The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain an understanding of the experiences of being a female, African American STEM undergraduate who is enrolled at an elite Predominantly White Institution and who has a mentoring relationship. A hermeneutic approach to phenomenology was used to gather data through open-ended interviews. Research questions included: What are the lived experiences of female, African American, STEM undergraduate students of the STEM community at an elite Predominantly White Institution? What are the lived experiences of high achieving female, African American, STEM undergraduate students with their mentors? Four themes emerged from the interviews: (a) Discouraging Academic Environment, (b) Minority Stress, (c) Positive Persuasions, and (d) Mentoring Support. This study concluded that African American women needed a supportive environment to thrive as an undergraduate STEM major. This support came from African American peers, informal mentoring experiences that provided psychosocial support and affirmed their ability, formal mentoring experiences that provided academic guidance, and positive verbal messages by university professors that women belong in STEM careers.

Abstract as part of a strategic planning effort begun in 2008, the College of William & Mary began the process of reviewing and changing its general education program. Approved by the faculty in 2013, the university is implementing an innovative curriculum called the "College Curriculum," designed in part to help students acquire knowledge and develop the skills and habits of critical and creative thinking. The purpose of this study was to investigate the institution's and faculty's understanding of how the new curriculum addressed student development of critical and creative thinking. This descriptive case study provided a review of the literature on general education, critical and creative thinking; a review of key documentation; and structured interviews with faculty and other members of the community with an understanding of the problem. Lattuca and Stark's (2009) academic plan model provided a theoretical frame to analyze the data, determining that the impetus for initiation of the curriculum review was primarily driven by internal forces within the college. Using established governance procedures, the faculty played the leading role in its development and approval to include establishing the goal of developing critical and creative thinking as key principle in the curriculum. However, based on the research, there is a lack of coherence among the faculty as to what, when, and how these critical skills are developed. The findings indicated a need to develop and share a plan among the faculty and students of what constitutes these competencies and how they are developed through the college curriculum.

Vertical transfer is a centennial symbol of access that also provides inputs for operational funding and produces outcomes for performance-based funding (PBF). Thus, this mission-critical community college function may be leveraged to decisively impact the higher education completion agenda. Yet, deeper insights into student level data are needed to understand what powers vertical transfer efficiency. Previous research used administrative data, analyzed access, and tracked transfer outcomes, but few studies have used vertical transfer as a single analysis framework to reconcile access and efficiency goals while examining tensions between access, accountability, and resource allocation. The body of research tends to isolate and individually analyze student and institutional variables related to the input, process, and output factors of institutional performance. to connect access and efficiency, this study linked student course-taking variables to institutional performance outcomes. The conceptual framework fused resource dependence and choice overload theories to examine institutional resource allocation and student course selection. Predictive models replicated the Community College Transfer Calculator and cohesively linked access, efficiency, institutional accountability, and funding. For a largely part-time cohort, this study found that course-taking variables, including average credits per semester significantly predicted the likelihood of vertical transfer and bachelor's degree completion within six years. PBF points were highly sensitive to vertical transfer, and USP outcomes intensified PBF point gains.

No description available.

The retention of African-American male students at predominantly White institutions is an issue that continues to plague colleges and universities in the United States. African-American men have the lowest college graduation rate of any segment of the population. Pointedly, two-thirds of African-American male students who attend public four-year schools do not graduate within six years. Yet, research highlights how social engagement supports many minority students who find themselves on the campuses of predominantly White institutions. Establishing social connections builds a support system for these students and can prevent social isolation. One manner of social engagement steeped in history is the presence of Black Greek Letter organizations (BGLOs), which were mostly founded around the turn of the 20th century and have encouraged the educational pursuits, social growth, maturity, and community outreach that is often part of the successful African-American male educational experience. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand and analyze how African-American men now view their experiences as a member of a BGLO at a predominantly White institution 25 years later. The dissertation examines how do the fraternity members perceive the influence of their BGLO membership on their persistence and what memories of their BGLO membership are most salient? Specifically, this study aimed to collect information regarding the impact of African-American male student retention employing empirical phenomenology. Data collection included interviews with eight African-American males who were members of one of the BGLOs. These men attended and graduated from a four-year PWI located in the southeastern region of the United States. The data collected was analyzed using the hermeneutic phenomenology method. This study found that African-American former collegians who successfully persisted towards their college degrees used their BGLO membership as a means of social engagement in order to establish connectedness to their respective PWI campuses. Their BGLO membership gave them immediate access to mentorship, campus leadership opportunities, heightened culture capital and an affinity group where they inspire and lead.

This study examined the experiences of faculty members from U.S. universities who led students on a short-term summer study abroad program that incorporated the Camino de Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage route in Spain. The study sought to understand how faculty leaders engaged in sensemaking (Weick, 1995) of these experiences in the context of their faculty roles on their home campuses. The ethnographic methods included six years of field work in Spain, participant observation as faculty program director, and in-depth interviews with faculty leaders. The findings show that participants engaged in sensemaking through three theoretical constructs. The construct of family addresses nuclear family roles, including gendered roles, as well as Camino Family expectations. The construct of appointment and role expectations deals with tenure status and issues of autonomy, agency, and teaching. The construct of inspirations identifies and analyzes both internal and external sources of inspiration for faculty engagement in these programs. These sources include personal tragedies, a focus on student-centeredness, and a desire to expose students to a “Real Spain.” The constructs, in addition to serving as catalysts for sensemaking, establish a counternarrative on faculty growth (O’Meara et al., 2008). This counternarrative focuses on learning across complex faculty roles, the development of agency in enacting meaningful work, and faculty capacity for commitment to their work and institutions. Overall, this study demonstrated that leading a study abroad program along the Camino is an activity that contributes to faculty leaders’ growth.

College students’ worldviews and (non)religious beliefs continue to evolve and become more nuanced. Thus, it is crucial that college students make meaning of diverse worldview perspectives and recognize the accompanying inequitable experiences that others encounter because of their worldviews. In promoting research on critical consciousness in their 2018 call for proposals, the Association for the Study of Higher Education invited educators to consider, not only how students engage across differences, but how they recognize, make meaning of, and act upon social inequities. To expand topics of pluralism and interworldview dialogue in higher education, it is important to investigate the phenomenon of critical consciousness in relation to worldview inequities. The purpose of this study was to explore how critical consciousness involving worldview inequities took shape for 15 undergraduate college students (aged 18-24) at one institution, William & Mary. Though some scholars have offered findings regarding students’ and administrators’ development of critical consciousness, there is not much research focused on how critical consciousness takes shape (i.e., “how it is produced in time and space”) for students regarding worldview inequities (Vagle, 2018, p. 150). In this study, I used a theoretical borderlands perspective, tenets of intersectionality theory, and a qualitative, post-intentional phenomenological (PIP) methodology. Data sources included two semi-structured interviews with each student participant, student-generated reflections over a two-week period, and my own post-reflexive journaling. Findings from this study are depicted through a primary tentative manifestation (momentarily recognizable aspects of phenomena), which I named emotionality, and two figurations that elucidate how critical consciousness took shape for students in this study.

Internationalization has become widely recognized as a critical element of higher education, and study abroad is considered one of the most common methods to achieve it. Yet, despite the perceived value of study abroad for both students and faculty, institutions struggle with committing resources to such opportunities as well as assessing the true impact of these learning experiences. This study evaluated the Global Business Minor (GBM) program at William & Mary (W&M), the first program in the nation to allow students to earn a minor in a single summer through an innovative hybrid learning approach that involved one week at W&M, three weeks of online learning and eight weeks at University College Dublin in Ireland. This evaluation sought to provide insights to administrators regarding the facilitating conditions and barriers for the GBM as well as how the program contributed to the intercultural competence and professional development of students and faculty. This study involved in-depth interviews and document analyses to include student reflections on LinkedIn. The findings revealed the GBM contributed to the intercultural competence of students and faculty through an increased understanding of cultural awareness, diversity, and perspective. The program also contributed to the professional development of students through career awareness and building competencies related to communication and teamwork, as well as the professional development of faculty through the enrichment of curriculum and enhancement of teaching skills. Recommendations included dedicating resources to ensure sustainable and immersive learning programs, establishing clear program objectives with intentional assessments, and incentivizing faculty efforts to teach abroad in support of W&M's mission to develop compassionate global citizens.

The purpose of this study was to understand the perceptions of academic advising held by junior and senior transfer students who have declared a major within the STEM programs at a small, highly selective, public institution in the Mid-Atlantic Region. A phenomenological case study of Small University was utilized to understand the perception and socially constructed reality and knowledge that vertical and lateral transfer students build through interactions with a faculty academic advisor. Interviews were conducted with a diverse population of 20 junior and senior transfer students who have declared their major in one of the eight STEM departments at Small University. Overall, students experienced difficulties once on campus in terms of navigating the institution and obtaining the courses needed in a timely manner. The majority of participants did not work closely with their advisor and therefore needed to find supports and resources on their own. Modification of faculty advising away from a prescriptive model towards a developmental or proactive model may serve to prevent negative outcomes for transfer students during the transition into a new institution.

No description available.