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Saint Xavier University is currently in the process of applying for a Title V grant. SXU became eligible for the grant when it was recently designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI).
The US Department of Education defines an HSI as an eligible institution of higher education that “has an enrollment of undergraduate full-time equivalent students that is at least 25 percent Hispanic students at the end of the award year immediately preceding the date of application.”
In the 2014-15 academic year Hispanic students made up 27.6% of SXU’s undergraduate students.
Many in the SXU community were pleased to hear that the University was designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution.
Students like Yuritza Arroyo, a junior who is majoring in Sociology and minoring in Spanish, are hopeful that the designation will allow the university to further serve the Hispanic community.
“When I first heard of this, I was hoping that this did get passed and now I am so overjoyed that it did. Every single year, I keep seeing more and more Latinos on campus and although many of us are fluent English speakers, I think it is important to have programs dedicated to those who may not be so fluent,” said Arroyo.
While Arroyo believes that SXU celebrates diversity and does a lot to educate students about different cultures, she says that it can still be challenging at times for Latino students to transition into the SXU community.
“Coming to SXU, I experienced somewhat of a culture shock since both where I live and the high school I went to were urban and predominantly Latino and it is very different here. Many Latino SXU students can probably agree it was strange having classes where, many times, one is the only Latino.
Being an HSI will help our university implement programs that will help the ever-growing Latino population [at] SXU have an easier time transitioning from an urban/Latino setting to [the] very different setting that SXU has,” said Arroyo.
The Title V grant would help SXU further encourage student success by funding services and programs that provide educational opportunities for Hispanic students and other underrepresented minorities.
While the emphasis of the Title V grant is on meeting the needs of Hispanic students and their families, the programs and services made available by the grant will benefit all students.
“It is important to me that SXU gets the Title V grant because, with this grant, more programs can be implemented to help the Latino population in this university that keeps growing every single year that passes. This hopefully means that the retention and graduation of Latinos will increase [at] SXU. If all goes well, these students will feel more at home and feel like they belong to the SXU community,” Arroyo said.
SXU is conducting a voluntary survey in order to collect information that will be used for the Title V grant application. The survey results will also be used to identify possible initiatives that would help promote a multicultural learning environment.
Students, faculty, and staff are all invited to respond to the anonymous survey which takes about fifteen minutes to complete. Arroyo believes that one way to promote multicultural learning and encourage the success of Latino students is to hire more Latino faculty members.
“It is essential to have successful Latinos that Latino students can look up to and think, ‘Hey, maybe one day I’ll be as successful as this person’ or ‘this person did not let his or her ethnicity stop him or her from achieving goals then why should I?’” said Arroyo.
It is important to have good role models that students can look up to. These role models have the ability to help students reach their educational goals, and lifetime dreams.
“Earning a PhD or even a Masters is hard for anyone to accomplish, but it is even more difficult when you’re a minority, especially a low-income minority, in a society that is dominated by middle class males,” said Arroyo.
Yasmeen Abdellatif
News Correspondent
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