ABSTRACT
The changing demography of our nation means that our system of higher education must realize a fundamentally different approach to teaching and learning. Responding to this twenty-first century challenge is the Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI) federal program, which is a competitive grant process for institutions that serve high concentrations of low-income Asian American and Pacific Islander students. The AANAPISI program, which is one of the most significant investments ever made for the AAPI college student population by the federal government, is notable for a number of reasons. First, it acknowledges the unique challenges facing AAPI students relative to college access and completion (Teranishi, 2010), Second, it represents a significant commitment of much-needed resources to improve the postsecondary completion rates among low-income AAPI students. Finally, it recognizes that campus settings are mutable points of intervention – sites of possibilities for responding to the impediments encountered by AAPI students (National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education [CARE], 2010).
