{"id":11755,"date":"2022-01-05T21:10:27","date_gmt":"2022-01-05T21:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/winter2023\/?page_id=11755"},"modified":"2023-02-23T21:12:39","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T21:12:39","slug":"usc-upstate-hispanic-latino-student-research-sociology","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/winter2023\/usc-upstate-hispanic-latino-student-research-sociology\/","title":{"rendered":"UP, Where We Belong"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nUp Magazine<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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A sociology seminar explores the Hispanic\/Latino student experience on campus.<\/h2>\n
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Emily Martinez-Villalobos was just a few months into her first semester at USC Upstate in 2020 when the pandemic hit and all her classes moved online.
\nAs a transfer student, she hadn\u2019t yet had time to make many friends and explore campus life. So when she returned to campus in 2021, she quickly connected with the Latin American Student Organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoining the organization and getting to meet everybody was really nice,\u201d says Martinez-Villalobos, a first-generation college student. \u201cI was able to find a community of people like me, people that have been through similar things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finding out what makes a Hispanic\/Latino student feel at home \u2013 and, by extension, what more the university can do to support that sense of belonging \u2013 was one of the motivating factors behind Lizabeth Zack\u2019s senior seminar research class last spring. Zack, a professor of sociology, realized having hard data could help USC Upstate\u2019s fledgling South Carolina Centro Latino (El Centro), of which she is an advisory board member.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the questions that I asked was, how much do we know about our Latino student population on campus,\u201d Zack says. \u201cBecause if we don\u2019t have much, maybe our department could work on a needs assessment or a survey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zack introduced her students to the topic during the 2021 fall semester, when they learn research methods. The class read up on national trends involving Hispanic\/Latino college students, and heard from El Centro\u2019s director and assistant director, Araceli Hern\u00e1ndez-Laroche and Maria Montes\u00f3, respectively, about the importance of following these trends.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Southeast, like a few other regions in the country, the Latino population is growing the fastest,\u201d Zack says. \u201cAnd Latino college students have also in recent years been the fastest growing college student sector. But there are also some disparities in retention and graduation rates.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the spring, students moved to the project phase, developing a survey to administer to Hispanic\/Latino students around campus and collecting and analyzing the data. Giles Rabideau \u201922 says at first the group was disappointed when their initial efforts to collect data yielded a low response. Zack reached out to Martinez-Villalobos, who helped spread the word among friends and campus clubs to encourage participation in the survey. While the outreach took time, it had greater success getting results.<\/p>\n

Each student looked at a specific aspect of the Hispanic\/Latino experience that could affect student success. Amy Saine \u201922 studied factors that influence graduation rates. In the literature reviews, the data showed Hispanic\/Latino students had significantly lower graduation rates than all other racial or ethnic groups, Saine says. But that was not the case at USC Upstate, she notes, though the reason for that matched what she had seen in the literature.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that family was a huge motivator for staying in school, or completing their degree, or both,\u201d Saine says.<\/p>\n

Though many students cited challenges to being in college \u2013 finances, mental health, balancing school and work \u2013 Zack says most indicated they were on track to graduate within the timeline they had set for themselves, usually four to six years.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing we saw among the students who participated in the survey was that they were relatively strong academically,\u201d Zack says.<\/p>\n

She cautions that the sample size \u2013 about 20% of USC Upstate\u2019s approximately 350 self-identified Hispanic\/Latino students \u2013 may be somewhat self-selective. Students who are motivated academically may also be more likely to respond to a survey. Still, the results were encouraging, particularly since about 70 to 80% of the respondents were first-generation college students, Zack says.<\/p>\n

Zack says another interesting finding that differed from the existing literature concerned language barriers. In many of the studies, challenges with English created a barrier to students feeling a part of a campus. At Upstate, language wasn\u2019t a problem for the survey respondents, but they did report that their family members felt left out of their student\u2019s college experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was one of the recommendations, to provide more bilingual services to families,\u201d Zack says.<\/p>\n

Rabideau says when the class made its final presentation, the interest and questions they received from faculty validated the effort they had put into the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe buzz around it speaks to its value in my eyes,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is the first study on this topic, and could lead to more studies that help staff here at Upstate cater to the target population and help them be more successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zack\u2019s fall semester seniors recently completed a new survey to build on the work from spring. This time the students examined the challenges and barriers confronting Hispanic\/Latino students. The group took a qualitative approach, conducting in-depth interviews either in person or virtually. The sample size was small, but respondents identified financial struggles, balancing coursework and home life, and a sense of belonging as the biggest obstacles they faced.<\/p>\n

Zack\u2019s class also suggested areas where the university could help, such as reaching out to students to offer tutoring help or providing more opportunities for students and their families to socialize together. The group recommended connecting with high school students, too, to prepare them and their families for what to expect in college and to help them with the application process.<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez-Laroche says Zack and her students have demonstrated how universities can utilize the resources they have to gather valuable insights about their students. At Upstate, that data helps El Centro improve its outreach efforts to current and prospective students and their families, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything we do is really related to language, and they\u2019re helping us with that mission on what language to use to make sure that we\u2019re speaking to our students.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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