Hispanic-Serving Institutions and the Struggle for Cognitive Justice

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley: Reframing HSIs through a Multi-Sited Ethnography

“…Researchers call upon HSIs to provide Latina/o students with the academic capital to be culturally informed to serve families, communities, schools, and businesses in an ever-changing social, cultural, economic, and transnational environment (García, 2012;Gonzales, 2016;Núñez et al, 2010). Within a short time of operation, UTRGV is cultivating and expanding students'…”

Assessing Empowerment at HSIs: An Adapted Inputs-Environments-Outcomes Model

“…As institutions enrolling the majority of Latinx undergraduates, HSIs are in a unique position to substantially shape these students' educational and long-term success. Such a position provides an incredible opportunity for HSIs to define what it means to serve Latinx students and promote justice for Latinx communities (García, 2012;Gonzales, 2015). In particular, García (2012) challenges HSIs to courageously stand against systems of education that dismiss and marginalize Latinx students, which we interpret as a call for providing an empowering education.…”

“…Our model is guided by the following principles, which builds from the IEO model through incorporation of CRT and community cultural wealth: 1) Latinx students are racialized beings who are producers of knowledge (Delgado Bernal, 2002), a disposition that can be further cultivated during college; 2) HSIs have the potential to intentionally serve Latinx students by providing positive, empowering environments and experiences (García, 2012); and 3) it is paramount to institutional excellence to move beyond traditional notions of success to consider ways in which empowerment can be assessed for Latinx students, particularly at HSIs (Cuellar, 2015). By applying CRT in our model, we respond to Hermán S. García's (2012) question regarding "what role(s) can HSIs play in rethinking colleges and universities' dysfunctional roles in promoting the cognitive justice needs of Latin@ students?" (p. 199).…”

“…These institutions are thus uniquely positioned to challenge majoritarian views of education, which calls for the creation of an affirming and transformational education (García, 2012). Beyond enrollment and graduation rates, however, there are few indicators to determine the extent to which these colleges and universities serve Latinx students (Garcia, 2016).…”

Institutional Effectiveness

“…Despite circumstances that are at least partly out of the control of college administrators, criticisms have been leveled at HSIs ranging from strongly worded suggestions that HSIs need to “do better” (Garcia, 2012; Medina & Posadas, 2012) to claims of racism (Greene & Oesterreich, 2012; Lara & Lara, 2012). Garcia and Medina and Posadas offer student concerns as well as their own that HSI campuses are not inviting enough, mentors are not well-prepared, and administrators are not insightful enough.…”