The American College Student

Boggs (2011): I think the piece of this article that stood out to me the most was the defining characteristics of an American community college.  I think it is important for me to mention that I attended a community college while enrolled in high school, so I was dual-enrolled to earn college credit.  My initial thoughts are that community colleges are like high school 2.0 because of my experience.  It may have also been due to which institution I attended, but I know that they do have a positive impact for the students who attend. The characteristics include:

1. Access and Inclusion:  Community colleges allow for many more people to have access to the higher education environment.  The community college is not intended just for those who want to continue their education after two years of postsecondary work, but also for those who for one reason or another may or may not be able to attend a four-year institution.  I found it very interesting that more than half of community college students were female and that 36% are non-White.  Additionally, I found it exceptional that the percentage of students of color is quite high: 15% hispanic, 14% black.  Also, we have 42% of community college students identifying as first-generation.  

2. Community Responsiveness and Innovation: Community colleges also have that unique ability that the programs they offered are usually to help meet the demand of the area in which they serve.  I find this piece incredible because the people you are going to be learning from have partnerships with local businesses because they are looking for people trained in a specific area and the community colleges understand this.  They are also innovative in their program curriculum in allow and encouraging entrepreneurial outcomes to come from their students.

3. Small Class Sizes and Focus on Instruction: The small classes provide for a 1:1 relationship between the student and the faculty.  I think this piece is so important.  Students who feel as those their professor knows them from my experience feel like they are more valued than in a large lecture hall where they are typically seen as a number.  Also, since community college instructors don’t have to do research or publishing to advance, they can actually focus on instruction and teaching.  More than once, I have heard from students that I work with that their professors are extremely intelligent and are incredible researchers, but they are awful teachers.  I think there needs to be a balance for both.  I think teaching and research can help benefit all types of institutions and the professors they have.

Jacobs & Hundley (2010): I can never imagine being an adult learner.  The space that is created with an adult learned is unique.  Going to college when you are possibly 20 years older than everyone else creates a dynamic for that individual.  I think that they bring a unique perspective to the course and to the college system.  Especially thinking about my profession, are Greek Life opportunities available to adult learners?  What does a 30+ year old person going through Panhellenic recruitment look like?  I appreciate that this article provides recommendations for classroom instruction of adult learners, but I kind of wish they would have touch a little more on recommendations for student affairs professionals in creating accommodations or programs for this sub-population of students.  Some of those recommendations that I do think could relate to both however, include: designing a curriculum that is inclusive with regard to students’ cultural backgrounds, including those from marginalized groups. I think this could be applied to a more broad set of students, but I think regardless this is important to keep in mind.  

Another is recognizing that many return to college studies with trepidation about their abilities to be successful learners in the academic setting.  I think this one is so important.  As academicians and student affairs professionals, we need to make sure that the campus community and campus environment is a safe space for all of our students regardless with how they identify.  I think that ensuring that the classroom is a safe space for adult learners can help to foster their self-confidence in their ability to succeed.  

Lee & Helm (2013): Student affairs capitalism is an issue in my mind. I think that our profession as student affairs professionals is to help student succeed and provided them with the opportunities to make the most of their collegiate experience and equip them with the tools to make the world they are entering a better place.  I think student affairs capitalism throws those mantras out the window.  Since student affairs capitalism reorients our profession to be about the financial stability of the institution - we see students less as genuine people, and more as customers who need to be happy 24/7.  However, I think if this is our mindset, we lose the ability to provide challenge to our students.

Generation on a Tightrope (Chapter 7-8): In this chapter, students were asked to discuss some of the problems they think that face the world in the future and some of these issues included the following: natural disasters, environment and quality of education, debt, unemployment, health care, world hunger, slave labor, biased news, oil dependence, etc.  

And while you would think with all these pessimistic views about the world’s future, the students of this generation would be shaking their heads and not knowing what the future for them looks like.  However, when asked about their chances of overcoming these large obstacles of the future, many students were optimistic that they were going to be fine or least successful in some way.  Some of the rationales they gave are incredible.

“I have been surrounded by enough people in my life who had enough confidence in me.  I feel like I will be personally successful in whatever I do.” - This looks at this idea of social support.

“I have the support I need, the will, and the drive” - Social support, self-expectations.

“I’m pretty sure I can play in the game, so I’m pretty optimistic” - Self-expectations, confidence in future.

Each of the above quotes shows me that the generation on a tightrope is going to make it across & be successful in what they do because they have the confidence to do so because of the support of many people behind him.

The future is bright.

The final chapter of this talks about the current generation of college students and the attributes that may be given to them.  They include the following:

1. Weak in face-to-face social skills

I would disagree with that above statement.  I believe that we are not weak in face-to-face social skills.  I believe that we have evolved and become stronger in social skills across different platforms.  Students of this generation are able to FaceTime with each other & communicate in ways that had never been possible before.  I think are social skills are actually becoming more advantageous.

2. Sexually active but interpersonally awkward.

I would absolutely agree with this one.  I think college campuses have a large and thriving hook-up culture and I don’t think there is anything necessarily wrong with that. I don’t think people are as committed to relationships especially now at this age because they realize life is fleeting, things change so quickly.  I don’t think people are looking for something permanent, but when they are, they don’t know how to approach it because is not something that is of the norm.  They are awkward in fostering a lasting relationship with a peer.

4. Abusers of alcohol...

I agree with this one to an extent.  I think there are members of this generation that do abuse alcohol because there is a percentage of people that abuse everything.  However, I don’t think that this should be a characteristics of the generation.  I can imagine that generations before us abused alcohol as well.  I think that this should more accurately say that this generation approaches drinking in a more dangerous way (binge drinking) than past generations have.

5. Desperately committed to American Dream.

I think this one is quite vague because what is the American Dream?  I think that each and every person in America has there own version of the American Dream and I would be happy to say that people of this generation should be committed to THEIR AMERICAN DREAM. This is a world where individualities are embraced and recognizing this is important moving forward. I think any dream whatever that may be should be encouraged and supported throughout the collegiate experience.

Student Loans Weighing Down a Generation With Heavy Debt

I think it is absolutely outrageous that there is $1 trillion is student loans that have not been paid back in this country.  It is unfortunate that college is so expensive and is now being burdened by everyone and not just dropouts from for-profit colleges or graduate students who have many years of education.  I think there needs to be a way to make college affordable without allowing everyone to attend or without making it free.  I think that at some point college does need to cost something because I don’t think college is for everyone, and if it is for everyone, what is the point of a bachelor’s degree anymore? I think that this crippling debt should be leading to reform in the sense that people need to know what their actual future earnings and job prospects look like.  I think too often nowadays people think they can just major in whatever they want and they will find a job.  However, with this mindset, they could end like the woman from the article, being $120,000 in debt, no apartment, living with parents, and working two jobs at different restaurants to start paying back her $900 a month student loan payment.  Numbers like that would make anyone look like the person below.

Generation on a Tightrope (Chapter 2): This generation more than any other is connected to one another through the technology that is at their fingertips.  They are seen as digital natives because they really have never lived in a space where technology was not available for them.  I think it is interesting that in this chapter, the student affairs staff describes this generation as those who are coddled, spoiled, never permitted to fail, and protected.  I would have to whole heartedly agree.  The students of this generation - my generation - are always expected to be rewarded or recognized for everything that we do.  If we do not win, or do not get some form of recognition, we are concerned that something is wrong or that we are not being treated fairly.

It is not surprise that the students surveyed believe that their education would be improved if their classes made greater use of technology and if their professors knew more about how to use it.  I think reflecting on that Tinto idea of faculty development - I think there is a serious lack of technology prowess amongst most of the faculty at institutions of higher education.  I think a place where they can improve is learning and adapting to this new environment and meeting students where they are at.

Completing College (Chapters 3-5): I think the most important type of support that a student needs when at college is social support.  I am a stronger believer that if a student is able to feel like they belong to some group or some community that is a part of campus, that everything else will fall in line.  I believe that social integration piece is so critical to ensure the success of students.  Though academic and financial support play a role, I think the social support is so significant, especially due to that social desirability perspective of higher education.  Additionally, continual assessment is critical.  I think that the early warning systems are an important piece but I think institutions need to think more broadly about how we can really monitor and catch the students who are at risk of not returning each year.... Not just the first year.  We want to retain them all four years they are with us.  I think a systematic effort across the institution is important.  As part of one of my other courses, we looked into CampusLabs as a system to use and I think this could be beneficial for an institution to implement with each of its components that will help to assess various pieces of the institution and the student.  Final comment: STUDENTS WHO GET INVOLVED WILL BE RETAINED AT A HIGHER RATE THAN NON-INVOLVED STUDENTS. I think having a social experience in the collegiate environment is so important because when you are involved, you are able to find a home at the university and will find a reason each year to come back.  Yes, you will probably come back for the classes, but at the end of the day, students who have people/relationships/friends to come back to each year are more likely to come back and be retained year after year.  A sense of belonging is integral to the collegiate career of a student.

Crawley (2012): The most interesting piece that I took from this was the profile of online students.  They are extremely diverse individuals with varying backgrounds.  They are typically coming from or are currently at community colleges but are looking for online enrollment because there is something else or some other piece of their life that they are not able to be on-campus for.  Additionally, these students usually have high risk factors that may not allow them to access the same type of education as as on-campus education.  These online programs are being used to hep target those who could not necessarily pursue educational goals any other way because of one reason or another.  Interestingly, the online student population is primarily adult students.  But at the same time, this shouldn’t be a shocked because many of these adults are also working full-time jobs while trying to gain a meaningful education. Since the majority of online learners are adult students, it is important for institutions to keep this in mind when planning the curriculum for the course.  Most adult learners need to know what they are learning actually applies to their career and can understand how they will apply it in their current position.  They also want to learn experientially through activities and simulations that will allow them to have the experience of using the information.  This is a very interesting population of students to study and i would wonder what exactly need from an institution of higher education to be the most successful?

Is Google Making Us Stupid?:

This article makes some sense because I think that Google does change the way we process information, but it is not making us more stupid,  I actually think Google allows for us to have access to information that was never before imagined.  Do I think that people take advantage of Google? Yes. Are these people stupid for doing this? Yes.  But I think the majority of us use Google when we wanted to learn something new that we have not know previously.

Though we may not retain the information because we are learning it in the typical way, I don’t think that doesn’t mean it is making us stupid.  On the contrary, I think it allows for us to keep information in our brains that we actually need to remember.  For example, I don’t know how many teaspoons make a cup, but if I ever needed to.... I could always Google it. This allows for the information that is more significant to me to be retain in my brain for a longer period of time.  I enjoy that Googles opens up the floodgates of information for the human population to explore.  Anything and everything is available if you know what you are looking for.

Christy Blanch & Comics:

Christina Blanch is coming to our class next week & she is a comics scholar and has also taught MOOCs or Massive Online Open Courses.  I am very interested to hear what she has to say about comics writing & about teaching a MOOC.  I am not a fan of either of these things - especially MOOCs.  I think the higher education system is losing its meaning or value when we have MOOCs.  But, I am interested to see what someone who has actually taught one thinks. More to come...

So Christy Blanch visited class.  SHE IS FANTASTIC. She has such a passion for comics & that makes me happy to see someone doing exactly what they want to do.  I am really interested in going to her shop, AwYeahComics in Muncie, and checking out comics.  She said she would be able to find a comic that would fit each of us perfectly.  I am still pretty skeptical about MOOCs but she helped to clarify some things for me about what they are.  I still don’t understand their feasibility or the necessity of them, but I am not 100% against them anymore.

Generation on a Tightrope (Chapter 4 & 5)

“I need a launching pad.  I have so many helicopter parents.” LOL.

In higher education, parents have become increasingly more involved in the student experience.  From even before a student enrolls at an institution, the university needs to realize that they are not just selling themselves to the student, but they are also selling themselves to parents.  You are no longer getting just the student, it has become a package deal.  More than ever, parents want to be a part of this experience.  A factor seen as a cause for increase parent involvement revolves around this idea that undergraduates today have “a delayed sense of independence and being a grown up.”  I 100% agree.  As an undergraduate student and sometimes even know as a graduate student, the family is the first people I call about everything because they are the ones that I know have an unconditional love for me.  I think that we see our family/parents as the people that we can always go to because they have always been there.  A major piece of this for me was dealing with financial aid.  I always made my grandmother call and take care of it for me because “I didn’t know what I was doing” and “That is something adults do and I wasn’t ready for that”.  It is interesting that reading this book helps me to relive some of my undergraduate experiences.  

For some more laughs: Lawnmower parents because they roll over everything in their paths to “defend” their cubs.

LOLOLOL: Stealth parents because they swoop in to “protect” their offspring.

I think what makes these so ridiculous is that they are so true and I have experience each and every one of them.  My grandma at one point was on the phone with me and said “Well I will be calling the school because they shouldn’t be talking to you like that.  I’ll give them a piece of my mind”.  Our parents eventually need to realize we have to grow up and be independent of them.

Completing College (Chapter 1 & 2): Tinto ends his introduction with the conditions for student success which I think are the important piece of this chapter.  The conditions he says are important for a student to succeed in higher education are: expectations, support, assessment/feedback, and involvement.  A student’s experience is shaped my self-expectations as well as expectations of the institution and the peer groups the student has.  I agree when Tinto says that high expectations are a condition for student success.  In order to reach these high expectations, the student needs to have support.  This support came come in variety: academic, social, financial, physical, etc. Each of these is important in different ways for the student to succeed at college.  However, the support is coupled with assessment and feedback on their performance at college.  I think an important piece is for the student to know how they are doing and how they are achieving.  This will allow for the support given to them to be directed in the places that are more needed.  However, for me, Tinto hits the nail on the head by stating that INVOLVEMENT is the most important condition for student success.  If students are engaged at the institution, they are going to feel a connection to the institution and hopefully to fellow peers which will help to retain them year-to-year.

How College Works (Chapter 4 & 5): Looking at this idea of the arithmetic of engagement, it is important to take note of the different factors that go into this “equation”.  The factors can include student-faculty ratio, average number of classes taught by a professor, and the average number of classes each student is taking.  I think the most important factor however is the student-faculty ratio because of that relationship piece that students are looking for.  I think with the small sizer classes, professors are able to know each and every student in their classes.  At my undergraduate institution, my classes were never larger than 25 students and this made all the different for me.  I felt as though my students actually knew who I was and cared about my educational experiences.  I can’t say that this would have been the same in a lecture class of 100+ students.  At some point, a student becomes a number and not a person.   Additionally, I appreciate this layout of four conditions for belonging or what needs to be present for someone to feel as though they belong.  These conditions include:

1. Physical co-presence of people: The actual physical presence of another person is exciting.  It allows for individuals in this space to be and to interact with one another in some way.  It ensures a sense of control and reactivity to the actions of another.  It is naturally and physiologically exciting to be around other people.

2. Shared focus of attention: Classrooms, organizations, Big Ten football games.  When a group of people are in a shared space and engaged in a common cause or focus on a specific event/topic, a person feels a sense of belonging.  It is as though all individuals in the space are moving towards one collective as a whole.

3. Ritualized common activities: These activities are all centered on that share focus of attention.  For fraternities and sororities, this would be like at the beginning of the chapter meetings when everyone stands up at the same time and recites the creed together and then sits down together.  Another example would be everyone yelling the fight song together at a football when the team wins.  Each of these activities increases a student’s sense of belonging in that space.

4. Exclusivity: Limiting membership.  This seems to be a strong factor in belonging.  By simply limiting the number of people that can join in a space, the individuals in the group are deeply connected and feel in a sense more special. Being exclusive ensures solidarity among the members who have been allowed entrance.

I can see each and every one of those conditions fulfilled by the organizations that I was involved in when I was an undergraduate student.  As each of those pieces was fulfilled, I felt like I belonged in each of those organization.  I felt like I was in a space that not everyone share.  It was my space.

Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: I had to stop reading this article 3/4 of the way through because I was sick to my stomach.  It is absolutely incredible when I read stories like this about fraternity hazing culture.  I can’t even imagine living in a campus culture where hazing ran rampant to the extent that people were “baptized in feces, pee, and puke” or forced to eat a “vomlet”.  I think that is absolutely awful.  I think the piece that I would like to focus on though is the institution itself and the history of the institution.  Dartmouth is one of the oldest schools in our nation and a school that is deep in its traditions to the point where the article states that the unofficial motto of the institution is “Lest Old Traditions Fail”.  I think a lot of what is going on in the fraternity community relates to this elitism and history of the university.

All the students or a large majority of the students who are attending Dartmouth are coming from a privileged background and believe that the world is going to be handed to them at some point.  It is an unfortunate truth.  However, I do not think that this one story is enough to condemn the Greek community in its entirety.  I think unfortunately, these are the stories that are coming up or are highlighted in the media.  Media never focuses on the positive lived experiences of fraternity and sorority members.  All the media calls for is the closure of Greek communities without thinking about how the Greek experience has actually had a positive impact on many students’ experiences.

I think a question that I still have is what does the Greek advisor at Dartmouth do?  I wonder if there was cover-up of the types of having activities for some time and it finally was let out of the bag.  I would hope that as an aspiring fraternity/sorority life advisor, I would never cover-up something like this to save the face of myself or the face of the institution.

Alcohol’s Hold on Campus

I do not think this is a popular opinion & I am okay with that.  I think that drinking alcohol is a part of the collegiate experience and plays a role in the development of a student.  Now when I say this, I am not advocating that every person at college has to drink, but I think that we need to stop this damaging pursuit of not allowing people to drink on our campuses.

While drinking, your social inhibitions are lowered and students are able to more comfortably socialize with one another.  They are able to communicate in a way that may not have been possible with alcohol as the conductor for that conversation.  I think in some ways, alcohol helps to allow people to feel more comfortable with themselves as well.

There is also this social desirability piece.  Drinking is seen as being a social desirable thing to do when students go out.  Not doing this can have some serious social ramifications for students.  I think that this can be so strong that even against better judgment, students are going to indulge in the consumption of alcohol because they believe it is in their best social interest to do.

I think campuses allow for alcohol to be present to an extent because the consequences and legal ramifications for being caught drinking underage are not extremely severe but allow for students to understand that their actions do have consequences and they must take ownership for their actions.

In my opinion, I think alcohol should be allowed on college campuses but should be monitored.  As we move into a more liberal time period, I think the drinking age is something that should be considered as a source of conversation because we expect students to come to college and take ownership of their experience, while at the same time telling they can’t drink. If they do drink, they will be punished.  These punishments range depending on the campus but can be as severe as being kicked off campus.  I think there has to be a different way of handling alcohol on campus to ensure that student affairs professionals and the administration can turn it into a learning experience and a developmental process for the students.

A Nation of Wimps: Related back to this piece about helicopter parents, we are seeing more and more that students feel that their life is being planned out for them or at least they are being pushed in certain directions to ensure success.  The parents of students today are now gearing them towards academic achievement to ensure that they are going to be competitive in the economy of the future.  We are seeing more and more students who have a lack of independence and believe that their parents are always going to be there for them.

I think an interesting piece of this is the binge drinking section.  A professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Campaign believes that at the end of the day, students binge-drink because it gives them ownership of something in their life. It provides a piece of authenticity to their experience and intensifies their experiences in a significant way.  The professor states that we are in an inverted world where drinking to oblivion is the way to feel connected and alive and I would have to agree. I think on college campuses, people feel connected because of stories that they are able to share. 

Though drinking to oblivion is not the best way to be connected necessarily, I understand the premise that since students are all drinking to a dangerous level, they feel a connection in this way.  However, I think that students are binge-drinking because they have a deep-seated fear of getting in trouble from “some authority” but want to be able to have the same positive experiences that others are having in college.  It gives them something that they solely have control over and no one can take it from them.

Being Gay at Jerry Falwell’s University: Liberty University is a very unique institution.  Liberty was founded by Jerry Falwell.  He was Southern Baptist minister who was known for homophobia, bigotry, and the Moral Majority.  I would just like to pause and ask: Who in the hell let this man build or create an institution of higher education?  However, the story is about a student who came to this institution and eventually self-identified as a gay male.  He knew that the culture of the institution was homophobic in nature but couldn’t help the person he was.  He eventually disclosed this information to a professor and was shocked by her support.  I am happy to see that even at this conservative, homophobic institution, the professors still care and have concern for the student’s well-being.  The student discusses this Liberty Way that they all had to follow.  These rules are archaic and I can’t believe that they actually still exist on this campus. Furthermore, they have a DEAN OF MEN.  This is asinine.  I thought we were past the separation of gender on campus and that anyone could advise anyone.  Apparently, this is not the case at Liberty.

However, it is nice to see the shining stars of Liberty like Dr. Reeves.  He is one of the counseling staff members and really supported the student through his disclosure and allow for him to really own his identity rather than the expected ‘praying the gay away’ mentality.  I think this story is an encouraging piece for students who are struggling with their sexual identity and need to know that there are people on college campuses that do care about the well-being of their students and are willing to be there to talk to them and listen.

Interested in reading this, the link is provided.

Guests in Someone Else’s House: Students of Color:

It is unfortunate that we are seeing that students of color are not finding a sense of belonging at predominately white institution.  This may be for a variety of reasons, but as student affairs professionals, we need to work to move the needle forward on this so that they do feel comfortable and as though they belong.  Students of color must find a positive level of comfort, according to Tinto, i border for them to be academically successful at a PWI.  I think many times our institutions write up the right policies and implement good programs, but I don’t think we think about the campus culture and understanding if there is buy-in across campus for this.  There needs to be an opening and inclusive environment for students of color to thrive. 

High school college counselors and community college staff have begun referring students who identify in a minatory group to colleges that may be more welcoming to them.  The intent of this is to ensure that people are able to have a space that they feel safe and that they feel they are able to achieve and prosper - both academically and socially.

Reading this make me think about everything that has been going on in my office over the past couple weeks.  it really makes you stop and thinking about the impact your words, your actions, and your being can have on each and every student that you encounter.  I think it is important to recognize that having a diverse staff is important because yo want to make sure that as a staff, all students feel safe in a way that they are able to open up to and form a positive relationship.  I’ve never thought about students of color as being “guests in someone else’s house”, but again, that could be white privilege speaking its loudest.  

Chapter 6: YES, YES, YES! All of the things in this article are calling out to me and I full heartedly agree.  I think there is a strong positive connection to retention rates and the rate at which an institution invests time and money into assessment, program development, and the faculty.  I think investing in assessment is critical.  If we are not able to accurately assess the functionality and effectiveness of our programs and services, what are we even doing?  It is absolutely critical to have a continual process of assessment.  For example, Ball State uses MAP-Works to assess the first-year students and their experiences.  Though we follow up the next year for sophomores, this is where it stops.  Ensuring that there is an ongoing assessment piece to ensure that the actions of the university administration are improving the student experience, and furthermore student retention.  

Additionally, program development investment is also an essential piece that I agree with.  For too many times, programs are started but then never continued because the person who started it has left the institution or money is not given to continue the program.  However, if we take into account this assessment piece, programs that are found to have value should continue to be funded through the institution, regardless if the “brainchild” has left.  I think an important piece to remember about program development and Tinto touches on this, is that it is important to create buy-in from the institution so that the program does continue to get developed and continue to have an increased impact on the student experience.

However, I think the most important piece of investment that an institution can have is that on faculty development.  Since the success and excellence of a student can be tied directly to their academic performance inside the classroom, it is essential that as an institution, we provide our faculty with the development they need.  However, many institutions do have faculty development so how do we create that investment for the faculty?  There needs to be incentive for the faculty to take part in the development activities outside of for their own good. Tinto notes that there needs to incentives - like salary increases, promotions, and tenure considerations.  It is important to recognize that faculty need to have reduce teaching or work loads when given the task or opportunity to implement a new class or academic initiative.

I believe that if we take into consideration each of these pieces and intentionally work toward increasing our institution’s investment in them, we will see an increase in the student experience, student retention, and the campus culture overall.

Chapter 7: I want to address some of the calls to action that Tinto gives institutions at the end of this chapter

1. Institutions should establish a cross-functional team of faculty, support staff, and administrators whose task it is to oversee institutional planning and action for student success.

I absolutely love the above call to action because it calls for collaborative effort across the institution.  So many times, our divisions and functional areas are siloed into the types of programs and services that we believe will lead to the best student experience.  However, I think with a cross-functional team - it will ensure that the institution all has the same definition and plan for implementing and ensuring the best student experience for all.

2. Institutions should ensure that all first-year students have the experience of learning in community with others.

I think this relates directly to this idea of living-learning communities for first-year students.  However, this takes a concerted effort for multiple offices across campus but would ensure that first-year students are learning with one another. I believe that all first-year students should have to live on campus for their first-year.  The development experiences that one has in a residence hall are ones that you are not able to get anywhere else.  I recognize that some students are not able to afford living on campus, but I think that is a conversation that needs to be had about how to allow all first-year students to live on campus without lowering the standard of living.

3. Institutions should provide advising to all new students and to hose who change majors.

All I am going to say about this is: LOWER THE CASE LOAD OF ACADEMIC ADVISORS.  Students need more 1:1 conversations and experiences with an advisor to ensure their academic success.  Institutions with high case loads lose their customer service impact and students are just numbers.  There needs to be an intentional effort to ensure positive experiences for the student.

In preparation for class tonight, I took the readings and found some key areas that stuck out to me.  The intent of this post is to apply what was found in the literature to my actual persistence in higher education.

How College Works (Chapters 7 & 8): For me, one of the most important areas in chapter seven was the section about confidence.  This entire chapter discussed finishing college and what people took from it.  One of the areas that I know I personally grew in was my confidence level.  Throughout the time at my undergraduate institution, I was able to gain confidence in myself and my abilities - both academically and socially.  I grew more confident in my writing as well as my ability to speak in public.  During my first couple years of college, I had a genuine fear of speaking in front of large groups of people, but by the end of my experience, I had the confidence to speak in front of hundreds of students with calm & ease.  Additionally, I mirror the notion that during that senior year, students are trying to find someone thing to keep the engaged because they are getting "tired" of the same experiences.  I knew I was and thankfully, I was able to find the opportunity for a professional experience working with our VPSA and the accreditation process of our institution.  This was the little boost I needed during my final semester to stay engaged and motivated through degree completion.  Looking forward to chapter 8, one of the major lessons that should be taken away from this is that relationships are central to a successful college experience.  Throughout my vignette writing, I think a focal area that I continuously brought up were the relationships I formed when I was at college and how they were a central focus for my life.  If one is not able to form relationships, one is doomed to not socially integrate well.  I think the relationships I formed with my fraternity, my work opportunities, and my professors all contributed to my amazing collegiate experience.  There were people there that cared about me and cared about my success.  Without this, my success and the number of opportunities I felt ready to take advantage of would not have been as fruitful.  I am thankful to each and every person I had a relationship with at college - good & bad.

Past to Present: A Historical Look at Retention: The piece that stood out to meet the most was towards the end and it was a piece of research conducted by Braxton.  His results found that four propositions of Tinto's fifteen propositions were "logically interconnected".  These include: students bringing to college different entry characteristics, which will impact their initial commitment to the institution.  For me, I was bring my first-generation status, my lower-income status, but my high level of academic achievement  and social integration in high school.  My initial commitment to the institution was heavily dependent on the full-ride scholarship I received in order to attend the institution.  The second proposition was students' initial commitment to the institution will impact their future commitment to the institution.  Since I was committed based on my academic ability and the institution was in a sense paying for me to attend, I knew that I had the desire to maintain my high scholastic achievement.  However, this also meant that I had the opportunity explore the university more because I was not as concerned about how I was going to pay for college.  I was more concerned about what I could do at the college because during my first semester, I took 13 credits and it felt I had so much free time on my hands.  The third proposition was students' continued commitment to the institution is enhanced by the level of social integration they realize early on.  I realized early on that I felt like I was part of the community, but I was also part of a smaller community - the Greek Life community.  As soon as I joined my fraternity, I felt like I was a part of something bigger than myself.  Looking back, I integrated smoothly into the community because I was open to new experiences and I had a desire to meet new people.  The final proposition was the greater the level of commitment to the institution, the higher the likelihood of the student being retained trough graduation.  As my time at the institution continued, I branched out into different organizations, engrained myself into what Saginaw Valley State University was about, and helped make a difference to the students on the campus.  I felt committed to making a difference on my campus and for the students.  Through one of my vignettes, I discussed my role in student government.  This was specifically when I felt as though I was a part of the institution and not just another student.  This feeling concluded as I helped plan my own commencement ceremony during my senior year.

Defining, Refining Perspectives on Student Success:  The complex definition of a persister stuck out to me because if I am reading it correctly, I fit into the definition of a persister and from other literature I've read - since I'm a first-generation, lower-income student, I have a higher chance of not persisting.  According to this article, a persister is a student who enrolls full-time, continuously pursues a degree with the expectation of graduation in about four years.  When I entered college, I had already declared my major to be political science.  The lowest number of credit hours i took in one semester was my first semester and I took 13 credits.  After this, I realized I needed more a challenge and began taking 16-18 credits a semester.  I also graduated with two majors and a minor in a four year framework.  This also takes into account all my general education requirements.  I think it is interesting that literature says I had a lower chance to persist, but in my eyes, I think with the opportunities I was given: a full-ride scholarship and the Honors programs - which gave me priority registration - I had the ability to succeed and was set up for success prior to actually setting foot on campus.

How to Define Retention: This piece detailed a little more specifically Tinto's Integration Model.  The model suggests the need for match between the institutional environment and student commitment.  A good match leads to higher student integration into academic and social domains of college life and thus greater probability of persistence.  Coming from a graduating class of around 700, I knew that I want to go away for college, but not so far away that I was unable to go home if I needed to. I knew I wanted an institution with good residence halls, would provide be a great financial package, and had the major I was interested in pursuing.  Saginaw Valley State University was this good match for me because it hit all the criteria that I wanted.  It also had Greek Life organizations and student government - two areas of the collegiate environment that I had heard of and knew I was interested in being a part of.  My undergraduate institution through intentional efforts made it easy to join organizations and learn about them.  They had activity fairs and then specific fairs for Greek Life organizations.  When I moved in, though I didn't know my roommates, I loved meeting new people.  My residence hall was in an apartment style.  There were six of us in the residence hall.  We shared a living room space, the kitchen space, and then there were four bedrooms.  Two were single occupancy and two were double occupancy.  I absolutely loved this because I could have my alone if needed, but also could hang out with people if If I wanted to.  It provided me the best of both worlds.  Though my academic integration was easy, I think that I would say my persistence was more due to my social integration.  Many people around campus knew me and when they would say my name, it was never just "Tyler", it was always "Tyler Manning".  There was something about that feeling when someone said my full name that made glow.  I was significant enough to people's lives that people knew my full name and I appreciated that.

Diversity & Inclusion Toward Persistence: The piece that stood out to me in this article was the part about institutional factors that help impact persistence with regards to diversity and inclusion of the student body.  One of those particular factors was the campus climate or environment, inquiring into how students experience the campus environment related to race or gender.  The reason this stands out to me is because of the strong push for inclusion at my undergraduate institution.  There is a specific experience while I was in student government that I remember in regards to our campus culture.  It was a Monday night general house meeting and it was to discuss a bill that had been brought to the floor about the support and encouragement for the creation of an LGBTQ Center on our campus.  I had never really thought about this, but when students had the opportunity to speak, people were extremely passionate about it.  One student pulled up the mission of our institution and read the following passage, "By fostering an environment of inquiry and openness that respects the diversity of all whom it serves..." and that's when it hit me.  Our university cares about the uniqueness of the individual, the culture differences we hare, and the diversity of the student population.  As the student government that represents the student body, we wanted to support the mission of the university and the wants of the student body.  Though people asked how many students would this actually impact, the response given was that though this specific may not impact thousands of students - the sentiment of having a center for an underrepresented group would cement in thousands of students' minds that their university cared about them.  If university show they care about students, make intentional efforts to provide support for groups that are underrepresented, I believe students are more willing to persist because they feel supported by the institution as a whole.

Educational Attainment and Persistence: The two pieces from the article that I'd like to touch on are summer bridge programs and grants/scholarships.  The importance of summer bridge programs is discussed as an early form of intervention intended to promote acclimatization and academic success for at-risk students.  What I find to be interesting about this is that at Ball State University, we have at least one program - the Cardinal Leadership and Service Seminar (C.L.A.S.S.) - that doesn't seem to be targeted at at-risk students, but rather on students interested in leadership and service.  Assessment done on this program has shown though, very similar to this article, that students who do a summer bridge program are more likely to persist at the institution to the second year.  On the flip side, I look at my undergraduate institution who does not have a summer bridge program.  All we do is summer orientation and that a freshman convocation.  I would love to see a program similar to C.L.A.S.S. implemented at my undergraduate institution and see the impact it has on the retention of the students who participate in the program.  Side note: As I think of all the wonderful programs and resources that my undergraduate institution could benefit from, I continuously consider going to work there after I get my master's degree.

The second piece I would like to touch on in grants/scholarships.  The research says that several studies, after controlling for academic performance and other relevant variables, find grants or scholarships negatively related to both within-year and year-to-year persistence.  When I read this, I hear that as the amount of scholarships/grants increase, the persistence within-year and year-to-year goes down.  This is shocking to me because I had grants and scholarships.  I received a $5,500 Pell grant & a full-ride scholarship for my academics and for me, I feel as though it increased my persistence.  The reason I say this is because I saw it was the government and the institution putting faith in me to receive a degree and I felt like it would be wrong to not utilize the funds to the best of my ability.  I wonder if there is a way for more students to see money this way that they receive from the government?  I feel as though any type of financial aid received is an investment some third-party is putting into your future and you shouldn't take advantage of that.

I think the hookup culture on college campuses is not necessarily a bad thing, and as one the article points on, it doesn't seem like much has changed over the course of twenty years.  What does seem to have changed is people's opinions about hooking up and what that terms means.  I think when I say "I hooked up with x person last night" it means one thing to me and it could quite possibly mean something to someone else - even if they are from the same generation as me.

However, I think the connotations that come with the negative definition of hooking up is a problem.  On college campuses, including my own undergraduate institution, when you say that someone likes to hook up a lot, it typically means he or she is sleeping around.  However, when rumors like this begin to spread about people and they hit social media, it can become even worse.  When someone is online and is bullying others because they sleep around and are calling them names, it doe serious damage to that person's mental and physical health.  Social media has definitely made cyberbullying much easier due to the mere nature of certain applications that people use.

We are in a time though that there are social media sites on which people can post anonymous statements that can have some serious repercussions for the people that read it - especially if it is about you.  You begin questioning what you've been doing all along and it tears away at the identity that you've been creating for yourself at college.  While I think social media and a digital presence is important, I think that presence has to be time-tested with the increasing amount of things people are saying about others.  I think back to my undergraduate experience and there would be times that I would tweet something or subtweet about someone if only to get it off my chest without ever really thinking about how my words were affecting others.

Thinking about the UVA sexual assault article, those word really affected others and there was no sugar-coating the experience that woman went through.  I think when we think of social media, it is always important to think about print media as well.  While I think the issue of sexual assault is critically important, I think magazines like The Rolling Stones sensationalizes the act crime in order to sell.  However, I think what's more important about this article for student affairs professionals is the cover-up or attempted cover-up that took place with administration at the institution.  Due to the reputation of the institution, even students who were friends with the woman tried to persuade her to not talk about what happened because "her reputation would be shot for the next four years".  Another friend, without regard to her well-being, asked her "Do you really want to be responsible for something that will paint UVA in a bad light?"  It appalls me that students - one's peers - are advocating to cover up something that has life-altering effects on a person's physical and mental health.

We are in a day and age when counseling centers, health centers, and student services of this type are going to be on the rise.  We are going to need more and more people that will be able to talk with students about crises that happen on campus.  We will need to provide safe and private space for students to talk about what they are experiencing or something that happened to them.  Students come into college and student affairs educators are tasked with the holistic development of the student.  This only occurs by ensuring that all offices/departments/divisions are able to coordinate and provide what students need.

This part of the text discussed two critically important pieces of a college student's life: entering college & choosing a multitude of different factors.

Entering college is a critical component.  If a student does not enter college 'correctly', there is a higher chance that they are going to be retained after their first year.  Specifically, one of the most important factors to entering is finding that social group/friends that you feel connected with.  Though institutions do what they can to help foster an environment where finding and connecting with people is easy - I think it also falls on the part of the student to be adventurous and try new things.  Only by doing so do students find where they belong.

When I was an undergraduate, I knew I wanted to be in a Greek organization, but I knew no one coming to college.  For this reason, I was going to be exploring these Greek organizations - sometimes recognized for their exclusivity - by myself.  I put myself out there during those first few weeks and that made all the different in collegiate career.

Then, there is the process of choosing: a major, a department, professors, mentors, etc.  This is all important because choosing the right courses with the right professors can be a critical component of student success.  One of the students interviewed noted that she was thinking about two different departments and that one was very friendly, while the other was more interested in the publishing that they were doing.

I had a very similar experience at my undergraduate institution.  I started off college as a political science major.  The courses were okay, the professors were fine, but there was nothing that really stood out to me.  In fact, I had one professor that I struggled with and disagreed with on philosophical terms.  Our minds just worked at complete opposite ends of the spectrum.  For this reason, I pushed through the major, but going into the second semester of my junior year, I thought that my adding a major - criminal justice - it was going to 'add another feather to my hat' and make me more marketable.  Though I am not in the criminal justice field currently, the professors and connections I made there were so much more genuine.  

When I took my introductory course with Dr. R, it was like my mind was opened and there were professors that actually cared about students.  She made my last year of college one of the best times in my life.  Her courses were fun, she was remarkable with how she taught the courses, and her assignments had real-life applicability.  Even during the senior seminar course when we were suppose to doing an informational interview with someone that had a position in the criminal justice field that we were interested in pursuing, I informed her of my path and she allowed me to make the assignment work for me rather than me working for the assignment.

I don't have words for what this list says to me.  I think it is overly ignorant of what actually matters to the students of today.  Half of the things that were stated, I don't even recollect being important milestones for myself.  Granted, I was the class of 2014, so I pulled the Beloit Mindset List for the Class of 2014 (http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/previouslists/2014/). 

After reviewing this list, there is very few things that I even thought about as significant or important in how I looked at the college environment.  Though some of the points they make deal with gender equality/disability equality & yes, I will say that those things make an impact on my view of the world because I never lived in a world where those were strong issues.  However, a prime example of a silly - and maybe the intent is to be somewhat silly - impact that they say impacted us was "Beethoven was always the great name of a dog."

"NAS works to foster intellectual freedom and to sustain the tradition of reasoned scholarship and civil debate in America’s colleges and universities."

Freshman Connections at Ball State University is a nationally recognized program that includes their Freshman Common Reader and Freshman Common Writing Experience.

Though this will be short, I think it is important for me to mention that I am impressed with this type of first-year experience programming.  I have never seen something like this done.  My undergraduate institution does nothing - other than Orientation - that provides a way to communalize each freshmen class.  I think that by providing them their first "college assignment" as a book that will share a personal experience that each of them will now fully understand is a fantastic way to help them bond.  They bond over if they loved the book or if they hated.  It's a great way to help the freshmen instantly feel as though they are connected to the institution and then to each other.

This article stuck out to meet because of the presence/concept of cultural & contextual collapse that happens in the digital age, as well as this idea of having too little/too much privacy in this age of social media.  The article talks about how something the changing ways in which students communicate.  When students are in person and are having a conversation, it is easy to show that whomever they are talking to are the intended audience.  However, now with a social media presence/digital image, it is much harder to decipher who is suppose to be responding to and who is the intended audience. When a student posts/tweets/grams anything now, they need to begin considering who the message/picture is intended for but also what other constituencies are going to possible see it.  If this is not taken into consideration, it is difficult and sometimes confusing for those who see something that may not be what they were expecting to see.

Using the example from the text, the young black man who was applying to South Central - LA discussed getting out of the gang environment that was so present in his current situation.  But when the college admissions officers looked at his social media, many of the things they saw were gang related.  Their thoughts were that this potential student had lied about not wanting to be involved in a gang, but an outside source had them consider the possibility that it was his tool of survival.

I think that social media is extremely important in this day and age.  This is how all of our students communicate with each other, with companies, and with family members.  As student affairs educators, we need to be abel to educate them on the proper use of social media and helping them craft a positive/professional digital image.  This can happen through programming from an Office of Student Life, from a Career Center, or a collaborative effort between the two to help students market their experiences and show the digital world a good representation of themselves.

The sophomore year is extremely important to the personal, psychological, and educational development of students attending institutions of higher education.  Throughout the fist year of college, all the of services and resources that we provided these students in a way coddle them and set them up for an expectation that we will always provide that level of support and service to them.  However, in the current model, we do not seem to be doing that.

Once a student enters the sophomore year, we just kind of expect them to get it.  It is difficult for them to make this transition from the first-year to the second-year because the level of support is dramatically decreased.  I think there needs to be a campus-wide or at least division-wide effort to create second year programming for this cohort.  I know we talk about summer bridge programs being a transition from high school to the first year of college, but what about creating a summer bridge program for that transition from the first year of college to the second year of college.  

The University of Illinois-Springfield had this excerpt from their website (http://www.uis.edu/stars/sophomore-summer-bridge/) about a sophomore summer bridge that they have:

Sophomore Summer Bridge - At the end of the first year, students are required to stay for one week of Sophomore Summer Bridge. During this time the students can review what skills were beneficial to them in their first college year and skills that can be honed to help them be successful in their sophomore year. The students also receive further academic advising and participate in career advising and selection of  majors. This is a time for the students to further bond with one another in an atmosphere with less stress.

The transition to college is an experience. Higher education addresses this experience that many students go through with specific programs that are used to intervene in the experience and address the issues that students are going to face.  Those intentional efforts include: orientation programs, summer bridge programs, living-learning communities, learning communities, first-year seminars, & comprehensive support programs.

The specific intervention that caught my eye was orientation programs.  I have a strong passion for the orientation process and what it provides for students and families.  I think it is so important that we remember that this transitional period does not only effect the students but it also effects the parents.  I am currently working as a practicum student in Ball State University's Office of Orientation and we hired student and family orientation leaders.  The family orientation leaders specifically work with the groups of families that come through Orientation with their students.  I think this is a unique experience for the families.  They are getting specialized, individual attention to help them know how they can help their son/daughter successfully transition to college.

I really enjoy the idea of a freshmen common reader program.  My undergraduate institution did not have one of these but the intent behind them is sound.  A collective and unique story or experience that is shared by an entire entering class allows for conversions to be had around the text even before students have started taking classes.  However, NAS (National Association of Scholars) has taken the intent of the program and distorted it.  They believe that in order for the text to be meaningful, it must be a classical text.  However, from the quotes of people working at institutions of higher education, it would seem benign to provide the students a text that they are going to need help interpreting.  Why give them a book for over summer that is not going to appeal to them?  

How does college work?  Chambliss and Takacs set out to discover this question by creating, implementing, researching, and tracking undergraduate students and what made the largest impacts on their higher education experiences.  This expanded past just undergraduate students and included alumni that they had been studying for several years.

I think in order to be effective it is important to understand the concept that this booking is getting across.  College is an intricate part of many people's lives and how it works may be different for every individual.  There are significant and defining moments in the collegiate experience that relegate the holistic view of the college student.

As we read each chapter, I am loving this book more and more.  This chapter identifies some areas that are different now in our generation, than they were in our parents' generation.  I think it is important to remember that everyone needs to be adaptable and understandable.  The adults considered "immigrants" need to be adaptable to the changing and increasing usages of technology in higher education and daily life.  However, at the same time, we as "natives" need to have a sense of understanding that people are trying to adjust to our lifestyle and how we communicate.