What should the university be paying attention to?
Editor’s note: This article is available in Spanish here.
When arriving to Cal Poly, Isabella Jimenez-Melendrez immediately noticed the void of the Spanish community she had grown up with in her hometown Tijuana. Since then, she’s been taking Spanish classes for her minor, but also to feel closer to home.
Before her arrival, Jimenez-Melendrez didn’t know of Cal Poly’s Predominately White Institution label, or the university’s 2018 blackface incident that sparked national attention. As a first-gen student, she said she didn’t think much of it when applying to colleges.
“I think as soon as I got here, I was like ‘I do care about that,’” Jimenez-Melendrez said. “But these five years, I’ve never let it affect me because if I did, it’s like them winning over me, and I’m not going to let them disturb my peace.”
When Jimenez-Melendrez enrolled at Cal Poly in Fall 2019, she was a part of Cal Poly’s first-ever “most diverse” class. However, this didn’t mean that she was surrounded by faces that looked similar to hers.
“In my year, it was only me and my friend,” Jimenez-Melendrez said. “And as for Hispanic students, we all know who we are because of how small the community is and because of how little of us there are.”
Task Force to implementation
Along with Cal State Maritime, Cal Poly is one of two CSU campuses yet to become a Hispanic-serving institution. In 2018, Cal Poly was ranked as one of the nation’s seven worst institutions for Latinx student success, according to Education Trust.
Over the past five years, Cal Poly’s incoming class racial diversity demographics increased. In 2022, the students of color population increased by 8.7%, primarily seeing growth in Latinx/e enrollment, according to the Office of University Diversity and Inclusion (OUDI) website.
In 2022, 21.1% of the student body reported identifying as Latinx, according to the HSI executive summary report. With efforts for an inclusive environment for the Latinx/e community, started with one “essential” recommendation in 2021 pointed to creating a Hispanic-serving task force, an effort dedicated to getting Cal Poly a designation as a Hispanic-serving institution.
Becoming an Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) only requires a numerical status — a campus population with over 25% of Latinx/e students enrolled. Additionally, the designation allows universities to apply for federal grants. However, these grants don’t necessarily require universities to send the funds to these communities.
The university projects earning the designation in 2026, according to the task force’s web homepage.
The task force stresses on working within a “servingness” framework, a concept that came from multiple consultations with Dr. Gina Garcia, a researcher that specializes on Hispanic-serving institutions and how they can help with identity in a university setting.
The task force’s co-chair Beya Makekau describes servingness as a Hispanic-serving institution that “moves” beyond the numerical quota, also considering “holistic success and well being” of the Latinx/e campus community.
“That means we’re hoping to be an institution that is going to equitably yield, retain and graduate Lainx/e students that enacts a culture in which their educational and racial, ethnic experiences as students is enhanced and celebrated,” Makekau said.
Now, the task force is in a stage as an implementation team, Makekau added.
Moving forward, the implementation team is looking to increase recruitment efforts to the Latinx/e community, focus on issues that involve inclusive curriculum, and creating a data dashboard.
For the academic years of 2023-25, over $100,000 has been dedicated for the Hispanic serving initiative, according to Makekau. In the 2022-23 academic year, $60,000 was committed to HSI efforts from the Office of University Diversity and Inclusion, according to the HSI executive summary.
“I am a first-generation queer Latinx woman on this campus, in this world,” Makekau said. “This work is deeply personal to me. It was the cultural associations, staff and faculty that helped me make it through college, creating those spaces that reminded me that I belonged here.”
Serving all students: “Rising tides raises all boats”
Mechanical engineering sophomore Eliza Moto hopes the HSI task force will be able to acknowledge and educate others on the “beneath the surfaces” experiences, not just the big incidents that occur at Cal Poly. She added the “uncomfortable experiences” in the classroom aren’t necessarily obvious remarks, but an undertone of her past “lacking” some knowledge or experience to be considered qualified.
Moto said part of her reason for coming to Cal Poly was for its Hispanic student engineering clubs and programs – in particular, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE).
When she found her interest in mechanical engineering through high school robotics, her focus when applying was to find community at a university, especially with an interest in an industry where she didn’t see a lot of representation. She said SHPE helped her adjust to Cal Poly.
“It did determine which colleges I wanted to apply to and attend based on who had that— an empowering community for me to be a part of,” Moto said.
Another place that Moto feels a sense of community is at La CASA, Cal Poly’s Latinx/e Center for Academic Success and Achievement, which opened November 2022.
One of the common university recommendations to remedy the lack of some cultural presence on campus is to turn to student organizations like SHEP and culturally-affiliated centers like La CASA.
“I love coming to La CASA and just hanging out,” Moto said. “It’s fun because you just do anything in there, [such as] homework. If you can’t do homework, you can talk to your friends hanging out.”
Joanna Gazcon also thinks supporting La CASA can truly impact the Latinx/e community at Cal Poly. Currently, there’s assistant students and an interim director— but Gazcon said having a designated and more permanent director, La CASA could have the attention and care it deserves.
According to Makekau, there’s currently a search for a director underway, and is talking with the Office of Student Affairs through the hiring process.
Business administration senior Gazcon is also an intern with OUDI working on the HSI task force; she knows that others in the student body have concerns of Cal Poly trying to just reach a numerical quota.
“I think a lot of people are scared that they’re just doing it for the numbers for that title,” Gazcon said.
Gazcon entered Cal Poly knowing about the university is a predominately white institution and the “controversies,” such as the anti-Semetic and the black face incident. Going into Cal Poly, and from a predominately Hispanic high school, Gazcon was concerned.
“I know my personal experiences will vary within the Latinx community,” Gazcon said. “I’m like a light-skinned Latina so it’s very difficult for someone who’s brown skin or darker skin. There are definitely multiple narratives and that should be portrayed and experiences that should be taken into account.”
Makekau said partners and allies can best support by spreading awareness of efforts for a Hispanic-serving institution. She added that becoming Hispanic-serving benefits everyone, creating a culturally rich educational environment and preparing the student body to enter a global work-force when they leave Cal Poly.
“To steal a quote from a good friend of mine,” Makekau said. “Rising tides raises all boats.”