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A combination of grandmotherly advice and good food helps Hispanic students feel at home.

By Rebecca Ruiz-McGill, University Communications
January 22, 2008

Students enter the Chicano/Hispano Student Affairs Center with the comfort and ease of coming in and out of their own living room or kitchen. There are couches lining the walls, a refrigerator, a microwave, artwork with Latino themes and students hovering around tables chatting about class, homework and the weekend.

The center especially brims with energy every third Thursday of the month. Food begins to appear on the counters around the refrigerator and microwave. Students wait patiently, eager to tuck in.

Janet Rico Uhrig, assistant director of the center, appears and greets students by name, telling them that Rosalie Crowe, one of the center’s abuelitas, will be arriving soon and hopes they will stay to enjoy the company and the food.

The Abuelitas (grandmothers) program is the center’s partnership with the Tucson community and The University of Arizona's Hispanic Alumni Club. It brings in seasoned professionals and alumni who are willing to share their life stories and time with students to create a sense of family on campus.

“Many students are from out of town and don’t have family support close at hand so we try to foster that relationship on campus with the abuelitos and abuelitas in the community. They in turn come to campus, meet the students and share their life stories – successes, failures and challenges – and even have been known to invite students into their home for a home-cooked meal,” Uhrig said.

The UA’s Chicano/Hispano Student Affairs Office started the Abuelitas program in hopes of increasing student retention and graduation rates and is happy with the success of the program.

Uhrig has worked at the Chicano/Hispanic Student Affairs program for two years and has learned the joy of getting to know these students and as the instructor of the First Year Success Express class, a yearlong academic course that helps freshmen students succeed in college.

“College is a challenging place and coming from home to campus even if home is here in Tucson can be a challenge, too. We want the students to know that the UA family wants them to be successful just as their family at home does,” Uhrig said.

Crowe enters, faces light up and the room is abuzz as students greet her and move toward the food and serve themselves.

Crowe has been an abuelita for the last five years. She is a UA alumna who graduated with a journalism degree “a very long time ago,” she said. “These students are just kids but their stories are amazing, their plans and ambition and some of them, in just being here, have already accomplished so much.”

Crowe said the center becomes another home for the students. "Here they make friendships and are more apt to stay in school if they know others and form a community. While we don’t work in particular with any one student, we do form bonds and as abuelitas we scold and make sure to ask students if they have had enough sleep and are eating right. I have become close with one student in particular and have adopted her as my own, and as her adopted grandmother, when she graduates in another year, I know I will cry,“ Crowe said.

Crowe is a self-declared retiree flunkie. Over her career as a journalist, she has worked at the Arizona Daily Star, the Tucson Citizen and The Arizona Republic. “I flunked retirement because I continue working: I write features for the Arizona Daily Star. My husband died two years ago and being able to work was a very good thing for me,” Crowe said.

Ramon Caranza, a sophomore majoring in hstory with a secondary education focus, and Tina Dong, a third-year psychology major, frequent the center and host the most robust table of the afternoon.

Dong found the center through a friend who had graduated from the UA. “It’s a good place to study and a good place to network and meet new friends,” she said.

Caranza found the center through a friend as well. “My friend said, 'Let’s eat at the center.' I said, 'What center?' I feel welcome. Being here makes you feel like you belong here. There are advisers like Janet around to help and then there’s the food,” Caranza said.