© 2003 the president and fellows of harvard college understanding what works: understanding what...

© 2003 The President and Fellows of Harvard College

Understanding Understanding What Works:What Works:Model Diversity Programs for all Students with emphasis on Recruiting, Retaining, and Supporting the Academic Achievement of Underrepresented Students in Colleges

And Universities

NCORE 2003San Francisco, California

PRESENTERS

Carolyn Howard,

Harvard Graduate School of Education

[email protected]

Frank Tuitt,


[email protected]

Richard Reddick,


[email protected]

Director

Dean Whitla, Ph.D.

Harvard University

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]





Why are we doing this research? Professional Schools Research

– Law School Research– Medical School Research

Support from:– Atlantic Philanthropies– Ford Foundation– Mellon Foundation


Racial/Ethnic Diversity Impact on “how you and others think about problems in classes”

(Law Schools)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Enhances

Mod. Enhances

No Impact

Mod Detracts

Detracts


“Have discussions with students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds changed your view of the equity of the

criminal justice system?” (Law Schools)

05

101520253035404550


“Are discussions with students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds more or less likely to promote greater understanding of medical

conditions and treatments? (Medical Schools)

05

101520253035404550


Goals of the Current Project Identify best practices and characteristics

found in successful diversity initiatives Locate programs that have improved

academic achievement of underrepresented minorities and examine the components of these

Examine admissions policies and practices of schools


Our School Selection Process A minimum rate of structural diversity

among student population Higher than average retention rates of

minority students Special initiatives or Centers noted in the

academic press/journals (e.g., UMD’s Diversity Web, UMichigan’s Center for Race and Ethnicity)

Recommendations from Advisory Board


Categorization of Schools Based on: Size Selectivity Funding Sources – Public vs.

Private Geographic Region Technical Schools Women’s Colleges


Research Sample Started with 101 schools that met our criteria Narrowed down to 50 NCDP has visited 28 campuses to date From the 28 campuses that we have visited, we

have interviewed:– 9 college presidents– 12 vice presidents or provosts– 120 faculty members– 250 administrators– Over 400 students


Data Collection

Phone Interviews Web-based research Campus interviews Focus group interviews with students Existing literature and institutional research


Research Questions How do students, faculty, and staff describe…

– the campus’ efforts for inclusion and success of underrepresented minority students, faculty, and staff?

– Campus climate (the social, political, and cultural environment) and inter-racial group relations?

– Success in providing diversity in curricula, and teaching and learning?

– Success in providing co-curricular diversity programming?

– Perceptions of institutional transformation?


Structural Diversity

R ecru itm en tA ctiv ities

A cadem icS uppor t

Lead ersh ipD evelopm en t

S ocia l/C ultura lIn teg ratio n

R etentio nA ctiv ities

S tudents


P rom otio n

P rofes s iona lD evelopm en t


F aculty


P rofes s iona lD evelopm en t


S taf f

H um an C apita l


Top Schools in Structural Diversity (Large State Schools) UCLA: 56% FT students of color in 2000

• 26.7% Full Time Minority Faculty (’01)• 19.3% FT Tenured Min. Faculty (’01)

UC Berkeley: 55.3% FT students of color• 19.9% FT Minority Faculty• 14.5% FT Tenured Minority Faculty

U New Mexico: 44.5% FT students of color• 16.7% FT Minority Faculty • 15.5% FT Tenured Minority Faculty

Rutgers: 35% FT students of color• 14.9% FT Minority Faculty• 13.2% FT Tenured Minority Faculty

U Maryland : 32.3% FT students of color • 15.4% FT Minority Faculty• 14% Tenured Minority Faculty


Top Schools in Structural Diversity (Ivy League & Highly Selective Schools) MIT: 46.7% FT students of color (2000)

• 12.5% FT minority faculty• 11.5% Tenured minority faculty

Stanford: 45.3% FT students of color• 14.1% FT minority faculty• 11.2% Tenured minority faculty

Harvard College: 33.3% FT students of color• 11.8% Ft minority faculty• 9.6% Tenured minority faculty

Cornell University: 30.3 FT students of color • 13.5% FT minority faculty• 11% tenured minority faculty


Top Schools in Structural Diversity (Mid to Large Private Schools)

USC: 43.1% FT students of color (2000)• 19.4% FT minority faculty• 13.9% Tenured minority faculty

U Miami (FL): 40.1% FT students of color• 27.2% FT minority faculty• 18.6% FT Tenured minority faculty

Northwestern: 27.5% FT students of color• 12.6% FT minority faculty • 11.6% Tenured minority faculty

Emory: 26.0 % FT students of color• 20.9% FT minority faculty• 11.2% Tenured minority faculty


Top Schools in Structural Diversity (Small Private Schools [< 3,000 students]) Occidental College: 39.1% FT students of color

• 22.6% FT minority faculty• 21.7% Tenured minority faculty

Wellesley: 35.3% FT students of color • 15.3% FT minority faculty• 15.3% Tenured minority faculty

Swarthmore College: 33.0% FT students of color • 12.9% FT minority faculty • 12.4% Tenured minority faculty

Rice University: 32.2% FT students of color • 11.0% FT minority faculty• 8.9% Tenured minority faculty


Students: Recruitment Activities

Minority student recruitment officers on staff

Admissions office sponsors special recruitment programming

Contacts and links to minority students Student’s college prep program University has and supports a Minority

Alumni Recruitment network


College & University Admissions Offices

Recruiters ExternalRelationships

PercentPlans

RecruitmentPrograms

FinancialAid

AdmissionsOffice


Formal Recruiters

Minority Recruiting Staff– One vs. many (Stanford)

Students (Univ. of Florida) Alumni (UVA, UT-Austin, Emory,

Amherst) Satellite Offices


External Relationships Churches (UMD) College Prep programs

– Posse Foundation, Prep for Prep, College/Upward Bound (Pomona)

Recruiting families (U Florida, UVA, UMD) Guidance counselor (Rice) Geographic focus (Carnegie Mellon) College 101 (Agnes Scott, UMD)

– Financial aid training and first year of college


Recruitment Programs

Recruitment/Student of Color weekends– Both “pre-app” and “post-admit”– Often host students of color on a weekend, and

merge program with all students on a Monday

Fly-ins Phone calls (Yale)


Financial Aid Need-blind financial aid Race-based scholarships (McNair, Mellon,

HEOPS)– Programs are under fire in the anti-affirmative action

era

Merit Awards– “Buying Students” (UVA, Northwestern, Agnes Scott)

High school-based scholarships (UT-Austin, Berkeley, UCLA)


Percent Plans Florida’s 20% Plan

– Guarantees admission to top 20% of HS students with a “B” average in 19 required school academic units–not necessarily to the school of their choice.

Texas’ 10% Plan– Automatically admits all public and private HS students in

top 10% of their class to public universities in the state. California’s 4% Plan

– Guarantees admission to all public and private HS school students in the top 4% of their class to one of the UC’s 8 campuses–not necessarily into school of their choice.


Students – Retention Activities

Academic Support Retention office (larger schools) Summer Prep Programs Year-Long (+) Academic Transition

Programs Scholarship Programs that create

Community through mentoring relationships and “culture of study”


Leadership Development and Social/Cultural integration Service Learning Programs and Community

Organization Programs Living/Learning Cultural Centers

– Race-specific vs. Integrated• Offices vs. residential centers

• Multicultural advisors in residential centers vs. residence life staff

Responses to intolerance, prejudice and hate crimes (Stanford)


Enhancement Programs

Emerging Scholars Program – UT Austin STARS – Yale Meyerhoff Program – UMD-Baltimore Chemistry Program –Williams Spend a Summer with a Scientist – Rice Gateways Program – Northwestern


Armendariz’s and Treisman’s Emerging Scholars Program at UT Austin Research based Goal: increase the number of minority and

female freshmen in calculus Added intensive discussion sections Replicable – 150 schools across the nation

are using this model


Faculty Recruitment Activities

Finding funds for “targets of opportunity” (e.g., Swarthmore, Mt. Holyoke)– “Sweetening the pot”– Targeted searches– Increasing research funds instead of salary

Using incentives (e.g., housing, release time for mentoring students)

Creating your own pipeline


Faculty Retention Activities

Mentoring (formal and informal) Creating community Upper administration commitment to

Diversity (Northwestern)


Organizational Behavior

Strategic Planning

Leadership

Vision

Internal and External lFunds

Financial

Resources

Campus ClimateStudent Satisfaction

Achievement

AssessmentActivities

Culture of Evidence

ResearchActivities

Evaluation

Institutional Capital


Organizational Behavior

Mission– Visible and accessible on Web, materials

Senior Leadership – Visible and Intentional Commitment to Diversity

(Dartmouth, Rice) Assessment: Creating a Culture of Evidence

(UMD, Amherst, Williams, Brown)– Climate studies– Faculty, student, staff satisfaction studies

Planning (Northwestern, Rice)


Educational Development

D iverse P erspective s

C onten t

Curriculum

Inc lus ive Learn in gand T e achin g

C lassroo m

Pedagogy

F acultyS pon sore d

S tuden tS pon sore d

C ollabo ration sinterna l and e xterna l

C o-curricu la r

Programs

Intellectual Capital


Aspects of Curriculum Transformation

Full ethnic/specialty departments (e.g., African American, Latino, and Women’s Studies) that offer a wide range of courses

Mandatory enrollment in one or more courses that focuses on social justice issues; or history, status, achievement of diverse groups

Course Development funds Teaching and Learning Centers for faculty

– Workshops offered for faculty and staff encouraging interdisciplinary methods or diversity issues content


Teaching and Learning Challenges Negative Class Room Experiences

– Native Informants– Perceptions of White Professors– Perceptions of Faculty of Color


Teaching and Learning Challenges: Student Voices

Well, oftentimes, when you come into a classroom, you sort of become the token person (laughter). I mean, whenever a question comes up, whether it’s in political science or in history or whatever, everyone will sort of like turn to you — you would be amazed by the whipping action, and everyone looks at you and they’re like, “So how do you feel about this?” and sometimes even if you want to agree with the majority of the class, you’ll disagree just so that you can give the other side and I mean, its really obvious sometimes that your professors are mostly white, the TAs are often white. Um, even in the African studies department, a lot of the teachers are white.

– African American female at an Ivy school

I had a really interesting experience with a black woman professor who hated black students. And really felt like black students felt she should give them an A because we were black, so we had to work really hard. This is my first black woman professor, like I was really excited, you know. And then you just get in there and my first meeting with her was like, “Well, you wrote this paper because obviously you think you can write, but this paper shows you can’t.” And I was like, “Wow. Okay.” I had a really interesting experience with that.

– African American Female student at a Small private school


Teaching and Learning Challenges: Student Voices

I’m actually taking an “America in the 1960s” class at _______ now, and Professor ____. is the teacher. There was the one time I can say that I felt a student was totally racially targeted, I was extremely uncomfortable with the whole situation, and there were maybe, three students of color in that class, including me, and everyone else is White, and it’s kind of like, the whole atmosphere at ________ is different. And the teacher, well there’s this one African American male in the class, and we were talking about the Civil Rights movement, and the teacher, who was White, kept saying, ”Tim, where are you in this picture? Tim, where are you? You aren’t even represented at all,” and the class was laughing, and the teacher was laughing too, and the teacher was White. And, I was like, that would never happen at [my school]. People would have said something immediately. And I was so uncomfortable, and it was like the second day of class, I was the only ______ student in that class. And so, I didn’t say anything, and I’m just kicking myself for not saying anything, and the guy that was being called on, he answered, and he like chuckled with his answer, but I was like, does this happen all the time?

– Asian Female at a small private school


Positive Teaching and Learning Experiences Faculty-Student Engagement Creates the space for Diverse Perspectives Student-to-Student Engagement Attentiveness to how students are

experiencing the learning environment


Positive Teaching and Learning Experiences: Student Voices Like I had this Professor, for English 101, and she’s actually one of the [college], Asian

American, big people up there (laughter), and I had no idea, I was just some first-year. But one day this student made this really inane comment about diversity in class, and the next day, she brought in packets of worksheets, and gave it out, and made us discuss the issues surrounding diversity. And I was like, ‘oh my god!’she’s on it! So there are like some outstanding professors who are very in tune with the climate of the day.

– Asian female at a small private institution

Yeah! And I had like one Asian American. And that ended up being like my best term and I couldn’t figure out why, and I was like, whoa, it was, its almost just a totally different feeling just to actually connect with a professor, and to not, I guess before, since I never knew what I was missing or I never knew there was such a disconnect, or there was such a frustration there when you sit in a class and I mean, you’re sitting there with 30 other students that are majority Caucasian and they kind of look at you like, “oh, we’re discussing civil rights today.”

– Multiethnic student at highly selective private institution


Positive Teaching and Learning Experiences: Student Voices I’m taking a class called “Ethics and Public Policy,” and it’s being taught by

one of ___’s most famous professors. He actually stopped the normal syllabus reading and assigned two weeks of class discussion towards discussing ideas of freedom, discussing freedom of speech, respecting values and the ideas of the press. I think he did a pretty fantastic job facilitating that discussion. He moved off his normal syllabus and spend an entire two weeks discussing it. Even in my personal encounters with him, he seems like a person who’s very willing to make people more aware of these kinds of issues.

– Asian male student at a highly selective institution


Attitude Benders

Sustained Dialogue Programs at Princeton and UVA

Intergroup Dialogue and Leadership Programs at U Michigan, UMD, UMass-Amherst, Arizona State and Mt. Holyoke (faculty-initiated)

Intercultural Dialogues at Pomona and Rice (ADVANCE) (student life initiatives)


Student Opinions on Campus Climate

‘Mainstream’ campus population doesn’t attend or appreciate events

Concern about retention of their minority peers

Inadequate response by Senior Administration


More Student Concerns

General isolation from faculty and administrators

Classroom experiences need enhancement Frequently diversity program directors and

staff are not viewed as “mainstream” Social isolation Exhaustion about “doing it all”


Attributes of Successful Programs Commitment of Senior Leadership to

diversity is critical Institutionalized administrative support for

initiatives (e.g., Multicultural Affairs Office)

Meaningful cross-cultural dialogue through community service or “dialogue” programs

Methods for promoting achievement of underrepresented students


Attributes of Successful Programs (continued) Admissions outreach (e.g., satellite offices,

family programs) Curricular and pedagogical transformation Effective and timely interventions for

campus crises Engaging, committed faculty,

administrators, and/or staff in leadership positions


Summarizing Thoughts

More “model programs” than “model institutions”

Students of color experience the institution differently from mainstream students – despite programming


More Summarizing Thoughts

Communities of color are finding fewer students committed to the traditional values of organizations– Communities are changing

– Activism generally seems not as strong today

– integrated programs vs. concentrated programs – both are necessary


The Best Programs Address: Campus climate – assessment and

transparency of results Faculty and administrative training and

support Enhanced URM student achievement Mainstream student engagement Multicultural organizational leadership Crisis prevention and intervention

© 2003 the president and fellows of harvard college understanding what works: understanding what...

Documents

harvard university

college presidents

institutional research

medical schools

practices of schools

students of different

advisory board slide

classes law schools