Higher Education

Matthew Lynch published in Equity, Higher Education, Matthew Lynch

Diverse Conversations: Recruiting a Diverse Student Population

Diversity is immensely valuable to any higher education institution. Not all universities and colleges, though, are successful or even aware of how to go about recruiting a diverse student population. Fortunately, this is an area in which John LaBrie, dean and vice president for Professional Education, Northeastern University College of Professional Studies, is a veritable expert. I recently sat down with him to find out about the types of strategies that are helping universities ensure that they recruit diverse student populations.

Q: First, we agree that diversity is a very valuable thing for any higher education institution but would you say that there are particular reasons that it is especially important in today’s modern world?

A: The first thing we need to understand is the reality that we live in a more diverse world. Given that, it’s important that our classrooms reflect this. Students, as part of their educational experience, need to understand how to navigate the cultural and diverse aspects of a modern classroom which is also reflective of the larger society.

One of the fundamental cores of education is to encourage students to be critical thinkers. In order to understand critical thinking, you need to understand different perspectives. Cultural diversity inherently brings into the classroom a cultural perspective that is fundamentally diverse and thus forces students to understand issues from different points of view.

Secondly, as a learning model, a culturally diverse classroom is a great pedagogical tool that allows students to understand critical thinking regardless of the discipline.

So for those two reasons, from a cultural and pedagogical standpoint, it’s highly important for us to pay attention to this and it’s exciting that the classroom is, in fact, becoming more diverse in student opinions and backgrounds.

Q: As a starting point, what would you say are the features most common to higher education institutions that are successful at engaging a diverse population?

A: The institutions that have been the most successful in engaging diverse student populations have been urban institutions. These institutions have the proximity of different cultural institutions and populations that come together and inform the curriculum, the faculty and even the institution itself.

Institutions that have struggled to identify what that means from a pedagogical perspective are those who have little exposure to diverse communities; urban institutions have done considerably better in this regard than more rural institutions.

The second attribute is that institutions that are financially more secure have been able to understand the importance of diversity and have had the privilege of engaging with a diverse student population. Many students from diverse backgrounds and so-called “non-traditional” backgrounds are new to higher education and need financial incentives and financial support. So, affluent institutions have had greater capacity in identifying those students and recruiting has been easier for them.

At the other end of the spectrum, community colleges, because of their price point, have been a phenomenal resource for incorporating students from diverse backgrounds into higher education. Again, many of the students from underrepresented communities don’t have the financial resources to afford high tuition institutions and so community colleges have really been an effective entry point for them.

The irony here is that the lower-price institutions, the community colleges, and the higher- price institutions, have been the two types of institutions that have been successful in engaging diverse populations. Those schools caught in the middle have really struggled in being able to recruit and maintain a diverse student population.

Q: Northeastern University College of Professional Studies has been very successful at not only developing but maintaining a diverse student population. What are some of the strategies that the College has used in particular?

A: First and foremost, Northeastern University has always seen itself as an urban institution and the very nature of an urban institution is that it has access to a diverse community. But beyond that, Northeastern University College of Professional Studies has a number of attributes that have made access more attractive to students from diverse backgrounds.

While we are a nationally recognized research institution, and are considered to be a selective institution, the price point that our College has been able to use for our education model has made our type of higher education affordable to many diverse student populations.

Additionally, our College offers special programs like Foundation Year, a first-year intensive program that prepares high school graduates from the City of Boston for university studies regardless of family income or ability to pay. In 2013, 96 students enrolled in Foundation Year. And, Balfour Academy provides students, starting in the 7th grade, the necessary skills, individual growth and confidence to prepare for and succeed in college through after-school tutoring and summer enrichment programs.

And finally, the emergence of online technologies and the capacity for us to deliver education to working adults means that students, who otherwise would not have had access to an institution like Northeastern, can now participate in our form of education. Students who find themselves in a geographic area where no other institution can meet their educational needs, and who may also be coming from a culturally diverse background, are afforded access because of our quality online programs. In 2013 alone 7,272 students were enrolled in our online courses. We offered 1,787 online courses in over 70 areas of study at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral level.

We recently launched a new online experiential learning pilot project that provides an opportunity for online students who are working professionals to do a so-called “internship” with their current employer, bringing what they learn in their studies into a valuable and needed project in their current workplace. This program will be expanded in 2014.

All of these approaches add up to a different way of thinking about access to higher education that addresses what students need from multiple perspectives.

Q: For institutions that have not been particularly active about recruiting a diverse student population, what are some of the most important steps to get the process started, to actually change their image in this area and start appealing to a more diverse population of students?

A: One of the more powerful ways of changing and becoming much more appealing to a diverse population is to reflect that population in the faculty as well as the staff who represent the institution. Students from underrepresented minorities will often look for mentors and colleagues that come from a common experience. They will see themselves within the institution if they see members of their community represented within the institution, and this has a snowball effect where a more diverse student population mandates a more diverse staff and faculty.

And, it’s important for an institution that is interested in recruiting a diverse student population to have an appreciation for the various communities it wishes to recruit in and to understand the role of the recruiter. The recruiter not only needs to have a deeper appreciation of the communities he or she is talking to, but often needs to be a member of that community.

Q: What, in particular, would you say that diverse students are looking for in a higher education institution? There is inevitably a particular vibe or brand of higher education institutions that appeal to a diverse population of students? Can you pinpoint what it might be?

A: Students from underrepresented minorities are looking for the same thing as everyone else in higher education: a better life. That is why it’s quite important to make sure our academic programs are, first and foremost, relevant to students from an employability perspective. Students absolutely need to be able to enter the workforce with the confidence that the education program that they participated in has prepared them well for a promising career path.

Beyond that principle, however, there are a number of attributes that institutions can bring to the table academically that will help make students see themselves in the program. One strategy is making sure that courses, assignments and assessments are designed in a way that allow students to use their cultural background. This will help them begin to translate the academic principles in a way that is relevant to their cultural context, allowing them to see themselves from an employability perspective. It will also allow them to see themselves giving back to their community through their assignments and their overall educational experience.

Institutions also need to be clear about their interest in serving all students. For example, some students who come from diverse backgrounds may not have a tradition of writing in a particular fashion; therefore student support systems need to be put into place. Other communities may have de-emphasized mathematics, so becoming accessible to these communities means that the educational enterprise needs to support students through math and the sciences. This is not so much a factor in cultural diversity, but certainly is a factor in economic diversity, which is important to higher education.

Q: Finally, what are some of the trends we are likely to see going forward when it comes to recruiting diverse student populations? Students are consumers, after all, and their wants and needs change. What is your advice to institutions looking to sustain their diverse student populations?

A: Simple demographics tell us that a homogenous population that existed, at least in our minds, 50 years ago, is gone forever in the United States. The trend is clear that the classroom will become increasingly more diverse – the emergence of African-American, Latino and Asian students require institutions to understand these populations better than they have historically.

But the emergence of international student mobility means that this is not only an American phenomenon, but a global phenomenon. The international student mobility rates continue to grow at an astounding pace and although the United States is very well positioned to understand a diverse cultural and ethnic classroom, the diversity of the classroom, globally speaking, will continue to change and will become much more dynamic.

Here at the College of Professional Studies, we teach thousands of international students every year. In 2013, our students came from all 50 states and from 90 countries. We also offer programs to international undergraduates and graduate students abroad, such as learning or improving English language skills and taking academic courses in preparation for undergraduate or graduate studies at a U.S. university, while they live and learn in Boston.

For those institutions that would like to understand this phenomenon better, I would encourage a strategy for engagement, exploration and celebration of those populations rather than a stance that you see in many institutions: a very conservative and apprehensive approach to these student populations.

In the end, these will be our students and we have always done our best work with students when we have celebrated all of their facets, all of their accomplishments, and all of their backgrounds.

Thank you very much for your time, John. That concludes our interview.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Equity, HBCU's, Higher Education, International Education

The covert racism that is holding back black academics

Kalwant Bhopal, University of Southampton

Students are walking out in protest against racial inequality and injustice in the US and have been rallying together in days of action at campuses across the country. The #StudentBlackout movement has challenged and confronted white supremacy and anti-black attitudes on university campuses, and has made demands for more black and minority ethnic faculty members.

So it is ironic that the US is the destination of choice for British black and minority ethnic academics who feel worn down by incidents of racism, exclusion and marginalisation in Britain. Recent research that I worked on, published by the Equality Challenge Unit, found that as a result of their experiences black and minority UK academics were significantly more likely to consider a move to overseas higher education than their white counterparts.

Many spoke of the potential opportunities they identified in working for American universities. I can’t help feeling they might have to re-evaluate their options in the light of what is going on in the US. Many of the demonstrations across American campuses have been triggered by specific local circumstances – such as reports of all-white parties and students in blackface at Yale.

But taken as a whole they represent a response to more widespread concerns about racism within American academic culture. These demonstrations also reflect the wider groundswell in concern across America exemplified by the Black Lives Matter demonstrations which have been sparked by unlawful killings by the police.

Protecting white privilege

In the UK, such protest has not yet been seen. Academics present themselves as guardians of a space that highlights liberal sentiments, progressive values and a commitment to meritocracy. Many regard their “seats of learning” as places that challenge inequalities and injustice. But this is clearly not always the case in reality.

My research has found that many black and minority ethnic academics report experiences of subtle, covert and nuanced racism in higher education in which white identity is privileged and protected within the space traditionally reserved for the white middle class.

During the past decade there has been a significant increase in the numbers of black and minority UK academic staff in higher education – from 6,000 staff in 2003-4 to almost 10,700 in 2013-14. There were even more non-UK black and minority academic staff, as the graph below shows.

But black and minority ethnic academics are far less likely to be in senior roles compared to their white colleagues: 11.2% of UK white academics were professors compared to 9.8% of UK black and minority ethnic staff (of which only 4.5% were black). There are only 20 deputy or pro vice-chancellors who are black or minority ethnic compared to the majority, 530, who are white.

Significant policy changes in the UK, such as the 2010 Equality Act and the introduction of the Race Equality Charter, designed to measure how successful universities were at delivering inclusive policy in practice, might suggest higher education had become more inclusive. But in reality, covert racist behaviour impacts heavily on the career trajectories of many black and minority ethnic academics.

A total of 21 higher education institutions took part in the pilot of the Race Equality Charter 2014 of which eight were successful in gaining a bronze award. The Race Equality Charter works in a similar vein to the Athena Swan charter, which was introduced in 2005 to advance the representation of women in science and engineering subjects.

On the outside

It is often hard to pin down or confront racist behaviour in universities because it is indicative of an environment in which inequality flourishes behind the scenes, rather than centre stage. For example, black academics report goalposts, such as selection criteria, being moved when they apply for promotion – which doesn’t happen for white colleagues.

In my research, which included interviews with 30 US-based academics and 35 who were based in the UK, respondents indicated that in both the UK and US an increase in fragility and risk within academia had resulted in greater competition for new jobs, threats of pay cuts, and fears about job security and tenure.

In a climate of financial global insecurity, competitiveness over job security was far more likely to privilege those from white middle-class backgrounds. Black academics I interviewed in both the US and UK were less likely than their white colleagues to have access to established networks of knowledge and support. These networks open the door for new opportunities in which job offers are made and access granted to particular institutions and insider processes.

I found that “who you know” still counts for far more than “what you know” and fears of job insecurity and fragility actively work to promote the interests of white established elites in academia. This environment of insecurity is of greater value to white academic elites, for who it serves to maintain their ascendancy.

While public displays of racism in the academy are rare, a more pernicious set of behaviour has emerged. Black and minority ethnic academics told me of instances when colleagues would not make eye contact with them in meetings, their opinions were not taken into account and there was constant undermining or criticism of their work.

We must continue to disrupt, challenge and dismantle such covert racism if we are to move forward in our quest for a socially just society.

The Conversation

Kalwant Bhopal, Professor of Education and Social Justice, University of Southampton

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Equity, Higher Education, Matthew Lynch

It’s Tough to Trail Blaze: Challenges of First-Generation College Students

College attendance has become less of a privilege and more of a necessity in the contemporary workforce. This cultural shift is a reflection of President Obama’s goal of having the largest percentage of college graduates out of all the countries in the world by 2020. With this push has come an influx of students that may not have been part of the college scene as early as a decade ago. Availability of courses online and expansion of options at the community college level have paved the way for non-traditional students to earn degrees and a better living. A growing demographic in college attendance and graduation is first-generation students.

More “Firsts” Than Ever

A 2010 study by the Department of Education found that 50 percent of the college population is made up of first-generation students, or those whose parents did not receive education beyond a high school diploma. The National Center for Education Statistics released numbers in 2010 that broke down the educational levels of parents of current college attendees. Minority groups made up the largest demographics of students with parents that had a high school education or less, with 48.5 percent of Latino and Hispanic students and 45 percent of Black or African-American students included. The parents of students of Asian descent came in at 32 percent with a high school diploma or less and Native Americans at 35 percent. Of students that identified themselves as Caucasian, only 28 percent were first-generation college students.

Though higher in minority groups, these numbers show the overarching trend of first-generation college attendance in all American demographics. While an education is viewed as an advantage in the job marketplace, the degree alone does not automatically lead to better opportunities and pay. In order to ensure optimal career success in the growing group of first-generation college students, the specific needs of these young people must be addressed – beyond what lies in textbooks.

Challenges Facing First-Generation Students

The simple assumption is that a higher number of educated first-generation college students will translate to better jobs for these graduates and a better quality of life. The answer to the equation is just not that simple, however. Even with a college degree, first-generation students often come from low-income, minority or immigrant families and do not have the same set of life skills and personal capital of middle-to-high income bracket students.

Parents of first-generation students also do not have the life experience to adequately guide their children to the next step in succeeding in the college-educated workforce. A 2004 report in the Journal of Higher Education put it this way: “first-generation students… may be less prepared than similar students whose parents are highly educated, to make the kind of informed choices… that potentially maximize educational progression and benefits.”

The transition from a college setting to a full-time career is often bumpy for all college students, especially first-generation graduates. The things learned in a classroom simply cannot adequately translate to the real-world; in addition to “book smarts” colleges and universities have a responsibility to prepare attendees, particularly first-generation ones, for the challenges of the modern workforce.

What Can Be Done

There are some federally funded programs in place to address the specific issues that face first-generation college students, like the TRIO and Robert McNair programs that lend academic and tutoring services to this group. The problem with these programs, and others like them, is that they are not required for college graduation and are vastly underutilized. A better approach is proactive mentorship and advising that mandates interaction between students and professors or other staff members that can provide real-world guidance. These programs would focus on the translation of knowledge to marketplace settings from people that know the ropes.

Colleges and universities should also place continued focus on developing skills and employability among students. Schools with especially high numbers of first-generation students, like California State University Dominquez Hills, have implemented workforce “101” courses to up the social and intellectual skills of future graduates. It is not enough to assume that students inherently know how to apply classroom skills to a real-world environment, particularly in the case of first-generation ones. Researching the needs of these students should be a priority of all institutions of higher education as it would help them form a better-prepared student body and strong workforce.

photo credit: CollegeDegrees360 via photopin cc

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Higher Education

Confessions of a MOOC professor: three things I learned and two things I worry about

John Covach, University of Rochester

We have heard a lot of talk about MOOCs, or massive online open courses, over the last couple of years. On the plus side, MOOCs often draw enormous enrollments and are easy to sign up for and use; all you need, it seems, is an Internet connection and an interest to learn.

On the down side, they have significant attrition rates – about 90 percent of those enrolled never complete a course – and, according to their most alarmist critics, these courses may even threaten the jobs of college professors nationwide.

Indeed, despite the large dropout rate, MOOCs certainly end up serving a significant number of students. If the initial enrollment in a MOOC is 40,000 and only 4,000 actually complete the course, that’s still a lot of students compared to a traditional classroom. A professor teaching four courses a year in classes with 30 students each would have to teach for more than 33 years to reach 4,000 students.

It’s true that if these courses ever caught on across the culture in a fundamental way, as many have been predicting, they could significantly transform higher education.

Amid all the kerfuffle, and based on having taught several courses for Coursera over the past two years (and more than 250,000 students worldwide), I have learned a few things that cause me to both hope and worry about the future of higher education as we have known it for the last several decades.

The three things I learned

  • MOOC students are mostly older than college students

Roughly two-thirds of my students have been over the age of 25. Admittedly, I teach courses on the history of rock music, which might tend to attract older students. But my numbers are not much different from Coursera’s numbers generally.

When we think about college courses, we assume the students are age 18-24, since that’s the usual age at which one gets an undergraduate degree. There are a significant number of people out there, however, who are interested in continuing to learn later in life.

Students who take MOOC courses tend to be older and are mostly international.
Mathieu Plourde, CC BY

Continuing education courses at colleges and universities have served that public to a certain degree, but it is clear that there is more demand among older students than many might have suspected. Given the chance to learn according to their own schedule and location, many find this option very attractive.

  • MOOC students are mostly international and already college-educated

Only about a third of my students live in the United States. The rest come from more than 150 countries around the world. This percentage of international students is consistent with other Coursera MOOCs.

Interestingly, a majority have already earned at least a bachelor’s degree, with a significant number also holding a master’s or Ph.D. degree. While others are seeking skills that will help advance their careers, many of these students are learning simply for the fun of it.

Our surveys have shown that most are very satisfied with the courses – they are an older, well-educated and international cohort of students who believe in MOOCs.

  • MOOC culture is mostly a “free” culture

As with music on the web, MOOC students expect the courses to be free, or very close to it. If each of the 250,000 students who enrolled in my courses had to pay even a dollar for the course, the numbers would fall significantly – probably by as much as 90 percent.

Most people would be willing to pay only for the credential that the course offers. A course with no credential has got to be free if enrollment is going to be massive.

My courses offer a free option that provides students with a statement of completion they can print out. Many have expressed great pride in earning this modest credential: they post them on Facebook.

Two things I worry about

  • The flattening of expertise

In an online world that counts Wikipedia as a trusted resource, the expertise of the university professor can no longer be guaranteed to win the day. Scholars may argue that Wikipedia must be used with caution, but that’s not the way everyone else sees it.

Some of my students use Wikipedia and other online sources very effectively. The democratic access to information that digital technology facilitates flattens the hierarchy of expertise: a university professor’s claim to superior expertise is no longer unquestioned.

  • Alternative modes of awarding credentials

The rise of badges and certificates makes it possible for students to earn an alternative credential to university credits and degrees. Universities can argue all day long about whether or not an online course is equivalent to a traditional one, but if alternative credentials come to be acknowledged by employers as useful in assessing a candidate’s skills and preparation, and if students value them, this is in many ways a moot point.

And when older, more experienced students have a satisfactory experience with a MOOC, the validity of this form of learning and the credential it provides increases within the culture.

Finally, it is difficult to control the validity of such credentials outside of the United States. Just because some American employers may be wary of an online credential does not mean that all employers are.

  • The threat to colleges and universities

College and universities “sell” an education. The price they can charge for this product depends to a great extent on the fact that they have an almost exclusive ability to grant credentials, based partly on a culture that acknowledges that university faculty possess superior expertise.

How will the online transfer of knowledge change higher ed?
ashley cooper, CC BY

But if the culture embraces the idea that there are other valid sources of expertise, then universities are in for a severe downturn in business. This will not be the case in all areas of education, but it certainly will spell trouble in many of them.

We can no longer expect to be the only viable alternative for education and training. This is maybe not the end of college as much as the end of an educational monopoly.

Some colleges will fail.

What can be done?

Colleges and universities must work to secure their claim to superior expertise, not within the ivory tower but within the culture at large. MOOCs are very useful in spreading the word about the fantastic thinking and teaching that goes on inside of universities.

The public should know more about what we do – they need to be invited in. Schools also must make certain that the credentials they provide really are the best preparations for success, and, just as importantly, that they are perceived this way among the general public.

We also should stop thinking of higher education primarily in terms of American students between the ages of 18 and 24.

In a world that will surely introduce significant and substantial competition in many areas of education very soon, universities must act now.

Consider this: Napster, the online music store, was introduced in the year 1999. In the 16 years since, the music business has been transformed by file sharing in ways that have been quick and deep. Nobody could have predicted it then.

Higher education must be sure it is not the same kind of victim of change. Let us not fiddle while Rome burns.

The Conversation

John Covach, Director, Institute for Popular Music, University of Rochester

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, International Education

How competing for students will transform universities

Duncan Bentley, Victoria University

Historically, universities were privileged institutions for the “intelligent elite”, almost exclusively male communities, where great thinkers lived and worked and passed on their wisdom to fellow scholars and their students. Imagine Oxford, Harvard and the University of Melbourne before 1960.

Today, universities remain institutions in which groups of scholars contribute to the world’s knowledge and pass it on through teaching and exchanging ideas with the wider community. The difference is they try much harder to serve as many people as they can.

Institutions of distinction

The power of the university community is that it has never been bound to an institution or a country. Many academics and their students are more closely tied to their colleagues across the world in their own discipline than to an academic across the corridor in another field.

Demand tends to follow prestige.
Aleksandar Todorovic / Shutterstock.com

Traditionally, groups of scholars have banded together to compete in the race for new knowledge. They have not based their work on their institutional affiliation.

Universities, on the other hand, bundle their best groups together and claim a reputation. This has been the major driver of distinction and competition for universities and is reflected in the different world rankings.

Reinforcing this approach to competition is that student demand continues to follow elite status in the different rankings. This means that countries building their university systems are increasingly entering the “brain race”. Elite scholars are attracting lucrative incentives and contracts, similar to elite sport.

New competition

In Australia, competition will continue to transform universities. Australia has followed the world in democratising university education. The last 50 years has also seen a significant increase in the scope of degrees offered, particularly as universities have incorporated training for the growing number of professions.

Uncapping of places following the Bradley Review of higher education led to a significant growth in demand and university revenue. As the rate of growth has slowed, universities have sought to maintain revenue by trying to attract different types of students using a range of delivery methods.

While different university groupings exist, it is difficult to see much difference other than in positions on the research rankings. Many universities have regional presence. All universities are trying to “innovate” and this includes different levels of online delivery. All universities are working internationally.

Many universities were, until relatively recently, polytechnics or technical colleges and the pecking order among universities and therefore the demand from students largely reflects the research rankings, which favour the established elite.

The student experience: a new way universities compete
Nils Versemann / Shutterstock.com

Newer universities are therefore trying to re-invent the student experience and to develop links with industry and specialised degrees to generate the revenue they need to maintain their relative positions. Revenue pressure has increased as international student demand remains inconsistent and government funding for domestic places does not maintain pace with university ambitions.

New competition is also entering the field. TAFEs and private providers don’t need to research and they get more money for degrees than they can get from vocational qualifications. Degrees are also normally longer, which provides a more secure revenue stream from each student recruited. New entrants make more money too, as they generally have a lower cost structure than universities.

Add to this the fact that some 87% of the workforce in Australia is employed in the services sector, where a bachelor degree is increasingly becoming a base requirement for a job. It is an attractive market in which to operate.

Universities have responded by partnering with TAFEs and private providers to access markets or improve their productivity in ways they cannot achieve on their own. It makes sense to provide curriculum, quality assurance and a degree for a fee, and let the TAFE or private provider focus on teaching students who might not otherwise have gone to university. The results are often as good or better for the student. It provides a new revenue stream for both parties.

Specialise to succeed

As growth in demand for universities slows, particularly outside Queensland and Western Australia, competition for students will heat up. The lowest tier of universities will have to focus on only highly specialist areas of research, simply for lack of funding.

All universities are likely to look to improve their productivity so that they have sufficient funds to maintain their world-leading research. Those who succeed will be those that get rid of unnecessary costs and drive new opportunities to increase their revenue.

How will competition develop? Increasingly, universities and higher education providers will follow the example of the scholars in a global market. They will specialise in what they do well and partner with anyone who is like-minded and can help them compete effectively in their race for achievement. For most universities their goal will remain excellence in teaching and learning and research for the betterment of humanity.

Competition will continue to transform universities. Some may lose the battle and fail, while others may partner to achieve higher rankings. The real winners are likely to be the students – and the elite scholars and teachers.

The Conversation is running a series on “What are universities for?” looking at the place of universities in Australia, why they exist, who they serve, and how this is changing over time. Read other articles in the series here.

The Conversation

Duncan Bentley, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Victoria University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education

4 ways university professionals can boost student success

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish this guest post on stealth assessment as a way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Anica Oaks

Students sometimes need a little extra help, encouragement or advice to succeed at college. Not all students have the same levels of skills and motivation when they come to class and complete their assignments. University professionals, including professors, teaching assistants and staff, can do a number of things to help boost students’ success. The following are some of the best strategies for improving the performance of students who may need a little extra help.

Provide Clear Guidelines for Success

In order to succeed, students must have a clear idea of what’s expected of them. They should be aware exactly what counts towards their grade in each class. In some classes, exams and term papers are the main criteria. Other classes require a certain amount of class participation. Students should be told precisely what percentage of their grades depend on which factors.

Encourage Students to Communicate With Professors

Some students who need extra help may be reluctant to ask for it. When students are having a problem, they should be encouraged to communicate with their professors. If students don’t initiate this communication, it’s up to the professor or faculty adviser to do so. If someone is performing poorly in a particular class, he or she should make an appointment to speak to the professor during office hours.

Help Students Find the Right Schedule and Curriculum

Many students have busy schedules, often balancing work, school and family commitments. Not all students can realistically attend classes full-time. Students who take more classes than they can handle often burn out or don’t do as well as they should in any of their classes. In some cases, part time study is more appropriate. Another solution for students facing time restrictions is an online degree program. Helping students identify the most practical and convenient way to study can help them succeed.

Make Student Services Easy to Access

Many students can benefit from counseling, career guidance and other college services. They may need to talk to someone about personal or academic issues that they can’t discuss with their professor, parents or friends. Colleges usually offer a wide variety of services through professionals with a master’s in higher education program, but students are not always aware of how to access them. Some students may feel reluctant to seek help. That’s why it’s important to assure students that there’s no shame in seeking help and that their sessions will be completely confidential.

Success in college requires a healthy partnership between students, professors and others, including deans, faculty advisers and counselors. Students may need some special encouragement to access the resources that are available to them on campus. It’s important for university professionals to closely monitor students and identify what kind of help they may need.

______________

Anica is a professional content and copywriter who graduated from the University of San Francisco. She loves dogs, the ocean, and anything outdoor-related. She was raised in a big family, so she’s used to putting things to a vote. Also, cartwheels are her specialty. You can connect with Anica here. If you are interested in becoming an educator, Anica suggests that you check out a master’s degree in higher education from Abilene Christian University.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, HBCU's, Higher Education

Can schools punish students for off-campus, online speech?

Clay Calvert, University of Florida

In January 2014, Reid Sagehorn, a student at Rogers High School in Minnesota, jokingly tweeted “actually yeah” in response to a question about whether he had made out with one of his high school teachers.

The public school, acting on the tweet, suspended him for seven weeks. Sagehorn, a member of the National Honor Society, fought the suspension in a federal court, claiming the actions of school officials violated his First Amendment right to free speech.

Did the school have the right to punish him for his off-campus expression? It turns out – no.

In August 2015, a federal judge rejected the school officials’ motion to have the case dismissed. After all, the court found that Sagehorn made the post while away from campus, during nonschool hours, without using the school’s computers. And last month Sagehorn collected a settlement of more than US$400,000.

Sadly, Reid Sagehorn’s case is not unique. For at least the past 15 years, schools across the nation have engaged in Orwellian overreaches into the homes and bedrooms of students to punish them for their off-campus, online expression regarding classmates, teachers and administrators.

Despite the bevy of cases, the issue of whether schools can punish students for off-campus, online speech remains unresolved.

Cases where school kids were suspended

For instance, in April 2015, a federal court in Oregon considered a case called Burge v Colton School District 53 in which an eighth grader was suspended from his public middle school based upon out-of-school comments he posted on his personal Facebook page.

And in September 2014, a federal court in New York considered a case called Bradford v Norwich City School District in which a public high school student was suspended “based on a text-message conversation he had with another student regarding a third student while outside of school.”

Judge Glenn Suddaby observed in Bradford that “the Supreme Court has yet to speak on the scope of a school’s authority to discipline a student for speech that does not occur on school grounds or at a school-sponsored event.”

Silence from the Supreme Court

Indeed, a key problem here is that the US Supreme Court has never ruled in a case involving the off-campus speech rights of students in the digital era.

Public school students do possess First Amendment speech rights, although those rights are not the same as those of adults in nonschool settings.

A case in point is the Supreme Court’s famous 1969 proclamation in Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School District that students do not
“shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

A key problem has been the silence of the Supreme Court on free speech rights of students.
Jeff Kubina, CC BY-SA

In this case, a divided court upheld the right of students to wear to school black armbands emblazoned with peace signs as a form of political protest against the war in Vietnam. The majority reasoned that such speech could be stopped only if school officials had actual facts to believe it would lead to a substantial and material disruption of the educational atmosphere.

But Tinker was an on-campus speech case. And although the Supreme Court has considered three more student speech cases since Tinker, none involved either off-campus or digital expression.

A chance to resolve the issue

Schools today are trying to exert their authority far beyond the schoolhouse gate. Some courts have allowed these efforts and others have rejected them, but now the Supreme Court has a prime opportunity to resolve the matter in a case called Bell v Itawamba County School Board.

In January 2011, a Mississippi high school student, Taylor Bell, was suspended from Itawamba Agricultural High School after he posted, while away from campus during nonschool hours, a homemade rap video to Facebook and YouTube.

In the video, Bell criticizes in no uncertain terms two male teachers for their alleged sexual harassment of minor female students. A version of rap that describes the resulting controversy is available online.

In August 2015, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit narrowly ruled that high school officials in Mississippi did not violate the First Amendment speech rights of Bell when they punished him for posting the video because it allegedly threatened two teachers.

In a ruling against Taylor Bell, the Fifth Circuit majority concluded that the rule from the Tinker case applies to off-campus speech:

when a student intentionally directs at the school community speech reasonably understood by school officials to threaten, harass, and intimidate a teacher, even when such speech originated, and was disseminated, off-campus without the use of school resources.

One of the judges in the case, James Dennis, writing in dissent, ripped into the majority for broadly proclaiming “that a public school board is constitutionally empowered to punish a student whistleblower for his purely off-campus Internet speech publicizing a matter of public concern.”

Judge Dennis stressed that the rule from Tinker, which requires school officials to reasonably predict a substantial and material disruption will be caused by speech before it can be stopped, does not apply to off-campus speech cases.

Why the Supreme Court should hear the Taylor Bell case

Some minors inevitably will post and upload – while away from campus and using their own digital communication devices – allegedly disparaging, offensive or threatening messages and images about fellow students, teachers and school officials on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat.

The key question, then, is whether and to what extent public schools, consistent with the First Amendment, may discipline students for their off-campus speech.

In November 2015, Bell filed a petition with the US Supreme Court asking it to hear his case.

As Bell’s attorneys argue, the court should take the case because whether or not Tinker applies to off-campus speech cases has “vexed school officials and courts across the country.”

In December, the organization I direct, the Marion B Brechner First Amendment Project, filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the court to take the case.

Briefs from the attorneys for the school are due January 20, and the court will decide whether to hear Bell later this spring.

The bottom line is this: public school students deserve the right to know, pre-posting and pre-texting, what their First Amendment rights are when they are away from campus.

They must, in other words, be given fair notice. The court should hear Bell to let them know precisely what their rights are. It is an issue not likely to go away soon.

The Conversation

Clay Calvert, Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication, University of Florida

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in HBCU's, Higher Education

Fulfilling Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream: the role for higher education

Roland V. Anglin, Rutgers University Newark ; David D. Troutt, Rutgers University Newark ; Elise Boddie, Rutgers University Newark ; Nancy Cantor, Rutgers University Newark , and Peter Englot, Rutgers University Newark

Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “Why We Can’t Wait” to dispel the notion that African Americans should be content to proceed on an incremental course toward full equality under the law and in the wider society. King observed,

Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse, and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.

Yet waiting and whispering, rather than raising their voices for genuine inclusion, is what many seem to expect of the children and grandchildren of King’s generation even today.

At stake is the perceived legitimacy of American institutions, not just educational but those that we educate for: the police, the courts, government, the media, cultural institutions, banks and so on. These institutions are under scrutiny over their failure to evoke trust and to show that they are visibly open to the public – especially those groups, who too often and for too long have been left out.

Arguably, we are not the “land of opportunity” for most first-generation, poor, black, brown, Native American, or immigrant children. Gaps in educational achievement persist, and at every level: from kindergarten through to the years after high school.

The label applied to so many immigrant youth, Dreamers, might well be adopted more broadly, capturing as it does both the aspiration and perhaps the unreality of educational opportunity for so many.

And the students are right to worry.

The question is: what role can our universities play so the dividing lines can be crossed?

‘Baked-in’ privilege

Consider some statistics from Essex County, New Jersey, where our city, Newark, a college town with over 50,000 students, is located:

  • 47.54 percent of black third graders attend schools that perform at the bottom 10 percent of schools in the state compared to 0.04 percent of white third graders.
  • About 4,000 high school students in the Newark Public Schools are “missing” during the school day, not in their seats; often labeled as “disconnected youth,” it would be better to consider them as youth connected to a pathway to prison.
  • Another 3,000 are off-course from graduating.
  • Only 36 percent of Newark residents have finished high school and only 17 percent hold any kind of post-secondary degree.

This story is not unique to Newark.

Economists such as Raj Chetty and his colleagues note that nationally “the consequences of the ‘birth lottery’ – the parents to whom a child is born – are larger today than in the past.”

We – the universities – are the ones sitting in the midst of these realities, facing the choice between being walled citadels that separate the privileged from the uninvited other or being welcoming hubs connecting young individuals with opportunity.

Universities’ responsibility

The uncomfortable truth is, that we, in some very real sense, have contributed to this winnowing of opportunity.

Chancellor Nancy Cantor speaking at the “Rally in Solidarity” organized by Rutgers Newark students in support of students at University of Missouri in November 2015.
Rutgers University Newark, Author provided

For too long, the traditional measures of student potential have relied on standardized – and therefore narrowly framed – merit selection processes, such as SAT and ACT scores.

These tests have been grossly inadequate, measuring only a narrow band of potential, while missing wide swaths of our talent pool whose excellence is not readily detected through the use of such “blunt” instruments.

They neglect whole communities whose students don’t have access to the test preparation industry, prompting legal theorist Lani Guinier to implore us to redefine the merit in meritocracy.

Intergenerational privilege is rooted in place – in the home values and tax base, the schools and transportation networks available to people because of where they are fortunate to live. Decades of white flight, suburbanization, the abandonment of urban centers and regressive housing policies have contributed to a pervasive disconnection across racial, ethnic and class lines.

This segregation has reinforced the corrosive effects of historical prejudice and biases that already divide society and make Americans, in effect, strangers to each other.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the social landscapes of university communities are just as divided.

Crossing boundaries

Diversity is growing explosively and redefining American society before our eyes.

Yet lines of class, gender, ethnicity and race continue to redraw themselves in dorm life, lunch tables and indeed the classroom.

Indeed, it is hard to erase them.

How do you cultivate connection to another person’s future and commitment to their success when you don’t live together in the same neighborhood, reside near each other in the same city or at least share some similar daily experiences such as rush hour on a crowded subway?

As higher educational institutions, we should be the place where dividing lines can be crossed. And that includes crossing the boundaries of our communities.

Our work in the city of Newark is just one illustration of crossing these boundaries.

Newark’s story

In this postindustrial city of 280,000 people, 29 percent of residents have incomes below the poverty line.

Newark’s social and economic challenges are common among cities that have lost their tax base and whose residents have fled to the suburbs since the 1960s. The resulting economic and racial segregation has produced structural inequalities in health, education and other public services.

Today, Newark, a proud, resilient city, is coming back from years of disinvestment. As an engaged “anchor institution”, we are partnering with the community on many fronts.

The future home of Express Newark – the historic Hahne Building
Rutgers University Newark, Author provided

We are investing in spaces for local artists and the community to collaborate, as we develop nearly 50,000 square feet in the iconic former Hahne & Company department story as an arts “collaboratory” – dubbed “Express Newark.”

We are working with small and midsized entrepreneurs and firms and taking an active role in helping Newark’s police address crime hotspots through data collection and analysis.

Organizations – public and private – have banded together in the Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC) to raise the post-secondary attainment rate of residents of Newark to 25 percent by 2025.

For the higher education partners in NCLC like us, this means working with Newark Public Schools to help their students continue their education past high school, beginning in community colleges, the institutions where the vast majority of first generation students will have their first taste of higher education.

At Rutgers University – Newark, for example, we are providing tuition support to low-income residents of Newark and to any New Jersey community college transfer with an associate degree as of fall 2016.

We are recruiting these students based on assessments of leadership, grit and entrepreneurial skills – not just grades – into a residential Honors Living Learning Community (HLLC). In addition to gleaning information about applicants from the standard application form, the HLLC team engages with applicants in person and in groups to see how they collaborate with one another to solve problems. Their on-the-ground knowledge of urban life has much to contribute, as we see it, to the HLLC’s curriculum focus of “local citizenship in a global world.”

The first cohort of HLLC students
Rutgers University Newark, Author provided

Ashlee is one of the inaugural class. Born and raised in Newark, she speaks openly of “being a product of my environment…exposed to so much just by walking outside of
my house…[including] murder at the age of 12.” Her options, she says, were two: “conform to what’s going on in society or try to make a difference.” She is now a criminal justice major keenly interested in issues of social equality and inequality.

Academic ‘farm teams’

Rutgers-Newark is not alone in looking to build on the assets of this fresh talent pool for America.

There is an increasing number of so-called collective impact initiatives across the higher education landscape, including STRIVE, a nonprofit started in Cincinnati, and three large city-wide initiatives in Syracuse, Buffalo and Guilford County, North Carolina mounted by Say Yes to Education.

Collective impact projects like these can be taxing and messy, but by bringing so many different partners together – from education institutions to businesses and faith-based centers – to focus on enabling the talented next generation to thrive from school to college and beyond, we put a stake in the ground together for social justice. It’s admittedly still one step at a time, but one step in many places.

When higher education bands together to support and recruit talent from these regional hubs, it gives a new meaning to the notion of “farm teams.”. After all, if major league baseball can do it, why can’t higher education?

The impatient students protesting a sense of exclusion today have undeniable facts to support their argument. Our institutions, we believe, can help them overcome the barriers they, and others, face in their search for economic opportunity and a sense that they are valued.

How could anyone continue to “wait and whisper” while witnessing the enormous and cumulative effect of disparity unfold for another generation, with so many children never even getting to first base and some starting out on third?

The Conversation

Roland V. Anglin, Director, The Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, Rutgers University Newark ; David D. Troutt, Professor of Law and Justice John J Francis Scholar, Rutgers University Newark ; Elise Boddie, Associate Professor of Law, Rutgers University Newark ; Nancy Cantor, Chancellor, Rutgers University Newark , and Peter Englot, Senior Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs, Rutgers University Newark

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, Matthew Lynch

Grading Obama on Higher Education: Part I

By Matthew Lynch

Several weeks ago, I discussed President Obama’s education record in my introduction to education class. In particular, we talked about P-20 education, which begins in preschool and ends with graduate school. Predictably, the debate became quite contentious. Most of us had to agree to disagree on the most central points of educational politics. Partly in response to this debate, though, I decided to write an assessment of Obama’s education record in several areas of P-20 education issuing a letter grade (A-F) to make my position on his record abundantly clear.

To start things off, let’s take a look at the president’s major postsecondary education initiatives.

Expansion of Community Colleges. In July, 2012, President Obama proposed the American Graduation Initiative, intended to put more money and planning into community colleges, helping to promote more affordable options and high levels of training for all prospective college students. As part of this initiative, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act will pour $2 billion over the course of four years into an expansion of career training at community colleges, focusing on the high-demand health care field.

According to the White House website, the goals of the Obama community college program include:

• Teaching basic skills through remedial and adult education.
• Further developing online courses for more student flexibility and accelerated programs.
• Creating educational partnerships to give students more course options.
• Building partnerships with businesses that would allow worksite education that has current labor market emphasis.

Enforcement of the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM, Act will an estimated 2.1 million young people in the U.S. with access to an education and amnesty from deportation. While Obama’s administration has stressed the ethical points of this act, rightfully so, it offers may economic benefits for America as well.

The Center for American Progress estimates that the DREAM Act will create 1.4 million new jobs by the year 2030 and that it will infuse some $329 billion into the U.S. economy.

Pell Grant Increases. The President has also pledged to double the amount of funding available in the form of Pell Grants over the next three years. Unlike student loans, Pell Grants do not need to be repaid. For the 2011–2012 school year, the maximum award amount was $5,550.
While a Pell Grant cannot cover all of the college costs, it goes a long way towards covering in-state tuition or community college courses. All students can apply for the program, too, and students receive aid awards based on financial need andcost of attendance.

By 2017, the maximum amount awarded to students is expected to rise to $5,975. By 2021, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 820,000 more Pell Grant awards will also be available. The money will come, in part, from restructuring to the distribution of federal student loans. By implementing a direct student loan program, instead of a bank-subsidized one, $68 billion will also be saved by the year 2020.

Higher College Tax Credits. The Obama-Biden administration plans to triple the current tax credits available to students and parents of students paying college expenses, too. The American Opportunity Tax Credit gives a $2,500 tax credit maximum per student and students can claim it for four years.

According to the IRS, up to 40 percent of the credit is refundable, up to $1,000, to people that file even if no taxes are owed. In addition to courses and fees, the new tax credit also covers related costs like books, supplies and required class materials.

Income-Based Loan Repayment. President Obama has often said that he believes that paying for college should not overwhelm graduates. As a reflection of this, he has pledged to expand income-based repayment options to keep the bills from college from becoming unmanageable. Around two-thirds of college students have debt of over $23,000 upon graduation. This can be especially difficult for students that want to enter public service jobs and those who face unexpected financial hardships like unemployment or serious illness.

Beginning in 2014, students can limit payments to 10 percent of income – a reduction from 15 percent in the previous law – which means a reduction of $110 per month for unmarried borrowers that owe $20,000 and make $30,000 per year. An estimated 1 million borrowers will be positively impacted by this change in repayment options. In addition, borrowers that make monthly payments will be allowed debt forgiveness after 20 years. Public service workers like nurses, teachers, and military employees will receive debt forgiveness after just 10 years.

This concludes Part I of “Grading Obama on Higher Education.” In Part II, I will continue to assesses President Obama’s performance in the area of higher education..

 

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Matthew Lynch published in HBCU's, Higher Education

College grads still earn a premium — if they can find a good job

Robert Reich, University of California, Berkeley

The early admissions deadlines for universities across the country have come and gone, and acceptance letters are on their way. But with the cost of a four-year college education rising an average of 5% a year, many students and parents are likely wondering whether the cost of a degree is worth it.

The simple answer is yes because people with degrees continue to earn far more than those without them. Last year, Americans with four-year college degrees earned on average 98% more per hour than people without them, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In the early 1980s, they earned 64% more.

But that’s only if the graduate can find a good job, which is no longer guaranteed.

Instead, almost half of new college graduates will likely end up spending at least a few years in jobs for which they are overqualified. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 46% of recent college graduates are now working in jobs that don’t require college degrees. That figure is about a third for all college graduates.

And the main reason a degree still demands a premium salary is that wages for non-grads are dropping. Employees choose college grads over non-grads on the assumption that more education is better, but as a result more of the latter are being pushed into ever more menial work, if they can find a job at all.

For years, I along with others argued that globalization and technological advances lift demand for well educated workers. But in 2000, the outsourcing of skilled jobs and advanced software reversed this trend.

First, millions of people in developing nations became far better educated, while the internet gave them an easy way to sell their abilities in advanced countries like the US, leading to ever more skilled work being outsourced to them.

Second, advanced software is taking over many tasks that had been done by well educated professionals – including data analysis, accounting, legal and engineering work, even some medical diagnoses.

As a result, the demand for well educated employees in the US seems to have peaked around 2000 and fallen since, even as the supply of such workers globally continues to grow.

That increase in supply even as demand drops is why the incomes of people who graduated after 2000 have barely risen. Indeed, the starting wages for graduates have dropped since then, 8.1% for women and 6.7% for men.

And that’s why a record number of well educated young adults are living at home with their parents.

The deeper problem is that while a college education is necessary to join the middle class, its share of the total economic pie continues to shrink, while that of the very top keeps growing.

An education is still worth the cost because without a degree young people can easily be left behind. But even with one, it’s hard to do much more than tread water. Some will make it into the top 1%, but the path keeps getting narrower and often requires the right connections.

Of course, going to college is not only about making a lot of money. An education gives our youth tools to lead full and purposeful lives.

It’s still worth paying for, but in such a perilous economy, young people and their parents should know the economics before they make such a large investment.

This is an adaptation of a post that appeared in November on Robert Reich’s blog.

The Conversation

Robert Reich, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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