TAMIU Annual Report 2018

2018 Annual Report / IMPACT They’re out there…students who have been unable to complete their undergraduate degree but have made substantial progress.  Perhaps life became busy, new obligations emerged, or priorities shifted. TAMIU launched a new initiative this Fall to help former students complete their undergraduate degree.  Dubbed the “Closer than Ever” Initiative, TAMIU is reaching out to engage with former stu- dents and help them conclude their degree journey.  “Some of our former students are actually mere hours, or a handful of classes away from securing their Bachelor’s degree. With accessible and flex- ible programs and online options, these students are closer than ever before to degree completion,” said TAMIU registrar Juan Gilberto García, Jr.   García said the University reaches out to former students through social media and direct, targeted outreach to encourage them to renew ties with the University and establish next steps.  “We have a simple online form that enables us to collect some basic information to retrieve the student’s academic history, establish contact and discuss options that can be tailored to them. There is also the possibility of limited financial assistance,” García explained.  Interested students can take their first steps forward to completing their degree by visiting a dedicated TAMIU website, located at: http://www.tamiu. edu/closerthanever/ “We encourage our former students to explore the new options available to them,” García concluded, “There’s no time like the present, and they really are closer than they think.” Completing Degree ‘Closer than Ever’ with New Initiative Anew study reveals that lower-income students who attend the nation’s minority-serving universities are more likely to advance their economic status or income mobility. University Among Nation’s Tops at Advancing Income Mobility It places TAMIU among the nation’s top universities with especially high extended income mobility rates among the 359 minority-serving colleges surveyed. “Minority Serving Institutions as Engines of Upward Mobility,” authored by the American Council on Education, drew from statistics shared by the Equality of Opportunity Project, a much-cited data project by Stanford University. That study analyzed students’ and parent’s income. The overall finding was that for students at minority-serving universities like TAMIU, income mobility rates tend to be two to three times higher than at non-minority institutions. TAMIU was the top scoring Texas institution highlighted in the study. TAMIU president Dr. Pablo Arenaz said this national report once again affirms the University’s impact on students’ lives and, by extension, the communities in which they live and thrive. “This is the third national assessment that measures our impact, that shows how we truly help our students and graduates to ‘Go Beyond,’ as we say. As the University approaches our 50 th Anniversary in 2019, it’s especially gratifying to know that we daily deliver our cherished mission of serving an under-served population, impacting themwith the highest quality of education delivered by a gifted, global faculty,” Dr. Arenaz said. 21

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