Dominican University: Serving Latine Students in the Midwest

By: Verónica Gutiérrez, MBA’22, Dominican College, River Forest IL and Marcela Reales Visbal, Exercise Director for Title V, Portion B – Advertising and marketing Put up-Baccalaureate Chances for Hispanic Us residents, Dominican University, River Forest IL

“I had never ever listened to of the time period HSI until eventually I came to Dominican University”, reported Verónica Gutiérrez, a initially-era Latina who grew up in a person of Chicago’s northwestern suburbs and just lately graduated with her Master’s in Business enterprise Administration from Dominican.

Dominican University is a person of 30 Hispanic Serving Institutions in Illinois, and 1 of 15 that provides graduate systems.¹ Though most HSIs are concentrated in the U.S. Southwest, Puerto Rico, and New York, Dominican proudly serves the midwestern Latine community. The university is regarded Chicago’s Leading Catholic HSI.

Like Verónica, lots of pupils at Dominican are initial-technology university students and from historically marginalized communities in the Chicago metropolitan area. With Latine students accounting for 20% of school undergraduates in the United States, it is critical to be intentional about serving this subset of the inhabitants.²

How? By making on students’ assets and offering them equipment and resources that will help them be successful.

Considering that the drop of 2017 Dominican University has been awarded Title V and Title III grants aimed at expanding Latine and very low-income university student achievement. These sources grow and enrich academic choices, tutorial assist services for undergraduate and graduate students, job and professional preparedness, and co-curricular offerings these types of as a Economic Wellness application. They also support school and workers across campus to come to be more culturally inclusive by means of their operate and educating techniques.

“When I arrived to Dominican there was an general concentration on the properly-currently being of the pupils,” explained Verónica. “It felt like a large amount of the school, these kinds of as Professor of Management Molly Burke, were normally quite intrigued and concerned about how the students were being undertaking, supplying tutorial guidance and connecting us with individuals and methods.”

When pursuing her MBA, Verónica was a graduate assistant for the Economical Wellness program. The software, led by Ramiro Atristaín Carrión offers students economical literacy workshops, monetary steerage, undergraduate internships, and volunteering alternatives in the local community. The assistantship gave Verónica an option to increase her understanding of Economic Literacy, mentor undergraduate learners, and attain venture administration capabilities.

This expertise led her to go after her latest vocation as a specialist for higher education: “As a very first-gen university student I normally obtain it beneficial when institutions present equipment and assets that empower the college students, irrespective of whether it’s as a result of experiential alternatives like internships or graduate assistantships, that will deliver experiences necessary for a ton of our students,” she explained.

Verónica has always been committed to mentorship and advocating for her community.

“Growing up I experienced incredibly supportive lecturers that constantly considered in my probable, so I believed that I could accomplish whichever was in my brain,” she stated. “I would also say that representation does subject. Ramiro was in financial investment banking, and I had in no way achieved anybody from Latin The usa that was in expenditure banking, so it was the initial time that I entered the home and assumed that anything was probable!”

“We are unable to be what we can not see,” writes actor and social justice advocate Michael K. Williams in his posthumous memoir.³

Delivering a assortment of tools and chances for our college students to see further than what they know and realize success on their endeavors, is crucial to assisting them be the very best-achievable model of them selves.

¹Excelencia in Schooling: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs): 2020-2021

²National Center for Instruction Stats and The White Dwelling: A Proclamation on Hispanic Heritage Institutions 7 days, 2022

³Williams, Michael Kenneth, and Jon Sternfeld. Scenes from My Existence: A Memoir. Crown, 2022.

Verónica Gutiérrez now is effective for a consulting organization in Chicago. She graduated debt no cost by making use of the private finance principles taught by Ramiro J. Atristaín-Carrión in the method. Verónica believes in empowering people today by equipping them with the know-how, resources, and abilities they want to be successful. Her future target is to start off a economical literacy system to empower women and other initially-generation faculty college students.