2014. 304 pp. ISBN: 978-1476713465. $16.00 paper. Threshold Editions, New York, N.Y. www.simonandschuster.com. FAX (800) 943-9831.
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Over the last 20 years the debate about global trade agreements has driven a wedge into the body politic. There seems to be bipartisan agreement among politicians to pass these treaties, but many American workers see them as job killers. As the U.S. Congress currently debates fast-tracking yet another free trade agreement – this time with Asian nations– the timing for Fires on the Border: The Passionate Politics of Labor Organizing on the Mexican Frontera could not be more appropriate. Rather than focus on the effect of trade agreements on American workers, however, this book shines a light on Mexican workers and their own labor movement in light of free trade. In Mexico, a maquiladora is a manufacturing setup in a free trade zone, where the plants import material and equipment on a duty-free and tariff-free basis for assembly, processing, or manufacturing and then export the assembled, processed and/or manufactured products. When in 1994 the U.S. signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) the growth of manufacturing plants in Mexico exploded. But as the author of this book points out, so has the controversy in terms of the treatment of workers and working conditions there. The term maquiladora, in the Spanish language, refers to the practice of millers charging a maquila, or “miller’s portion” for processing other people’s grain. As Hennessy illustrates in Fires on the Border the “miller’s portion” is sometimes too steep a price to pay by workers for the sake of improving trade relations between countries. As she explains, the history of the maquiladoras has been punctuated by workers’ organized resistance to abysmal working and living conditions. Over years of involvement in such movements, Hennessy has been impressed by a seldom discussed but significant feature of these struggles: the extent to which labor organizing is driven by the influence of affection and antagonism, belief, betrayal, and identification. Currently about 1.3 million Mexicans are employed in one or more of approximately 3,000 maquiladoras. Fires on the Border examines labor and community organizing on Mexico’s northern border from the early 1970s to the present day. Through these campaigns, Hennessy examines what motivates people to act on behalf of one another and what binds them to a common cause or union. The point she makes is that a common cause, such as improving working conditions can unite dissimilar groups of people regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation in a way that is not likely or possible otherwise. Hennessy provides workers’ testimonies that “confirm that the capacities for bonding and affective attachment, far from being entirely at the service of capital, are at the very heart of social movements devoted to sustaining life.” Reviewed by Mary Ann Cooper
By Margaret Sands Orchowski REFINANCING STUDENT LOANS THE NEW COLLEGE SOLUTION It seems the only “solution” that Congress – especially Democrats – can discuss that would make college more “affordable,” and “accessible”, is to tweak college loans once again. While ideas abound for ways to lower college costs – from increasing faculty-cheap online courses to pushing students to finish a four-year degree in three years – they never make it out of committee. Even the MOOC rage seems to be over. So we’re back to dealing with student loans and debt. In the last Congress, Democrats – led by Massachusetts liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren – passed legislation to lower the interest rate of direct student loans to 7 percent from 8.6 percent. This year Sen. Warren is pushing proposals that would allow graduates to refinance those old student loans into new ones at about 3.9 percent interest. Dems call it their “Fair Shot Agenda” but it does nothing to lower costs. NEW HELP FOR MEXICAN/LATINO STUDENTS In AY 2012-13, for the fifth time in a row, Mexico was among the top 10 sources of foreign students to the United States, according to the International Institute of Education’s “Open Doors” report. Now, some universities in Mexico are considering offering accredited classes and even degrees in the United States not only for their students but especially for the millions of Americans of Hispanic descent who want higher education. “It is seen as a huge market,” said Jake Pacheco of the San Antonio, Texas campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. New immigration regulations could help. In May the Department of Homeland Security proposed new rules that would allow dependent spouses of foreign students and high tech visa holders to request a permit to work.
HISPANIC DEMOGRAPHICS COMPLEX WHEN INCLUDING MILLENNIALS New demographic studies increasingly sort out Millennials – the population currently around 19 to 31 years old – from ethnic groups and other generations. But that can complicate political polls, especially since some 45 percent of Millennials in the U.S. are Hispanics. For instance, while 55 percent of Latinos are reported to be Catholic and 22 percent evangelical Protestants, a new Brookings Institute study shows that only 8 percent of Latinos are religious conservatives, 16 percent are religious progressives, and 10 percent are unaffiliated. But 39 percent of Millennials are unaffiliated and most are independent politically. “People motivated by faith do not fall neatly into the current obsession with red/blue politics. The mixture of faith and politics can bring the moral imperatives of traditions to issues of common concern,” concludes the Brookings report. “It can produce people who look quite purple.” IMMIGRATION REFORM HANGS ON PRIMARY RESULTS It’s July and the 2014 midterm election primary season is almost over. Most of the candidates have now been chosen and the big political question of the year is answered: Have Tea Party candidates who oppose comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) won or not? With one month to go before the summer holiday and then just a few weeks of legislative time left before November and the 2014 election of all Congressional Representatives and one-third of Senators, the big question now is: Has a window for CIR been created or not? This is not known at the time of this writing. But here is what is known even way back in the spring of 2014. If moderate Republicans win the key Senate state primary nomination races, and hence stand a good chance of taking over the Senate in November, then a stand-alone DREAM Act (known as the KIDS Act by Republicans) has a good chance of being considered in the House in the coming months – if not in July then in the lame duck session of November-December. If, however, Tea Partyers win most of the key races by summer, look for Democratic activists to push aggressively for comprehensive reform and ending deportations in the hopes of driving Republicans to the right – a bait that could cause the GOP to look mean, extremist and unelectable. None of this will depend on the Latino vote, however. Most of the key states where the Senate could flip have less than 5 percent Latino voters, and a good 30 percent of those usually vote Republican. Plus, the top issue for Latino voters is not immigration reform but jobs, health, housing, education and the economy, according to Arturo Vargas, executive director of NALEO Educational Fund and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-Fla., Democratic Party leader at April and May press conferences. 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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Dean | School of Business Building on a distinguished 105-year history, Montclair State University is proud to be a leading institution of higher education in New Jersey. The University’s six colleges and schools serve more than 19,000 undergraduate and graduate students in 300 majors, minors, concentrations and certificate programs. Situated on a beautiful, 250acre suburban campus just 14 miles from New York City, Montclair State combines the instructional and research resources of a large public university in a dynamic, sophisticated, and diverse academic environment. Accredited by AACSB, and poised to occupy its new $66 million, 143,000 ft2 building set to open in fall 2015, the School of Business is comprised of five academic departments: Accounting, Law and Taxation; Economics and Finance; Information and Operations Management; Management; and Marketing. These departments offer majors in all business disciplines and thirteen specialized concentrations covering numerous topics, including: hospitality management; retailing; sports, events and tourism marketing; and international business. At the graduate level, in addition to the MBA, the School offers an MS in Accounting and a Post-MBA certificate in Accounting. The School’s 79 full-time faculty members deliver topquality instruction to its approximately 2,660 students. The Princeton Review recently added the School to the Review’s list of best business schools, further confirmation of the quality and trajectory of its programs. The School benefits from the support of its Advisory Board, composed of outstanding leaders from the business community. The School’s current operating budget is $17.6 million. In addition to 29 high-tech classrooms, the new building will also house a Trading Floor, Financial Resources Center and the Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship. This search offers a rare opportunity to spearhead growth of a vibrant and contemporary business school in one of the most desirable locations in the country and to enhance its visibility worldwide. RESPONSIBILITIES The Dean, who is appointed by the President and reports to the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, serves as the chief academic officer and administrative officer of the School of Business. The Dean is expected to be an intellectual leader within the School, across the campus and within the external community as well. She/ he will have the vision to identify and the professional skills to pursue new opportunities for the School and the intellectual strength to direct its growth and academic development within the University’s expanding profile, to include programs at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. The Dean will oversee the recruitment and development of faculty and will assure the quality of the academic experience of the School’s students. She/he will be responsible for effectively representing the School to the campus, alumni and external communities and will provide leadership in the pursuit of the external resources required to augment State appropriations. The Dean will be responsible for the administrative and fiscal management of the School, overseeing a budget of approximately $17.6 million. The Dean will be a key member of the University’s senior leadership team and will be imaginative in finding ways to advance the goals and objectives of both the School and the University and to foster collaborations across the campus. QUALIFICATIONS Candidates should possess the following: • The ability to convey and execute a clear vision for the School of Business • The ability to exercise intellectual leadership and inspire a strong sense of collaborative community and common academic vision among faculty, staff and students within the School, across the University, and in relation to the external business community
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• Demonstrated creativity in anticipating and addressing the educational needs of a changing, globally-oriented business community • A goal-driven approach to increasing the competitive prominence of the School regionally and nationally • A proven record of developing beneficial and fund-raising partnerships and programs with public- and private-sector corporations, individuals, agencies and foundations • Familiarity with the policies and procedures of the AACSB accreditation process and commitment to meeting its standards • Superb managerial and fiscal skills, based on significant administrative experience and an informed understanding of the structures and values of an academic community • Strong communication and persuasive skills to advocate for the School of Business and Montclair State University with internal and external stakeholders • A solid commitment to maintaining and extending student, faculty and staff diversity • An entrepreneurial mindset with the demonstrated ability to bring innovative ideas to market • An understanding and appreciation for the role of technology in business and business education
The Search Committee for the Dean of the School of Business at Montclair State University invites nominations, applications, and expressions of interest for the position of Dean. It is anticipated that the new Dean will assume office in January 2015. Confidential nominations and applications should be addressed to Dr. Ross Malaga, Chair of the SBUS Search Committee, and submitted electronically (PDF or MS Word) via:
https://jobs-montclairedu.icims.com/jobs/1166/ dean%2c-school-of-business/job Applicants should include a cover letter describing how their background, skills and education match the needs of the University, along with a curriculum vitae, and the names and contact information (including email addresses) of at least five professional references. For further details regarding this opportunity, please visit:
http://www.montclair.edu/sbus-dean/ **Please note when applying online and submitting multiple documents: cover letter, resume and references, the documents must be combined into one single file.** The Search Committee will begin reviewing files in late August and continue until an appointment is made. Montclair State University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action institution with a strong commitment to diversity.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF COMMUNICATION STUDIES Assistant Professor of Political Science with specialization in Methods and Comparative Politics. The Department of Political Science at the University of North Carolina Asheville invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track Assistant Professor position for an appointment beginning January 2015. Candidates must hold a Ph.D. in political science by the time of appointment and show evidence of excellence in undergraduate teaching as well as potential for scholarly growth. The department seeks applicants with fields in Methods and Comparative Politics. Candidates should be prepared to teach a variety of classes in both fields and have experience mentoring students in undergraduate research projects. In addition, faculty members should have experience in a Liberal Arts institution and be prepared to teach in the university's core curriculum, including the Humanities sequence required of all UNC Asheville students. Candidates with demonstrated experience or potential for leadership in serving UNC Asheville’s efforts in promoting diversity and inclusion in the areas of pedagogy, programming, and service activities are especially encouraged to apply. The typical teaching load of political science faculty is three, 4-credit courses per semester, with a favorable student-instructor ratio. UNC Asheville, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Western North Carolina, is a student oriented, public liberal arts institution committed to being an inclusive campus community. The University is committed to equality and diversity of educational experiences for our students. Qualified individuals are encouraged to apply regardless of socio-economic status, gender expression, gender and sexual identity, culture, or ideological beliefs. UNC Asheville is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and will not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, sex, disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status with respect to all terms, conditions, and privileges of university-sponsored activities, employment, and the use of university facilities. Please submit applications electronically to political_science@unca.edu including: a letter of interest, specifically addressing the applicant's qualifications for this position; a curriculum vitae; copies of graduate transcripts; evidence of teaching excellence; and three recent letters of recommendation. Any questions about the position should be directed to Linda Cornett at lcornett@unca.edu. Applications will be accepted July 1 -August 15, 2014.
The Department of Communication Studies at St. Joseph's College (Long Island campus) invites applications for a full-time faculty position in Communication Studies to begin Spring 2015. The selected candidate must demonstrate excellence in teaching and learning, maintain high standards of competence in the discipline, and participate actively in the college community. Responsibilities: • Teach eight undergraduate courses per ademic year, including courses in Speech Communication, Interpersonal Communications, Intercultural Communications, Oral Interpretation, Voice and Diction, Non-Verbal Communications, and Small Group Discussion. • Advise students academically, which involves meeting with students throughout the academic year • Engage in scholarly activity. • Serve on departmental, campus, and college-wide committees and task forces. Qualifications: • A Master's Degree in Communications, or related field, is required; a Ph.D. is strongly preferred • Demonstration of excellence in teaching and learning, to include a commitment to integrating new technologies into the teaching-learning process • Experience teaching a broad array of foundational courses effectively • Experience in theatre arts beneficial, but not required Pls send your curriculum vitae and cover letter to: EOE - M/F/D/V
CommStudiesSearch@sjcny.edu
Nominations and applications are invited for
The Samuel S. Wurtzel Endowed Faculty Chair in Social Work The School of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is searching for an eminent social work scholar of national reputation who will contribute to the life of the School and offer leadership to the social work profession. VCU is designated by the Carnegie Foundation as a very high research activity and community engaged institution, committed to diversity and multiculturalism. For further information and to apply, please visit: http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/facjobs/ and click on the School of Social Work link Virginia Commonwealth University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action university providing access to education and employment without regard to age, race, color, national origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, veteran’s status, political affiliation or disability.
Assistant Professor, Clinical/Counseling Psychology Department of Psychology The Psychology Department at the University of North Carolina - Asheville (UNC-Asheville) is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor beginning Fall 2015. The successful candidate will have a Ph.D. in clinical or counseling psychology, demonstrated teaching skill and the potential for scholarship involving undergraduates. Clinical experience and licensure or license-eligibility is a plus. Teaching duties include introductory psychology, abnormal psychology, personality, a senior seminar course involving supervision of undergraduate students in community placements, and a lab or seminar course in an appropriate area of specialization. Course load is 24 hours per year. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains, UNC Asheville is the designated public liberal arts institution of the UNC system, emphasizing quality teaching and mentoring of students in undergraduate scholarship and service. UNC Asheville is committed to increasing the diversity of its faculty, staff, and students. Women, minorities, and people with disabilities are encouraged to apply. Consideration will be given to candidates with areas of specializations engaging race, gender, or class and cultural difference, including rural and/or underserved populations. Candidates with a strong interest in contributing to the University’s efforts in diversity and inclusion are also encouraged to apply. Application should include the following documents in PDF form: a cover letter, a statement of teaching philosophy, a CV highlighting undergraduate teaching, a statement of research interests, an unofficial transcript, and three letters of reference. Materials should be submitted electronically to Dr. Pam Laughon, Search Committee Chair, at https://jobs.unca.edu. See http://psychology.unca.edu for more information. Review begins October 1 and continues until the position is filled. UNC Asheville is committed to equality and diversity of educational experiences for our students. Qualified individuals are encouraged to apply regardless of socio-economic status, gender expression, gender and sexual identity, culture, or ideological beliefs. UNC Asheville is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and will not discriminate against students on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, sex, disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status with respect to all terms, conditions, and privileges of universitysponsored activities, employment, and the use of university facilities.
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Dean of Academic Affairs, Boca Raton Campus, Palm Beach State College
Palm Beach State invites qualified candidates who are dedicated to creating an innovative and dynamic teaching environment, to apply for the position of Dean, Academic Affairs, at the Boca Raton Campus. Reporting to the Campus Provost, the position will serve as the Academic Affairs officer for the campus, providing leadership and administrative oversight of all academic programs. Will deliver guidance to two associate deans with oversight of the following disciplines: Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Will manage the academic affairs budget, recommend strategic policies, develop procedures and standards, and assess faculty needs of the campus. The position will also assist in curriculum development and program review. The successful candidate must have a minimum of a Master’s degree within the specified subject area related to the position and a minimum of four years related experience. A doctoral degree is strongly preferred. Must possess solid leadership skills, post-secondary instruction, and administrative experience in higher education. Curriculum development skills and the ability to manage a budget are also required. Teaching experience in higher education preferred. This position will be open until filled with an initial review date of August 17, 2014. Palm Beach State College offers a highly attractive benefits package. For more information and to apply online please visit: www.palmbeachstate.edu/employment
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Two tenure-track Assistant Professor positions Deadline Date: October 15, 2014 The Economics Department seeks two broadly trained economists who have a passion for innovative undergraduate teaching in a liberal arts setting. We will consider candidates who possess an interest in applied and interdisciplinary work; conducting research with undergraduates; mentoring undergraduate research; and maintaining an active pedagogical and research practice that meaningfully incorporates writing across the curriculum, critical thinking, and other core attributes of the liberal arts experience. The preferred candidate will be committed to maintaining an active research agenda and to supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion in an academic setting. We invite applications for two tenure-track Assistant Professor positions beginning academic year 2015-16. Candidates should have a Ph.D. in Economics or related fields, though advanced ABDs will be considered. Successful applicants can expect to teach four 3 credit hour course sections each semester for a total of eight sections over the year. These courses will average 20-25 students each and will include multiple sections of principles of macroeconomics and/or microeconomics. Candidates willing and able to teach introductory corporate finance and/or econometrics will be especially attractive. In addition, our new colleagues will teach applied courses in their desired field(s). We are particularly seeking candidates who have an interest in the following fields: behavioral economics, ecological economics, economic history, economics of race and gender, empirical macroeconomics, health economics, international economics, law and economics, public economics, and/or research methods. UNC Asheville, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Western North Carolina, is the designated public liberal arts institution of the University of North Carolina system, committed to quality student-centered teaching, student-teacher interaction, and mentoring of students in undergraduate scholarship and service, within an inclusive campus community. UNC Asheville is committed to increasing and sustaining the diversity of its faculty, staff, and student body as part of its liberal arts mission. Candidates with a strong interest in contributing to the University’s efforts in diversity and inclusion are encouraged to apply. Liberal arts experience as a student and/or teacher is especially desirable, as is an interest in contributing to interdisciplinary programs such as Africana Studies, the Humanities program, International Studies, and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. A Ph.D. in Economics or related fields is required for appointment at the Assistant Professor level. Candidates should prepare a vision statement articulating how their specific teaching and research aspirations will contribute to the future of our department, specifically how these activities will engage undergraduates, the campus and broader community. In addition, please send an application letter, curriculum vitae, copies of post-secondary transcripts, statement of teaching philosophy, copies of teaching evaluations, a recent sample of scholarship, and three letters of recommendation (at least one should focus on teaching effectiveness and at least one should address expected date of degree completion) to econsearch@unca.edu. Screening of applicants will begin immediately. UNC Asheville is committed to equality and diversity of educational experiences for our students. Qualified individuals are encouraged to apply regardless of socio-economic status, gender expression, gender and sexual identity, culture, or ideological beliefs. UNC Asheville is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and will not discriminate against students, applicants, or employees on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, sex, disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status with respect to all terms, conditions, and privileges of university-sponsored activities, employment, and the use of university facilities. If you have questions, you may contact Dr. Leah Greden Mathews at econsearch@unca.edu.
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The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) invites expressions of interest in, and nominations for, President of the University. This is one of the most exciting and vibrant presidential searches in higher education now being conducted. UNLV has several significant initiatives which the President will oversee, including: • establishment of a new medical school; • attaining Carnegie Research University/Very High Research designation; and • construction of a 50,000+ seat stadium to be used for UNLV football as well as other major events in the city of Las Vegas. A detailed prospectus and institutional profile may be found at www.unlv.edu/presidentsearch. The University is committed to the selection of a distinguished leader to serve as its next President. The Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education, the Chancellor, and the leadership of the corporate and philanthropic communities in Las Vegas are dedicated to the success of this search. The search will remain confidential until the finalists are presented to the UNLV Presidential Search Committee, at which time the state’s open meetings laws will apply. Nominations and expressions of interest should be sent to: Jerry H. Baker, President Baker and Associates LLC 4799 Olde Towne Parkway – Suite 202 Marietta, GA 30068 jbaker@baasearch.com 770-395-2761 The University of Nevada, Las Vegas is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity educator and employer committed to excellence through diversity.
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Priming the Pump… Learning to Ask for Help By Miquela Rivera, PhD
ometimes good things just happen; more often, people request what they receive. If things are available for the asking, why are some Latino students reticent to ask for help, resources or opportunities? If Hispanic students do not know their options, they won’t know what to request. Broadening the menu of choices for students broadens their appetite. Exposing students to different events, people or lifestyles is the first step in helping them expand their personal vision of what they want. And if a student cannot consider his desire as reasonably probable, a teacher or caring adult can show him how to increase his chances of attaining what he wants. Some Hispanic students might have deduced and continue to assume that they are not entitled to ask for what they want; they figure that good things are for other people, but not for them. Other young Latinos might fear how people will react if they speak up. If they have experienced repeated rejections or denials at home, for example, they might assume that asking will result in rejection and denial of opportunities at school or work, too. Students who predict or assume how others will respond to a request often read the minds of others incorrectly, ultimately foregoing what they want. Occasionally Latino youth think they are being selfish if they ask for something they want. In a traditional Hispanic family of limited means, decisions are often made with consideration of the impact on others. If one teen in the family is chosen for a special opportunity, the family might not permit the student to participate if a sibling isn’t chosen for it or another similar opportunity. In an attempt to maintain fairness or family harmony, an achievement-oriented Latino scholar might feel hobbled and decide not to ask. Helping a Latino student link personal happiness to a common good removes the misunderstanding that asking for something means the student is selfcentered. A Latina successful in achieving her goals can always share with family and the broader community the good things that result from seizing an opportunity. She doesn’t advance alone; others benefit from her achievement. Finally, the indirect com-
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munication common among Latinos is often the culprit when a Hispanic student does not get what he wants. A student “wishing” she could do a given activity or envying a cousin who “got” to do something might be obliquely requesting what she wants. The problem: those in the position of granting a request typically don’t take hints and they will miss the request that is embedded in the communication. Latino students who hint about or allude to their desires can be coached to view direct communication as respectful and expected. Making a desire clear will be considered acceptable and effective. Asking requires certain skills, too. Parents, teachers and mentors can help a Hispanic student articulate what she wants by having her write it down. Doing so forces the student to more clearly visualize what he wants and why. In the process, he can also see that pursuing a career path simply for money will not yield satisfaction if it is bereft of a deeper meaning. Knowing clearly what you want and why you want it is the first step to asking and making a request a reality. If a student remains reticent about asking for something reasonable, encourage a conversation with someone objective to brainstorm options and roleplay asking. Another perspective on the student’s desire can yield other options and help the student develop the style of effective asking. For those students who think that they should not have to ask because others should know what they want, dispel the myth of mind-reading and encourage the route of direct communication. Support the idea that direct requests are respectful of self and others, more efficient and typically more effective. Realistically, there is a chance that a request will be denied, but remind the student that one rejection does not mean “always rejected.” Being told no is not personal, unique or unheard of. Encourage the student to keep visualizing and asking. The persistent Latino student will learn that, eventually, he will get what he needs. Miquela Rivera, PhD, is a licensed psychologist with years of clinical, early childhood and consultative experience. She lives in Albuquerque, N.M.