To capture the essence of the sense of belonging for first-generation students (FGS) within an academic unit of study in higher education, this qualitative inquiry used portraiture to provide answers to four research questions. Q1: How do FGS make meaning of belongingness in an academic unit? Q2: How do FGS describe the academic unit's climate…

This study examined if a faculty-run Reading and Writing Lab at a small, private university in the Midwest helped traditionally underserved college freshmen taking developmental English classes increase their levels of self-perceived comprehension and confidence. Students who typically need to take developmental English classes include English as…

Undocumented Latinx college students in rural areas confront a myriad of stressors that challenge their resilience and which merit empirical emphasis. This study will examine the risk and protective factors, and their impact on academic outcomes, of undocumented first generation Latinx college students in Public Institutions in Rural Areas. The…

Background/Context: Previous research suggested that first- or second-generation African immigrants comprised nearly a third of Black students attending selective U. S. colleges (Massey et al., 2007). While research frames the involvement of Black immigrant collegians as distinctly different from African American peers as it pertains to family…

Background/Context: College access programs aim to enhance students' college-going capital, which includes the "knowledge, skills, or dispositions" that support students' pathways to and through higher education (Means & Pyne, 2016, p. 391). While some college access programs aim to remedy students' "deficiencies" in…

In 2017 the National Association of System Heads launched its Taking Student Success to Scale: High Impact Practices Network. The goals of this initiative were to identify and scale promising High Impact Practices (HIPs) at both the campus and system level to prioritize equitable participation for low-income and first-generation students and…

To examine the relationship between participation in a research-based, academic first-year seminar (FYS) and the first-year achievement of STEM students, university data sets were collected from four cohorts (N = 2,543) of incoming STEM students of whom 581 were FYS participants over the four years. Chi-square tests of homogeneity were used to…

University and engineering officials of higher education struggle to recruit, retain, and successfully graduate first-generation African American engineering (FGAAE) students at predominantly White institutions. This study focused on eight FGAAE students from four predominantly White research institutions across the Southeastern United States. The…

Interstate Passport is a program that serves a national network of member institutions and states to facilitate block transfer of lower-division general education attainment based on student learning outcomes rather than on specific courses and credits. A student who is awarded a Passport for completing the general education courses specified by…

This article describes an eight-session psychoeducational small-group intervention with two groups of African-American youth in an urban, east coast high school setting. Sessions were designed to enhance the self-efficacy and outcomes expectations related to attending college for first-generation college goers in the twelfth grade. The group…

Observably, a teachable moment surfaced as two nontraditional aged, first-generation, students discerned fellow traditional aged students, observing markedly different cell phone behaviors than themselves, "Really? That much time on cell phones?" A married mother of four, nursing major, with a cell phone was interested in the potential…

Purpose: Little attention is given to black male experiences and decision-making process around college-going. A qualitative study (interpretive phenomenological analysis [IPA]) was conducted using a strengths-based perspective to understand the experiences of three first-generation black men college students attending a predominately white…

Colleges and universities have used programs like the summer bridge program (SBP) to improve academic abilities and retention. The research on the effectiveness of SBPs is inconclusive. With a focus those on who required remediation in writing, the purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental study was to evaluate the influence of a SBP on…

Stratification in postsecondary education has been a persistent issue since education became widely available to women, racial and ethnic minorities, and low-income students. This unequal access to education has significant consequences on where people end up in the labor market because of the strong connection between education and job…

Stewardship of place refers to the public engagement activities and approaches colleges and universities enact to enhance the regions and communities they serve. A group of colleges and universities known as regional comprehensive universities (RCUs) has been uniquely committed to stewardship of place throughout their histories. As state-supported…