The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding and gather insight into the experiences of Cuban American women attending a 4-year, public, Hispanic Serving Institution and how those experiences influenced their identity development. This was accomplished by conducting in-depth interviews and focus groups with 12 self-identified Cuban American women who were classified as sophomores, juniors, seniors, or graduate students. All of the participants had attended Florida International University for at least 1 year. The women had varying degrees of on and off campus academic and campus involvement activities. Participants were asked about six topics: (a) family, (b) cultural influences, (c) gender, (d) ethical and moral development, (e) education, and (f) ethnic identity. Based on the coding of the data provided by the participants, several interconnected themes emerged including the importance of family, familial support, cultural pride, expected gender roles, core values, decision making, biculturalism, and the value of attending a Hispanic Serving Institution. These themes were found to be all related to the identity development of the participants. It was found that looking at identity through a multidimensional lens is essential. Looking at personal growth and development through anthropological, sociological, and psychosocial lenses gave greater insight to a population of students who have been largely underrepresented in the literature. The findings of this case study are that culture is contextual and identity development is complex for first and second generation Cuban American women attending a Hispanic Serving Institution in a majority minority city. It was found that several factors, including the importance of family and gender roles, were not found to be more important than one another; rather they supported each other in regards to the participants’ identity development. The notion of biculturalism as it has been presented in the literature was challenged in this study as it was found that the participants’ experiences living and attending a school in a majority minority city presented a new way of understanding what it might mean to be bicultural. For professionals in the field, the findings of this study may lead to a broader understanding of nuances within the Hispanic community and a better understanding of the distinctiveness of what it means to be a Cuban American woman.

Thesis advisor: Ana Maria Martinez Aleman / Higher education has experienced an unprecedented growth in the number of Latino/Hispanic students. Unfortunately as the literature has revealed, many institutions have not had success in serving this population. By all accounts Hispanics are the youngest and fastest growing population in the United States enrolling in college. However, they have the lowest educational attainment levels in the nation. New population growth is beginning to sprawl into geographic areas unfamiliar with serving this minority population. In just a few short years demographic changes are forecast to forever impact the landscape of colleges across the country: Hispanic-serving institutions will be at the forefront of American higher education. At present, colleges are not sufficiently prepared to meet the needs of its future students. The purpose of this case study was to provide a detailed analysis of a single case, Miami Dade College West Campus. Through an information-rich case study, this researcher set out to examine how Miami Dade College West Campus could serve as a new model for effective Hispanic-serving institutions. Sources of evidence used for the analysis included interviews with members of the dominant coalition involved in planning the campus and document analysis with a particular focus on the strategic planning process. The findings of the case study identified certain themes as central to Miami Dade College West Campus’s effectiveness in serving Hispanic students. First, findings indicated a predominant student-centered institutional culture. Second, the campus developed a strong campus-community interdependence that mutually supported growth and success. Findings also suggested a comprehensive approach to racial and ethnic diversity across campus. Finally, as is supported in the literature, institutional leadership was an integral component of the institution’s ability to effectively educate Latino students. The implications of this research can provide guidance and support to institutions as national demographic shifts will demand the need for quality, focused information on Hispanic-serving institutions. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

While undergraduate enrollment of all racial groups in United States higher education institutions has increased, 6-year graduation rates of Blacks (39%) remain low compared to other races; Asians (69%), Whites (62%), and Hispanics (50%; NCES, 2010). Women’s graduation rate is higher than men’s; 58% compared to men’s at 53% in public institutions (IPEDS, 2011). Retention literature does not address the perceptions of Black ethnic groups’ experiences in college, particularly in Hispanic serving institutions. Informed by Tinto’s (1975, 1987, 1993) student academic and social integration model, Guiffrida’s (2003, 2004, 2005, 2006) model of relationships while at college, and ex-post facto research design, the study investigated personal and institutional factors that relate to Black students’ self-efficacy and persistence to the senior year in college. Data about Black ethnic undergraduate seniors’ (N = 236) academic and social experiences in college were collected using the Student Institutional Integration Survey (SIIS), an online questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to collect background information about the sample, correlation was calculated to indicate the degree of relationship between the variables, and multiple linear regressions were used to identify variables that are predictors of self-efficacy of persistence. Independent samples t-test and analyses of variance were computed to determine whether differences in perceptions of personal and institutional factors that relate to self-efficacy of persistence to the senior year in college could be identified between gender and ethnicity. Frequency was summarized to identify themes of participants’ primary motivation for finishing undergraduate degree programs. These themes were: (a) self-pride/personal goal, (b) professional aspiration/career (c) motivation to support family, (d) desire to have financial independence/better job, (e) to serve community, (f) opportunity to go to college, (g) being first-generation college student, and (h) prove to family the value of higher education. The research findings support the tenets of academic and social integration theories which suggest that students’ interaction with peer and faculty, relationships with family and friends, and involvement in institutional activities and organizations influence their persistence in college. Implications based on the findings affect institutional policy, curriculum, and program improvements that relate to Black undergraduate students’ academic and social support.

Thesis advisor: Rocío Calvo / Hispanics are less likely than non-Hispanic whites to use mental health service, even after controlling for various social, environmental, and health factors. Mental health services disparities between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites have been well-documented and consistent over time. However, very little is known about the impact mental health care organizations have on Hispanics’ access to mental health care, especially since the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The three papers in this dissertation utilize the 2010, 2014, and 2016 waves of the National Mental Services Survey (N-MHSS) to assess the impact of the ACA on Hispanics’ access to mental health care and mental health care organizations’ provision of integrated services. The N-MHSS is a national repository of data on the mental health organizations in the United States. This dataset was created to report the characteristics and client enrollment at mental health care organizations. Paper 1 uses the 2014 N-MHSS to describe the structural characteristics of mental health care organizations according to the proportion of Hispanics they serve and the organizations’ structural characteristics in Medicaid expansion and non-expansion states. Paper 2 uses the 2010, 2014, and 2016 N-MHSS waves to examines the impact of the ACA and the health safety net on Hispanic admissions at mental health care organizations. These three waves were merged together using a repeated cross-sectional design to assess whether Hispanic admissions increased after the implementation of the ACA. The final paper uses the 2014 and 2016 N-MHSS waves to assesses whether integrated care has increased at Hispanic-serving organizations compared with mainstream organizations two years after the implementation of the ACA. This paper also assessed whether the increased funding for integrated services under the ACA has disproportionately affected mainstream organizations compared with Hispanic-serving organizations. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

This study took place on the campus of a Hispanic-serving institution, and used Q methodology to assess the attitudes and perceptions of academic librarians toward a social justice role for the university library. Among librarians and others in higher education, there is a great deal of confusion around social justice as a concept because over the past forty years, it has often been subsumed under, or diverted by the neoliberal discourse of multicultural education, which conflates social justice with providing equal opportunities for under-represented students primarily as a means of enabling them to obtain jobs and become consumers in our neoliberal capitalist society. Unfortunately, this perspective dovetails neatly with the positivist traditions of the library profession, which also eschews political involvement and exhorts librarians to remain neutral in the services and collections they provide. Within this discourse, universities and their libraries are stripped of their political and social potential for addressing the structural problems and inequalities which circumscribe the lives of the very students they purport to serve. The results of this study indicate that many librarians believe that their profession’s ethos of neutrality renders the debate over social justice within the library moot. These librarians equate social justice as equivalent to giving equal access to materials that promote the advancement of marginalized groups, and to those that encourage the continuation of the status quo or opposition to equality. Only a small number of librarians envision themselves as well positioned to promote social justice by empowering students to use the resources currently available within the library. Despite the different viewpoints represented by the factors uncovered in this study, there did emerge areas of consensus from which library leaders can mediate conversations aimed at uncovering and evaluating the principles, practices, and attitudes within the library that arise from the dominant White worldview and hinder the library’s ability to serve all students equitably. Conversations about topics such as those implicated in this study, including institutional racism, diversity, social justice, and White privilege are not always comfortable conversations, but they are required if the library is to enact the changes necessary to allow it to serve all students more effectively and more justly. These discussions are especially needed at this time, when academic librarians as a profession remain 86 percent White, while many of our campuses are becoming increasingly racially diverse. If the library is to retain its place as the center of social and political discourse within the university, it is critical that it fully represent and respect the perspectives of non-dominant groups and recognize alternative epistemologies. Breaking with the positivist traditions of the library will allow opportunities for librarians to authentically connect with more of our students, which is particularly needed at Hispanic-serving institutions.

This study contributes to the existing knowledge about the history of Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) legislation passed into law by the 102nd United States Congress by investigating how individuals and organizations in support of Hispanic higher education worked within and outside the federal political process between 1979 and 1992. By drawing from theoretical frameworks rooted in the historical and policy analysis fields, this study utilizes historiographical methods to situate the HSI policy formation period within the larger social and political context of the time. The Advocacy Coalition Framework and Policy Entrepreneurship theory serve as policymaking models that deepen the understanding of the efforts of Hispanic higher education proponents during this policy formation period. / text

This dissertation addresses the development of Nuevomexicano/a student identity at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU) during three periods: (1) New Mexico's Territorial period and early statehood, (2) the 1940s, and (3) the late 1960s and early 1970s. Nuevomexicano/a student identity was shaped through a process of accommodating to and resisting institutional powers. Since 1898, Nuevomexicano/a students have been active members of the university community, despite periods when they constituted a small portion of the student body and the institution's frequent disregard for Nuevomexicano/a culture and language. As they participated in campus activities, Nuevomexicano/as reconstructed their individual and collective identities, appropriating terms such as Spanish or Chicano/a, as a rhetorical strategy to revise their relationships with the university. Extralocal institutions, including government institutions, national protest movements, and international organizations shaped public conversations about cultural identity. During the first two periods, students employed subtle strategies of resistance that included presenting speeches and reorganizing student government. Often labeled as accommodationist, these strategies represent viable rhetorical strategies that provided students access to dominant literacies, which were used to promote social change. In the 1970s, Chicano/a students utilized more aggressive practices, such as a weeklong sit-in, to radically alter the institutional culture at NMHU. In the forty years since the sit-in, NMHU has developed into a university that supports its Nuevomexicano/a students and incorporates elements of their culture into the university's social fabric.

An under representation of Latino/as in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) still persists. In Rising Above the Gathering Storm , the National Academies sounded an alarm in response to data indicating a "troubling decline" in the number of U.S. citizens trained to become scientists and engineers at a time when the number of technical jobs is outpacing the rate of the U.S. workforce. The shrinking technical talent pipeline threatens the country's future in technology innovation, energy alternatives, national security, and education. This study purported to contextualize resilience and discern the cultural capital and persistence behaviors of STEM Latino/a students succeeding in two adverse environments--higher education and science and engineering. Through a critical race perspective the student cuentos were thematically analyzed. Student narratives were then triangulated with the narrative of the researcher--a Mexican American, first-generation college student, who pursued a life science bachelor's degree through the two institutions in this study. The theoretical framework was guided by Critical Race Theory, Resiliency, Persistence Theory, and Social Construction of Technology. The study consisted of a pilot survey and narrative inquiry. The survey contained pilot questions on the use and perception of information technologies in STEM education. The narrative inquiry was guided by critical race that enabled both positionality and storytelling through narratives and counter-narratives. Twenty-two Latino/a graduating seniors majoring in the biological sciences or engineering/engineering technology at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and a Predominantly-White Institution (PWI) in Texas were recruited. The narratives of these students were collected through one-time, semi-structured interviews during the last semester of their studies. Results from the study indicate that these Latino/a STEM students are conscious of their ethnicity; however, they are not critically conscious of the master narrative of what it means to be a Latino/a in a STEM discipline. These students have bought into the master narrative of colorblind science and engineering. The students understood that to succeed in STEM, they had to survive based on their proficiency with institutional norms, practices and cultures and then maintain a sense of self through a respect for their Latino culture.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of 15 Latina lesbian students and their perceived sexual identity development at a predominately Hispanic-serving Institution (HSI). Participants for this study were purposefully selected using criteria, convenience, and snowball sampling. Using a conceptual framework comprised of the four tenets consistent across the spectrum of all sexual identity development models, participants’ experiences were described, analyzed, and interpreted to inform the study. Data were collected through individual face-to-face interviews, using an interview protocol, and were analyzed using inductive, deductive, and comparative analyses. Three themes emerged during the inductive analysis: (a) the trifecta: family, religion and gender, (b) the paradox of being Latina and lesbian, and (c) institutional care. In the deductive analysis, a rubric of a priori codes was derived from their (a) cultural perspectives, (b) identity awareness, and the four tenets sexual minorities consistently experience which included: (c) alienation, (d) social exclusion, (e) disclosure, and (f) self-acceptance of a non-heterosexual identity. The deductive analysis confirmed that participants’ experiences and perceived levels of sexual identity development were determined by the challenge or support they received from family, peers, and their Hispanic-serving institution overall. The comparative analysis revealed an overlap of the inductive and deductive themes. Among 15 participants, the inductive themes of (a) the trifecta: family, religion and gender, (b) the paradox of being Latina and lesbian, and (c) institutional care were present in all segments of the deductive analysis. The findings highlighted the complex and challenging experiences of Latina lesbians as they attempt to navigate their intersections of sexuality, gender, and culture in the context of higher education. The study makes a critical contribution to understanding the experiences and sexual identity development of Latina lesbian students at an HSI. The study concluded that while Latina lesbian students struggle to reconcile their Latina and lesbian identities, their experiences at a HSI can be a source of challenge or support in their overall well-being and identity development.

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