Idaho’s first Hispanic Serving Institution brings opportunities to students

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — The College of Southern Idaho has been a designated Hispanic Serving Institution for more than one year now, and have been able to connect with the community in many different ways.

Being a Hispanic Serving Institution is a status only one College in Idaho has achieved so far, the College of Southern Idaho.

“In order to be an HIS, according to the Department of Education is, we have to have at least a quarter of our student population is Hispanic, so at least 25% of our student enrollment needs to be Hispanic,” said Eduardo Reyes, the Title V grant coordinator at CSI.

Once they became a designated Hispanic Serving Institution, they were awarded a Title V grant from the Department of Education, with that money they have been able to establish a partnership with Jerome High School and help students with the college process.

“Jerome High School has the highest Hispanic student population against all high schools in the Magic Valley, so we are partnering with Jerome High school to really start serving our Hispanic students there to help build a bridge between the high school and CSI,” said Reyes.

Now that they are moving into year two of being a designated Hispanic Serving Institution, they will take their new partnership even further.

“One of the biggest things we are doing, like I mentioned at Jerome High School, so we are actually partnering with their AVID program at Jerome High School, we hired an early college coordinator, that is embedded into those classrooms with those students to really provide that college support, so students are getting that college support right inside their classroom,” said Reyes.

The ultimate goal is to help students see that college is possible, especially for those who may not have thought that it ever was.

“I think it is going to be an incredible opportunity for our community, to just really see the support that is here for them, for them to see that we all matter, that we want our students to come to college, that we want them to be successful, so I’m really excited about the opportunity that they are going to have available to them,” said Reyes.

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