Don't Forget About Us

Through narratives, this chapter explores the perspectives of three higher education professionals who served diverse student bodies during a pandemic. Detailing their experiences, the authors address efforts made to support underrepresented students during a pandemic. The effects of COVID-19 were vast and even more impactful for underrepresented students. The challenges of taking classes during a pandemic, combined with the known social challenges of 2020, made for an unforgettable period of time. This chapter addresses lessons learned, best practices, and suggestions for supporting students during a pandemic. The authors define underrepresented students as first-generation, LGBT+, low-income, and ethnic/racial minority students.

Helping Students FIG-ure It Out: A Large-Scale Study of Freshmen Interest Groups and Student Success

Freshman seminars are a ubiquitous offering in higher education, but they have not been evaluated using matched comparisons with data at scale. In this work, we use transcript data on over 76,000 students to examine the impact of first-year interest groups (FIGs) on student graduation and retention. We first apply propensity score matching on course-level data to account for selection bias. We find that graduation and re-enrollment rates for FIG students were higher than non-FIG students, an effect that was more pronounced for self-identified underrepresented racial minority students. We then employ topic modeling to analyze survey responses from over 12,500 FIG students to find that social aspects of FIGs were most beneficial to students. Interestingly, references to social aspects were not disproportionately present in the responses of self-identified underrepresented racial minority students.

Am I a Science Person? A Strong Science Identity Bolsters Minority Students’ Sense of Belonging and Performance in College

Identifying as a “science person” is predictive of science success, but the mechanisms involved are not well-understood. We hypothesized that science identity predicts success because it fosters a sense of belonging in science classrooms. Thus, science identity should be particularly important for first-generation and racial-minority students, who may harbor doubts about belonging in science. Two field studies in college Introductory Biology classes ( Ns = 368, 639) supported these hypotheses. A strong science identity predicted higher grades, particularly for minority students. Also consistent with hypotheses, Study 2 found that self-reported belonging in college mediated the relationship between science identity and performance. Furthermore, a social belonging manipulation eliminated the relationship between science identity and performance among minority students. These results support the idea that a strong science identity is particularly beneficial for minority students because it bolsters belonging in science courses. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Am I a Science Person? A Strong Science Identity Bolsters Minority Students’ Sense of Belonging and Performance in College

Identifying as a “science person” is predictive of science success, but the mechanisms involved are not well-understood. We hypothesized that science identity predicts success because it fosters a sense of belonging in science classrooms. Thus, science identity should be particularly important for first-generation and racial-minority students, who may harbor doubts about belonging in science. Two field studies in college Introductory Biology classes (Ns=368; 639) supported these hypotheses. A strong science identity predicted higher grades, particularly for minority students. Also consistent with hypotheses, Study 2 found that self-reported belonging in college mediated the relationship between science identity and performance. Furthermore, a social belonging manipulation eliminated the relationship between science identity and performance among minority students. These results support the idea that a strong science identity is particularly beneficial for minority students because it bolsters belonging in science courses.

I Just Don’t Want to Be Judged: Cultural Capital’s Impact on Student Plagiarism

This research explores how college students’ broader educational histories affect their decisions to plagiarize. While research typically categorizes plagiarism as intentional or unintentional, explanations revealed in interviews of first-generation, working-class, and/or racial minority students suggests that these typologies inadequately capture the complex reasons some students express for plagiarizing. Specifically, students in this study plagiarize primarily because they are concerned that not only are their vocabulary and writing skills subpar, but that they do not fit into the college student role. Their explanations are situated within Bourdieu’s framework of cultural capital, whereby students’ decisions to plagiarize are rooted in the outcomes stemming from educational practices that reinforce class hierarchies. Consequently, students’ plagiarism experiences are contextualized within their broader educational histories rather than limited to the immediate circumstances surrounding their academic dishonesty.

Race and Exercise Engagement: Investigating the High-Calorie-Burning Activities of White and Black Collegiate Women

Previous research has documented the comprehensive health benefits of regular physical activity. However, just over a third of Black women report meeting the suggested amount of physical activity per week. Research also indicates that collegiate emerging adults often reduce their physical activity as well. Given that Black collegiate women represent the intersection of two groups that report a reduction in physical activity, the primary purpose of this descriptive study was to examine whether or not the rate of engagement in high-calorie-burning (HCB) activity by collegiate females differed by race. A secondary purpose was to explore how the chronic stress of racism for Black women was related to their HCB activity. Three hundred and eighty-three collegiate females between the ages of 18 and 25 (M = 19.67, SD = 1.45) participated; (61.1% [n = 234] self-identified as White, while the remaining 38.9% [n = 149] self-identified as Black). All eligible participants took a 10–15 min anonymous online survey. Results from a chi-squared analysis (χ2 [1] = 8.40, p = .004) revealed that White collegiate women (70.3%) were more likely to report participation in weekly HCB activity than Black collegiate women (55.7%). Additional analyses also suggested that chronic experience with racism (F [1, 147] = 5.13, p = .03) was associated with more frequent HCB activity for the Black women sampled. Campus health promotion campaigns should not overlook how the experience of race may shape health behaviors for their racial minority students and sustain emerging health disparities.