Dr. José Castro, HOC chair

Over the past 10 years, Latin@ graduate enrollment at the Ohio State University has not made gains despite expansion of Latin@ participation in graduate education nationally. In the mid-1990s, Latin@ enrollments at OSU dropped and only began to recover in 2003. Recent figures show that Hispanics comprise 1.6 percent of the graduate student body. Since last year, a sub-group of the Hispanic Oversight Committee (HOC) has been discussing the state of Hispanic graduate students at Ohio State. This sub group is headed by Normando Cabán and Yolanda Zepeda.

The University needs to recognize the importance that Latin@ culture plays in successfully recruiting talented Hispanic graduate students. We would like to see the Graduate School implement an initiative specifically targeted at recruiting graduate level Hispanic/Latin@ students. Latin@ recruitment and retention goals and strategies should be integrated within a broader strategic diversity plan in the Graduate School. It should be deployed under the leadership of a full-time staff member at a senior or director level, who is accountable for the program and specific outcomes.

The HOC proposes a recruitment and retention plan that initially targets a subset of disciplines, as we begin to build a network of supportive relationships and infrastructure. Several academic areas at Ohio State currently have Latin@ faculty who can play a pivotal role in the recruitment process, such as science and engineering, agriculture, education and English. This is the first of many important steps to increase the presence of Hispanic/Latin@ graduate students at Ohio State.