Adrian Huerta: What Works for Men of Color in Higher Education?

For the last 20 years, I have volunteered in schools and community centers, served as a mentor to young men of color, been invited to speak in middle and high school classrooms, and have tried to understand how we can get more men of color into, and graduated from, college.  All this to say that increasing access and success to college is personal to me.

I know what happens to boys and men of color when schools and social systems fail them, so I want more men of color to experience and gain all the social and academic experiences to move forward.  Now, as a professor, I know that colleges and universities have a big responsibility to facilitate programs and services to help men of color gain access and graduate from their institutions. And little did I know that my past experiences would inform into my first large scale research project focused on men of color and retention programs.  I have and continue to work with other populations, including gang-associated youth and student-parents, some of which overlap with the men of color demographics, but having the opportunity study and explore the pathways and support available to men of color around higher education has a strong draw for me.

So when William G. Tierney, the Founding Director of the Pullias Center and I approached ECMC Foundation with an idea in late 2017, I could not have anticipated this outcome of receiving a generous grant to study five men of color programs in California. Each of these programs has a unique perspective on how to help and engage students, and vast differences in the monetary investments into their programs, respectively. Now, we have interviewed over 150 students, faculty, staff, and institutional leaders to understand their perspectives on “what works” on their respective campuses. Each program gains momentum and support from various stakeholders within their ecosystems of influence.

What we’ve learned so far from these five programs, well, is that one size does not fit all. Each campus has a legacy of activism from students, concerned faculty, and staff that all contributed to setting a foundation for what would transform later into men of color programs. Some campuses leaders had to petition and advocate for a small initial investment that would then turn into large six-figure budgets for programs with a dozen employees and graduate students addressing the needs of men of color. Meanwhile other campuses are still working to establish legitimacy and relevance to not only students but campus leaders who control budgets.

The fight to be the first stop for men of color is a challenge. Why? Because for many of the students on these public state colleges, there is a pressure to work, support their families, and give back economically. Whether we want to call this a form of machismo or to subscribe to traditional gender norms, it’s a tough context to live because many of these students feel a sense of debt to their families and siblings for investing and believing in them to enroll in higher education. Men of color programs respond to students’ needs by providing spaces to process and understand how to deconstruct these forms of gender expression and are provided with tools to express and share their emotions.

We are in the beginning stages of coding and analyzing for the men of color study, which should add another level of complexity of the organization’s perspective of value and impact. Other researchers have commented about the tension men of color programs have with performance goals “when your budget is low, and expectations are high.” Hence, we hope to unpack the institutional pressures and objectives, and how those align with system-wide goals of narrowing the graduation achievement gaps for men of color.

As we enter the second year of our grant, I keep asking myself, “Why does this study matter to practitioners and philanthropy?” I was reminded by a research assistant the other day that many practitioners still need help and guidance to understand what the baseline issues for men of color programs are, what directions and supports men of color need in higher education, and what the “best practices” that should be used in four-year colleges.  What I appreciate about my research team that they are pushing and challenging assumptions on what practitioners need and think is essential to center the supports for men of color.

My hopes are that as other philanthropies consider the needs of men of color, they review our work to see and draw inspirations on the types of questions and focus on those best practices that work for this population.  Philanthropies have a unique opportunity to work and collaborate with university systems to ask difficult questions about allocation and investment of resources towards men of color. Specifically, philanthropies can work with chancellors and presidents to develop and revise system-wide goals to move the needle for men of color and set ambitious goals to increase degree completion. This is essential because over the last year I have witnessed how quickly leadership change can expose the budgetary vulnerability to individual men of color programs. It can lead to immediate steps back after years of investment and progress.

As I wrap up my first year on the tenure-track, I’m still very energized about my work on men of color. I believe this project can have an immediate impact on how colleges and universities support men of color through retention programs.  As is almost always the case in higher education, change requires will and the resources to make it happen.  There is no shortage of will within the men of color communities.  So as long as we continue to harness the resources we have available to us, progress can be made.

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Adrian Huerta is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Education at USC Rossier and an associated faculty member at the Pullias Center