In October, small teams from Metro State’s HSI Task Force visited four HSI universities--three in California and one in Illinois--to glean ideas of best practices to attaining the HSI designation and truly serving the student population.

The three California universities were all in the California State system: Cal State-Fullerton, -Los Angeles and -San Bernardino. Northeastern Illinois University is located in Chicago. Research on a fifth HSI, the University of Texas at San Antonio, was done on the Web.

The surrounding communities of all five universities have Latino populations greater than the HSI-required 25 percent Latino student population and so did not have to actively pursue more Latino students, as Metro State must, to attain the designation. However, as Co-chair Luis Torres pointed out at the Oct.26 task force meeting, with Denver’s and Colorado’s Latino population burgeoning, “If we don’t plan now, we won’t be ready for the future.”

Nevertheless, the task force members who visited the HSIs agree that they learned a lot about growing and maintaining their connections with the Latino community.

There were several commonalities among the universities, among them the fact that the designation helps to better serve all students by providing support services for at-risk students and funding for academic programs. Another key element that several stressed is that Metro State would need a partnership with an HSI community college so that there is a natural migration from the two-year into the four-year institution. Also essential is the Title V designation, which is a program that helps eligible institutions of higher education enhance and expand their capacity to serve Latino and low-income students by providing funds to improve and strengthen the academic quality, institutional stability, management and fiscal capabilities of eligible institutions.

Recruitment at these institutions is often on-site and utilizes faculty and staff to reach Latino high school students. Among the support programs common to all of the HSIs are first-year programs, learning communities and transfer services--all programs that Metro State began piloting last year and has requested funds to continue this year. (see http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/budget_twv5102407.shtml.)

Finally, once all four of the institutions achieved HSI status, they produced marketing pieces in both Spanish and English. Also, programs were developed specific to their Latino communities such as parent orientations in Spanish and developing and maintaining long-term relationships with their respective Latino communities.

HACU
The task force members who visited Northeastern Illinois University were able to combine their visit with the 21^st annual conference of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), Oct. 20-22 in Chicago. President Stephen Jordan and several faculty and administrators joined the team at the conference.

The team reported that the conference was extremely valuable in helping them understand what it might take to become an HSI, such as that structuring Metro State to be successful may mean changing some programs, developing the political will to make it a success and integrating what the College does well with new ideas.

Co-chair Judi Dian Bonacquisti said that she’d like to develop a “HACU-Colorado” that could be a research center for Latinos and higher education in Colorado.

Reports from the visiting teams will be posted at a later date on the HSI home page at http://www.mscd.edu/president/hsi/.