Dominican College of California in San Rafael has been awarded $3 million federal grant to extend entry and help for Latino college students.
The college mentioned the five-year grant from the U.S. Division of Schooling will permit it to supply on-campus applications for highschool college students; develop a summer season bridge program for incoming first-year college students and their households; and streamline the switch course of for group faculty college students.
The award is amongst 78 such grants awarded throughout the nation this yr. The funding was introduced on Sept. 29, eight months after the federal authorities designated Dominican as a “Hispanic-serving establishment,” or HSI, based on Mojgan Behmand, a vice chairman and dean on the college.
Along with increasing help for Latino undergraduates earlier than, throughout and after their faculty expertise, the college says, the grant will assist improve engagement with group organizations corresponding to Canal Alliance in San Rafael and Bridge the Hole Faculty Prep in Marin Metropolis.
“We are going to proceed to domesticate core partnerships in underserved native communities primarily based on mutual studying and reciprocity, creating sturdy studying and intentional experiences for college kids in the neighborhood, resulting in paid internships, jobs, and finally, satisfying careers,” Behmand mentioned.
The particular targets of the grant embrace growing the Latino undergraduate inhabitants by 10% inside 5 years. Dominican has 1,374 undergraduates and about 25% establish as Latino.
Even earlier than the scholars turn into undergraduates, the college will use the grant cash to develop its outreach to Latino highschool college students and college students at Faculty of Marin or different group schools who would possibly need to switch to Dominican to finish a four-year diploma.
The college can also be upgrading its help to assist college students end faculty and launch careers.
“Over the subsequent 5 years, we plan to extend the variety of first-time, first-year Hispanic college students who full their undergraduate diploma inside six years by 5%,” mentioned Leah Ozeroff, an administrator on the faculty. “That's up from a baseline of 68% in 2021.”
Latino college students can even obtain help within the type of “integrative coaches,” Ozeroff mentioned. Integrative coaches are college or workers members who dedicate 25% of their work time to teaching college students in small teams or one-on-one.
“Dominican presently has 14 integrative coaches,” Ozeroff mentioned. “With this grant, we are going to add two extra coaches to serve Hispanic and switch scholar populations, and an extra 10 peer mentors — together with scholar stipends for these peer positions.”
The grant can even fund a full-time Latino scholar programming coordinator to work particularly with potential and present Latino college students, in addition to their households, Ozeroff mentioned.
Nicola Pitchford, the college president, mentioned now could be a important time to increase the advantages of a four-year campus expertise to underserved college students.
“COVID-19 has ravaged the Hispanic group and different communities of shade,” Pitchford mentioned. “Because of this, college students are delaying — and in lots of instances abandoning — their desires of upper training.”
Based on Pitchford, Latino residents are the most important and quickest rising ethnic minority in the US. On the identical time, they're half as more likely to maintain a university diploma as non-Hispanic White adults, she mentioned.
“For too lengthy, many Hispanic college students have had scarce entry to small, residential campuses the place interplay with college is frequent and studying alternatives exist round each nook,” Pitchford mentioned. “Hispanic college students are disproportionately enrolled in two-year applications in group schools, the place there's a notion of larger match and affordability.”
The training hole is widening, she added. In fall 2020, U.S. Latino larger training enrollment dropped greater than 5% and first-time enrollment amongst Latino college students fell nearly 20%.
Dominican’s efforts will assist offset that development by being a “four-year college the place Hispanic college students from Marin and neighboring counties can thrive,” PItchford mentioned.
Britney Gutierrez Calderon, a nursing scholar at Dominican and the primary particular person in her household to go to varsity, mentioned the assistance she acquired from the college earlier than attending, and for the final two years she has been on the faculty, has been important in her success.
“My mother and father didn't go to varsity and didn’t know the way to advise me about faculty or assist me navigate the system after I was making use of to varsity,” mentioned Calderon, 20, a junior. “It was one thing that I needed to do myself.”
Beginning in her first yr, Calderon mentioned, she participated in a collection of group engagement initiatives via Dominican which have modified the course of her life and her emotions in regards to the potential for constructive civic affect by Latino folks.
A 2020 graduate of San Rafael Excessive Faculty, Calderon grew up in and nonetheless lives within the Canal neighborhood, a predominantly Latino space a few mile from the Dominican campus.
Final yr, Calderon helped a group group, Voces del Canal, enchantment to the San Rafael Metropolis Council to get extra avenue lighting within the neighborhood. The request was profitable.
“This work modified my view of my group,” Calderon mentioned.
“More often than not we're informed that we're a part of a marginalized group and that time period is utilized in a really unfavourable method,” she mentioned. “However working with Voces del Canal on the road lighting challenge, I noticed so many belongings that my group has, and the way the members of my group have been additionally leaders.”
This yr, she was employed as a summer season intern to assist Canal Alliance register younger voters.
“I used to really feel that voting didn't matter, however via this internship I've been capable of see that voting is essential, particularly for the Latino group, to obtain the correct training and to need to make your voices heard,” she mentioned.
“We have to get the Latino group to comprehend that modifications are doable, however they should vote to make the modifications occur,” Calderon added. “Voting is not only essential to 1 particular person but in addition to the folks round them.”
Calderon expects to graduate in 2024 with a nursing main and a minor in group motion and social change.
“Latinas and Latinos also can turn into nurses, engineers, docs or no matter it's they need to turn into,” Calderon mentioned.
“I do need others to grasp that first-generation college students have it more durable in some ways,” she added. “To not undermine the arduous work of others, however there are issues that we should work at a little bit bit more durable just because we're the primary in our household to do it and don’t have somebody guiding us or handing one thing on to us.”
Cash from the federal grant can even help a $7.9 million challenge underneath development on Dominican’s campus, the Heart for the Dominican Expertise, which opens subsequent fall. The middle will home an workplace for group engagement and partnerships, a scholar success middle and a digital portfolio lab, amongst different sources.