In an academic environment, numbers are everywhere. Recently, a set of numbers came to the attention of the administration and is causing many to smile.

For the 2004-2005 academic school year, the Lake had the highest percentage per total student enrollment of Hispanics graduating with a bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees of all other Catholic universities in the United States, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is part of the U.S. Department of Education.

According to the NCES, 69.5 percent of those obtaining a bachelor’s degree from the Lake in 2004-2005 were Hispanic. For master’s degree recipients, the number was nearly 42 percent, and for doctorates, the number was 50 percent.

“It is a big WOW! It makes me very proud,” says President Tessa Martinez Pollack. “It is an opportunity to make a statement of whom we are and what we stand for, and that’s very important to the school and community.”

In the survey, St. Mary’s University and University of the Incarnate Word also were ranked in the top 3 for both undergraduate and master’s degree recipients. St. Mary’s had 65.6 percent Hispanic undergraduate degree recipients and UIW had 54.7 percent. For master’s level, UIW had 39.9 percent and St. Mary’s, 38.1 percent. St. Mary’s was right behind the Lake when it came to graduating Hispanics with doctorates, but their percentage was only 13.3 percent.

The president believes the location of the school does not have a connection to the percentages. “Being in the West Side of San Antonio has nothing to do with those numbers, (as) most people that attend the Lake aren’t primarily from this part of town,” says Pollack.

Executive Vice President Howard Benoist said, “The West Side has a place of being; we need to embrace that Hispanic population.”

These numbers arrive at a time when there are many changes in store for the university including the addition of sports and a new Hispanic Marketing degree.

“I want to see those numbers stay the same, if not go even higher,” says Pollack. “It’s like winning the Super Bowl, you win once, and you want to keep winning every year, but you have to work and train harder, and that’s what we are doing by adding such programs to the Lake.”

Benoist adds that “the Lake has a great biliterate program.” He says that there is so much more that people in this generation could accomplish if they were able to speak both English and Spanish.

Additionally, Pollack believes that the Hispanic population in the United States is the most “underserved” population, and therefore the Lake needs to “cultivate the Hispanic talent.”

Pollack also wants students to be aware that the Lake has the highest percentage of Hispanic faculty of all Catholic universities in the United States.