This Issue: The Promoting At-Promise Student Success Project
|
|
Memorial Day has come and gone, signaling an unstoppable slide into a summer that has begun for some schools and is around the corner for others. Our physical offices, and the entire USC campus, will remain closed for the summer. We remain hard at work as a virtual team and our research continues. It was especially sad to say goodbye to our graduating student workers this year through a Zoom gathering when hugs and handshakes were certainly warranted. Best wishes and thank you to each and every one of you..
This particular summer represents the end to what was arguably the most unusual and impactful semester in higher education's modern history...unless you count the ones coming up next. For many, this summer will entail an ungainly amount of preparation for a future that remains unclear and in motion. It also provides an opportunity to pause and reflect on the past as a lens for envisioning that future.
With that in mind, the team behind the Promoting At-Promise Student Success (PASS) project, which we have been previously referring to as the
Thompson Scholars Learning Community (TSLC) Study, is collectively stepping in to return as the last guest-editors of our newsletter for the 2019-20 academic year.
Given the project explores more than the TSLC program itself, we have shifted to this broader and more appropriate name that includes its focus on at-promise students (low income, first generation and racialized minority students) and their experience as well as success in connection to the program.
This study has been part of the Pullias Center's portfolio of research for five years so far, and has proven to be a treasure trove of insight that we look forward to sharing.
|
|
For the past five years, a team of Pullias Center researchers have been engaged in the Promoting At-Promise Student Success (PASS) project,
a large mixed methods study
of the Thompson Scholar Learning Community (TSLC) program at three of the University of Nebraska campuses. In addition to a five-year scholarship, the TSLC program provided two years of comprehensive support for approximately 200-600 students from low-income backgrounds at each of the campuses.
The
comprehensive college transition program
improves retention and graduation rates as well as psychosocial outcomes, including belonging, mattering and academic, social and career self-efficacies. Its value for underserved communities cannot be overstated, so it certainly warrants concerted attention and being studied to the degree we have been for the last half a decade. The research team continues to
examine the role of validation
in framing how programs and institutions serve students. While just one piece of a larger puzzle, our team did find the program very validating. Although not originally part of our research design, validation emerged as an important lever the TSLC programs use to achieve other psychosocial outcomes. TSLC creates a validating environment that provides students with consistent reassurance that they belong in the program and on campus. In addition, the program staff assist students with building relationships with other offices and support services across campus. However, there was much more to look at...
|
|
States are increasingly tying postsecondary funding to easily quantifiable outcomes such as retention and graduation rates even as employers emphasize the importance of psychosocial skills. New research looks into whether psychosocial and academic outcomes move together in postsecondary organizations or whether they are competing goals...
|
|
Issues related to food and housing insecurity among college students have likely existed for decades. However, their struggles have largely been invisible to policymakers and educational leadership until more recently. A new book looks at basic needs insecurity among college students and the pathways to creating policies and services that support them through the completion of a higher education degree...
|
|
Comprehensive college transition programs (CCTP), which provide academic and social support for at-promise students as they transition to college and begin their academic journey, are gaining traction as a systematic approach to supporting the students’ learning, development, and college success. For the last 5 years, a team of researchers at the Pullias Center have been looking to gain a crucial understanding of how and why these programs are effective...
|
|
Celebrating 25 Years of the Pullias Center
|
My research career began in the Pullias Center. I started as a research assistant in 2006, which was the second year of my doctoral program. I had taught students with special needs in low-income communities for several years as well as serving in the AmeriCorps program soon after finishing my undergraduate degree. At the time, I perceived research as an esoteric task that people created to prove their brilliance. For many reasons, I had little interest in spending my time cranking out publications that would collect dust on a shelf somewhere.
Working in the Pullias Center shifted my understanding of research. The projects I worked on had the potential to address important issues that were facing the nation – as well as my family experienced. I grew up in a low-income community and most of my relatives had not graduated from high school...
|
|
Quick Takes
Additional Pullias Center News
|
|
PASS Team Recommendation Reads
5 Things to Add to Your Reading List from our Guest Editors
- McNair, T. B., Albertine, S. L., Cooper, M. A., McDonald, N. L., & Major, T. (2016). Becoming a student-ready college: a new culture of leadership for student success. Jossey-Bass.(buy)
- Pendakur, V., & Harper, S. R. (2016). Closing the opportunity gap: identity-conscious strategies for retention and student success. Stylus Publishing. (buy)
- Hrabowski, F. A., Rous, P. J., & Henderson, P. H. (2019). The empowered university: shared leadership, culture change, and academic success. Johns Hopkins University Press. (buy)
- Kirp, D. L. (2019). The college dropout scandal. Oxford University Press. (buy)
- Tough, P. (2019). The years that matter most. Random House. (buy)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
