| Summary: | As the Latinx/a/o population grows, college participation rates are rising. However, Latinx/a/o completions rates are not meeting national degree attainment benchmarks to meet workforce demands. The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological analysis study was to explore the lived experiences of leaders at private, faith-based, 4-year Hispanic Serving Institutions in Texas as they made sense of their role in closing the Latinx/a/o educational attainment gap as their campus culture and institutional identity changed. Therefore, with Schein's theory of organizational culture serving as the theoretical framework, the driving question of this qualitative study was how decision-makers at private, faith-based, 4-year HSIs in Texas make sense of their role in creating campus culture and institutional identity to support Latinx/a/o student success. In-depth interviews, conducted with academic and administrative professionals, with titles ranging from director to vice president, revealed that mentoring the next generation of private, faith-based higher education leaders is critical; that the ways that institutional identities intersect help leaders develop, grow, and build affinity for their work; that today's higher education leaders need change management skills in order to impact Latinx/a/o student success by learning cultural competencies; and that successful leaders at HSIs are knowledgeable about external forces and internal systems that impact an organization's cultural changes. The implications from this study are relevant to HSIs or emerging HSIs focused on closing the educational attainment gap for Latinx/a/o students. The study shows that an understanding of the organization's culture and organizational identity can contribute to this outcome.--Author's abstract
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