Portland State’s Gaining Awareness and Networking for Academic Success (GANAS) program has been named an Examples in Excelencia finalist by Excelencia in Education, a national initiative to identify and promote evidence-based practices in higher education dedicated to accelerating Latino student success.
Excelencia in Education received 145 submissions from 23 states and Puerto Rico this year. GANAS is one of 21 finalists and one of only eight finalists in the baccalaureate institution category.
“We are honored to have been selected as a finalist for the 2021 Examples of Excelencia,” says Perla Pinedo, Director of Multicultural Retention Services at PSU. “The GANAS Program began more than 10 years ago and it has been rewarding to see the growth of the program at PSU. We are excited to be able to highlight the work being done within Multicultural Retention Services, a unit within Global Diversity & Inclusion, as it relates to the persistence, retention and overall graduation of Latino/a/x students.”
The GANAS program began in 2010 and serves about 40 Latino first year and transfer students each year. To date, 418 students have participated in the program.
GANAS offers services and activities specifically designed to support Latino students during their transition to PSU. Students in the program also receive financial support in the form of $1,000 tuition remission per term during their first year.
Before classes begin, students participate in a week-long Connect Program where they get to know other GANAS students, are connected to a GANAS student mentor and learn about campus resources.
During the fall, GANAS students also participate in their own College Success Course.
“The College Success Course is a great launching pad for them in terms of getting situated to campus because we talk a lot about the basics of being a student — time management and budgeting and how to talk to professors — but we always provide that cultural lens to everything, which is very different than a normal college success class,” says Emanuel Magaña, program advisor for GANAS. “So we can talk a lot about Latino culture and how to deal with family or the pressures that come with being the first gen.”
Over the course of their first year at PSU, GANAS students meet with their mentor at least once a week, and mentors host social events for the whole group twice a term.
“That mentor is going to help guide them throughout their time here at PSU,” says Magaña. “They serve as a resource for them and many end up building friendships over time as well. We really try to push that community aspect. When it comes to students who are first-gen BIPOC, the campus can be very intimidating and it can be sometimes hard for students to find a sense of community or find a sense of belonging. That's what our program really helps them do. We want to make sure students feel connected, that they have a support network.”
Students also meet one-on-one with Magaña on a regular basis throughout their first year. Sometimes this means checking in with students to see how they’re doing socially or connecting students with academic or financial advisors. Other times it’s connecting them to mental health services or working on self-advocacy skills.
“I provide holistic advising for them,” says Magaña. “It's about supporting students, providing wraparound services to guide the student throughout their first year.”
The advising, mentoring and community-building that GANAS provides helps students stay at PSU. From 2010 to 2019, the average first year to second retention rate for GANAS students was 87%, and the 2019-2020 retention rate was 90%.
Magaña says he frequently hears from GANAS students after their first year and many end up becoming GANAS mentors themselves.
“It's nice to see them when they're freshmen and then see them as they graduate. One of my favorite things about the position is to see them grow,” says Magaña. “By the time they're ready to graduate, they’ve networked, they’ve been involved, and they're ready to take the next step.”
Magaña says learning that GANAS was selected as an Examples of Excelencia Finalist was very validating.
“We do the work because we love it, we're passionate about it, and it's the students that really drive us and motivate us and push us to do what we do,” says Magaña. “To see that get recognized as an example for other institutions, it means a lot to us.”
Magaña also sees the recognition of GANAS as a reflection of a student success framework that is found throughout the programs offered by PSU’s Multicultural Retention Services.
“This program is geared towards the Latino community, but we have programs geared towards the Black and African American community, the Asian and Pacific Islander student community and the Native American/Indigenous community, and all our programs are modeled very similarly,” says Magaña. “We're a big team.”