As first-generation students gain greater access to higher education, faculty, and staff at colleges and universities must provide intentional engagement that supports their persistence and graduation. This book serves as a guidebook for higher education practitioners seeking to implement or enhance first-generation programming at their institutions. The chapters provide detailed descriptions of the development, implementation, and assessment of programs and practices intended to support the success of first-generation college students. Authors share insights on building allies, identifying and working through challenges, and applicable takeaways for implementing similar practices and programs at the reader’s own institutions. Programming discussed in the book ranges in funding levels and includes activities such as faculty dinners, study abroad, bridge programs, living learning communities, peer mentoring, intrusive advising, and holistic well-being. This valuable resource helps higher education practitioners better support and position first-generation students for success.

FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENTS "…a concise, manageable, lucid summary of the best scholarship, practices, and future-oriented thinking about how to effectively recruit, educate, develop, retain, and ultimately graduate first-generation students." —from the foreword by JOHN N. GARDNER First-generation students are frequently marginalized on their campuses, treated with benign disregard, and placed at a competitive disadvantage because of their invisibility. While they include 51% of all undergraduates, or approximately 9.3 million students, they are less likely than their peers to earn degrees. Among students enrolled in two-year institutions, they are significantly less likely to persist into a second year. First-Generation College Students offers academic leaders and student affairs professionals a guide for understanding the special challenges and common barriers these students face and provides the necessary strategies for helping them transition through and graduate from their chosen institutions. Based in solid research, the authors describe best practices and include suggestions and techniques that can help leaders design and implement effective curricula, out-of-class learning experiences, and student support services, as well as develop strategic plans that address issues sure to arise in the future. The authors offer an analysis of first-generation student expectations for college life and academics and examine the powerful role cultural capital plays in shaping their experiences and socialization. Providing a template for other campuses, the book highlights programmatic initiatives at colleges around the county that effectively serve first-generation students and create a powerful learning environment for their success. First-Generation College Students provides a much-needed portrait of the cognitive, developmental, and social factors that affect the college-going experiences and retention rates of this growing population of college students.

Universal Design in Higher Education looks at the design of physical and technological environments at institutions of higher education; at issues pertaining to curriculum and instruction; and at the full array of student services. Universal Design in Higher Education is a comprehensive guide for researchers and practitioners on creating fully accessible college and university programs. It is founded upon, and contributes to, theories of universal design in education that have been gaining increasingly wide attention in recent years. As greater numbers of students with disabilities attend postsecondary educational institutions, administrators have expressed increased interest in making their programs accessible to all students. This book provides both theoretical and practical guidance for schools as they work to turn this admirable goal into a reality. It addresses a comprehensive range of topics on universal design for higher education institutions, thus making a crucial contribution to the growing body of literature on special education and universal design. This book will be of unique value to university and college administrators, and to special education researchers, practitioners, and activists.

Research shows that enriching learning experiences such as learning communities, service-learning, undergraduate research, internships, and senior culminating experiences – collectively known as High-Impact Practices (HIPs) – are positively associated with student engagement; deep, and integrated learning; and personal and educational gains for all students – particularly for historically underserved students, including first-generation students and racially minoritized populations. While HIPs’ potential benefits for student learning, retention, and graduation are recognized and are being increasingly integrated across higher education programs, much of that potential remains unrealized; and their implementation frequently uneven. Colleges are eager to use the HIP nomenclature for recruitment, promoting equity for traditionally underserved student populations, and preparing lifelong learners and successful professionals. However, HIPs defy easy categorization or standardized implementation. They rely on fidelity, quality, and consistency – being “done well” – to achieve their learning outcomes; and, above all, require attention to access and equity if they are to fulfill their promise of benefitting all student populations equally.The goal of Delivering on the Promise of High-Impact Practices is to provide examples from around the country of the ways educators are advancing equity, promoting fidelity, achieving scale, and strengthening assessment of their own local high-impact practices. Its chapters bring together the best current scholarship, methodologies, and evidence-based practices within the HIPs field, illustrating new approaches to faculty professional development, culture and coalition building, research and assessment, and continuous improvement that help institutions understand and extend practices with a demonstrated high impact. For proponents and practitioners this book offers perspectives, data and critiques to interrogate and improve practice. For administrators it provides an understanding of what’s needed to deliver the necessary support.

This volume chronicles changes and issues facing institutional and individual academic activities and norms following the Covid-19 pandemic, forecasting their impacts on the ways in which internationalization at the post-secondary level has responded in practice to new realities, exigencies, and possibilities.

The experiences of first-generation college students are not monolithic. The nexus of identities matter, and this book is intended to challenge the reader to explore what it means to be a first-generation college student in higher education. Designed for use in classrooms and for use by the higher education practitioner on a college campus today, At the Intersections will be of value to the reader throughout their professional career.The book is divided into four parts with chapters of research and theory interspersed with thought pieces to provide personal stories to integrate the research and theory into lived experience. Each thought piece ends with questions to inspire readers to engage with the topic.Part One: Who is a First-generation College Student? provides the reader an entrée into the topic, with up-to-date data on both four-year and two-year colleges. Part One ends with a thought piece that asks the reader to pull together some of the big ideas before moving on to look more closely at students’ identities.Part Two: The Intersection of Identity shares the research, experience and thoughts of authors in relation to the individual and overlapping identities of LGBT, low-income, white, African-American, Latinx, Native American, undocumented, female, and male students who are all also first-generation college students. Part Three: Programs and Practices is an introduction to practices, policies and programs across the country. This section offers promise and direction for future work as institutions try to find a successful array of approaches to make the campus an inclusive place for the diverse population of first-generation college students.

This publication¿the latest report from AAC&U¿s Liberal Education and America¿s Promise (LEAP) initiative¿defines a set of educational practices that research has demonstrated have a significant impact on student success. Author George Kuh presents data from the National Survey of Student Engagement about these practices and explains why they benefit all students, but also seem to benefit underserved students even more than their more advantaged peers. The report also presents data that show definitively that underserved students are the least likely students, on average, to have access to these practices.

U.S. strength in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines has formed the basis of innovations, technologies, and industries that have spurred the nation's economic growth throughout the last 150 years. Universities are essential to the creation and transfer of new knowledge that drives innovation. This knowledge moves out of the university and into broader society in several ways â€" through highly skilled graduates (i.e. human capital); academic publications; and the creation of new products, industries, and companies via the commercialization of scientific breakthroughs. Despite this, our understanding of how universities receive, interpret, and respond to industry signaling demands for STEM-trained workers is far from complete. Promising Practices for Strengthening the Regional STEM Workforce Development Ecosystem reviews the extent to which universities and employers in five metropolitan communities (Phoenix, Arizona; Cleveland, Ohio; Montgomery, Alabama; Los Angeles, California; and Fargo, North Dakota) collaborate successfully to align curricula, labs, and other undergraduate educational experiences with current and prospective regional STEM workforce needs. This report focuses on how to create the kind of university-industry collaboration that promotes higher quality college and university course offerings, lab activities, applied learning experiences, work-based learning programs, and other activities that enable students to acquire knowledge, skills, and attributes they need to be successful in the STEM workforce. The recommendations and findings presented will be most relevant to educators, policy makers, and industry leaders.

Best Practices in Online Program Development is a practical, hands-on guide that provides the concrete strategies that academic and administrative departments within institutions of higher learning need to develop in order to create and maintain coherent and effective online educational programs. Unlike individual courses, an online education program requires a comprehensive, inter-departmental effort to be integrated into the ongoing educational project of a college or university. This book focuses on the: Integration of online education into the institutional mission Complex faculty-related issues including recruiting, training, and teaching Multifaceted support required for student retention and success Need for multilayered assessment at the course, program, technical, and institutional levels Challenges posed to governance and by the need to garner resources across the institution Model to insure ongoing, comprehensive development of online educational programs Best Practices in Online Program Development covers the above topics and more, giving all the stakeholders in online educational programs the building blocks to foster successful programs while encouraging them to determine what role online education should play in their academic offerings.