ABSTRACT

Latina/o students’ perceptions of a hostile climate directly affect their sense of belonging in their colleges.

(Castellanos & Jones, 2003, p. 8)

A few years ago, during an invited guest luncheon sponsored by the College Student Personnel master’s degree program at the university where I worked, I enjoyed a casual conversation with the university’s Provost about student retention rates in general and at our institution in particular. With a background in Germanic languages and history, the Provost spoke about “student success” factors without explicit references to the literature upon which most of his arguments stood. However, it was clear that he had a keen understanding of the campus culture and how work gets done within various academic units.