National updates to Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) status

Dear Regis Community,

Earlier this week, the Department of Education (DOE) announced that it will be ending Title V Hispanic-Serving Institutional (HSI) Grants. This decision follows a lawsuit, Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., vs. USDOE, in which plaintiffs argue that Hispanic-Serving Institution grants are discriminatory based on ethnicity. The Department of Justice has indicated it will not defend against this lawsuit, although a formal outcome has not yet been determined.

This past July, under the dedicated leadership of Vice Provost Nicki Gonzales, Academic Dean Erin Winterrowd, Regis College Grants Coordinator, Gena Nichols and Vice President of University Advancement Kelly Purdy, we submitted our application for nearly $3M in Title V funding over five years. We approached this opportunity with hope and careful preparation, knowing these resources would have enriched the educational experience for all our students. The DOE's letter implies that all new Title V funding applications, including ours, will be denied, and any distributed grants will be "reprogrammed to support other priorities." While we are deeply saddened by the end of this opportunity, Regis had not yet received any Title V funding and so our programs and activities remain unchanged.

What we do have is a deep and enduring commitment to our students and our mission. We are encouraged by the commitment of our faculty, staff, and administration to stay the course — federal designation or not — and to continue the work of servingness. This mission-rooted work benefits all of us. We have been especially inspired by the reactions of our dedicated HSI Community Advisory Council to this news. This group consists of local Latine leaders and Regis parents who advise and support our HSI work. They remain steadfast in their support of making our Jesuit education accessible to all students. In the encyclical Fratelli Tutti (On Fraternity and Social Friendship), the late Pope Francis invites us to dream not alone, but in communion with others, all men and women: “Here we have a splendid secret that shows us how to dream and to turn our life into a wonderful adventure. No one can face life in isolation. We need a community that supports and helps us, in which we can help one another to keep looking ahead. How important it is to dream together … By ourselves, we risk seeing mirages, things that are not there. Dreams, on the other hand, are built together.”

We are Regis, somos comunidad, rooted in our Jesuit, Catholic mission, hogar and home to all.

Please contact Nicki Gonzales and/or Jake Bucher with any questions, comments, suggestions at ngonzale@regis.edu and jbucher@regis.edu.

Respectfully, 

Rev. D. Scott Hendrickson, S.J., D.Phil., Interim President 
Jake Bucher, Ph.D., Provost 
Nicki Gonzales, Ph.D., Vice Provost