The UNM School of Law has been ranked No. 1 for the third year in a row in a top 10 list by Hispanic Business Magazine.
In September’s issue, the magazine ranked the top 10 schools in the nation for Hispanic students.
Kevin Washburn, the Dean at the School of Law, said the school doesn’t spend much money advertising to attract the 25 to 30 percent of Hispanic students who enroll.
“Our best billboards are the amazing alumni that we have walking around,” he said.
Washburn said notable alumni include the New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Petra Jimenez Maes, former New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid and senate majority leader Michael Sanchez.
“We have all of these superstar Hispanic alums that are very visible and that’s our best advertisement and it doesn’t cost us anything,” he said. “We just have a bunch of people out there who by their very existence demonstrate that Hispanics can come here and succeed and succeed fabulously.”
The magazine article said the Hispanic population in the School of Law has been steady for the past 30 years and has drawn talent from the surrounding communities.
HispanTelligence, the research branch of the Hispanic Business Magazine, reviewed diversity records from graduate schools nationwide to find the leading schools with high numbers of Hispanic student. The research branch searched engineering, medicine, law and business graduate schools for this information.
The research found 30 of the top graduate schools were in New Mexico, Texas, California and Florida. Texas and Florida were each found to have 10 of the most diverse graduate programs in the nation. However, no graduate schools from the northwestern portion of the country made it onto the list.
The No. 1 graduate schools were Stanford University School of Medicine, Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Engineering and the University of Texas at San Antonio’s College of Business.
Washburn said student success is evident in the number of students who pass the Bar examination from the School of Law.
“Our July bar pass rate for UNM grads was 96 percent … on their first time, and we had a 100 percent pass rate in the February,” he said.
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On average in the state, students received an 86 percent pass rate for the Bar examination, he said.
The magazine ranked UNM’s School of Medicine as No. 6 for the second year in a row. The Anderson School of Management also ranked No. 6. The School of Engineering ranked No. 7.
Josephine De Leon, UNM vice president for Equity and Inclusion, said the University continues to concentrate on diversifying the student population by creating programs geared towards these specific groups.
“Students are attracted to programs that make them feel valued and where they can be successful,” she said in an e-mail. “My job is to highlight those programs that are already doing a great job and share their success and best practices with others. I think we can all learn and become better at serving students in a way that ensures their success.”
Anderson Dean Douglas Brown said the number of Hispanic students jumped this year.
“The percentage of total graduate students who are Hispanic was 24 percent (last year) and now it’s 33 percent and about half of the Anderson undergrads are Hispanics,” he said.
Brown said the school puts particular emphasis on retention of Hispanic students.
“One thing we’re pleased with is the average retention rate of successful completion, which is 92 percent among Hispanics,” he said. “It’s not just getting them through the door. It’s have a nurturing and welcoming environment that encourages them to succeed.”
Hispanics have the lowest statistics from all of the ethnic groups in receiving college education or beyond, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. About 13 percent of Hispanics over the age of 25 complete four years of college and only 3.6 percent from that number go on to obtain further education.
Billy Sparks, executive director of communications at the Health Sciences Center, said the number of Hispanic students in the school has been on a steady increase during the past couple of years.
“The School of Medicine is always focused on New Mexico students first and New Mexico as you know has 43 percent Hispanic population, 11 percent Native American population, so it’s always been important to reflect that diversity in the student body,” he said.
During the fall of 2008, the School of Medicine had 84 Hispanics students out of a total 298 students.
However, Brown said the Anderson school has a ways to go with accomplishing the same results in other ethnic groups.
“One of the groups where I feel we still have a ways to go is among the Native American students and even then we made very good progress with them this year, but nonetheless we need to continue to make progress in that area,” he said. “In some aspects were very close to representing the demographics of our state and community.”
