NJIT Joins the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities
New Jersey Institute of Technology has joined the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities as its 22nd member.
With a total enrollment of more than 13,000, NJIT increased its Hispanic student population from 20% to 25% in fall 2022 and earned HSI designation from the U.S. Department of Education earlier this year.
The Alliance, which represents universities that are both Hispanic-serving and the highest rated in research, aims to increase opportunities for people who historically have been underserved by higher education.
"We are proud to earn the designation of Hispanic Serving Institution," said NJIT President Teik C. Lim. "Joining the HSRU Alliance will support NJIT's efforts to increase its Hispanic representation in the STEM fields and our research endeavors."
By 2030, the HSRU Alliance aims to:
• Double the number of Hispanic doctoral students enrolled at Alliance universities, and
• Increase by 20% the Hispanic professoriate in Alliance universities.
"With the addition of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the Alliance now includes 22 universities in 10 different states,” said Dr. Heather Wilson, president of The University of Texas at El Paso and chair of the Alliance. “The demographics of America are changing and we need to inspire more Hispanic students to achieve advanced degrees. We welcome NJIT to help make progress toward our common goals.”
The 22 HSRU Alliance universities, representing ten states, enrolled 853,698 students in fall 2022; of those, 32.1% identify as Hispanic. In 2022, these universities’ combined research spending totaled more than $7.95 billion.
The Alliance universities are engaged in thousands of research projects with world-changing outcomes in the arts and humanities, STEM, health sciences, social sciences, and other fields. In 2021-22, Alliance universities produced 13,676 doctoral graduates, of which 13.5% were Hispanic.
NJIT was officially welcomed as a member during the Alliance’s second annual summit, held this week at the University of Texas at Arlington. With the generous support from the Strada Foundation, where more than 200 leaders and professors from its member universities joined in presentations, and panel discussions focused on advancing educational pathways, building strategic collaborations with governmental partners like NIH, NSF, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense, and strengthening the network of HSI/R1s.
University of North Texas Vice President for Research and Innovation Pamela Padilla and North Carolina State University Professor Emerita Fay Cobb Payton each delivered keynote addresses focused on the role of strong leadership and multi-institutional networks for scaling the impact potential. Keynotes Anne-Marie Nuñez, Diana Natalicio Institute for Hispanic Student Success and Tatiana Camacho, University of Texas at San Antonio presented on strategic opportunities for working with federal agencies and the value of advancing support for Hispanic Serving Institutions.
Padilla’s speech focused on her trajectory as a scientist in a STEM field and her experience leading change through associations like the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS). She emphasized how the HSRU is critical in ensuring students at all levels of postsecondary education are welcomed and supported in their education.
Payton’s keynote focused on the benefits and challenges of building university ecosystems, the role of leadership in forging collaborations. She emphasized the value of both in the context of Hispanic Serving Institutions. About two-thirds of the 600 HSIs are public institutions. Payton shared ideas for how to leverage the formation of the HSRU toward having a greater impact in postsecondary education, especially in STEM.
The Alliance launched in the summer of 2022, emerging from a 2020 convening of approximately 100 leaders and faculty from 16 universities who were committed to increasing educational access and promoting Latinx humanities scholarship. A generous grant from the Mellon Foundation to the University of Illinois Chicago made the convening possible.
University leaders organized a board of chancellors and presidents that became the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities, while the Mellon Foundation awarded $5 million to the University of Illinois Chicago to create Crossing Latinidades, which is supporting new interdisciplinary Latino humanities scholarship across member institutions.
In addition to New Jersey Institute of Technology, universities in the Alliance include:
• Arizona State University
• City University of New York Graduate Center
• Florida International University
• Texas A&M University
• Texas Tech University
• The University of Arizona
• The University of New Mexico
• The University of Texas at Arlington
• The University of Texas at Austin
• The University of Texas at El Paso
• The University of Texas at San Antonio
• University of California, Irvine
• University of California, Riverside
• University of California, Santa Barbara
• University of California, Santa Cruz
• University of Central Florida
• University of Colorado, Denver
• University of Houston
• University of Illinois Chicago
• University of Nevada, Las Vegas
• University of North Texas
