UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A Penn State student who also serves in Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps (AFROTC) recently participated in a national symposium on the barriers that Hispanic/Latino cadets face on their path to commission through AFROTC programs.
On Feb. 17, the Air Force’s Jeanne M. Holm Center for Officer Accessions and Citizen Development hosted a national symposium, along with the Hispanic Empowerment and Advancement Team (HEAT) Department of the Air Force Barrier Analysis Working Group, to discuss and find ways to overcome the challenges Hispanic/Latino students face when trying to commission as officers through AFROTC and partner with universities to help students find success.
By 2060, the projected Hispanic/Latino population in the U.S. will reach 111 million, up from 62 million in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. According to the Air University Public Affairs Office, about 41%, or 26,000, of the officers currently serving in the Regular Air Force were commissioned through ROTC. Of that number, only 10%, or about 2,600, are Hispanic/Latino.
Penn State is home to AFROTC Detachment 720, one of 145 detachments at colleges and universities in the U.S. One of its cadets, Cadet 1st Lt. Lorenzo Tamez, served on a panel at the Feb. 17 symposium alongside university administrators from across the U.S. and Air Force officers to discuss his experiences as a Hispanic cadet aspiring to be commissioned as an officer into the U.S. Air Force. Another Penn State AFROTC cadet, first-year student Sebastian Ruiz, participated in the initiative’s regional focus groups in January.
“Cadets Tamez and Ruiz both have compelling personal stories which amplify the need for the Air Force to evolve its recruitment and support strategies within the Hispanic/Latino community,” said Col. Lawrence Havird, commander of AFROTC Detachment 720. “I am extremely thankful for their participation in the HEAT regional and national symposium events, and both of these cadets have overcome barriers to thrive in the AFROTC program.
Tamez, a Penn State junior majoring in biological engineering, left behind a large, diverse and tight-knit family in Seattle, Washington, to come to Penn State. His father’s family is from Mexico and his mother’s from Ireland. After touring many universities throughout the U.S., Tamez said Penn State felt right and offered him the engineering program he wanted to pursue.
But the transition required him to leave behind a busy household, with extended family coming and going, speaking Spanish and sharing meals, to a place where he was alone much more than he was used to and without the “organized chaos” he had grown up in.
“My transition from high school to my first year and second year was really rough because of not having those consistent dynamics, and because of COVID, too,” Tamez said.
He said he feels as though he has two separate personalities: the one his friends and family in Seattle know, and the one that his Penn State community knows.
His first semester at Penn State was a struggle, Tamez said. Sluggish grades and a sharp culture change prompted him to seek out the Penn State Multicultural Resource Center, which made a big difference in helping him acclimate. It gave him a place to seek help and speak Spanish with a counselor who better understood the dynamics of his personal life.
“She helped me set up a planner. She helped me to get organized,” Tamez said. “I was able to sit down and talk to her for a couple of hours about family struggles.”
Tamez was a part of the Multicultural Engineering Program, which works to recruit and retain students from underrepresented groups.
Tamez also credits AFROTC with giving him a sense of community, and he said he believes in the short term, it’s the cadets themselves that can have the most impact in helping to increase the number of Hispanic AFROTC cadets and help them become Air Force officers.
“In bringing them here, and making them want to come here,” Tamez said of potential Hispanic cadets, “you're going to need to have that dynamic, that family dynamic, that cultural appeal.”
That is a challenge at Penn State, which — at least at the University Park campus — has a relatively small Hispanic population. Tamez said he is one of about eight Hispanic AFROTC cadets at Penn State out of about 140.
Tamez may have grown up speaking English as his primary language while attending school in Seattle, but he said he has become aware of the barrier that language can present to Hispanic cadets whose primary language as children was Spanish. One such barrier is the English used on the Air Force Officer Qualification Test (AFOQT), which can contain words not familiar to people who speak English as a second language. This point was raised during the Feb. 17 symposium by Carol A. Sumner, vice president of the Division of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and chief diversity officer at Texas Tech University. Tamez said her comments resonated strongly with him.
“Standardized test barriers impact not only a prospective officer candidate’s acceptance to a particular college or university, but also can impact a candidate’s eligibility for AFROTC high school scholarship opportunities and future Air Force career paths,” Havird said.
He added that AFROTC Detachment 720 is partnering with the Penn State Department of Applied Linguistics and the English for Professional Purposes Intercultural Center to provide customized support to AFROTC cadets to enhance their performance on the AFOQT in recognition of testing barriers.
The U.S. Air Force has affirmed the difficulties that Hispanic cadets can face and the need to change systems that impose unnecessary barriers. Last year, the decision was made to change the Air Force Officer Qualification Test scoring to allow for super-scoring so test takers could use their highest section scores from across all attempts. The minimum time between testing was also reduced from 180 days to 90 days.
“Whether socio-economic or matters with balancing family, work and school life, these students face a unique set of barriers that might hinder a fruitful college career, which could then affect their choice of vocations, to include the military,” said Brig. Gen. Leslie Maher, commander of the Holm Center, which serves as the parent organization of AFROTC.
The symposium keynote speakers were Under Secretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones and Stephen Herrera, co-champion of the Hispanic Empowerment and Advancement Team and principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force, Financial Management and Comptroller. Participating were 16 major Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs), host AFROTC detachments and seven non-HSIs with large Hispanic AFROTC enrollments. Joining in the talks were university administrators and diversity and inclusion leaders, distinguished alumni from participating universities, ROTC cadre and cadets and affinity groups such as the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Hispanic Veterans Leadership Alliance.
Air Force ROTC Detachment 720 is part of Penn State Undergraduate Education.