HSI Grant Discontinued: what now?

The University of St. Francis (USF) has been a recognized Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) since 2023. Along with this, they have also received grant money for being an HSI. However, that has changed as the Department of Education is discontinuing the university’s Title V grant. This decision leaves a big question, what the university is going to do with the loss of the grant funding? I ask this question as the university has staff positions, student worker jobs and some revised courses that are all grant funded. 

There are five staff positions and approximately twenty student jobs on campus that could all be affected due to the loss of the grant. The future is uncertain and there are too many questions and not enough answers as of now. 

Students were informed of the loss of grant funding on Sep. 15 in an email sent out by USF President Dr. Ryan Hendrickson. This email came just days after national HSI week, an event which USF took part in. 

“There is a lot of uncertainty on how this will impact us,” Hendrickson said. “We are in contact with the Department of Education, we’re making requests to them to get more information so it’s really pretty ambiguous right now. It’s a moving target and we are doing the best we can and we’ll engage with legislators to indicate our support for this grant and how meaningful it is.” 

President Hendrickson later sent out a second email on Oct. 13, informing students about what will happen in regards to the HSI grant loss. This email unfortunately did entail a workforce reduction. This leaves me with a couple more questions as to what jobs are getting cut and if there will be any pay cuts for positions that are not being reduced, as those were not specified. A current student worker, Julie Zuniga, shared how she feels about the loss of the grant, saying “I don’t know how soon it will be taken away from me or if it will be taken away from me and it’s scary.”

President Hendrickson stated in his email that he will be meeting with the Student Government Association (SGA) on Oct. 22 to discuss the next steps. On Oct. 28, it is anticipated that staff notifications will be sent out. It is currently unknown what jobs and how many will be affected. Hopefully students and staff will be notified soon about the future of their position so they can make arrangements as needed. 

Besides the student jobs and staff positions affected by the loss of the grant, a question I want to ask is how much of the grant money actually went to helping Hispanic students complete their degree at USF. After interviewing Provost Beth Roth, we got an idea as to what the money was spent on, but how much money was spent on each is something I would like to see. 

“Some of the things we’ve done with grant funding that we have received is have a new commuter lounge and new furniture, revised foundations one now called first-year seminar to make it more focused on the transition to college and help students understand what it means to be at a Franciscan university and also feel a keen sense of belonging,” Roth said. “We’ve also redesigned some courses. So faculty have looked at some existing courses and added some more culturally responsive units to it or in some cases added new courses that particularly focus on Hispanic culture.”  

This is an ongoing situation that affects the entire campus. Students and staff are hoping for more updates as the situation develops.