MiraCosta College is a Proud Hispanic-Serving Institution
In 2013, MiraCosta College received the designation of Hispanic Serving Institution. This significant recognition acknowledges our institution's continuous efforts to support the academic performance and unique needs of Latinx students, many of whom are attending college for the first time or are first-generation. Approximately 38% of MiraCosta College's students and 26% of its staff are Latinx as of the fall of 2021.
Servingness
As more colleges and universities qualify for the HSI, they must consider the most effective methods for actually serving Latinx students. Garcia, Nez, and Sansone (2019) contend that the idea of serving others is a multifaceted and intellectual way to comprehend what it takes to go beyond simply enrolling Latinx students and begin genuinely serving them.
In MiraCosta’s Commitment to a Racially Justice campus environment, the college is embarking upon a Year of Servingness for the 2022-2023 academic year. Through various constituency groups, college community members will have opportunities to engage in reflection and praxis to embody Servingness. The fall 2022 semester will intentionally focus on what it means to be designated as a HSI. This will serve as a launch pad to the spring 2023 semester where the college will engage in praxis to implement and institutionalize a true servingness identity around the HSI designation.
Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU)
MiraCosta College is a member of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities due to its status as an HSI (HACU). More than 470 institutions of higher learning in the United States, Puerto Rico, Latin America, and Spain are represented by HACU. As an active HACU member, MiraCosta College sponsors a student delegation to the annual conference to represent the district. At this conference, our students have the opportunity to network with graduate programs, companies, and students from other colleges and universities around the nation.
Resources to Engage Further
- Defining “Servingness” at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs): Practical Implications for HSI Leaders
- Toward a multidimensional conceptual framework for understanding “servingness” in Hispanic-Serving Institutions: A synthesis of the research
- Constructing an HSI organizational identity at three Hispanic-serving Institutions in the Midwest: Ideal versus current identity
- What does it mean to be a Hispanic-Serving Institution? Listening to the Latina/o/x voices of students. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
- Recognized to Serve: Do (Emerging) Hispanic-Serving Community Colleges Expand Access?
- Supporting Latinx students in Hispanic-Serving Institutions: An exploration of faculty perceptions and actions
- Institutional agents at a Hispanic serving institution: Using social capital to empower students
- Exploring college students’ identification with an organizational identity for serving Latinx students at a Hispanic serving institution (HSI) and an emerging HSI
- Flipping the HSI narrative: An HSI positionality
- Defined by outcomes or culture? Constructing an organizational identity for Hispanic-serving institutions
- Variation Within the “New Latino Diaspora” A Decade of Changes Across the United States in the Equitable Participation of Latina/os in Higher Education
- Enacting a Latino Male-Serving Organizational Identity: The Role of HSI Community Colleges
- Decolonizing Hispanic-serving institutions: A framework for organizing
