81 - Remember Me? I Go to School Here: Prioritizing Latinx Students in the Evaluation of Title V Grants

Abstract Information: The Hispanic-serving Institution (HSI) designation is granted to colleges and universities in which 25 percent or more of the student body self-identifies as “Hispanic.” If at least half of an HSI’s students are Pell eligible, the institution is eligible to compete for Title V funds (Excelencia in Education, 2023). Although the idea of providing additional resources to schools where a large proportion of Latinx students matriculate sounds like a good idea, the Title V program is fraught with limitations (Aguilar-Smith, 2021). The federal government does not hold recipients accountable for focusing specifically on the causal processes that lead to disparate outcomes across races and ethnicities (Vargas & Villa-Palomino, 2019). Instead, the prevailing logic seems to be that spending money is good enough because, after all, so many of the students are Latinx some are sure to benefit, if only incidentally. Scholarly contributions to this debate have been of limited value. Until fairly recently, the most visible writers on HSIs myopically focused on the most tangible metrics, such as retention and graduation rates, without considering the qualities of the education students were receiving or how much they were being asked to assimilate in order to access it (e.g., Garcia, 2019). Token “cultural appreciation” was thought to be sufficient, and the goal was to facilitate movement through the system as opposed to fostering a strong cultural identity or cultivating a sense of personal and collective agency. The co-authors of this paper include three grant administrators (GAs) across two universities, an external evaluator, and a former student of an HSI. After a brief review of the literature on HSIs and a historical analysis of the intent of the designation, the GAs explain how the evaluation plans for their Title V grants have evolved in response to the growing recognition that more needs to be known than merely documenting that activities were implemented, students enjoyed them, and the evaluator was paid. The next section describes the methodological changes associated with an ecological view of HSIs and the impact of Title V funds on the most authentic stakeholders: the students. Rather than merely being limited to the types of information needed for annual performance reports, the evaluator captures the effects of grant activities on features of the institution that are often overlooked, such as the centralizing of Latinx funds of knowledge, the initiation of ethnic studies programs and events, and other evidence that the institution has changed in ways that are conducive to a sense of belonging and a healthy racial consciousness. The paper concludes with the words of a recent Latinx graduate who experienced the impact of a Title V grant at an HSI that did not make an effort to respond to Latinx student voices. Her feelings of marginalization as she tried to build an inclusive atmosphere through grant activities serves as a cautionary tale of the demoralization that occurs when Latinx students come to believe that they are unimportant, even though it is ultimately their identities that bring resources into the institution.