As enrollment of minority students and recruitment of minority faculty in higher education increase, opportunities for students to interact with racially and ethnically different faculty will become more frequent and pronounced. Also, there may be expectations that these interactions will produce greater educational gains and sensitivity to racial issues. A quantitative research methodology was employed to measure the nature of the student-faculty interactions across race and to explore factors that influence undergraduate students’ GPA and multicultural perceptions in order to identify ways in which student-faculty interactions might better serve the students. Mainly, this study focused on the quantity, quality, and socialization of interactions between White and Asian students and faculty members. The instrument used for data collection was a combination of five national online surveys that were designed to assess college students’ perceptions and experiences of their student-faculty interactions and data were gathered with White and Asian faculty and students at Virginia Commonwealth University. Data collection consisted of surveying students and faculty members via email. The researcher found that only the quality of student-faculty interactions, which belongs to the quality of interactions, had a positive impact on students’ GPA (.06) and their multicultural perceptions (.18). A better understanding of factors influencing students’ GPA and multicultural perceptions would be beneficial for both teachers and undergraduate students at VCU.

The purpose of this study was to explore the different kinds of microaggressions that students of color experienced with white faculty, including the process and outcomes of these interactions. Undergraduate students of color face fewer positive outcomes, in comparison to their white peers, such as increased attrition, lower academic self-efficacy, and feeling less connected to their campus (Tinto, 1975; Cabrera et al., 1999; Rankin & Reason, 2005). The relationship between students and faculty has been shown to have a direct impact on student’s engagement on campus and their academic self-efficacy (Komarraju, Musulkin, & Battacharya, 2010), thus implying that students of color could benefit from strong relationships with faculty. However, faculty are more likely to have lower expectations of minority students, interact with these students less frequently, and depend on racial stereotypes to develop perspectives on students (e.g., Jussim & Harbor, 2005, Trujillo, 1986, Jussim, Eccles, & Madon, 1996). Participants in this study were recruited from a mid-size Midwestern university from university-based organizations and direct contact with students in various campus locations. Experiences with microaggressions were assessed through a short answer survey, in which participants were asked to recount both a negative incident and a positive incident that involved a faculty member committing or responding to a microaggression. A Grounded Theory approach was used to analyze the data. The emergent themes from this study were categorized in terms of type of incident, proximal outcomes, distal outcomes. Relationships were also examined between the events and outcomes. Participants observed that white faculty did commit microaggressions in the classroom, involving stereotyping, dismissing derogatory comments made by other students, and treating participants differently than their white peers. These microaggressions were typically not noticed by the faculty themselves, and students often did not address them with faculty due to the faculty members’ power and influence on participants’ grades. However, participants experienced internal cognitive and emotional reactions that led to them feeling a loss of trust and respect for their faculty and institution. Students who experienced classroom microaggressions also experienced a negative impact on their academic performance, as they were less likely to attend class, participate, and seek out the faculty member for academic help after such incidents. These students also reported some positive experiences with other faculty, such as having discussions around diversity or being encouraged to be successful. Participants who experienced such positive interactions felt a stronger connection to faculty and reported that they were motivated and cared more about their coursework. These findings suggest that the interactions between faculty and students of color have an impact on students’ relationship with faculty and their academic performance, specifically when they are negative, race-related interactions such as microaggressions.

This study examines the potential of faculty at the community college to positively influence, or "heat up," student aspirations. With increasing emphasis on graduation and transfer rates in higher education, the importance of micro-level interactions that shape student aspiration has been neglected. To better understand how individuals within the institution, especially faculty, contribute to student aspirations, this study attempts to bridge the "cooling out" and "heating up" literature in the context of the modern community college by recognizing the role of the individual academic program. Applying organizational theory from a systems perspective, as well as the theories of Paolo Freire, the study examines the nature of student-faculty interactions that have the potential to contribute to student aspiration in the context of institutional limitations. The participants include students and faculty in three academic programs that have different approaches to student success within one urban community college. The case study involves a combination of qualitative approaches, including interviews and observations. The study inductively examines student-faculty interactions and their potential to contribute to student aspirations within three different academic programs. The most significant barriers to student success and increasing aspirations are found on the institutional level. These limitations, including bureaucratic confusion, advisement issues, remediation, variation in attendance policies, financial constraints, and lacking a cohesive institutional culture and commitment, have the potential to "cool out" student aspiration, as supported in the majority of the community college literature on this topic. However, the mezzo-level effects of programs and the micro-level practices of the individuals hold substantial potential in terms of "heating up" student aspiration. Programs vary in the degree to which they handle the institutional limitations. Programs that take an active role in mediating between the limiting institutional barriers and students provide a cushioning program-wide protection from the cooling out elements. The micro-level interactions between individual students and faculty also hold potential to heat up by helping students navigate the systematic confusion that seems characteristic of the community college. Therefore, this study suggests that there is hope for the community college in fulfilling its promise of educational opportunity. Macro-level institutional challenges, as well as larger societal inequalities, are substantial and pervasive at the community college and solutions are often limited by financial constraints. However, the programs and individuals within the community college hold promise. The study suggests that the roles of the program and the individual are instrumental in shaping student aspiration. / Urban Education

Beginning with the understanding that minority students are often underrepresented in STEM doctoral programs despite their growing proportions in the population, this study provides a description of selected minority doctoral students' experiences in STEM programs. Specifically, this study examines the influence financial support and relationships with faculty advisors and doctoral peers have on doctoral students' experiences and progress. Data for this research were obtained from 13 minority respondents enrolled during spring, summer, and fall 2009 and 73 majority respondents who provided some comparisons and contrasts. The participants were all Ph.D. students from several STEM programs at a research university in the Midwest. Findings from this study suggest that financial support of doctoral students through fellowships and research/teaching assistantships enables students to interact closely with their faculty and their peers and consequently become integrated into the social and academic systems of their programs. Further, through their experiences in teaching and research minority students report acquiring skills and competencies useful not only for graduate school success (e.g. time management; course reading; dissertation writing) but also for successful transition into their respective professions and careers. Funding takes a different form and plays a different role in shaping students' positive experiences in each of the three stages of doctoral study: fellowships during a student's transition year(s), teaching/research assistants during the middle years, and fellowships during the final year(s). Students reported that this sequence of funding supports successful transition into the doctoral program, development of academic and professional competencies during the middles years, and successful doctoral completion during the final year. Faculty-student relationships are important in socializing minority doctoral students into their disciplines and professions. Faculty advisors and mentors are especially important in developing students' academic competencies as well as in preparing them for their professions. In addition, faculty-student relationships characterized by faculty availability, approachability, interest in developing students' academic and professional competence, and support and encouragement are important, perhaps especially so in the absence of mentoring by faculty of color. Peer to peer interactions primarily offer academic combined with social support. Further, interactions and group dynamics among minority students and their transition into PWI doctoral programs seem to be affected by their undergraduate educational backgrounds.