Parallel Play is Not an Effective Strategy for Multi-Designated MSIs
With the introduction of Black Serving Institutions (BSIs) in California, and the simultaneous increase in the number of Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), folx in these Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) streets have started to ask me:
Does servingness apply to other enrollment-based Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs)?
Are there strategies for embracing two or more MSI identities (i.e., multiple MSI “designations”).
The answers are yes and yes!
First, servingness is 100% applicable to all enrollment based MSIs. As noted by Mike Hoa Nguyen and colleagues, enrollment-based MSIs are historically white enrolling institutions that have come to enroll racially-ethnically diverse students over time, thus reaching a federally defined demographic threshold that qualifies them for MSI status. Additionally, institutions must meet a financial threshold and enroll a significant proportion of low-income students. After receiving eligibility, they can apply for a series of competitive grants under Title III and V of the Higher Education Act (except those grants have been temporarily canceled). Besides enrollment, eligibility, and grant seeking and getting behaviors, the enrollment-based MSI identity remains elusive.
The servingness framework gives us a tangible way to define HSIs beyond the federal definition. The framework includes multiple dimensions that campuses can operationalize as a way to enact servingness in practice, thus bringing the “S” in HSIs to life. While the framework centers Latine students and calls on educators and leaders to consider their specific identities and needs, it can be adapted to support other enrollment-based MSIs trying to figure out what servingness looks like for AANAPI students, Black students, and Native students. The servingness framework focuses on the institution itself, calling for a new way to organize campuses that are historically white enrolling but that have seen a dramatic shift in the student population. As such, the organizational approach to change is applicable to all institutions facing this reality. It presupposes that historically white enrolling institutions were not designed for people of color and have historically excluded, harmed, and pushed them out, rather than embracing their knowledge, language, and forms of cultural wealth. The servingness framework invites change agents to embrace students’ cultural wealth and create environments where they can succeed and thrive.
My biggest caution in adapting servingness to non-Latine populations is to center the racialized identities of the students you wish to uplift in the process. For example, in developing a Black servingness framework with Dr. Keith Curry (coming soon), we note that outreach and access are especially pertinent to Black students, as they continue to be excluded from colleges and universities. Outreach and access were not part of the original servingness framework, despite Latines also being excluded from many institutions. Yet within the HSI research there was an unwritten assumption that access was achieved as the campuses under study had already reached 25%. Of course this is not the full story as many campuses, my own included, have focused on outreach and access for Latines as we strive for the 25% (within the confines of race-neutral admissions practices, of course). We also note that white supremacy and anti-Blackness must be addressed in BSIs because these realities affect the daily lives and experiences of Black students.
For HSIs, I often talk about the importance of linguistic servingness, elevating a focus on Spanish-speaking faculty and staff, and noting the importance of training future multilingual professionals as part of servingness. This conversation is relevant to AANAPISIs too. Except it is more complicated, as the broad Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander categories encompass many more languages than the typical one that comes up for HSIs (Spanish). Yet AANAPISIs absolutely should embrace linguistic servingness, too.
Second, there are strategies for embracing multiple MSI identities. I want to first talk about what I have seen thus far as campuses here in California begin to strategically embrace multiple MSI identities. I often see HSIs, AANAPISIS, and BSIs partaking in “parallel play.” This term was coined by sociologist Mildred Parten to describe one of three stages of play observed in children 2-5 years old. With parallel play, small children engage in side-by-side play but do not play with each other. In advanced stages of play, they begin to interact with one another around common interests and activities, before eventually have a shared purpose (cooperative play). Similarly, I see parallel play in multi-designated MSIs because there are three separate committees for each MSI type, with each committee engaging in very similar conversations and activities but rarely interacting with each other.
Let me be clear, I’m calling on multi-designated MSIs to create structures where committees can play with each other, rather than parallel to each other. Having 2 or 3 separate committees is a waste of human resources, and right now humans are overworked. With limited resources we must be more creative about the ways we organize around equity issues. Campuses should consider convening one “servingness committee” and having 2 or 3 sub-committees that allow for focused conversations about various identity groups that make up each MSI type. This will also lead to a greater level of solidarity which we desperately need right now. What we can learn from the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) is that working in solidarity across racial-ethnic groups in more likely to result in organizational and policy change, with the TWLF having great success in creating ethnic studies programs and demanding greater access to higher education for communities of color. Some campuses have begun to address MSI siloing by creating opportunities for connection and community building across racial-ethnic groups and MSI committees. Fullerton College, for example, created a unity lunch for campus leaders of various communities to come together and begin discussing ways to work in solidarity.
I could come up with many reasons and modes for adapting the servingness framework and for working in solidarity, but you get the picture, right? And I honestly want to hear from you, oh gentle reader, as I know you have ideas too. Drop a comment or follow me on social media to join the conversation. Peace!!!
