Reaching out to Hispanic families; develop a realistic communication model, and your school can build a richly diverse campus.

John and his sister, Diane (names changed to protect privacy), are Colombian, adopted at birth by an American couple. With clear South American features, they have grown up as suburban American teens raised in a Jewish household that doesn't speak Spanish.

Mary is the daughter of a Cuban emigre. Raised in New York, she has never visited Cuba, and only recently began seriously working on her Spanish language skills during her travels to South America and at her place of work at a lower-income daycare center in the city.

Dena and her sister, Lianne, were raised in a half-Cuban household in the U.S. Both are very interested in their cultural background, attended competitive high schools, and visited Cuba with family during their childhood.

Michael grew up as a member of a Puerto Rican family in the Bronx. He became an ABC (A Better Chance) Scholar, moving to a Connecticut suburb to take advantage of a strong high school education during the school year, with the support of the ABC program. A bilingual student, Michael excelled in the sciences.

What do all of these students have in common? They were all recruited by colleges and universities such as the University of Michigan, Vanderbilt (TN), Cornell (NY), Lafayette (PA), Syracuse (NY), and Tulane (LA) as part of those institutions' multicultural admissions efforts. Each was considered by at least one college as a Hispanic student, though some colleges did not view that same student as an underrepresented minority candidate.

Today, the Hispanic population in the U.S. and the rest of the world is exceedingly diverse. The students and families profiled above represent only several segments of it. Others include Mexican-American, Central American, South American, Spanish, and the many varieties of families that consider themselves Chicano or Latino, nonwhite Hispanic, white Hispanic, biracial, bicultural, or multiethnic.

In fact, the Hispanic student population is now the fastest-growing college-bound group in America, and many demographics experts are forecasting a time later in this century when there will no longer be a racial or ethnic majority in the U.S. Still, it is dearly understood that today, Hispanic students of all backgrounds are seriously underrepresented in American colleges, and their lack of a college education will dramatically impact their future career choices and earnings. Four-year colleges and universities, and community colleges alike are trying to boost the enrollment and retention of Hispanic students through a range of efforts. How are they going about it? How should your institution be approaching it? Start with these two key principles that can help your college or university improve its efforts during the coming decade--and beyond.

PRINCIPLE #1: GETTING THE MESSAGE

If you cannot understand the message, then you cannot act on the information. We have tong contended in this University Business forum and elsewhere that educational planning is a family centered process. Few students make important educational decisions without the guidance of a parent, grandparent, or other relative. In order for all of us to help all families be involved in supporting students' learning, we must strive to make materials available to students as well as parents and relatives who do not have strong English skills.

For many families--and Hispanic families in particular--it has long been known that several hurdles currently persist. Many families lack knowledge about taking college preparatory classes; misperceive college costs and financial aid availability; and are unwitting to see their children study at campuses far from home. And Hispanic students are often hesitant to let go of responsibilities to their extended family in order to pursue their education. Overall, there is confusion about the value of a liberal arts or pre-professional educational program and how to take best advantage of it.

But targeted materials can empower these families to understand how much financial aid is available to help them afford college, and how to access this assistance. Such materials can help students and family members grasp the impact of college on their futures. They can assist families in learning how to navigate the college admissions process, and help them decipher the differences among colleges, and the array of academic programs available.

In fact, in an effort to foster greater outreach to students and their families from all walks of life, last year we worked with WTIU (the public television station at Indiana University, Bloomington), Interactive Frameworks, Inc., and PBS to produce Ten Steps to College with the Greenes. Ten Steps is a college planning "kit" that can actually serve as a model for colleges and universities serious about enhancing their Hispanic outreach and retention el forts. Our own "kit" comprised a college planning television program, Web site, workbook, and user's guide, but your institution's efforts could borrow from any combination of these components.

We believe one of the project's strengths is that almost all of the materials associated with it were produced in EngLish and Spanish. Visit the Web site (www.pbs.org/tenstepstocollege) and you will see that visitors can toggle between languages. Spanish is also accessible through the user's guide, closed captioning for the television program, and dual-Language capacity on the VHS or DVD versions of the show. On the DVD, viewers can select closed captioning or dubbing. Our second program, Paying for College with the Greenes, is being produced by the same team--again, with the emphasis on making sure the materials are accessible to Spanish-speaking students and families.

PRINCIPLE #2: SHARING THE CHALLENGE

Families and institutions of higher education must share the challenge of making sure much needed information is accessed. A Shared Agenda: A leadership Challenge to Improve College Access and Success, the recent report from the Pathways to College Network (www.pathwaystocollege.net), contains its own key principles, and an excellent summary of ways in which educators can help families of aLL backgrounds set and achieve educational goals, including college entrance and graduation. Two of the study's own principles are notable here: Principle Three states that families should be involved in supporting learning, and "students' social and cultural contexts" -should be affirmed by educational institutions. Principle Two supports our own discussion about getting the message out, and maintains that "Language-accessible college planning and financial aid information" should be made available. In our opinion, success with families must be based on working to make the availability of language-accessible information more of a reality. Incorporating the family into the college admissions, enrollment, and retention programs at your college will provide an essential linkage for students and parents. But more specifically, making materials available in Spanish will address the broad Hispanic student population.

GETTING THE COLLEGE INVOLVED

A number of the supporters of the Pathways to CoLLege Network are working directly on these efforts to surmount these obstacles, including funders like the Lumina Foundation for Education (www.Luminafoundation.org) and student loan organizations such as the Sallie Mae Fund (www.salliemae.com). Professional organizations such as the National Association for CoLLege Admission Counseling (www.nacac.com), the National Association of Secondary School Principals (www.nassp.org), and the State Higher Education Executive Officers (www.sheeo.org) are also taking part.

Yet, individual colleges and universities can play an essential role in making their enrollment programs more accessible to students of various Hispanic backgrounds, and they must. How many colleges have dual-language Web sites? What about viewbooks, brochures, catalogs, and financial aid information? Materials produced by the federal or state governments and education agencies are often available in Spanish, but most colleges produce only a small brochure, if anything, in Spanish. Clearly, in an institution at which aLL or most of the teaching is done in EngLish, a prospective student must have sufficient EngLish-Language skills to succeed. But from an educational, marketing, and recruiting standpoint, colleges can greatly assist Hispanic parents and students by creating a more welcoming and comprehensible front door.

We are suggesting that colleges go beyond having one or two multicultural admission officers responsible for recruiting diverse students of aLL backgrounds. Hispanic students, as we have pointed out, are a diverse lot in and of themselves, but can certainly be targeted and assisted as a group distinct from African-American, Native American, Asian-American, international, or any other underserved student group. And colleges should not be overly wary of addressing Hispanic students and families directly. Some students from families that are bicultural and solely or predominately English-speaking may be confused by efforts on the part of colleges to have them attend diversity weekends on campus or talk with multicultural admission counselors. Indeed, some of the students we profiled above had no need for information in Spanish. They were, however, interested in culturally oriented college programs such as foreign study in Cuba, which matched their particular interests. Most significantly, though, many of the students we profiled were more than pleased to finally receive communications and attention from colleges oriented toward their ethnic background. They liked the fact that the colleges were looking to increase diversity, and had programs that addressed multicultural students on campus.

What is your institution doing to reach out to and retain the valuable Hispanic segment of your campus population? Working together with government and education agencies, colleges can certainly increase the overall rates of college admission and graduation among Hispanic students, with historic ripple effects throughout our society.

Howard Greene and Matthew Greene are independent education consultants, and the authors of the Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning. To contact them, visit www.greenesguides.com.