Supporting Dreamer Students

Recently, I was interviewed by a graduate student in the College Student Services Administration Program at Oregon State University. Asked to write about an issue related to equality or civil rights on a college campus, the student chose to research Metropolitan State University of Denver’s decision to significantly lower tuition rates for undocumented students. The following Q & A is based on this interview.

Q: What was the beginning? What generated discussion about the need for lowering tuition for undocumented students? Were there any significant events that moved this idea forward?

A: MSU Denver primarily serves the Denver Metropolitan area—home to about 30% Hispanic or Latinx people. About 2010, MSU Denver leadership began seeking the Hispanic-serving designation to compete for federal funding to better support the university’s diverse student body. In 2018, for instance, MSU Denver students identified as 28.4% Latinx, 44.7% students of color and 49.1% first generation to college. When gathering data on current and prospective students, along with drawing from personal experience, MSU Denver leadership identified a population of students who struggle to access higher education due to their undocumented legal status. In 2012, evoking MSU Denver’s 1963 founding as a “College of Opportunity,” the Board of Trustees approved a discounted tuition rate for undocumented students and advocated for similar state legislation in the form of Advancing Students for a Stronger Tomorrow (ASSET). Former Deputy Provost Luis Torres, a passionate advocate for undocumented students’ rights, said that it was our responsibility to protect the most vulnerable parts of our population, and DREAMer students were it.

Q: Would you be able to break down some basics about the Dream Act, ASSET Bill, etc.?

A: The DREAM Act was introduced to the U.S. Senate in 2001, but it never passed. In a 2012 response, former President Barack Obama signed DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. DACA is an executive order that allows some individuals who were brought to the United States illegally as children to receive a renewable, two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to become eligible for a work permit in the U.S. While the DREAM Act ultimately failed, the moniker “DREAMers” stuck. ASSET is a Colorado law allowing state institutions of higher education operating in Colorado to offer reduced tuition rates to undocumented students who have completed a high school education in Colorado with several other stipulations. In 2017, President Trump challenged DACA and instead recommended a legislative solution in the form of a federal law. The PROSPER Act was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in December 2017, but stalled.

Q: What are you seeing at MSU Denver today as a result of efforts to support Dreamer students?

A: In addition to seeing hundreds of Dreamer students pursuing their educational goals, the sense of community that has been created to provide resources and support has heightened MSU Denver’s commitment to serving at-risk students. I often tell friends and family that I not only work on education policy, I work on civil rights policy. The social justice component of this work is a huge morale booster for students, faculty and staff, and has created a shared sense of pride and positive energy on campus.

Bloggers: Questions for further consideration—

How does your organization support Dreamer or other first-generation students? What additional info on this topic might be helpful? What policies or related resources does your organization have on advocacy, lobbying and political activity?

How Centralized Policies Affect Productivity

I work at a community college that, like many of its peer institutions, is experiencing declining funding and, at the same time, escalating regulatory mandates. I recently had the opportunity to speak with our executive director of diversity and equity, Affirmative Action/Title IX officer about her challenges with regulatory requirements and how the establishment of a policy office and a centralized policy library aided her productivity.

Like many of us on campus, the executive director wears many hats, with the assistance of one shared staff member. Here at the college, she administers all programs related to diversity, equity, Affirmative Action, and Title IX, and is responsible for the review and investigation of complaints regarding discrimination, sexual harassment, dating and domestic violence, stalking, Title IX, and workplace issues. During our talk, the executive director noted that budgetary constraints and Title IX were her current challenges. Nearly half of her allotted budget, despite collaboration with other departments to share costs, goes toward campus-wide mandated training initiatives; in her opinion, considering today’s social environment, more training is needed above and beyond the required levels. In addition, a big chunk of her time is spent staying current on national news and the changing federal policy environment. Continual monitoring is necessary to remain ahead of the curve in managing risk, where missteps could be financially catastrophic to a small public institution. As an example, the executive director mentioned that what has been keeping her awake at night is a Proposed Title IX Regulation, released on November 16 for 60 days of public comment. This proposal came after the Department of Education’s decision in September 2017 to rescind prior guidance from 2011 and 2014, leaving in place the 2001 Guidance. These changes have left the college’s published policy in limbo for now, but it will require considerable revision in the not-too-distant future. It is still too early to do a deep dive into the work of revision and procedural considerations until the proposed regulation is finalized.  

Over my college’s 50-plus-year history, published policy has been a hit-or-miss affair, and what policy existed was more likely to be held in a multitude of forms scattered across departments. Since the 2013 creation of the college’s centralized policy office and policy library, the executive director claims to have experienced an increase in her office’s productivity. As she mentioned many times during our conversation, policy in her wheelhouse is always changing, which requires timely updates. She indicated that the services the policy office offers save her time by providing best-practice research, help with writing and editing during the development or revision stage, and shepherding the policy draft through review/approval processes; this allows her more time for implementing budget-friendly staff training and professional development strategies.

How Internships Benefit the Student and the Policy Office

Nine years ago, when I left corporate life to join Utah Valley University (UVU) as its new policy office director, I realized right away that I needed some extra help. Ongoing contract or freelance help would not fit our small budget; but student interns would. I knew from my own college experience that interning in one’s future field builds marketable, real-world skills; I had hired student interns in corporate America, some of whom stayed on after graduation as valued, full-time employees.

While internships are incredibly beneficial to students, they also provide benefits for your office and your institution’s policy process (aside from just being cheap labor, which is definitely a plus). I’ve seen overwhelming positive benefits to both my own office and many others at UVU. Benefits such as:

• Access to innovative ideas and unique perspectives - College students learn about the latest trends in the industry through their coursework, so student interns can bring with them academic and technical knowledge that is useful in your office. Even more importantly, as higher education policy administrators, what our offices do heavily impacts students, and we may be so “deep in the trenches” that we have overlooked how our policies may impact and read to them. Having access to the student perspective is invaluable to this process.
• Decreased turnaround time and increased office productivity - The extra sets of hands can help your office be more productive and prevent it from becoming overburdened by side projects, allowing you and your staff to focus more time and energy on tasks where more advanced expertise is required. And you may be able to offer and complete extra projects and services for both your department and others, because of valuable student interns.
• Enhance your office culture and improve staff morale - Not only does having extra help increase overall staff morale, but an internship program provides an opportunity for your office and staff to connect with students, meet with them, speak with them, and ultimately mentor them, which promotes and fosters vital leadership skills for both mentors and mentees.
• Test drive the talent - An internship program doubles as a recruitment method without recruitment costs. Seeing how interns work will give you a more accurate view of how they would be as full-time staff members. The internship serves as a hands-on training period; the intern to whom you extend a job offer already knows the basics of the job and how your office works.

At the UVU Policy Office, we hire political science interns and editing interns. The political science interns helped us refine our policy research procedures and develop a policy research document template. This service has assisted policy writing committees that did not have the resources or time to conduct their own research. Last year’s political science intern helped us develop metrics we use to assess our office’s effectiveness. 

Our editing interns have helped us improve our policy template, web site, and editorial procedures.  One of those interns, Jennifer Gallagher (whom many of you know from previous conferences) has now been my full-time employee going on two years. Her reputation as an outstanding editor is spreading across our campus. When I get a phone call from a vice president asking for editing assistance on a policy—they don’t ask for me—they ask for Jennifer. Her success as an intern, and now an employee, has improved our office greatly and enhanced its reputation as a service provider.

I am always learning from my student employees. They keep our office fresh and learning—which is the whole point of higher education. 

Blog Replaces ACUPA Newsletter

We're excited about our first post in the new blog, Policy Matters!

As you know, policy administrators and others spend considerable time populating the ACUPA website to enable information sharing among the association’s members. Behind the scenes in ACUPA, virtually or in person, groups from around the world meet regularly with each other to think of ways to bring you useful and timely news and tools, all while juggling their “day jobs.”

Until recently, the Newsletter Committee of ACUPA brought you a triannual publication, ACUPAexchange. Now, to address the needs of our members and maximize the efficiency of our processes, we have decided to begin publishing the ACUPA newsletter as a blog.

Policy Matters, taking the place of ACUPAexchange, will still be your member-populated periodical for articles on policy management and policy subjects, as well as a place for discussion, through comments, and for communicating other useful material. We will regularly populate the site with posts and articles that we believe will be of interest to our members.

Discussions among committee members and the ACUPA board of directors yielded a list of topics, as detailed below, and members of the committee agreed to a regular rotation, the result of which will be bi-weekly posts on the site. All ACUPA members will receive notification when there is a new post, and are encouraged to go to the site, read, and comment. If you decide you would rather not receive notifications about new posts, you can unsubscribe from the blog.

At this point, nothing is “written in stone”; we appeal to you, our members, to help us decide whether we have brought you this new feature in the most useful way. Please contact any of the committee members with your feedback, or ideas for topics that would be of interest to you.

Finally, while we know you are all busy, your submissions are encouraged and welcomed. All of ACUPA would love to see blog posts about your organization’s challenges, accomplishments, solutions, or other interesting perspectives on what we do. Send them anytime to any member of the Newsletter Committee for publication!

Policy Matters content ideas:

• Announcements about ACUPA events
• Updates from the board
• Editorial or article about a policy-related issue
• "How We Did This” – descriptions from ACUPA members on how they implemented a policy, process, etc.
• Interviews with ACUPA members on relevant issues
• Blog posts with policy-related links
• Rants from members
• Satirical/ humor posts
• Other office-related posts, such work tools, workplace ideas, office trends, accommodating different generations, workplace diversity, etc.
• Member human interest: profiles/spotlights of members
• Policy Watch: what should policy administrators be looking for (e.g., new proposed guidelines regarding sexual assault. 

Policy Matters  committee members:

• Josh Adams: ja22@cornell.edu
• Jennifer Gallagher: JGallagher@uvu.edu
• Megan Jones: webbme@msudenver.edu
• Cara O'Sullivan: Cara.OSullivan@uvu.edu
• Meg Resue: mresue@rcgc.edu
• Jessica Teets: teets@purdue.edu