How cultural studies help Latino students transfer to universities

Community College Enterprise, The, Fall 2004 by Garc�a, V�ctor, Gonzalez, Laura, Grimes, Geoffrey Allan

Information gleaned from a recent conference on Latinos and Community Colleges, sponsored by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and the PEW Hispanic Center, reveals that for Latinos the community college is their first and last chance at a college education. The majority, however, are not graduating from the community college or transferring to a university. The authors present an innovative FIPSE-funded strategy that retains Latino students in the Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD) and helps them transfer to a university. The model centers around a Cultural Studies course at Mountain View College (MVC) that makes use of ethnography and a field school in its pedagogical approach. Specifically, ethnography is incorporated in the core course to interest Latino students in exploring social problems in their communities with the expectation that the experience will motivate them to continue their education beyond the junior college level.

Introduction

The authors introduce the Mountain View College Cultural Studies Course and demonstrate its effectiveness in overcoming major transfer difficulties. Latino students face social and cultural barriers, fail to understand the relevance of higher education, and are not sufficiently prepared for upper level work.

The article is divided into four parts. The first describes Mountain View College, where the Cultural Studies course is offered. The second section provides an ethnic, demographic, and educational profile of the population in Oak Cliff, the largest Latino barrio in Dallas and a major service area of Mountain View College. The third section examines the low transfer rates of Latino students enrolled in Mountain View College. The final section presents student case studies to illustrate the manner in which ethnography and the field station mitigate transfer barriers.

Dallas County Community College District and Mountain View College

Mountain View College is one of seven campuses in DCCCD. According to the most recent figures from Fall 2002, Latinos account for a little over 20% of the 59,819-member student body distributed across seven campuses (Dallas County Community College District, 2002a). The largest concentrations are on four campuses, Brookhaven College, Mountain View College, El Centro College, and East Field College. However, Mountain View College is the only college in North Texas designated as an Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). DCCCD, similar to other community colleges, offers vocational and technical training, adult continuing education-including English as a Second Language (ESL) courses-as well as academic and transfer programs which award Associate degrees and offer preparation for upper-division course work at universities.

Located in Oak Cliff, Mountain View College attracts Latinos from the surrounding area and non-Latino students from Duncanville, Grand Prairie, and other suburbs in southern Dallas County. The 200-acre campus offers a variety of programs, among them, job training and Associate of Arts degrees for transferring to a university. In all, 6,454 students were enrolled for credits in Fall 2002. Of the total, 2,401, or 37.7%, were Latinos. The majority of the students, 69.4%, are enrolled on a part-time basis, and the remainder on a full-time basis. Irrespective of the high number of part-time students, the majority of the contact hours, 83.7%, are academic, and 6.3% are technical (Dallas County Community College District, 2002a). In addition to the students in academic and certificate programs, there are 1,859 students in the Continuing Education Program at MVC. A little over 47% are Latinos.

The ethnically mixed neighborhood of Oak Cliff, a major service area of Mountain View College, is home to 145,560 Latinos or nearly 42% of the 350, 491 Latinos in Dallas (Census Bureau 2002; 2003a)1. Latinos make up 44.5% of the 326,840 residents, and the majority are Mexican immigrants and their children (Census 2003a). Oak Cliff falls within 12 postal zip codes which cover approximately 200 square miles (Flora Garcia, Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce, personal communication, September 19, 2003). In all, 120,190 Latinos, or 82% of the Latinos in Oak Cliff, live in the five northern zip code areas.

The median household income ranges from $21,993 to $35,135 across the five zip codes in northern Oak Cliff (Census Bureau 2003c). The number of families living below poverty level is between 17.6% (1,294 families) in the most prosperous zip code area to nearly 35% (1,681 families) in the least prosperous area (Census Bureau 2003c). The disparity in median figures across the five zip codes is due to the concentrations of poor and middle class families in different areas. Zip codes with higher median incomes are comprised of older middle class residents who did not join the White flight of a decade ago, and young professionals, who are drawn to the area because of affordable housing. On average, these individuals have higher incomes than Mexican immigrant families and migrant workers.