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Decolonizing Leadership Practices: Towards Equity and Justice at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (Hsis) and Emerging Hsis (Ehsis)

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Decolonizing Leadership Practices: Towards Equity and Justice at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (Hsis) and Emerging Hsis (Ehsis) www.csus.edu/coe/jtlps CRITICAL ANALYSIS Decolonizing Leadership Practices: Towards Equity and Justice at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Emerging HSIs (eHSIs) Gina A. Garcia, Ph.D. Nicholas D. Natividad, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Higher Education Management Assistant Professor, Criminal Justice 4318G Posvar Hall 1525 Stewart St. 230 South Bouquet Street Las Cruces NM 88003 Pittsburgh, PA 15260 Mailing address: MSC 3487 P.O. Box 30001 [email protected] New Mexico State University (412) 648-2140 Las Cruces NM 88003 [email protected] (575) 646-4661 Abstract Decolonizing Leadership Practices: Towards Equity and Justice at Hispanic-Serving Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs; colleges Institutions (HSIs) and Emerging HSIs (eHSIs) and universities that enroll at least 25% Raza undergraduates) are increasing in number in the Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), which are United States, growing rapidly from 189 in 1994 to enrollment driven, non-profit, postsecondary 1 492 in 2016. Moreover, there were 333 emerging institutions that enroll at least 25% Raza full-time HSIs (eHSIs) in 2016, indicating that the number equivalent (FTE) students, are increasing in number of HSIs will continue to grow; however, leaders, each year as the number of Raza college students including faculty, staff, and administrators at (e) grows proportionately with their overall population HSIs, continue to grapple with the question, in the United States. HSIs were officially recognized “How do we move from ‘enrolling’ to ‘serving’ by the federal government in 1992, following a long Raza students?” There are a lack of leadership political battle in which leaders of postsecondary frameworks specifically designed for those institutions enrolling the largest percentage of working at (e)HSIs and with a focus on serving Raza college students and legislators fought for Raza students. The authors argue that decolonizing the designation (Santiago, 2006; Valdez, 2015). HSIs leadership practices will help leaders liberate became eligible for federal funding in 1995, with and empower Raza students by disrupting the the goal of building institutional capacity to better coloniality of power that promotes and sustains serve Raza students (Santiago, 2006). By fall 2016, higher education institutions as racial/colonial there were 492 institutions that met the criteria projects. The authors propose leadership processes to be eligible for the HSI designation, which is for working with Raza students at (e)HSIs. Although approximately 15% of all postsecondary institutions leaders at non-(e)HSIs may consider these in the U.S. (Excelencia in Education, 2018b). processes, the authors call on leaders at (e)HSIs to transform their leadership practices as a necessity for becoming Raza-serving. 1 We use the term “Raza” instead of “Latina/o/x” or “Hispanic” to refer to people who have Indigenous roots in Mexico, Central and South America, Keywords: Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Raza and the Caribbean. In using this term we recognize that this racial/ ethnic group evolved as a result of colonization, rape, and subjugation of college students, transformative leadership, Indigenous peoples. In using the term “Raza,” we also center our analysis decolonization, coloniality of power on race, with “Raza” translating to “race.” Journal of Transformative Leadership and Policy Studies - Vol. 7 No. 2, December 2018 25 Decolonizing Leadership Practices Moreover, there were 333 institutions that enrolled Garcia, 2019; Gonzales, 2015; Santos & Acevedo-Gil, between 15-24% FTE Raza college students, which 2013). For example, in fall 2015 at one four-year HSI Excelencia in Education (2018a) calls, “emerging in the Midwest where 35% of the undergraduate HSIs” (eHSIs). The number of (e)HSIs suggests population identified as Raza, only 11% of the that the percentage of institutions that reach the faculty and 18% of the administration identified threshold for becoming designated as HSIs will as such (Garcia, 2018b, 2019). At another four-year continue to grow in the near future. Yet leaders, HSI in the Midwest in the same year, only 2% of the including faculty, staff, administrators, at (e)HSIs2 faculty and 7.5% of the administration identified continue to grapple with the question, “How do we as Raza, compared to 27% of the undergraduate move from ‘enrolling’ to ‘serving’ Raza students?” population (Garcia, 2018b, 2019). There has been a call to increase the representation of Raza leaders This question arises as a result of Raza college at HSIs (e.g., Contreras, 2018; Gonzales, 2015), yet students lagging behind their white counterparts in this article we call on all leaders at (e)HSIs, even in graduation, completion, and enrollment in non-Raza leaders, to reconsider their leadership advanced degree programs (NCES, 2017). Even practices in order to center Raza students. In this at (e)HSIs, there are discrepancies in graduation, article, we propose processes and practices for completion, and transfer rates between white decolonizing leadership at (e)HSIs, with the goal and Raza students (Contreras & Contreras, 2015; of promoting equitable outcomes, liberatory Garcia, 2018b). Although scholars have proposed environments, and justice for all. Although leaders numerous reasons as to why Raza students continue at non-(e)HSIs may consider these processes, we call to earn degrees in fewer numbers than their white on leaders at (e)HSIs to transform their leadership peers (e.g., Villalpando, 2004), we argue that the practices as a necessity for becoming Raza-serving history of oppression and subjugation that Raza and Raza-liberating, particularly since HSIs alone have experienced as a result of colonization and U.S. enroll 65% of all Raza college students (Excelencia in imperialism have prevented them from excelling in Education, 2018b). postsecondary education. We fully recognize that colonization has affected Indigenous people across Conceptual Foundation the world, yet here we focus on Raza in the U.S. context. To understand how decolonization theory can be used to develop leaders that transform (e)HSIs, Arguably, (e)HSI leaders must deconstruct we first provide a brief overview of Raza’s unique colonial ways of being that are embedded within history of colonization, then we discuss the idea of institutions of higher education, historically and “coloniality of power” as a theoretical foundation, systemically, in order to effectively serve Raza and finally discuss how colonialism has played (Patton, 2016; Wilder, 2013). In reviewing the out in educational settings, and specifically within literature centered on (e)HSIs, there are a lack of higher education. leadership frameworks specifically designed for those working at (e)HSIs. Raza college students Raza’s Unique History of Colonization have specific needs that leaders at these campuses It is important to note that Raza students’ identities must consider, but there are no specific models to are both Indigenous and European/Spanish. As help them become effective leaders for Raza. This is such, they represent the crossroads of situated particularly troubling, as Raza are underrepresented knowledge, or what Anzaldúa (1987) calls, “mental in leadership positions at (e)HSIs (Contreras, 2018; nepantlism.” Nepantla is an Aztec word meaning “torn between ways/worlds” and is often used by 2 We use the notation “(e)HSI” to encompass both HSIs and emerging HSIs Chicanx theorists to describe the Chicanx reality 26 Journal of Transformative Leadership and Policy Studies - Vol. 7 No. 2, December 2018 www.csus.edu/coe/jtlps of “being tricultural, monolingual, bilingual, or leading to inequities in educational outcomes for multilingual, speaking a patois, and in a state these groups (San Miguel, 2008). Examples include of perpetual transition. Cradled in one culture, the historical reality of segregated K-12 schools, sandwiched between two cultures, straddling all with court rulings such as Wysinger v. Crookshank three cultures and their value systems” (Anzaldúa, in 1890 and Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 solidifying 1987, p. 100). Anzaldúa (1987) writes that as a result a “separate but equal” doctrine and having long- of this reality la mestiza undergoes an inner war term effects on the schooling environment and and struggle of borders within. Institutional leaders outcomes for Native, Black, and Raza students at (e)HSIs seeking to incorporate decolonized (Ochoa, 2016). Other anti-Raza policies include leadership practices must recognize and accept that California’s Proposition 63 (1986) and Proposition the identities of Raza students are unique, “messy,” 187 (1994), which sought to eliminate bilingual and intersectional in nature, crossing multiple education in the state (primarily targeting Raza borders across history, time, and space. English Language Learners) (Quezada, 2016) and Arizona’s House Bill 2281, which allowed the state Raza students’ unique history of conquest, superintendent of public education to withhold colonization, enslavement, and subjugation is a funding to districts that offered ethnocentric result of Spanish conquest and U.S. imperialism (van courses that the bill claimed promoted resentment Dijk, 2009). Colonial education established in “New toward a race or the overthrowing of the federal Spain” in the 16th century, which included parts government (primarily targeting Mexican American of modern day Mexico, California, Arizona, Texas, Studies) (Cabrera, Milem, Jaquette, & Marx, 2014). and New Mexico, solidified a racial classification Texas’
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