The University of California, Davis (UC Davis) has yet to reach 25% Latinx undergraduate fulltime enrollment, the threshold necessary to formally become a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI). Nonetheless, the campus’ commitment to its HSI initiative and vision stands apart from any official U.S. Department of Education (ED) designation. For more than three years, UC Davis has vigorously developed and pursued its own HSI vision of institutional transformation. Together, campus staff, faculty, students, and alums conceptualized the opportunity at hand and articulated HSI priorities at UC Davis in a path-breaking 2019 report, “Investing in Rising Scholars and Serving California: What it Means for UC Davis to be a Hispanic-Serving Institution.” This brief will highlight the momentum leading to the report as well as what has occurred afterwards in terms of implementation.
Despite the difficulties imposed by the pandemic, particularly in terms of holding in-person events and strategy sessions, from November 2020 to June 2021, the Hispanic Serving Institution Phase 2 Implementation Task Force took up the challenge of advancing the goals of the 2019 report, Investing in Rising Scholars and Serving the
State of California: What It Means to be original task force.
In June 2018 Chancellor May invited twenty-nine distinguished scholars, administrators, community members, and students to serve on a task force to help UC Davis define what success should mean for a research intensive, public land-grant, Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in California. The Task Force was charged with examining and making recommendations to continue to improve the success and well-being of all our students, including our Latinx and Chicanx students, and to identify the resources and reforms necessary to achieve these goals. The task force report was released in 2019.
