The experiences of managing Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI) programs from a two-year and four-year AANAPISI program director is the subject of a new brief by the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions.
The brief offers recommendations for current and future grant program directors that can be useful in impacting student success.
“We understand far less about how [AANAPISI] programs have” impacted student outcomes, “which is significant to understand in order to replicate and sustain the success of MSI programs,” said Dr. Bach Mai Dolly Nguyen, author of the brief and an assistant professor of education at Lewis & Clark College. “Program directors are central to understanding how MSI grants are executed and provide an opportunity to learn key lessons about these programs.”
The AANAPISI program was established by Congress in 2007 as part of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act and was expanded in 2008 under the Higher Education Opportunity Act.
The program offers grants and other assistance services to qualifying AANAPISIs to allow the institutions to advance and increase their student capacity to serve Asian Americans and Native American Pacific Islanders and low-income students, according to the AANAPISI website.
In order to qualify for a program grant, a college or university is required to have at least ten percent of its students identify as Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander when applying and at least 50 percent of an applying schools’s degree-seeking students must receive financial aid at least one of these programs: the Federal Pell Grant, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG), Federal Work Study (FWS) or the Federal Perkins Loan, the AANAPISI website stated.
The main purpose for having an AANAPISI program director on campus is to give life to MSI grants. The program director “must have the entire vision of the grant in mind, while simultaneously managing” the daily functions in addition to engaging with the administration and mentoring students, Nguyen said.
