Black Students' Perceptions documents and addresses what it means to be a black person getting an education in a predominantly white university."--Jacket.
Sense of belonging refers to the extent a student feels included, accepted, valued, and supported on their campus. The developmental process of belonging is interwoven with the social identity development of diverse college students. Moreover, belonging is influenced by the campus environment, relationships, and involvement opportunities as well as a need to master the student role and achieve academic success. Although the construct of sense of belonging is complex and multilayered, a consistent theme across the chapters in this book is that the relationship between sense of belonging and intersectionality of identity cannot be ignored, and must be integrated into any approach to fostering belonging.Over the last 10 years, colleges and universities have started grappling with the notion that their approaches to maintaining and increasing student retention, persistence, and graduation rates were no longer working. As focus shifted to uncovering barriers to student success while concurrently recognizing student success as more than solely academic factors, the term “student sense of belonging” gained traction in both academic and co-curricular settings. The editors noticed the lack of a consistent definition, or an overarching theoretical approach, as well as a struggle to connect disparate research. A compendium of research, applications, and approaches to sense of belonging did not exist, so they brought this book into being to serve as a single point of reference in an emerging and promising field of study.
INCREASING PERSISTENCE "Of all the books addressing the puzzle of student success and persistence, I found this one to be the most helpful and believe it will be extremely useful to faculty and staff attempting to promote student success. The authors solidly ground their work in empirical research, and do a brilliant job providing both an overview of the relevant literature as well as research-based recommendations for intervention." GAIL HACKETT, PH.D., provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs; professor, counseling and educational psychology, University of Missouri, Kansas City Research indicates that approximately forty percent of all college students never earn a degree anywhere, any time in their lives. This fact has not changed since the middle of the 20th century. Written for practitioners and those who lead retention and persistence initiatives at both the institutional and public policy levels, Increasing Persistence offers a compendium on college student persistence that integrates concept, theory, and research with successful practice. It is anchored by the ACT's What Works in Student Retention (WWISR) survey of 1,100 colleges and universities, an important resource that contains insights on the causes of attrition and identifies retention interventions that are most likely to enhance student persistence.?? The authors focus on three essential conditions for student success: students must learn; students must be motivated, committed, engaged, and self-regulating; and students must connect with educational programs consistent with their interests and abilities. The authors offer a detailed discussion of the four interventions that research shows are the most effective for helping students persist and succeed: assessment and course placement, developmental education initiatives, academic advising, and student transition programming. Finally, they urge broadening the current retention construct, providing guidance to policy makers, campus leaders, and individuals on the contributions they can make to student success.
In higher education institutions across the world, rapid changes are occurring as the socio-economic composition of these universities is shifting. The participation of females, ethnic minority groups, and low-income students has increased exponentially, leading to major changes in student activities, curriculum, and overall campus culture. Significant research is a necessity for understanding the need of broader educational access and promoting a newly empowered diverse population of students in today’s universities. Accessibility and Diversity in the 21st Century University is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the provision of higher educational access to a more diverse population with a specific focus on the growing population of women in the university, key intersections with race and sexual preference, and the experiences of low-income students, mid-career and reentry students, and special needs populations. While highlighting topics such as adult learning, race-based achievement gaps, and women’s studies, this publication is ideally designed for educators, higher education faculty, deans, provosts, chancellors, policymakers, sociologists, anthropologists, researchers, scholars, and students seeking current research on modern advancements of diversity in higher education systems.
This book describes the fifteen strategies identified through research reviewed by The National Dropout Prevention Center and Network at Clemson University. Each chapter in this book was written by a nationally recognized authority in that field. Research has shown that these 15 strategies have been successfully implemented in all school levels from K - 12 in rural, suburban, and urban centers; as stand-alone programs or as part of systemic school improvement plans. Helping Students Graduate: A Strategic Approach to Dropout Prevention also covers No Child Left Behind and its effects on dropout rates; Dealing with Hispanic dropouts; Differences and similarities between rural and urban dropouts. These fifteen strategies have been adopted by the U.S. Department of Education. They are applicable to all students, including students with disabilities.
The Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program of the US National Science Foundation has been a primary force for raising the success and graduation of minority students in STEM for 30 years. Increasing the number of underrepresented students earning baccalaureate degrees, and entering graduate school in STEM is the goal of LSAMP. This goal has been nearly achieved through the formation of alliances of degree granting institutions of higher learning, varying from community colleges to major research institutions. Currently there are 59 alliances including more than 400 institutions. LSAMP is responsible for more than 650,000 bachelor’s degrees earned by minority students in STEM. The papers for this Research Topic should focus on the use of LSAMP activities, programs and collaborations to develop pathways to success and graduation of STEM majors from minority groups that underrepresented in STEM. These pathways can include any segment from pre-college through graduate school. Areas of special interest include mentoring, research experiences, transitions between levels and novel approaches for retention. The studies should be research based and rigorous. They can be pure research studies, curriculum and design or literature reviews but they must be at a cutting edge level and be subject to detailed review and assessment.
Published annually since 1985, the Handbook series provides a compendium of thorough and integrative literature reviews on a diverse array of topics of interest to the higher education scholarly and policy communities. Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of research findings on a selected topic, critiques the research literature in terms of its conceptual and methodological rigor, and sets forth an agenda for future research intended to advance knowledge on the chosen topic. The Handbook focuses on twelve general areas that encompass the salient dimensions of scholarly and policy inquiries undertaken in the international higher education community. The series is fortunate to have attracted annual contributions from distinguished scholars throughout the world.