WASHINGTON — When it comes to the recruitment and retention of Hispanic students, start early and be sure to get the student’s entire family involved.
Those bits of advice ranked high among the plethora of tips offered at the first annual Deans’ Forum on Hispanic Higher Education.
The event drew deans from across the country—from New Mexico to New York—to tackle some of the most pressing issues that confront institutions of higher learning as they seek to serve increasing numbers of Hispanic students.
“There are a lot of students who are first-generation, low-income students for whom college may as well be located on the moon,” said John Moder, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, or HACU.
“They may be aware that there’s a college in their town, but there are a lot of students who never set foot on it, never walked through your gates, who are a little vague on what happens there, that don’t know anybody who went to college, and there may not be anybody in their family or neighborhood that has,” Moder said.
The challenge, Moder said, is to convince such students that “college is a real possibility” — and it starts, he said, with such simple things as inviting students and their families on campus to get a sense of what college life is like.
Moder directed his remarks at 50 or so deans who attended the forum, held as a post-conference event for HACU’s annual conference.
