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Although our society has made college more universal through vastly increased access to postsecondary education, college completion has stagnated, and the return on a college degree varies by field of study. Therefore, gaining admission to college – even a four-year college – is no longer a guaranteed ticket to social mobility. As colleges and universities attract and enroll more diverse populations of students, the barriers to student success once enrolled remain prominent concerns. To explore stratification processes regarding student success, choice of major, and completion, interviews were conducted with 41 low-income students at a large research university. These interviews illustrate the ways that students’ aspirations are lowered after entering college and how the cooling-out process functions within STEM majors. The primary catalyst facilitating the lowering of student aspirations and migration out of STEM majors was negative experiences in introductory math and science courses. Students responded to this catalyst by either lowering their aspirations or changing their behavior to improve performance in those courses. Students who were able to persist in STEM majors had a family member or mentor who helped them to frame the problem as a reflection of their behavior, not their innate ability, and to strategize behavioral changes. Institutional agents played both the role of support which helped some students maintain their aspirations and the role of steering students out of STEM illustrating the importance of the messages we send as advisors, student affairs professionals, or faculty. These findings demonstrate the ways in which the cooling-out process works in four-year institutions to perpetuate structures of opportunity within degree attainment and access to elite careers.

Supplemental Instructions (SIs) were introduced into the San Francisco State University College of Science & Engineering curriculum in 1999. The goal was to improve student performance and retention and to decrease the time to degree in STEM majors. While for the most part we followed the structure and activities as developed by the International Center for Supplemental Instruction at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, we discovered several variations that significantly improved our outcomes. First and foremost, we created SI courses that require attendance, which results in higher students’ performance outcomes compared to drop-in options. Second, at SFSU the SI courses are led by pairs of undergraduate student facilitators (who are all STEM majors) trained in active learning strategies. Each year, more than half of our facilitators return to teach for another year. Thus, each section has a returning “experienced” facilitator who works with a new “novice” facilitator. Third, the SI courses were created with a distinct course prefix and listed as courses that generate revenue and make data access available for comparison studies. Results are presented that compare SI impact by gender and with groups underrepresented in STEM disciplines.

This chapter explores how participating in campus leadership at HBCUs positively affects African American college student experiences. A review of existing research about the benefits of leadership involvement for African American students is followed by a discussion of student leadership at HBCUs. Next, motivations for being involved as leaders are discussed and described. The chapter concludes with recommendations for bolstering student motivations and involvement outcomes, as well as ways to increase African American student leadership at HBCUs. Specifically, this chapter is informed by empirical data gathered during in-depth focus groups with 13 African American student leaders (7 males, 6 women) who occupied leadership roles at their HBCU institutions. Two emergent themes are discussed: (1) playing the game, which spoke to the development of their leadership competencies; and (2) getting something out of it, which focused on building the leadership capital afforded to them as a result of their leadership. Recommendations for bolstering motivations and involvement outcomes for Black leader collegians are described in detail at the end of the chapter to provide insight about best practices of support for this student demographic.

Studies of inequality in higher education on both undergraduate and graduate levels have rarely examined experiences of Asians and Pacific Islanders (APIs). In this study, we focus on the experiences and outcomes of API students in doctoral education. More specifically, we examine socialization experiences and research productivity of three groups of students: domestic API, international API, and domestic white students. The results, based on a national cohort of PhD students in biology, reveal notable differences in experiences and outcomes of domestic and international API students. Although variation in socialization experiences explains differences in research productivity in the first year, that is not the case in the second year of doctoral study. In the second year, international API students have publication productivity comparable to their white peers, despite less favorable socialization experiences. Domestic API students, however, have lower research productivity than their white peers, even though they have comparable socialization experiences. Given the presumption of APIs’ success, especially in the STEM fields, findings for domestic API students are surprising and not aligned with the model minority stereotype. Contributions to research on API students, doctoral education, and socialization theory are discussed.

At an academic digital library of a graduate business school in Berlin, Germany, the librarian reflects on the “new normal” following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its increased faculty and student engagement with digital resources and heightened awareness of and activity in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

This paper details the concepts and practices of an academic library that is a center for information resources and services, as well as a contact point for DEI advocacy and student conflict mediation. The librarian is the only information professional at the school, and this is a reflective essay written from her perspective.

This case study suggests that a librarian cross-trained as a conflict mediator or coach can offer both information literacy and support services to further the development of an inclusive campus environment. Educators in both roles build students’ competence and confidence, focus on their achievements and progress and contribute to their sense of belonging. Combining these activities in a central institution builds on the strengths of both disciplines and is consistent with inclusion as a core principle of librarianship.

The findings will be useful for librarians wishing to expand their existing mandate to provide inclusive information access and services to include DEI initiatives.

Theoretical models of attrition have failed to address the interwoven factors from the perspective of undergraduate students that influence their decision to drop out. The purpose of this paper is to unravel these complexities using a qualitative phenomenological approach to gain systematic descriptions of the experience of non-completion.

Tinto’s (2004) and Bean and Metzner’s (1985) models serve as the theoretical construct for the study’s design and analysis. In-depth interviews were conducted with 41 students who discontinued studies at universities in the United Arab Emirates, to understand the situations that led them to drop out of university and how they experienced this event in their lives.

Several issues were identified as contributing factors for dropping out that are consistent with those found in the international literature. Additional issues were more gender or culture specific and, to some extent, represented the differences that signal a social development that is in a transitional stage. The findings revealed that institutional factors, poor pre-college preparation, environmental factors (work-education conflict), early marriage responsibilities, well-paid job opportunities and financial concerns were most influential.

Despite the limitations of relying on a small sample to generalize findings, the rich detail of this inductive study has added to the understanding of the dropout phenomenon in a new context.

The paper recommends both remedial and early intervention strategies to be undertaken by the Ministry of Education and universities. Remedial strategies include re-examining the desired standard of English as a condition for admission and adjusting the grading system. Early intervention measures that accommodate the needs of at-risk students are also proposed. At local, regional and international levels, higher education should be freed from commodification and inflated fees.

The paper presents a significant departure from the largely North American and European literature on the university dropout, by offering a broader knowledge of this phenomenon in another regional and national context.

Research has shown that employee commitment is an important factor in performance. Research into student commitment in the university context is less common and only few studies explore the different components and foci of commitment. The purpose of this paper is to examine the meaning of students’ commitment in the university context.

Based on a survey of 530 students, the results confirmed that, similar to the work context, different components and foci of commitment exist.

Commitment to the university is primarily positively related to extra-role performance. Commitment to the study subject is positively related to both in-role and extra-role performance. Affective commitment to the university shows the strongest relationship with extra-role performance. However, there is a potential conflict between the two types of performance. The relationship between affective commitment to the university and extra-role performance decreases for students with a high intention to study efficiently as an indicator of in-role performance.

The paper concludes that universities should strive to improve their students’ commitment, especially affective commitment to encourage a balance of both in-role and extra-role performance.

This study looks into different foci and components of commitment and the potential for conflict for students between in-role and extra-role performance. The study has shown that commitment to the university and to the study subject likely enhances students’ in-role and extra-role performance; both of which are important to numerous stakeholders in the education context. As in other contexts, affective commitment has been shown to be the most powerful predictor of performance. This knowledge can help universities target their resources when trying to foster student commitment. However, because students might feel that extra-role performance is in conflict with in-role performance, universities might want to emphasize the benefits of both types of performance.

Argues that sexual harassment is no longer just a personal matter, as the increase in lawsuits against firms in the USA shows; employers have an obligation to provide a safe environment, or they will suffer the consequences, whether they are aware of the harassment or not. Recommends that employers should first gain a clear understanding of the definition of sexual harassment, of its forms and origins, of who is most commonly harassed and who the harassers are, before going on to why it occurs, and how to handle it. Further suggests that employers design a strong policy against sexual harassment, communicate it to all employees, and train employees – workers must realize that their own views and values are not those of their co‐workers and that they must respect one another.

This chapter explores the complexity of issues surrounding Black males and athletics in higher education. Multiple studies over the past decade and a half have depicted an oppositional relationship between athletics and academic achievement. Research suggests that media imagery, stereotyping, and other non-academic influences on African American males who participate in intercollegiate athletics tend to result in an over-identification with professional athletes, sports, and perceptions of great value associated with physical performance activities and a simultaneous under-identification with academic performance, scholarly identity, and student development. These pressures ultimately limit career options outside of athletics. In an effort to combat these issues, Beyond the Game™ (BTG) Program, a program described in this chapter that was developed in Wisconsin’s Equity and Inclusion Laboratory (Wei LAB) and implemented at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, seeks to harness curricular, co-curricular, and on-the-field leadership training to strategically develop and support post-graduation options. This comprehensive, multi-faceted program directly confronts the challenges student-athletes face when they exhaust their eligibility status but have yet to identify viable career alternatives to professional sports. This chapter explores the main tenants of the program, established with a group of Division 1 NCAA-affiliated college athletes as participants.