Adelante: Social Mobility at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

ABSTRACT

This article examines social mobility at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) near the U.S.-México border. It critiques the institution’s strategic plan and how it falls short of helping its students achieve social mobility with intentionality. It provides a breakdown of how the social mobility index is measured and how the institution’s metrics contribute to its SMI ranking. Finally, the authors provide evidence-based initiatives to help increase their institution’s SMI ranking, which could also be applied at other HSIs, helping institutions fulfill their missions to improve the social mobility of its students.

Resumen

Este artículo examina la movilidad social en una Institución de Servicio Hispano cerca de la frontera entre los Estados Unidos y México. El artículo critica el plan estratégico de la institución y como no alcanza ayudar a los estudiantes lograr la movilidad social. Se provee un desglose de cómo se mide el índice de la movilidad y como la métrica contribuye a su clasificación de SMI. Finalmente, los autores proveen iniciativas basadas en evidencia para mejorar la clasificación de SMI de su institución, las cuales también podrían ser aplicadas a otras HSI, ayudando instituciones satisfacer sus misiones en mejorar la movilidad social de sus estudiantes.

KEYWORDS:

• Social mobility
• social mobility index
• Latina/O students
• Hispanic-serving institution
• Hispanic faculty in higher education

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no relevant or material financial interests that relate to the research described in this paper.

Notes

¹ CollegeNET is a privately held company that provides web-based technologies to colleges, universities, and nonprofits geared to help enhance campus-wide efficiency.

² The honor was awarded to the Assistant VP of Student Affairs and the University Registrar.

³ For the purposes of this article, the terms “Hispanic” and “Latina/o” are used interchangeably and for our purposes cover all students who identify or are classified as either.

⁴ It is important to note that the peak numbers in 2009 may correlate with the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 as many students enrolled in college for additional training with hopes of rejoining the job market when people improved their outlook with new skills and credentials.

⁵ Although Pell Grants are not the best measure of financial need and economic status, it is the best measure we have available to us to measure income and thus be able to identify students who may be economically disadvantaged.

⁶ The Opportunity and Lottery Scholarships are state-funded scholarships that can cover 100% tuition and most fees for both two-year colleges and four-year universities for students who graduate from a high school within the state and who maintain certain GPAs and credit loads.

⁷ The northern half of the state’s economy is boosted by Albuquerque, its largest city; Santa Fe, the state capitol and popular tourist destination; and Los Alamos, home of Los Alamos National Laboratory, a US Department of Energy national laboratory.

⁸ The consolidated lawsuit of Yazzie/Martinez in the state of New Mexico challenged the state’s failure to provide students, particularly low-income, American Indian, English language learners, and students with disabilities, with the educational programs and learn and thrive.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.