Open Pathways to College
Dr. Xochitl Alvizo walks from first day to graduation day
Photo: Baim Hanif
Settling in
The day I left for college, I said goodbye to my dad, who was in the garage doing his work, and to my mom, who was in the front yard watering her plants.
I was nervous and a little scared, but their calm and seeming lack of concern made me keep it all inside. My high-school boyfriend dropped me off at the dorms, where I would end up living for all four and a half years of undergrad. It was the first day of “Move-in Week” at my undergraduate school, and I was unpacked and settled in within hours of being dropped off.
Classes didn’t start for another week. I would eventually find out that most students did not move in until one or two days before classes began. So, there I was, alone in my dorm room with no sense of what I was supposed to do with my time or what my responsibilities were now that I was in college. I was the first in my family to attend college and the first in my generation of cousins on both sides of my family to do so.
I didn’t have anyone to orient me to the culture, expectations, or experience of college, especially those of a majority white research institution known for its legacy families – families that for generations have attended the school. There was no legacy on which I could rely.
I didn’t know what to do with my money, either.
I knew that I had to get a job. As part of my financial-aid package I had been “awarded” work-study, a federally-funded program that facilitates your getting a job on campus to help pay for school expenses. Very responsibly, I worked myself down the school directory and called university departments one by one, asking whether they were hiring.
It paid off: I got a job at the Accounts Payable and Purchasing department.
On the day I received my first paycheck, I went to my supervisor and asked who I was supposed to give my money to, or who was I to pay now that the money was in my hand. She was confused by my question; I was confused by her confusion. This was my work-study paycheck, which was supposed to help pay for school expenses, right? I figured I owed the institution this money for either tuition, room and board, or some other cost—wasn’t that why they had “awarded” me a job in the first place?
I did not understand the workings of the system, its financial structure, or my role in it.
Three different times during my undergrad years, I was on academic probation. Although I had been a high-achieving student, always in the advanced-placement classes throughout high school, the academic skills that had served me so well up to that point did not translate into college success. In college, I repeatedly found myself on the verge of failing, with a GPA low enough to put me on academic probation more than once. My family never knew, however, for how could I possibly tell them and have them be disappointed in me? I was their success story, so failing was an unbearable possibility.
I kept my academic struggles to myself.
Addressing the “Intractable Problem”
According to education professor Estela Mara Bensimon, there is growing attention at universities across the nation on the “intractable problem” of the equity gap in “educational outcomes for historically underserved groups” that results in “the greatest achievement gaps as measured by traditional educational indicators such as attainment of the bachelor’s degree” among “Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, and other” minoritized populations.
Research studies and university efforts across the country are gaining readership as administrative leaders and faculty are gaining understanding of the need to increase retention and close the achievement gap between students from underserved communities and students from better served communities (a gap that most often also correlates with race and ethnicity).
At California State University, Northridge (CSUN), where I teach, rather than talking about closing the achievement gap, we talk about closing the opportunity gap. Kristy Michaud, who directs the Office of Student Success Innovations, clarifies that using the language of opportunity gap “makes it clear [that] the gaps in outcomes are related to the differential opportunities students have had, often before they set foot on our campus, and are not due to deficits in students’ efforts.” Using this more nuanced language is a way to account for the larger systemic issues impacting particular demographics of students differently and, for some, in more negative ways.
Even now, after at least ten years of directed attention to closing the opportunity gap, the gap in graduation rates at four-year universities can range from a 15% to 20% difference between white students and students of color, or historically underserved students. Thinking about my transition into college and the struggles I faced as a first-generation college student in the early nineties, I imagine it would have made a wonderful difference to have had the kind of support and resources that emerge when equity-minded teaching and learning is the leading framework.
Somehow, I made it through in the midst of cultural shock, disorientation, and persistent academic struggles. I graduated, got a job at a non-profit, and eight years later mustered enough courage to pursue a PhD in hopes of eventually becoming a professor—which I am now, against all odds.
Alumni- Cohort 2, CSUN HSI Pathways to the Professoriate 2018–2019 Fellows. Source: California State University, Northridge
Creating Pathways
Today, I have the privilege of participating in a pilot program that supports undergraduate students interested in becoming professors. This program, HSI Pathways to the Professoriate, is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is specifically designed to help diversify the humanities professoriate by supporting undergraduate students from Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) to apply directly to doctoral programs. It is a mentorship-based, peer-support, academic skills development program that has yielded great success for its first cohort of students (10 students at three different HSIs each year for three years). At CSUN alone, all nine of the students who applied to PhD programs were accepted with full funding.
The difference it makes to have mentors guiding one through the process of transitioning into the university and moving on to more advanced degrees--which for many students from underserved populations is unknown territory—cannot be overstated. The success of the HSI Pathways to the Professoriate programs demonstrates that the opportunity gap in higher education, and in the professoriate, is not an issue of potential or deficiency in the efforts of students of color but an issue of a differential in opportunities. Such inequity can be remedied through efforts in mentorship, exposure to the systems and culture of academic institutions, decoding the jargon, and very practical skills-building. It is a process of demystification that can make all the difference for that student who finds herself on the verge of failing while trying to live up to the hopes and dreams she carries for her family.
Walking Tall
My parents told me recently that what they most remember from that day I left for college was how proud they were of me. My mom tells me that she also felt deep sadness—sadness that we would no longer be part of each other’s shared daily life: no post-dinner coffee at the kitchen table every night or weekly social visits with our friends and neighbors. But mostly, my parents report feeling filled with pride. Neither of us understood the new life I was stepping into. We were simply proud that I had made it to college.
The truth is that I was just beginning then, and the struggle to not end up a statistic of the opportunity gap was real, even if I didn’t realize it.
The same struggle continues to be real for many students today, but the difference is that we now have the data, insights, and resources to help address the “intractable problem” – which will only be so if we allow it.
