“Not simply the act of enrolling”: Defining servingness at Hispanic‐serving community colleges

Abstract

The number of federally designated Hispanic serving institutions (HSIs) has almost doubled over the last 10 years. This shift has led researchers and policy makers alike to increasingly scrutinize what it means to be Hispanic serving, and not just Hispanic enrolling. In this study, we present perspectives from five Hispanic community college presidents who lead federally designated HSIs. Based on interviews we examine how community college presidents define servingness and what they view as critical to truly serving Hispanic students. Our findings indicate that servingness involves a focus on getting resources to students, intentional purpose‐driven programming, cultural knowledge training, and finding ways to include all students in HSI‐centered programming.