By: Joseph Zuniga
On September 10th, the Department of Education announced it will be cutting the funding of grants designated for Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), which includes Dominican, known as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI).
According to the Department of Education, roughly $350 million in grants throughout the United States will be reallocated from MSI grants and programs to programs that aren’t MSI-based. The DOE views these grants as discriminatory because they were awarded to institutions that met a racial/ethnic quota.
Federal grants awarded to Dominican that aren’t HSI-based are untouched.
The news initially left faculty in disbelief and uncertainty, with many questioning what this meant for Dominican and its programs that depended on these grants.
Due to this decision by the DOE, federal grants of about $3.6 million are cut from Dominican. It is important to note that these grants were annual installment payments, so the federal government cannot reclaim any money Dominican has already received.
One grant affected was a Title V part B grant called Promoting Post-Baccalaureate Opportunities for Hispanic Americans (PPOHA). This grant was awarded to Dominican with $3 million over the course of five years.
It has been a full fiscal year since the award was given to Dominican, so Dominican has and will only receive $600,000 of the $3 million originally awarded.
This grant would have helped build new graduate programs in health sciences, support graduate students through rigorous programs by providing support services, and develop research.
Sophia Hamilton, Special Assistant for Postbaccalaureate Pathways in Healthcare and a member of the PPOHA program, was concerned over the DOE’s Decision to cut HSI grants after labeling them as discriminatory.
“The grant was viewed by our government as being discriminatory based on race, which is not true,” she said. “Because, although we’re a Hispanic Serving Institution, the grant serves anybody who attends. So, the framing of the grant being discriminatory is upsetting.”
As a result, PPOHA has been limited in funding.
“We are limited in what we can do now, moving forward, unfortunately,” Hamilton said.
Assistant Vice President of Planning, Grants, and Government Relations, Anne Deeter, emphasizes the importance of these grants.
“These grants allow us to improve the institution for all students,” she says. “Without some of these funds, we can’t do some of the new and innovative ideas that we have.”
According to Deeter, past grants have helped pay for the new analytics lab, new STEM labs, and have helped transform career program curriculum.
Deeter is working with other administration to find additional sources of income to continue to support affected programs like PPOHA.
“We’re going to continue to seek other funding opportunities,” she said. “We’re going to try to find other grant makers who believe in the same kind of ideas we have.”
Assistant Vice President for Hispanic-Serving and Culturally Sustaining Initiatives, Jacky Neri Arias, is also in charge of a Title V part A grant that is also being cut that benefited undergraduate programs.
Neri Arias is proud to be a part of an HSI like Dominican and says that being Hispanic-serving is what Dominican is all about.
“We believe in this at our core.”
Neri Arias reiterates that students’ needs are prioritized first and will continue to support students as best as possible and stand by Dominican’s mission centered on Caritas Veritas.
“Our mission is to educate the masses. I want students to know that no matter what the government or the Department of Education says or does, you belong here.”
