AUSTIN, Texas -With a goal to increase opportunity for those historically underserved by higher education, The University of Texas at Austin and 19 of the nation's top research universities will form the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities.
The 20 universities represent every university that has been both categorized as R1 (very high research activity) by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education and designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education.
"We're thrilled to partner with leading research universities to expand and empower the next generation of Hispanic doctoral students and professors," said UT Austin President Jay Hartzell. "As UT Austin strives to increase its global impact, groundbreaking initiatives like the HSRU serve as a national model in forging pathways to bolster opportunity and excellence in higher education for years to come."
The HSRU Alliance aims to achieve two key goals by 2030:
- Double the number of Hispanic doctoral students enrolled at Alliance universities.
- Increase by 20% the Hispanic professoriate in Alliance universities.
"Hispanics are the largest minority group in the United States and are now 17% of the workforce, yet they continue to be underrepresented in higher education. No group is better positioned than we are to expand the pathway to opportunity," said Heather Wilson, president of The University of Texas at El Paso and chair of the Alliance. "We believe we are stronger together than as individual institutions acting alone."
Representing nine states, the 20 HSRU Alliance universities together enrolled 766,718 students in the Fall of 2020; of those, roughly 33% (254,399) were Hispanic. In 2020, the combined research spending of these universities totaled more than $5.9 billion. The four UT institutions collectively enrolled more than 152,000 students, of which almost 43% (65,061) were Hispanic. Their combined research spending totals $1.1 billion.
Prior to the formal announcement of the alliance, the universities began working together on several initiatives. The first project, funded by the Mellon Foundation, is focused on supporting more doctoral students in Latino humanities studies and guiding them to academic careers. A second initiative, funded by the National Science Foundation, expands opportunities for Hispanic students in computer science.
Universities in the Alliance are:
Arizona State University
City University of New York Graduate Center
Florida International 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
