Meeting the challenge for student success as an AANAPISI Institution

Seventeen years ago, Congress established the Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution designation, or AANAPISI, for colleges and universities that support underserved Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students.

Today, over 200 institutions across the country are classified as AANAPISIs. This year, UCLA is now counted among them.

"The AANAPISI designation will allow UCLA to tap new sources of funding that will help us foster a welcoming and supportive environment where all students can thrive," said Interim Chancellor Darnell Hunt. "This designation is also an important signal to our community that we are committed to working closely with our Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students to address their unique challenges, uplift their voices and ensure their success at UCLA."

The challenges that students can face vary. Some students, due to factors such as financial instability or familial responsibilities, can lack the resources or guidance to successfully navigate higher education and pursue their graduation goals, leading to higher dropout rates. They may be the first in their family to attend a university or to pursue professions unfamiliar to them, and they may not know about tutoring or research and fellowship opportunities that could further their educational experiences. Other students grapple with campus racial climate and feelings of invisibility.

The designation makes the campus, where 35.1% of undergraduates identify as Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, eligible for federal funds to bolster research activities, programming and services that can help address these issues and aim to make a positive impact on student success and experiences, especially for low-income, first-generation, transfer and other underrepresented students.

The funds could be used toward institutional and student-run programs focused on outreach, retention and mentoring, as well as research-oriented programs and projects that contribute to a deeper understanding of these ethnic groups and the intersectional issues that impact them. Some institutions have also used these grants to enhance the activities of student groups and create resource centers to help with well-being and belonging, in tandem with other efforts to bring in diverse faculty and student affairs staff.

UC Berkeley, which was awarded its first AANAPISI federal grant last year, used a portion of its funds for student conferences, retreats and orientations geared toward Pacific Islanders and Southeast Asians and artist- and scholar-in-residence programs.

"Building a comprehensive ecosystem of support for students - and their families and communities - who are facing the greatest challenges is an urgent call that UCLA needs to answer," said Vice Provost David Yoo, chair of the UCLA AANAPISI advisory committee.

Breaking down the monolith

"The UCLA AANAPISI designation represents the importance of understanding the various lived experiences of students on campus," said Willa Mei Kurland, a graduate student in the UCLA School of Education & Information Studies, who serves as a project manager for the UC-wide AANAPISI initiative. "It serves as a reminder that there is no single AA&NHPI student experience."

Although there can be a misconception of universal high academic achievement for Asian Americans, and by extension Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, often referred to as part of the "model minority myth," there are significant differences among the almost 50 groups lumped under the broader ethnic category. In a report by the committee recommending the pursuit of the designation, the authors emphasized the need to improve the recruitment, experiences and outcomes for underrepresented groups, especially Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders and Southeast Asians.

Genevieve Chin, a fourth-year undergraduate student who served on the UCLA committee, agreed that it was about "breaking down the monolith" of what it means to be Asian American.

"There are a lot of different groups that deserve different approaches if we want equity," said Chin, a computer science major.

For example, while the number of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander applicants nearly doubled between 2016 and 2022, growing from 743 to 1,280, their admittance had topped out around 100 students during those years. Disaggregated data showed that the average admit rate between 2018 and 2022 was especially low for groups such as Hmong and Samoan where only 4.43% and 7.11%, respectively, of those applicants were admitted.

Enrollment data also showed that Bangladeshi, Indonesian, Cambodian, Sri Lankan, Thai, Laotian, Hmong and Malaysian had some of the lowest percentages of students among Asian American ethnic groups. For Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, groups like Tongan, Native Hawaiian and Guamanian/Chamorro never made up more than 1.00% of the total Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander student enrollment.

When it came to graduation, around half of Hmong and Laotian students who entered UCLA as first-years dropped out. Graduation rates for transfers were also low for several groups, including Thai (25.00%), Sri Lankan (50.00%) and Japanese (61.54%).

A shared goal of inclusive excellence

"Although it is one of the least known of the Minority Serving Institutions programs, the fact that UCLA is a designated AANAPISI campus means that it can and should be a critical part of UCLA's strategic priority of inclusive excellence," said Yoo, who also leads the Institute of American Cultures and is a professor of Asian American studies and history.

The AANAPISI designation is one of 11 Minority Serving Institutions programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education that determine eligibility for grants across multiple federal agencies to support research, student services and programs. Some are mission-based, such as historically Black colleges and tribally controlled colleges and universities, which were founded to serve specific student populations. Others, like AANAPISIs and Hispanic-Serving Institutions, have enrollment-based criteria and other requirements.

To be eligible as an AANAPISI, at least 10 percent of the institution's total undergraduate enrollment must be Asian American and/or Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander. The second criterion centers around finances and affordability, such as enrolling a large proportion of low-income students, measured through indicators like the percentage of Pell Grant recipients. Institutions must apply annually.

Robert Teranishi, a professor of social science and comparative education, chairs the University of California AANAPISI initiative, which has convened two UC-wide summits to bolster the work being done by various stakeholders. For Teranishi, the concerted, intercampus efforts for all nine undergraduate University of California campuses to receive and maintain the AANAPISI designation involve much more than meeting the criteria and applying for funding. It is about striving for and sharing promising practices that not only address inequities for students but also improve campus climate and faculty diversity. It also means engaging in work with other AANAPISIs in the California State University and California Community College systems.

"It can be a model for other higher education systems throughout the country," said Teranishi, an expert on college opportunity and access.

All nine undergraduate University of California campuses are now AANAPISIs. It is an accomplishment in line with the University of California's goals for expanding opportunity and excellence, as outlined in the presidential priorities back in 2022, which called for all the campuses to earn dual minority-serving designations of AANAPISI and Hispanic-Serving Institution by 2030.

Five campuses are already Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and the other four, including UCLA, are considered emerging, at a time when the system marked record highs of Latino student enrollment.

"As the University of California system continues to serve an increasingly diverse and global student body, there is a pressing need to establish a working definition of what it means to be 'minority-serving,'" Teranishi said.

At UCLA, 23 faculty members, staff, graduate and undergraduate students and alumni came together to serve on the AANAPISI committee. The application that led to the designation was also the result of mutual support between the committee and the HSI Initiative at UCLA, with assistance from campus partners such as Academic Planning and Budget, the Registrar's Office, Admissions and Financial Aid.

With UCLA actively working toward its dual designation, the UCLA AANAPISI committee hopes that the campus can harness the collective expertise and resources of both AANAPISI and HSI, as well as other equity and diversity initiatives that support Black, Native and Indigenous, LGBTQ+, and other underrepresented communities, to better serve the whole student population.

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