In Black America; Heart Disease In The African American Community, Part 2

Sorry I am ミザいる Shake your hands Music Music From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. Another thing that is driving this attention, of course, on both the first and the outgoing transition is the enormous financial stakes of the success of our students. Now I know all of you know about the enhanced revenue that comes your way as a result of enhancing first the second year, but you may not be fully aware or not thought through the enormous financial consequences of paying more attention to your seniors.

I read recently the report of an economist calculation that between now and the year in 2040 there is up for grabs the redistribution of some ten trillion dollars that are currently available for distribution through inheritance and you better believe your campus development officers know about that pot up there in the sky. Dr. John Ingardner, founder and director of National Resource Center for Freshman New Experience Students, Transition University of South Carolina. Last November, Florida and M. University held its 12th National Higher Education Conference on Student Retention in New Orleans. The conference brought together university and college administrators, counselors, faculty, staff and students to exchange information and ideas that influence factors on the retention

of African-American students in higher education. The first conference held in 1985 was originally convened for staff members at historically black colleges and universities regarding the declining participation of African-American students in higher education. Throughout the years the conference has invited a form to address those concerns. I'm John L. Hanson Jr. and welcome to another edition of in black America. On this week's program, retaining black freshmen students to graduating seniors with Dr. John Ingardner, part two in black America. The financial impact of paying more attention to our departing students is at least in my case, almost beyond my capacity to imagine.

So what we need to do in part then in the senior year transition is to begin to cultivate our alumni before they leave to create student alumni organizations prior to commencement, to give students a sense of ownership and attachment and preparation for leadership roles as alumni before they leave. But of course, further enhances the kind of commitment that my kind and producer Janice described to me personally up here as one of the variables that got her through college. This notion of being committed to a set of goals and becoming an active alumnus is one of those appropriate goals. In 1983, Dr. Kanita A. Ford then directed the Title III program at Florida A&M University devised a special model for institutional strategies to increase student retention. The research led her to conclude that although many were concerned regarding African-American

student retention, she couldn't identify a national form that addressed a problem. Two years later, the first conference was held at Disney World, Florida. Last November in New Orleans, the 12th National Conference was held. The conference thing was entitled Retentional Lonely Educational Continuum, Kenny Garden to Doctorate. Dr. John N. Gardner, one of this year's keynote speakers, currently served at the Associate Vice Provost for Regional Campuses and Continuing Education at the University of South Carolina. He is also a student retention specialist and scholar of the American freshman and senior year reform movement. This week, we conclude Dr. Gardner's address. What are the differences between students with high versus low graduation rates and usually what you're looking at are the differences between students of different ethnic descriptors. In my case, for example, we have done studies of the different graduation rates of black

versus white students at the University of South Carolina. But what we found most useful in terms of understanding what is needed to increase the retention of black students was to do a study of the characteristics of black graduates versus the characteristics of our black students who attended but did not graduate. That is where the most meaningful distinctions we found are drawn. What makes one successful black student on my campus as opposed to one who is not successful? And on your campus, I would urge you to ask, we found that there were a number of striking statistically significant differences between black students who graduated and those who attended but didn't. First of all, a student who lived on a campus, in this case of black student who lived on our campus, was much more likely to graduate than a student who lived off campus.

If you have the opportunity on your campus to provide residential accommodations, you need to do everything in your power to make that residential experience accessible, affordable, and enticing for your black students. We have found just last year that the retention rate of University of South Carolina students who live on campus and who take University 101 in the first term is exactly double that of students who live off campus and who do not take the freshman seminar. 200% greater. Now knowing that then, what we want to do through every communication organ possible, through every process we can to manipulate the decision making of entering college students, we want to say to students, live on campus and take the freshman seminar. We're not sure why it works, call it magic if you want, but our data would suggest that

it works. So the first difference that we found in our graduates versus non-graduates was that the black students who lived on campus, much higher graduation rates. Secondly, and profoundly disturbing to me, but not surprising to many of you, we found that the black students who had a black roommate had higher graduation rates. Now just think about that, ladies and gentlemen. In my case, I've had to think about it based on my own college experience. When I was a sophomore, I met a student in a political science class who'd come all the way to rural southern Ohio from Liberia to be a pre-law student. He knew more about the American governmental system than I did. I admired him. I thought he'd be an interesting guy to live with. I talked to him about it. He and I submitted our roommate requests together and it was denied. And I appealed it. I went all the way to the Chief Student Affairs Office, or this was in 1963, ladies and gentlemen.

And I finally got an honest explanation that it was not the policy of this college to house together persons of different races. Now I'd had two years of a liberal arts education. I knew racism when I heard of it, but I thought, what am I going to do about that? I'm a relatively powerless sophomore. Oh yeah, watch me. I went to the college library and with the assistance of a very unassuming looking librarian, I went to the government document section where subversive that she was, she helped me find a copy of the act of Congress that had loaned that college the money to build that residence hall in which I wanted to live with this young man. And lo and behold, there in the language was a clause that restricted the borrower from practicing any form of discrimination on penalty of having to repay that money. Should it be found to be in violation of the conditions of the loan? Now what do you think I did, huh?

Yeah, right. I made a copy of that. We had photocopying then and I made an appointment with the president. I know the earth was just warming then, but I made an appointment with my president. I put on a suit. I went to see him. I informed him that his dean of students was practicing racial discrimination and that we were in violation of the conditions that enabled his college, my college, the borrower of that money. And what do you think happened? I got my roommate, okay? Now I have a personal built in bias, a prejudice, if you will, that in this case is based on experience that positive learning experiences occur when people of significant differences live together. It has been very difficult for me to accept the evidence that it may be in the best interests of my students at the University of South Carolina to live with people who are more like them when they walk in the door. It's been a bitter pill for me as well, but that's something we learned. We would never have known had we not asked the question. So what we have to develop then are housing policies that make it possible for students

without the institution practicing discrimination to make suggestions, which are going to be most conducive to their success. And that's very difficult to do, seeing as less than 3% of our faculty are African-American. You really have to hunt for them. But the students who had at least one professor of the same ethnicity, low and behold at higher graduation rates, and similarly, students who had joined a group that had, as its purpose, the support of African-American students, groups like the social fraternities, the campus chapter of NACP, the campus chapter of African-American students, they had higher graduation rates. Then a student who had not joined such a group. Well, what is that confirmed for us? It confirms all the literature that most of you have read about. The group affiliation, joining, joiners are stayers. It's a critical variable in enhanced retention.

We also found that students were more likely to graduate if they had been a member of a group that had, as a faculty or staff advisor, a person of their own ethnicity. Amazing. Again, that's why the few minority faculty that we have are token to death. They're on every committee. They're advising everything. That's why it's very difficult for many of them to earn tenure. It's not a fair system, but it's a system, apparently, that does promote success in greater degrees of these African-American students. We also found that the students who graduated reported higher levels of satisfaction with what researchers have come to call, quote, unquote, a critical mass. Now, critical mass basically means, from a student perspective, having a sufficient number of other students, quote, like me, on campus with me, for me to interact with, particularly for social purposes.

It also means having a community infrastructure of barbers and beauticians and churches and merchants who provide the services and support that these students need and want. Our students are more likely to have that in an urban environments where my campus is found than in many other communities in America, where those opportunities do not exist. Finally, and I say this just to be factually accurate and not as a commercial, it came as no surprise that African-American students who had taken the freshman seminar, University 101. Much more likely to graduate. Now, a few years later, the University of South Carolina was one of nine other institutions that were identified in a federally funded United States Department of Education study. They looked at nine institutions that the department had found had been successful in retaining and graduating minority and disadvantaged students.

These institutions were DePaul and Chicago, Florida, A&M. Some of you have heard about that. You better. I'll post for this afternoon in this week, Rutgers University in New Brunswick, St. John's in New York, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of South Carolina, the original USC, by the way, I want you to know. The University of Texas at El Paso, the University of Virginia, and the University of Washington. And this study looked at what were the common essential characteristics, not of the students, but this time, what are the common characteristics of an institution that promotes retention of its minority and disadvantaged students? And this is what was found. First of all, the existence of a multifaceted approach to retention, including comprehensive support services, collegiate and pre-collegiate assistance, adequate financial aid packages, follow through support that's consistent with the theme of this conference this year of

planitas, namely follow-up support from first matriculation through graduation to entry to the workforce and graduate school, not just for that first year. In addition, a high-level institutional commitment to the retention initiatives, regular internal systematic data collection, to know what we're doing, how and why, what's working. In addition, was found a carefully stated policy or mission statement, which addresses the issue of minority student retention. In other words, this subject has been incorporated and embedded into the basic mission of the institution. In addition, was found retention administrators who have both prominence within the institutional hierarchy, I'd like to think I'm in that category, and autonomy to make significant budget and staffing decisions. In addition, these nine institutions were found who have had an institutional commitment

to increasing the number of minority faculty and staff, a qualified and dedicated cohort of staff members at every level who would address this issue of minority student retention, and retention efforts that were broken down and distributed to the various units and levels of the institution and not solely concentrated at the top or centrally. It's very apparent that those institutions that are the most successful with retention are those where this is embedded into the culture where the institution really lives and adds in its day in day out rank and file departments, particularly the academic departments. And finally, another structural characteristics was the existence of regular campus wide forums on multicultural or diversity issues, which were relevant to the students that we were attempting to serve.

Are at another illustration of the principles that I want to stress here today is the concept of the freshman seminar. The freshman seminar has been around since 1882. Nothing new over a century of experience now would these courses that exist as of the last national survey that was done by the Center, which I have the privilege of directing at the University of South Carolina, a group called the National Resource Center for the freshman year experience in students and transition. We survey all colleges and universities every three years to ascertain the development of freshman seminars. Our most recent survey found that 72 percent of the accredited colleges and universities in this country have something called the freshman seminar and new student seminar, college success seminar. They call them different things, but it's the same generic animal. And we have also devoted many of the resources of our center to collecting empirical evidence on the outcomes for students who participate in these courses.

And recently we're working to study what are the outcomes for the faculty and the staff who participate in these courses. Does it influence and change them in any way? And what has been widely found and reported is that students who participate, whether it's on an elective or a compelled basis, in freshman seminars, have much higher persistence rates on many campuses than students who do not. So as a result of looking, and in my own personal experience, I've been on over 300 campuses. I've talked with educators from hundreds more campuses around the globe because this subject of clean as conference is an international concern. And I think there are certain really fundamental principles that explain and will promote enhanced student persistence of black and other students as well. And I've told you some of them already, I want to identify just a few additional ones. First of all, I think if you want to help your students, you've got to go beyond blaming

the victim. We went through a period in the late 80s of unprecedented student bashing. We blamed the students for just about everything, including on some campuses for the fact that somewhere between a quarter and a third of them were raped or subject to sexual assault while they were on campus. We have to end this blaming the victim kind of thinking. It doesn't offer a serious, socially scientific, valid explanation for anything. We have chosen for national political reasons for the past 31 years to admit virtually all covers who have a pulse and who want to go to college in this country, to at least give them an initial opportunity. We have then attempted then to admit into America's colleges, students for whom the institutions were never designed in the first place. I mean, let's be very clear about this. The great challenge to promoting success of black students is to transform the institutions

that were originally designed to accommodate and transform people like me. Those colleges were designed for and by the kind of person I used to be. I used to be a New England affluent, property owning, Protestant, I'm still a male. That is the descriptors of those for whom college was designed. Everybody else is a relatively recent comer. We could not possibly have expected to admit this huge cohort of students who were not for whom college was designed and not experience initially, you know, in the first 30 years of what I hope will be an experiment in perpetuity and therefore no longer an experiment. We would have had to have expect unacceptable levels of failure. But to blame the students, to hold the students entirely responsible for this, I think is inappropriate.

We have only to look at the extraordinary success of many of the programs for which you have been responsible. Our current Trio program, the special services component at the University of South Carolina, retains over 90% of its first year students. It has a retention rate equivalent to our Honors College, all right? The evidence is out there. So I think one of the first things we have to do is get beyond blaming the victim. We have to instead believe in the student. We have to believe that a student's past does not necessarily preclude him or her from success in the present, let alone the future. We have to make positive predictions of students, you know, that the whole culture of American higher education was designed to make negative predictions of entering college students. Until very recently, it was the custom on every campus in America to welcome new students with a speech that went like this.

Look to the left and look to the right and the two you just looked at won't be there when somehow you graduate, all right? In other words, as a culture, we were proud of and invested in failure. We measured our quality by our wash out, drop out, flunk out, kick out, discourage rate. And you know what? For several decades, we made automobiles the same way. And we've seen a revolution in the quality movement. We can't tolerate to make our commercial products in that fashion any longer. And I don't believe we can tolerate it in our educational institutions either. Thus what's called for in enhancing student retention is a fundamental attention to the structures of how American colleges are organized, especially in the first year. In addition, we know that if you pay a lot of high quality resource intensive attention to the quality of academic advising, you're going to receive enhanced retention as a

result of that. We know if you put more resources into orientation, that will enhance retention. I am constantly amazed and I'll validate this here this afternoon at how many institutions still do not require orientation of all students. I'm not talking about an orientation course. I'm talking about just orientation. You know, many of us, we will take the students time, their money, their efforts, their hopes, their dreams, their aspirations, but we will not require them to go through orientation. Even though the evidence is very powerful that students who go through orientation stay in college longer than students who don't. How many of you require your students to go through some kind of orientation? You will not let them pay money. You will not take their money if you don't orient them. Let me see the hands of a few brave ones. Well, it's still a minority. Shameful to think we take their money and we don't require them to be orientated. I mean, what if the United States government had said to me, we want your son, we'll take

you in the United States Air Force, but we won't train you. We won't teach you how to survive something called yet not, okay? So what they did instead was they gave me a wonderful drill sergeant who said there are three ways to do things. There's a right way and a wrong way and the Air Force way. If you want to survive yet not, you're going to forget the first two and learn the third. And you know what, that's what we do in university 101 at the University of South Carolina. We say there's a right way and a wrong way and the Carolina way and you better forget the first two. And if you let us teach you the third, you're going to be around when the rest of us graduate. All right? So you have to teach the culture very intentionally. We know the importance of student to student interaction. That has been found in the most recent research in the past decade on the so-called value added measurements of the outcomes of college to be the single greatest influence on student change and learning, the extent to which students interact with other students.

Knowing that, if you want to increase student persistence, I think probably the single most important thing to do is to incorporate into your black student retention programs outstanding undergraduate students who do increasingly more of the teaching advising counseling. We have transformed our freshman seminar at the University of South Carolina in the past four years by the incorporation of outstanding undergraduate peer leaders. We have students who have a 3.5 or better GPR and who have been elected or appointed as some student leadership role. So they're successful in the co-curriculum and the co-curriculum. They're co-teaching our freshman seminar. We would never go back to having those courses not taught with the assistance of a student leader. They have enormous influence on their peers. The literature has achieved complete consensus about the impact of this on student behavior and outcomes.

So I would urge you, whatever you're doing, you need to invest more energy in this concept of the peer leader. Similarly, we've found in the past decade that the second greatest influence on student success and learning and change during college is the extent to which students interact with faculty, especially that interaction outside of class. So that has got to become a critical variable in your student retention program. We've also learned through 30 years of research on student retention that the more you increase, the time students spend on campus, the energy that they direct towards the campus through joining groups, attending co-curricular activities, working in groups, participating in study groups, doing group assignments as opposed to loan ranger individual assignments that the more likely they are to persist. That's why one of the most successful retention initiatives is a program that's been replicated on about 400 campuses. I'm sure many of you have it. We've been attempting to spread this gospel through our center. It's a concept that was developed at the University of Missouri, Kansas City called Supplemental

Instruction. How many of you are using supplemental instruction? Best things in sliced bread. What's it doing? It's increasing the faculty impact on students outside of class by the selection and training of outstanding undergraduates who lead these supplemental instruction sessions. If you don't know about supplemental instruction, we've got a wonderful monograph to be happy to tell you all about it. It embodies all the retention principles that I've been talking about. We've learned from the research of Vincent Tinto and others about a theory called academic and social integration, which basically says that the college campuses in this country that have high rates of dropout are very similar to the societies, the countries in this world that sadly have the highest rates of suicide. Namely, the similarity is dropout in suicide in both cases where you get low levels of what's called integration. Integration means the being a member of a small primary, personal, powerful support group where you get recognition, affirmation, attention, support, assistance, etc.

Dr. John N. Gardner, if you have a question and comment or suggestions asked your future in Black America programs, write us. Also let us know what radio station you heard us over. I would like to thank Florida A&M University for their assistance in the production of this program. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for IBA Technicoproduce of Cliff Hargrove, I'm John El Hansen, Jr. Thank you for joining us today and please join us again next week. The set copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. That's in Black America cassettes, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. In the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network.

I'm John El Hansen, Jr. Join me this week on in Black America. Departing students who are the most successful are students who tell us that in a senior year experience they've had some kind of intentional intervention by the institution. Retaining Black freshmen students are graduating seniors with Dr. John N. Gardner, part 2 this week on in Black America.