Hispanic Serving Institutions in American Higher Education: Their Origin, and Present and Future Challenges

“This book…can help my institution and other Hispanic Serving Institutions increase their effectiveness when working with Hispanic students. [The editors] have brought together an outstanding group of scholars to probe questions of what it means to attend, persist in, and graduate from—as well as work in—HSIs. We know that HSIs have played a critical role in the success of Hispanic students. We now have a book that will play a critical role in how we think about the future of these important institutions of higher learning.Readers interested in staying informed about the most pressing current and future issues faced by HSIs will welcome the ideas and discussions in this book. Policymakers, higher-education administrators, faculty, students, and community leaders will find the content of the book enriching and insightful, and will be inspired to act on behalf of these valuable institutions and the students who attend them.” --Frank Hernandez, Dean, College of Education , The University of Texas of the Permian Basin This is the first book to exclusively address Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), filling a major gap in the research on these institutions, and in our understanding of their approaches to learning and their role in supporting all students while focusing on Hispanic students. Born out of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1992 and classified as such if their enrollment of Latino students account for a quarter of their undergraduate enrollment, the number of HSIs and their impact in higher education is growing. Given the projected growth of the Latino population and HSIs’ record of advancing the success for Hispanic students in STEM fields, as well as of graduating nearly a third of all Hispanic bachelor’s degree recipients, their work has important implications for higher education at large.Written by leading and rising scholars on HSIs, this book offers insight into its historic policy origins, the experiences of various student populations served, faculty issues, the impact of student affairs in advancing student development, student experiences of philanthropy efforts, and future challenges that these growing number of institutions face. This book touches on the many facets of HSIs, painting an organic mosaic of institutions in position to advance Latino postsecondary progress, both chronicling the contemporary challenges that these institutions face while also looking to their future. Read more