In a 2009 study, it was found that 89% of Latinos, 16-25 years, saw college as a vital step towards success. Ironically, only 48% said they planned on attending college. According to data from the Census Bureau, 33% of Latinos ages 18-24 are actually enrolled in school compared with 42% of all young adults ages 18 – 24.

The 2009 National Survey of Latinos released by the Pew Hispanic Center reported possible reasons for this gap between aspirations and actual enrollment & graduation, which included:
1. Students’ desires/need to help financially support their family
2. Lack of direction and mentorship
3. Language barriers
How exactly does financial responsibility and lack of mentorship affect the ability of Hispanic students to attend college?

FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY WITHIN THE FAMILY
Nearly three-quarters (74%) of all 16 to 25-year-olds who cut their education short during or right after high school say they did so because they had to support their family. Most families work as a team, i.e. all family members contribute to the well being of the family. Parents will work to make money and provide food and shelter, while children attend school and make good grades to favorably represent the family.

On the other hand, some Hispanic families will rely on each other to be financially stable. This puts great responsibility and obligation on teenagers when faced with questions such as, “Will I go to college?” “Where will I go to college?” “Dad doesn’t want me to go to college; can I pay for college on my own?”

The answers to these questions are irrelevant, with at least the emotional support of the parents or someone, anyone (!), attending college seem a lot more realistic. Some parents place so much emphasis on basic necessities and being financially stable (TODAY), it is very unlikely that [most] Hispanic students will get the support they need, financially or emotionally.

An Opportunity for Discussion:
Students that successfully applied and enrolled in college now face the need to work and may not have a vehicle.  This could be challenging, time consuming, stressful and may end in bad grades, among other problems. Any thoughts on this predicament?

THE HISPANIC COMMUNITY AND QUALIFIED MENTORSHIP
A study published in 2004 stated that 62% of Hispanics report that neither of their parents went to college. This barrier faced by many Hispanic student implies a lack of strong family support (qualified assistance) during the entire college search and application process. This is a huge responsibility for the student to take on, mentally.

Parents who have not attended college themselves may not have the skills, funding, or social networks to help their child during his/her college search, SAT preparation, and application process. Some families are even unaware of the financial aid available to fund their child’s education and are uncomfortable with completing the Free Application for Student Financial Aid application (FASFA).

My Own Experiences and Opinions as a Hispanic Woman:
This notion that many Hispanics grow up in communities that fail to promote higher education, is something that I personally experienced in my own community while growing up. Thankfully, I have seen some improvements in my old neighborhood’s school system, one that caters primarily to Hispanics.

A Spark of Improvement in the System:
You can imagine my excitement when I see my five-year-old niece wearing a Longhorn t-shirt (UT is my Alma Mater) to school every Friday for College Spirit Day.  Most importantly I am delighted because looking back, at five-years-old, I cannot remember hearing the word college. The fact that my five-year-old niece is exposed to the notion,“Going to college is the next step after high school” is, believe it or not, very impressionable on her young mind and something that has been missing from a lot of the schools within my old neighborhood. Let’s remember that these small changes over time will significantly add up and essentially give students and parents the empowerment (courage and knowledge) needed to conquer such barriers listed above.

An Opportunity for Discussion:
How do we constructively address and change these things that hinder Hispanic students’ education? What do you think the problem is, and of course in order to be constructive, how do you think the problem should be solved?

Glen Baumgart

Today’s Guest blogger is Glen Baumgart, a longtime friend of mine in higher education. Glen has been working with higher education community engagement programs for over 12 years, and  currently serves as the Director of the Volunteer and Service Learning Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

If you work in higher education, then you have heard this line before, “I learned more outside the classroom than in the classroom” as students reflect on what they have learned and how they have grown. There is a lot of truth to that statement. In the classroom, students wrap their minds around theories, concepts, lessons, and content. But it is outside the classroom in student organizations, internships, community service activities, leadership programs, and other experiences where students are challenged with putting this new knowledge into action. And its not just putting knowledge to action, but integrating this new knowledge into the fabric of their lives, their morals, values, goals, and social interactions.

Universities and colleges seem to be well aware of this. Look at any institution of higher learning, and you will see a number of professional positions aimed at outside the classroom learning and programming. And the learning is very intentional. Ask any leadership, housing, community service, career, or programming staff what students learn through their programs, and they are sure to rattle off a laundry list of learning outcomes. But ask how that learning is measured, and you would likely hear staff mention a lack of assessment, or mention reliance on evaluation surveys or on quick reflection discussions. The assessment or measure of learning seems much less rigorous than that of an academic course with its grades, assignments, measures, and evaluations.

But it is possible to beef up the rigor of co-curricular programs in a way that matches the rigor often seen in academic coursework. To do this, we start by looking at the abundant research on college classroom learning. We know what works, and can identify the most important elements in classroom instruction that lead to learning. So, lets apply what works to achieve learning outcomes in the classroom, and apply them to our co-curricular programs.

The following components are used most often by teaching effectiveness professionals in higher education and used in research on classroom learning to help faculty improve their course structures. Lets use these elements, but adjust them to fit or co-curricular programs. Think of it as creating a co-curricular syllabus:

1. Identify the learning outcomes

Sounds easy, but this is likely the hardest part. Most college courses only have three to five learning outcomes – understand this theory, know this lab skill, etc. Three to five, and that’s when the instructor has three hours of student attention per week. In co-curricular terms, its wise to start with just one specific learning outcome. What is the most important learning outcome your program teaches?

2. Evaluation or measurement system

How will the student know they have met the desired outcomes? Try to describe in measurable terms what the learning outcome would look like. Is there a certain behavior? Do students respond to a survey in a certain way? How would they demonstrate the desired outcome?

It is important to start with these two components. It is from here that one build the rest of the co-curricular syllabus.

3. Students MUST understand the learning goals

This is the most missed component in college courses, but one of the most important. If your goal is for students to learn a specific outcome, then tell them that at the start. Students who understand the goals from the start are more likely to cue into the instructional techniques. A good practice for this is to make sure the outcome is part of the recruitment / application process.

4. Estimate prior knowledge

What do the students know in regards to your learning outcome prior to joining the program? A simple survey or questions on an application can help you understand where your students are coming from. In course lingo, we call these “prerequisites”, and most co-curricular programs have them too, but are seldom stated. What experiences or knowledge should the students in the program bring with them? If a certain prior knowledge is important, then that should be part of your recruitment or advertising.

5. Estimate motivation and interest in the learning outcome

Any course should be designed to peak the student’s interest by not being too difficult, but not being too easy either. This is why the prior knowledge is so important. Students must have some motivation or interest in the topic, otherwise it unlikely they will learn. This will help in designing the logistics of the program to help determine what might be boring, or what might be overwhelming. How does your program maximize students’ interest? How will it keep them motivated to finish?

6. Now develop the actual instruction logistics

Huge mistake by instructors and program coordinators alike, we tend to jump into the program’s logistics before we think about learning outcomes, measures, prior knowledge, or motivation. We tend to start creating a program, then looking back to what is being learned. Try, and its hard to do, but try to answer the first five components first before any thoughts on how you’ll do it.

7. Identify the learning moments

Another often missed component in course construction as well as co-curricular. As you plan the instruction, think hard about when instruction is actually taking place. If it’s a course, then you know you have time in a classroom when the instructor teaches, and that assignments must be done for grades. So, it is during these times you know students are interacting with material. In co-curricular it is much harder to identify the time. Some groups meet only once a week. So, during that hour meeting, when is it and under what circumstances do you know students are paying attention to instruction? Is there a time for reflection? What about online chats? Tweets? If you can identify the most likely time the student learns, the more impactful the program will be.

8. Evaluate and adjust

Look at your measurement instruments, your surveys, and make adjustments for next time. Try to be creative in your evaluation. Lets say your learning outcome was the understanding of a certain leadership concept. Then send the students an online survey during the following semester. See if they still have that understanding. If so, success! Now you can really say that they learned that concept.

These steps are often used to help increase the effectiveness in college courses. Shifting them a little, one can use them to help ensure a rigorous learning experience in the co-curricular program.

Also See our interview with Glen when we were on the UT campus this past summer.

Blog by: Angel Quicksey, OrgSync Campus Liaison, Claremont McKenna College

Today’s world is smaller, flatter, and more connected than ever before. Places and people that once seemed remote are now only a click away and virtually right next-door.  Neighbors that once chatted through a fence are now chatting online through a social network such as Facebook, Twitter or AIM. Young people – students, especially – use the internet to stay connected, as it’s easier than ever to reach out to the classmate across campus, parents back home, or even the friend made while studying abroad.

Yet, students can use such technologies to reach out in a different way. Young people on campuses around the world already promote social justice and create change. Clubs raise money for relief actions in war-torn countries, they prod politicians and their fellows to take action on environmental issues, they support campaigns for AIDS relief, clean water, and health care. But if one club on one campus can raise a few thousand dollars for Darfur or Burma or the environment, imagine what could be accomplished if those students came together to accomplish something even greater. This is where social media comes in. Recall what students can do without our new technology:

•    The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s – the group, begun at Shaw University, staged many of the sit-ins and freedom rides of the civil rights movement and had a leading role in the1963 march on Washington.
•    The students of the 1970s and ‘80s who protested apartheid in South Africa – beginning with students of Stanford University in 1974, these young people divestment from companies involved in South Africa during apartheid. By 1988, 155 universities had partially or fully divested funds from the country.

These students saw a need for change and combined their efforts across the nation to guarantee civil rights in America and abroad.

Today, students have even more tools available to them to create social change. Through the internet, particularly social media sites, students can easily spread information by broadcasting videos, photos and headlining news.

The power of these sites has become especially apparent in recent weeks as students and opposition leaders in Iran used Facebook and Twitter to spread their message and capture images, like the death of Neda Agha-Soltan.

While perhaps not facing the same immediate strife as the people of Iran, many college and university students tackle other important issues at home and abroad. Yet, most campus organizations seem to work independently, though they may be working toward a similar goal.  Why not take advantage of this new age of social networking and connect with others at your college, in your area, or in a similar branch of your club? Then, once these connections are established using social media, you can create larger events, campaigns and movements that will greatly impact your campus, your nation and even the world.

Blog by: Daniel Ware, OrgSync Campus Liaison, University of Alabama

As many know friendships that are made in college tend to be friendships that last years even after college. Now many colleges and universities are jumping on the bandwagon to make on campus living mandatory for freshmen. Many freshmen are being put into dorms with large amounts of students, and it is up to the freshmen and their Resident Assistants (RA’s) to build a community among themselves.

When asked what he believed helps build a strong community, James Wright, an RA at Paty Hall at the University of Alabama, said:

“Communication between residents and RA’s is absolutely crucial to building a strong and functional community. In halls such as Paty, where constant exposure leads to understanding and frequent communication by word of mouth, flyers, and Facebook, the foundation of good community is easily laid. However, in halls like Riverside, where the most communication a resident can expect is a note; community is not as strong.”

Residence halls usually use flyers to pass on information to students, but unfortunately they are often thrown away and sometimes not even read.  In addition, they can amount to a huge waste of paper, and many schools are beginning to support going green. Word of mouth sometimes can be a good tool for communication in small residence halls but are less affective for larger dorms. Also, the main message tends to get distorted as people relay the message to other people; kind of like the elementary school game, telephone.

Facebook, email, and other on-line tools are usually the best line of communication for college residents and their RA’s.  Most students use social media outlets such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter and usually check them often.  The tools are online and so are the students, so residence halls can easily keep students updated on involvement opportunities and build a community around residence hall life.