Best Practices for Growing the STEM Pipeline for Women

In today's fast paced education system, a huge emphasis has been placed on increasing the number of women who want to enter college studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Many holistic interventions, particularly in engineering happening during the high school years, are already seeing results with college women investigating roles in engineering at a higher rate than in the past. However, the initial success they are experiencing in traditionally male-dominated STEM fields is not manifesting itself long term. It is clear that more strategies are needed to place women in the position to be more confident entering the workforce in all STEM fields especially engineering. This chapter will look at the innovative ways mentoring is being used during the course of a student's collegiate experience to keep women invested in the STEM fields and how more needs to be done in this area particularly for our minority women in order to grow the STEM pipeline permanently.

Leveraging Institutional Articulation Agreements to Support Collegiate Pathways for Black Males

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the importance of how articulation agreements between collaborating institutions influence departmental curriculum, retention strategies to support marginalized groups, and how they can be a mechanism to disrupt institutional racism in an effort to support Black male academic persistence. Partnerships among institutions can help foster strategic alignment for overall student success and impact marginalized groups. Chickering and Reiser argued that seven key factors related to environmental influences exercise dominant stimuli on student development. The key factors explored in this chapter are institutional objectives, student-faculty relationships, curriculum, teaching, friendships and student communities, student development programs and services, and integration of work and learning. Williams and Wood referenced that persistence research should not focus completely on the student's involvement within the institution, but also on the institution's role in assisting student outcomes, namely Black male students of color.

Dismantling Invisibility in Multiracial College Students

This study was designed to test Tinto's theory of college student integration by measuring the social and academic integration of multiracial students. Policymakers and public interest have increased pressure on higher education institutions to address low degree completion rates among historically underrepresented racial minority students, leading to a targeted shift to assess and address factors that facilitate or hinder minority college student persistence. The participants for the current study consisted of a convenience sample of college students (n=173) classified as seniors at a mid-sized public four-year institution in Texas. The researcher collected pertinent demographic data and used the Institutional Integration Scale-Revised (IIS-R) to measure social and academic integration. The results of the analyses suggested a statistically significant correlation between being multiracial and social integration, but no significant correlation between being multiracial and academic integration.

Reach Across Cultures

The purpose of this chapter is to suggest personal and academic practices that will encourage international student persistence in post-secondary institutions. International students who enroll in U.S. post-secondary institutions face barriers that may prevent persistence; therefore, faculty have a responsibility to exercise intercultural competence and to help international students overcome those barriers. These suggestions are derived from Marshall's phenomenological qualitative study in which successful global educational leaders from eight different states described their own personal and academic practices. Personal practices that led to intercultural competence of educational leaders included C.O.R.E. values: compassion, open communication, respect, and an ethnorelative attitude.

From Avoiding Bias to Social Justice

The demographics of U.S. colleges and universities continue to evolve and higher education is being called to reinvent itself in order to ensure that all students have high quality learning experiences. An equity-minded approach to assessment helps determine the effectiveness of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and programs as well as embodies practices and procedures that themselves are socially just. This text share many research-based practices that value, prioritize, and develop diversity, intercultural fluency, and equity in campus specific settings. This chapter describes the higher education and cultural context in which the equitable assessment conversation is taking place; reviews how research paradigms, methods, and culture impact assessment decisions and methods; describes a socially just assessment continuum; and offers tips for implementing equity-minded assessment.

Examining the Relationships and Differences of Early College High School Models

This study examined the impact of the early college model on first-year academic performance. The researcher surveyed students from a small-sized university who graduated high school between 2015-2018, lived off-campus, and were over the age of 18. The study found a moderate positive relationship, which was significant, between academic performance at the end of the early college program and students' academic performance at the end of the first year in college. However, the study did not find a significant difference in academic performance among the different early college models and did not find a significant difference between the academic performance of students who graduated from an early college program and those who did not. The results led the researcher to recommend further research that explore the difference between the different models of early college.

The 5M Approach

In this chapter, the authors present a multi-layered framework that can be used to guide students through intentional reflections. The 5M Approach is a model that suggests practices on how to challenge students to be culturally knowledgeable and responsible. This can be facilitated by having students look inward at self as well as outward at experiences and interactions. The 5M Approach is holistic and can be utilized as a tool in a variety of academic and experiential settings. In this chapter, the authors share how they have facilitated the stages during different student experiences such as study abroad, service-learning, peace and justice education, and more.

Education Abroad Co-Curricular Experiences That Result in Intercultural Responsive Leadership Growth

Simpson supported that The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) and their joint effort with the American Council on Education and the federal government have found that study abroad has a huge impact on a students' development as globally diversity-minded citizens. Study abroad improves many intellectual attitudes and skills. Collaboration between co-curricular involvements, diverse experiences, integrated learning experiences, intent study abroad, the first-year experience, and others are critical strategic initiatives that impact students' development and their global awareness.

Developing Intercultural Fluency Through Co-Curricular Programs

Intercultural competency is a skill that is not only necessary to live in an increasingly diverse and inter-connected world but also one that is highly prized by employers as well. For those who design effective ways to leverage the context of co-curricular experiences to create meaningful intercultural learning, this kind of learning is not always treated with the kind of complexity it deserves. Intercultural competency may be treated in dualistic terms regarding whether students “have it” or “do not have it.” This is true of many other learning outcomes as well. Students may demonstrate vastly different levels of intercultural understanding even as they intentionally pursue improvement with regard to their skill in this area. This chapter uses Bennet's Development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity as a framework for explaining variations in cultural skill both as a means of assessing a student's competency in this area and for planning their intercultural growth as they proceed through our programs and experiences.

Ten Schools in Six States

Despite an increase of access for Students of Color in higher education in the United States over the past 20 years, institutions continue to fail Black student populations as evidenced by sustained low graduation rates. This chapter examines ten institutions recognized by Harper and Simmons as being among the institutions that graduate a higher percentage of Black students when compared to their majority counterparts. Additional data were gathered via institutional websites, public reports, and interviews with administrators at various campuses. Graduation rates for Black students, institutional type, student affairs and academic programs, and campus-wide initiatives are discussed within each institution. An institutional understanding of barriers to graduating Students of Color was a key factor in Black student success, followed by responding to those barriers through institutional collaboration and programming, and an institutional appreciation of diversity, equity, and inclusion were also found to be common practices among each of these highlighted institutions.