Monday, March 2, 1998
Intercollegiate forums at UCLA discuss retention of
minorities
DIVERSITY: Dropout rates among underrepresented students stump
educators
By George Sweeney
Daily Bruin Contributor
With the advent of Proposition 209 and similar legislation
throughout the country, race and ethnicity can no longer be used as
criteria for admissions policy at a growing number of American
universities.
As a result, some educators feel new ways need to be found to
level the collegiate playing field.
Educators from public universities and community colleges all
over the country met at Covel Commons on Thursday and Friday to
discuss ways to allow disadvantaged students opportunities to learn
in a university setting.
Attendees focused on ways to halt or slow dropout rates amongst
incoming freshman and transfer students.
The majority of these dropouts were amongst underrepresented
minorities and low-income students, making it a particular concern
at the conference.
In the past, universities have dealt with this problem by
attempting to bring these students up to the academic level of
their more privileged counterparts. But that has changed in the
last few years as retention programs, like UCLA’s Academic
Advancement Program (AAP), has raised their goals even higher.
"We, at UCLA and AAP, have undergone an ideological shift from
remediation to academic excellence," said C. Adolfo Bermeo, AAP
director.
The goal of UCLA’s retention programs now is "to emphasize going
to graduate school instead of catching up" for these disadvantaged
students.
"We need to show (all students) that we respect their skills,"
said Claude Steele, a professor of psychology at Stanford
University, "and we take their prospects seriously."
According to speakers at the conference, the best way to
increase students’ sense of worth is to increase their
participation in their academic curriculum and to integrate them
into the overall social atmosphere of the university.
Sylvia Hurtado, an associate professor in the school of
education at the University of Michigan, discussed the ways that
racial tension and diversity impact a student’s transition from
high school to college.
In areas where racial tension is high, minority students have a
low attachment to the university, and a lowered sense of
belonging.
Hurtado pointed out that students tended to succeed at greater
rates when they felt an attachment to their respective academic
institutions.
Preconceived stereotypes, as well as the overall racial tension
at the university, affect a student’s ability to succeed.
According to Steele’s research, a student’s self image
profoundly effects their academic performance. In one study, Steele
and his colleagues gave a math test on the "outer margins" of the
students’ ability.
Results indicated that the difficulty of the test caused a
perceived "group-based limitation" to impose itself upon the female
students, causing them to score 3 times worse as a whole than the
male students.
However, when the stereotype that females did worse in math than
males was lifted, the females showed a dramatic increase on like
tests.
The study indicated that when neither male nor female was aware
of the math stereotype, the scores evened out, meaning the male
students’ scores went down as well.
Steele maintained that the female student places a psychological
boundary on herself when put under high stress.
"When the stereotype is on, the students become more cautious
and begin to second-guess themselves," he said, adding they tend to
feel that they are alone in their plight.
This is what Steel calls "pluralistic ignorance," or the feeling
that your social group experiences these problems in isolation,
such as an overall female inability to do math. This loneliness is
detrimental to student success and consequently lowers retention
rates.
Vincent Tinto, a professor in the school of education at
Syracuse University, said "that students suffer in isolation."
As a result, Tinto suggested that universities and colleges
create collaborative and cooperative learning environments for
students.
Tinto used the New Student House at La Guardia Community College
as an example of these environments. At La Guardia, students take
any four of six basic reading and writing courses during their
freshman year.
In Tinto’s study of educational methods at La Guardia, one group
used collaborative learning techniques in individual class meetings
and in groups that continue throughout the life of coursework.
These students were compared to a control group who used more
traditional methods.
In addition, the students used theatre presentation, role
playing and computers in order to develop their writing, reading
and presentation skills.
"The groups which developed within the classroom extended beyond
it," Tinto found, "providing support which students saw as
influencing their desire to continue college, despite the many
challenges they faced."
The students in the experimental group had higher pass rates in
all but one of the classes in the six course unit, as well as
higher occurrences of As and Bs in all but two of the classes.
The data indicates that those within the cooperative learning
environments actually learned better and consequently had lower
dropout rates.
As Tinto said, "Students who learn, stay and persist."
UCLA is also undergoing changes in the way that introductory
courses are being implemented for first-year students.
Like the University of Michigan, UCLA is considering a new
general education proposal that will bring learning atmosphere and
even freshman seminars to the dorms.
The hope seems to be, as Hurtado put it, to "integrate social
life with the class life of the students" at the university.
According to Hurtado, a diverse university can impact all
students – not just underrepresented ones – positively. In a
well-integrated and diverse environment, students can learn
acceptance of other people, tolerance, cultural identification,
advanced group skills and leadership.
As well as social skills, these programs advance students’
perspective skills, improve their cognitive complexity and their
ability to understand the networks that underscore society, Hurtado
said.
But according to those who spoke at the conference, the only way
to accomplish these gains is for all students to be incorporated
into the learning environment.
"Diverse learning means that you can’t just bring minorities to
the table," Tinto said. "It means that everybody has to be at the
table."
DAVE HILL
Juan Franciso Lara speaks at the AAP retention conference.