EXCELENCIA IN EDUCATION

Excelencia in Education accelerates Latino student success in higher education by providing data-driven analysis of the educational status of Latinos, by promoting education policies and institutional practices that support their academic achievement, and building a network of leaders committed to intentionally serving Latino, and all, students to transform higher education.

Excelencia's mission is supported through three core action-oriented strategies:

1. Expanding knowledge on Latino student success. Promote education policies and institutional practices that better serve Latino students by delivering strategic, data-driven analysis focused on Latino students in higher education, including what we know about Latino student success, what works to improve it, and what decision-makers can do to accelerate Latino student success.

2. Building a movement for accelerating Latino student success. Work with partners and the broader public to help build a sense of urgency for bolstering Latino student success and make it a priority in federal, state, and institutional policy with an authentic Latino voice.

3. Strengthening Excelencia's capacity, visibility, and authority to catalyze change. Build on the first nine years of work while expanding staff, growing and diversifying the funding base, expanding communications strategy, and implementing clearer measures of impact across five areas – reach, engagement, influence, action, and funding.

Excelencia's Capacity, Visibility, and Authority to Catalyze Change: With a small staff, Excelencia has demonstrated an ability to be efficient and effective in its strategies. In nine years, Excelencia staff has grown from its two co-founders to a dedicated group of nine staff and associates. In addition, Excelencia benefits from established relationships with a team of consultant partners that support the organization's plan. While Excelencia seeks to remain “small and mighty," increasing its impact to catalyze change will require a continued commitment to efficiency and effectiveness while also developing smart growth in staff, partnerships and diversified funding to implement the strategies of this plan.

Since our inception Excelencia has asserted—achieving the nation's educational attainment goals is impossible without significant improvements in the postsecondary completion rates of Latino students. In 2009, policy leaders focused on the United States' world ranking of college attainment. By then, Excelencia in Education's initial five year effort to advance its student-centered mission and forward-focused strategies for Latino student success in postsecondary education was being recognized and more broadly understood. Increasingly organizations and institutions today are acknowledging the demographic changes we noted years ago. However, recognition is not sufficient. It is time organizations and institutions are enlisted and held responsible for effectively engaging Latino students and serving the vital proportion of the American society, future workforce and civic leadership represented by the Latino community.

Excelencia is now growing from an aggregator of information about what works for Latinos in postsecondary education into a catalyst/facilitator for action shaped by student voices to increase Latino college attainment.