Award Date

8-10-2018

Degree Type

Capstone

Department

Public Policy and Leadership

First Committee Member

Jaewon Lim

Number of Pages

134

Abstract

Even after seeing increases in recent years, the Latinx community both nationwide and in Nevada are struggling to complete higher education. According to the American Community Survey, only 8% of Hispanics 25 years and older in Nevada have a Bachelor’s degree or higher educational attainment. Statistically, the Hispanic educational attainment rate is the lowest among the major racial categories. This is one of the main reasons the Latino Youth Leadership Conference was established.

The Latino Youth Leadership Conference was established in 1993 with goals of helping participants to pursue and complete higher education. Also the conference hopes to encourage participants developing ethical leadership skills, be involved with their community and promote a positive view of Latinex values and culture.

The LYLC started as a three-day conference with the goals listed above and has been expanded over time to the six-day conference that we see today. The Latino Youth Leadership Conference is held on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and gives its participants a chance to get a glimpse of what college life is like. The participants stay at the UNLV dorms and attend different workshops and activities aimed at meeting the goals listed above. The LYLC also takes the participants to the College of Southern Nevada and Nevada State College to provide a view of other educational institutions. Conference attendance serves 80-100 students and is run by a volunteer team of around 40 individuals. All the volunteers are alumnus of the conference.

This report aims at increasing/improving the effectiveness of the LYLC through an evaluation of their goal of encouraging participants to pursue and complete higher education. Evaluating the goal of higher education was decided because it can be quantified in much clearer terms than knowledge of culture or knowledge of leadership skills. Getting participants to complete higher education was one of the greatest motivating drivers to start the LYLC programming in 1993 and it still holds true today in 2018. There is some existing data on how the conference has affected its participants when it comes to higher education, however, the data has not been used to its full potential. A review of the data will be discussed.

In order to evaluate the LYLC goal of getting its participants to pursue and complete higher education, a mixed-methods approach will be employed. The mixed-methods approach will include observation, survey data analysis, benchmark study, and a SWOT analysis. These approaches when combined should paint a picture of the LYLC progress towards this goal. This evaluation analyzed data that was given to us through the LYLC which included survey and program data from the years 2016-2018. Independent research will also be done to supplement the information given to us from the LYLC to provide us a holistic approach to our research question.

Throughout conducting the evaluation our team discovered that the LYLC is a solid program that has a lot of support, but still has room to improve itself. Our short term, medium term and long term recommendations are as follows:

Short Term Recommendations :

● Evaluate the target population of conference attendees

● Restructuring the pre- and post-survey

Mid Term Recommendations :

● Fully utilize the surveys

● Market the LYLC more throughout local high schools

Long Term Recommendations:

● Consider restructuring the conference

● Change the application and review process

The primary finding of this evaluation is that the LYLC has been effective in promoting its participants to pursue and complete higher education. However, there are some places where they could more effectively utilize their limited resources. Restructuring parts of the conference could go a long way to ensure that the students participating in the LYLC are getting the most out of the services they have to offer. Future data collection and analysis is also going to be a key part in the continuing success of the LYLC.

Disciplines

Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

File Format

pdf

File Size

1.167 Kb

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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