02/13/2012 Honors College Completes with the Ivies.

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Honors College Competes with the Ivies Falling Through the Cracks

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Esquina E ditorial

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aryland’s B-plus took first place the fourth year in a row in Education Week’s “Quality Counts 2012” analysis of K-12 education. Of the 10 states with the largest Latino populations, New York led with a B; Georgia and New Jersey scored a B-minus; Florida and Texas, a C-plus; California, Illinois, Colorado and New Mexico, a C; and Arizona, a C-minus. The national average was a C. Let’s hope the Quality Counts advisers, who hail from universities and education organizations, aren’t pulling their punches.

Of Republican presidential candidates still standing as we go to press, Ron Paul and Rick Perry propose closing the U.S. Department of Education, and Gingrich and Santorum want to downsize it. But Romney says it helps hold down “the interests of the teachers unions.”

Paul opposes federal grants to students for education. Santorum opposes federal early education programs because “The government wants their hands on your children as fast as they can,” so it can “indoctrinate” them. All this according to Sarah Butrymowicz, staff writer, The Hechinger Report, on a HuffPost blog as the campaigns were gearing up.

Carla Rivera wrote in the Jan. 15 Los Angeles Times that grants could become “much harder to obtain for new students under restrictions proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown.” The governor suggests raising the minimum GPA for Cal Grant “A” from 3.0 to 3.25 and for Grant “B” from 2.4 to 2.75.

Brown, a Democrat, reasons that “in a climate of fiscal constraints, financial aid should go to students mostly likely to complete their degrees – those with higher grades,” writes Rivera, noting that about 26,600 prospective students would be affected in the next school year. ¡Adelante!

Suzanne López-Isa Managing Editor

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Deloitte Ellen Gabriel Chair for Women and Leadership Simmons College School of Management (SOM) seeks candidates for the Deloitte Ellen Gabriel endowed chair in women’s leadership. Applicants should be premier scholars and/or distinguished leaders and practitioners. The chair will be expected to carry out applied research, and to provide intellectual leadership in conjunction with the Center for Gender in Organizations. The chair will also serve as an active spokesperson informing and shaping national and international discourse and policy on appropriate strategies for advancing women into leadership roles in all sectors.

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Applicants should possess a doctorate or equivalent terminal degree in business or management or a closely related field that reflects deep understanding of women’s leadership.

We seek a track record of providing intellectual leadership in gender, diversity, organizational studies, women’s leadership in a global context, women’s leadership education and development, and/or strategy.

The School of Management (SOM), founded in 1974 as the Graduate School of Management, offers the only MBA program in the country designed specifically for women. The mission of the MBA program and the undergraduate program is to educate women for power and principled leadership. There are four SOM graduate programs: an MBA, a Master in Communications Management, a Master in Healthcare Administration, an online accelerated Master in Healthcare Administration for Pharmacists; as well as a coordinated MBA/MSW degree. The SOM also offers a BA/MBA program, and executive education programs for senior women at leading corporations; and partnerships with two premier business schools in India.

Simmons is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to continuing to develop a more diverse faculty, staff, student body and curriculum.

Consideration of applications will continue until the position is filled. To apply, visit http://jobs.simmons.edu and click “Search Postings”, select position title and follow directions to apply online. Please submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, statement of teaching philosophy, relevant syllabi, publications or documentation related to professional scholarship, and contact information for three professional references electronically to http://jobs.simmons.edu AND hard copy to: Chair, Deloitte Ellen Gabriel Chair for Women and Leadership Search Committee School of Management, Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA, 02115

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by Carlos D. Conde

LATINO KALEIDOSCOPE

Looking at Cecilia Muñoz Through a Two-Way Mirror here are two ways of looking at Cecilia Muñoz’s appointment by President Barack Obama as his new Domestic policy advisor. It’s either a shrewd political move or an estimable appointment or maybe both.

It’s a huge recognition of a Hispanic talent in his White House inner circle and is the highest presidential advisor post ever held by someone from the Latino minority.

Nevertheless, occurring the way it did and the timing, you can’t help but wonder about its underlying motive and its kinship with White House political strategy.

Would he have made this appointment if it had not been a re-election year, knowing he needs the Latino vote to win and figuring immigration policy will be a marquee issue?

That’s assuming that all Latinos are sympathetic to this problem. Many aren’t, simply don’t care or have too many other issues than to ventilate about illegals getting chased out of the U.S. Ms. Muñoz is an original member of the president’s White House staff, appointed as director of intergovernmental affairs in January 2009, a few days after Obama took office.

She succeeds Melody Barnes, who didn’t even get the usual valedictory from the president. The only news about her departure was that she was looking for a job in the private sector.

Muñoz’s career path until she reached the White House was in the bureaucracy, largely articulating Latino issues, particularly immigration, and the promotion of this minority group’s well-being.

Born in Detroit, Mich., in 1962 to Bolivian parents, her father was an automotive engineer, and the family lived in a White, middle-class section of town. She attended the University of Michigan, earning degrees in English and Latin studies and later a master’s at the University of California-Berkeley.

Her political pedigree is modest until you appreciate the fact that one does not get to the White House without some bureaucratic acumen and knowing how to work the political levers in Washington.

Muñoz got her start as the head of the Legalization Outreach Program for Catholic Charities of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. Using President Reagan’s 1986 Immigration Reform Act, the first federal initiative program for undocumented immigrants, Muñoz supposedly helped more than 5,000 illegals become legalized.

With that kind of résumé, it was an easy jump to the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) in Washington in 1988 as the senior immigration policy analyst during a period in which the NCLR, under its former leader, Raúl Yzaguirre, became the U.S. Latino’s ultimate think tank and lobbyist, with Muñoz as its lead advocate in championing immigration reform.

The NCLR has always maintained it is apolitical, which is a stretch. Its leadership and its sentiments have always been allied with the Democratic Party and liberal causes, which purportedly reflect the aspirations and the well-being of the Latino community.

Its defenders say if so, it’s because the Republican Party and the nation’s conservative elements have traditionally disowned or ignored Latino causes and at most – forget about Ronald Reagan’s immigration

policy – given only lip service.

Cubans have little use for NCLR and its mandate. They have no immigration problems if they can literally get a foot on U.S. soil before an immigration officer collars them. Most are legal residents or citizens.

Puerto Ricans have commonwealth status. Central Americans and a scattering of South Americans comprise the rest of undocumented Latinos, so the focus has been mainly on the illegal Mexican diaspora.

Muñoz made her mark at the NCLR with her indefatigable energies on Latino issues and was a senior executive specializing in immigration issues, advocacy and legislation when Obama tapped her for her first White House post.

That job was mostly handholding the nation’s governors, mayors, tribal leaders and local officials on their issues and coalescing their support on Obama policies.

I don’t know Muñoz’s White House trajectory, but, like many, I would argue the president appointed Muñoz to her latest post as much to advance his politics as his policies with Latinos in this upcoming crucial year.

So what if this is about politics and about a crucial election and about what one blatantly has to do to accomplish his goals, if, by extension, it serves a prime objective of one of its constituencies.

The president doesn’t want to be confronted with failing the coveted Latino community in his first term, although I’d say not that many are worked up about immigration reform. By naming a Latina expert to this ranking position, he can at least be perceived as still committed to his first-term promise.

Meanwhile, his latest accommodation, the brainstorm of Alejandro Mayorkas, director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is to allow illegal immigrants to seek provisional waivers before leaving to solicit their visas in their native country.

It spares them long separation of families, sometimes years, if they get stuck in their home countries awaiting action on their visa application, unable to return to the U.S. Many in the past elected to forego the risk and take their chances living in the shadows.

This presidential fiat applies only to those with families in the U.S. who can demonstrate the hardship of such separation. This is usually the first step to permanent residency and citizenship.

The Republicans shot back that this is a ploy for backdoor amnesty, but in a whisper. They know there is jeopardy in being too loud over this in an election year.

The president is not going to accomplish his comprehensive immigration reform if the Republicans keep control of at least one congressional chamber, but with key players like Muñoz, he may find ways to circumvent this through executive fiat as he has with other issues.

If he fails, don’t blame him. Blame those recalcitrant Republicans for “kicking the can down the road” and those “folks” with little sympathy for Latino causes and needs.

L K

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A L E I D O S C O P E

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

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MAGAZINE® FEBRUARY 13, 2012

CONTENTS CUNY Macaulay Honors Program Drives Success

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by Gary M. Stern

Nontraditional Students:Time Isn’t Always on Their Side by Jeff Simmons

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13 Duncan Urging College Officials to Think More Creatively and Urgently About Reducing Student Debt

by Peggy Sands Orchowski

Keeping College Freshmen from Falling Through the Cracks by Sylvia Mendoza

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El Camino Real – 2,580 Miles of American History

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by Rosie Carbo

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Report Identifies 32 Schools that Help Low-Income 20 and Minority Students Succeed by Frank DiMaria Pew and ACT Reports Show Gains for Latino Students – But More Needed by Angela Provitera McGlynn

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How to Help Undergraduate Students Think About 26 Graduate School by Cristina González

Online Articles U.S. Ed Secretary Tackles Long-Term Issue – More Academic Time in American Schools by Peggy Sands Orchowski As College Costs Keep Rising, Criticisms and Questions Mount by Marilyn Gilroy To view this and other select articles online, go to our website: www.HispanicOutlook.com.

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DEPARTMENTS Latino Kaleidoscope

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by Carlos D. Conde

Looking at Cecilia Muñoz Through a Two-Way Mirror

Uncensored

by Peggy Sands Orchowski

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Hi gh Sc ho ol For um

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Smithsonian in the 21st Century: A Haven for High School Hispanics by Mary Ann Cooper

FYI...FYI...FYI...

Hispanics on the Move

Interesting Reads Book Review

by Mary Ann Cooper

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Page 17

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lol...OMG!

Targeting Higher Education Money Realities and College Costs

by Gustavo A. Mellander (Online only)

Priming the Pump...

by Miquela Rivera

Mentoring – Positive Support for Latino Youth Preparing for Higher Education

Back Cover

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Page 26 Cover photo courtesy of CUNY Honors College

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INNOVATIONS/PROGRAMS

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Program Drives Success

by Gary M. Stern ince 2001, the Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York (CUNY) has been awarding academically gifted students a free tuition merit scholarship to study at one of its seven four-year colleges.

Students can choose to attend Baruch, Brooklyn, City College of New York, Hunter, Lehman, Queens and Staten Island, all highly respected CUNY colleges. In addition to free tuition, students receive a free laptop and can apply for a $7,500 grant to study abroad or conduct a research project.

Why did the public CUNY system institute an honors program?

“Why shouldn’t high achievers have access to public higher education as well as students who need more help? The presence of ambitious students raises everyone’s game, including faculty and other students,” explains Ann Kirschner, the university dean of Macaulay Honors College.

Prior to this program’s introduction, “If you were coming out of a New York City high school with a strong academic record, CUNY might not be on the top of your list,” she acknowledges.

The Macaulay Honors program enables CUNY to compete with Ivy League and top-tier colleges for the best and brightest students graduating high school in New York City and throughout the state. Indeed 76 percent of the freshman 2005 class consists of New York City residents, another 16 percent live in New York state, and 8 percent hail from outside the state. The scholarship is worth about $30,000 for in-state students, including $20,000 for tuition.

Moreover, the program attracts students of families that can’t afford private colleges or prefer that their children either live at home or in dorms (six of the seven campuses have dorms). “Free tuition is a tremendous magnet to low-income families. It’s a tragedy that young people’s choices will be shaped by their debt rather than intellectual capacity,” she adds. Macaulay students’ graduate debt free and therefore aren’t constrained in making post-undergraduate and career decisions.

Gaining acceptance into Macaulay is highly competitive. For its 2011 class, 4,077 students applied to Macaulay, 1,186 were accepted, and 495 students entered the program. Over 1,600 students are enrolled in the four-year Macaulay program.

Macaulay students have impressive credentials, including averaging 1,400 on the SATs and having a 93 percent high school average. Students must submit teacher recommendations, an essay, and examples of community service and extracurricular activity that demonstrate leadership skills.

Moreover, the program is interested in students of all disciplines and interests since they can choose among any of 475 majors at CUNY. But once students meet Macaulay’s demanding criteria, they can’t rest on their laurels. Students must maintain a 3.5 academic index to sustain their scholarship. If their GPA sinks below that level, they can stay matriculated at CUNY, but not remain in Macaulay.

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Macaulay students exert a positive influence on CUNY. Many of its students “serve as catalysts for positive change. They often run for student government, run clubs, write for the newspaper and challenge the faculty. They bring their curiosity and alertness into everything they do,” Kirschner observes.

Macaulay has managed to attract a diverse student body. Its students are 49 percent White, 29 percent Asian-American, 13 percent Latino, 6 percent African-American, and 3 percent other. More than 60 percent of Macaulay students are immigrants or children of immigrants, 66 percent speak at least two languages, and 60 percent graduated from a New York City public high school.

Since the city’s population is 29 percent Hispanic and 23 percent AfricanAmerican or 42 percent minority, according to the 2010 census, why are there only 19 percent combined Hispanic and Black students enrolled in Macaulay? Kirschner replies that the honors program has “broadened its recruitment away from the usual suspects, such as competitive high schools, to reach deeply into the neighborhoods of New York.” The Latino acceptance rate has been incrementally rising, and the program has been stepping up working with nonprofit groups and community organizations that appeal to Latino and African-American students to raise the minority acceptance rate.

Advising Makes a Difference The program creates camaraderie among Macaulay students in several ways, explains Rich Dikeman, head of marketing for the program. During the first two years, Macaulay honors students must take four seminars about New York City for 12 credits including: 1) New York arts and culture, 2) immigrants in New York, 3) science, technology and the future, 4) New York’s history and sociology.

The Macaulay program opened a new academic building close to Lincoln Center where students attend the seminars. Dikeman says the program builds cohesiveness through sponsoring events such as food festivals and arts nights and encouraging participation in clubs and organizations.

Macaulay students are required to take a minimum of 12 credits in honors-designated classes. The most popular selections are honors sections in science, humanities or English, explains Tim Caron, associate dean of academic affairs. In their major, they must take courses in the honors track, which could mean taking a Shakespeare class in the English department.

One distinctive feature of the Macaulay program is the intensive, one-onone advising and counseling of each student. Each student develops an individualized, academic program that includes research, global learning, mentoring and tapping New York City’s more than 200 museums and libraries. Counseling is critical because “many of our students come from families where they’re the first to go to college. They don’t have the same familiarity with navigating the system, particularly a system as complex as CUNY,” Kirschner explains. She

says Macaulay advisors are full-time academic counselors, not faculty who are Caribbean Culture at the University of West Indies in Barbados. He felt moonlighting and devote only partial attention to advisement. immersed in the Caribbean culture and says that experiencing the culture The advisors play multiple roles in helping the Macaulay students in person deepened his knowledge beyond what reading about it in a hischoose their college curriculum but also to helping them to think holisti- tory book could convey. cally about selecting classes that direct them toward a future career. “Many The toughest part of the Macaulay program for Figueroa was maintainstudents are perfectly happy with a traditional major, and other students ing the 3.5 academic index to keep his scholarship, but he did. His acadewant to color outside the lines,” says mic advisor encouraged him and Kirschner, an alumnus of Princeton kept telling him that he could do it.

University who once taught Victorian After graduating from Brooklyn literature.

College in 2006, he earned an M.F.A. Most of Macaulay’s honor stufrom the City College of New York in dents spend the bulk of their acade2008. In 2008, he earned a two-year mic time in classes, interacting with $25,000 Van Lier fellowship at other CUNY students. “The person Bronxnet, a regional TV network next to you may be a returning GI, a owned by Cablevision. He shot and single mother, a person working full edited video and still works there as time and struggling to get through a professional, though his fellowship school,” Dikeman says, suggesting has ended. He also launched Chris they encounter urban life, not ivory Fig Productions, which specializes in tower academics. corporate videos, weddings and The most popular majors at events. He has a full-time employee Macaulay are biology, chemistry, and part-time staff. mathematics, finance and business.

Figueroa says the biggest impact Some students create more personon him of attending the Macaulay alized majors, such as combining Honors program was financial. “To environmental science and world graduate college without having a peace. Academic advisors guide stuburden of debt, you can’t put that in dents to think about studying abroad words,” he says. Academically, he for a semester, working on a learned “how to tell a story in film. research project, interning at a Film must do more than look and green consulting firm, or considersound good,” he says. ing what it takes to become a Hunter College attracts the largest Rhodes Scholar (which two number of Macaulay students, finance Macaulay graduates have attained). and business majors gravitate to Baruch Every student also can apply for College, and engineering majors lean a $7,500 Opportunities Fund. towards CCNY. In addition, students are Working with an advisor, the student encouraged to take courses at any of submits a proposal, and if accepted the other six CUNY campuses, so an (most are), the money can pay for environmental science major at studying abroad, stipends for unpaid Brooklyn College might take a special internships, research project marine course at Queens College. expenses, conference registration Kirschner says Macaulay’s faculty Ann Kirschner, university dean, Macaulay Honors College, CUNY and even expenses associated with is chosen based on teaching experapplying to graduate schools. tise, not just academic research. Macaulay faculty include notables such as urban planner Owen Guttfreund; Roslyn Bernstein, a former New York Why One Student Chose Macaulay Times, Village Voice and New York magazine journalist; and Sondra Perl, When Chris Figueroa was graduating from St. Raymond High School for author and co-founder of the New York City Writer’s Project.

Boys in the Bronx in 2001, he saw a poster in his college counselor’s office Most of Macaulay’s graduates don’t stop at a bachelor’s degree. More than for the new Macaulay Honors program at CUNY. Figueroa was interested in 90 percent of the 2011 class expressed interest in obtaining advanced degrees. film production, applied to Macaulay, New York University (NYU) Film School Thirty-eight percent intend to pursue a master’s degree; 23 percent, a doctoral and Boston University, and was accepted by all three. Though NYU Film was degree; and 31 percent, a professional degree such as medicine or law. his first choice, it offered little financial aid, and he didn’t want to burden his But not everyone succeeds in the program. In the class of 2009, 78 permom and family with excessive debt. He opted for Macaulay and was a film cent of its students graduated from the Macaulay Program, and about 12 perproduction major at Brooklyn College, where he graduated in 2006. cent more, or 90 percent, graduated from their senior CUNY college. About Figueroa said he had a “dual identity” at Brooklyn College as a film major 10 percent of entering students dropped out of the program, which CUNY and Macaulay Honors student. He was one of the few film majors in the pro- doesn’t track, but we are told some transfer to other four-year colleges. gram. Since the film department didn’t have honors classes, Figueroa worked Students in the Macaulay Honors program epitomize the best that CUNY on special projects or was given additional assignments to upgrade his classes. has to offer. The honors program exemplifies “the highest level of academMoreover, Figueroa was nourished by studying overseas. He obtained a ic achievement at CUNY. We are proof positive that a student can attend grant to attend a winter’s intersession program in Introduction to the CUNY and become a Rhodes Scholar,” Kirschner says.

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REPORTS

Nontraditional Students:

Time Isn’t Always on Their Side

The

by Jeff Simmons message was as clear as the title emblazoned on the cover of the report: Time Is the Enemy.

For so many nontraditional students, time hasn’t always been on their side. What this groundbreaking report found was that these nontraditional students were more likely to drop out the longer they spent in college.

And this group traditionally has included large numbers of Hispanic students, who were taking more time, and were more likely to be headed for the exit door before graduation.

“The core message is: the longer students take to graduate, the less likely they are to graduate,” said Stan Jones, president of Complete College America and former commissioner of higher education, longtime state legislator, and senior advisor to the governor in Indiana.

“They need to start to go to college right after high school. They need to go in a deliberate way and graduate on time, and they need to go full time as much as possible,” Jones said.

The two-year-old, nonprofit Complete College America, which is based in Washington, recently issued the 242-page Time Is the Enemy as part of NBC’s Education Nation Summit.

Besides finding that nontraditional students who spent too long trying to earn a degree were more likely not to be around come graduation, the report determined that many students who needed remediation were failing to even show up for class.

Complete College America requested information on public college and university graduation rates from all 50 states, and 33 elected to share their enrollment records.

“It was huge,” Jones said of the response from states. “It’s the first project that’s ever been

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done. And, I think we were initially hoping to get 10 or 15 states. Thirty-three states doing this was pretty significant.”

Collectively, more than 10 million students enroll in public institutions annually in the states that participated in the study, a clear majority of

American students in public colleges and universities today.

“The significant number of students represented means that the most alarming trends can be traced across all of the states represented in these findings,” the report stated.

The report centered on five troubling findings: First, nontraditional students are the new majority on college campuses.

The report pointed out that nearly 75 percent of students seeking a certificate or an associate

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or bachelor’s degree were part-time college commuters who were often juggling families, work and classes. Additionally, 25 percent of students attended full time at residential colleges; and if they attended part time, the federal government did not even track their success, as if they were “invisible.”

Second, part-time students rarely graduated even if they had twice as much time to reach that goal.

Third, graduation odds were especially low for students who were Hispanic, African-American or poor. Even though there were more of these students than ever before enrolling in college, too few ended up with certificates or degrees.

The report found that 46 percent of full-time Hispanic students earned a four-year degree in six years, and that an alarming 17 percent of Hispanic students earned their diploma in six years.

That’s better than AfricanAmerican students – with 40 percent of those enrolling in a full-time program having earned a diploma in six years and 14 percent of parttime ones having earned a degree in six years – but substantially worse than White students.

Fourth, many students were wasting time on excess credits, taking too much time to earn a degree and decreasing their chances of graduating by staying in school longer.

And finally, too many students needed remediation, but too few succeeded when they got it.

Nearly 50 percent of students who started at a community college and 21 percent of those who started at a four-year college need remediation, which the authors call the “Bermuda Triangle” in higher education.

About 30 percent of students in remediation classes failed to show up on the first day of class, the report stated. Simply put, remedial students are much less likely to graduate than

nonremedial ones. breakdown allows more personalized advocacy “Obviously, we have to figure out a way to by geography. “It was pretty much developed in help students who need to catch up academical- such a way that you could get all of the imporly, but the way we are doing it right now is tant information on one page that a policyastoundingly ineffective,” said Hilary Pennington, maker needed to understand.” director of postsecondary success, U.S. The statistics were less than glowing in Program, at the Bill & Melinda Gates many states.

Foundation, which along with the Lumina For example, in California, the average Cal Foundation and others financed the founding of State student took between 5.2 years to 5.7 years Complete College America. to graduate with a degree that should normally “That is a lot of the focus of the Bill & take four years to complete. Only 9.8 percent of Melinda Gates Foundation. We are very focused Hispanic students attending full time in pursuit on trying to crack the code and ask how would of a bachelor’s degree graduated on time, 43.9 you improve the system,” she said. percent within six years and 53.7 percent within Overall, the report found that just over half of eight years. students who sought a bachelor’s degree on a Utah witnessed some of the longest periods full-time basis completed their education in six years, and such completion rates remained relatively stagnant despite a 35 percent college-enrollment growth over the last four decades.

“The findings have been received with a lot of shock,” Pennington said, noting how it questioned a number of myths. “Most people believe that if you start college in America, you finish, but that’s not true. It’s shocking how hard it is for part-time students to finish, and part-time students are the majority of college students.”

A sizeable portion of today’s college students might be going to school part time, but part-time students have substantially lower graduation rates than full-time ones, and often because of obstacles they face juggling multiple responsibilities, the report stated.

Experts considered the report “landmark” because of the way in which its data have been studied, noting that the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System does not analyze graduation rates of nontraditional students.

Jim Applegate, vice president of program development at the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation “The data have not been collected,” Jones said. “The federal government is the only good source of data, and they for degree completion: Full-time students gradudon’t have graduation rates on all students, such ated in an average 6.7 years while part-time stuas part-time students. This information has been dents took nearly eight years to finish school. In rather spare, and so that’s why this is the first the state, of every 100 students who enrolled in a report of its kind.” public college, 71 chose a community college, “To me, one of the best things of the report 45 enrolled full time, and 26 enrolled part time. was about how incredibly user-friendly it is,” But after four years, only 14 of the full-timers Pennington said, noting how the state-by-state and one of the part-timers had graduated.

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Of full-time Hispanic students seeking associate degrees in Utah public colleges, only 2.6 percent graduated on time, within two years, 8.4 percent graduated within three years, and 11.5 percent graduated within four years. The report noted that those on a part-time schedule fared much worse: only 1.2 percent graduated within three years, and 3.6 percent graduated within four years.

In Arizona, 5.5 percent of Hispanic full-time students seeking associate degrees in two years graduated on time, 11.9 percent took three years, and 16.8 percent took four years. Among those seeking bachelor’s degrees, 24 percent of full-time Hispanic students graduated on time in four years, 53.7 percent graduated within six years, and 59.3 percent graduated within eight years.

In Texas, of every 100 students who enrolled in a public college, 79 began at a community college – yet only two received a two-year degree on time. More time didn’t necessarily yield better results: after four years, only seven had graduated.

And of the 21 of those 100 who enrolled at a four-year college, five graduated on time, and after eight years, only 13 earned their degree.

Hispanic graduation rates were troubling, with only 2.4 percent of full-time Hispanic students in Texas public colleges earning their associate degrees on time in two years, 7.2 percent within three years and 11.3 percent within four years.

As far as bachelor’s degrees, only 15 percent of Hispanic students on a full-time track at public Texas colleges earned a degree on time in four years while 44.7 percent earned degrees within six years, and 52.9 percent earned degrees within eight years.

There’s no easy fix, but there are solutions that need to be embraced on both local and national levels, recommending a new system of scheduling, embedding remediation into regular curricula, and reducing class time.

“Part of addressing the issues concerning Latinos is that higher education has to become more productive, has to become more efficient and effective, and that means quality,” said Jim Applegate, vice president of program development at the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation. “Everybody has to get on board and

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start asking the tough questions about why its taking so many credits and so long for students to get to a success point.”

He added: “We know the students who come from the poor high schools. We know who they are, and they tend to be students of color and low-income students, and we need to create a system where we put them on the escalator toward success and degrees.”

The report sets forth a blueprint of five “essential” steps that states should take immediately – in essence, a complete reshuffling of priorities.

Jones said, “There need to be substantial changes in the way colleges are structured. We’ve got great leadership, great faculty and great college and university presidents, but the system is broken.

They are not really designed for these students.”

Initially, they need to strengthen reporting. For instance, states should count all students, set stateand campus-level goals, and uniformly measure progress and success. The report’s authors note that by even providing data, the 33 states already proved that it is possible to count the success of each student.

And the 29 governors who pledged to fulfill the commitments of membership in the Alliance of States are clearly setting goals and reinventing higher education to create the conditions for higher achievement, the report noted.

“More states should do the same,” it read.

“And the federal government should try to catch up by filling damaging gaps in the national database, raising the standard of measurement, and counting every student in our country.”

Additionally, there needs to be a movement to reduce the time it takes to earn a certificate or degree. The authors recommended that schools ensure that unnecessary credit requirements are not added to certificate and degree programs.

Instead, the authors noted, they should demand “robust,” comprehensive transfer mechanisms that reach across campus walls so students can bring credits with them instead of losing valuable time when being asked to start over.

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Stan Jones, president, Complete College America

Another strong recommendation is that remediation must be transformed so that students can earn college credits that count as quickly as possible. This, the report noted, is the best thing that can be done to increase college completion.

For example, schools should start as many underprepared students as possible in first-year, full-credit classes, and accomplish this by adding extra class time and tutoring support, instead of delaying their entrance into these classes by shuttling them into remedial courses.

Also, programs should be restructured in recognition of the busy lives many students have.

The authors recommended the establishment of block classes so that students can attend full time by learning from, for instance, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., five days a week.

“For example, with block scheduling, students will take classes in a single block and go every day for three or four hours a day. “They will be more likely to graduate and graduate on time,” Jones said.

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Finally, the authors recommend that policymakers follow in the footsteps of 29 governors and get involved with Complete College America. This has allowed them to benefit from access to a band of reformers and experts in higher education policy and practice who understand the need to make changes to improve college completion.

Pennington said the hope is that colleges, universities and policymakers will absorb the findings and channel that into substantive reform.

“It’s not just the responsibility or the fault of the students,” she said.

This, she said, is beginning to break through into regular public discourse, but the level of engagement is nevertheless “sobering because it doesn’t rise to the top of most policy addresses. They are still pretty focused on K-12 education.

We still have a lot to learn about which interventions make the biggest difference.”

The lower college completion rates of Hispanic and other minority student populations warrant particular attention.

“If we do one thing that would help secure the country’s future, it would be to increase the college success of Latino students,” she said. “I think that is a big opportunity that will get more focus not just because of this report but because of the work of others as well.”

Duncan Urging College Officials to Think More Creatively and Urgently About Reducing Student Debt FINANCE

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by Peggy Sands Orchowski

ublic college tuition is up 8.3 percent for the 2011-12 academic year; private college tuition has increased 4.5 percent. Both figures far exceed the U.S.’s relatively low rate of inflation (about 3.5 percent). And few of the rising costs have anything to do with the core mission of postsecondary educational institutions – educating students, increasing the nation’s college graduation rates and building a well-educated competitive future work force to assure America’s future prosperity.

Until recently, however, efforts by the U.S. Congress and presidential administrations to address rising college costs have mainly consisted of broadening access to college loans (at first via third-party bankers, then directly through the student’s colleges at reduced interest rates).

Concurrently (some say as a result), the average student loan debt of recent graduates rose to an unprecedented $25,250 – up from about $20,000 a couple of years ago. This does not count personal credit card debt that, for many students, averages well over $5,000 to cover college costs.

But what costs?

“Much higher education institutional spending is connected only remotely to the core mission of educating students,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan often says these days.

“Too many universities today actually have a perverse incentive to invest in expensive nonacademic perks to drive ratings and attract students – such as new buildings, gilded athletic centers and residency dorms.”

Duncan has urged college administrators and financial officers “to think more creatively and with much greater urgency about ways to contain costs and reduce student debt.”

At a recent college financial aid conference in Las Vegas, Duncan’s remarks were characterized by U.S. Department of Education officers as “the start of a national conversation about high costs.” “College costs are in the spotlight as never before,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy.

But the urgency might come from the fact that the issue has hit the streets. Literally! The multi-issue Occupy protest movement that is proliferating across the country has found a vocal and visible place on American college

campuses as universities and even community colleges raise tuition fees to unprecedented levels. Fifty-seven percent of Americans polled by the Pew Research Center said they believed that “college is no longer a good value.” “Three in four Americans now say that college is too expensive for most people to afford,” Duncan reports. The Occupy Student Debt Campaign group demands the immediate forgiveness of all student debt or face a mass boycott of student debt payment.

“Stretching out loan payments at reduced interest rates is only, at best, a palliative solution,” snarled a Dec. 2 Washington Post editorial. “Postsecondary educational institutions must get serious about actually controlling costs and promoting much improved cost effectiveness.”

Ideas for doing so are prolific. In late November, the Congressional Subcommittee on Higher Education and Work Force Training brought the CEOs of the Lumina Foundation and the College Cost Accountability think tank, together with the presidents of a Colorado public university and a private Indiana-based college. The subject: “keeping college costs within reach: ways to reduce tuition.” Panelists and elected representatives seemed to agree with committee chair Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., that the trend of higher costs was caused by “weak local economies, increased spending on student services and academic support, and state budget crisis.”

Cost-cutting ideas ranged across the spectrum. Most popular seems to be the “accelerated degree” program that reduces the amount of time needed to complete all requirements for a four-year degree (which increasingly takes a student five to six years to complete) to three years.

Such programs often use online courses, often at half the credit price. Grace College and Seminary in Indiana provides such courses free to full-time students who take 12 hours of summer courses.

Many colleges also are beginning to award credits for demonstrated knowledge, whether obtained in a (recent) classroom or not.

Colorado Mesa University developed a 20hour-a-week campus work program for students (MavWorks) that gives students jobs while reducing on-campus employment costs.

“Institutions are being more strategic in their

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approaches to spending,” said Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs.

Rep. Susan A. Davis, D-Calif., extolled the two-year college option for lower-division and even high school students as one of the best cost-saving measures for families, especially those whose children want to go on to earn a B.A. degree or more. Not only are costs for the first two years much lower, but better articulation and transfer agreements for credits earned in high school/community college and university classes would encourage more students to use that option. Lumina Foundation CEO Jamie Merisotis said it was an idea his foundation was studying eagerly.

In fact, the Lumina Foundation is looking to fund four strategies to reduce costs by colleges forced by state deficits to confront core assumptions about how higher education is structured, funded and delivered. According to foundation officials, the strategies include performance funding criteria; student incentives to degree completion (including a student success tuition discount); new models of delivery (such as consortia of traditional and nontraditional learning modules now being developed by Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiatives); and implementing better business efficiency (such as collaborative shared purchasing). Lumina sees a federal role in better financial aid management and flexibility.

“It was nice to participate in such a civil although intense discussion,” said Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Texas, in an interview afterwards.

“It doesn’t happen much around here anymore,” he lamented in a soft voice.

Still there were obvious partisan themes to the debate. “The increasing costs of employee benefits is one of the primary factors affecting tuition costs,” said Wellman. All the Republicans nodded.

“Today’s hearing is an opportunity for this committee to reaffirm its commitment to affordability, accessibility and equity,” said Hinojosa, who admitted later that that was a strong Democratic focus. “We must continue to address how to provide all students with a high general education.”

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INNOVATIONS/PROGRAMS

Keeping College Freshmen from Falling Through the Cracks

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by Sylvia Mendoza harlene Collazo’s father had been a radio broadcaster in Cuba, but when he became a political prisoner, his dream of going back to school to study economics was shattered. When Collazo was later raised in Miami, she had a support system of her grandparents and parents, and her father’s words sounded in her ears: “You have to go to college.”

Even with that type of encouragement and support, Collazo was still a first-generation Latina when she started at Florida International University (FIU) in 2003 as a political science and journalism major. She is certain that her journey would not have been successful if she had not been a part of FIU’s First Year Experience, as well as a First Year Interest Group (FIG).

The First Year Experience course at FIU is mandatory for every freshman. “It strives to help ease first-year students’ transition to university life by introducing them to resources available to support their academic, intellectual, personal and social growth and success,” explains Dr. Charles Andrews, director of the Academic Advising Center and First-Year Programs for Undergraduate Education at FIU. “It was a one-credit class with homework, readings and the same core students in your group,” says Collazo. “This program created confidence because most of us didn’t feel high school prepared us for the transition.”

Overwhelmed with college at first, the experience most importantly helped Collazo bond with other students, find groups and clubs to get involved with, find academic resources, not be intimidated by professors and find others who shared her interests. Friendships were formed, and a support system was established.

Social aspects of the transition are often just as important as their academics, maybe more, says Andrews. Collazo took part in fun activities like scavenger hunts to help students find departments on campus and where to go for counseling or health services. There were practical lessons that showed them how to move forward and expose them to more than the classroom, such as the Writing Center and math labs, tutoring services, online advising system, academic advisors, internship programs and study abroad opportunities. They learned about social clubs, culturally based clubs and Greek organizations. The students wrote about events they attended, events that they normally would have skipped if they hadn’t been assigned.

Presentations from different organizations, such as the victim advocacy center, enlightened them about harassment, abuse, rape and how to deal with them; the health and wellness center talked about alcohol abuse, STIs and depression. Students learned how to help themselves and be proactive through the registration process, financial management, stress release, finding a major, time management, health, relationships, mental health, lifestyle practices, and juggling work.

For a one-unit course, the lessons learned seem priceless. The First Year Experience and FIG program so positively impacted Collazo, she is

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Social aspects of the transition are often just as important as

their academics, maybe more, says Dr. Charles Andrews,

director of FIU’s Academic

Advising Center and First-Year Programs.

currently a graduate assistant at FIU’s College of Education. “It’s meant for me to be back here,” she says. “It led me to get involved. I saw the difference between cultures. Experiences became more and more interactive.

Now I want others to succeed.”

She has come full circle. Collazo now works with Dr. Glenda Musoba, FIU associate professor in the Department of Leadership and Professional Studies/Higher Education, to research how the First Year Experience programs can be an integral tangent of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) that can benefit the student, the university and the community at large.

“We don’t teach survival and

resourceful skills in high school, but students are somehow expected to know how to cope with the shift to college life.”

Dr. Glenda Musoba, Department of Leadership and Professional Studies/Higher Education, FIU

First-Year Programs The first year at college often proves to be the toughest. Dropout rates can skyrocket when students feel disconnected, overwhelmed or simply lost. In addition, colleges want students to do more than survive their first semester. “Universities need to develop programs to assist students with making a successful transition to college,” Andrews says. “Academically, they are typically not prepared for the rigor of university-level work and the time associated with instruction (less than what they are used to) and preparation for class (significantly more than what they are used to).”

FIU is an HSI with a two-thirds Hispanic enrollment; of 32,000, 77 percent are minorities, 62 percent are undergrad Latinos. If students who mostly come from working-class or immigrant families do not have anyone to precede their experience and enlighten them, they will not understand basic transitional concepts, and so they are at risk of dropping out, Musoba explains. “We don’t teach survival and resourceful skills in high school, but students are somehow expected to know how to cope with the shift to college life.”

For this reason, FIU also developed FIGs, where students are placed in small “learning community” groups of about 25, based on their intended careers and majors so that they will get to know others with similar interests. They take three to five classes together, and that connection is likely to help students complete a semester with higher grades than those students who do not participate in a FIG program – and continue their education with more confidence. Andrews says, “This helps with making a large university feel less overwhelming and creates natural opportunities for forming study groups and making connections.”

Many universities, colleges and community colleges are attempting to introduce and implement First-Year programs and can customize their programs to reflect their enrollment population, in alignment with university goals and mission statements. The course at FIU, for example, includes an FIU-specific textbook that addresses topics such as transitioning to college, FIU history, academic policies, study skills, becoming a global citizen, leadership, community standards, and the career exploration process.

Hispanic-Serving Institutions and First-Year Programs The U.S. Department of Education defines Hispanic-Serving Institutions as those at which total Hispanic enrollment constitutes at least 25 percent of the total. Total enrollment includes part or full time. Fewer than 300 institutions are deemed HSIs. The purpose of an HSI is to expand educational opportunities for and improve the attainment of Hispanic students in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. In addition, an amendment to the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 authorized HSI program activities to “improve student services, including innovative and customized instruction courses designed to retain students and move the students into core courses; articulation agreements and student support programs designed to facilitate the transfer of students from two-year to four-year institutions; and providing education, counseling services, and financial information designed to improve the financial and economic literacy of students and their families.”

The First Year Experience and FIG program fall under Title V guidelines. Latino or minority students often face added challenges when trying to mainstream into a predominately White institution because they feel more marginalized. There are not as many people they can relate to, and they might especially feel disconnected from their own families and/or culture. Underrepresented groups can and do benefit greatly from exposure

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to those they can relate to on a cultural or ethnic level, says Andrews. In addition, FIU takes into consideration a feeling of displacement and/or segregation that comes from low income, as with ethnicity or first-generation students.

With such a large Latino population, FIU faces a unique twist in that there are struggles with retaining Anglo/White students from places outside of South Florida, says Andrews. “In a similar fashion as to what many minority groups experience in predominately White communities, they often feel out of place or like they don’t belong at FIU or in the surrounding Miami community.”

Most minority or underrepresented students need extra guidance and need to incorporate their culture to feel connected. Latino students are more likely to survive the transition if they do not feel cut off from their cultural lifeline. Beyond implementing programs such as First-Year or FIG programs to help form that connection, community outreach and continuing education courses can specifically serve the Latino and underrepresented populations. All of these efforts can elevate the success rate of FIU students.

Students also learned about the consequences of not staying informed.

What they didn’t know included deadlines for applying to financial aid or dropping and adding courses, the link between GPA and scholarships, or simply, what classes they did and did not need. “When they withdraw, they can get lost and their dream goes out the window,” says Musoba. It is difficult to get back on track.

Improvements are needed in reaching out to commuters, adding a career exploration component to the programs, and educating undeclared students on the variety of majors available. In addition, providing virtual tours online is a great idea, says Collazo. “All students seem to respond to that interaction.”

Specific changes are already underway, including a major overhaul of the topics covered in the First-Year textbook. The FIG program is being tweaked to make it more useful for students in historically challenging majors, such as math and the sciences.

Musoba wants to continue finding ways to improve student-college connections, especially freshmen. “I’ve always had a heart for the underdog,” Musoba says.

“What I hope for when I go home at night is that what I do on a bigger scale will still affect the individual student to have a better college experience.”

Do the Programs Work? The Findings With a grant from the Lumina Foundation, which strives to help people From the Practical to the Profound achieve their potential by expanding access to and success in education beyond For every success story attributed to high school, Musoba and Collazo First Year Experience programs or FIGs, researched the first-year experience relatthere are those who find the course a ed to Hispanic-Serving Institutions and waste of time, and that is disheartening to presented their findings at the 2011 hear, says Andrews. Often these are the AAHHE conference. After interviewing stustudents who could have used the informadents in four focus groups through classtion the most. room observations, questionnaires and “Knowing we help a student conquer evaluations over the course of several his/her fears and overcome academic years, they have seen what is working and challenges is great, so it’s still sad to know Charlene Collazo, graduate assistant, College of Education, FIU when a freshman drops out,” says Collazo. what needs improvement.

A first-year course or program can be a Yet the research showed there is retenlifeline. Feeling connected helps raise confidence levels and reassures stu- tion through the programs, and success stories abound. For example, it dents they can succeed and that they belong in college. Most students who took a lot for Shoshannah Asione’s Italian father and Korean mother to enroll in FIG programs do better academically and socially. In both the convince her to attend FIU. The marketing major says, “I wasn’t really course and the FIG program, the greatest strength is connecting first-year happy in the beginning, but after getting very involved on campus I found students with their peers. The most surprising and positive benefit was that my pride in this university.” all had at least one professor who took extra time for them and helped them; She attributed that pride and involvement to the programs that helped that alone made them feel connected, no matter the size of the campus. her find her place at FIU. “Because we would interact so much in our A practical approach is to help freshmen students become proactive in classes, the First Year Experience course would feel like a social gathering. their own planning, but certain steppingstones should be set in place to I met one of my very close friends in my FIG class.” help that transition. If they can learn about the library, academic misconThose connections gave Asione confidence; she went on to work as an duct and plagiarism, housing, options for honors students and undecided alternative breaks communication chair, panther camp director of activimajors; can take part in discussion groups led by experts on personal top- ties, dance marathon morale captain and global community engagement ics like finances and debt; and have access to mentors – then they might participant, among others. “The more involved on campus, the more I be better able to manage stress, improve study habits and deal with time- grew to love my school,” she says. “Right now, I will recommend this unimanagement issues. versity to anyone.”

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HISTORY

El Camino Real – 2,580 Miles of American History

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by Rosie Carbo

ong before the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence and more than 150 years before 59 Texans signed a Declaration of Independence from Mexico, which was 1836, Spanish explorers, friars, soldiers and royal Mexican subjects traversed “El Camino Real de los Tejas” trail.

The 2,580-mile route, which stretches from Mexico through Texas and Louisiana, is one of only a handful of designated historic trails in the United States. In 2004, Congress officially designated the El Camino Real de los Tejas a National Historic Trail.

“For some people, 1836 is where Texas history begins. They know about the Alamo and five missions. But they don’t know much about the trail, and they should know because it’s part of Texas history,” said David Rex Galindo, who holds a doctorate in history, specializing in U.S.Mexico borderlands, from Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas.

To grasp the complexity of El Camino Real de los Tejas, which is the focus of a historical exhibit and a Texas nonprofit’s efforts to enhance tourism, it is important to understand the trail’s equally complex colonial history.

Officially, El Camino Real de los Tejas was the primary overland route used by the Spanish and Mexicans from 1680 until 1821 when Mexico declared its independence from Spain. After Mexican independence, the trail continued to be traversed until the 1860s, when it was replaced by the railroad system.

Unofficially, the tangle of footpaths, fords and river crossings was used by explorers, missionaries and settlers soon after the conquest of Mexico in 1521. It is one of the oldest historic routes in the Lone Star State.

The original trail blazers were Native Americans from a number of tribes, including the Adaes, Nacogdoches, Natchitoches and the Tejas Indians, for whom the trail is named.

Thus, El Camino Real de los Tejas has been both a witness and silent participant in this nation’s history.

“We call it El Camino Real, but it’s really a network of Indian trails. They were really just rough paths called “traces” used to traverse, but which shifted depending on weather conditions,” said Jesús Francisco “Frank” de la Teja, regents and university distinguished professor, Department of History, Texas State University (TSU)-San Marcos.

As early as 1716, Spain had established six missions and a presidio, or fort, in East Texas.

Following Mexico’s independence from Spain, the trail continued to be the main route for services, commerce and communication between Mexico and far-flung Texas settlements.

Monclova and Saltillo, towns in the Mexican state of Coahuila, played a major role in commerce during the colonial era. From Mexico north, the trail meandered to Laredo, Guerrero or Villa de Dolores. From there, it crossed the Rio Grande, wound its way to San Antonio and continued to eastern Louisiana.

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The lengthy trail is part of a Spanish colonial legacy of “royal roads” or caminos reales along with the old mission roads of New Mexico and California. Now, the old Spanish trails are referred to as “mission trails,” “royal roads” or “king’s highways” by historians and travelers alike.

Technically, caminos reales were roads connecting royal posts or seats of government, such as Monclova and Mexico City, with Spain’s northern-most settlements. The royal roads were not straight and narrow paths. Weather conditions often forced detours. So the trail didn’t begin at a specific place.

“That would be like saying that I-10 starts in Houston. So you could say El Camino Real de los Tejas was that part of the royal road network that connected Texas to the rest of New Spain, including the viceroyalty of Mexico City,” said de la Teja, a native of Cuba who earned his doctorate at the University of Texas-Austin, and who teaches the history of Mexico, Texas and borderlands at TSU. Historical accounts repeatedly refer to “New Spain” in recounting the history of Texas and the Southwest. And both Galindo and de la Teja agree that this refers to Spain’s “viceroyalty,” a vast and expansive domain colonized by Spain.

The viceroyalty extended halfway around the known “new world” and included Cuba, Puerto Rico, Central America, Florida, California. In what is now the United States, New Spain was all of the Southwest. Spain founded Santa Fe, N.M.,

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in the 1600s and Los Angeles, Calif., in the 1700s.

Native Americans laid the first trails, but prolonged efforts by Spanish authorities to forge trails connecting Mexico to New Spain domains in New Mexico, California and Texas left an indelible mark.

“Long before the familiar Interstate highway system established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s, indigenous people and colonists cleared trails to communicate, transport and move along the lands that now comprise the second largest state,” de la Teja writes in the exhibit’s handbook.

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During the colonial era, 1600 to 1700, the European imperial powers were Spain, France and England. France was Spain’s chief rival in Louisiana, though at one point they co-existed alongside the native tribes.

In Natchitoches Parish, once Spain’s most eastern Louisiana province, the trail became known as Highway 6. It leads to Nuestra Señora del Pilar de los Adaes, a mission and fort established by Spain in 1721 and designated the first capital of Texas in 1722. Today the mission and presidio is called Los Adaes historic site.

In Bastrop, east of Austin, the trail is now part of Highway 21. Laredo in South Texas has a

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historic site near the trail. In Goliad, Nuestra Señora del Espiritu Santo de Zúñiga mission and fort La Bahia is still visible. But the most emblematic landmarks along the trail are in and around the city of San Antonio.

Founded in 1718, the fort was once called San Antonio de Bexar. A few days prior to the fort’s construction, a Spanish friar founded Mission San Antonio de Valero. Today this historic landmark is visited annually by myriad tourists who know it as the Alamo.

While the Alamo is under the auspices of the state of Texas and managed by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, four other landmark mis-

sions are under the purview of the San Antonio native who hopes the exhibit teaches students to Historical Review.

Missions National Historical Park. question existing myths.

But those arteries suffered from constant Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purísima “I teach history, and when I ask students erratic weather changes, forcing the trail to reinConcepción de Acuña, Mission San José y San when the history of the United States began they vent itself in the form of swales, swells and variMiguel de Aguayo, Mission San Juan Capistrano say it began with Jamestown in Virginia and ous other natural markers. Some of these remand Mission San Francisco de la Espada were Plymouth (Rock) and moved from east to west. nants today have been overlaid by housing develbuilt along El Camino Real de los Tejas.

So my goal with this exhibit is to teach and help opment.

“In colonial times, there were four different students question some of those myths and “I moved to Nacogdoches seven years ago. routes: Old San Antonio Road, the Lower Road, stereotypes.”

The street I live on is called El Camino. One day, the Laredo Road and the El Camino Road. But Lectures by history professors have accom- my neighbor told me the historic trail runs now, the National Park Service has merged the panied the exhibit at host venues across the across my front yard. So every day that I cross routes into one and called it El Camino Real de state. Professors have spoken to students about my front yard, I cross the Camino Real,” said los Tejas,” said Steven Gonzales, Christopher Talbot, associate profesexecutive director of El Camino Real sor, Stephen F. Austin University’s de los Tejas National Historic Trail School of Art. Association.

The surprising discovery The association is a nonprofit inspired Talbot to begin chronicling officially formed in 2007. The orgathe trail through photographs. He nization’s two main goals are preserstarted with his driveway, but a visit vation of missions, forts, and historic from the National Park Service sites along the trail, and raising pub(NPS) inspired him to take it on as lic awareness of the historic trail and a project. landmarks as a tourist destination.

“I had worked on projects about “Most people haven’t heard of the history of Nacogdoches. So this the trail. But we’re working to was a segue for me,” said Talbot, change that. Texans are very proud who was awarded a grant from the of their state, and without the trail, NPS and SFA to work on phowe would not call this state Texas. So tographing the trail. “The good thing our efforts along with the exhibit are about the exhibit is that it’s getting going to help raise awareness,” said Miguel Angel Fernández Mazarambroz, former consulate general of Spain, out to the public.” in Houston with Steven Gonzales, executive director of El Camino Real de Gonzales, who holds a Bachelor of A subsequent grant from both los Tejas National Historic Trail Association Arts from the University of Texasthe NPS and SFA enabled him to Austin and a Master of Applied travel from Mexico’s border through Geography from Texas State University-San revisiting what they’ve learned about American Texas and up to Louisiana documenting the trail.

Marcos. and Texas history.

His treasure trove of colorful photographs is Titled “El Camino Real de los Tejas: Past and “The caminos were natural pathways that part of the current exhibit.

Present,” the historical exhibit is being curated led to the development of Texas and other areas.

In 1911, the Texas Legislature officially recby Galindo. The exhibit chronicles the trail’s his- The Spanish land grants are the best way to ognized the trail and followed up with an $8,000 tory and importance through digitized, original prove this. We get our concept of water rights grant to the Texas Society of Daughters of the Spanish maps from the archives in Seville, from the Spanish. They protected a woman’s American Revolution to fund official route markengraved reproductions, photographs and his- property interests. So it’s not all about Anglo ers. In 1918, TSDAR members gave $2,500. The torical documents. development. And I don’t think we give enough total sum funded the purchase of 123 individualCreated by Miguel Angel Fernández credit to the Spanish heritage,” said Charles ly engraved pink granite markers. They were Mazarambroz, former consulate general of Spain Porter, a history professor at St. Edward’s. ceremoniously installed along more than 500 in Houston, the exhibit has been on display at Earning the designation of “camino real” or miles of the trail. public forums and Texas universities since sum- “royal road” was not easy. Historical accounts Despite economic development, urban mer 2010. It has been on display at Rice kept by early 16th- and 17th-century Spanish sprawl and population growth, many of the University, College Station in Bryan and St. explorers reveal the importance of having routes markers have been located and renovated. In Edward’s in Austin. The exhibit will be at St. that enabled the Spanish empire to convert some parts of Texas, visitors who stray off the Thomas University in Houston through March.

Native Americans to Catholicism through the beaten path will discover them.

“I was recruited by Mr. Mazarambroz to mission-building system.

“In parts of Texas, businesses are already curate the exhibit. It was serendipity, since I was “The caminos were the arteries that kept aware of the trail. You’ll be driving along and here at SMU and he was in Houston. The con- Texas alive. Not only did they carry information see El Camino hotel or the El Camino taquería or sulate wanted to start with an overview of the vital to the survival of the province – orders for Old Spanish Trail. So some businesses are more three Spanish trails in this country. Most of the its administration, reports of danger, and aware than others. And we’re going to build on maps are digitized copies of originals from appeals for help – they were the sole avenue of this with a symposium on the El Camino next Spanish archives, so when I saw them, I got commerce throughout the colonial period,” de spring,” said Gonzales. goose bumps,” said Galindo, a Madrid, Spain, la Teja wrote in an essay for the Gulf Coast

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Report Identifies 32 Schools that Help LowREPORTS

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by Frank DiMaria

ach school year is a brand new chapter in the educational journey of an individual and therefore a time for optimism. However, for many low-income, minority and adult students, the odds that they will successfully earn a degree are stacked against them from the very beginning of their college endeavors. Their hopes are often dashed.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has supported the Beating the Odds project. A report on the initiative, Beating the Odds: What It Means and Why It’s Important, features 32 colleges and universities that are models for helping students who are most at risk of dropping out of college.

“The odds of a low-income American completing college haven’t changed in at least 20 years. The six-year graduation rate for full-time freshmen at four-year institutions is just 57 percent. It is even worse for low-income and minority students, putting America further behind in meeting future work force needs,” says Kristin Conklin, founding partner at HCM Strategists, the Washington, D.C., public policy and advocacy firm that published the report.

Each of the colleges and universities featured in the Beating the Odds report is considered a national model for achieving results and pursuing promising approaches to increasing college completion rates, particularly for underrepresented students.

The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine contacted four of the 32 institutions that HCM Strategists featured in the report and asked them to share some of their best practices and programs. Here is what HO found out.

Valencia Community College At Valencia Community College in Orlando, Fla., the three-year graduation rate stands at 37.7 percent. Hispanics graduate at a rate of 34.1 percent; Whites, 42 percent. Valencia implements a blend of programs, projects and strategies that help at-risk students graduate.

Supplemental Learning, for example, is a program in which students who previously succeeded in a particular course tutor current students, offering them a variety of learning strategies.

Supplemental learning sections now support developmental mathematics courses like prealgebra, beginning algebra and intermediate

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algebra, as well as three high-enrollment gateway courses – freshman composition I, U.S. government, and college algebra.

“Like other colleges, we target courses in which students have the most difficulty; however, we also target developmental education, something that is unique to Valencia. By offering Supplemental Learning in developmental math and writing, we provide peer-led review sessions that help students develop college success skills that help them, both with the content in that course, and their other courses as well,” said Dr. Catharine Penfold Navarro, director of student success at Valencia.

Valencia’s Learning in Community program links two courses and provides coordinated instruction for students. In most instances, the program links a developmental mathematics course and the three-credit Student Life Skills course, one that has a long association with improved student performance. Valencia also requires students who test into the reading, writing and mathematics developmental disciplines to enroll in a Student Life Skills course.

Valencia’s Bridges to Success program, now 25 years old, is designed to keep disadvantaged students from dropping out of college and closes the achievement gap for students of color by offering them the opportunity to begin college in the summer following high school graduation and receive special advising and mentoring and the opportunity to attend a set of workshops.

The college has been expanding the number of students served in this program and is on target to admit 400 new students each year, starting in the summer of 2012.

Finally, Valencia’s College Success Infusion Project integrates course curricula with college success skills. Having analyzed and revised the course outlines for developmental English, math and reading courses as well as key gateway courses such as college algebra and freshman composition, staff and faculty at Valencia have infused success skills like critical thinking, reading, motivation, note-taking, goal-setting and study skills. As part of this project, faculty members have created integrated lessons that teach college success and content skills.

“Hispanic students are more likely to begin

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their higher education at community colleges than at four-year universities, so it is incumbent on community colleges to foster their success. Through initiatives like Learning in Communities, Supplemental Learning and Student Success, Valencia provides opportunities for students to learn in community, making individual connections with other students and, in particular, with faculty.

Research continues to show that students with individual connections to other students and faculty are more likely to be successful,” says Navarro.

Montclair State University Montclair State University in Montclair, N.J., has a full-time enrollment of nearly 11,000 students and a part-time enrollment of just over 2,000.

Hispanics at Montclair State have a graduation rate of 59 percent; and Whites, 63 percent. The school’s six-year graduation rate is 62 percent.

To help low-income, at-risk students in their pursuit of a college diploma, Montclair State required its faculty to develop a rational progression to course offerings that allows faculty to scaffold student learning, creating a natural development to students’ acquisition of knowledge. By using a cohort approach, students do this as a group. They form and maintain learning communities throughout their academic careers, develop relationships with faculty and form supportive learning groups that carry them through this process.

To help students who work or have responsibilities off campus by providing flexibility, Montclair State offers online instruction. Online courses can be in general education as well as select upper-level major courses and are available in the fall, winter, spring and summer semesters.

Montclair State’s first-year experience program targets both freshmen and sophomores. According to Dr. Michele Campagna, executive director of its center for advising and student transitions, student outcomes in the first year create “a foundation for that cohort’s future performance and progress.”

By front-loading services that enhance the academic, personal and social development of this cohort, says Campagna, Montclair State promotes its holistic learning and growth, an approach that also sets the tone for the cohort’s engagement on campus. These services seem to work – Montclair’s National Survey of Student

Income and Minority Students Succeed Engagement results demonstrate that its firstyear students are well connected to its campus both in and out of the classroom.

“The decision to support sophomores came as a result of our evaluation of our second-year retention rate. While this rate wasn’t especially low in comparison to our peer institutions, the drop was not at a level with which we were comfortable. As we evaluated the success of the first

allows students to fully immerse themselves in the academic environment of the university and to focus on the goal of graduating in four years,” says Campagna.

Winthrop University At Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., Hispanics graduate at a 35.7 percent rate; Blacks, 61.6 percent; and Whites, 58.1 percent.

minority, and/or learning disabled. Their retention rate is about 96 percent,” says Judy Longshaw, news and media services manager at Winthrop.

Student learning and engagement are being improved through work across usual boundaries between academic and student life areas, to focus on specific student learning needs. Winthrop’s current programs begin with a transition to college class and involvement with residential learning communities,

Dr. Michele Campagna, executive director, Center for Advising and Student Transitions, Montclair State University

Dr. Ronald Williams, assistant VP for academic affairs, Western Illinois University

Kristin Conklin, founding partner, HCM Strategists

year in comparison to the second year, we realized there was a need for a comparable level of transitional support. As a result, we launched a sophomore program that addresses the issues confronted by this cohort at this stage of development at the university,” says Campagna.

Montclair State is committed to ensuring that students are on a timely path to graduation, she says, and the school has taken several steps to ensure they remain on that path. Montclair recently instituted a summer bridge program and developed connections with community colleges so that incoming first-year students can complete basic skills requirements before they start in the fall. “We believe that making use of these alternatives prior to their enrollment

Winthrop believes that students’ retention and persistence is highest when the courses they take are connected and coherent, rather than disconnected and discrete. The school’s approach to retention and graduation rates for minorities is the same as its approach for all students.

Winthrop enrolls students who do not meet regular admission standards, because of a disconnect between their SATs and their high school GPA, into a provisional admissions program. These students, totaling about 100, must attend study halls three nights per week so administration can carefully monitor their grades.

“Winthrop also offers the TRIO Program, which provides heavy academic and social support for about 160 students who are first-generation,

including a writing center and a pilot program for African-American students in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields.

These residential learning communities are theme-based and include themes like the world, honors, learning for life, healthy you, business and economics, creative habitat, math and science, technology, etc. Longshaw says students who participate in learning communities tend to stay in college, have improved grades and interact with faculty members and the community more.

Winthrop established its Eagle STEM Scholars Program to increase the number of underrepresented and disadvantaged students who directly matriculate into biomedical science Ph.D. programs immediately after graduating

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from Winthrop. The program builds on Winthrop’s historical role of providing higher education opportunities to underrepresented, first-generation and low-income students. It promotes the success of individuals from groups that have been historically underrepresented in biomedical science, bioengineering, biochemistry, biology and chemistry.

Western Illinois University Western Illinois University (WIU) in Macomb, Ill., has a six-year graduation rate of 55 percent. Whites graduate at a 56 percent rate; and Hispanics, 46 percent. WIU retains its

minority and low-income students by developing relationships with schools in the surrounding communities. WIU’s Dual Enrollment program is community-based and bridges the transfer between a community college and WIU while promoting the timely completion of associate and baccalaureate degrees. This program allows students to enroll in classes at WIU and a community college simultaneously – choosing to attend classes at either campus – while fulfilling degree requirements.

“The program assists students in becoming acclimated to a university environment while paying a lower cost to take the majority of their

DALLAS COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT The DCCCD is the largest undergraduate institution in the state of Texas-comprising seven colleges located strategically throughout Dallas County.

Together the colleges enroll approximately 77,396 credit and more than 23,000 continuing education students each semester. The District employs approximately 2,985 full- and 4085 part-time administrators, faculty, and support staff. In addition to the colleges, the DCCCD includes other locations providing services to the citizens of Dallas County.

The Dallas County Community College District is anticipating filling a number of full-time faculty positions for the Fall Semester 2012 contingent upon funding availability.

Brookhaven College Nursing Emergency Medical Services Radiology Technology Developmental Reading

Developmental Writing Art Chemistry Visual Communications

Cedar Valley College Biology Government Residential & Commercial Building Performance Technology Eastfield College Police Academy Instructor/Director Autobody/Welding Faculty Mountain View College Developmental Math Government Speech Music Education 1300 Learning Frameworks Nursing (1 - FT, 1 - Visiting Scholar)

Developmental Writing Psychology History (Visiting Scholar) Engineering (Visiting Scholar)

The Educational and Experiential Requirements for faculty in the DCCCD are: Faculty teaching associate degree courses designed for transfer to a baccalaureate degree must have a doctoral or master's degree in the teaching discipline or a master's degree with a concentration in the teaching discipline (a minimum of 18 graduate semester hours). Faculty who teach workforce education degree or certificate courses must have a combination of academic preparation and work experience, including three years of direct or related work experience other than teaching. Potential candidates must meet these criteria established by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). A minimum of one year of teaching experience is required. Demonstrated skills in successfully working with diverse populations through experiences such as formal training and past work experiences are desired. In addition, some locations may request a teaching demonstration to validate teaching ability.

Specific details will be available from the hiring locations as candidate status is confirmed.

Application Requirements: Interested individuals should visit our website at https://dcccd.peopleadmin.com For additional information on specific positions, please contact location HR offices: Brookhaven College 972-860-4813 Cedar Valley College 972-860-8224 Eastfield College 972-860-7630 Mountain View College 214-860-8703 Dallas County Community College District Attn: Faculty Hiring Initiative 2012 1601 South Lamar St. Dallas, TX 75215

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lower-division coursework hours at a community college,” says Dr. Ronald Williams, assistant vice president for academic affairs.

To further help students financially, those who enroll at a community college and WIU are eligible for the cost guarantee program, which fixes the per-hour rate students pay for tuition and fees and room and board for four years. Additional benefits include: students continuing their education in the region; students taking advantage of the lower tuition charges at community colleges and WIU; students achieving both an associate degree and a baccalaureate degree from two quality institutions, in a seamless manner, with supportive academic and career advising throughout; students receiving academic advising each semester; students having the ability to view entire degree plans at the onset of their college careers; and students being prepared for upperdivision courses at WIU in major fields of study.

Williams says dual enrollment offers community college students a seamless education pipeline to WIU in their junior year if they complete the requirements for an associate degree.

In addition, WIU faculty, administrators and staff work with dual-enrolled students to provide financial aid counseling, academic advising and personal and career counseling. Dual-enrolled students have full access to academic and student services, programs and events on the WIU campus. At the end of each semester, students receive WIU’s audit degree requirements, which provide students details on how their community college courses will transfer to the university.

Not Doing Enough Many freshmen, no matter their institution, must take one or more remedial courses that don’t count toward a degree. And many fail these courses and ultimately drop out of school.

“Our system of higher education is simply not doing enough to make sure all students are getting the support they need to stay on track,” says Conklin. “The Beating the Odds report highlights what many innovative institutions are doing to reverse this trend and increase completion rates.

Many are exposing students – including first-generation students – to the college environment sooner, allowing them to complete remedial courses more quickly and at a lower cost and making sure that students have the academic and social support to keep them on track to graduation,” she says.

Conklin contends that the 32 institutions featured in Beating the Odds, along with their leaders, represent a growing movement and an overdue tipping point toward a more affordable, student-centered higher education system. “Their work is worth watching and learning from,” she says.

UNCENSORED

by Peggy Sands Orchowski

RACE-BASED ADMISSIONS ON THE CARPET AGAIN – Just a year before the next presidential election, the Obama administration is reaching out to affirmative action supporters. In December, Obama issued joint departments of Justice and Education guidelines that seemingly expand the use of race as a basis of admissions in American schools. But institutions of higher education should be careful about turning back to old race-based preferences. College admission competition is still essentially merit-based, and the Supreme Court is majority conservative. The Obama guidelines only suggest colleges use race preferences as a final measure. They urge that more creative race-neutral criteria be devised (such as admitting more students based on the socioeconomic demographics of their secondary schools and community colleges). As America increasingly slides right politically, there also are growing questions about the benefits of diversity and warnings of its dangers. “Race-based admissions can be harmful to students who are ‘academically mismatched,’ writes pundit George Will. “Admitting students with weak academic skills into elite colleges just for the sake of their race or ethnic heritage has led many to fall behind, lose confidence, drop out, and forever feel they are not as good as they really are. But if they had gone to a less elite school, they would have been at the top. Race-based admissions also can rob second tier schools of their best students, as well as prevent those students from the chance to be stars.”

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THE ETERNAL QUEST FOR FAIRNESS – AND AMNESTY – A new book on justice, fairness and awards explores the eternal philosophical question of how significant rewards (cash, goodies, recognition) to individuals should be distributed without causing damage (jealousy, loss of morale and loyalty, destructive anger) in the larger community. It is a good question these days when the “Occupy” movement is stirring up deep fury among the 99 percent of Americans against the 1 percent who are rewarded with everything disproportionately. Paul Woodruff, author of The Ajax Dilemma, writes that “we grow angry when rewards are given (by our leaders) to those who do not live by our values; when it is perceived that justice has failed.” The conflict over amnesty is a vibrant example.

Of course it is highly improbable (and arguably totally unfair) for every one of the 12-20 million foreign nationals currently living and working illegally in the U.S. to be summarily deported. But it is equally unjust and goes against our values about the rule of law that every illegal immigrant should be given legal status and full work permits as well. Amnesty will and should go to some illegal immigrants.

But who? What is just? That is the quest that the majority of Americans seek; the extremes on either side just make people angry because they are unfair.

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LATINO, MORMON AND REPUBLICAN? – It is common knowledge among active Mormons that a majority of those who practice their faith in the next 20 years will be of Latino heritage. While much of the

growth is in Latin America, growing numbers of Latinos in the U.S. Southwest are Mormon, especially in Utah, Arizona and Nevada. Many say it’s natural since those states’ dominant religion also match traditional Latino cultural values of strong families, business and entrepreneurial interests, conservative outlook on social issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion, a vibrant support network and bilingualism (Mormons are America’s most multilingual population, as many serve in language-immersion missions abroad). Politically, Mormons tend to lean Republican, and the increasing Mormon Latino electorate might as well; of the five new Latino U.S. congressmen elected in 2010, all are Republicans, and one is also Mormon – Raúl Labrador of Idaho. One wonders why Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney doesn’t take advantage of this “Latino connection.” Perhaps the church leadership might even realize soon that Latinos should be numerous members of its top circles.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A COLLEGE BUILDING IS MIS-NAMED? – OMG! Can you imagine. There are actually college campuses (usually public) throughout the United States (especially in California) that, when they were built, named their buildings after – shock! gasp! – professors! No fundraising was done! No money was made! Now the universities are faced with how to renovate to get a million-dollar donation. After all, capital donations are the most lucrative!

NO SURPRISES ABOUT SORRY STATE OF YOUNG PEOPLE, EXCEPT THE REPORT – The label of the report’s authors should have been a sign to its exuberant emptiness: “Young Invincibles.” But even the liberal Center for American Progress should have checked to make sure that its recent 70-page colorful, graphics-filled report on The State of Young America by those highly confident young “Invincibles” had some meaty conclusions. Full of “duh” facts (i.e., “Student loan debt continues to climb!”), the report concludes with President Obama’s favorite verb: “through youth engagement ... we will push our leaders and the media to address the barriers of opportunity.” Grade: C-minus!

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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REPORTS

Pew and ACT Reports Show Gains for Latino Students – But More Needed

by Angela Provitera McGlynn cent in 2010.

Despite that progress, Latinos still lag in the percentage of their college-age population enrolled in college. In 2010, those enrolled aged 18-24 included: 32 percent of Latinos, 38 percent of Blacks, 62 percent of Asian-Americans and 43 percent of White students.

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ollege-age Latino students are making progress in narrowing the college-enrollment gap. Historically, there has been a doubleedged gap between White students and Latinos.

Fewer young Latinos were enrolling in college and fewer were persisting to a college degree.

Two new reports show promise on both fronts. A Pew Hispanic Center report by Richard Fry, Hispanic College Enrollment Spikes, Narrowing Gaps With Other Groups (Aug. 25, 2011), based on census data, showed that 18- to 24-year-old Latinos had the largest college enrollment among all major ethnic and racial groups.

Latino college enrollment had a 24 percent increase from 2009 to 2010 for a historic high of 12.2 million students in college in October 2010.

The results presented in this Pew report indicate that the college-enrollment surge goes beyond the surge in Latino population growth and that young Latinos are actually narrowing the education achievement gap.

Latinos are now the largest minority group on college campuses, passing Black college students within the same age group despite the steady growth of Black student enrollment and their own surge in college enrollment in recent years. The Pew report revealed other positive news: Latino high school completion rates increased from 59 percent in 2000 to 72 per-

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College and Career-Readiness Report The other report, released by ACT in August 2011, The Condition of College and Career Readiness 2011, showed that Latino ACT test takers achieved marked improvement in college and career readiness.

ACT, an independent, not-for-profit organization providing assessment, research, information, and program management services in education and work force development, defines college and career readiness as “the acquisition of the knowledge and skills a student needs to enroll and succeed in credit-bearing first-year courses at a postsecondary institution (such as a two- or four-year college, trade school, or technical school) without the need for remediation.”

ACT recognizes the importance of measuring the knowledge and academic skills learned in school that have been validated as key factors related to college success. Their research, however, points to other essential dimensions impacting college and career success beyond the academic. The other key factors are behavioral readiness and education and career planning.

“Assessing what students have learned so far is a vital element in helping them to improve, but college and career readiness is very complex, says Jon Erickson, president of ACT’s Education Division. “With more and more students across the country participating in testing, it’s important that test results are not overemphasized as a sin-

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gle answer to the readiness problem.”

The ACT report showed that the number of Latino ACT test takers continues to increase dramatically. In addition, Latino high school graduates taking the ACT test have shown slow but steady improvement – particularly in math and science.

ACT College Readiness Benchmarks are based on the grades earned by students in college. The benchmarks specify the minimum scores needed on each ACT discipline test (such as English, math, reading and science) to predict that a student would have a 50 percent chance of earning a B grade or higher or about a 75 percent chance of earning a C grade or higher in a credit-bearing first-year college course in that particular subject area.

A first glance at the data is not as encouraging as a more in-depth look.

Only 11 percent of Latino graduates in 2011 who took the ACT exam met or surpassed all four benchmarks in English composition, college algebra, introductory social science and biology without the need for remediation.

Although this is the same percentage as the previous year, it is up from 10 percent for the three years before that.

Latino high school graduates have shown the most improvement in college readiness in mathematics. Thirty percent of Latino ACT test takers met or exceeded the ACT College Readiness Benchmark in math. This is up from 27 percent in 2010 and 26 percent in 2007.

Forty-seven percent of Latino test takers met or exceeded the ACT English Benchmark in 2011 compared to 46 percent in 2010 and 49 percent in 2007. In reading, 35 percent met or exceeded the ACT Reading Benchmark in 2011 compared to 34 percent in 2010 and in 2007. In science, 15 percent of Latino ACT test takers met or

1. Promote essential standards: In 2008, ACT released the report Making the Dream a Reality. At that time, it asked states to adopt education standards that would prepare students for college and career training success. Fortyfive states and the District of Columbia adopted what ACT called “Common Core State Standards.” So most states have taken a first step. ACT suggests that all 50 states get on board and that policymakers and practitioners continue the readiness initiative by aligning all aspects of their systems to college and career readiness.

2. Create common expectations: College and career-readiness standards should be aligned to a rigorous core curriculum for all high schools students whether they are bound for college or for work. ACT proposes that expectations for college readiness and career-training readiness should be comparable. ACT supports the core

curriculum recommendations of the report A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. Specifically, that report called for students to take a core curriculum consisting of at least four years of English and three years each of math, science and social studies.

3. Establish clear performance standards: ACT suggests that states adopt a consistent, rigorous set of core K-12 content standards and define performance standards so that students, parents, and teachers all know how well students must perform academically in high school to have a reasonable chance of success in college or on the job.

high school course work appropriately.

6. Continue and accelerate data-driven decisions: States have developed longitudinal P-16 data systems, and these should be promoted.

States must create systems that allow schools and districts to monitor student performance at every stage of the learning pipeline, from preschool through high school and all through college. A longitudinal data system gives teachers and students time to strengthen students with deficiencies through remediation before they start college. Such systems also provide tools for schools to ensure that all their students take the

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exceeded the ACT Science Benchmark compared to 14 percent in 2010 and 13 percent in 2001.

While it is encouraging to see that more Latino students are ready to succeed academically at the next educational level, there is great room for improvement.

“Too many students are still falling through the cracks,” says Erickson. Indeed, it is disheartening to note that 45 percent of Latino test takers in the 2011 high school graduating class did not meet any of the four ACT College Readiness Benchmarks.

The ACT exam has been offered for more than half a century. The graduating class of 2011, more than 1.62 million students, took the ACT, and this represents an all-time record number of test takers for the seventh year in a row.

This year’s high school graduates who took ACT are not only the largest group in ACT’s history, but are also the most ethnically diverse.

Combining the shares of Black and Latino ACT test takers shows an increase from 19 percent in 2007 to 26 percent in 2011.

The growth in Latino test takers has been dramatic in the last five years, and this rising number of students is moving closer to actual population representation among all students.

Strides in enrollment must continue. Even more importantly, we need to increase readiness to do college-level work.

The ACT report offers suggestions for policies and practices geared to do exactly that – increase readiness for success. It proposes six policies and practices that can increase the percentage of students ready to be successful in college-level courses:

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American Indian Reading

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AsianAmerican Mathematics

4. Make sure states offer rigorous high school courses: ACT proposes that a core curriculum with appropriate and aligned standards will adequately prepare high school students for college and career success only if the courses are challenging. ACT suggests that more important than taking the correct number of courses is taking the right kinds of academically rigorous courses.

According to ACT, high school students who take a rigorous, challenging core curriculum should be ready to do well in first-year college credit courses without the need for remediation.

5. Practice early monitoring and intervention: Students’ progress through K-12 should be carefully monitored so that academic deficiencies in foundational skills can be identified and remediated early – in upper elementary and middle school. Additionally, students should be engaged in age-appropriate career exploration, assessment, and planning so they can tailor their

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right number and kinds of courses before they graduate from high school. There are two more benefits of longitudinal assessment systems. They permit schools to determine the value added by each core course in helping students become ready for college and career success. And colleges can offer feedback reports to high schools that examine how well prepared their graduates were for college, with this data being used to strengthen high school curricula.

Once again, we have empirical data showing the importance of the P-12 preparation pipeline in promoting college success and more evidence that this is especially crucial for low-income and minority student populations.

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

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GRADUATE SCHOOL

How to Help Undergraduate Students Think About Graduate School: Interviewing Their Way Up the Five Levels of Learning

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by Cristina González ver the last few decades, there has been quite a bit of discussion about how to encourage undergraduates to attend graduate school. This is particularly important in the case of students from Hispanic and other minority backgrounds who do not attend graduate school in sufficient numbers, a loss that an increasingly diverse society can ill afford. Often faculty members give pep talks to undergraduate students about how they too can join the professoriate or enter other occupations that require a graduate degree.

The problem is that the road is long, and there is no roadmap showing students how to get where they want to go. So, a few years ago, I decided to create a freshman seminar that would make my students – minority and otherwise – take a virtual tour of the five levels of learning at the research university by interviewing students at each of these levels. The rationale behind this exercise was that, from the point of view of the learning process, there is not a sharp divide between graduate and undergraduate education, but rather a series of relatively small steps: lower division, upper division, master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral, as I had suggested in a previous article titled “Undergraduate Research, Graduate Mentoring, and the University’s Mission,” (Science, Volume 293, Number 5335, 31 August 2001, pp. 1624-1626). If students could progress from high school to lower-division studies, they could move from that level to the next one, and so on.

The freshman seminar I developed, called “Introduction to the University of California,” combined some readings about the history of the institution with lectures by guest speakers who reviewed the resources available to students at the University of California (UC)-Davis. The main requirement for the course, however, was a report on interviews with one representative engaged in each of the five levels of learning, which accounted for more than 50 percent of the grade. This got the attention of the students, who put much effort into the project.

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Knowing that it would be difficult for them to locate postdoctoral scholars, I provided my students with names of members of the campus’ Postdoctoral Scholars Association who had expressed a desire to participate in the project.

For doctoral and master’s students, I advised the students to contact any academic department of their choosing. Many did this and found volunteers without difficulty. Others simply interviewed their TAs, which they found to be an interesting experience. As for undergraduate students, they relied mostly on people they knew socially, oftentimes students from their dormitories. In terms of the interviewees’ disciplines, I left this up to the students to choose. I did not require that all interviewees be from the same field. Most students chose interviewees from a variety of disciplines, which gave them an insight into fields about which they knew very little.

In preparation for the interviews, I asked the students to draft a list of questions for me to review. Some lists were too long – others too short – but in general they were appropriate and covered a wide variety of relevant topics from the professional to the personal.

One issue that students consistently failed to include on their own was funding. Perhaps they thought that asking questions about money was indiscreet. I advised them to find out how their interviewees had financed their education at each level.

Once I approved their lists of questions, they proceeded with the interviews, which they told me usually took between one half-hour and one hour each. Some took longer, because the interviewees became very engaged in the conversations. In a few cases, the interviewees struck up friendships with my students and remained in touch with them after the project was over. Thus, the exercise opened venues for informal mentoring.

With respect to the reports, my instructions were for the students to describe their findings in narrative form, to offer as much interpretation as possible and to explain what they had learned from the process. The particular structure was

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left up to them. Some chose to present the information in the form of portraits of the five interviewees. Others decided to pick some themes and compare the five interviewees’ perspectives on them. Overall, their narratives were straightforward and readable. As was to be expected, some students offered more analysis than others, which was reflected in their grades. But all seemed to have profited from the interviews.

Many students marveled at the variety of experiences they encountered, from the recently enrolled freshman to the seasoned postdoctoral scholar. Before this exercise, very few of them even knew what a postdoctoral scholar was. For that matter, they did not know very much about doctoral or master’s students either. Except for some well-known professions like medicine and law, their ideas about the various educational options available to college graduates were vague in the extreme, so their interviews with graduate and postdoctoral students were a revelation to them. Even the interviews with upperdivision undergraduate students were helpful, providing ideas about what majors they might want to choose and how to go about this, including information regarding fellowships and student employment opportunities of which they were not previously aware.

Many students noted a difference in passion among the people they interviewed: the higher the level, the more passionate the interviewee generally was about his or her field of study. For example, one of my students was amazed by a postdoc’s statement that he had not chosen his field, but, rather, it had chosen him. Many students also noted that the reasons people came to the Davis campus varied according to their level of study. For example, undergraduates often cited lifestyle motives, like the atmosphere of the campus or its proximity to their hometowns, while graduate and postdoctoral students tended to give professional reasons, such as the rankings or particular intellectual orientations of their departments. My students were particularly struck by the fact that graduate and postdoctoral

students often cited the possibility of working with a specific faculty member as the main reason they chose the Davis campus. This made them realize how much students change over time as they became more and more engaged in their areas of expertise. Such changes extend to their social lives.

My students observed that the social and personal lives of graduate and postdoctoral students were dissimilar to those of undergraduates. On one hand, they experienced much less pressure from parents. In contrast, they encountered work-life balance issues, since many graduate and postdoctoral students have partners and/or children to consider.

In a significant number of cases, the interviewees were members of minority groups and reported feelings of isolation. In spite of such complaints, these interviewees expressed a strong desire to do well and to give back to the community, which my students noted with interest, as this was not a comment that White students made often. My students also noted that many interviewees at the graduate and postdoc-

toral levels were from other countries. Although they knew that the university had international students of various kinds, for the most part, they had not had a chance to talk to any of them in depth. To have conversations with foreign students and to hear about conditions in their home countries and the reasons why they came here was enlightening. There were also quite a few cases of American interviewees who had studied abroad and shared information about their host countries with my students, who seemed very interested in their experiences, judging by the level of detail with which they described them. These interactions obviously made my students more aware of issues relating to ethnic and cultural diversity.

The interviewees, being mostly older and more experienced than my students, often offered them advice. In particular, they warned them against procrastination, which the students seemed to appreciate, perhaps because they were beginning to see how fast homework could pile up and realized that this was only going to increase with time. More surprising for my students was the advice they received about the benefits of internships, community service and networking. Many graduate and postdoctoral students said that they had come to UC-Davis because of personal connections they made at professional venues. My students were astonished that meeting a faculty member at a conference might result in an appointment to a postdoctoral position or acceptance to a graduate program. Accustomed to the anonymous system of undergraduate admissions, it had not occurred to them that things could be so personal. The conversations they had with the interviewees made them think about the importance not only of doing quality work, but also of letting other people know about it.

One thing that my students found striking was the fact that the higher students go on the academic ladder, the more financial support they receive, which was the opposite of what many of them expected. They were very surprised to hear that the support graduate students obtained from the university in the form of TAships, RAships and fellowships was enough for them to live independently, albeit modestly, and that this was true not only in the natural sciences and engineering, but in the humanities and social sciences as well. A number of students remarked that this discovery might change what they decided to do with their lives in the future.

In general, my students found the information they unearthed through their questioning to

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be very useful. Meeting higher-level students made the future real for them. They felt privileged to be able to share confidences about their experiences to date and their hopes for the future. Many students expressed amazement at the variety of career paths they saw among the people they interviewed. While some had linear paths, focusing on a given field from the beginning, others tried different things before they settled on a specific discipline. The students were surprised, for example, that an English major could obtain a Ph.D. in biology and become a research scientist. Although some might have known that such moves were theoretically possible, they did not really believe this until they talked to people who had actually done it. The students also were surprised to find that paths not taken could be useful experiences. For example, the biologist who was an English major did not consider that training a waste of time.

This made my students realize that the array of options open to them was much larger than they had previously envisioned and that exploring different career options was a positive thing.

Although my students appreciated the information the interviewees gave them, what impressed them most was the motivation they provided. The older students’ passion for their studies was contagious, as was their belief that what they had achieved was within anyone’s reach. Realizing that success was a matter of persistence, of moving on to the next level rather than giving up, was an important discovery for my students, many of whom had never envisioned themselves as graduate and postdoctoral students. Thus, interviewing more advanced students gave them a glimpse of potential futures, which was the point of the exercise. At the end of the class, everyone seemed to have gained some degree of understanding and confidence.

Students stated that the exercise was an eyeopener. Saying that they never would have explored the five levels of learning on their own if they had not been asked to interview one representative from each, some of my pupils, including students from Hispanic and other minority backgrounds, went as far as expressing the opinion that this kind of exercise should be mandatory.

Although that might be a bit extreme, the virtual tour of potential futures described here could be adopted profitably by other instructors, who might want to encourage undergraduate students – minority and otherwise – to attend graduate school by helping them interview their way up the five levels of learning.

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HIGH SCHOOL FORUM

Smithsonian in the 21st Century: A Haven for High School Hispanics

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by Mary Ann Cooper imes have changed and museums like the Smithsonian have changed with them. It’s not enough to be a brick-and-mortar monument to the past unless it can be seen as instructive and relevant to today’s population.

Museums like the Smithsonian can also make it their business to answer the clarion call to help an educationally underserved population succeed in secondary and higher education. This is what the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents had in mind when they established the Smithsonian Latino Center in 1997 (previously known as Center for Latino Initiatives). It was a natural fit for this institution, established in 1846 on property bequeathed by Englishman James Smithson, who had the vision to create an “establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”

In the more than 160 years since that time, the Smithsonian has grown to include 19 museums, the National Zoological Park, and nine research centers located in Washington, D.C., and its metropolitan area; New York City; Cambridge, Mass.; Fort Pierce, Fla.; and Panama. The Smithsonian employs approximately 6,900 staff, has over 137 million collection objects, and hosted more than 23 million visitors at its core museum locations and over 150 million visitors to its public websites.

The Smithsonian Latino Center (SLC) has grown since its inception 25 years ago to become an educational outreach and research center focused on ensuring that Latino contributions to art, science and the humanities are highlighted, understood and advanced through the development and support of public programs, scholarly research, museum collections and its affiliated organizations across the United States.

It is a pan-institutional unit that works with the entire network of Smithsonian museums, research centers, the National Zoo and over 140 affiliates nationwide. In establishing the SLC, the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents stated this as its rationale and mission, “The Latino presence in the Americas is centuries old, culturally rich, and demographically vast and growing. ... The Center is established so that

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American history and culture may be displayed in all of its diversity.”

The center promotes the inclusion of Latino contributions in Smithsonian programs, exhibitions, collections and public outreach. It does this through its support – either through funding or technical assistance – of cultural, historical and scientific projects across the Smithsonian that represents significant Latino achievement. It also develops and manages educational programs, products and outreach to the Latino community as well as promotes public awareness of Latino programs at the Smithsonian museums and its affiliates across the United States.

A natural outgrowth of the SLC and of particular interest to high school seniors who are Hispanic is the SLC’s Young Ambassadors Program. It is a national, interdisciplinary leadership development program for graduating high school seniors. The mission of the program is to foster the next generation of Latino leaders in the arts, sciences and humanities through the Smithsonian Institution and its resources.

Up to 24 graduating high school seniors with an interest in and commitment to disciplines in the arts, sciences or humanities as it relates to Latino communities and cultures are selected to participate in an all-expenses-paid training seminar in Washington, D.C., and a four-week internship in museums and cultural institutions across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. The program seeks to empower Latino youth to develop leadership and academic skills and foster pride in their own cultural heritage. The SLC also administers the Young Ambassadors Program, which is a national leadership development program for high school seniors that cultivates the next generation of Latino leaders in the arts and culture fields through a one-week seminar at the Smithsonian with artists, curators, historians and other museum and arts professionals. Following the seminar, students return to museums and other cultural institutions in their local communities, including Smithsonian-affiliated organizations, for a four-week summer internship to gain practical experience and promote Latino heritage.

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The internship placements are in 12 cities across the United States and Puerto Rico. For this program, the Smithsonian has partnered with the Ford Motor Company, which helps fund the project. “Education is one of our top priorities, which is why we are proud to support the advancement of young Latino leaders and provide them with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity through our nation’s museum complex” explains Jim Vella, president, Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services.

Of interest to Hispanics who are graduate students or are professionals already in the work force is the Latino Museum Studies Program – a four-week program established in 1994 and designed to increase the representation, documentation, knowledge and interpretation of Latino art, culture and history. The seminar seeks to provide participants with the tools to enhance their leadership, research and creative skills through lectures, workshops and practical experiences at the Smithsonian and other research facilities in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Fifteen mid-career professionals and graduate students are selected from a nationwide pool of applicants.

Also available at the graduate level is the Smithsonian Institution Latino Studies Fellowship Program. Fellowships in Latino studies are offered by the Smithsonian Institution to provide opportunities for U.S. Hispanic predoctoral students and postdoctoral and senior investigators to conduct research related to U.S. Latino history, art and culture in association with members of the Smithsonian professional research staff, and utilizing the resources of the institution.

Fellowship awards under this program are contingent upon the availability of funds. This program has been supported by federal funds for Latino programming, administered by the SLC. The 2012-13 financial stipends and allowances for predoctoral fellows is $30,000 per year (12 months). The stipend for postdoctoral and senior fellows is $45,000 per year (12 months).

In addition to the stipend, allowances to assist with the fellows’ research-related expenses and

for temporary relocation to the Smithsonian are possible. A maximum research allowance of $4,000 is available.

More than 42 million Latinos live in the United States. One out of eight Americans use labels like Latino, Hispanic, Tejano, Chicano, Mexicano, Nuyorican, Cuban, Nuevomexicano, Salvadoreño and Colombiano to distinguish themselves and their heritage. Hispanics are the largest minority group and the fastest-growing segment of the population, having more than doubled since 1980 and accounted for half the total population growth since 2001. In the past decade, the highest rates of Hispanic growth have been not in California, Texas, New York, Miami, Chicago and other longtime Latino strongholds, but in states such as Arkansas, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin. Latinos are now the largest minority in the United States and will

account for 46 percent of U.S. population growth in the next decade.

The Smithsonian has tapped into Hispanic music to promote cultural pride in the Latino community and to enhance Latino educational experience, recognizing that hand in hand with the burgeoning Latino population has come an equal infusion of Latino music, usually called música latina, in brick-and-mortar record stores and for downloading online.

At the turn of this century, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage partnered with the SLC to bring grass-roots Latino musicians and music to Smithsonian programming and American life.

Since then, 19 new recordings of Latino music, three major programs of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and a new virtual exhibit in the making, “Música del Pueblo,” have taken the

sounds and faces of música latina to many millions of visitors and listeners. Radio Latino is the latest addition to this collaboration. It draws from the Latino audio holdings of the Folkways Collections – old and new – of sounds, styles and cultures from the variety of music and cultural expression in the Latino world.

In the last 10 years, SLC has provided the mechanism for more than 300 Latino-themed projects, from living exhibitions to live arts performances, underwritten with federal and private-sector support. The SLC boasts that it highlights vibrant cross-sections of culture from the Puerto Rican santos to the Chicano rhythms of Texas and East L.A. The SLC’s goal is not only to “foster understanding of how Latinos have shaped our nation thus far,” it also aims to “help Latinos influence the America of tomorrow.”

Theory into Practice High school teachers who wish to inspire their Hispanic students with ethnic pride and a desire to excel have the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum – an avatar-based, 3-D learning environment featuring immersive learning activities that is focused on the representation of cultural heritage using cutting-edge technology at their disposal. The Latino Virtual Museum is the first digital institution-wide initiative designed to improve access to Smithsonian Latino collections and exhibitions. It allows increased opportunities for research, interactive learning and innovative classroom instruction and curriculum development.

The SLC project is titled Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life and is in partnership with the Virtual Immersive Technologies and Arts for Learning Lab at Ohio University and Linden Labs, the creators of avatar-based virtual communities.

The program includes a welcome video using the latest in virtual-world filmmaking technologies known as “Machinima” that guides users through key areas of the museum. Tour sites include the “placita”; the Sin Fronteras Café; the Afro-Cuban instrument room; the “Son Clave” music lounge, featuring digital collections from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings; the amphitheater and the Smithsonian Expedition Wing, where users can learn about key archeological expeditions in Mexico through the work of Matthew Sterling; and the Olmec Legacy Collection at the National Museum of Natural History.

“More than just increasing access for the many people who may not ever make a trip to Washington, D.C., the Latino Virtual Museum offers the Smithsonian Latino Center an effective outreach tool to impact what is being taught in classrooms by offering quality Latino content,” says Eduardo Díaz, director of the Smithsonian Latino Center. “These are stories that risk never being told and are now being offered via an engaged, global online community.”

In 2008, the Smithsonian Latino Center purchased five islands in Second Life to build the virtual museum. Together with the VITAL Lab and an advisory team that includes Smithsonian curators, scholars, researchers, museum educators, media artists and other specialists, the team developed the conceptual, technical and design framework for the museum.

“The VITAL Lab is excited to be partnered with the Smithsonian Institution as it furthers our belief in the value of immersive experiences for learning,” said Arnold Jonas, Virtual Worlds and Social Interactive designer at the VITAL Lab. “The opportunity to work on such a high-profile project with experts in the field demonstrates the potential of synthetic worlds to be a part of the future of interpretive museum design.”

No stranger to virtual world animation, the Walt Disney Company is supporting the multiphased project that, upon completion, will feature 16 wings dedicated to the Latino presence at the Smithsonian in arts, science and humanities.

While in the Latino Virtual Museum, users will have access to the collections, research and scholarship, exhibitions and educational activities of the Smithsonian as these items relate to U.S. Latinos and Latin Americans. The SLC cites these examples of such items: Celia Cruz’s costumes at the National Museum of American History, Frida Kahlo’s letters at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, and oral histories from the exhibition “Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942-1964.” Users – particularly educators and students – can engage and participate in educational activities such as virtual science fairs with noted Latino astronauts and physicists or collaborate with featured artists on art-based activities using gaming technologies.

Educators interested in bringing the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum into their classrooms should check out two websites. For more information about the VITAL Lab, a multidisciplinary research and development facility at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, visit http://vital.cs.ohiou.edu. For more information about the Smithsonian Latino Center, visit www.latino.si.edu.

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The Hispanic Outlook In Higher Education

www.hispanicoutlook.com

College Board Report Finds that U.S. Will Fail to Meet College Completion Goals by 2025 if Current Rate of Growth Continues BOSTON, Mass.

As the economy continues to struggle and as the need to ensure that our students are college and career ready is even more critical to the economic future of the nation, the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center released the results of The College Completion Agenda 2011 Progress Report.

The report tracks the progress being made across the country toward the goal of increasing the proportion of 25- to 34-yearolds who hold an associate degree or higher to 55 percent by the year 2025.

The report finds that the current percentage nationwide is 41.1 percent, 13.9 percentage points away from the goal of 55

MALDEF Announces Winners of the 2010-2011 Law School Scholarship Program LOS ANGELES, Calif.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) recently announced the 2010-2011 MALDEF Law School Scholarship winners.

Since MALDEF’s founding, the civil rights organization has awarded scholarships to students who are committed to working to advance the civil rights of the Latino community in the United States. In recent years, MALDEF has annually awarded five to 10 scholarships of $5,000 each.

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February 13, 2012

percent. While the percentage increased marginally from 2000 (38.1 percent) to 2009 (41.1 percent), if the U.S. continues to follow this sluggish rate of growth, it is projected that the country will only reach a 46.0 percent completion rate by 2025. Even the five states with the highest percentage of residents with college degrees – Massachusetts (53.7 percent), North Dakota (50.5 percent), Minnesota (49.4 percent), New York (49.2 percent) and New Jersey (46.2 percent) – have still not reached 55 percent.

“Increasing the number of Americans with a postsecondary degree must be one of our highest priorities over the next decade,” said Gaston Caperton, College Board president. “Education is strongly tied to economics, and our future prosperity will depend on how well we balance this relationship.

Reports like The College Completion Agenda shed critical light on these efforts

and should be studied by anyone interested in understanding where we are and how we can get where we need to be.”

The comprehensive report includes rigorous indicators (aligned to 10 interdependent recommendations). It charts the progress of the nation and each of the 50 states toward the goal of 55 percent by 2025. It highlights areas of progress in states yet also notes that formidable challenges remain at every level of the education system for students who aspire to enroll and succeed in college.

The report cites promising strategies implemented within the past year. For example, there has been continued movement by states to adopt the Common Core State Standards in English-language arts and mathematics. To date, 45 states have adopted these standards to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare all students for college and work force success.

The 2010-2011 winners are: • Paul Aguilar Southwestern Law School • Glenda Aldana Madrid Yale Law School • Edith Castañeda Loyola Law School • Aidin Castillo University of California (UC)-Davis School of Law • Roberto Chávez University of Texas-Austin School of Law • Oscar Espino UCLA School of Law • Lizbeth Najera Muñoz Santa Clara University School of Law

• Susana Naranjo UC-Hastings College of Law • Esmeralda Santos UC-Hastings College of Law • Rosa Erandi Zamora Columbia Law School MALDEF’s Law School Scholarship Program is open to all law students who will be enrolled at an accredited United States law school. Applicants are evaluated on their academic and extracurricular achievements, background and financial need, and, most importantly, their demonstrated commitment to advancing Latino civil rights in their careers.

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The Hispanic Outlook In Higher Education

STEM Education Key to Innovation and Economic Growth WASHINGTON, D.C.

The National Governors Association (NGA) has released a guide, Building a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education Agenda, focused on strengthening science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. Economic growth in the 21st century will be driven by our nation’s ability to both generate ideas and translate them into innovative products and services, says the NGA. Governors have been working to increase the proficiency of all students in these areas and grow the number of students who pursue STEM careers and advanced studies.

As governors look for the best strategies to strengthen state economic performance, it

Pew Hispanic Center: As Deportations Rise to Record Levels, Most Latinos Oppose President’s Policy WASHINGTON, D.C.

By a ratio of more than 2-to-1 (59 percent vs. 27 percent), Latinos disapprove of the way the Obama administration is handling deportations of unauthorized immigrants, according to a national survey of Latino adults by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.

Deportations have reached record levels under President Obama, rising to an annual average of nearly 400,000 since 2009, about 30 percent higher than the annual average during the second term of the Bush administration and about double the annual average during George W. Bush’s first term.

www.hispanicoutlook.com

February 13, 2012

is important to focus on STEM occupations because they are among the highest paying, fastest growing and most influential in driving economic growth and innovation. Individuals employed in STEM fields enjoy prosperity, career flexibility and low unemployment.

“STEM education is a powerful foundation for individual and societal economic success,” said North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue, who recently hosted a national STEM summit in Durham. “Governors have been working hard to improve education and to ensure the United States does not lag behind.”

Unfortunately, the country has fallen behind in fully realizing the benefits of STEM education. The United States currently ranks behind 25 countries in math and 12 countries in science, as evidenced by slow growth in postsecondary degrees awarded in STEM fields over approximately the past

decade. That lack of degree growth is occurring as other countries are experiencing rapid growth in their STEM talent pools.

States and their education institutions have taken the following actions to address these challenges: • Adopted rigorous math and science standards and improved assessments • Recruited and retained more qualified classroom teachers • Provided more rigorous preparation for STEM students • Used informal learning to expand math and science beyond the classroom • Enhanced the quality and supply of STEM teachers • Established goals for postsecondary institutions to meet STEM job needs For more information on NGA’s STEM work, visit the website, www.nga.org/cms/stem.

More than eight in 10 (81 percent) of the nation’s estimated 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants are of Hispanic origin, according to Pew Hispanic Center estimates.

Hispanics accounted for an even larger share of deportees in 2010 – 97 percent.

Not all Latinos are aware that the Obama administration has stepped up deportations of unauthorized immigrants. A plurality (41 percent) says that the Obama administration is deporting more unauthorized immigrants than the Bush administration. Slightly more than a third (36 percent) say the two administrations have deported about the same number of immigrants. And one in 10 (10 percent) Latinos say the Obama administration has deported fewer unauthorized immigrants than the Bush administration.

Disapproval of Obama’s policy is most widespread among those who are aware

that deportations have risen during his tenure. Among this group, more than threequarters (77 percent) disapprove of the way his administration is handling the issue of deportations. Among those who are not aware that an increase has occurred, slightly more than half disapprove.

The Pew Hispanic survey also reveals that, heading into the 2012 presidential campaign, Obama and the Democratic Party continue to enjoy strong support from Latino registered voters.

Asked which party has more concern for Hispanics, 45 percent of Hispanic registered voters say it’s the Democratic Party while 12 percent say it’s the Republican Party. The share that identifies the Republican Party as the better party for Hispanics is up six percentage points since 2010.

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HI S PAN I C S O N T H E MO VE Núñez Wins Lifetime Achievement Award

Carnegie Corporation of New York in November honored Eduardo J. Padrón (pictured), president of Miami Dade College (MDC), with the foundation’s Centennial Academic Leadership Award at a dinner celebrating the foundation’s centennial.

Padrón was selected for innovations that have contributed to a culture of success that has produced impressive results in student access, retention and graduation rates, and overall achievement at a school with a predominantly low-income and minority student population. A Cuban immigrant and graduate of what was then Dade County Junior College, Padrón has earned a national reputation as an advocate for underserved populations and innovative teaching. Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president of the University of MarylandBaltimore County, also received the award.

The Connecticut Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission (LPRAC) honored Eastern Connecticut State University President Elsa M. Núñez (pictured) with its Lifetime Achievement Award during its 14th Annual Scholarship Awards Ceremony in October.

Prior to joining Eastern in 2006, among other positions, Núñez served as vice chancellor of academic and student affairs in the University of Maine System and provost and vice president for academic affairs at Lesley University.

She has a bachelor’s degree from Montclair State College, a master’s from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a doctorate in linguistics from Rutgers University.

Welcoming

The Los Angeles Dental Society (LADS) recently elected Dr. Sonia Molina, president of Molina Endodontics, to head its 1,200-member organization for 2011-12. She becomes the first Latina president in the organization’s 76-year history.

Molina is a respected clinical lecturer and active community leader who devotes her time, energy and resources to many charitable dental enterprises. She has a bachelor’s degree in biomedical science from California State University-Long Beach, a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health and a Doctor of Dental Medicine from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. She completed her postdoctoral in endodontics at the University of California-Los Angeles School of Dentistry.

Community Diversity Regard Respect Inclusion Sensitivity Awareness Listening Experiences

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Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recently began teaching at Belmont University College of Law (Tenn.) as the Doyle Rogers Distinguished Chair of Law. After attending the United States Air Force Academy, Gonzales graduated from Rice University with a bachelor’s degree and Harvard Law School with a Juris Doctor. He was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate as the 80th attorney general of the United States on Feb. 3, 2005, and served in that capacity until September 2007.

““CULTURAL CUL LT TURAL C COMPETENCE...”

OMPETENCE...”

Molina Heads Los Angeles Dental Society

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Belmont University College of Law Appoints Gonzales as Distinguished Chair

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Oakton Community College employs individuals who respect, are eager to learn about, and have a willingness to accept the many ways of viewing the world.

Oakton serves the near northern suburbs of Chicago with campuses in Des Plaines and Skokie.

Individuals with a commitment to working in a culturally competent environment and who reflect the increasing diversity of Oakton’s student body and community are sought for the following administrative opening:

• Associate Vice President for Continuing Education, Training and Workforce Development The anticipated start date is July 1, 2012.

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To learn more about this position and to apply visit our Web site at:

www.oakton.edu Click on “employment”

Start Here. Go anywhere.

Oakton Community College O akton C ommunity C ollege iiss aan n eequal qual oopportunity pportunity eemployer. mployer.

Photo © Mark McCall

Carnegie Corporation Honors Padrón

Interesting Reads Adoring the Saints

By Yolanda Lastra, Joel Sherzer and Dina Sherzer This book is a study of two of Mexico’s patron saint fiestas in the state of Guanajuato, near San Miguel de Allende. They are the fiesta of the village of Cruz del Palmar and that of the town of San Luis de la Paz. 2009. 211 pgs. ISBN: 978-0-292-71980-4. $55.00 cloth. University of Texas Press, (800) 252-3206. www.utexaspress.com.

Domestic Economies

By Ann S. Blum This book explores the way family, work and welfare evolved in Mexico City from 1884 to 1943. It analyzes the ways in which family-oriented public policies and institutions affected cross-class interactions as well as relations between parents and children.

2010. 396 pgs. ISBN: 978-0-8032-1359-3. $30.00 paper. University of Nebraska Press, (402) 472-3581. www.nebraskapress.unl.edu.

Education Malpractice

By Nelson R. Reidar The author’s experiences as an instructional coach at an underperforming high school with a graduation rate of 30 percent is chronicled in this volume. The book discusses why children are failing high school, and offers suggestions for improving the school.

2011. 88 pgs. ISBN: 978-14634-360-70. $16.99. paper.

AuthorHouse, (800) 839-8640. www.authorhouse.com.

Test Success!

By Dr. Ben Bernstein This book contains tools to deal with any kind of test – oral, written, computer, practical exam or physical performance. It also has tips on staying confident, avoiding stress, and remaining calm and focused during test taking.

2012. 216 pgs. ISBN: 978-0-9819949-3-9. $19.95 paper. Spark Avenue Publishing, (858) 456-0707. www.sparkavenue.com

lol...OMG! What Every Student Needs to Know About Online Reputation Management, Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying.

by Matt Ivester 2011. 162 pages. ISBN: 978-0-615-52889-2. $24.95, cloth. Serra Knight Publishing.

We

live in an age that would have been the envy of the most diabolical politicians in the book 1984. Big brother is not just a popular TV reality show, it’s the way society has voluntarily structured itself.

We go to the supermarket and have our “bonus” cards scanned, recording our buying habits and providing a road map to what our family unit is all about. Rack up enough disposable diapers on your list and you’ll soon be getting calls, mail and e-mail about family-friendly vacation spots or baby food. Sign up for EZPass, and the state knows exactly what your travel itinerary is every day.

And the examples above don’t even account for social networking.

College students routinely sign up for Facebook or LinkedIn. They tweet, they text, or imail. Each venture into cyberspace reveals more and more about them for the world to see. It’s insidious. The downside of this great social experiment is not only a self-imposed invasion of privacy, it is also a dangerous entry into a world that can destroy reputations, leave open the possibility of cyberbullying and risk identity theft.

Author Matt Ivester has addressed these issues in his new book, lol...OMG! What every student needs to know about online reputation management, digital citizenship and cyberbullying.

Ivester has some idea about how dangerous online destinations can be.

He was the founder of the once-popular anonymous online campus hangout, JuicyCampus.com. What started out as a fun place for students to share their stories about campus life soon turned into what Katie Couric described as a “malicious cesspool of barbs, disses and insults.” The site provoked investigations by two state attorneys general, generated hundreds of complaints from users, administrators and parents, attracted the attention of national media, and made student governments vote to ban it. So it can be argued that Ivester is a credible source to offer advice on this topic.

In lol...OMG! Ivester explains the unanticipated negative consequences of students’ digital decisions – from lost job opportunities and denied college admission to national scandals. Ivester argues that everyone looks at your record online now: prospective employers, love interests, teachers, admissions officers, even the students’ own parents. The book also illustrates how easy it is to bully someone without suffering exposure or consequences. This is ripped straight from today’s headlines detailing campus suicides that some argue were prompted by vicious cyberbullying.

Ivester not only highlights the problem, he also prescribes strategies to empower students, including seven steps they can take right away to begin guarding and repairing their online reputations. He also enables readers to judge their online decision making with 10 important tests. Two of these are the Offline Test and the Real-Name Test: Would you be willing to do the offline equivalent of this online action? And how would you change your behavior if you knew your real name would be associated with it? This book is a must read for students and their families.

Reviewed by Mary Ann Cooper

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The William Paterson University of New Jersey is a comprehensive public institution of higher learning. The university offers more than 250 undergraduate and graduate academic programs which range from liberal arts and sciences to pre-professional and professional programs; it enrolls over 11,500 students from across the country and from over 40 nations. It is situated on a beautiful suburban campus in Wayne, New Jersey, twenty miles west of New York City.

Faculty Positions – Academic Year 2012-2013 The University is pleased to solicit applications and nominations for faculty positions for the academic year 2012-2013. Unless otherwise indicated, faculty appointments are tenure-track at the rank of Assistant Professor and require an earned doctorate or appropriate terminal degree in the field. (ABD’s may be considered for appointment at the rank of instructor, with projected completion of degree requirements by June, 2013). Candidates should send letter of application, current curriculum vitae, with contact information for at least three professional references to the Chairperson of the respective Department (as cited below), William Paterson University, 300 Pompton Road, Wayne, NJ 07470. Please reference Job Code. Commitment to a high level of teaching effectiveness, to ongoing scholarship or creative expression, and to academic service is required. Review of applications will commence immediately and continue until the position is filled. All positions are subject to available funding.

The academic year commences September 1, 2012.

COLLEGE OF THE ARTS AND COMMUNICATION DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC Carol Frierson-Campbell, Chairperson (friersoncampbellc@wpunj.edu) Job Code 130-HO • Assistant or Associate Professor, Music Management/Popular Music.

Teach undergraduate and graduate courses in music management programs with a specialization in issues of copyright and licensing, as well as courses in the new B.A. in Popular Music with an emphasis on song writing (including issues related to copyright) and social media. Assist the music management program coordinator in the development of curriculum.

Strong commitment to teaching, scholarship and creative expression, and service to the department, college, and the University required. College teaching experience and terminal degree in a relevant field required.

Credentials including publications representing an interdisciplinary grasp of some combination of music, law, and and/or management preferred.

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL EDUCATION AND COUNSELING Peter Griswold, Chairperson (griswoldp@wpunj.edu) Job Code 131-HO • Assistant Professor, Special Education. Teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Special Education teacher preparation programs and supervise candidates in field experiences. Requirements include expertise in adapting curriculum, instruction, and assessment for students with special needs and in strategies for supporting students in inclusive classrooms (i.e., Universal Design for Learning). Doctorate in special education or related field required (ABD considered).

Teaching experience at the K-12 level and eligibility for teaching certification in special education required. Experience with language and literacy for students with special needs, inclusive classrooms, and culturally and linguistically diverse populations preferred. Evidence of prior scholarship or potential for scholarship and research required.

COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF AFRICANA WORLD STUDIES Lawrence Mbogoni, Chairperson (mbogonil@wpunj.edu) Job Code 132-HO • Assistant Professor, Africana World Studies. To teach courses pertaining to the African-American experience related to sociology, political science, or urban and community development. PhD in relevant discipline required. Evidence of scholarly productivity and potential contributions to curriculum development, ongoing assessments, engaged service, and innovative classroom activities expected. Preference for candidates with college level teaching experience and expertise in civic and community engagement.

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH DEPARTMENT OF KINESIOLOGY Kathy Silgailis, Chairperson (silgailisk@wpunj.edu) Job Code 133-HO • Assistant Professor, Exercise Science. Teach undergraduate exercise science courses such as physiology of exercise, survey of athletic injuries, exercise programs for special populations, essentials of strength and conditioning, aerobic and anaerobic exercise leadership, and graded exercise testing and prescription. Opportunities to teach graduate-level courses in the master’s degree program in Exercise and Sport Studies. Ph.D., strong commitment to teaching, research, scholarly activities, and service are required.

• Assistant Professor, Sports Pedagogy. Teach courses in curriculum and teaching physical education, movement education, adapted physical education, and individual, dual and team sports/games.

Opportunities to teach graduate-level courses in the master’s degree program in Exercise and Sport Studies. Assist the Program Coordinator of the Physical Education/Teacher Education program in all aspects of administration including maintaining accreditation. Doctorate in Physical Education or related area required, strong commitment to teaching, research, scholarly activities, and service are required.

Familiarity with National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and National Association of Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) accreditations preferred. Training and experience in sport pedagogy, adapted physical education, and teaching sport skills and experience in teaching at the collegiate level and supervision of undergraduate physical education students preferred.

The University community values and supports diversity among faculty, staff and students. Minority and women candidates are encouraged to apply. Further information about the positions, the University, and the departmental programs can be obtained electronically through access to its website at http://www.wpunj.edu.

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DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING Boston, Massachusetts

Northeastern University seeks an outstanding scholarly and entrepreneurial leader for the position of Dean for the College of Engineering. Reporting to the Provost/Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Dean will have an opportunity to shape a college that will enhance Northeastern University’s distinctive educational mission and national and international reputation for joining innovation in engineering research and education in an interdisciplinary environment.

Located in the heart of Boston, in the arts district and the biomedical research corridor, Northeastern University is a private national research university offering a wide range of programs leading to degrees through the doctorate in eight schools and colleges. Over the past ten years, Northeastern has experienced extraordinary growth in admissions selectivity, research activity, campus life, donor support, and academic reputation. Today, Northeastern is the second largest private research university in Boston proper, comprising more than 15,000 undergraduate and 5,000 graduate students and over 4,200 faculty and staff. The university operates with a $798 million budget and over $95 million in research funding in FY 2011 of which over $30 million went to the College of Engineering.

Northeastern’s College of Engineering comprises 111 tenured and tenuretrack faculty members and 27 full-time, non-tenure-track professional faculty members organized in four departments: Chemical Engineering; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. With over $30 million in new awards in both FY2010 and FY2011, the College of Engineering is a leading contributor to Northeastern’s success in securing external funding.

The College vigorously pursues transformative research that supports the broader interdisciplinary research interests of the University, specifically in the areas of health, sustainability, and security.

In 2006, under the leadership of newly appointed President Joseph Aoun, the University embarked on an institution-wide planning process that involved reflecting on the institution’s purpose and envisioning its future.

Today, with a new Mission Statement and Academic Plan in place, Northeastern is a vital, optimistic institution moving forward with confidence and energized by a sense of collective momentum and ambition. In addition, the University has implemented a new hybrid budgetary model based on responsibility based management that will provide its deans with heightened autonomy, financial control, and decision-making authority.

This is an unusual and exciting opportunity to join a university that is on a dramatic upward trajectory, led by a strong executive leadership team and a highly collaborative council of college deans. Northeastern University seeks a Dean for the College of Engineering who combines exemplary achievements in engineering with strategic leadership ability; entrepreneurial ambition; collaborative and creative energy; outstanding interpersonal and communication skills; and a passion for the unique mission of the College and the University.

Northeastern University has retained Isaacson, Miller, a national executive search firm, to assist in this recruitment. Review of candidates will begin immediately and continue until an appointment is made.

Applications, including cover letter, vita, and three references, should be submitted in electronic form, to: Nancy Maull, Vice President, Vivian Brocard, Vice President, Nureen Das, Senior Associate, Isaacson, Miller, E-mail: 4421@imsearch.com. Electronic applications are strongly encouraged.

Northeastern University is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Persons of color and women are encouraged to apply. www.neu.edu

F

ounded in 1956, the University of South Florida is a public research university of growing national distinction. The USF System is comprised of member institutions; USF Tampa, the doctoral granting institution which includes USF Health; USF St. Petersburg; USF Sarasota-Manatee; USF Polytechnic, located in Lakeland, separately accredited by the Commission Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). USF is one of only four Florida public universities classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in the top tier of research universities. More than 47,000 students are studying on USF campuses and the University offers 228 degree programs at the undergraduate, graduate, specialty and doctoral levels, including the doctor of medicine. USF is a member of the Big East Athletic Conference. And, USF is listed in the Princeton Review as one of the nation’s 50 “Best Value” public colleges and universities.

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

Administrative Positions:

Director, Counseling Center (Student Affairs) Director of Housing Facilities (Student Affairs) Director of Development (University Advancement) Director of Development (Health Development)

Faculty Positions: College of Arts and Sciences

Engineering

Assistant/Associate Professor (1) Assistant Professor (5)

Assistant Professor (6) Assistant/Associate Professor (1)

College of Medicine

Business

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

Assistant/Associate Professor (2) Dean (1) Associate/Full Professor (1) Director/Professor (1)

Education

Assistant/Associate Professor (1) Assistant Professor (6)

Dean (1)

College of Arts

Public Health

Associate Professor (1)

Assistant/Associate Professor (1)

Sarasota

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

Assistant/Associate Professor (1) Nursing Faculty (3)

St. Petersburg Campus

Academic Affairs

Pharmacy

Associate/Full Professor (1)

College of Nursing

Director & FacultyAdministrator (1) Associate Professor (1)

Lakeland

Associate/Full Professor (1)

For a job description on the above listed positions including department, disciple and deadline dates: (1) visit our Careers@USF Web site at https://employment.usf.edu/applicants/jsp/shared/Welcome_css.jsp; or (2) contact The Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, (813) 974-4373; or (3) call USF job line at 813.974.2879.

USF is an equal opportunity/equal access/affirmative action institution, committed to excellence through diversity in education and employment. www.usf.edu • 4202 E. Fowler Ave,Tampa, FL 33620 02/13/2012

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Lorain County Community College

Provost/ Vice President for Academic and Learner Services Lorain County Community College invites applications for the position of Provost/Vice President for Academic and Learner Services.

The Provost reports directly to the President and serves as the Chief Academic and Student Services Officer for the College responsible for the curricula and assessment of the institution, providing leadership to and assuring professional development for the faculty, managing the processes through which teaching is conducted and administered and establishing academic policies on admissions, retention and graduation.

For detailed position announcement, visit www.lorainccc.edu/employment.

Forward application materials to: Lorain County Community College Human Resources Office 1005 N Abbe Road, Elyria, Ohio 44035 Review of applications will begin March 1, 2012.

The College of Health and Human Services at Northern Arizona University is seeking a full-time (12 month) faculty member at the rank of Assistant or Associate Clinical Professor to assist the Program Director with the teaching and administration of a newly-established Physician Assistant Program in Phoenix. This Program provides a unique opportunity to develop an inter-professional curriculum with the University of Arizona Colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy and Public Health. The program will reside in a new state-of-the-art Phoenix Biomedical Campus to be completed in downtown Phoenix in July 2012 to be shared by health science educational programs from both University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University. This individual will assume responsibility for the development and coordination of parts of the curriculum and associated evaluative processes. The successful candidate will ultimately assist the Program Director with many aspects of the program including teaching, recruitment, admissions, student advising, program administration, and the development, delivery and evaluation of the curriculum associated with the program, as well as scholarship and service activity. This position will begin July 1, 2012 or the earliest convenience of the successful candidate. Review of the applications will begin Feb. 13, 2012.

Please send electronic letter of interest, CV and names and contact information for three professional references to Richard.Dehn@nau.edu. More information can be found at http://hr.nau.edu/node/2796&job_req=559011.

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For further information, confidential inquiries or to submit a nomination, please contact John Steinecke, ACCT Search Services Specialist at 202-775-4468, jsteinecke@acct.org or Dr. Narcisa Polonio, ACCT VP for Education, Research and Board Leadership Services at 202-276-1983, npolonio@acct.org.

AN ACCT SEARCH

An Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer

Assistant, Associate, or Professor of Medical Education EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND ASSESSMENT IN SIMULATION The Department of Medical Education at the University of Michigan is seeking a faculty member to provide educational leadership for the Medical School's Clinical Simulation Center (CSC). This individual will join a dynamic, multidisciplinary group of social science and physician faculty in contributing to cutting-edge research and development. This is a full-time tenure-track position with rank and salary commensurate with the individual’s education and experience.

The CSC is a highly collaborative, well-established center designed to develop uses of simulation technologies to promote the education of physicians, nurses and other medical staff members. The CSC seeks to improve the effectiveness of simulation-based education and develop assessment models to measure and evaluate the competencies of learners and practitioners.

Specific responsibilities include: • Collaborating with clinical faculty to develop and implement curricula utilizing simulation.

• Conducting collaborative research to evaluate the effectiveness of simulation as an educational and assessment tool.

• Promoting scholarly activity of faculty active in the CSC. • Pursuing external funding for CSC development and research activities.

• Working closely with other providers of healthrelated education (e.g., Nursing, Pharmacy) to deliver the highest quality learning and assessment scenarios.

To qualify for the position, applicants must have: • A terminal degree (e.g., Ph.D., Ed.D.) in a relevant social or behavioral science discipline (e.g., education, psychology, public health).

• Scholarly professional experience demonstrated through previous research and innovation in education with a publication record in peer-reviewed scholarly journals.

• Experience in education (ideally medical education), curriculum design, educational outcomes assessment, or educational/behavioral research.

• Experience with simulation in educational applications, medical education, or health-related behavioral/clinical research (desirable, but not essential).

• Strong interpersonal and organizational skills and written and oral communication ability.

It is desirable (but not essential) for applicants to have experience with simulation in educational applications, medical education, or health-related behavioral/clinical research.

Application review begins on March 1, 2012, and will continue until the position is filled. Interested applicants should consult the full position description at: http://med.umich.edu/meded/faculty_ openings/index.htm Questions can be directed to: Tana O'Lone, Associate Administrator Department of Medical Education tdeclerc@umich.edu (734) 936-1664 Women and minority candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity employer.

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Want a Rewarding Career Helping Students Succeed?

Dean, Student Support Services

Dean of the School of Social Work Wayne State University is seeking the next dean of the School of Social Work.

Founded in 1868, Wayne State University is a nationally recognized metropolitan research institution that offers more than 370 academic programs to over 30,000 students. Located in midtown Detroit, Wayne State’s main campus consists of 102 buildings which span over 200 acres, and its five extension centers offer higher education to people throughout Southeast Michigan. The 13 schools and colleges at the university include the School of Business Administration; the College of Education; the College of Engineering; the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts; the Graduate School; the Irvin D. Reid Honors College; the Law School; the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; the School of Library and Information Science; the School of Medicine; the College of Nursing; the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences; and the School of Social Work. Annual research expenditures for the university exceed $250 million.

For the past 76 years the Wayne State University School of Social Work has prepared ethical and competent social work practitioners to promote social, cultural and economic justice for the betterment of poor, vulnerable, and oppressed individuals, families, groups, communities, organizations, and society. The School of Social Work offers Bachelor of Social Work, Master of Social Work, and Ph. D. in Social Work degrees, with students enrolled across the three degree programs; in addition, the School has five graduate certificate programs and a continuing education program. The SSW is also home to the Center for Social Work Practice and Policy Research. There are 22 full-time faculty and 6 academic staff, and 16 administrative and support staff members. As of the Fall 2011 term, there were 942 students enrolled (702 graduate students, 240 undergraduates).

Reporting to the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, the dean is the chief academic and administrative officer. The successful candidate will be expected to provide visionary leadership for the School’s academic and research programs including budget management, faculty recruitment and resource development. The candidate should be able to build bridges and encourage interdisciplinary scholarship.

The successful candidate will have strong administrative skills, preferably developed in a large, complex environment; the ability to raise funds effectively and develop resources; and excellent interpersonal and communication skills.

This individual also should have a commitment to diversity consistent with the university’s mission as an urban public research institution. Candidates must hold a Ph.D. or equivalent terminal degree from an accredited institution (MSW not required) and have a record of teaching and scholarly or professional attainment that merits appointment as a professor with tenure. For additional information on Wayne State University, please visit: http://wayne.edu/.

Initial screening of applicants will begin by January 23, 2012, and continue until the position is filled. Inquiries, nominations and applications should be directed to the address below. Nominations of qualified candidates are encouraged. Candidates should include a curriculum vitae and letter of interest (electronic submissions preferred).

Dean Jerry Herron Chair, Social Work Dean Search Irvin D. Reid Honors College Wayne State University Detroit, MI 48202 swds@wayne.edu Wayne State University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity employer, which complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action. Wayne State University is committed to a policy of nondiscrimination and equal opportunity for all persons regardless of race, sex, color, religion, national origin, age, disability or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

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FT position responsible for areas of Academic Advising, Admissions, Assessment Center, Counseling Services, Disability Access Services, International Student Advisor, Career Services, & Student Life. Supervises the planning, organizing, & implementing of related program activities.

Provides supervision of these areas in staffing, budgeting, & program & personnel evaluation. Serves as the ADA & Affirmative Action Officer for students & serves as Chief Disciplinary Officer for students. Qualifications: Min Master’s Deg in an area relevant to Student Services. Min 5 yrs demonstrated successful admin exp, preferably at the post-secondary level.

Strong leadership, communication skills, problem solving, decision making skills & human relations skills. Ability to manage multiple tasks & responsibilities. Demonstrated mediation skills req’d. Knowledge of relevant legislation/regulatory requirements affecting students in post-secondary ed.

Acceptable background check req’d. Visit our website www.gtcc.edu for more information & application. Open until filled. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, GTCC is strongly committed to diversity & welcomes applications from all qualified candidates, particularly minorities and faculty under-represented in higher education. EOE

Where YOU can make a difference!

Careers with Mass Appeal

Non-Tenure Track Lecturer English Education The successful candidate will teach methods courses in English education for initial certification candidates, conduct the practicum, and supervise practicum students. The position may include teaching of reading in the content areas and supervision of the practica in reading.

Qualifications: An earned doctorate in Literacy, English Education, or a related field, and at least five years of successful 5-12 English Language Arts teaching experience. Experience teaching reading or English as a second language preferred.

The University of Massachusetts Lowell is a comprehensive University committed to educating students for lifelong success in a diverse world.

The Graduate School of Education prepares individuals to become elementary and secondary teachers while completing a Master of Education degree.

Additionally, MEd, EdS degrees, and in-service programs are offered for professionals seeking to continue their education. The Department offers on campus and online programs. Three research-oriented EdD degrees serving more than one hundred part-time students and a vibrant community of research-active faculty enrich and support the educational programs of the Graduate School of Education.

Interested applicants should apply online at jobs.uml.edu. Thank you for considering the University of Massachusetts Lowell as an employer of choice. We look forward to receiving your application.

The University of Massachusetts Lowell is committed to increasing diversity in its faculty, staff, and student populations, as well as curriculum and support programs, while promoting an inclusive environment. We seek candidates who can contribute to that goal and encourage you to apply and to identify your strengths in this area.

PRESIDENT

Elkins Park, Pennsylvania Salus University invites applications and nominations for the position of President. Established by the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO), Salus is the only fully accredited, private academic institution in the country offering professional and graduate degree programs in optometry, audiology, physician assistant studies, public health, and education and rehabilitation in blindness and sensory impairments. PCO’s transition to Salus University in 2008 represented a genuine transformation in recognition of the breadth and interconnections in the health sciences and one that affirms the institution’s deep commitment to innovation and leading the development of future health practitioners across the globe.

With a 92-year history of innovation in education and science, Salus currently enrolls 1,010 students, both on-campus and around the world, and has over 12,000 alumni. The University offers 15 degree and certificate programs, including several distance learning programs. Salus University’s main campus is located just outside of Philadelphia in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.

The University’s facilities also include an expanding group of clinical sites in the greater Philadelphia area.

The University seeks a new leader to usher Salus into its next era of success. Reporting to the Salus University Board of Trustees, the next President will be charged with strategically developing and expanding the University’s academic and research programs to maximize interdisciplinary strengths and assets. The University seeks a President who will embrace the commitment to providing highquality health education, and the value of community engagement through clinical service. Individuals with senior executive experience in academia, healthcare, industry or other appropriate settings are invited to apply.

Review of nominations and applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. All inquiries, nominations and applications (including curriculum vitae and letters of interest) should be sent electronically and in confidence to: Philip Jaeger, Vice President, Denise O’Grady Gaffney, Vice President and Director, Amy Segal, Associate, Isaacson, Miller, 1875 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 710, Washington, DC 20009, Phone: (202) 682-1504, E-mail: 4419@imsearch.com Salus University is an equal opportunity institution and provides equal opportunity for employment to all individuals as it relates to benefits, wages and other terms, conditions or privileges of employ, without regard to race, color, national origin, age, religion, disability, marital status, gender, sexual orientation and any other factor prohibited under applicable federal, state, and local civil rights laws, rules and regulations. Applications from women and minorities are encouraged.

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

P ri min g the Pump. ..

MENTORING – POSITIVE SUPPORT FOR LATINO YOUTH PREPARING FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

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

Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction. – John C. Crosby, American politician (1859-1943)

M

entoring can be a source of meaningful support for Latino students preparing for higher education, Effective mentorship of Hispanic students starts with understanding its purpose and the expectations of both mentor and protégé. Latino high school students and their parents need to know that mentorship is a two-way process between someone who is established and successful in a given field or enterprise and a student or protégé seeking guidance and support in career preparation or development, Mentoring is also helpful for Latino students who are not sure about their future path but are open to exploring the options.

Most important, though, is that Hispanic students and their families understand that mentoring is reciprocal. Unlike many traditional teaching situations, the mentor is not solely responsible for setting up or handing things to the student while the student passively accepts or rejects what is offered, a wise mentor knows that a teen protégé learns more by seeking information, so the student may be expected to occasionally suggest or initiate activities to do. In the process, the mentor learns, too.

In a mentoring relationship, the student is expected to set goals, participate, ask questions, seize opportunities and try out new things as part of learning. As the mentor must extend himself to access opportunities and resources for the student, the student must leave his comfort zone to try something new. The Latino student who decides that he does not like something before he has experienced it either because he fears the unknown, is undertaking something friends have not done, or because the family has criticized it prematurely is shutting himself off from the possibilities that mentoring can offer. The Hispanic student and family need to view mentoring as an opportunity to try out new things safely, with an open mind and without binding commitment. And the Latino stu-

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dent, concerned about how he is perceived by peers, would benefit from the family’s support for doing something different. The Hispanic family is key to encouraging its youth to build a respectful, responsive relationship with the mentor. And the mentor who understands the role and importance of friends and family in the protégé’s life might welcome them at times to join in a new venture with the student.

Ideally, the mentor and protégé should be well suited to each other.

Before assigning a mentor, the Latina student should write down a few goals, her expectations of the mentor, her own attributes that can support the process, and personal characteristics or traits that might interfere with developing an effective relationship with the mentor. Once assigned to a mentor, students might realize that they might have different work styles, but each must respect the other person’s abilities and intentions. For mentors with minimal experience working with Latino youth, an orientation to the Hispanic culture, traditions and values and a review of the developmentally appropriate expectations and tasks of adolescents is helpful to understand the protégé better and determine if the student is on track. The student, on the other hand, must be coachable.

The youngster who already thinks he knows everything (a common affliction among teens) and flippantly dismisses whatever the mentor offers will not launch in the process. Listening attentively, inquiring respectfully and interacting positively will assure that the mentor can offer guidance that will be considered with an open mind.

An agreement about goals, activities and expectations can then be developed, and the mentoring work can begin. In the process, the Latino student may be offered information about the unwritten rules of work, diplomacy, stress management, how to ask useful questions and size up what not to say or ask. Those lessons might spare some tough life lessons that can otherwise be very costly.

These articles appeared online only in the 02/13/12 Issue

TARGETING HIGHER EDUCATION

Money Realities and College Costs Win 1992, he was a long shot.

by Gustavo A. Mellander hen candidate Bill Clinton challenged George H. W. Bush for president

President Bush was very popular in early 1992. He had conducted a successful invasion of Kuwait. He intelligently secured the support of all the Arab countries, secured a favorable United Nations resolution and promised to pull our troops out after Iraq was expelled from Kuwait. He kept his word.

Our victorious troops returned home to parades and festivities that helped the nation heal its lingering Vietnam wounds. There was a renewed sense of optimism and pride.

Bush was so popular that well-known Democrats, who were widely considered strong presidential candidates, decided not to challenge him for the presidency. Bush seemed unbeatable.

The relatively unknown Arkansas governor, Clinton, however, stayed in the race. He was a long shot. Then the economy began to go south. It slipped through the spring and summer of 1992.

It became a major campaign issue. Clinton’s team seized the moment and modified the old managerial bromide KISS (keep it simple, stupid) to ITES (it’s the economy, stupid). It became their drum beat. Led by James Carville, they were relentless, to put it mildly, in keeping Clinton’s campaign on that message. They peppered the Bush administration persistently about the sagging economy. It worked. The comeback kid was elected.

The nation is now engaged in another presidential campaign, and the economy is wobbly and outright disastrous for those who are unemployed.

Unemployment at an implacable 9 percent is devastating. It will be a significant problem for the incumbent administration.

But this is not 1992. News headlines recently screamed that “Americans are making a little more money and spending a lot more.”

Under normal circumstances, that would be a troubling sign for the economy. But a closer look at those government figures suggests another possibility: People are saving less money because it earns next to nothing in interest.

Saving is also difficult because inflation is raging in those areas that most affect Americans, i.e., gasoline and food prices keep rising.

Interest rates have been kept artificially low by the Federal Reserve since 2008 to help the economy. Unfortunately, super-low interest rates leads to lower returns. This discourages those who want to save and hurts retirees who have historically depended on higher interest rates to make ends meet.

Critics say the Fed’s policy is punishing those who play by the rules – those prudent enough to set aside money or those who built up a nest egg and are living on fixed incomes that depend on interest.

So are Americans really spending more? Well, yes, they spent 0.6 percent more in September, three times the October increase. Spending was stronger among durable goods: cars, appliances and electronics, which is good news for manufacturers.

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At the same time, earned income was quite flat. Salaries increased 0.3 percent; and overall income, just 0.1 percent. After deducting taxes and adjusting for inflation, income actually fell for a third straight month.

So to make up the difference, many Americans cut back on savings.

The savings rate fell to its lowest level since December 2007, the first month of the recession. That was also when the Fed started its series of interest-rate cuts.

Considering how little one receives for bank deposits, and given price rises in products everyone needs to buy, it is not surprising Americans are saving less.

Consumers have hit a level of saturation in their savings. The propensity is to spend, not invest or save. That cannot be good for the economy or for individuals long term.

The annual yield on six-month certificates of deposit has been low for months on end. Recently at around 0.23 percent, it is a far cry from 3.62 percent five years ago.

Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, believes the trend of Americans spending more will continue for years. To get the economy going again will take robust personal spending along with improvement in the depressed housing market. Both may take longer than many anticipate.

Ashworth indicated he is not too concerned with the decline in savings because it represents “a sharp decline in debt servicing costs.” In other words, low interest rates mean it’s cheaper to borrow money. I wonder if that habit should be encouraged.

To re-cap, the Fed began cutting interest rates four years ago at the start of the financial crisis. The rate cuts reduced the federal funds rate, the key for short-term interest rates, from 5.25 percent down to near zero, where they have lingered since December 2008. The goal of getting business to invest, to produce just hasn’t happened.

The Fed has announced it will keep these super-low rates into 2013 and has implied longer if the economy stays weak. That means low returns for savers, and a borrowing mind-set which is problematic if it becomes

part of the national fabric.

Studies indicate that many borrowers tend to be young families who spend most of their income, and then borrow. They are not profligate, but they certainly don’t have the saving habits of generations gone by. The loss in interest income tends to hit older households more, which are saving for retirement or in retirement. They depend more on bonds and other fixed-income securities.

Consumer spending is closely watched because it accounts for about 70 percent of the nation’s economic activity. A sharp rise in spending over the summer helped the overall economy grow in July, August and September at the fastest pace in a year. But it slumped thereafter.

Still, the economy would have to grow twice as fast to put a dent in the unemployment rate, which has stubbornly stayed near 9 percent since the recession officially ended more than two years ago.

The academic world has not been immune. Some faculty cut monthly contributions to retirement savings accounts in half to meet pressing needs. It may seem foolish for those who should know better, but if one is pinched to purchase groceries, one can understand that mind-set.

On the other hand, some families have benefited from lower interest rates by re-financing their mortgages over the past year. The lower mortgage payments have freed up more cash for necessities.

How About Hispanics?

“Current Hispanic households will outspend White non-Hispanic households by more than $400,000 over the balance of their lifetimes.” So predicted Geoscape in its 2012 American Marketscape Report.

It also noted that Hispanic population will reach 54 million and will constitute nearly 60 percent of U.S. growth in 2012.

The report is a summary of current and forecasted demographic, economic and consumer data at various geographic locations in the U.S. Other key predictions are: • America is becoming less European-Caucasian; nearly 93 percent of population growth from 2012 to 2017 will come from Latin American Hispanics, Asian-Americans and African-Americans • On average, existing Hispanic households in 2012 will spend more than $400,000 more than White non-Hispanic households for the remainder of their lifetimes; that will be due in part to Hispanics’ younger age cohorts, rising expectations and longer life probabilities • The Hispanic population is gravitating towards biculturalism – currently at 70 percent – instead of fully assimilating into an American culture; that was more prevalent for all ethnic groups in the past; the melting pot just isn’t fashionable anymore • In 2012, Hispanic children will constitute more than 30 percent of the preschool-age population; at the other extreme, White non-Hispanics will form nearly 70 percent of the elderly population over 75 years; the social ramifications and probable consequences are evident enough • If we include Puerto Rico, Hispanics will represent nearly 58 million people in 2012; they will continue to provide the preponderance of growth into the foreseeable future; at one time, most Puerto Rican migrants, migrants because they have been citizens since 1917, were lower-income persons, many displaced farmworkers; that has changed; for the past 20 years there has been a brain drain of college graduates from the island to the mainland; there are, for instance, more than 400 Puerto Rican engineers, all island-trained, at NASA; hundreds of medical doctors and lawyers have migrated as well • The U.S. Hispanic market represents a vibrant and rapidly growing investment opportunity; it will be valued at more than $1 trillion in 2012

and can be served largely by existing business infrastructure We mentioned earlier the effects of low interest rates and continuing inflation. They both affect Hispanics as well. At a time when Hispanic college attendance is on the rise, it is distressing to see that colleges continue to raise their tuition and fees at an accelerated rate, far beyond the nation’s inflation rate.

It is surprising to note that an “increasing number of colleges are charging more than what the average American earns.” The average American two-income family earns less than $50,000 a year. A couple of years ago it was nearly $52,000 and rising. Now the national average wage for American workers stands at a little less than $42,000 a year, according to the Social Security Administration.

Tuition: More than $50,000 a Year The number of colleges and universities with tuition, fees and living costs totaling more than $50,000 for a single year rose to 123 for the 2011-12 year. That is up from 100 institutions in the previous year.

Going back, we note that during the 2009-10 academic year, only 58 institutions charged more than $50,000 a year, according to College Board data. And the year before that, only five colleges carried such a high price tag.

Today the elite club of colleges with combined tuition, fees, room and board exceeding $50,000 per year are mostly Ivy League institutions like Harvard and Yale, as well as liberal arts colleges, including Williams, Vassar and Oberlin.

Sarah Lawrence College is this year’s most expensive school, with a price tag of $59,170. Rounding out the top five most expensive schools are Landmark College (a two-year college in Vermont for students with learning disabilities), New York University, Columbia University and Harvey Mudd College.

Major Tuition Hikes It does not end there. Yearly increases are rampant. This school year, 39 of the most expensive schools raised tuition, fees, and room and board by more than 4 percent, and seven increased costs by more than 5 percent. The biggest jump, of 10.1 percent, was at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, followed by Berklee College of Music, which raised costs by 8.3 percent.

While no public institutions made it into the $50K club this year, that doesn’t mean they haven’t been hiking tuition, and significantly so.

Given severe budget pressures in most states, many state colleges and universities have boosted tuition drastically in the past few years. So while California State University still only costs $9,022 in in-state tuition for a year, that’s a whopping 21 percent increase from the previous year.

Significant Tuition Reductions Some good news. In a recent development, six institutions, including Seton Hall University, have announced significant tuition reductions, some 60 percent. But for only a selected few: those with exceptional high school records and very high SAT scores. Further, they must undertake 24 credits a year and maintain a “B” average to continue to qualify for the lower tuition. It’s a bold step in the right direction.

But how do most students cope with ever-rising costs? In one word, far too many assume enormous loans. More on this wrinkle in a subsequent column.

Dr. Mellander was a college president for 20 years.

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U.S. Ed Secretary Tackles Long-Term Issue – More Academic Time in American Schools REPORTS

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by Peggy Sands Orchowski

is a perennial national education issue that comes up year after year. The first press conference of every new secretary of education for the past 10 years has inevitably included a question about the issue, with the answer – no matter from a Republican or a Democrat – always the same: “This issue will be one of my priorities.” It seems like a simple issue, a problem with a simple answer. But it is as complicated as America.

The issue is lengthening the number of hours that America’s children spend on academic subjects in school every year, month, week and day.

It is a fact that American children spend fewer hours in school (and fewer hours by far studying academic subjects) than do adolescents and teenagers in other countries in the industrial world with far better achievement levels.

Traditionally, the American school calendar is 180 six-and-a-half-hour days a year (including academic courses, study halls, tutoring and extracurricular activities). Most schools abroad have more than 200 days with almost only academic subjects. The U.S. has one of few secondary school systems that enjoy an entire summer vacation off from school. And American teachers and students are obliged to spend far more school time than in any other country in extracurricular, nonacademic activities such as school spirit and fundraising rallies and team sports support activities.

Few educators want to make a connection between American students’ increasingly relatively low achievement levels in academic subjects and the fewer number of hours they spend on those subjects than their international counterparts. But just for the sake of equality of opportunity, the solution seems obvious: expand academic learning time in schools.

“It is a school reform that is emerging as a key strategy to turn around struggling schools.

The Obama administration has made increasing learning time a priority through the U.S. Department of Education’s School Improvement Grant program,” said Jennifer Davis, co-founder and president of the National Center on Time & Learning, at a conference last September at the

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Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C. “Schools, particularly high-poverty schools, simply need more time in the school calendar if they are going to effectively implement the practices that lead to student success,” Davis, a former assistant to Education Secretary Richard W. Riley, insists. “From Houston to Chicago, from district schools to charter school networks, more than one thousand schools across the country are currently implementing expanded school schedules.”

But clearly America has one highly unique feature that makes even the study, not less the solution, of expanding school time so difficult compared to most other countries in the world.

It is the tradition and commitment to local administrative control, local funding, local teachers’ unions and local parent organizations that govern the more than 14,000 public school districts in the United States.

The only effective approach to implementing a national solution is what U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan increasingly turns to: a study of best practices, followed by funded initiatives that award government grants to districts that commit to adopting, implementing and showing progress on those practices.

“This is a very personal issue for me,” Duncan, the former Chicago schools superintendant, told a packed audience at the center. “If we are serious about closing the achievement gaps between Americans and other nations as well as between various kinds of school districts in the U.S., we can’t do it on an agrarian school calendar. I was with teachers’ union and charter school officials yesterday in Massachusetts, and we all agreed, we can’t compete with children from India and China and the like who spend 30 percent more time in school (and with academic subjects) than our kids.”

“We don’t need to study the problem more,” Duncan continued sternly. “We know all our kids – not just the poor – lose educational gains during a long summer away from school.” Duncan supports using schools and U.S. educational resources in different ways: year round, evenings

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and longer days – making schools community learning centers for students of all ages.

He is hopeful. “Now there is a new trend,” he reported. “Increasing numbers of especially charter schools are committing more school time for students – including adult students.

“But I am impatient,” Duncan continued.

“Only 1 percent of all American schools – about 1,000 out of over 100,000 – have actually expanded their school times. If in the next 10 years we have even a few more thousands doing it, that is not enough!”

The NCTL’s report Time Well Spent focuses on “eight powerful practices of some of the nation’s outstanding expanded-time schools that can be duplicated. They include examples of “making every minute count,” focusing on individualized instructions and focused learning goals, and building a school culture of high expectations and mutual accountability, among others. The report shows how expanded time programs “relentlessly assess, analyze and respond to student data, and set aside time to strengthen teachers’ skills and instruction.”

While the teachers and administrators at the schools profiled in the study explained that “time alone is not enough,” they believe more time well spent is an absolutely essential factor in the success of their school. The purpose of the report is to delve more deeply into what it means to use time well, drawing on successful practices throughout the nation as laboratories for learning, the report concludes.

The study seems to support Duncan’s oftenstated vision to have U.S. schools open longer and used more for art, music and all kinds of community activities as well as academics.

“Schools should be partners with communities; should be used as true community centers.”

Luis A. Ubiñas, president of the Ford Foundation, and Chris Gabrieli, NCTL board chairman, agree. In a New York Times Op-Ed in August, they wrote: “For all the talk about balancing the budget for the sake of our children, closing classrooms due to budget cuts is a perverse way of giving them a brighter future.”

FINANCE

As College Costs Keep Rising, Criticisms and Questions Mount

The

by Marilyn Gilroy sticker price for a college education keeps rising and that trend shows no signs of slowing down.

Despite talk about tuition freezes and widespread concerns about the debt burden of college students, all sectors of higher education continue to raise their tuition and fees at rates that far outpace inflation. These increasing costs are especially problematic for Hispanic students, who already cite financial constraints as one of the main reasons for dropping out of college.

According to a report from the College Board, Trends in College Pricing 2011, the national increase in tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities between 2010-11 and 2011-12 was 8.3 percent. The increase for public two-year institutions during the same time period was 8.7 percent, threatening to put even community college out of reach for some.

And although the comparable increase at private colleges (4.5 percent), and at for- profits (3.2 percent), was not as steep, it still means that students and their families must deal with some hefty payments.

Here’s how the numbers stack up: • In-state tuition and fees at public four-year institutions averaged $8,244 in 2011-12, $631 (8.3 percent) higher than in 2010-11; average total charges, including tuition and fees and room and board, are $17,131, up 6.0 percent • Tuition and fees at public two-year colleges averaged $2,963, $236 (8.7 percent) higher than in 2010-11 • Tuition and fees at private nonprofit four-year colleges and universities averaged $28,500 in 201112, $1,235 (4.5 percent) higher than in 2010-11; average total charges, including tuition and fees and room and board, are $38,589, up 4.4 percent • Tuition and fees at for-profit institutions averaged an estimated $14,487 in 2011-12, 3.2 percent higher than in 2010-11 The report says tuition increases reflect a weak economy and lack of state funding that has not kept up with the growth in college enrollments. The percentage of state support for fulltime equivalent students has been slashed deeply in New Jersey, Nevada, Arizona and Florida, with some states cutting funding by more than 20

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percent. Other states such as Illinois, which has cash-flow problems, have fallen behind in meeting funding commitments to higher education.

For many public institutions, this means tuition is being used to supplement revenue losses. California, which enrolls about 10 percent of the nation’s full-time, public four-year college students, has been hit hard. The state’s budget short-

Anthony Carnevale, director, Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

fall has resulted in an overall 21 percent tuition increase, the highest in the nation. At some community colleges, cuts in state and county support now mean that more than 50 percent of the institutional budget comes from tuition.

Overall, across all sectors of higher education, data show that since 1981, tuition and fees have increased sixfold, compared to a consumer price index that has gone up two and half times during the same period.

The rising cost of college could continue to affect where and how long Hispanic students go to college.

The majority already enroll in community colleges or four-year public universities, often bypassing more selective colleges because of the expense. The dropout rate for Hispanics is a national concern, and many of those who leave say costs are a major factor.

Several reports have indicated that Hispanic students and their families often suffer from a lack of infor-

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mation about the true cost of college and subsequently end up with unexpected expenses. Students who want to stay in school and pay the bills find that they must take on more hours at part-time jobs, which impacts the ability to succeed in their studies.

Why Does College Cost So Much?

Although cuts in state spending are contributing to the problem, they are only one of the reasons why college is so expensive. Several experts from the world of academia have offered their opinions on the subject.

In a highly publicized book, Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids – and What We Can Do About It, authors Andrew Hacker, a professor of sociology at Queens College, and Claudia Dreifus, an adjunct professor at Columbia University, suggest one of the problems is a glut of administrators and staff positions. They described how many colleges, especially private ones, have increased positions that are service-oriented or are related to amenities that universities have begun offering students as part of the admissions race.

At one school examined by the authors, approximately 70 percent of employees were involved in something other than teaching. The roster of positions included an expanded number of coaches, fundraisers, technology personnel, university museum staff and positions such as “babysitting coordinator” and “queer life coordinator.” Hacker and Driefus say these positions have mushroomed at a time when the ratio of fulltime faculty members-to-students has declined.

Other critics have joined the debate and laid the blame for high costs on wasteful and, in some cases, extravagant amenities colleges are providing for students. Colleges now offer bigticket items, such as elaborate gyms and workout facilities, extensive counseling departments, single dorm rooms and totally wired libraries with cafés and comfortable sofas for seating.

College presidents argue that these items have become part of parental expectations and are necessary to stay even in today’s intensive admissions competition, in which everyone boasts that their campuses offer state-of-the-art facilities.

But two economists at the College of William and Mary, David H. Feldman and Robert B. Archibald, offer a slightly different analysis.

Their book, Why Does College Cost So Much?, says the high cost of college is not about dysfunctional administrators making wasteful decisions. Rather, they argue that education is a labor-intensive activity in which it has been difficult to improve productivity.

“Students interacting directly with professors and other students in small groups remain a benchmark of quality in education,” wrote Feldman and Archibald in Forbes magazine. “Ask any family if they want their son or daughter to learn in small group seminars taught by tenured professors, or if they prefer giant impersonal lectures or online chat rooms monitored by adjunct teachers who answer lots of e-mail questions.”

The authors say that there has been no “magic bullet” that increases class size without hurting quality.

Another factor contributing to cost is changes in technology. This requires that institutions have up-to-date equipment and software in labs and other facilities because, as Feldman and Archibald point out, colleges must offer an education that gives students the tools they need to succeed in the modern economy.

“The contemporary chemistry student, for instance, needs to be familiar with current laboratory tools, and they are more expensive than the chalk-and-test-tube world of the past,” they said.

“As in modern medicine, there is a standard of care that higher education must meet, and that standard is set in the labor market that hires our graduates.”

No one suggests that there any easy fixes on the horizon, which has led many to question whether college is worth the investment.

The College Payoff The steep rise in college costs and the concern about increasing student loan debt have sparked a debate about the benefits of college, especially in the current climate of pushing more students to attend college. For many decades, the prevailing wisdom has been that a college education leads to a better job – and a better life – for everyone. But some are challenging the wisdom of encouraging ill-prepared or unmotivated students to enroll in college, especially when statistics show they are unlikely to earn a degree.

Several recent studies have looked at the worth of college, addressing the issue and examining the benefits by race, gender and occupation.

A 2011 study, The College Payoff: Education, Occupations and Lifetime Earnings, from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, confirms that the value of a college

degree persists. The report says a college degree is the key to economic opportunity because it has become the new gateway to the middle class and confers substantially higher earnings on those with credentials than those without. Today, bachelor’s degree holders can expect median lifetime earnings approaching $2.3 million. By comparison, workers with just a high school diploma average roughly $1.3 million, which translates into a little more than $15 per hour.

“On average, people with more education and higher attainment make more than people with less education,” said Anthony P. Carnevale, the center’s director and co-author of the report.

“But major and occupation matter just as much as degree level. For example, 28 percent of people with an associate degree make at least as

Education Pays 2010 report, the College Board presents evidence of both individual and societal benefits for higher education and takes a closer look at the payoff for various groups.

For Hispanics, the report states the following findings: • Among Hispanic adults, the unemployment rate decreases markedly as the level of educational attainment increases; in 2009, Hispanics with a high school degree had an unemployment rate of 10.4 percent compared to a 5 percent rate for Hispanics with a bachelor’s degree • The college earnings premium for White and Hispanic males was about 50 percent, meaning that earnings for men between the ages of 25 and 34 with a four-year college degree working full-time, year-round in 2008 were about 50 per-

Median Earnings of Full-Time Year-Round Workers Ages 25-34, by Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Education Level 2008 Education Level Not a High School Graduate

High School Graduate

Some College, No Degree

Asian Female Asian Male

$31,900

$39,500

Black Female Black Male

$24,500 $30,000

$28,600 $34,400

Associate Degree

Bachelor's Degree

Advanced Degree

$52,100 $60,300

$67,200 $71,400

$29,100 $40,100

$41,000 $42,500

$51,400 $61,500

Hispanic Female Hispanic Male

$16,500 $22,200

$23,500 $29,700

$30,200 $34,900

$30,100 $36,900

$41,000 $45,000

$51,800

White Female White Male

$16,500 $28,700

$26,500 $36,300

$28,300 $39,900

$35,500 $42,400

$41,500 $54,200

$51,000 $66,200

Source, College Board, 2011.

much as the average bachelor’s degree holder – mostly due to occupational choice.”

Carnevale is aware of the backlash against going to college as a universal standard and acknowledges that many are questioning the need for a costly postsecondary education. In Op-Ed pieces, he has criticized the rash of media articles that reinforce doubts about the value of college by describing graduates who wait tables and mop floors.

But he continues to press the case, saying college graduates are still more likely to be employed than their high school-educated counterparts, even during a recession. His research shows that college still pays off even in occupations where a degree is not essential.

“The idea of getting a high school diploma and working your way up from the mailroom to the corner office is a relic of an earlier time,” said Carnevale. “A college degree provides greater career mobility opportunities, greater lifetime earning power and a more promising future.”

Further support for the value of college was presented by two other organizations. In its

cent higher than median earnings for men with a high school diploma; the college earnings premium for Black males was smaller, about 42 percent, or $12,500, per year • The college earnings premium was higher for Hispanic women than for other women, with bachelor’s degree recipients working full time year-round, earning 74 percent ($17,500 per year) more than high school graduates • The earnings differential between high school graduates and those with some college but no degree ranged from 7 percent ($1,800) for White women to 29 percent ($6,700) for Hispanic women The bottom line is that higher education pays dividends. According to the Hamilton Project, a research and economic policy initiative of the Brookings Institution, higher education is a better investment than almost any other alternative, especially in today’s tough labor market. The project’s market analysis shows on average, the benefits of a four-year college degree over the course of a lifetime are equivalent to an investment that returns 15.2 percent per year.

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