Reaching out to Hispanic families; develop a realistic communication model, and your school can build a richly diverse campus

University Business, June, 2004 by Howard Greene, Matthew Greene

We believe one of the project's strengths is that almost all of the materials associated with it were produced in EngLish and Spanish. Visit the Web site (www.pbs.org/tenstepstocollege) and you will see that visitors can toggle between languages. Spanish is also accessible through the user's guide, closed captioning for the television program, and dual-Language capacity on the VHS or DVD versions of the show. On the DVD, viewers can select closed captioning or dubbing. Our second program, Paying for College with the Greenes, is being produced by the same team--again, with the emphasis on making sure the materials are accessible to Spanish-speaking students and families.

PRINCIPLE #2: SHARING THE CHALLENGE

Families and institutions of higher education must share the challenge of making sure much needed information is accessed. A Shared Agenda: A leadership Challenge to Improve College Access and Success, the recent report from the Pathways to College Network (www.pathwaystocollege.net), contains its own key principles, and an excellent summary of ways in which educators can help families of aLL backgrounds set and achieve educational goals, including college entrance and graduation. Two of the study's own principles are notable here: Principle Three states that families should be involved in supporting learning, and "students' social and cultural contexts" -should be affirmed by educational institutions. Principle Two supports our own discussion about getting the message out, and maintains that "Language-accessible college planning and financial aid information" should be made available. In our opinion, success with families must be based on working to make the availability of language-accessible information more of a reality. Incorporating the family into the college admissions, enrollment, and retention programs at your college will provide an essential linkage for students and parents. But more specifically, making materials available in Spanish will address the broad Hispanic student population.

GETTING THE COLLEGE INVOLVED

A number of the supporters of the Pathways to CoLLege Network are working directly on these efforts to surmount these obstacles, including funders like the Lumina Foundation for Education (www.Luminafoundation.org) and student loan organizations such as the Sallie Mae Fund (www.salliemae.com). Professional organizations such as the National Association for CoLLege Admission Counseling (www.nacac.com), the National Association of Secondary School Principals (www.nassp.org), and the State Higher Education Executive Officers (www.sheeo.org) are also taking part.

Yet, individual colleges and universities can play an essential role in making their enrollment programs more accessible to students of various Hispanic backgrounds, and they must. How many colleges have dual-language Web sites? What about viewbooks, brochures, catalogs, and financial aid information? Materials produced by the federal or state governments and education agencies are often available in Spanish, but most colleges produce only a small brochure, if anything, in Spanish. Clearly, in an institution at which aLL or most of the teaching is done in EngLish, a prospective student must have sufficient EngLish-Language skills to succeed. But from an educational, marketing, and recruiting standpoint, colleges can greatly assist Hispanic parents and students by creating a more welcoming and comprehensible front door.