UTEP, Maricopa County Community College
Recognized for Hispanic Graduation Records
Excelencia in Education honors schools during inaugural symposium.
By Blair S. Walker

ORLANDO, Fla.
The University of Texas at El Paso and Maricopa County Community College in Arizona have the nation’s two best programs when it comes to enrolling and graduating Latino students, according to the nonprofit Latino education organization Excelencia in Education.

The schools and their programs were singled out during a symposium facilitated by Excelencia, a Washington-based group dedicated to achieving higher education success for Latino students. UTEP’s Model Institutions for Excellence program and MCCC’s Achieving a College Education program both earned the 2006 Examples of Excelencia award.

Complemented by $5,000 grants, the awards were presented in Orlando late last month, in conjunction with an annual conference hosted by the nonprofit group National College Access Network. The awards were part of an inaugural Excelencia Symposium that featured a panel of experts on Latino higher education issues.

Several hundred educators attended the symposium, which ended with a question-and-answer session.

“Improving Latino student success in higher education is in the national interest,” says Sarita E. Brown, the president and founder of Excelencia. “While Latinos are the nation’s largest and fastest-growing minority group, Latino students lag behind other major racial and ethnic groups in educational attainment.”

UTEP’s Model Institutions for Excellence program was implemented in 1995. Since 2000, UTEP has been one of the top 10 institutions in the country in terms of awarding baccalaureate degrees to Latino students majoring in science, technology, engineering and math, according to the U.S. Department of Education. UTEP ranks eighth in Diverse’s Top 100 in granting the most bachelor’s degrees to Hispanics, and third in conferring the most engineering baccalaureates to Hispanics (see Diverse, June 1).