Engaging Latino students in Undergraduate Business Programs

1. Improved engagement of Latino
students in a business curriculum
Mary Kate Naatus, Assistant Professor
Saint Peter’s College

2. Overview
• Background info & research on HSI’s &
engagement
• Case Study: SPC is a Hispanic-serving Institution
(HSI); 6 years
• Best practices for curriculum delivery & student
engagement
• Strategies for engaging Latino students in
business curriculum/specific courses
– My experience & your suggestions?
• How to measure and track success? Suggestions?

3. My interest
• My first experience teaching was in El
Salvador; worked with Hispanic community in
Newark
• 27% of students at Saint Peter’s College have
Hispanic ethnicity
– Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia, Colombia,
Panama, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico

5. THE HISPANIC ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
(HACU)
• The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) - established in 1986 – 18 schools
• Today - more than 400 colleges and universities committed to Hispanic higher education success in the
U.S., Puerto Rico, Latin America, Spain and Portugal. Although our member institutions in the U. S.
represent less than 10% of all higher education institutions nationwide, together they are home to more
than two-thirds of all Hispanic college students. HACU is the only national educational association that
represents Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs).
• In 1992, HACU led the effort to convince Congress to formally recognize campuses with high Hispanic
enrollment as federally designated HSIs and to begin targeting federal appropriations to those campuses.
• Soon after, HACU and its allies were instrumental in convincing Congress to appropriate money specifically
for HSIs. For the first time ever
– HSIs were granted $12 million in 1995 from federal resources.
– In 2011, $104.3 million were appropriated for the HSI undergraduate program under Title V of Higher
Education Act.
– HACU has recommended $175 million be appropriated for fiscal year 2012.
• Our nation's economic and social success rests on the level of skills and knowledge attained by Hispanics,
now the nation's largest minority population. Education, indisputably, is the key.
Everyone has a stake in HACU’s crucial goals: to promote the development of member colleges
and universities; to improve access to and the quality of postsecondary educational opportunities
for Hispanic students; and to meet the needs of business, industry and government through the
development and sharing of resources, information and expertise.

6. Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI)
African American and Hispanic Student Engagement at Minority Serving and Predominantly
White Institutions
While scholars have examined HBCUs in terms of their educational effectiveness for
African American students compared to PWIs, there is a lack of similar research on Hispanic
students at HSIs and PWIs. This study uses data from the 2003 administration of the National
Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) to investigate whether HSIs appear to serve Hispanic
students in similar ways that HBCUs serve African American students. The results suggest that
the average Hispanic senior at an HSI looks quite similar to the average Hispanic senior at a PWI
in terms of engagement, satisfaction with college, and gains in overall development, in contrast
to the results for African American seniors who are more engaged at HBCUs than PWIs.

7. Challenges
• Hispanic students graduate at lower rates than their
white peers at universities and colleges of all levels. An
average of 51 percent of Hispanic students complete a
bachelor's degree in six years compared to 59 percent for
white students.
• Hispanic students and their families often lack
information about the true cost of college tuition
• An institutional commitment to high levels of retention
and completion for all students is a crucial prerequisite
to maintaining and improving the percentage of Hispanic
students who complete a bachelor’s degree.

8. Swail Retention Model, 2003
• Financial issues
• Educational legacy
Academic rigor • • Attitude toward learning
Quality of learning • • Religious background
• Maturity
Aptitude • • Social coping skills
Content knowledge • • Communication skills
Critical-thinking ability • • Attitude toward others
Technology ability • • Cultural values
Study skills • • Expectations
Learning skills • • Goal commitment
• Family influence
Time management • • Peer influence
Academic-related • • Social lifestyle
extracurricular activities

10. Opportunities
• Increase student engagement, student satisfaction,
graduation rates and career opportunities
– Examine why graduation rates lower; role of socio-economic
status as relevant variable
• Better counseling about available financial aid and also paid
internship opportunities would also help to lower the rate
at which Hispanic students drop out of college for financial
reasons.
• Government aid to colleges and universities for meeting
the “Hispanic-Serving Institution” criteria should be tied to
performance as measured by Hispanic student retention
and graduation rates, rather than simply enrollment rates
as is currently the case.

11. BEAMS project
• Collaborative project between the American Association of Higher
Education (AAHE) and the National Survey of Student Engagement.
Each BEAMS institution administers the National Survey of Student
Engagement twice during the course of the project. At the
conclusion of the project, the campus teams attended the AAHE
Summer Academy to share results and propose interventions.
Because NSSE focuses on student behavior, colleges can use the
data in varying productive ways to 1) guide and monitor
institutional improvement, 2) link information about student
engagement and the teaching and learning environment, 3)
promote student faculty interaction, 4) compare first-year and
senior students experiences, using both cross-sectional and
longitudinal approaches, 5) compare performance against peer
institutions, and 6) verify the need for a first year experience.

12. Saint Peter’s College
• Jesuit – Cura personalis
• 3,000 full-time and part-time
students hailing from across
the country and the globe
• Undergraduate student-faculty
ratio of 13 to 1, class sizes
averaging only 22 students
• Very diverse student body

13. Title V
• SPC received $2.8 million Title V federal grant in fall 2010 under the HSI
Program,
– expand and enhance academic offerings, program quality and institutional stability
for Hispanic students, in addition to improving the attainment of Hispanic students.
• As part of the Title V federal grant, Saint Peter’s College opened the
Center for English Language Acquisition and Culture this April 2012.
– The Center is a full service resource center, which will provide an
interactive study environment to better support ESL students in their
language development.
• The Title V grant will also enable the expansion of thriving academic
assistance programs and activities to successfully integrate Spanish-
speaking students into the College community.
• The grant also involves faculty development on cultural competency and
academic readiness programs in Jersey City high schools.
– Campus climate (may be issue in Latino student persistence to graduation)

14. Characteristics of Latino Students
• Many are first generation college students
– Tend to be loan-averse
– Many work to pay for college, contribute to family income
– Parental support? Understanding?
– Less social capital - norms and social networks that assist in the transfer
of education from one generation to the next (Lopez, ‘96)
– generation to the next
– May have lack of academic preparation; lower performing high schools
• Varied backgrounds – heterogeneous population
– Different countries, cultures, families
– Socio-economic background;
– Hispanic as a demographic identifier vs. deeper
psychological identifier (Argentine, Cuban, Mexican) What is the relationship
between ethnicity and higher
-self-identify and how perceived by others education outcomes?

15. Best Practices
• Culturally Sensitive Instruction & Culturally
responsive teaching
– Defined by Gay (2002) as “using the cultural
characteristics, experiences, and perspectives of
ethnically diverse students as conduits for teaching
them more effectively”
• Student-led Instruction (News Briefs)

16. Best Practices (continued)
• Participatory Action Research (PAR)
• Service Learning courses
• Learning Communities
– Freshmen Interest Groups (Mentor/Advisor)

17. Institutional practices that can lead to high
levels of student engagement
1. Student-faculty interaction—inside & outside the classroom
-one-on-one relationships
2. Reciprocity and cooperation among students, such as having
students work with each other and share ideas collaboratively.
3. Active learning—making learning relate to the students’ daily lives.
4. Prompt feedback- students receive frequent suggestions for
improvement.
5. Teaching students how to use their time effectively.
6. High expectations—communicating to students that they are
expected to perform well.
7. Respect for diverse talents and ways of learning, including
embracing various talents and styles students bring to college.
*Chickering and Gamson (1987)

18. Undergraduate Business Curriculum
• Ideas for engaging not only Hispanic students
but all students
• Allowing individuals to explore and express
identity, values, culture more fully, enhances
learning for everyone
– Mirrors reality of diverse workforce and global
market

19. Culture
• International Marketing
• International Management
– Country specific projects
– Examining Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
• Identifying personal & business examples
• Role of women in societies, hierarchies, relationships-boss,
subordinates = parents, children
• Organizational Behavior
– Locus of control from a cultural perspective
• “Si Dios quiere, primero dios”

20. Leadership
• Exploring personal definitions of ideal leader
– Articulate different cultural perspectives
– Democratic vs. autocratic; able to admit weaknesses
• Use examples they relate to
• Offer suggestions for gaining practical leadership
skills while in college
– Problem of full time jobs; family obligations
interfering with campus organizations and useful
cooperative education experiences

21. Marketing & Consumer Behavior
• Stereotypes vs. creating cultural profiles
• Discuss differences between the generations,
different countries of origins
– Allow students from varied cultures to share with
each other; explore notions of identity & values
• Debates, in-class group assignments—market
segmentation

22. Individual Differences
• Engaging students from all backgrounds
– Self-examination; personal SWOT or strategic plan
– Use of identity maps in faculty training
• Great exercise, understanding colleagues
• Candid student discussions of college struggles
• What about the majority?
People are individuals and
that there are as many variations
within race as there are within
society”

23. Community
• Service Learning
– My experience in Principles of Marketing
– Problem-based model
• Co-ops & Internships
• Research team-Participatory Action Research
– Community engagement, application of business
concepts, professionalism

24. Small business research team
• Students growth in
professionalism,
interpersonal skills, and
business knowledge
• Individualism vs.
collectivism in
businesses; risk-aversion
– May play role in college
persistence
• Vulnerability
– GC story – interaction with
business owners

25. From teaching to motivating
• Personalization; Mentoring
• “When I was in your shoes”
– Decision-making
• Senator Menendez’s personal story

26. Suggestions for Research
• Quantitative + Qualitative
• How to better engage Hispanic (and other
multicultural students) in business courses?
• National Survey of Student Engagement
– Suggested use of data for empirical study?