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Dustin Luca
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The Inaugural New England Hispanic and Minority Serving Institution Conference being hosted by Salem State University on July 18 and 19 has reached its capacity, requiring the closing of the conference’s registration window to end June.
The conference, the first of its kind in New England, will bring together a broad range of Hispanic Serving Institutions, Minority Serving Institutions and emerging Hispanic Serving Institutions to spotlight and prepare to be ready to serve our present and future Hispanic and Latino students. The overarching intent is to close equity gaps and create a higher educational environment where all students can thrive. Participants will learn from local and national experts about the growing Hispanic and Latino population and the importance of Hispanic and Minority Serving Institutions in New England.
“The conference reaching capacity demonstrates what we at Salem State have known: centering the post-secondary educational attainment of Latinos in the Commonwealth must be a priority,” said Christopher Macdonald-Dennis, vice president of diversity and inclusion at Salem State. “Hundreds of educators and administrators from throughout New England will come together to learn from national experts, consider best practices, and build community. Ultimately, this conference will help us build a movement that will transform our campuses into ones that truly serve all of our students.”
Hispanic Serving Institutions are two- and four-year colleges and universities who enroll a diverse student population including more than 25% Hispanic students. These institutions can apply to the Department of Education for the official designation, which allows them to further apply for federal resources. There are 600 HSIs, most of them in the south and western parts of the country, and they represent 20% of all colleges and universities and enroll 63% of all Latino undergraduate students. Salem State is on track to become the first four-year state university in Massachusetts to achieve the designation.
With a capacity of 400 at the Sophia Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts, the conference will feature keynote addresses from Debrorah Santiago, co-founder and CEO of Excelencia in Education, on Thursday and Gina Garcia, a celebrated author on how HSIs can serve students, and professor in the School of Education at UC Berkeley, on Friday.
“Here at Salem State, we have been focused on our emerging identity as an HSI, and we have been learning from nationally recognized speakers and organizations to prepare us to intentionally serve our students,” said Elisa Castillo, assistant vice president for HSI and MSI initiatives. “I am thrilled to bring these scholars and policy experts to campus for the conference so that we can all learn together in community.”
At the conference, participants will hear from and network with educational, government and policy leaders, scholars, students and community practitioners. They will also engage in workshops to reduce equity gaps to help all students thrive and amplify student and community cultural wealth.
“As the Commonwealth’s Civic Engagement University, we embrace our responsibility to provide a transformative educational experience that is rooted in social justice, engages with our community and values our students’ and broader communities’ cultural wealth,” said Cynthia Lynch, assistant vice provost for civic engagement, and executive director of the Frederick E. Berry Institute of Politics. “With a robust program, this HSI and MSI conference will increase our collective capacity to serve our Hispanic and Latino population, support our students as they pursue their academic and life goals, and enhance the public good for the regions we serve.”
The two-day conference has more than 40 partnering institutions, including several community and state colleges from all over New England, the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, the Governor’s Latinx Empowerment Council and the National Science Foundation. It’s funded by the Healey-Driscoll Administration through the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) grant program in support of collaborative projects that advance racial equity. The conference is organized by Bunker Hill Community College, Holyoke Community College, MassBay Community College and Salem State University.
For Castillo, the popularity of the conference is just another example of the escalating demand for colleges and universities to become Hispanic- and minority-serving institutions.
“Currently HSIs are geographically concentrated in the south and western part of the USA, and we have not traditionally focused on HSIs or MSIs here in the Northeast,” Castillo said. “However, the New England area already has 23 Hispanic Serving Institutions, and 42 emerging HSIs. Within this decade, we will see a significant increase in Latino student enrollment and in Hispanic Serving Institutions in our region. This is our time to build our capacity to serve our student population and to learn how to leverage the benefits of being an HSI.”