Cal Lutheran University Makes List of Best Schools for Latinos

Ron Valencia felt like an outsider.

As a Latino freshman at California Lutheran University, Valencia believed he stood out among the largely white student body. He didn’t know anyone on the Thousand Oaks campus, and he found the workload difficult.

During that first year, Valencia went home to Santa Paula nearly every weekend to be with friends and family. He even considered leaving school to join the Army.

Then he got involved with the school’s Latino student organization. He met other Mexican American students and helped organize special events, such as inviting local Latino leaders to speak on campus. Valencia also met with a Latino counselor who helped him determine which classes he needed and made him feel welcome.

“I felt good, because I wasn’t alone,” said the 20-year-old junior, who is majoring in computer science. “That’s what really helped me decide to stay and finish.”

For the sixth consecutive year, Cal Lutheran was recognized as one of the best schools in the nation for Latino students, in part because of its programs and services.

More than 700 colleges or universities in the United States and Puerto Rico made this year’s list, which was recently featured in the Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, a twice-monthly educational journal based in New Jersey.

Ventura College also was selected, as was Cal State Northridge, which has won the distinction in each of the past five years. The schools were chosen from more than 2,500 institutions that responded to a survey by the journal. Schools were chosen based on their Latino enrollment and graduation rates, faculty diversity, scholarships targeting Latinos, and other programs and services.

Copies of the magazine will be sent to high schools throughout the country to help graduating seniors decide which college or university to attend.

“We are talking to our people about what’s out there,” said Suzanne Lopez-Isa, managing editor of Hispanic Outlook. “If you are an Hispanic parent, you want to send your child to a school that is going to be Hispanic-friendly, where there are going to be other people who speak your language, where you feel comfortable with your customs, where there is faculty you can relate to.”

Officials at Ventura College and Cal State Northridge, which operates a satellite branch at Cal State Channel Islands near Camarillo, say the designation means they are successfully serving a diverse student population.

“It’s a recognition of the fine work our faculty and staff are doing with limited resources,” said Alisa Moore, a Ventura College spokeswoman. She also noted that in a March edition of the same magazine, the two-year college was ranked 29th in the nation for the number of associate’s degrees granted to Latino students.

Ventura College recently received more than $2 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Education to help increase enrollment and graduation among its Latino students, who represent 32% of the school’s 12,500-member student body.

Nearly 25% of CSUN Students Are Latino

At CSUN, which offers bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Chicano/Chicana studies, nearly a quarter of its 31,400 students identify themselves as Latino.

Of the three local schools, Cal Lutheran is both private and affiliated with a religious denomination that many Latinos don’t identify with. Of the 1,600 full-time undergraduate students enrolled at Cal Lutheran in the fall, 12.3% were Latino.

But the university offers a weekly Catholic Mass, invites local Latino leaders to speak on campus and celebrates cultural holidays, including Las Posadas, which celebrates Mary and Joseph’s search for a place to stay in Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus. Students also have a chance to celebrate Dia de los Muertos in early November, which honors the dead. The student union is decorated with flowers, candles and pictures of deceased family members.

Cal Lutheran also offers Student Support Services, a federally funded program that offers free tutoring, career counseling and other services for students from low-income families and those whose parents did not attend college.

University officials said it’s important to provide a diverse campus.

“The world is getting smaller,” said Cal Lutheran spokeswoman Lynda Paige Fulford. “The business community is going very global and international. The students need to be prepared for that, and to be able to interact and be knowledgeable about other cultures.”

Alberto Villagomez, a Cal Lutheran sophomore majoring in English and business administration, said there is still room for improvement.

Villagomez said he would appreciate a more ethnically diverse faculty at Cal Lutheran. Today, five of the school’s 110 full-time teachers are Latino.

Increased Latino Recruitment Sought

He added that he would also like to see Cal Lutheran recruiters visit more high schools in Ventura County to encourage Latino enrollment, and for the university professors to promote upcoming events sponsored by the Latino American Student Organization, of which he is president.

Still, the 19-year-old said he is thankful for what the university does offer its Latino students.

“I’m sure students would feel as if there isn’t much for them” without the current programs, he said. “It has helped.”