A student’s story

At the age of 12, Edgar hated school.

His father had brought Edgar from Mexico to the United States in order to learn English and by November of that first year, Edgar felt as if he hadn’t learned anything and begged not to go to school.

As the only Latino at his middle school in North Manchester, Indiana, there were no programs set up to teach him English and Edgar felt mute and stupid in classes.

After realizing his son’s misery, Edgar’s dad arranged a meeting with the principal who then worked out a special schedule to help Edgar learn English. Three different high school students would come and tutor him during three different study hall periods. Then on some days he’d get out of school early to go to adult English classes.

“I learned 80 percent of my English between November and May of that year,” said Edgar. “After that experience, I didn’t want anyone to feel the way I felt and decided that I wanted to teach English as a New Language (ENL).”

After two years in North Manchester, Edgar decided to go back to Mexico for high school. During his first English class in Mexico, he found himself correcting the teacher and the students started asking him for help with their English homework.

The seed to teach planted itself in Edgar and he organized the students into groups to tutor them.

Two years later Edgar found himself back in the United States starting out at Goshen High School in Goshen, Indiana. This time, he had an ENL program to help him learn English and Edgar worked hard in order to get into the regular high school classes by senior year.

“I tried to immerse myself and focus on learning the language,” said Edgar. “Some kids made fun of me for ‘becoming white’ but I kept going.”

Edgar wanted to teach ENL here or English in Mexico. Due to the cheaper price of university education, Edgar planned to return to Mexico and study English there. But his plans changed when a teacher’s aid encouraged him to pursue a scholarship from Goshen College which was aimed at Latino students.

The teacher’s aid helped Edgar figure out the scholarship, and by the next fall Edgar was a full-time student at Goshen College.

The scholarship was to serve in a new Latino focused leadership program developed though the new Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning. The Program focused on ethnic identity and leadership development and was a place for Edgar to get the support he needed.

“I really liked the college’s focus on students,” said Edgar. “I felt that this was the place where I was supposed to be.”

During the summer after graduating, he got a job as an ENL teacher at Goshen Middle School. Edgar’s focus and perseverance while learning English in seventh grade made him a good role model for middle schoolers also struggling to learn a new language, in a new town, in a new culture.

In coming to Goshen College where he was encouraged to explore his identity, to connect that identity to others and to develop himself as a servant leader, Edgar realized his dream. He stated, “I always felt that since I came to the States that I needed to give back or somehow be that person that I lacked in teaching me English, I needed to be that person that support somehow… I felt that teaching would be the most immediate support. And now coming through college, through CITL and helping me evolve as a leader, I knew my purpose and what I wanted and now I know how to do it and how to be that person of support!”

Edgar said that he doesn’t want to just teach a language, he wants to instill in his students a value for education.

“I want them to enjoy school and break the stereotypes,” said Edgar. “I don’t just want them to graduate from high school; I want them to graduate from college.”

a seminar at the Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning

Promoting Renewal for Diversity Educators and others who lead for Equity in Education

The Leading for Equity, Achievement and Diversity (LEAD) Seminar is a week for educators from all levels and all areas to practice critical reflection focused on assumptions, expectations and habits to increase student achievement.

Online Registration

LEAD Main Page

Sunday, July 22

• 4:00-6:00pm - Registration and Check-in
• 6:00pm and later – Dinner on your own

Monday, July 23

• 7:00-8:00 – Breakfast
• 8:30-12:00 - Session I: Introduction to LEAD, theories of leadership, first self-assessment
• 12:00-1:00 – Lunch
• 1:00-5:00 – Session II: Continued self-assessment work, Leadership for Community-building
• 5:30-6:30 – Dinner
• 7:00-9:00 – Computer labs open

The Daily Schedule will follow the Monday sample above until Friday.  There will be “homework” in the evenings that will form the foundation of the following day’s sessions.  Computer labs will be open, but there is wireless internet access in the participant accommodations which will allow you to do most work in the evenings on a laptop computer.

Friday, July 27

• 7:00-8:00 – Breakfast
• 8:30-10:15 - Final Seminar Session: showcase of action plans and participant-gathered resources
• 10:15-10:30 – Break
• 10:30-12:00 – Closing Session: Taking it Back – Building and sustaining networks of support
• 12:00 – Box Lunch for travel – depart any time after noon

Click for Seminar Faculty

Online Registration

LEAD Main Page

a seminar at the Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning

The Leading for Equity, Achievement and Diversity (LEAD) Seminar is a week for educators from all levels and all areas to practice critical reflection focused on assumptions, expectations and habits to increase student achievement

Promoting Renewal for Diversity Educators and others who lead for Equity in Education

Click for Online Registration

What is the LEAD Seminar?

The Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning (CITL) at Goshen College will host this five-day residential seminar for educators from all levels and all areas in which participants are supported to critically reflect and learn more about the process of educating for transformation toward equitable schools, colleges, universities and classrooms. It is designed to connect participants to their own experiences and the experiences of others in taking leadership for educational equity.

To seriously address issues of educational equity requires that we depart from business as usual. This seminar provides the precious time and space for participants to critically reflect upon what it means to engage in equity work in their local context in a thoughtful and proactive manner.

What will I learn at the LEAD Seminar?

Participants will learn and apply the following skills aimed at equitable outcomes
for all students:

• Assembling resources – articles, websites and other media – for your personal growth and professional work that help identify and confront inequitable practices in your school context
• Gaining or expanding understanding of the role of emotional intelligence and the process of emotional release and healing in transforming attitudes and beliefs
• Building community both across differences and among affinity groups
• Developing the necessary personal awareness required to effectively teach/lead for educational equity
• Engaging, sustaining and deepening your capacity to build relational trust and alliances across differences of all types for the purpose of identifying and eliminating inequitable practices and policies in educational settings

Consider attending this seminar if you are:

• willing to address equity issues on a personal as well as an intellectual level
• concerned about how race-bias, class-bias, gender-bias and other forms of bias affect the process of school change, teaching, learning and achievement
• looking for a high leverage strategic opportunity to reflect, share and learn with colleagues about leading explicitly toward achievement and equity goals in schools, colleges and universities

What are the topics that will be covered in the LEAD Seminar?

Leading for Equity will be examined through topics that include:

• Your Immunity-To-Change™ and how to overcome it
• Organizational transformation in schools, colleges and universities
• Teaching and learning
• Building on your current understanding of historical inequities
• Recognizing and working with issues of equity and emotional support
• Using collaborative processes to critique strategies, plans and other operational documents

What will a participant walk away with?

As a participant, you will leave with:

• A resource book combining resources we have provided and resources you have assembled
• An analysis of work you have brought from your own context for its strengths and weaknesses
• A plan for developing a network of support to sustain transformative practices
• Increased self-awareness and knowledge about issues of systemic oppression
• Skills to facilitate teaching and learning
• Strategies for engaging in deeper dialogue about instructional practices, student achievement and equity

Dates, location and cost

This five-day seminar will be held July 23-27, 2012 on the campus of Goshen College, Goshen, Ind. Your host is the Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning (CITL).

The all-inclusive fee for the week is $1,250. This includes lodging in suite-style accommodations on campus (shared common area and kitchenette with private bedrooms), all meals, access to computer labs and the Recreation-Fitness Center, and all seminar materials. Goshen is known regionally as a vibrant cultural and entrepreneurial center with a great downtown.  Graduate credit is available through Goshen College for an additional fee.

Click for Seminar Faculty

Click for Daily Schedule

Click for Online Registration

For more information contact:

Ross Peterson-Veatch
CITL Dir. of Curriculum and Faculty Development
E-mail: rosspv@goshen.edu
Phone: (574) 535-7504
CITL Office: (574) 535-7800

Daisy Gaspar is a sophomore and is majoring in elementary education. She is among the students who came to Goshen College thanks to the Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning (CITL). Parts of Daisy’s story may seem familiar because you also have overcome many challenges – just like Daisy. Daisy’s is a of a dream starting to come true at Goshen College.

Daisy’s parents, Martin and Maria Gaspar both were born and raised in Mexico. They came here, like so many others, to live a better life. Today, Maria Gaspar works in a Goshen factory and Martin works in a turkey processing plant. They both work very long and very hard hours. In fact, they’re usually exhausted when they come home.

Daisy’s parents didn’t get much education, but they wanted something better for their daughter. They encouraged Daisy to go to school and then to college.

Daisy was born and grew up in a place just west of Chicago in a neighborhood called Little Village — La Villita. That’s a Latino area known as the “Mexico of the Midwest.” Daisy lived in Mexico when she was in second and third grade; that’s when she learned to speak Spanish fluently. But her home was always Little Village.

That’s also where Daisy discovered that she wanted to become a teacher. As Daisy tells it, “In seventh and eighth grade, I taught Catechism. And during the summers, I helped in summer school while in seventh and eighth grade… Throughout high school, I also wanted to teach.”

Four years ago, Daisy’s family moved from Chicago to Goshen so her parents could get jobs. It wasn’t the easiest adjustment for Daisy. It was tough leaving her Chicago neighborhood to go to Goshen High School, which was predominantly white. Daisy said she didn’t fit in, and she went back to Chicago every weekend to visit friends.

But Daisy stuck it out and graduated from Goshen High School in 2008. Of the colleges that she considered, Goshen College was last on Daisy’s list — even though her home is only a mile away. Daisy said she knew Goshen was a private, Christian college, but she didn’t know anything else. She planned to go to Indiana University (IU) in Bloomington. In fact, she attended a summer program at IU after graduating. But that summer, Daisy changed her mind. IU was big, but she didn’t think it would provide the support she wanted. She met with Liliana Ballge, who persuaded Daisy to consider Goshen College.

Daisy ended up enrolling in Goshen College in fall 2008, and she says it’s been a great experience. Daisy said she enjoys her liberal arts education because she’s getting to know about many things — science, art, music, athletics, her faith — and more. Daisy is involved in the Voices-n-Harmony gospel choir, the Salsa Club, the Latino Student Union, CITL, the Goals for the Future Community Service Project and the Service Inquiry Program.

Daisy also enjoys chapels and convocations and guest speakers. And she’s looking forward next year to going to Senegal as part of the Study-Service Term so she can use the French she learned in high school.

When asked what she would tell a Latino student considering Goshen College, Daisy’s response included this:

“The experience being in a smaller school, compared to an IU university, is that you will feel more at home within the school. You will get to know the teachers better. You won’t feel left out, definitely. You will feel comfortable because everyone here on campus makes you feel comfortable, no matter what. There’s a lot of respect here.”

This is what Daisy said about her studies:

“The academics are great. The teachers are there for you to help you after school or before school. They’re all willing to be available, and if you don’t understand, there are always tutors. There’s a good tutor system and writing center. Part of being a smaller school is it makes it easier to have more of those resources available to you most of the time, compared to other places.”

Daisy said that she also has come to appreciate her CITL classmates:

“It’s called a cohort, but it’s more of a family. I think the best times of CITL are the meetings, and not just because there’s food but because we all get together. Besides getting down to our tasks and our activities, we like to talk about how our week or our month is going and we just have fun.”

Daisy is focused on her studies and her goal of serving the Latino community by becoming a third-grade teacher: “I want to become a good teacher. I want to be a teacher who will influence kids and give them a good perspective to let them like being in school.”

In November 2009, Daisy was among 32 outstanding first-generation college students from across Indiana honored at the “Realizing the Dream” banquet in Indianapolis. The award was sponsored by Independent Colleges of Indiana, from the Lilly Endowment, and entitled Daisy to a $2,000 grant. The award was given in recognition of Daisy’s superior academic performance during her first year of college and her leadership on the campus and in the community.

More Stories

After a year in the CITL Leadership Program, elementary education major Francisco Gallegos has already participated in a diverse range of leadership experiences – from organizing and promoting a full-house concert at Goshen College’s Music Center (showcasing Chicago-based, Mexican folk band Sones de México) to attending a leadership conference for Latino college students in Chicago. The future will find Francisco assuming more responsibilities, as he will be one of four student leaders of Goshen’s Latino Student Union (LSU), and will also serve as a peer mentor to incoming CITL Leadership Program participants. “Through LSU I’ll be organizing dances, get-togethers and activities, which I’m really looking forward to.”

In addition to gaining valuable leadership experience, Francisco’s involvement with the CITL’s Leadership Program has connected him with other Latino student leaders on campus, easing his transition to college life. “The 11 of us who were new members would get together once a month with the CITL advisers, have dinner and talk about our experiences. We also read a book about Latino college students, and through that book we looked at how the stories related to our journey so far at Goshen College. At one time or another, everyone shared their experience.”

Francisco will participate in another form of intercultural exchange during spring semester of his second year, when he travels to Perú during his Study-Service Term to help build homes for Peruvian families with Habitat for Humanity. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit another country. Even better, the semester won’t cost me any extra money, because it’s already covered in my tuition.”

Francisco’s father wanted to ensure that the decision to send his son to college would “move his family forward.” After seeing all that his son has accomplished in just a year, Francisco Sr. found that the Center offers a golden opportunity. “The program is a great benefit for Latino families,” said Francisco Sr. “I’m very proud of my son.”

More Stories

Getnet Bitew, Ph.D. (Education)

Topic: An Investigation of the College Experience of Latino Students at Goshen College

Dr. Bitew is investigated the curricular and co-curricular experiences of Latino students at Goshen College using questionnaires, interviews, observation and document analysis. Informants included not only the students, but also teachers, parents, staff and non-Latino students. Dr. Bitew sought to contribute to policy and curriculum practices through a deeper understanding of the identity factors and exclusionary forces of students’ College experiences.

Some themes emerged from his interviews, including the need to form a College Support Group for High School Latino Students in the surrounding community. This group’s focus would be to provide orientation about college, availability of opportunities and so on to Latino and other students whose parents may have little experience of higher education.

Lynda Nyce, Ph.D. (Sociology)

Topic: Transnational Migration in the Goshen Context: Implications for Higher Education

Dr. Nyce’s project explored the realities of transnational migrations to and from Goshen. The project contributed to the work of the Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning by providing both an increased understanding of the community and identification of constraints on the pursuit of higher education among Latinos.

Interviews with members of the community documented the frequency of transnational migrations, the social networks that facilitate both the migrations and acquisition of employment and the narratives of meaning given to these moves.

The project situated understandings of transnational migrations and educational constraints in the context of debates surrounding the enforcement of federal immigration law and of global economic realities.

Three questions guided Dr. Nyce’s research:

1. What are the experiences of migration, immigration, and transnational connections of Latinos who are settling in the Goshen and Ligonier area;
2. What are the social networks among these Latinos that support daily life;
3. How does educational decision-making operate within the life of transnational immigrant families?

The Goshen area has been going through much strain as a result of economic decline. Latino immigrants are leaving or considering leaving the area; Latino immigrant families are living in precarious situations due to the overall economic downturn (e.g. three households combine into one in which 15 people are surviving on one source of income). The informal economy, particularly among undocumented immigrants, is active but not very lucrative.

Resident Faculty Research Fellows

Jerrell Ross Richer, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics

Topic: The Economics of Immigration in Elkhart County, Indiana

Economic forces have been prominent in the decisions made by thousands of workers to emigrate from Mexico to northern Indiana over the past decade. The opportunity to earn much higher wages motivated people from Hidalgo and other Mexican states to seek employment in Elkhart and surrounding counties. But during 2008-2009 the national economy experienced an economic slowdown, and the local unemployment rate increased as manufacturers laid off workers and suspended production.

The economic downturn reduced immigration and could even lead to out-migration of both documented and undocumented workers. The decreasing number of Latinos residing in Elkhart County could help ease the local unemployment problem in the short run, but out-migration could also hasten the economic slowdown as the immigrant community reduces its consumption of locally-produced goods and its contribution to the local, state and federal tax base.

The purpose of Dr. Richer’s research project was to investigate how economic forces affect immigration and how immigrants contribute to the local economy in the context of the economic downturn.

Elkhart County has one of the highest Mexican-born population concentrations in the entire United States east of the Mississippi River. 9.1 percent of Elkhart County’s population in 2007 was foreign-born. 12.3 percent of the population speaks Spanish at home, second only to Lake County, a heavily-Latino area southeast of Chicago.

With nearly 40 percent of its workforce dedicated to manufacturing, Elkhart County was hit hard by the economic downturn. The September 2008 unemployment rate for Elkhart County was 9.3 percent, a sharp increase from 4.6 percent in 2007.

Rafael Falcon, Ph.D., Professor of Spanish

Topic: Exploring Cultural Identity and Assimilation with CITL Students

What role should ethnic identity exploration play in supporting the educational experience of Latino students? Dr. Falcon explored cultural identity and assimilation issues among Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning students through group discussions of the book Mi Gente: In Search of the Hispanic Soul and individual interviews.

Dr. Falcon addressed in discussions such as:

1. Historical and personal understandings of the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino.”
2. Personal cultural identity. Responses to “The Reflection of My Essence” included appreciation for traditional Hispanic values, a relaxed integration into U.S. non-Hispanic culture and a comfortable multicultural balance.
3. The short story “Going Home” directed students to reflect on the challenges and aspects of life they would enjoy in returning to the country of their Hispanic origin.

Kevin Gary, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education

Topic: Teacher Interiority and Multicultural Encounters

How can teachers create a space that is hospitable while at the same time challenging students toward a genuine and meaningful intercultural encounter? Drawing on the work of philosophers Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas and Simone Weil, as well as the writings of multicultural theorists Sonia Nieto and Geneva Gay, Dr. Gary explicated what the dynamics of a genuine and productive intercultural encounter look like and reflected on classroom practice: how teachers nurture, avoid or resist such encounters.

The National Council of Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) asks schools of education to assess the dispositions of pre-service teacher candidates. Teacher dispositions are “in the long run, more important than knowledge and skills” for they indicate “predictive patterns of action” (Borko, Liston, & Whitcomb, 2007). Dr. Gary’s overarching aim was to substantively identify teacher dispositions that contribute to student academic success and retention, with a particular focus on Latino students.

Aliah Carolan-Silva, Ph.D (Education-Curriculum & Instruction)

Topic: The Influence of Latino Students’ Social Networks on Their Academic Achievement

Area of Study: Educational Experience of Latino Students in Local Schools

Dr. Carolan-Silva’s research explores Latino students’ educational experiences through an ethnographic study in local schools. She uses social capital theory to examine Latino youth as they are nested within family, peer, school and community networks and the combination of factors that lead to students’ educational achievements. Through examining how students’ social networks provide a means to attain resources that contribute to educational achievement, she hopes to offer implications for both schools and families about how to better support the education of Latino children.

Meet Our Resident Faculty Research Fellows 2009-2010

David Lind, Ph.D. (Sociology)

Topic: Appraising Community Belonging Through Food & Nutrition: An Exploratory Study of Latino Experience in the Goshen Community

Area of Study: Social/Demographic Context of Latino Students

Transnational migration has created multicultural places across the Midwestern United States. What roles do food and nutrition play in the cultural, economic and social integration of these pluralistic sites? The purpose of Dr. Lind’s research is to identify and explore indicators of community belonging among Latino residents of the Goshen community with particular attention to the relationship between food, food security and community identity.

Christie Bonfiglio, Ph.D. (Education)

Topic: Response to Intervention (RTI) & the Implications for Minority Students and Academic Success

Area of Study: Educational Experience of Latino Students in Local Schools

“Response to Intervention” (RTI) is an emerging approach to the diagnosis of learning disabilities that holds considerable promise as a student with academic deficits is given research-validated interventions, and the student’s progress is monitored frequently to determine if those interventions are sufficient to help the student catch up with his or her peers. If the student fails to show significantly improved academic skills despite several well-designed and implemented interventions, this failure to ‘respond to intervention’ can be viewed as evidence of an underlying learning disability. One advantage of RTI is that it allows schools to intervene early to meet the needs of struggling learners rather than waiting for them to fail. Another is that RTI maps those specific instructional strategies found to benefit a particular student, which can be very helpful to both teachers and parents (Fuchs, Mock, Morgan, & Young, 2003).

Given this information, this project undertakes the RTI approach for identifying local elementary students of color who are in need of early intervention with regards to reading instruction. Such early intervention will validate this process within the local school district and will potentially dissuade inaccurate identification of special educational services for students who are disproportionately represented within such population and offer them an alternative means for success.

Kevin Gary, Ph.D. (Education)

Topic: Teacher Dispositions, Multicultural Education, & the Good Life

Area of Study: Teacher Attrition and the Virtues of Excellent Teachers

Dr. Gary’s research focuses on excellent teachers at diverse schools who have taught for more than seven years, noting how such teachers conceptualize and understand the art of teaching? This study is situated in the context of Richard Ingersoll’s recent and comprehensive report on teacher attrition, which finds that “after just five years, between 40 and 50 percent of all beginning teachers” leave teaching altogether. In short, Dr. Gary’s study seeks to understand what sustains good teachers and how they understand the art of teaching.

Rebecca Horst, M.A. (Campus Ministries – Academic Office)

Topic: Exploring the Convocation and Chapel Experience of Diverse Student Populations at Goshen College

Area of Study: Higher Education Experience of CITL Students

All Goshen College students are required to attend an average of one convocation or chapel service per week as part of their general education program. Because the student population is quite diverse, their experience of this universal requirement is presumed to be quite diverse as well. This project will investigate the convocation and chapel experience of CITL students compared to other student groups. Findings from this project are intended to improve the capacity of convocations and chapel services as venues for intercultural and integrated learning at Goshen College.

Carlos Gutierez, M.A. (Business – Marketing)

Topic: Study of Financial Aid as a Marketing Tool in Recruiting Latino Students

Area of Study: Higher Education Experience of CITL Students

The focus of this study is to examine existing strategies for marketing financial aid information to students and explore whether these methods or strategies are the most effective tools in the recruitment of Latino students in Elkhart County. As part of this process, an analysis of cultural views regarding financial aid (particularly loans) will be examined as well as other factors such as trust, the college’s reputation and families’ economic status. A SWOT and benchmarking analysis will also be performed to study how Goshen College compares with similar size institutions in the marketing of financial aid products to Latino students. Implications and conclusions of this study will be suggested in light of existing motivation and marketing related theories.

Ruben Viramontez Anguiano, Ph.D (Bowling Green State University, Ass. Prof. of Human Development and Family Science)

Topic: An Ecological Exploration of Intersecting Capitals and Their Impact on the Educational Success of Latino Students in Northeast Indiana

Area of Study: The relationship between the family, community, and institutions for the academic success of Latino students.

The purpose of this study will be to explore how intersecting capitals, including social, cultural and intercultual capital at the familial, school and community impact the educational motivation and success of Latino students at the pre-college and college levels in Northeastern Indiana. The major overarching goal of the study is to understand how families, schools and communities can work together throughout the educational pipeline to ensure the path to higher education for Latino students.

Kim Case, Ph.D. (Higher Education)

Topic: Experiences of African American and Latino College Students in the Classroom and the Teaching Practices that Contribute to Their Learning

Through previous research, much is known about how students learn best and about the teaching practices that facilitate good learning. Unique dynamics within an intercultural classroom can enhance or sometimes hinder student learning. This study will focus on the learning experiences of African American and Latino students by examining students’ classroom experiences alongside the attributes, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and teaching methods of professors who facilitate learning.

Aliah Carolan-Silva, Ph.D. (Education-Curriculum & Instruction)

Topic: The Influence of Latino Students’ Social Networks on Their Academic Achievement

Area of Study: Educational Experience of Latino Students in Local Schools

Dr. Carolan-Silva’s research explores Latino students’ educational experiences through an ethnographic study in local schools. She uses social capital theory to examine Latino youth as they are nested within family, peer, school and community networks and the combination of factors that lead to students’ educational achievements. Through examining how students’ social networks provide a means to attain resources that contribute to educational achievement, she hopes to offer implications for both schools and families about how to better support the education of Latino children.

Meet Our Resident Research Fellows 2010-2011

Christie Bonfiglio, Ph.D. (Education)

Topic: Response to Intervention (RTI) & the Implications for Minority Students and Academic Success

Area of Study: Educational Experience of Latino Students in Local Schools

“Response to Intervention” (RTI) is an emerging approach to the diagnosis of learning disabilities that holds considerable promise as a student with academic deficits is given research-validated interventions, and the student’s progress is monitored frequently to determine if those interventions are sufficient to help the student catch up with his or her peers. If the student fails to show significantly improved academic skills despite several well-designed and implemented interventions, this failure to ‘respond to intervention’ can be viewed as evidence of an underlying learning disability. One advantage of RTI is that it allows schools to intervene early to meet the needs of struggling learners rather than waiting for them to fail. Another is that RTI maps those specific instructional strategies found to benefit a particular student, which can be very helpful to both teachers and parents (Fuchs, Mock, Morgan, & Young, 2003).

Given this information, this project undertakes the RTI approach for identifying local elementary students of color who are in need of early intervention with regards to reading instruction. Such early intervention will validate this process within the local school district and will potentially dissuade inaccurate identification of special educational services for students who are disproportionately represented within such population and offer them an alternative means for success.

Odelet Nance, Ph.D.

Topic: The Efficacy of Internal and External Support Systems for African American Students at Goshen College

Bob Yoder, (Religious Studies)

Topic: Faculty as Faith Mentors to Goshen College Latino/a Students In and Out of the Classroom

Area of Study: This project will explore the role of teaching faculty as “faith mentors” of our Latino/a students by equipping faculty with specific, tangible ways for effective faith mentorship, in and out of the classroom . This project will further explore what it means for Goshen College to be a mentoring environment to our Latino/a students as we reach out to students with diverse theological backgrounds, particularly among our ever-growing Latino/a population. I will draw from the work of Sharon Daloz Parks in her book, Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in their Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith, from the recent findings of the National Study of Youth and Religion in their book Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults, from the findings of The Spirituality in Higher Education project (UCLA) in their book Cultivating the Spirit: How College Can Enhance Students’ Inner Lives, and from other books and resources. This project will also draw from personal and group interviews of both students and faculty.

Christine Noria, Ph.D. (Education)

Topic: The Role of Attribution, Motivation and Belonging for Latino Students in Higher Education

Brenda Srof. (Nursing)

Topic: The Experience of Ethnic Identity Formation and Subsequent Caring Practices Among Latino/a Nursing Graduates

Ethnic identity formation is characterized by self identification, feelings of belong, commitment to a group, and a sense of shared values. The experience of college is an important time for ethnic identity formation as the student navigates the feelings of belonging with one’s own cultural group and the belonging within the context of the college environment. Within the profession of nursing, the experience of belonging is imbedded in the construct of caring as a central construct of the profession. The purpose of this research is to describe the meaning of the experience of ethnic identity formation among Latino/a nursing students as reflected among recent Latino/a nursing graduates. A second purpose of this research is to describe the meaning of the Latino/a student’s journey for his/her own caring practices. The design of this qualitative study is interpretive phenomenology. The purpose of phenomenology is to understand the structure of a concept or phenomenon as a lived experience of the person. The expression of experiences of individuals is formulated into the universal essence of the experience. The study is relevant to the development of the science of nursing and the methodology of nursing education.

We would like to recognize our donors for their support of Goshen College Center of Intercultural Teaching and Learning (CITL).

• Wendell Lantz and Doris Weaver from Paoli, IN
• Laura Moyer from Lancaster, PA
• Rhonda and Thom Reiher from Loveland, CO
• Obed Diener and Kari Jorgensen from Northfield, MN
• John Sniegocki from Cincinnati, OH
• Andy and Nekeisha Alexis-Baker from Elkhart, IN
• Rebecca Wiebe from Phoenix, AZ
• Elinor and Frederick Surgener from Audubon, PA
• Doris Weaver and Wendell Lantz from Paoli, IN
• Sandra and Steven Hirdes from Chandler, AZ
• Greg and Kathy Leichty from Louisville, KY
• Laura Moyer from Lancaster, PA
• Ruth C. Hartzler from Hesston, KS
• Beth Bartel and Christopher Miller from Arlington, VA
• Lilly Endowment Inc. from Indianapolis, IN

¡Gracias por su apoyo! Thank you for your support!