The Impact of Culturally Relevant Academic Advising - Adventures in Advising

Dr. Gabe Bermea, visiting scholar at the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions interviews Dr. Nicole Gonzalez, director of the advising resource center at University of Arizona and Lina Anastasovitou, doctoral candidate at National University on the unique experiences of Latino students in higher education. The panel explores the role of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), strategies for retention and completion, and the impact of culturally relevant academic advising.

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Transcript

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Matt Markin  
Hello and welcome back to the Adventures in Advising podcast. This is Matt Markin, and this is episode 109, and on today's episode, I'm turning it over to our guest host, and that is Dr. Gabe Bermea from the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions. Last time Gabe was on the podcast, it was episode 82 titled connecting AI and Academic Advising, which I really enjoyed that conversation, Gabe. So, if you haven't listeners, go back and check out that interview. But Gabe, welcome back to the podcast.

Gabe Bermea  
Thank you so much, Matt. Super excited to be here to discuss Latinos in academic advising and Hispanic serving institutions. It is very much a subject that is very near and dear to my heart, that is really where my research interests lie with the Rutgers Center. I spent so much my career studying how MSI, especially Hispanic serving institutions, can better support Latino students. So I'm also deeply involved with NACADA, working with two advancing advising strategies that are culturally responsive and equity focused. So today's topic is right in line with both personal and professional interests. Today I'm really thrilled to be joined by two incredible guests who bring a wealth of experience and insight into the topic of Latino student success in higher education and the role of Hispanic serving institutions, or HSIs in the world of academic advising. So we have Lina and Nicole. I'll pass it off to Lina to do a quick introduction of yourself and tell us about yourself.

Lina Anastasovitou  
Thank you. Gabe. Lina Anastasovitou, pronouns, she/her. I'm currently a doctoral candidate at National University. I took some time off from professional work to complete my dissertation. I'm also a co chair of the scholarly activities group of NACADA's Hispanic and Latina Student Success Community. And I work with Gabe and Nicole with that one. So I'm really excited to be here.

Gabe Bermea  
Thank you so much, Lena, we're excited that you're here with us, too. Nicole, Dr. Gonzalez, if you will, offer an introduction.

Nicole Gonzalez  
My name is Nicole Gonzalez, and I am I work at the University of Arizona. Currently, I'm director of the advising Resource Center here on campus, and I have been in the advising field for 16 years, some of it has been actual academic advising, and the other is an advice advising administration. So I well versed in both fields and how to support students in administrative the end, as far as advising. I'm born and raised in Arizona. I'm from Nogales, which is a border town in from Mexico and Arizona, great foods that are having a chance to make it down to Nogales. I suggest you enjoy the wonderful food that we have to offer. Yeah, and I'm excited to be in this podcast showcasing the importance of Latino student success throughout the country. What we can do, identify approaches and help the advising community and all institutions support something that I know, that I'm very passionate about, and I know my colleagues came and Lena both are very passionate about.

Gabe Bermea  
Thank you so much, Nicole. Thank you both for joining us today, and our listeners, we're excited to dive into this conversation. So let's get started. Lina and Nicole, we've had lots of conversations over the past year. Crazy to say right past year. So to start us off, can you share your thoughts on the unique experiences of Latinos in the US, and then going a little bit deeper, how these broader societal trends shape the pathways Latino students take into higher education.

Lina Anastasovitou  
I can start off with something kind of a hot topic these days, the immigration status and policies, even though there are several others other trends that influence the Latino education, yeah, that comes as number one for me, because I've been talking when I was working in a Hispanic Serving Institution, I was talking with students, and we had a large percentage of undocumented students. There was always that stress and fear with all the policies and the new laws that are coming up in immigration, are we going to be deported? Are we going to stop our educational path? They were so much inspired to continue with education, but that always affected that the educational track and so that cannot allow students to make any long term educational plans or career plans. Let's say that they finish with a degree. What's happening with careers? Can they work in this country if laws are changing? I know that well. I worked in California. It was very friendly to undocumented students. But not all states are like that nationwide. So that's why I wanted to mention that first, I can let Nicole go on on one, and we can go back and forth.

Nicole Gonzalez  
Yeah, great. Thank you, Lina. And I think that's a very important topic, because it's never, it's never mentioned, right? It's called. To constantly change as administration changes. So there is no there's no peace for a student who is a Dreamer or a DACA, right? They will constantly be worried about what the next administration is going to to do to either support or not support them in their educational goals, right aside from the immigration, many barriers that exist thinking, you know, talking about the language barriers, systematic socio economic disadvantages, you know, lack of capital, of social and academic capital that other other legacy students have, you know, that influence them and support them when they go into higher education, right? The representation like, who's in your college, who's instructing, who's directors, who's creating these programming, the sense of belonging? Are there spaces students usually feel like they are not part of an institution. Specifically, if it's a predominantly white institution, right, they don't feel welcome. They don't feel like that is their space, when they very well should be made to feel like that is their space, and they should have a seat at that table wherever they go.

Lina Anastasovitou  
I also wanted to mention financial challenges. I've talked to many students on campus that they have a real challenge completing their FAFSA application. For example, nobody can show them from their families, because most of them are first generation students. So there is leave. They're missing on financial aid because of maybe some errors on the application, or they're missing some important documentation, so that does not go through properly. And then I'm going to mention again, the undocumented students with the limited financial options available. Then another factor is a lot of Latinx students. They have to work too many part time jobs, along with being a student, so overloaded with that much of a time concentrated on work to support their families that can be a challenge, an impediment to their academic performance and continue with their education.

Gabe Bermea  
Thank you both so much. You really spoke a lot about, of course, immigration being a significant component for some of our Latino students that are specifically our HSIs, who are along the borders of our, of our, of our country, who often have those experiences. And that certainly impacts the long term planning conversations, right, the financial aid conversations and much more. Right? I go with that. Whether they're a DACA student or a dreamer student, that's, that's, that's, that's hugely impactful. I think you also hit the nail on their head about talking about language barriers. You know, Spanish, you know is, is the language of our Latino community, right? And so that plays a significant role in how an institution can help build culture, help build trust along the way. You talked a lot about social and economic capital and academic capital in those spaces, and how our students leverage that and work through that. Representation is a big one, as well as I think about my undergraduate experience, I believe I had like one Latino professor in my entire undergraduate experience, you know, but when I met him, he totally shifted my direction of my career, you know, shout out. If you're listening to this, right? That was a big one. You know, FAFSA sense of belonging. And then, of course, working full time or part time, you know, with number of jobs, while at the same time, I would say balancing family obligations and responsibilities right is part of that. And you can, you begin to see how some of our Latino population has a lot of post traditional characteristics, rather than the traditional undergraduate student, right? Kind of want to take it back up to a little bit of a, you know, of a 103,000 300,000 foot level of like we know today that Latinos are. The enrollment of Latinos has surged 131% over the last 20 years, right? There's a major investment in this community to pursue their education and to earn their degrees. We also know that today, they represent about one in five undergraduate students. You know, that's 20% right? Latinos are 20% of today's American higher education population, so that presents a wonderful opportunity for thinking how institutions can be more intentional in their efforts to serve our population. I want to do a quick transition, because you guys talked about some really great like things specific in higher education and what our students are, what our Latino community students are experiencing when they enter the halls of academia, right the halls of the wall, the campus of a college or university. You know, we've talked about some significant challenges. Now, you've identified quite a bit of those. How can an institution address them, these challenges and support Latino students so that they can be successful? So we're thinking about the language barrier, or you're thinking about the representation or the FAFSA sense of belonging. We're. Are some things that institutions can do to support their students.

Nicole Gonzalez  
I'll go ahead and start with this one. I think it's really important to acknowledge the student itself, the student population, to make them feel welcome and that and that means in various spaces, in the place, spaces on campus, classrooms, student unions, what cultural spaces are available for them to stop by. Instructors. You know professors, you know what are. How are they teaching? Are they being supportive of these students that sometimes might have a language barrier? We often talk about barriers, but if we shift those that thought from barriers to assets, right? When you think about us cultural wealth theory and what these students have to offer, they're not disadvantages, they're very much assets, and they bring a lot to the university, if the university administration takes a look at that, right, we know that many students had to navigate, had to use they're mostly bilingual, right? They mostly speak English and Spanish, so they have been communicating for their parents, if not for grandparents or any other familiar support system, right? They're aspirational. They know that they want a little bit better. They know they want to just make their generation just a little bit better to help provide even for their parents, right? Or their support system. It's not so much whether there's their future families, that they have families at that moment or not, but it those are assets. Those are not barriers. And institution needs to acknowledge this. So what are how are they doing it? Are they creating the spaces? What are the career services centers in institution doing to address this. How can we add those to resumes, right? How can we include those communication skills in in the resume, so that they can be better, so they can use those as soft skills, right? When they when they try to promote themselves in in interviews and so forth.

Lina Anastasovitou  
Nicole, you mentioned a well rounded list there of strategies to support, and I want to stay a little bit about the learning communities that I experienced, the effect, the positive impact of learning communities on campus. They create a nice support network for students, and the number one for students, all students, not only Latinx and Hispanic students, is how to feel connected, the sense of belonging. They want to know that they belong there in that campus community and those learning communities, especially living learning communities, for those students who live on campus, they have a great influence. Then another very positive experience that I had in my previous institution in California was pairing students with faculty and peer mentors. They helped them tremendously how to navigate the campus culture, having an active engagement with the Latinx Student Center, that was a great opportunity for students, and they enjoyed not only the social connection, but also, I can remember from my previous institution, we had academic advisors or career advisors offering dropping hours during that time, So it kept all the students connected holistically, academic career, campus life, personal, social, everything was there. So it's it's also, I've seen students, when they talk to professors who they saw representation of their culture, they aspired to be great professionals, or perhaps be a faculty when you know, follow that path, the academic path in their careers.

Gabe Bermea  
What I like about what summarizes quite a lot about what you've said both of you, what you've said is just get to know your student population. Get to know your Latino population, right? Ask them, learn about them, right? Don't just, you know, don't know about them. Get to know them, right? There's a there's a subtle difference, right? I can say, Oh, I know about all Latino population on campus based off of this data, but get out there and get and meet them. You know, get to know the community. Get to know your students. Know who you're, who's coming onto campus, and, you know, listen to their stories. Listen to their experiences, because each one of them will bring a value to your point. Nicole an asset based approach to to what makes your campus that much better. You know, in my in my and again, I acknowledge my bias as a Latino, right? I know that's intrinsically there, but I also think that to be true, right? It's just get to know your population so you can help address the opportunity, create the opportunities that they're seeking because they signed up for those opportunities, but also know what potential challenges they're experiencing, and that you can get ahead of that right? If you know who your population is, one of the big things that we see is constantly or that is constantly in conversation are our retention and completion rates for our Latino population in the US. Uh, over the last 10 years, there have been a lot of significant efforts for institutions to close that equity cap that exist, you know. And the fact of the matter is, over the last 10 years, that equity gap just has stayed constant. It's not closing, you know, the way we hope it would that speaks to we know our enrollment is increasing. It's increased 131% over the last 20 years, right? So we know we're going in droves. Our population is enrolling, but we're just not graduating and being retained at the levels that we need to be to earn our degrees. Right? When you think about kind of switch a little bit to HSIs, right? When we think about HSIs, which are Hispanic serving institutions, let's first define HSI. So we know an HSI is a federal designation. It is. Some have argued it's a political construct, because it's a legislative designation. Others have said they're racialized institutions because they recognize ethnicity and race as part of their identity. Those are both from excelencia for the politicized lens, as well as Dr. Gina Garcia for the racialized lens, right in her scholarship. And these are institutions that must have an undergraduate population, who I did 25% or more at the undergraduate level, full FTE that identify as Hispanic, they must be a higher education institution and a not and must be nonprofit, right? So that's the federal definition of an HSI. When you think about HSIs and even other institutions, what strategies have you seen that are working effectively to improve these retention and graduation outcomes. And are there any gaps that you think that still need to be addressed beyond just the graduation completion and retention rates?

Nicole Gonzalez  
Yeah, I think coming from the University of Arizona, I have to say that I have a phenomenal HSI department here on campus, and they work closely with our Ana Adalberto Guerrero Center, which is our Latinx Resource Center, and they both come together to create a powerhouse of initiatives that support our students here on campus. The idea of serving us is very big in HSIs, right? So how are we serving our students? What are we doing to provide them what they need, whether it's early outreach when they're in high school, parental support, right? Workshops for parents, what are they doing? What are we teaching at this point? Not so much teaching, but what are the what are the students going through at this moment? What should students expect, or What should parents expect when the student calls them and say, I'm getting ready for a midterm? Most of these parents don't understand what a midterm means, right? So this is a very important quick lesson for parents, so that they can both be involved in the student's life. We understand that for Latinos, the familial support is big, so let's leverage that. How can we use our parental support, our family support, to support our students? Right? We have, we include our families at the University of Arizona, we are our Latino Center. We have a group called amigas, which means that we understand that you're coming into a PWI predominantly by an institution. So it might be a little bit different for for you that high school was right. So let's address the issue ahead, and you're going to feel a little bit different, but you shouldn't feel a little bit different. There's ways of you to make friends. There's ways of you to feel belong, if you belong on this campus. So I think it's really important for for administration and campus leaders to all get together to understand, you know, yes, there's might be some barriers, but that doesn't define the student. We should be able to support the student. We should be able to remove those implicit bias that we have the student is because we see, oh, Lopez. Guerrero, Gonzalez, whatever, that we are going to assume that they are not going to be successful. No, we should be able to include them. Say, just because of that, you know you should be successful, and you do have a right to learn. You have a right to succeed.

Lina Anastasovitou  
One strategy I wanted to mention is the blocked scheduling. Schedule students taking the same classes when they first start the in their first year, then that builds a huge community with them. They see the same people in the same classes. They go outside together, they study together. They form informal study groups, and they help each other. So that I found in my previous institution was, it has been very successful strategy. And I also wanted to talk a little bit about the family engagement. Nicole, you're absolutely right. The family support, taking advantage of the support of the of the family and friends, because they're the students are so much connected. Date with their family, keeping them informed what's happening in their students life, just sending them an academic calendar. What time of the semester is this one? What is your student experiencing? And how can they support invite them in everything like any except for the open house and orientation that they're kind of the milestones of a student throughout the year, having some events so we can welcome the parents and their families and recognize the support of the student. That's really important.

Gabe Bermea  
I think you bring up an interesting point about not just the asset based approach to what the family brings to the college experience for our popular community, but allowing the institution to respect that dynamic. And, you know, I would say, come to orientation, you know. And my my position would be, you know, let's not split the family right from the student mindset. My orientation be, bring them together. That would be a dream, I guess, in some in some ways, right, to have the family and the student go through orientation together, rather than separately, a family orientation and the student orientation. So that, because that's the student support, right, the family is the support of the student. So for me, that should be respected from the onset. I've also thought about, like, some of the distinction of what we need to teach them independence. And for me, I'm like, I understand independence, but my culture is about interdependence, right? And for me, that's a that's a value, in my opinion, that I want to maintain. So I want to keep that in my, in my in my personal educational experience. That's for me, though I will acknowledge that. So I think some really great strategies that you talked about are, you know, of course, the peer mentorship, that's huge. You talked about, the block scheduling Lena and, you know, learning communities, living, learning communities for institutions that are really looking for some evidence based practices. One of the resources that I like to put out there is excellency as growing what works database. You know, they have over 20 years of data of programs that have proven to be effective in serving Latino students, right? And they are evidence based. So these, I think that's what makes this so great, is they're not best practices. They're not promising practices. It's we know that these have proven to be impactful. And as as Deborah Santiago has always said, You know what we know works for Latino students. We know works for everybody else, when all boats arise, right? When we know we're doing that kind of work, let's get to HSI is a little bit a little more in depth here. HSI is themselves are very unique set of institutions. They represent. About 600 Hispanic serving institutions are in the US today, which is about 20% of all higher education institutions. They enroll 63% of the Latino students in higher education today. 63% of Latinos are enrolled at HSIs. That is significant. They have a major role in advancing Latino student success in higher education, right? So my question for you is, how do you see, how do you both see HSI shaping the future of higher education for Latino students, and what more can these institutions do to enhance their impact?

Nicole Gonzalez  
I think HSIs have done enough research to understand the Latinos in higher education and the barriers and the issues that the experience they've had, you know, evidence that some things are not working in institutions, and we understand what is not working. So if we understand that, then we can work with it and create spaces. We can create policies. We can create a culture that understands within curriculum, within extra or co curricular activities across campus, creating clubs and organizations that keep students motivated, that keeps students engaged, that keeps students wanting to come back right, not because they feel left out, but because there's space for them, and there's a purpose for them to pursue and finish their degree. So HSIs are are delving into the importance of what needs to happen and what we need to do. And like you said earlier, it's not about just HSI is about Hispanic students. It's about all students, right? Everybody can use this. We have hsic skills. We understand that there are the largest minorities and college campuses. But it's not something that this is directly directed to, it to Hispanic and Latino students. Is directed to everybody, and everybody can leverage from the policies and the implementation of success strategies at higher education institutions.

Lina Anastasovitou  
And I can mention the long educational journey for Latinx students from the time that, from the time of the access in higher education, until they go into the career field, it's I see there's a long timeline for the student. How. Is higher education accessible for them, HSI can bring that to the to the population by several ways of admitting those students and helping them enter higher education and then create customized support while they're there, create that sense of belonging with a cultural piece, taking advantage of the assets they bring to the community, and then connecting them with a large, a huge Latino network of professionals, having them aspire to become role models themselves. But also having partnership with community organic organizations, the institution I worked with, there were several community organizations with strong ties with the university, just connecting students with alumni in those networks. It's really important. And because we're going to transition to the gaps, unless Nicole has another strength or positive, I can go to one of the gaps that I've seen, it's the lack of diversity in hirings, really faculty and staff administrators. How many Latinos do you see holding administrative positions? How many deans or presidents, every time I see something on LinkedIn, people celebrating that because one person from the culture has that leadership position, but that should not be something exceptional. So students see all that. Where are they? Who is the Latinx community representation in those leadership positions? So that works both ways. Celebrating those leadership positions, the people who hold them, but also creating aspirations in the student minds. So I think that that's a gap that has not been covered yet. Who is helping the Latino faculty with their tenure track process? It's a lengthy process. It's a rigorous process. Do they have a mentor response, or somebody who can tell them how they can become tenured faculty? So I think that's another gap area we need to explore and support that group.

Gabe Bermea  
I think you make a really great point, Lina, about the representation of like as an area of opportunity that exists for HSIs because, of course, representation, we believe, impacts student success, right, in and of itself, right? The other gap that I was thinking about was some of my research on post completion success is, I think HSIs have done a great job to your point about access. I think they're, they're mobilizing to enhance retention and completion. We've seen them, at least the ones that I've worked with, we're seeing them operationalize themselves in a different way to ensure post to ensure completion as well as retention increases. But the other thing I think about is post completion success, right? And how HSIs are ensuring that their students are successful after they complete, right? That's a gap, especially in today's conversation about the return on investment in higher education and or the value of higher education. Those complete, those those completion success metrics, whatever they may be defined by the student or the institution, are major opportunities for HSIs in and of themselves. So yeah, let's switch gears to what we all love, and I will say our bias of advising, right? We are on the adventures in advising podcast, you know. So let's talk a little bit about advising, right? HSI, as we know, already enroll 63% of the Latino population in higher education. That means those advisors are responsible for advising 63% of the Latino population in higher education today. The amount of influence advisors have on this specific population is mind blowing to me, when you think about it that way, right? When you shift it from saying enrolling to advising, that's a major influence for a population that is on the rise in the United States and continues to be on the rise. Right? Advising is such an important process and a pivotal role in a student's academic journey. You know, when advising Latino students as you guys, think about your practice as I think about mine, what are some key factors advisors should keep in mind when they're supporting their Latino students, would be my first question. And then my second question for you would be, how can we as advisors Empower Latino students, both academically and personally? 

Nicole Gonzalez  
I think in most institutions, advisors are the most constant person that a student will see, right and they can go to the financial aid counter, they'll experience a new person. Will go to a registrar's office, they'll experience a new person, depending on the advising structure in each college. But most institutions, the advisor will be the most constant person that the student will visit throughout their experience at their university. So it's important for the advisor to form that and. Relationship with the student, right? Understand the student. Understand that not, not all Latino students are the same. They all have different stories. All have different backgrounds, and getting to know them, because getting to know them is going to be leveraged for us, right? How to support them when we know that they might be slipping a little bit, you know, because it's they can't go back home because it's a grandmother's birthday and they can't go, no, are very big in our family, right? But they can't go because they have a midterm, you know? How does that impact their family? And what can they do? We have to talk about having those conversations that sometimes they don't get at home. What are you planning to do after graduation? Are you planning to go to work field? Are you planning to pursue a graduate program? These questions sometimes might have not been asked so they're still contemplating the idea of like, well, do I go back to school and what does that do for my career? You know, is it beneficial for me to invest two more years financially? Is it, you know, can I do this? Can my family support me while I'm still there? There's a lot of questions, and so these these conversations need to happen, not their last semester of their senior year, right? They should be happy happening earlier on, right? Get the student talking, get the student thinking, getting the student to feel comfortable in your space that, yes, that you care about my wellness. You're not here just to tell me that I have to take English 101, and math and this class, no, like you really are invested in my wellness and that, I bet you make a student want to come back and talk to you about their plans and their goals.

Lina Anastasovitou  
Couple of considerations I wanted to mention is, like I said, before, it's what students bring on the table. The advisors need to be aware and recognize what the students bring with them, and also take advantage of those assets to help them navigate college. Maybe they've, they have, they have excelled in high school in something that there is a parallel in college. So the advisor with conversation, they can bring that strength during the conversation and help the student overcome some current challenges. Another thing that is really something that I experienced in my previous institution. Is the overload in the work of a student. When a student is doing two and three jobs, where is the time for academic work? Where is the time to attend classes? Advisors need to recognize that work academic life balance and social, personal life balance as well. And I've seen sometimes advisors, they're trying to push students to finish within four years. And for some students, it's not possible. Just take it case by case. Listen to the student. What do they have on their plate? Maybe they have family responsibilities. They need to support their families. Maybe they have other obligations. You do that for every student, not the specific population, but especially with Latinx students, there is a sense of a strong obligation to the family if they want to support the family. So take that into consideration when you push them to take how many credits per semester. So create a specific timeline for that student according to what they have on their plate. So in other words, just let them finish college when they're ready. 

Nicole Gonzalez  
Lina, I think you're being a very important aspect and practice there, understanding the student and what their responsibilities outside of school. We want them to succeed. We really want to narrow that achievement gap. We have to understand that the student is going through the ride outside of school. And my personal value is, is also like yours. I if a student can only take two classes a semester, let them it's better that they take two classes, instead of trying to force a full time schedule when they have three jobs, when we know they're going to fail, we're setting it up for failure. So and not all students. Maybe some students will be able to take care of that, but those are the conversations that you have to have with the student, right? Like, yes, you can take two classes, but are you okay belonging your graduation date? Is that fine with you? Do you see an issue with this? And have the student understand and make those have those conversations, and the student decide what benefits their families, right? Another thing too is that we see the lens of students from 18 to 24 year olds, but there's returning adults that are coming in to higher ed, whether it's because they want to improve their work conditions they want to get a promotion, maybe they never got to finish a bachelor's degree when they were 18 to 24 years old, right? So understanding those family dynamics as well. How do we support them? How is institution supporting our adult learners in various capacities? 

Gabe Bermea  
I think you both make excellent points of just the notion that you as an advisor, you've got to recognize that your Latino students are more than their education, right there. They have lives outside of their institution that are that you may not fully understand, right? Which gets me to the next thing of you know, you've got to recognize that the student is the expert in self and the cultural context in which they operate. That's it. You gotta respect that, right? So, yes, they've got family responsibilities. Why they made a choice to take two credits? Well, you know, my grandmother is XYZ and my grandfather is XYZ and I'm also working. Okay, that's their context that's in which that they're operating. They know best how to manage that context, you know. And again, we have, we look through the lens of of, you know, 1824, year old, traditional college students more often than not. But our our community, needs to be more of a post traditional lens, right? And we got to adjust that lens along the way, right to the second to the third point of yes, our students hold unique identities, unique experiences, unique emotions and unique cultural backgrounds. You know, even there's a distinction between Mexican, Venezuelan, Argentinian, you know, and the list goes on, Cuban, Puerto Rican. Yes, we speak the same language. We have a similar cultural heritage, but we're, we're still different, you know, in many ways, right? And again, that cultural context that definitely, definitely plays a plays a role, right, in how advisors work with them. I was also thinking about a couple of other things, of like, the competencies advisors would use at an HSI are slightly different. You know, yes, I think NACADA's did a wonderful job with the relational, conceptual and informational but my research has also highlighted the HSIs value, anti racism competencies, intercultural communication competencies, technological competencies, cultural humility, competencies like those, tend to come up explicitly. You know, in addition to nakatas work that an advisor should come with, an advisor should be prepared at an HSI to have anti racism as a competency, and what that should look like, right? And developing an equity lens, and making sure that they're creating brave spaces, not just safe spaces for their students, right? Those are all essential competencies that we know HSI is value as as do other MSIS. So when I think about what an advisor needs to be prepped with in that context, you know we want to get into skills. For me, it's you know, be bilingual, whether that's you know, Spanish and English, Spanish and Chinese, the more languages, the better for your for your marketability, right, to bridge the communication gaps that exist, right, and address those, those language barriers, right? Just to name a couple of things, right? Those could definitely all help a student succeed academically and professionally.

Lina Anastasovitou  
Gabe, if I could add one more, I can see advisors also being advocates for students of the Latino population, something like bringing institutional change, or changing policies, or even helping students by having some policies in Spanish or like a translation or offering customized help for that population, it works tremendously. It's tremendously helpful for students having a clear understanding of all the academic process. So if that's a lot better for them to read it in a Spanish language, then we need to pay attention to that so advisors can advocate for the change of those policies and institutional policies as well.

Gabe Bermea  
I love that idea of an academic advocate, right, as the advisor, shifting that role a little bit, right? If we're helping them navigate the campus and we're addressing systemic barriers, and yeah, you're an advisor and an advocate all in one, right? That's an evolution that I think is really, really cool to think about. And you're right, plays a plays a different role for everybody involved. So I want to jump in really quickly to research and call to action. So Lena and I, all three of us, quite honestly, have really been working on this, on our our advising community, the Hispanic and Latin/a academic student success, academic advising community. There it is. Lina and I co chair the scholarly works committee, subcommittee. And Nicole, you are our fearless leader for our for our community. And so we've talked a lot about the need for research. So let's kind of combine these last few topics together, if you will, right a call to action as well as the research itself. So let's talk a little about the research real quick. What have you what have we discovered so far about Latinos in advising, Latinos in advising and HSIs and you know, where do you see is the greatest need for research going forward?

Lina Anastasovitou  
I can speak by my work of so when we started this group with Gabe and Nicole as well. I was hoping to find a lot more articles, to be honest, in the literature, because there is a lot of talk, there is a lot of conversations, and a lot of practical articles of how to help the population. But scholarly work, I was surprised to find that a lot of times in the articles, the Latinx population was hidden within the minorities. So something that applies to African American students is not the same to Latinx students, and even within that community, there are several racial identities like Gabe mentioned before that they don't exhibit the same characteristics, so we need first of all to check how institutions disaggregate the data when they give it to us, and then do customize our research as well. So explore a little bit more about the different the diverse groups within the Latinx and Hispanic population. So I would like to see more research on that there. There is literature there, like Gabe knows very well about HSIs, and Gabe is doing an amount of work recently for HSIs, and I appreciate his work on that, but we really need more. We need something. Our goal on this for this group was to give some customized resources for our members. We plan to come up with emerging themes out of the articles that we found in the literature review so we can support advisors and any student affairs professionals when they work with students. So we're hoping to see and encourage people to really do scholarly work, people who are in their dissertation process and they're looking for topics and they care about this population, please write something about it. Your experience is valuable in the field, but we also need to write something so people can understand more the population and look at the insightful findings from that research.

Gabe Bermea  
Definitely, I would say, to kind of add on to that quickly with the research is, yeah, we did. We've been doing a bit of a literature review, a literature a, you know, a scoping of the land, if you will. The unit of analysis of Latinos in advising literature is, at least in mainstream literature isn't really there, right? So we have a wonderful opportunity to expand that conversation, right? And so we're looking to continue that work, you know. And yes, in addition to that, there's very little on HSIs and academic advising, which is where my research is currently lying. But we need more. It can't be addressed in my voice, right? You know, I'd love to have more people to work and collaborate with, and have other people will do more research on that subject, because we know we need to learn more about how we can more advise our Latino students with greater intentionality so that we can effectively serve Nicole, could you give us a call to action, if you will, and talk a little about about our community, our advising community?

Nicole Gonzalez  
So the NACADA's Hispanic and Latin Student Success community, it's it's a baby. It's still a few years old, and I have to recognize Cassie pepper, who started the the community. Maybe lean about three, four years ago, I believe. So since she started it, we developed our steering committee, and Lina and I have been in this committee since, I think, the inception of it. So we are calling everyone to participate. You don't have to be Latino, you. You just want to be able to support your students. We know Latinos exist in all campuses. So what can you do? How can you become familiarized with practice about supporting students, advocating, validating students, experiences, closing that achievement gap?What can you do in your institution? So that's what our community is about, is sharing practices. What can you do? What have I done that has been successful? Then I'll share that with you, right? It's about sharing, because at the end, I don't want to afford all these best practices. I want to share them, because I want everybody from Washington to, you know, South Carolina, to be able to be use these best practice. Effective practices is what I call me, because it should be effective and supporting students, whether it's a junior college or four year college, wherever it is, if you work with outreach, if you work with outreach, it's so important that we communicate with students at an early age, right High School, like there is a place for you and hire it, you know. So that it's important of our community is to showcase the research, to showcase that our students are, you know, enrolling in higher ed at a higher rate. So what are we going to do about it? We're going to try to work to try to mitigate the withdrawal rate, to improve the retention rate. And we have the knowledge, so let's share it. But if stop by and visit one of our communities, check out Monica next week. We have meetings that come up actually does a great job in promoting what's coming up every week. So take a look for Hispanic planet and Student Success community. If you are a community and you want to do a webinar, and, you know, collaborate with us. Let us know we're happy to do so.

Lina Anastasovitou  
Sorry to do a little bit the online forums that NACADA recently brought up on the web page. Please get the conversation started. We want to know what the challenges are, what good things you're doing in your campuses. So please feel free to post on the NACADA forums as well.

Gabe Bermea  
Awesome. You guys. Thank you so much for today's wonderful conversation. It's very clear that you know the work is being done right to support like those students in higher education, and we know that that work is critical, and I hope today's discussion inspires our listeners to get involved, right and to take some action. You know, so for everyone listening, I encourage you to join us for our Latinx and Hispanic academic advising community. That'd be fantastic if you could join us. There are so many ways to contribute and to support Latino students success, and we'd love to have you be a part of this important work with us. Major thank you again to everybody and to Matt and to Nicole and to Lina and to everybody else. We will see you next time on Adventures in Advising. Take care.