| dc.description.abstract | Texas Tech University (TTU), the largest comprehensive higher education institution in the western two-thirds of the state, opened its doors in 1925 and boasts a rich history of research programs designed to enrich lives and increase the work capacity of its student body. While TTU once served a majority white student body (over 90%), the campus’ Latinx undergraduate enrollment reached 27.8% in 2017. With these numbers, TTU surpassed the US Department of Education's 25% Hispanic undergraduate enrollment requirement for a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) designation. In 2019, TTU applied for, gained recognition as, and received over $8 million as an HSI.
However, like many historically and predominately white institutions with a new HSI designation, Texas Tech deals with various organizational dilemmas associated with constructing an HSI identity. Therefore, we partnered with TTU’s HSI student success subcommittee and utilized a critical evaluation research approach to (1) define servingness for Latinx students at TTU; (2) clarify student-level success outcomes for Latinx students at TTU; and (3) analyze HSI and subcommittee documents to set the foundation for the HSI student success subcommittee’s action plan.
Historically, researchers focusing on organizational identity and transformational changes maintain a race-neutral stance that neglects how race and ethnicities influence policies and attitudes, and how organizations de-center and devalue racial and ethnic diversity by normalizing white, dominant standards. As such, we used the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of racialized organizations, Hispanic servingness, and organizational identity. Understanding the overlaps and constraints of these frameworks facilitated our understanding of how Texas Tech’s students, staff, and leadership answered the questions “Who is TTU as an HSI” and “What does it mean for TTU to be Hispanic-serving”? Additionally, the abovementioned conceptual frameworks facilitated the development of our research questions and the analysis of the data we collected.
Ultimately, we found that TTU has made great strides since receiving the HSI designation. The campus has students and professional staff committed to and ready to transform its organizational identity to one wholly committed to Hispanic servingness. Nevertheless, the university struggles with “what to do next.” We outline several recommendations to facilitate Texas Tech's organizational identity transformation, help them achieve educational outcomes, and fulfill its promise to center and serve the ethnic experiences of its Latinx students. | |
