Fernandez, F., & Burnett, C. A. (2020). Considering the need for organizational resilience at hispanic serving institutions: a study of how administrators navigate institutional accreditation in Southern states. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 1-17.
Prior literature on resilience in the Latina and Latino community focuses on student resilience. In this paper we argue that it is also important to consider organizational resilience among the colleges and universities that enroll large percentages of Latina and Latino students. Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) often come under undue public scrutiny, sometimes inadvertently, when policymakers evaluate MSIs using the same standards that they use for more homogeneous institutions. In this multiple case study, we consider how structures and practices can support organizational resilience across different types of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). Because prior research suggests that MSIs are disproportionately subjected to adverse actions from institutional accreditors, we focus on studying organizational resilience within the context of the institutional accreditation process. Consistent with theory on organizational resilience, we find that the structures and practices that supported organizational resilience resulted from relatively ordinary adaptive processes. We discuss implications for theory and practice.
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