It is important for schools to be aware of the language skills of its students. It can be useful in measuring and supporting diversity and equity goals, support outreach and communications, and support hiring decisions for student support.
The conventional model in U.S. higher education is to view students’ multiliteracy as a deficit rather than an asset1. Students are often identified as being non-native speakers of English and tracked through the university. While tracking may has its advantages, these students are often required to take tests to ensure their proficiency is high enough for English-medium instruction; and these tests and interpretations of test scores come with their own biases. This deficit-based and simplistic view of language ability obscures the fact that non-native English speakers in higher education are not a homogeneous group.
Collecting nuanced data on language background is critical for supporting the diversity and equity efforts of an institution. There are a number of reasons why institutions should routinely disaggregate student data based on linguistic minority status. Linguistic minority students face a unique set of challenges. Institutions that do not actively measure the success of their linguistic minority students are turning a blind eye to one of most marginalized groups in need of support2. Having this data would also allow for hiring support staff and faculty that better represent the demographics of the student body, who may be more sensitive to their needs, and who may be more willing to advocate for their success. Counseling services would also be more beneficial to these students if services could be provided in their preferred languages3.
Having data on student language skills is also important for outreach and communications. Increasingly, schools are serving students with limited English proficiency. At the same time, schools are increasing efforts to reach and advise students during crises such as active shooters and weather emergencies. Typically, these communications are only provided in English. One potential argument used to support an English-only communications policy is that the institution doesn’t know what languages students speak and cannot afford to support all languages. While true that a school may not be able to support all of the languages represented on their campus, a data governance strategy such as the one suggested here would allow institutions to focus their limited budgets on the languages most represented.
Finally, a grasp of the languages present in the community that schools serve would also allow for better managed marketing and recruitment strategies within resident immigrant communities. As the population of resident immigrants increase in the U.S., an increasing number of these students will be looking for education opportunities that can meet their needs. Currently, many prospective linguistic minority students rely on word of mouth to assess how accessible an institution would be to the specific needs of the student. Knowledge about which schools, programs, and instructors are more or less discriminatory in their treatment of students is circulated without the awareness or input of the college.