College Student Guide to Minority Serving Institutions

Q. How did College of Southern Nevada become an HSI?

We have multiple campuses throughout the Las Vegas Valley, and the Department of Education's rules and regulations require that the entire higher education institution hit the mark of 25% Hispanic to qualify as an HSI. At first, however, we were only close to that number at one of our campuses. The president for CSN in 2013 was Mike Richards, and he initiated an internal task force that started our efforts to assess our changing demographics.

When we first started looking at qualifying as an HSI in 2013, we were only at 22-23% Hispanic. We did a large campaign over the summer and discovered we had close to 8% of our students not declaring their ethnicity. This led us to do a large callout for students to declare their ethnicity and explained why. Through that effort, we were able to get our numbers over 25%, and CSN became the first HSI in Nevada.

Q. Why did CSN think it was important to become a minority serving institution?

It was really about building awareness in the institution, as well as what it really means to be of service to our students. Regardless of ethnicity, what does it mean to be of service, and then what does it mean to be an MSI? Being an MSI isn't just about the federal monies that you might qualify to compete for — it's supposed to be a true recognition of who your students are, recognizing what their needs may be, and having focused interventions that may help them be more successful. That involves the entire institution.

Q. College of Southern Nevada is quite diverse: 27.7% Hispanic, 11.3% Black, 10% Asian. It qualifies as both an HSI and an AANAPISI. How does the school balance the cultural needs of all students?

The message has to be that if we qualify to compete for a grant, whether it's an HSI or AANAPISI grant, at the end of the day that money is going to CSN for student learning. Maybe it's a new lab, maybe it's a new accelerated pathway, maybe it's more advisors, but ultimately those services are for all students and no group will be excluded.

Q. How are MSIs different from non-MSIs?

I think MSIs have a culture that develops over time. MSIs also provide additional resources that can help build the retention and persistence of students, as well as other programming that helps with tutorial assistance.

Q. What's an example of how MSIs can better serve minority students?

At CSN, we look at what our overall priorities are and how they benefit our students. For example, if we look at tackling the ESL population, there was a project we took on that had to do with admissions.

In this case, we were discovering and hearing that when we had someone come to admissions with a language barrier, there wasn't really a cohesive way to, for instance, give them a pamphlet and ask, 'Okay, what level are you at?' so that we could triage their needs. Should they be in our non-credit program to reach our high-school equivalency level or should they go to our language lab so that they can get command of the English language first? Or are they someone who could take our college placement test and then take developmental English to get on to the English track?

There are a lot of different options. So, through collaboration with a lot of different departments we discovered that most of our ESL speakers were being funneled through the language lab. We set up advisors to hold hours and orientations at the language lab, so we were meeting the students where they were really at and could then help them further with financial aid and degree choice.

Q. If a student isn't a person of color or a minority, can they still attend an MSI?

Yes. While MSIs do serve specific minority groups, it doesn't mean a school will turn away non-minority students who meet admissions requirements. Being an MSI just means the school has a built-in community for minorities and offers support resources that better understand and meet the unique needs of these student groups. But at the end of the day, an MSI still serves all students.

Q. What are the benefits of attending an MSI if the student isn't a minority?

The biggest benefit is the diversity. Many non-MSIs are very homogenous, and I don't think that's a true reflection of the community most students live in today. Therefore, it's also not a reflection of the community they're going to work in, live in, and be successful in.