Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) in Practice: Defining “Servingness” at HSIs (2020)
Edited by Gina Ann Garcia, University of Pittsburgh
“Redesigning the Gateway College Algebra Course With Inclusive and Asset-Based Pedagogy: Rethinking ‘Servingness’ at a Hispanic Serving Institution,” Nandini Bhattacharya, Arnold Sánchez Ordaz, Eduardo Mosqueda, and Catherine R. Cooper.
CITL’s own Associate Director for Teaching, Nandini Bhattacharya, has contributed to a chapter in a book titled, Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) in Practice Defining ‘Servingness’ at HSIs (2020, Information Age Publishing). The book tackles the concept of hispanic serving institutions and interrogates what it means to truly serve Latinx students. The book offers a collection of chapters from university faculty, staff, and administrator scholars and practitioners who use the concept of “servingness” to address the ability of HSIs to enroll and educate Latinx students by centering their needs and experiences and, ultimately, transforming academic and non-academic outcomes. Nandini Bhattacharya’s chapter titled (co-authored by other UCSC faculty and staff), “Redesigning the Gateway College Algebra Course With Inclusive and Asset-Based Pedagogy: Rethinking ‘Servingness’ at a Hispanic Serving Institution,” analyzes the redesigning of a remedial math course at UC Santa Cruz, which has disproportionate Latinx enrollment, to emphasize inclusive teaching practices. Nandini has taught the course for many years and was the lead of the redesign. Oftentimes math courses such as these play the role of gatekeeper rather than gateway, but this can be changed by better serving students through utilizing pedagogies and other course design elements that are more inclusive and student-centered. At UC Santa Cruz, doing so in a particular math class demonstrates the promise of “servingness” to improve the outcomes for Latinx students in STEM. The chapter describes the process of the course redesign and provides instructive result from the analysis of outcomes. Overall, the book is a useful resource for individuals and institutions interested in learning approaches for effectively serving Latinx and other marginalized students.
The book is available here for purchase: https://www.infoagepub.com/products/Hispanic-Serving-Institutions-in-Practice