2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The purpose of this WIP paper is to explore how institutional agents, notably staff and non-tenure-track faculty, in Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) can disrupt exclusionary and inequitable discourses and practices in computing and engineering educational environments, replacing them with those focused on inclusion, empowerment, and transformation. HSIs have a unique set of organizational strengths and challenges related to supporting underrepresented students in computing fields. Because of their diverse, intersectional student populations and focus on serving their local communities, HSIs are a critical site for reimagining and transforming access and participation in computing and engineering. This case study research explored five HSI computer science departments that have a long history of involvement in a national network dedicated to recruiting, retaining, and advancing Latina/o students in computing education and careers. Preliminary, thematic analysis of 80 interview transcripts with administrators, tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty, staff and advisors, and undergraduate students provided insight into how institutional agents confer social and navigational capital to minoritized students. In this exploratory work, we employ Stanton-Salazar’s concept of social capital (e.g., access to professional and community social networks, social resources and support) and Yosso’s concept of navigational capital (e.g., dispositional knowledge and capacity to navigate organizations as an individual with a marginalized social identity). To this end, staff and non-tenure-track faculty empowered minoritized undergraduate computing students by affirming their social and cultural identities, cultivating peer networks and faculty mentorship, developing their leadership capacities, and preparing them to successfully navigate and advocate in computing education and careers. Through these efforts, staff and non-tenure-track faculty developed institutional structures to cultivate student empowerment by serving as club advisors, mentors, providing professional development opportunities for students, and engaging in inclusive and innovative pedagogy. They also provided the informal, emotional labor of supporting students through challenges, bolstering their professional identities, and recognizing the complexity of students’ lived experiences. These institutional agents are in positions that traditionally hold lower status and power within academic departments (e.g., non-tenure track faculty and staff/advisors), yet they were crucial in transferring social and navigational capital to empower minoritized students. The organizational structures and inclusive cultures within the case study HSI computing departments empower those in traditionally marginalized roles, who are often women of color, to disrupt academic hierarchies and create new systems that elevate and center those who have been traditionally excluded within academic departments. We identify the cultural and organizational practices that make such disruption possible and hope to gain feedback from the EQUITY community regarding our efforts and next steps in praxis as we engage in collaboration and dialogue with institutional leaders, staff, faculty, instructors, and students to enact change in HSI computing departments.