Higher Education: Handbook Of Theory And Research: Volume 36 [36, 1 ed.] 3030440060, 9783030440060, 3030440087, 9783030440084, 9783030440077

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
About the Editor
About the Associate Editors
Reviewers
Contributors
1 Forward March: Living an Academic Life
Introduction
Part I: Constructing an Academic Life
Preparation of Myself
Catholic Ideas
Being Irish-American
Middle-Class Privilege and Safety
Forging a Gay Identity
Preparation of My Academic Self
On Reading
On Writing
On Puzzles
On Listening
On Solitary Activities
Coming Out/AIDS/Barry
Preparation of My Intellectual Self
Pine Street Inn
Peace Corps Morocco
Fort Berthold Community College and the Three Affiliated Tribes
Harvard and Stanford
Developing My Academic Self
The National Center
Penn State University
University of Southern California
International
ASHE/AERA
Friendships
The Development of My Mature Self
Part II: Organizing Ideas for an Academic Life
Understanding Culture in Organizations
The Enduring Challenge of Equity
On Theory, Method, and Writing
Advancing Democracy and Fighting Fascism
Conclusion
References
2 Reforming Transitions from High School to Higher Education
Introduction
Factors Contributing to Lack of Academic Preparation for College Coursework
Chapter Overview
Overview of Early Assessment and Underlying Conceptual Frameworks
Impacts and Implementation of Early Assessment Policies
Early Assessment Impacts on College Enrollment
Early Assessment Impacts on First Year Coursetaking
Early Assessment Impacts on Longer-Term Postsecondary Outcomes
Implementation of Early Assessment
Overview of Transition Courses and Underlying Conceptual Frameworks
Impacts and Implementation of Transition Courses
Transition Course Impacts on First Year Coursetaking
Transition Course Impacts on Longer-Term Postsecondary Outcomes
Implementation of Transition Courses
Overview of Summer Bridge Programs and Underlying Conceptual Frameworks
Impacts and Implementation of Summer Bridge Programs
Summer Bridge Impacts on First Year Coursetaking
Summer Bridge Impacts on Longer-Term Postsecondary Outcomes
Implementation of Summer Bridge Programs
Overview of Early College High Schools and Underlying Conceptual Frameworks
Impacts and Implementation of Early College High Schools
Early College Impacts on College Enrollment
Early College Impacts on Longer-Term Postsecondary Outcomes
Implementation of Early College High Schools
Conclusions
References
3 The Limits of Choice: A Black Feminist Critique of College ``Choice´´ Theories and Research
Introduction
Neoliberalism and the Contradictions of College Access
More Than the Color Line: Institutionalized Forms of Oppression and College Access
Incomplete College ``Choice´´ Theories and Models
Review of Literature
Theoretical Perspectives in College-Going and College ``Choice´´ Research
Traditional and Alternative Research Approaches
New Approaches to Examine the College ``Choice´´ Process
The Paradox of Education and the Black Struggle
Problematizing College ``Choice´´
Racial Theories in Higher Education and Empirical Research on Black Student´s College-Going Processes
Research on Black Women and College ``Choice´´
A Historical Perspective on Black Feminism
Black Feminist Thought
Controlling Images
Interlocking Nature of Oppression
Black Women´s Culture, Self-definition, and Self-valuation
Conclusion: New Imaginings and Possibilities
References
4 Queer and Trans College Student Success
Queer and Trans College Student Success: A Comprehensive Review and Call to Action
Purpose
Framing
Epistemology
Jay´s Positionality
Dolan´s Positionality
Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks
Identity Development
Student Development Theory
Outness and Identity Disclosure
Queerphobia and Transphobia
Normativity
Finances
Conceptual Model of Student Success
Free Application for Federal Student Aid
College Choice
Relationships and Spaces
Multicontextual Model for Diverse Learning Environments
Belonging
Relationships
Spaces
Institutions
Transformational Tapestry Model
National Inventories of QT Resources
Institutional Policies
Institutional Contexts
Society
Minority Stress Theory
Nondiscrimination
Violence
Sexual Stigma
Implications
Institutional Change
Data Collection
Data Analysis
Policy and Legislation
Using Frameworks
Conclusion
References
5 Strengthening Outcomes of Adult Students in Community Colleges
Introduction
Defining Adult Students
Age as an Imperfect Proxy
Subjective Sense of Adulthood
Adult Learners
Adult Students Cross-Classified as Nontraditional Students
Synthesizing a Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students
Operationalizing Adult Status
Adult Students´ Participation in Postsecondary Education
Enrollment in Higher Education
Role of Community Colleges in Adult Undergraduate Education
Adult Students as Diverse Learners
Differences Between Older and Younger Students
Improving Adult Community College Students´ Outcomes
Previous Work on Classifying Community College Support Programs
Programs and Initiatives with Potential to Improve Adult Students´ Outcomes
Mapping Mechanisms onto Adult Characteristics
Directions for Future Research and Practice
Conclusion
References
6 Toward a Critical Social Movements Studies
Defining Social Justice Movements
Outer Edges of Higher Education Research on Campus Activism
Social Movements Theory and Critical Theory
Social Movements Theory
Critical Theory
A Brief History of Social Justice Movements in Higher Education
Complicating Analysis of Social Justice Movements in Higher Education
Toward a Critical Social Movements Studies Framework
Utilize Catalytic Approaches
Foster Critical Agency
Cultivate Solidarity in Social Justice Movements
Bolster Social Justice Movement Resources
Enhance Efficacy Social Justice Movement Strategies and Tactics
Expose How Systems Resist Movements
Expanding Social Movements Research in Higher Education
Expanding and Sustaining Movement Activity
Deciphering Impact
Complicating the Role of Resources
Understanding the Complexities of Strategies and Tactics
Exposing University Resistance
Conclusion
References
7 Patterns in the Study of Academic Learning in US Higher Education Journals, 2005-2020
Introduction
The Framing and Scope of This Chapter
An Overview of the Corpus
Conceptualizing Academic Learning
An Illustration
Theorizing Academic Learning
Using Conceptual Models
Literature Reviews as Framing Devices
Summary: Conceptualizing Academic Learning
Studying Students´ Characteristics
Summary: Studying Students´ Characteristics
Studying Instruction
Using Students Surveys to Study Instruction
Using Multiple Data Sources to Study Instruction
Summary: Studying Instruction
Studying Programmatic Efforts
Summary: Studying Programmatic Effects
Studying Students´ Interactions with Faculty and Peers
Summary: Studying Students´ Interactions with Faculty and Peers
Conclusions: How Have Researchers Studied Academic Learning in US Institutions?
Broad Patterns in the Study of Academic Learning
Reflections on the Criteria for the Review
Conceptualizing Academic Learning
Studying Students and Their Experiences
Studying Teaching
Studying Learning in Courses and Programs
Imagining the Future of Studies of Academic Learning
References
8 The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
Introduction
Organization of this Chapter
Theoretical Frameworks for Understanding Doctoral Student Socialization and Professional Development
Psychological Perspectives of Career Choice
Trait and Factor Theory: Matching Personality and Occupations
Holland´s Theory: A Personality-Occupation Typology
Sociological Perspectives on Career Choice
Socialization Theory
Socialization Theory and Doctoral Student Socialization
The Congruence and Assimilation Orientation
New Approaches to Understanding Career Choice that Move Us Beyond Congruence and Assimilation
Planned Happenstance Theory (a.k.a. Happenstance Learning Theory)
Summary of HLT: Relationship to the Doctoral Student Experience
Chaos Theory of Careers (CTC)
Summary of CTC: Relationship to the Doctoral Student Experience
New Approaches to Understanding Socialization that Move Us Away from Congruence and Assimilation
Critical Approaches: Centering the Experiences of Minoritized Students
The Role of Faculty in Reshaping Socialization
Adopting an Assets-Based (or Anti-Deficit) Approach
The Role of Mentoring and Advising, and its Long-Term Impact
Mentoring Students for More than Just Academic Careers
International Students and Socialization
Revisiting Antony´s Modified Framework for Doctoral Student Socialization
An Agenda for Future Research
Enhanced Advising Approaches
Modified Programmatic Requirements
Deeply Integrated Professional Development
Conclusion
References
9 A Mid-Career Faculty Agenda
Methods
Present Day Professoriate
The Academy at a Glance: Full-Time Faculty Demographics
Challenges: Defining Mid-Career
Mid-Career: Four Decades of Research and Practice
Conceptual and Theoretical Models in the Study of Mid-Career Faculty
1980s: The Foundation for the Study of Mid-Career Faculty
Tension Between Teaching and Research
Historical Insights
Contributing Contextual Factors: Value vs. Reward
Intersection of Institutional and Individual Considerations
Professional Competence
Refocusing the Perspective
Multifaceted Nature of the Faculty Career: A Professional Perspective
Career Stage Approach
Academic Professionalization
Institutional Examples and Professional Education
Summary of 1980s Literature
1990s: A Focus on the Individual Faculty Member
Intersection of Individual and Institution
The Institution as a Source of Strain
Institutional Supports
Multifaceted Nature of the Faculty Career: An Individual Perspective
Well-Being of the Whole Person
Tension Between Teaching and Research
Challenges of Competing Time Commitments
Isolation and Lack of Recognition
Summary of 1990s Literature
2000s: The Role of Context to the Mid-Career Faculty Experience
The Multifaceted Nature of the Faculty Career: Definitional Challenges
Mid-Career Stage Criteria
Strategies and Interventions: Supporting Mid-Career Faculty
Elements and Benefits of Institutional Strategies
Post-Tenure Review
Mentoring
Programs for Faculty Renewal and Development
Women Faculty in the Academy
Summary of 2000s Literature
2010s: Barriers, Vulnerable Faculty, and Interventions
Barriers to Advancement
Lack of Clarity
Lack of Resources
Vulnerable Faculty Populations
Interventions for Faculty Support
Summary of 2010s Literature
Mid-Career Faculty: A Research and Practice Agenda Moving Forward
Intentionality Across Contexts and Relationships
Leadership Development
Support to Help Mid-Career Faculty Manage the Evolving Nature of Higher Education
Mid-Career Faculty: A Call to Action in 2020 and Beyond
Need 1: Implement a National Database of Postsecondary Faculty and Instructional Staff
Need 2: Examine Intersectional Issues
Need 3: Support Nontenure Track Faculty at Mid-Career Stage
Need 4: Methodological Approaches
Concluding Thoughts
References
10 Four Decades of Performance Funding and Counting
Introduction
Definition and Prevalence
Main Features of Performance Funding
Brief History of Performance Funding
Theoretical Logic of Performance Funding
New Public Management
Resource Dependence Theory
Principal-Agent Theory
Neoliberalism
Ecology of Games
Establishment of Performance Funding
Adoption of Performance Funding Policies
Advocates of Performance Funding and Evidence Usage
Policy Implementation and Campus Responses
Intended Institutional Responses in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee
Unintended Institutional Responses in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee
Challenges to Implementation in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee
Policy Awareness and Campus Responses in Washington State
Campus Implementation in Ohio and Pennsylvania
Campus Responses to Equity Metrics in Ohio and Pennsylvania
Policy Evaluation
Policy Evaluation Considerations
Four-Year College Completion Outcomes
Two-Year College Completion Outcomes
Meta-Analysis on Outcomes and Access
Outcomes Specific to Minority Serving Institutions
Access and Admissions Outcomes
Equity Metrics and Enrollment Outcomes at Four-Year Colleges
Performance Funding Impacts on Institutional Finances
Summary of Literature on Performance Funding
Equity Considerations in Performance Funding
General Comments on Research Design of Performance Funding Studies
Evidence of Limited Impact on Degree Completion
International Perspective on Performance Funding
The Future of Performance Funding
Performance Funding During an Economic Recession
Areas of Future Research for Performance Funding
Methodological Considerations
Conclusion
References
11 US Higher Education Internationalization Through an Equity-Driven Lens
Defining Internationalization
An Equity-Driven Internationalization Lens
Integrating Equity-Driven Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives
De-/constructing Internationalization
Defining the Sociohistorical Context
Connecting to Contemporary Forces of Globalization
Sociohistorical and Contemporary Influences on Internationalization Research
Sociohistorical Context: US HE Internationalization as National Strategy
Contemporary Globalization Forces: US HE Internationalization as Institutional Strategy
Understanding Internationalization Research Through an Equity-Driven Lens
Educating International Students
International Higher Education Partnerships and Research Activities
US Involvement in Transnational Education
Study Abroad as High-Impact Practice
Strategizing Internationalization at Home (IaH)
Moving Forward: Equity-Driven Internationalization Research
Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives
De-/constructing Internationalization
Sociohistorical Context
Contemporary Forces of Globalization
Research-Informed Equity-Driven Internationalization Practice and Policy
Conclusion
References
12 Understanding the Complexities of Experimental Analysis in the Context of Higher Education
Why Conduct Experiments?
Logic of Experiments
Defining and Categorizing Experimental Analyses
Important Issues in Experimental Design
Units of Randomization
Pretesting and Longitudinal Designs
Multisite Trials
Treatment Arms
Preregistration
The Mathematics of Experiments
Random Assignment
Blocking
Covariate Balance Check
Cluster Randomized Control Trials
Compliance to Treatment Assignment
Attrition
Attrition Can Cause Problems
When Should We Worry About Attrition?
How to Counter Attrition
Dropping Observations Due to Missing Covariates
Examples in the Higher Education RCT Literature
Assessing Fidelity of Treatment Implementation
SUTVA
SUTVA Violations
Dealing with SUTVA
Contamination
Statistical Power Analysis
Minimum Detectable Effect Size
Power in Cluster RCTs
Tools to Assist with Power Calculations
Examples of Power Discussions in the Higher Education RCT Literature
Limitations in Conducting RCTs
Ethical Concerns
Understanding Mechanisms
Experimental Effects
Conclusion
References
Contents of Previous Five Volumes
Index

Citation preview

Laura W. Perna Editor

Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research Volume 36

Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research Volume 36 Series Editor Laura W. Perna University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA, USA

Published annually since 1985, the Handbook series provides a compendium of thorough and integrative literature reviews on a diverse array of topics of interest to the higher education scholarly and policy communities. Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of research findings on a selected topic, critiques the research literature in terms of its conceptual and methodological rigor, and sets forth an agenda for future research intended to advance knowledge on the chosen topic. The Handbook focuses on a comprehensive set of central areas of study in higher education that encompasses the salient dimensions of scholarly and policy inquiries undertaken in the international higher education community. Each annual volume contains chapters on such diverse topics as research on college students and faculty, organization and administration, curriculum and instruction, policy, diversity issues, economics and finance, history and philosophy, community colleges, advances in research methodology, and more. The series is fortunate to have attracted annual contributions from distinguished scholars throughout the world. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6028

Laura W. Perna Editor

Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research Volume 36

With 17 Figures and 9 Tables

Editor Laura W. Perna University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA, USA

ISSN 0882-4126 ISSN 2215-1664 (electronic) ISBN 978-3-030-44006-0 ISBN 978-3-030-44007-7 (eBook) ISBN 978-3-030-44008-4 (print and electronic bundle) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

Like the preceding volumes in this series, Vol. 36 of Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research offers an invaluable collection of thorough reviews of research on topics that are of critical importance to higher education policy, practice, and research. Each of the chapters in this volume represents an important contribution to knowledge. Individually and collectively, the chapters provide in-depth examinations of the state of knowledge on topics that are highly relevant in this current time. Together, these chapters offer important insights into current issues pertaining to: college students; faculty; diversity; organization and administration; community colleges; teaching, learning, and curriculum; economics and finance; policy; history and philosophy; and research methodology. This annual publication would not be possible without the intellectual leadership of the excellent associate editors. For Vol. 36, these exceptionally talented scholars and research mentors are: Ann Austin, Nicholas Bowman, Linda Eisenmann, Pamela Eddy, Nicholas Hillman, Shouping Hu, Adrianna Kezar, Anna Neumann, AnneMarie Nuñez, and Marvin Titus. Over the course of a year or more, the associate editors and I each worked closely with an invited author to develop, produce, and refine the included chapters. Chapters in this volume advance research-based knowledge of how to promote success for queer and trans college students (Jason Garvey and C.V. Dolan) and adult students in community colleges (Peter Bahr, Claire Boeck, and Phyllis Cummins). These chapters also establish the state of knowledge of student activism in higher education (Samuel Museus and Brenda Jimenez Sifuentez), college readiness policies (Christine Mokher), and performance funding policies (Amy Li). Chapters also offer a Black feminist critique of college “choice” theories and research (Channel McLewis), identify patterns in the study of academic learning in US higher education journals (Lisa Lattuca), provide an updated review of doctoral student socialization and professional development (James Antony and Tamara Schaps), offer a mid-career faculty agenda (Vicki Baker and Caroline Manning), propose an equitydriven framework for understanding internationalization of US higher education (Chrystal George Mwangi and Christina Yao), and assess the use of experimental analysis in higher education research (Brent Evans). Each chapter offers a comprehensive review of research findings on the selected topic, critiques the research

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literature in terms of its conceptual and methodological rigor, and offers an agenda for future research that will further advance knowledge on the chosen topic. Following the tradition of past volumes, this volume also includes an autobiographic essay by William Tierney, University Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California. In his essay, Professor Tierney offers a thoughtful and candid reflection on how he has approached academic life over the course of his distinguished career and raises questions for us to consider as we think about our own academic lives into the future. He also discusses issues that have been central to his academic work over time (organizations and culture, equity, theory and methodology, universities as organizations that advance democracy) and stresses the importance of considering what colleges and universities throughout the world can do to bolster democracy and defeat fascism. Volume 36 builds on a long and strong history of outstanding scholarly contributions. The first volume in this series was published in 1985. John C. Smart served as editor of the series through Vol. 26, when Michael B. Paulsen joined him as co-editor. After co-editing Vols. 26 and 27 with John, Mike served as the sole editor through Vol. 33. I am deeply honored that Mike invited me to serve as co-editor with him for Vol. 34, and that I have the privilege of serving as sole editor beginning with Vol. 35. I am grateful for the time, effort, and engagement that the authors and associate editors have invested in producing these important scholarly contributions. With these efforts, the chapters in this volume, like those in prior volumes, provide the foundation for the next generation of research on these important issues. In this volume, associate editors were responsible for working with the following chapters and authors: Ann Austin, “A Mid-Career Faculty Agenda,” by Vicki L. Baker and Caroline E.N. Manning Nicholas A. Bowman, “Queer and Trans College Student Success,” by Jason C. Garvey and C.V. Dolan Pamela Eddy, “Strengthening Outcomes of Adult Students in Community Colleges,” by Peter Riley Bahr, Claire A. Boeck, and Phyllis A. Cummins Nicholas Hillman, “Understanding the Complexities of Experimental Analysis in the Context of Higher Education,” by Brent Joseph Evans Shouping Hu, “Reforming Transitions from High School to Higher Education,” by Christine G. Mokher Adrianna Kezar, “Toward a Critical Social Movements Studies,” by Samuel D. Museus and Brenda Jimenez Sifuentez Anna Neumann, “Patterns in the Study of Academic Learning in US Higher Education Journals, 2005–2020,” by Lisa R. Lattuca Anne-Marie Nuñez, “The Limits of Choice: A Black Feminist Critique of College “Choice” Theories and Research,” by Channel C. McLewis Marvin Titus, “Four Decades of Performance Funding and Counting,” by Amy Y. Li

Preface

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I had the privilege of working with authors of the following chapters: “Forward March: Living an Academic Life,” by William G. Tierney “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same,” by James Soto Antony and Tamara Lynn Schaps “US Higher Education Internationalization Through an Equity-Driven Lens,” by Chrystal A. George Mwangi and Christina W. Yao February 2021

Laura W. Perna

Contents

1

Forward March: Living an Academic Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William G. Tierney

2

Reforming Transitions from High School to Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christine G. Mokher

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The Limits of Choice: A Black Feminist Critique of College “Choice” Theories and Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Channel C. McLewis

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4

Queer and Trans College Student Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jason C. Garvey and C. V. Dolan

5

Strengthening Outcomes of Adult Students in Community Colleges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peter Riley Bahr, Claire A. Boeck, and Phyllis A. Cummins

6

Toward a Critical Social Movements Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Samuel D. Museus and Brenda Jimenez Sifuentez

7

Patterns in the Study of Academic Learning in US Higher Education Journals, 2005–2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lisa R. Lattuca

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The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same . . . . . . . James Soto Antony and Tamara Lynn Schaps

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A Mid-Career Faculty Agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vicki L. Baker and Caroline E. N. Manning

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Four Decades of Performance Funding and Counting . . . . . . . . . . Amy Y. Li

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US Higher Education Internationalization Through an Equity-Driven Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chrystal A. George Mwangi and Christina W. Yao

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Understanding the Complexities of Experimental Analysis in the Context of Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brent Joseph Evans

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Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Contents of Previous Five Volumes

About the Editor

Laura W. Perna is vice provost for faculty, GSE Centennial presidential professor of education, and executive director of the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (AHEAD) at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). Her research uses various methodological approaches to identify how social structures, educational practices, and public policies promote and limit college access and success, particularly for groups that are underrepresented in higher education. Recent publications include Improving Research-Based Knowledge of College Promise Programs (with Edward Smith, 2020, AERA), Taking It to the Streets: The Role of Scholarship in Advocacy and Advocacy in Scholarship (2018, Johns Hopkins University Press), and The Attainment Agenda: State Policy Leadership for Higher Education (with Joni Finney, 2014, Johns Hopkins University Press). She has served as president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), vice president of the Postsecondary Division of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and chair of Penn’s Faculty Senate. She is a member the board of directors for the Postsecondary National Policy Institute (PNPI). Among other honors, she has received the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching from the University of Pennsylvania, Early Career Achievement Award from ASHE, Excellence in Public Policy in Higher Education Award from ASHE’s Council on Public Policy and Higher Education, and Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. She is also a member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of AERA.

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About the Associate Editors

Ann Austin Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA

Nicholas A. Bowman University of Iowa Iowa City, IA, USA

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About the Associate Editors

Pamela Eddy William & Mary Williamsburg, VA, USA

Linda Eisenmann Wheaton College Norton, MA, USA

Nicholas Hillman University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI, USA

About the Associate Editors

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Shouping Hu Florida State University Tallahassee, FL, USA

Adrianna Kezar University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA

Anna Neumann Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY, USA

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About the Associate Editors

Anne-Marie Núñez The Ohio State University Columbus, OH, USA

Laura W. Perna University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA, USA

Marvin Titus University of Maryland, College Park College Park, MD, USA

Reviewers

Elisabeth Barnett Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, USA Cassie Barnhardt College of Education, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA Gerardo Blanco Higher Education and Student Affairs, Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA Rebecca Cox Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada Julie Edmunds Secondary School Reform, SERVE Center at University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, USA Sylvia Hurtado Department of Education, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA Stephen Quaye College of Education and Human Ecology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA Robert D. Reason College of Human Sciences, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA Kelly Rosinger Center for the Study of Higher Education, Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA Xueli Wang Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

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Contributors

James Soto Antony University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA Peter Riley Bahr Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Vicki L. Baker Economics and Management, Albion College, Albion, MI, USA Claire A. Boeck Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Phyllis A. Cummins Scripps Gerontology Center, Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA C. V. Dolan University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA Brent Joseph Evans Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA Jason C. Garvey University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA Chrystal A. George Mwangi University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA Lisa R. Lattuca Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Amy Y. Li Department of Educational Policy Studies, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA Caroline E. N. Manning Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA Channel C. McLewis University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA Christine G. Mokher Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Florida State University College of Education, Tallahassee, FL, USA Samuel D. Museus University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA

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Tamara Lynn Schaps University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA Brenda Jimenez Sifuentez Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR, USA William G. Tierney Pullias Center for Higher Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Christina W. Yao University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

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Forward March: Living an Academic Life William G. Tierney

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part I: Constructing an Academic Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preparation of Myself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preparation of My Academic Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preparation of My Intellectual Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Developing My Academic Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Development of My Mature Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part II: Organizing Ideas for an Academic Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Understanding Culture in Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Enduring Challenge of Equity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On Theory, Method, and Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Advancing Democracy and Fighting Fascism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The text has two parts. In the first part, the author offers a portrait of how he came to be an academic. He offers a reference point for others that hopefully enables critical reflection about how one might best think about academic life. Part one has five sections: the preparation of (1) the individual, (2) their academic self, and (3) their intellectual self; the author then turns to the development of (4) his academic self and (5) concludes part one by raising four questions that academics should ask themselves with regard to academic work. Part two discusses four notions that have been central to his work: (1) organizations and culture; (2) equity; (3) theory, methodology, and writing; and (4) colleges and universities W. G. Tierney (*) Pullias Center for Higher Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7_1

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as organizations centrally concerned about democracy and the fight against fascism and how they can be ever vigilant about academic freedom. Keywords

Academic careers · Academic freedom · Critical theory · Democracy · Educational policy · Equity · Gay rights · Identity · Organizational culture · Postmodernism · Qualitative research · Writing

Introduction The year is 1983, and I am staring at a computer screen. I have collected data for a year and am about to begin writing a book (otherwise known as a dissertation). How did I get myself into this? I don’t know enough, I haven’t read enough, there are lots of people smarter than I am. This is a joke. I’ll never be able to write a book. I think I should go clean the fridge. After about a month, I calmed down and convinced myself that I could write a chapter; a chapter is like a term paper. I can do that. And then maybe write another chapter. And another. Maybe. Every book I have ever written has started in the same way – I don’t know enough; I haven’t read enough. And that fridge still needs cleaning. With my most recent book penned as I headed toward retirement, I was lucky to have had the space at the University of Southern California to draft the first few chapters. A month courtesy of the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy – and then four more months in Florence, Italy, at the European University Institute – afforded me the time and reflection to finish Higher Education for Democracy. I started the book the way I have begun all the others: with fear and worry that I would fail. Self-doubt goes with the academic territory. Knowing what I don’t know, knowing that I need to read more, and knowing that there are an awful lot of smart people out there have made me a better scholar. And it’s kept our fridge sparkling clean. What I want to do here is think through how I have approached academic life en route to retirement. We often incorrectly assume that one’s approach to a profession is the way everyone approaches the profession. I disagree. We approach academic life in different ways based on a multitude of experiences as we grow up and as we experience academic life. Times also change. The process of writing a dissertation on a typewriter, the way my own advisor did, differed from my use of a mainframe. What my graduate students do today changes the way they experience academic life from my own encounters with academe. The assumption that we all deal with academe in a similar manner has harmful consequences. The “one-size-fits-all” mentality imprints on us that the way our predecessors managed academic life is the way we should approach academe.

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Since most of our academic ancestors were abled, straight, white men, the result is that implicitly we try to recreate the past rather than develop a new framework for academic life. If we assume that academe will be improved with a more diverse workforce, then we need to extrapolate the various ways people become socialized and learn how to be an academic, rather than assume that “my” way is the only way to a successful academic career. Thus, thinking through approaches to academic life is not simply a pleasant trip down memory lane but a way for us to think about the future. The point is not to recreate the past but to invent a new one. I will elaborate on this point below, but one issue that has confronted me throughout my career is that I am an introvert, and I have frequently gotten advice about how to be an extrovert. Not only is such advice anxiety-inducing, but it’s decidedly wrongheaded. We would not give a basketball player advice on how to play football, and we should not assume that what works for extroverts will assuredly work for introverts. “Go to all the academic parties,” I was told as an assistant professor, “and be sure to shake the hands of all the full professors so they get to know you. Wear your academic badge and mingle.” The advice was well-intentioned, but I remember thinking, “If that’s what I have to do to succeed, then I’m out of here.” The meta-lesson my department chair had given me, however, was that it is important to get to know people. What I learned largely on my own was that there are various ways for me to meet people without having to go to every reception at a conference and make small talk over pigs in a blanket. Such an observation is particularly important as we continue to try to diversify the academy. If we want more women in senior levels of administration, we do not need them to act like men talking about the weekend’s football scores on Monday morning. If hiring more people of color is a critical goal, then we have to acknowledge that there are various routes to academic life, and they may disagree dramatically from the well-worn paths of the past. Why hold meetings in rooms that are inconvenient for the differently abled? I divide the text into parts. In part one, I first offer a portrait about how I got here that is not intended as an instructional manual. Rather, I am offering a reference point for others that hopefully enables critical reflection about how one might best think about academic life. I do not think one’s life necessarily has to be told chronologically, but I suspect a linear telling will help the reader understand my constant feelings of inadequacy when I started writing the dissertation in 1983 – and when I sipped an expresso in Bellagio in 2019. Accordingly, the first part of the text divides into five easy pieces: the preparation of (1) myself, (2) my academic self, and (3) my intellectual self; I then turn to the development of (4) my academic self. I conclude part one with a discussion of what I call (5) “my mature self” and raise four questions that we should ask ourselves with regard to our academic work. In part two, I discuss four notions that have been central to my work and where I think we are – and are not – with these four ideas. I begin by summarizing my thoughts about organizations and culture. I then turn to a discussion about equity, how I have considered the idea over time, and what I have done about it. The third issue I raise has to do with theory and methodology, in general, and then writing, in

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particular. Finally, I consider colleges and universities as organizations centrally concerned about democracy and the fight against fascism and how we need to be ever vigilant about academic freedom.

Part I: Constructing an Academic Life Preparation of Myself Catholic Ideas There is generally not a one-to-one correspondence in terms of what one learns and what one does. I have many friends who were raised in the Catholic faith, and it made little impact on them or their subsequent employment. I have others who call themselves Catholic but do not attend mass every Sunday, believe that abortion is ultimately a woman’s choice, and have friends who are gay. I also have friends who practice their faith in a distinctly different fashion. My point is less that one or another idea is right or wrong but that one’s faith may or may not impact a child’s development. What one takes from the religion depends on a variety of factors that tangentially touch on one’s religion. My earliest memories, however, derive from Catholicism. Although I came to reject the faith, most of my memories of Catholicism are positive. My father was the second youngest of nine; my mother had a sister. I am the youngest in my family – and I was the first Tierney to attend a non-Catholic high school, although I attended St. John and St. Mary’s Grammar School. My attendance at a public high school created something of a stir in the family and was a further sign of the problems of the 1960s. I remember going to Sunday mass, to confessing my sins at Confession, and to being an altar boy. I do not recall the priests in our church very well, other than that they were kindly men who periodically gave me helpful advice. I experienced, saw, and heard nothing about the atrocities that we have come to associate with priests today. I particularly remember the nuns who taught us from kindergarten through eighth grade. My experience with nuns was the opposite from the often stilted, repressed, and isolated portrait of nuns that we read about in the media. These were smart, intelligent, funny, and committed women who had our best interests in mind. They constantly challenged us not simply to get the right answer to a question but to look behind the answer and think about why it was correct. I met a nun when I was no longer a practicing Catholic in graduate school, and we remained friends for 20 years until she passed away. Again, I cannot lay claim to a one-to-one correspondence, but I think being taught by smart women who spoke about important issues of the day made an impact on how I came to think about academic life. My parents were by no means liberal; one of them voted for Nixon, and the other voted for Kennedy. However, a constant topic of conversation around the dinner table was about the poor. I do not recall talking very much about social policies, such as affirmative action, but we talked a great deal about those in need and what were

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we going to do about it. There was a certain sense that we had a social obligation to one another. When I attended Horace Greeley High School, and the Vietnam War was in full swing, I spoke out and marched against the war. When it came time to register for the draft, I decided to register as a conscientious objector. I thought then, and still think today, that it is expecting a great deal of a young person to decide that taking another life is morally wrong. When I told my parents what I was going to do, they had me talk with the parish priest. More importantly, in addition to my father and my American history teacher, we had Sister Mary Luke, my eighth – grade teacher – be one of my advisors and write a letter of support. If Catholicism made me think through issues big and small, it also made me doubt. “Why” was the question at the root of many of my conversations. Why were there poor? Why is it acceptable to kill another human being? Why is loving someone of the same gender immoral? Curiously, the basis of my faith led me to leave the Church; I had been taught not to accept an answer based on blind faith. I also am not surprised, upon reflection, that I followed my two older brothers into the Peace Corps. We had been taught to think about poverty, and involvement by joining the Peace Corps seemed a logical extension of Catholicism, even if I was no longer a Catholic.

Being Irish-American My ancestors arrived in the United States during the middle of the nineteenth century. In many respects, both sides of my family resembled other Irish immigrants to America. The majority were Catholic and settled on the east coast, especially in New York City. By the turn of the twentieth century, the grandchildren – my parents – were able to graduate from high school and go to college. Education was seen as a way out of poverty and a way into the middle class. I never felt particularly Irish growing up or that my identity was all that important, but, as they say, a fish doesn’t recognize water either. As I have thought about my upbringing, three factors stand out. In the elegiac Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996) writes a fictionalized memoir of growing up in poverty in Ireland. Although I neither grew up in Ireland nor in poverty, one part of McCourt’s memoir rings true. The protagonist, a young boy, does not always understand what the adults are speaking about, but he learns that they are always talking. The Irish, as they say, have the gift of gab. They talk about the present by telling stories of the past; there is meaning in the stories, even if the young Frank does not understand them. My family revolved around conversation. What a child learns to be “normal” may be exceptional when compared to the rest of the world. Why would a child think that others are different from the environment in which they grow up? The world may certainly have changed with Twitter, email, and Facebook so that there is a better understanding of a larger world, rather than the insular one in which I was raised. We had a television, but it was largely something we watched for an hour or 2 in the evening, and even then, my parents, aunts, and uncles seemed to have conversations with one another about what was on TV, rather than watching it in silence.

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When I was around 5, I learned to read by my mother peppering me with questions in the morning as I tried to read the baseball scores of the newspaper. When I came home from school, my mother asked a raft of questions about the day. My father came home from work and sat down and asked me questions that he had heard on the news driving home. “What did I think,” he wanted to know. The questions were not a quiz with a right or wrong answer but a conversation. I learned that there were not necessarily right or wrong answers but that I needed to participate in the discussion. Dinner was around the table, and we talked about whatever topics my parents wanted to talk about that evening. I was startled when I went to a friend’s house for dinner one night, and we sat down and I started talking. My friend looked down at his plate as his father explained to me that we sat in silence and watched the news at dinner. Listening to people and telling stories were simply a way of life for me. I assume that being drawn to a method that revolves around listening and storytelling – qualitative research – in part results from that upbringing. Another part of growing up was that my father was an alcoholic. I am the youngest of three boys, and his alcoholism really did not become apparent until my brothers went off to college, I was in high school, and he took early retirement. He was never violent, but his drinking went on for years. The family had a secret which we did not talk about until very late in his life. One day, he simply stopped. I certainly wish he had not been a drunk, but it sure made me reflect a great deal about our lives. Again, I suspect that the task of reflection of figuring out a puzzle that has framed so much of my academic work in some way was fashioned by being an adolescent in an alcoholic’s family. Coupled with my father’s alcoholism was my love for reading. My mother fostered that passion by reading everything I read, all the way through college. I had an ongoing conversation with my mother about whatever book I was reading at the time. I never thought anything strange about my mom reading what I was reading, and it was fun to talk with her about the novel I was currently reading. When I was a freshman in college, my roommate asked me who I was writing to one day, and I mentioned I was writing my mother a letter about a book we were reading in class. My friend couldn’t believe that I was writing a letter to my mother and that I was writing a letter about a book in a first-year seminar. Again, a light bulb went on that how my family functioned was different from other families. I never thought that we were better or superior to others but that we were different. I chalk up these particular kinds of difference to being raised in an Irish Catholic family that revolved around dialogue and language.

Middle-Class Privilege and Safety We were a solidly white, middle-class family. The privilege that went with that was a feeling of relative safety growing up. I didn’t walk to school in fear for my life or that my classmates might shun me simply because of the color of my skin. My parents had money to pay for piano lessons and occasional trips for a summer vacation. We even visited my brother Peter when he was in the Peace Corps in St. Lucia.

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Solidly middle-class also was not upper class. During my childhood, my parents were never in financial distress, but they also assumed we should have jobs in the summer. As with all aspects of a child growing up, I didn’t know it then, but learning the value of work as a child was good preparation for the sort of academic work I have done. Most of my summers were spent cutting lawns and gardening, but I also worked for one summer in the Reader’s Digest mailroom. I enjoyed most everything about working – the planning about what I needed to do, the actual physical work, and the interaction with individuals. Making money was fun because I was able to do things with the cash, but actually the process of work was what I enjoyed. The other part of growing up in an Irish Catholic middle-class family was that education was important. After I finished grammar school, I went to a public high school that had a reputation as one of the best public high schools in the country – Horace Greeley High School. The greatest weakness of the school was the lack of diversity; we had very few African American or Latin students, much less faculty. But the overall educational experience was superb. I attended school at a time when experimentation was the order of the day, and alternative learning styles not simply appealed to me but excited a passion for learning. I had teachers who became lifelong friends. Curiously, one of my best friends was Mrs. Zook, who taught chemistry. I learned right away that I was not cut out for the sciences, but she had a way of involving students that was fun and exciting. I also did not have a typical high school learning experience. Sure, I had thoughtful classes in English and history that I loved. But there were about a dozen faculty who took some of us under their collective wings and had us to their houses for conversations about what my friends and I called, “Big Ideas.” There was never anything untoward that happened. We all knew, however, that going to a teacher’s house, sitting on the floor in a circle with them, and talking about the issues of the day were exactly what we wanted to do. They treated us as adults, and we acted as adults; we even got to call some of them by their first names. School and learning were fun things for me.

Forging a Gay Identity Coming of age sexually for anyone is fraught with challenges. For a gay teenager in the 1960s, the challenges were even greater. Another part of being raised in an Irish Catholic family was that we never spoke of sex. The less said, the better. Even with the hip kids in high school with whom I hung out, when we spoke about sex, it was always focused on heterosexuality. I do not think that there’s an “ah-hah!” moment when most gay youth wake up and realize that they are gay. Sexual orientation revolves around several ideas floating around in a person’s psyche, and, until the 1970s, what it meant to be gay for most of us was repressed and not discussed. I do not believe most heterosexuals can really understand the fear and, to a degree, loathing that a gay person in the 1970s had with their sexual orientation and, unfortunately, many people still contend with today. Navigating one’s identity cuts across most of what one does. As I shall explain, issues of identity not only became a research focus for me, but they also impacted how I approached academic life.

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Preparation of My Academic Self On Reading Since childhood, I have loved to read. I needed very little encouragement to spend time reading a book, and, as long as I can remember, I have had a book by my side. I also have been drawn to particular kinds of books. When I was in elementary school, one of my friends read all of Tom Swift, a young person’s science fiction. Tom Swift did not do much for me. I read all of the Hardy Boys – mysteries that involved two brothers as super sleuths. When I got to high school, my favorite classes were English and history. I received high grades in all of my classes (except penmanship!), but those classes where I was the class leader were English and history. During Christmas break and summer vacations, I read books. I also had an aunt who was a high school teacher, and she always gave me a book for my birthday and the holidays. They were my favorite presents. She introduced me to Dickens, Austen, Hawthorne, Melville, and numerous other authors. By the time I had graduated from high school, I had a much greater critical literacy than most of my peers. I never thought of reading as something special or particularly nerdy. Some kids preferred playing football or being in the chess club; I preferred reading. My time as an undergraduate at Tufts University in the 1970s coincided with faculties being unable to decide about what a core curriculum should be or if there even should be a set list of courses we all had to take. The result is that I took almost all literature and history courses. I regret, in a way, that I did not take classes in economics and multiple other areas, but insofar as I enjoyed reading when I arrived at college, I was like the proverbial kid in a candy shop. I do not know how I was able to read as much as I did – those Russians write long novels! But I graduated from Tufts with a passion for reading and an excellent grounding in all sorts of literature. I took two semester-long directed readings with the poet Denise Levertov on Herman Melville and Walt Whitman. I lived in a group house during my junior and senior years where the house advisor, Jesper Rosenmeier, was a member of the English Department. His specialty was Puritan literature and American literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I took classes on Asian, Latin American, European, and women’s literature. I specialized in twentieth-century American literature and reveled in the work of Kerouac and the beat poets. I took a Russian literature course where we read a novel a week. I forget exactly when, but at some point, I started writing down the books I read for fun. I tried to read three novels a month. I have maintained that pace through graduate school and academic life. Some months, I have read a book or two more, and, in other months, I have slipped to reading only one book. The discipline of reading has opened worlds to me that I otherwise would never have known. I also was able to think about writing.

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On Writing I suppose writing goes hand in hand with reading, or at least it did for me. I was encouraged to write by my teachers in elementary and high school. By the time I arrived at Tufts, writing was a normal act of expression for me. I wrote letters to friends and family. I liked doing research for class papers, as well as writing up my findings and opinions. I took multiple creative writing classes at Tufts trying to figure out what I wanted to say and how to say it. In that group house – Roots and Growth – the class requirement was to keep a journal. Final papers were not really work for me – they were fun. I rarely pulled an “all-nighter” because I discovered I liked to ration out writing as a process over a period of time. I started writing a journal in 1974 and have kept writing in the same journal ever since. In college, the only person who saw the journal was the instructor, and no one has seen it ever since. As with learning how to read, journal writing gave me three skills. First, I got in a rhythm that enabled me to look at writing as something that needs to be framed in a formal way, rather than just casually writing when the spirit moves me. Writing is not something I just do, like turn on the TV to randomly watch the news; I have to think about when I will do it and carve out time to write. Second, I enjoyed the experience; whenever I started to write, I did not see it as homework – something that one had to do – and instead looked on it as an opportunity. Third, writing was a way for me to think through different puzzles that I faced, whether personal or intellectual. Some people learn through talking, and that is partially true for me as well. Writing, however, always has been a thoughtful meditation which has enabled me to think through issues that were unclear. On Puzzles In a family that revolved around conversation and in schools, whether Catholic or public, where teachers continually asked, “why do you think that,” I had to constantly think through what I thought about a particular issue. I also came of age during Vietnam, and I applied to be a conscientious objector. Not every teenager has to think abstractly and personally about whether a human being should be able to take another person’s life. I am making no claims to be morally superior, but I think I grew up in an environment that encouraged me to think through puzzles, not as simply an abstraction but also with regard to my own actions. Obviously, the awareness of being gay also forced me to think about sexuality, in general and in my own life. Some individuals grow up with significant challenges, either because of their home life or the environment that surrounds them. Other children live in families that are largely nonreflective and consider the process of thinking through issues as unimportant or a waste of time. We all come to adulthood through various paths, and these paths impact whether we think academic life is right for us and, if it is, how we are going to live our academic lives. The puzzles that individuals asked me to think through, as well as my own self, set me on an academic path where introspection was critical.

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When I reflect on my life from birth to college graduation, very little of my life was spent pondering which profession I was going to choose. Neither my parents, my brothers, my friends, nor my teachers asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, nor did they point me in a professional direction. Much more of my time was spent trying to think about life’s great questions and those daily questions about how we should act with one another.

On Listening When I was a graduate student at Stanford, I served for a year or 2 as the student representative to the Faculty Senate. At one point, a faculty member came up to me and said, “You have the most active listening face.” He meant the comment as a statement of fact, rather than as a compliment or put-down, but I had never really thought before how much I enjoyed listening to people. At Tufts, I was the only undergraduate in a seminar made up of faculty and graduate students that was billed as “an experimental encounter session.” The class was very current for the times – “group grope” is how one person described it – and had very heated and passionate conversations. I found the confrontations intimidating but also fascinating. During the course of the semester, individuals pulled me aside after class and said some version of “You seem to be listening to what I say. Could I speak to you for a minute?” In part, people’s problems, issues, and ideas were puzzles for me. I was trying to think through why someone felt or behaved in a particular way. I also genuinely empathized with a person’s problems and realized that, more than being a problemsolver, I just needed to listen to them. People did not need me as someone with a solution; they just needed someone to listen to their concerns and worries. Throughout high school and college and then afterward, I began to realize that I enjoyed doing something that required a set of skills and was not something that other people did particularly well: I listened. On Solitary Activities I mentioned at the outset that I am an introvert, so I suppose it is not surprising that I prefer singular to group activities. I ran track – long-distance running, at that – rather than play a team sport. I favored working on my own, rather than in a group. I never lobbied my parents to go to a summer camp with lots of other kids, and I never thought of being alone as boring or a burden. My two older brothers are 10 and 8 years older than I, so I also did not usually have a lot of companionship at home. I had a fair number of friends, and we would get together after school or on the weekends, but most of the interactions were one on one, rather than in groups. I usually looked at social activities in large groups as a burden, rather than as an opportunity. I do not think those of us who seek a solitary life are in any way better (or worse) than those who are more social. I suspect, however, that those who are less social are more prone to academic life because, by its very nature, academe requires a great deal of time by oneself. Conversely, some of my friends who are intensely social probably would not enjoy the amount of singular activity required of an academic.

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Some academics, of course, particularly in the natural sciences, work in laboratories as teams, but even these teams require singular activity that is very different from the work required of football teams and the like. I have often suggested to new graduate students that they need to monitor their likes and dislikes as they move forward in graduate study. I have found that I may have very competent, intellectual students, but they do not enjoy the academic life. The norm for me has been to wake up in the morning excited by how much – solitary – work I have to do. During most of my academic life, I have had the ability to stay home at least 2 days a week. My husband, Barry, always worked full days at the Jet Propulsion Lab, leaving by 7 AM and returning by 6 PM. We also do not have children. I loved being home alone. I know many other people who would see that sort of monastic life – not once in a while, but continuously – as a burden. A mentor of mine once said to me that when an academic becomes an administrator, it is not a promotion but a new job. When a different mentor many years later counseled me to think about a senior administrative position, he cautioned: “I don’t think you’ll have a problem doing the job, but you’ve got to decide you want to do it. The life of an administrator is inherently social, and it’s night and day from that of the life you’ve enjoyed.”

Coming Out/AIDS/Barry Another central part of myself that aided in how I think of myself as an academic is my acknowledgment, first to myself and then to everyone else, that I am gay. I do not think most individuals have an “ah-hah” moment when they discover they are gay, or straight, or transgender. The world also has changed dramatically from when I came out. I probably thought about same sex desire in high school and began to act on it, secretly, by the time I had left for college. But even through college, I still had girlfriends and never acted out my sexuality, other than in furtive acts either by myself or with a very small handful of friends. Not until the Peace Corps, and later in graduate school at Stanford, did I acknowledge to myself that I was gay. Two occurrences happened during and after graduate school that helped frame my approach to academic life. First, I started graduate school at Stanford in 1980, and by the time I graduated in 1984, AIDS had become a major crisis. Perhaps if I had not been in California, much less the Bay Area, AIDS would not have been such a prominent topic of conversation. I not only had friends who were gay, but I also knew individuals who were dying of a disease because they were ostensibly gay. The discrimination that people with AIDS faced was something that resonated with me, not merely because I was gay but also because I was raised in a family where discrimination of this sort was wrong. Perhaps if AIDS had not existed, I might not have experienced the urgency of political action in the way I did. But coupled with the push for human rights, AIDS forced me to think through what being gay meant as an individual and what obligations I had to right the wrongs that existed in society but also as a young academic. Second, I also met, and fell in love with, Barry. I won’t go so far as to say, “opposites attract.” But, at first blush, he and I are very different. He is drawn to the hard sciences, and I am not; he is outgoing and personable and loves to dance – when

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I prefer time on my own. He also had been out longer than I had, and he had a better sense of what it meant to be a gay man than I did when we first met. For some reason, he has put up with me for 35 years, and he has been with me for every challenge and triumph I have faced. When I started teaching at Penn State, I was not entirely out. I recall a student saying he admired “how I worked all the time.” Although the statement was ostensibly a compliment, I realized that students and colleagues had an unclear picture of me – and such a picture was not helpful for graduate students. I have long claimed that I need to get to know graduate students to teach them effectively, and the reverse is true as well. The closet not only confines the individual, but it distorts reality for those around them. I raise these largely personal issues because they all have impacted how I approach my academic work. Again, I am not saying that all people who experienced what I have gone through would have acted in the same way in academe, but my experiences did frame my approach to academic life. If I enjoyed group activities more, perhaps I would have chosen a different career or had more of an interest in administration. If I had not been gay at that particular time, perhaps I would have been a politician rather than an academic. Moreover, an Irish Catholic family framed life in a particular way.

Preparation of My Intellectual Self Pine Street Inn I did not know it at the time, but working for 2 years in a homeless shelter for homeless men was one of the best ways for me to prepare for the academic life I would choose. I needed a job to earn some money while I was at Tufts. An alternative newspaper had, as an advertisement, “Interested in working with people? Call John Root at the Pine Street Inn, a home for homeless men.” I called him, and we made an appointment for the next day, a cold day in January. When I told a friend where the Pine Street Inn was located, he laughed and said, “That’s the red-light district. Don’t go there at night!” I got off the subway, and, as I walked the several blocks to Pine Street, the area got dirtier and more forlorn. I walked up the steps to the Inn, and there were men passed out on the curb and a few others passing a bottle back and forth. When I opened the front door, I almost turned around and ran away. The entrance led to a cavernous hall with pews. Because it was a bitterly cold afternoon, they had let the men come into the lobby to stay warm. The room was jammed with men who we typically see in ones and twos; they all were standing around, smoking a cigarette or just trying to stay warm. I found John Root, and he gave me a tour of the facilities. Downstairs was a makeshift clinic and the area where the men ate dinner and breakfast. There was also a large room where the men undressed and their clothes were heated for delousing. Upstairs was an equally cavernous dormitory where the men slept. There was a small attic where the staff – all formerly homeless men – slept.

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Root introduced me to Paul Sullivan, the man who started the shelter. He did not have a lot of time for me, but he said one thing that stood out: “Look, kid. You look like you’re a nice middle-class college guy. That’s not what you’re going to find here. And that’s fine. The one thing that will get you tossed out on your ear is if you don’t treat these men with respect. They’re on hard times. I was one of those guys once. If I ever hear you laughing at any of these guys or talking down to them, you’ll be done. Clear?” I nodded yes, and he shook my hand. For the first 6 months, I worked the night shift from 10 PM until 7 in the morning. I walked around the building to ensure that there were no problems, and for those guys who arrived late, if it was a cold night, I let them sleep in the lobby. I also drove an old station wagon to Boston City Hospital at 2 o’clock in the morning to pick up the drunks who were sleeping in the emergency room. I helped serve breakfast and then got them out of the building by 7. When I went back to Tufts, I had to hang my clothes in a spare closet since they smelled so badly – of smoke, urine, and vomit. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the work. I got to know individuals over time, and I enjoyed listening to them and talking with them. After a half year, John called me in and said, “We’ve watched you with the guys, and Paul says you’re ok. I’d like you to work the day shift from 4 to 10 and Sundays. Sundays is the tough one, because we let them in here at noon, and it’s only you until the other guys arrive at 4. Ok?” I nodded “yes,” and for the next year and a half worked 4 days a week. Soon after I started the new schedule, I was alone on a Sunday, and a question arose about whether or not one fellow was banned from the building. Paul Sullivan had slipped in a side door, and I went to ask him. He looked at me and said, “Look kid, we hired you to make decisions. You make the call, and if you can’t do it, then you’re probably not the right guy for this sort of work.” I nodded and made the decision. I soon realized that I was not really doing this job for the money. I liked listening to all these men, and I empathized with them. There were a few hundred men who ranged from 18 to 80. They were men of all races who had come on hard times. The assumption at Pine Street was that it was up to the individual to solve their problems, but there had to be a social safety net that gave them a place to sleep, some food, and a safe space should they want to get help. The two rules were no fighting or drinking. Anyone who started a fight or drank inside the building faced banishment. One Sunday, a fellow walked into the building who I knew was banned because of fighting. He also had a bottle from which he was taking a nip every time I looked away. I walked over to him, told him he was banned from the building, and that he had to leave. He was half-drunk, and he looked at me and said, “I’m not leaving.” He opened his coat and he had a gun in his belt. Foolishly, I was so angry about his challenge to my authority that I grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and tossed him down the stairs and out of the building. Everyone laughed and applauded. When I thought about it, I started sweating at how foolish I had been. I had numerous learning experiences, such as this one, that made me reflect on how to act. When I was close to graduation from Tufts, John Root called me in and offered me a job. He said I stood out because I never got pissed off at the men and was able to communicate in a way that most others did not. Other than the one fight with the

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fellow who had a gun, I never laid a hand on anyone. I almost took the job but opted for going to the Peace Corps. What I learned, however, was that listening to people was fun and interesting. In many respects, I was more comfortable at Pine Street than I was at academic cocktail parties. I talked with a range of men, and I was able to see, simultaneously, how different they were from me but also how similar.

Peace Corps Morocco I graduated from Tufts, and, a month later, I was in Morocco with about 100 other Peace Corps Volunteers. Although I made lifelong friends in the Peace Corps, I learned pretty quickly that I was somehow different from other volunteers. I did not have a particular gift for learning Arabic, but I was interested in understanding the culture of Morocco from the perspective of Moroccans. It may have been my experiences at the Pine Street Inn, but I approached Morocco less from a sense of comparing it to the United States and more from a challenge of understanding how they saw the world and lived in it. Perhaps out of this desire to understand Moroccan culture but also from a romantic notion that I was somehow different, I asked to be placed in a remote location by myself. Lots of volunteers wanted to live in a city and have a roommate. I wanted the opposite. I wanted a remote village where I was on my own. I ended up in Tahala. Tahala is a Berber village in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. At the time, about 1000 people lived there. They had just opened a high school, and I taught ninth grade English. There were no cafes or restaurants, and Thala had one street where I bought milk and groceries. My house had cold running water for 3 hours in the morning, and the electricity was on in the evening for a few hours. I was the only foreigner, and the villagers were unsure what to make of me. I spoke no French – the second language in Morocco – and my Arabic derived from a 10-week training period with the other volunteers. Again, I am not sure why I approached living there from the standpoint of trying to understand what was going on rather than making judgments, but my daily life was constantly full of interactions that forced me to think about how I could understand and communicate to people who were very different from me. I met very smart people, many of whom had never graduated from grammar school. I also taught students who, in some respects, were like typical teenagers everywhere – funny, rambunctious, and inquisitive – but they also sought education in a way that I had never even considered. School started at 8 AM, and many of them walked for 2 hours in sandals. Although my little apartment was modest at best by American standards, I looked like a king compared to most of my students who had one pair of clothes. If the day was rainy, they might walk for 2 hours and sit in class all day in a rainy djellaba and wet feet. I was in Morocco long before 9/11, and I had no preconceived notions about Islam or Muslims. I feel fortunate to have learned about Islam prior to all that followed the bombing of the World Trade Center. I knew how important religion was to people, and they were quite willing to explain to me why they did particular things and what those things meant.

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Perhaps the greatest difference I saw was the relationship between men and women. In 1975, the United States was in the midst of perhaps not a sexual revolution but certainly a rethinking of gender roles. In Morocco, there was no discussion about gender equality. Women were largely confined to the home, and their role was to be a good wife and mother. My school had a handful of female teachers who stood by the side and never talked with the male teachers. I had classes of about 30 students and never had more than a half dozen girls. A peasant woman cleaned the house for me, and she could never get over treating me like I was a ruler who never asked her to do anything – any question of mine was treated as a command.

Fort Berthold Community College and the Three Affiliated Tribes When I returned from the Peace Corps, I got a master’s degree in Education from Harvard in 1 year, so I started thinking about work almost as soon as I arrived in Cambridge. I did not know what I wanted to do, but a pattern had begun to emerge. I liked working with people and doing something that was socially worthwhile; I was never intrigued by making a lot of money or finding a job that was going to get me a career in business or industry. I did not disdain that kind of work for others; I just knew that I liked work that was interesting and fun for me, and it had to involve people who were different from me. I ended up with three possible job offers – to teach English at a university in Iran, to teach high school at a private school in Istanbul, and to work at a tribally controlled college in northwest North Dakota. The tribal college movement began in the late 1960s with the assumption that Native American students performed abysmally when they went away to college. The assumption was that they would do better if there were colleges on their reservations where they might develop a skill or transfer to a 4-year institution. The tribal council at Fort Berthold chartered a community college and gave them a set of trailers on the far side of the river. The president set out to hiring a staff, and, at the age of 23 with a master’s degree from Harvard, she hired me as the academic dean. Again, the lessons I had begun to learn at Pine Street and Morocco came into play. I was the only white guy in the administration, and I had to negotiate how to do tasks in a way that was successful and did not culturally offend individuals. I also realized that I liked to work. I liked writing proposals and planning tasks with goals in mind. Prior to Fort Berthold, I also knew nothing about community colleges or much of higher education. I did not realize it at the time, but, by the age of 25, I had accumulated a wealth of experiences that not many other middle-class white Americans had. I am not sure my vitae at the time would have made much sense to someone or that it made sense to me. However, looking back on it today, I see four very clear patterns that resulted in the sort of academic life I led. First, I wanted work, needed work, that was fun and interesting, and for me that meant working with people who were different from me. I liked trying to understand difference and to do so in a way that made me reflect on myself. Second, the trait that I had sharpened in college had stayed with me: I liked to read and write, regardless of the forced isolation in Morocco or the numerous proposals and reports I needed to

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produce at Fort Berthold. Third, I was less interested in becoming wealthy, and I was more concerned with work that was somehow socially engaged and aimed at changing the world. And, fourth, however much I enjoyed working with others and tried to understand cultural difference, I also needed time by myself. I was less a social animal and more an individual who needed to retreat to some sort of sanctuary, whether it was the attic at the Pine Street Inn where I had a solitary bed for those night shifts or my little apartment in Tahala.

Harvard and Stanford There was no great educational rationale for going to Harvard. I had been teaching high school for 2 years; a master’s degree seemed like a good idea since I had no idea what I wanted to do, and I knew and liked Boston. The program was quite unstructured and paralleled my undergraduate career. Through a combination of scholarships and a few small loans, the price was not extraordinary. I was able to take a variety of courses on multiple topics. I never avoided math-based courses; I just found many other courses to be of greater interest. Again, I do not think we could go back and discern any planned pattern of my course-taking in graduate school akin to what premed majors do. Many individuals learn in linear fashion. To get to step three, they need to begin with step 1, master it, then go on to step 2, and so forth. That is not the way I have learned or made sense of the world. I took classes in anthropology and sociology, as well as classes in education that focused on abstract ideas, such as learning communities and philosophy. I also realized that I liked to write. No one ever asked me if I wanted to be a professor, and I could not have answered such a question if queried. Part of the funny aspect of academic life is no one really knows what faculty do. Everyone knows they teach for a few hours, but what do they do with the rest of their time? I knew what I did not want to do. I did not want a job that was a typical 9-to-5 sort of employment that earned a living but was not personally meaningful. When I completed my master’s degree, I had no better sense of what I wanted to do than when I had left the Peace Corps. One of the massive social changes that has occurred during my lifetime is that I was not preoccupied about jobs because I knew they existed. Today, we have to strategize for work in a way that was unheard of when I was having my various experiences. What is curious is that all of my experiences have made me, me. Without them, I probably would not have become who I am today, because I never had a clear trajectory about what I wanted to do. I went to Stanford not because I wanted a career as an academic but because I liked to read and write. My experiences made me look like a good candidate for the institutions I applied – Harvard, Stanford, and UMass Amherst – and I went to Stanford because I had never been west, and they offered me a free ride for my doctoral studies. Even during those first 2 years, I was not really clear about what I was going to do when I was done. What I learned in my doctoral program was how I began this text – I did not know enough to say anything. Stanford was an environment where I learned how little I knew. I appreciated the experiences I had, but I was putting an intellectual framework around those experiences, and it was fun and frightening. I could not just say things. I had to back up my assertions with evidence.

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I always have been fortunate to find extraordinary teachers. In high school, I had teachers who became lifelong friends. At Tufts, I had a handful of teachers who quietly guided me and put up with my never-ending questions. At Stanford, I developed special, intense friendships with faculty who helped launch my career. Again, what was curious was the lack of formal mentoring that was provided to yesterday’s graduate students. I prepare students for conferences, coach them on which journals to submit articles, and explain how to go about applying for jobs. At Stanford, no one did that for any of us. All of our dialogues were about ideas. I spent a great deal of time at Stanford talking with Hank Levin, Ed Bridges, Art Coladarci, David Tyack, Lew Mayhew, and especially Shirley Heath. Perhaps those late-night gabfests with my high school teachers prepared me for such conversations, but I know I learned a great deal. I had to take a bunch of quantitative courses at Stanford, and I did fine – but I did not find them very interesting. I took a master’s degree in anthropology and learned that there were formal ideas to what I had informally done at the Pine Street Inn and the Peace Corps and North Dakota. There was something called “culture” and something else called “ethnography” which helped explain what I found interesting and how I was doing it. And once one had something to say, there was an endless number of conferences and journals where people could argue over “big ideas.” Perhaps academic life was what I was cut out to do.

Developing My Academic Self The National Center In keeping with my earlier observation about not worrying about jobs, I did not really apply to work at the National Center for Higher Education. As I was about to finish my dissertation, my advisor, Lew Mayhew, suggested I talk with Ellen Chaffee. She had been his advisee, and she had a research position in Boulder, CO. I wrote a letter, interviewed, and had a job lined up within a month. I do not recall feeling very conflicted about the job. The salary was adequate, and my brother and his family lived in Boulder. Ellen and her colleagues seemed like they were a nice bunch of people, and off I went. I worked there for 2 years. I learned a great deal about how to do research and write articles for an audience concerned about policy. Academic life is largely not concerned about policy. Our journals and conferences may have a central role to play in advancing the understanding of knowledge, and individuals in education may continually implore their colleagues to be more policy-relevant, but I have not seen educational fields be any more policy-relevant today than when they were when I completed my dissertation. Individuals are policy-focused, but the field is not. I do not think there is a magic potion that will change academics into policy analysts. Places like the National Center make a unique contribution to bridging research and policy and practice. They do not get lost in what they see as academic esoterica, and they have a laser focus on what policy analysts want to know and how to present

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data in a manner that is useful. Academics write articles that they think policy people should know. I do not think that I would have been satisfied only focusing on policy reform and implementation. I enjoyed reading widely, and particular aspects of theory intrigued me. The strength of academic life, at least for me, is the breadth the job enables one to study, read, and write about rather than the singular focus of arenas such as policy. For example, on the one hand, I have been concerned about what concrete steps we might take to improve college-going of low-income youth (Tierney 2015; Tierney and Duncheon 2015), and, on the other hand, I wanted to understand how critical theory might be updated to include issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation (Tierney 1991a). I conducted cross-site case studies of institutions facing economic challenges, so we might be able to inform presidents about how to improve decisionmaking (Chaffee and Tierney 1988), and I also did a life history of a young man to explore issues of identity (Tierney 2013b). I tried to create games where we could demonstrably prove that they improved the likelihood high school seniors would apply to college (Tierney et al. 2018), and I did a life history of a Native American academic dying of AIDS so that his history might be told (Tierney 1993c). Each of these projects advanced my academic career largely because I received funding for them and published them in reputable journals or academic presses. But these projects appealed to different audiences. I began to think about publishing when I was in Boulder and received a contract for my first book (Tierney 1988b). I learned that I am someone who wants to have a lot of intellectual arrows in his quiver. I liked studying different issues and seeing if they had any relationship to one another. Even if they did not, I tend to think that my understanding of phenomena improved because I looked at life broadly, rather than narrowly. Darwin once wrote about “lumpers” and “splitters,” and as academic life advanced, the distinction gained a great deal of currency. Many asked, “Which are you?” Your response placed you in one or another group. Lumpers create large groups for understanding, and splitters break down groups into discrete entities based on unique differences. Lumpers focus on similarities, and splitters emphasize difference. Lumpers go for broad definitions that strive for temporal and contextual incorporation. Splitters argue that time and location matter a great deal. A lumper might be someone who points out the reasons for why low-income youth have historically been excluded from going to college. A splitter will look at the current context and seek to understand the challenges Black youth face, and, upon further consideration, discuss the differences between men and women, students from urban and rural areas, and gay and straight youth. Indeed, at one point, we talked about the gay-straight divide and then added “bisexual” and now transsexual, queer, and questioning. Educational policy is more concerned with lumping – how do we create broadbased policies that can be implemented on a state or national level? Academics, especially during my academic career, have been more concerned in breathing life into previously excluded groups and thereby became splitters. What my time at the National Center enabled me to do, especially so soon after being in the rarefied atmosphere of Stanford, was to think about the interplay of generalizations and

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specificity. As with the lessons I learned in Tahala and elsewhere, I did not recognize it at the time, but this lesson stayed with me throughout my academic career.

Penn State University When I interviewed at Penn State, the Dean commented, “When I look at your resume you seem like a dilettante. Your work is all over the place.” I remember being shocked at his put-down but said, “I don’t think you mean that as a compliment, but I’ll take it as one.” I then went on to explain how my various experiences were suitable for academic life. His unsettling comment was a good lesson that I have kept with me ever since. All of us, but perhaps me more than others because my work has been eclectic and protean (and “all over the place”), have to help others understand our lives. Sometimes, we hear individuals say, “The work speaks for itself.” I understand the sentiment. These sorts of comments are usually done by my positivist/scientific colleagues who believe that research should be generalizable and it can only be generalizable if we remove the researcher from consideration. The work should stand on its own merits. We can argue the pros and cons of such sentiments, but ultimately no one understands your life. As an assistant professor at Penn State, I also began to think through how I would position myself as an academic. I had to write and publish, of course, and I had a degree of success in that matter as soon as I arrived (Tierney 1987a, b, 1988a, b). I had two books published, and I learned that the organizational skills I had put to use in North Dakota were transferable to editing. I was able to focus on writing articles, and I learned how to write proposals that gained funding. One of my earliest projects, funded by the Ford Foundation, enabled me to do a series of case studies about tribal colleges where I used my knowledge of the tribal college movement and got to travel to reservations and listen to the challenges Native Americans faced (Tierney 1991b, 1992). I also had to teach and advise students, however, and again, I fell back on how I taught in Morocco and worked at Pine Street and my experiences talking with and teaching people who were different from me. I have some colleagues who are somewhat cold and distant in the classroom, and they are superb teachers. I have never taught that way. I know that, ultimately, I need students to master the material, but, from my perspective, knowledge goes through one understanding themselves. My favorite question in class since Penn State always has been, “What do you think?” To generate responses to such questions, students need to feel comfortable with the person asking the question. I do not mean comfortable in a lazy way or as if all answers are equally good. People need to know that the questioner honestly wants to know your answer and that the environment in the classroom is one where we collectively are going to come to some sort of understanding. Although I have liked teaching, advising is what I have particularly enjoyed. I like working with a student over a period of time and seeing how their ideas advance. I learned at Penn State that the way to work with students is to spend time with them and that a relationship has to expand from simply reviewing a text to developing a relationship with an individual who arrives to a meeting with a multitude of feelings and concerns. What I figured out at Penn State is that we need to understand one

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another. To do that, I need to be able to understand students as individuals, and they need to see me as more than simply a professor who has a particular set of knowledge that they want. To work from such an assumption requires a great deal more time that simply setting an office hour and answering yes-no questions. The time, however, is among the most rewarding experiences I have had in academe, especially when I have co-authored articles and books with some first-rate graduate students who subsequently join the professorate (Duncheon and Tierney 2013, 2014; Iloh and Tierney 2014; Kolluri and Tierney 2018, 2019; Lanford and Tierney 2016, 2018; Relles and Tierney 2013; Sablan and Tierney 2014, 2016; Tichavakunda and Tierney 2018; Tierney and Almeida 2017; Tierney and Clemens 2011, 2012; Tierney and Colyar 2006; Tierney and Corwin 2007; Tierney and Hallett 2010, 2012; Tierney and Holley 2008; Tierney and Jun 2001; Tierney and Lanford 2014, 2015, 2016; Tierney and Lechuga 2005, 2010; Tierney and Venegas 2009; Tierney and Ward 2017). Academic life gets defined as a triad of activities – research, teaching, and service – and we all know intuitively what that means. Service is often the weak leg of the stool, and everyone likes to bemoan service as unimportant and a waste of one’s time. I appreciate the easy observation because most individuals think of service as being on committees where people talk (and talk) and not much gets decided. I have sat on my fair share of such committees, and I have firsthand observation that those sorts of activities can be a major waste of one’s time, whether done on campus or for professional associations. However, most of my service has been extremely rewarding. Any university confronts issues that are conflictual, tendentious, and professionally dangerous. That is, if one is to get involved on an issue where people have heated opinions, then the potential exists that whomever you disagree with could harbor resentment against those with whom they disagree. I do not like conflict, but I also have learned not to run from it. We arrived at Penn State in the center of the AIDS epidemic. Gay rights were occurring in major cities, but certainly not in Happy Valley. The university did not have a nondiscrimination clause for gays and lesbians, and it had no policies about how to treat people with AIDS. The Board of Trustees was quite conservative, and the administration had little desire to take on an issue that was going to create conflict on the Board. I was a young academic without tenure, but perhaps because of a combination of my Catholic upbringing, my time seeing the injustices that Native Americans faced and my reading in critical theory, I quickly became enmeshed in many controversies at Penn State. Friends started dying from AIDS. Many of our friends were afraid to speak out for fear that they would lose their jobs or be harassed. I did not seek the spotlight; however, for several years at Penn State, I was one of the primary antagonists to the Board and president. I worked behind the scenes with a courageous new Board chair to force us to get a nondiscrimination clause. I worked quietly with senior administrators who could not be the face of reform but knew how to put gay-friendly policies in place. I forced the administration to start a committee that studied the gay and lesbian climate at Penn State, and I was its first chair. I helped students shape their ideas into workable actions that were confrontational

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and yielded results. I see all of these sorts of actions as one’s service to the university and profession. What I learned at Penn State was that I enjoyed most everything about academic life. I liked to write for various audiences. I relished my relationships with students. Whereas academic work can be too ethereal at times, I also found my voice on issues of equity that enabled me to juggle many different balls at the same time. I loved it.

University of Southern California By the time I arrived at the University of Southern California (USC), I had succeeded on a variety of traditional academic levels. I was now a full professor with a full vita of publications, and I had a healthy ability to generate grants and contracts. I was at a perfect time to come to USC – a young guy in his 40s with a great work ethic and a desire to help a program improve. In liberal Los Angeles, being gay was sort of irrelevant and, in some circles, sort of cool. The lessons I learned elsewhere all came into play at USC. I found that the sort of research I was doing was ahead of the curve and generated a fair amount of funding. Issues of equity and diversity were suddenly important in the policy world, and I was able to use what I had learned in Boulder to convince individuals to do work that was identity-focused but also policy-informed. I became the confidant for the provost and president, and I was able to navigate several academic controversies in a way that helped me understand how to create change on an organizational level. I started to get a solid cohort of graduate students who went on to successful careers in academe. Two lessons stand out for me during my time at USC. First, in working with the provost and president, I learned how important listening was not simply for doing the sort of research I did but also for helping individuals and the institution move forward. As I noted, people do not need someone to give them answers to solutions; they simply need a sounding board. This is equally true for senior administrators. Similarly, people are willing to take criticism if presented in a manner that enables them to hear what you are saying. Second, I stumbled into a form of action research that extended what I had been writing. I knew a great deal by the time I arrived at USC about why more low-income students were not going to college. I also knew about the strengths and weaknesses of mentoring programs and college preparation programs. Over a number of years, I created two programs for mentoring and writing for collegebound youth that were a form of research for my graduate students and me. More importantly, I worked directly with low-income high school students and found that the sort of mentoring I did with my graduate students and college presidents worked with them as well. A challenge in academic life is to find a balance between the academic cloistered in the library with their books and ideas and the change agent working tirelessly in the community to advance an idea. At USC, I found that balance. International When I was in my first year or 2 at Penn State, a senior professor who was on sabbatical was meeting with a student. At the end of the meeting, I saw him in the

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hallway, and he laughed and said, “I’m going to give you the best advice you’ll ever get.” I looked at him quizzically and he said, “When you’re on sabbatical, get the hell out of town.” Aside from his complaint about being called to campus for this or that meeting, his advice was excellent. During every sabbatical I have had, I have “gotten the hell out of town.” I first went to Central America on a regional Fulbright when I was at Penn State. My first sabbatical at USC was a second Fulbright to Australia, and then for a third sabbatical, I went to Malaysia. My final Fulbright was to India. I also have been a scholarin-residence for a month at a time for 4 years at the University of Hong Kong. Most recently, I had a month’s residence in Bellagio, Italy, courtesy of the Rockefeller Foundation, and finally I was in residence at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence as I headed toward retirement. Obviously, I have spoken at and attended conferences abroad as well, but I know that these extended periods of leave have framed how I do my work. Aside from my older colleague’s observation that staying in town lets people intrude on your time in ways that being half a world away does not allow, international work has helped me think how what I write fits within a broader framework (Oleksiyenko and Tierney 2018; Pathania and Tierney 2018; Tierney 1995; Tierney and McInnis 2001; Tierney and Sabharwal 2017, 2018; Tierney and Sirat 2008). All of my international work has primarily involved research. I have given lectures and spoken with primarily graduate students, but the bulk of my time has been spent conducting research and writing. I also have been fortunate to have lived in multiple locations. Unlike an anthropologist who focuses on the Brazilian jungle and spends the bulk of their career returning to the field numerous times throughout their career, I have tried to think through how my ideas fit from one country to another. My academic career has come about during the rise of globalization and the pervasive influence of technology. My first Fulbright was at the University of Costa Rica, and the only place that had Internet service was a room in the library where there were five computers linked to a mainframe. At EUI, I messaged my colleagues who were in offices at the end of the hall to ask if they wanted to have lunch. Globalization forced us to think about the implications for work, how neoliberalism influenced academic institutions, and what the future of the professorate might entail. Obviously, there are no hard answers to these sorts of issues, but what I have grappled with is how these sorts of issues vary on a global scale. Globalization impacts academic work in one way at the University of Southern California and quite a different way at Universiti Sains Malaysia, in Penang. Inequity exists in one manner for students of color in the United States and quite a different way for Dalits (Untouchables) in India (Tierney 2004, 2010; Tierney and Lanford 2017; Tierney et al. 2019). Obviously, my initial experience in Morocco, and, to a certain extent, at Fort Berthold, created the impetus for me to embark on cross-cultural work. I suppose being gay also has been foundational in trying to understand the “other.” I also have been fortunate to live with someone who is as intrigued by living abroad as I have been. Although my career has converged in many ways with many of my colleagues,

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one of the unique aspects of my academic career has been my international experiences. Americans, I fear, are all too insular, and our insularity breeds a national and intellectual hubris. Again, I have long been interested in how different people perceive their world and how they act in it; international travel and work, for me, has helped me foster a national and intellectual humility that has aided my work.

ASHE/AERA All academics have professional associations that, in some way, frame their disciplinary understanding of the world. The Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) and the American Educational Research Association (AERA) have been mine. Over the course of my academic career, I never missed a meeting except those years when I was abroad. I also played a variety of roles in each association – most importantly, president of each. As I look back on my career, I have three strong feelings about my participation in the annual meetings and one forecast. First, conferences enabled me to make some of the best relationships I have had in academe. Both ASHE, in the fall, and AERA, in the spring, enabled me to have coffee, lunch, and dinner with a constant crew of individuals who are lifelong friends. Conferences can be a long slog through boring sessions in hot rooms. AERA, in particular, with 18,000 attendees, sometimes feels like I am at Times Square at rush hour trying to get on the A train. What has made those meetings enjoyable is that they connected me with individuals in ways that a simple email could not. When I was young, I enjoyed going to conferences, meeting individuals whose work I had read, and discovering that they were just like normal people – some nice, some not. My overwhelming sense, however, is that I received an inordinate amount of help from older colleagues who were willing to read my work and include me in one or another project. As I grew older, I enjoyed just as much seeing my graduate students as assistant professors, trying to calm their anxieties, and finding out how they were doing professionally and personally in their careers. My second thought about associations and conferences is more troubling. My first comment largely relates to what took place in the halls of the conferences, as well as before and after the conference. The actual sessions for conferences were never very interesting to me, and as I have gotten older, they are even less interesting. Not unlike our academic journals, conference presentations increasingly seem to focus on trivia that a handful of people might be interested in, but not many more. As we have devolved into our own special interest groups, we have eschewed a sense of interest in larger issues that cut across methods, genres, and topics. For someone like myself who has tried to read broadly and write for diverse audiences, I find that conferences have become more focused on padding an individual’s resume than in broadening the discourse on a specific topic. My third thought has to do with the leadership of associations. Far too often, association leaders are either focused on one single issue or they treat election to a leadership position as an honor and do little more than put the title on their resume. The care and nurturance of an association is time-consuming and inevitably conflictridden. I also think it’s an opportunity for an individual to put forward a view of

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research, and far too often that is not done. At a minimum, the absence of leadership in an association is a missed opportunity, but more importantly, the absence of vigorous leadership leaves the association at risk during times of great change, such as we are now experiencing. The lore goes that, when academic professions and disciplines formed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, academics in a discipline such as economics decided that they should get together; some of them would read their papers to the others in order to get criticism and feedback. A group of 30 sociologists might come together in Baltimore; a few would have new ideas to discuss, and they would present papers. After the meeting, they would go back and rework their scholarship for publication. What we have today has little resemblance to such a version of academic feedback. Today, individuals go to conferences largely to pad their vitae for promotion, tenure, or advancement. I appreciate why things have changed, but given the cost of travel both financially and to the environment, I have to question the worth of conferences in the twenty-first century, which brings me to my forecast. The pandemic stopped a great deal of what we think of as normal life. Conferences came to a complete halt. Unlike the handwringing about online learning, I heard very little about what was lost by not having a conference. Couple that observation with the tightened budgets because of the pandemic and a general concern for needless travel because of climate change, and I have begun to think that conferences may have outlived their usefulness. I know that getting together with friends and colleagues was a highlight of my career, but I also reveled in keeping articles in file folders in my office when I started as an assistant professor. Times change. We need to think about a different way to encourage scholarly debate and foster collegiality.

Friendships One of the nicest surprises in academic life is to discover colleagues who become lifelong friends. Sometimes I cannot even remember where I first met someone, but I can look back and remember moments when I really looked forward to seeing the person. Mentors have become friends. Graduate students have become friends. When something good or bad happens, they are often among the first that I will tell. Yvonna Lincoln was a full professor when I entered academe and a person of renown. I was amazed she’d deign to talk to me at the first conference I attended, and a few years later, we looked on our dinners at ASHE and AERA as one of the highlights of going to the conferences. Estela Bensimon and I were joined at the hip at Penn State, and, with our husbands, we became a very fun foursome in New York and Happy Valley. Once we ended up at USC together, we got an academic divorce for far too long, and the situation was sad for us and those around us. A young fellow came up to me at a conference once and said, “I hear you and Estela are angry and not talking with one another. It’s not good for the rest of us. It’s like a family, and the parents are quarreling. Can’t you go to couples counseling?” It took far too long, but we are happily back together, sharing meals, travels, memories, and arguments. Some folks I correspond with seemingly daily on issues serious and funny. Michael Olivas, Ed. St John, and John Thelin are constant companions. I run

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issues large and small, academic and personal, by Laura Perna. A meal with Laura is what I think of as authentic; there’s very little phoniness when we get together. Closer to home, Zoe Corwin was a graduate student worker for me, then my research assistant, then my advisee, then postdoc, then colleague, and friend. I could speak of over a generation’s worth of graduate students. What many individuals do not realize is that the vast majority of one’s time in a graduate school will be spent with one’s advisees. A student arrives with an unformed idea and, 4 or 5 years later, leaves for an academic position having just defended their idea. It is very fun working with people in such close quarters over an extended period of time.

The Development of My Mature Self Aside from typical questions an academic must ask themselves about theory and method and such, I offer four questions that, in the final years of my academic work, I realized we need to ask ourselves. I do not think the questions have a right or wrong answer, but they are questions we should continue to ask ourselves throughout our academic careers. 1. How do you want to spend your time? Academic life enabled me to live in a way that suits my personality. I need time by myself to think through the problems I am researching. For as long as I can remember, I have been an early riser. I generally get up around 4:30 AM and am in bed by about 10 PM. I went to Penn State and USC 2 or 3 days a week, and I usually got there by 6:30 AM. I always wrote at home and most of my writing occurred prior to noon. I read assiduously and voluminously and obviously need time by myself. Writing is also an act that occurs individually. I know a great many people who are more social than I – and spending a great deal of time by themselves is simply not something they want to do. Solitude is boring. I also know individuals who love administration and enjoy going from meeting to meeting. Their days are full from the moment they enter campus until they go home. Even people who carve out time for themselves will spend time answering their email or texting individuals about a particular issue or question they may have. How we choose to spend our time helps us think about our lives as academics. I have always wanted to spend time by myself. I do not want to give an impression that I am a hermit, but I did not seek administrative positions in large part because I did not want to spend my time in a way that administration requires. Academics have different life cycles, and I have known many successful academic cum administrators who return to the faculty. The knowledge loss can be considerable; to stop reading the literature for a half dozen years in any field today makes picking up where one left off difficult. However, I fully appreciate that some individuals do not like time alone; other individuals change their views about time, and still others are

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like me. My sense of time and the pace to my life have given me great joy, and ultimately that’s what we want/need in our work (and personal) lives. 2. How do you feel about learning? Recall that my first dean said I was a dilettante. More recently, I had a fellow ask me to speak on poverty and education because I am supposedly an expert, and in the same day, I had someone else ask me to write a chapter on qualitative methods because I am an expert yet again, and a new book I edited says I am an authority on relational sociology. That dean would say I never learned my lesson. I am not going to argue that the choices I have made are the right choices for everyone. I fully understand how an individual becomes fascinated with one particular aspect of a problem and spends their life studying it. I only know that my life has ranged over a large terrain of social science, in part because of my reading and in part because of a particular issue that may have arisen in the field. I know nothing about early childhood education and very little about adult education, but I probably know more about elementary and secondary schools than the typical scholar of higher education. The connections I have sought and found with regard to college readiness demanded that I spend time in schools. I also believe that, over the lifespan of an academic career, change becomes more difficult and of less interest. There is a temptation to rely on what we have written and to regurgitate work that we have already done. I have sought a different path. Every class that I have taught a second time is different from the previous one. Even the final classes I taught at USC were about 25% different from the previous year’s classes; I had read something that was new and interesting, deleted an article for one reason or another that I thought was outdated or no longer worked, or responded to students’ interests. I recently had an edited book published on relational sociology (Tierney and Kolluri 2020). A decade ago, I knew very little of the relational literature. Fortunately, I had an ambitious graduate student who wanted to do a dissertation on advanced placement, and we both found Pierre Bourdieu’s work a bit stultifying for his project. We began a directed reading on the topic of relational sociology, then taught a seminar, and did some writing and presentations before we pulled together a series of essays. Reading new literature and heading into a new intellectual direction toward the end of one’s career may seem like a fool’s errand and a waste of time. I do not see it that way. My relation to learning has always been to explore new avenues rather than remain wedded to old ones. 3. How do you feel about disagreement? I have portrayed two similar answers with regard to time and learning as my career has evolved. I have always needed time by myself; I always have relished being able to take new intellectual avenues. On this question, however, the world has changed, and so have I.

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I have never been one to shrink from disagreement. I cannot say I enjoy a good fight, but I also always have felt free to express my opinion. I am not sure why I have felt comfortable voicing disagreement, but I have done it repeatedly throughout my academic career. As an assistant professor at Penn State, I was one of a handful of individuals who confronted the president about his lack of support for gay rights. I testified to the Pennsylvania legislature, in a room full of conservatives, for a gay-inclusive curriculum. I spoke on behalf of a more diverse hiring plan, and I chaired a university committee at USC that overturned previous attempts to define excellence without taking into consideration gender and race. I also have had disagreements with colleagues – as well as my dean, provost, and president – on more than one occasion. During my presidencies of ASHE and AERA, I encountered criticism for some of the stands I took. In general, I do not think it is healthy for any relationship to hide a disagreement. I do not think we should simply blurt things out whenever we feel so inclined, but I find the majority of academics are risk averse. They are more likely to speak behind one’s back rather than confront an individual. Many of the reasons I have heard over the years about why one cannot or should not speak up have to do with the cost of confrontation. Even though our institutions supposedly subscribe to academic freedom, where, broadly stated, people are supposed to be able to say whatever they like, individuals feel it is simply too risky to disagree publicly with someone. The result is that I often have been the one to speak up when others would not. Over the last decade, however, I have grown weary of arguments. In large part, my weariness has to do with our aversion to offend someone. I have written about how I suffered from microaggressions as an undergraduate and graduate student, and I am aware of many issues that trigger uncomfortable feelings in a classroom. However, we have reached a point where we are unable to have difficult dialogues. Part of the challenge of working on a campus during the time of a fascist US president is that students no longer want to engage in a discussion that they see as questioning their right to be who they are. Ironically, I often agree with the perceptions of these students. President Trump is a racist who has used race and gender in a harmful manner that seeks to divide individuals and portray women and people of color in a negative light. I am equally aware that many of his biggest supporters are members of the Christian right who have proclaimed that the pandemic, among many other tragedies, is caused because of gay marriage (talk about transference!). I have spent my academic life engaged with individuals with whom I have had serious disagreement. I have had to deal with homophobia at ASHE, AERA, and in every position I have held. In Malaysia, homosexuality is against the law, and, until recently, gay people in India faced imprisonment. I have not enjoyed these arguments, but my sense is that the only way to get through to individuals is by way of dialogue. If a campus stands for anything, it has to stand for informed discussion. That is no longer the case. Controversy brings with it the desire to shut down dialogue. The result is that many of us run from disagreement. I find the climate on our campuses today lamentable. I have always welcomed disagreement, and I have felt particularly adept at handling difficult discussions in the classroom. However, as

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I headed out the door and if I reentered that door today, I would hesitate to be the one who welcomes disagreement. And that is lamentable. 4. How do you feel when you get up in the morning? The question has little to do with if we have a cold, if we are suffering a personal trauma, or if we have a particular psychological, emotional, or physical problem. I am more concerned with how we feel about the work we do. I have never felt that the academic profession is merely a job, as if it’s something to do to pass the time or pay the bills. I know many people who simply think of their work as a way to earn money, and I offer no criticism. However, academic life is more than a job; it’s a calling. One constant throughout my academic career is that I feel excited when I get up. I want the day to start because the academic work I have outlined to do is going to be fun. I do not mean that every second of academic life is a laugh-fest. It is not. However, one question I always ask of my advisees is if they are enjoying their work. If they view all the books they have to read as a homework assignment that they “must” do, then over the long haul academic life is probably not for them. When individuals do not look forward to the work that is ahead of them, then it is reasonable to assume that they should consider a change in careers. Academic life is a vocation in the best sense of the word. The academy is a calling, and if one is not called, then a person should find something that they like to do. I have been fortunate to awaken in the morning with a sense of excitement about the tasks that lie ahead, whether I was a graduate student struggling to write my first paper or an aging professor trying to write this one.

Part II: Organizing Ideas for an Academic Life Understanding Culture in Organizations Research on organizations, in general, and higher education organizations, in particular, can be maddening. There is very little causality that can ever be ascertained – “if we do this, then this will happen,” and sometimes the literature asserts a finding that a few years later gets debunked or dethroned for the next finding. At one point, for example, “management by walking around” was all the rage. Managers should not stay in their offices, and those who walked around were in successful countries. Until they were not. Or Japanese management was all the rage because Japanese countries were so productive – a generation ago. Strategic planning was essential for any high-performance organization. Until it was not. Colleges and universities needed to be restructured or reengineered for high performance, and students needed to be thought of as customers. Leadership was all about symbolism and communication. “Effectiveness” and “efficiency” were the twin themes to call upon to evaluate an organization; then Management by Objectives (MBO) became the way

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to run a company or university, and then Revenue (or Responsibility) Centered Management (RCM) became the rage. Some will complain that a great deal of this research was neoliberal and based on market-based economies, and such a critique is partly correct. Others will point out that nonprofit and profit-making companies are different from one another and ought not have the same management strategies, and that, too, is correct. Still others will argue that much of the terminology creates a false dichotomy. If one does not adopt effectiveness and efficiency as a guiding strategy, then is one for ineffectiveness and inefficiency? If one does not think leadership gets defined by communication, then are we saying communication is irrelevant? If strategic planning should not be a guidepost, then how does one make decisions? These critics also have a point. The critics will counter that postsecondary organizations are among the most stodgy and inefficient organizations that exist and need to stop acting as if the past was a utopia. Faculty taught classes when they wanted and disregarded student needs, much less desires. In a digital age, faculty have to be more responsive. Campuses wedded to an agrarian calendar had buildings sit empty in the summer rather than generate revenue. When a president tweets, formalized presidential pronouncements once a semester now seem quaint and no longer what faculty, staff, and students need. Faculty and staff used to say with pride that universities are among the world’s oldest organizations, whereas today such a statement is a sign of institutional intransigence. Those who have attacked neoliberalism for forcing nonprofits to act like for-profits have not been very helpful to harried administrators facing fiscal meltdowns. During the 2008 recession and the 2020 pandemic, budgets were cut to such a degree that administrators needed to figure out what to do. Subsequent budgets did not restore institutions to a level of funding that they once had. The result is that institutions looked for organizational efficiencies. Even those of us who agree with some of the criticism about neoliberalism’s attack on higher education ask how we might respond when public revenue shrinks and tuition has been stretched to the limit. One can, for example, acknowledge that the bulk of classes Monday through Thursday is a faculty artifact, and having empty classrooms on Fridays is probably not the best way to run a campus. Some sort of plan about the future of the institution is beneficial for requesting resources from the state. Student debt is too high. I raise these issues because we can make a fair argument that organizational research has provided very few answers that have had staying power with regard to how postsecondary organizations should act. Depending on one’s political stance, we could go even further and say that the bulk of advice has been detrimental to the basic mission of nonprofit public and private colleges and universities. We are mistaken when we look to organizational studies as empirically driven work that seeks to provide definitive answers about how a modern organization should function best. The studies tell us more about how individuals see the world than how the organizational world works or ought to work. The challenge is that administrators and faculty need answers to difficult dilemmas. When a budget is cut, individuals are faced with the reality that the university could save a significant amount of money by outsourcing its custodial staff. Those of us concerned about

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outsourcing will make good points about how outsourced laborers are less well paid with fewer benefits than contract employees. The point may be well-taken and should be considered, but such a critique does not remove the concern of a president or provost about how to balance the budget. I have written about organizations, in general, and organizational culture, in particular, for most of my academic life (Hentschke et al. 2010; Tierney 1991a, 2008; Tierney and Hentschke 2007). As I look back on the work, I find that I have been most successful when I am working from a reflective, rather than a prescriptive, position. Reflexiveness has been a hallmark of my life. The challenge for those of us who study organizational culture is that our articles and books generally seek a policy-driven audience who thrive on answers. The first significant piece I wrote on organizational culture was simply trying to delineate the landscape to help us consider how to think about organizational culture in higher education (Tierney 1988b). I probably would have been better off if I had concentrated more on the cultural and symbolic aspects of organizational life and less on solutions for harried administrators about how to make decisions or even which decisions to make. I am making an overt assumption that leadership and decision-making are in large part a cultural act framed by symbolic decision-making. To make such an assumption might seem like I am rejecting data-driven decision-making, which is a mistake. Of course, there is empirically driven information that any modern leader needs en route to making a decision. But data does not create a decision; it helps the leader make a decision. What I think cultural research can do is not necessarily point out “good” or “bad” cultures but help readers reflect on their own organization’s culture and their role in enacting reform (Tierney 2014). I am suggesting that cultural research needs to be theoretically nuanced and methodologically sophisticated. I will expand on theory and method below, but we need more research utilizing a cultural framework where the author is deeply knowledgeable about theory and able to construct cultural work that is not “shotgun.” Far too much work in higher education is atheoretical and utilizes the simplest of methodologies. All too often, I have read work that says the author has called upon some framework that is in favor – postmodernism, critical race theory, cultural ecology, and the like – but after reading the article, I cannot detect how their “postmodern” findings might differ from someone using, for example, a rationalist framework. The strength of a great deal of anthropological studies is that the authors are well versed in the theoretical frameworks they employ and they are able to compare and contrast theory “A” with theory “B.” They have no interest in pointing out that a group or tribe acts better or worse with theory “A.” They are simply trying to work through how one sees the world through a particular vantage point. Such an observation is important because many of us see the world from our own unique lens, and we believe, all too often, that our view of our world is not only the right way but the only way to see the world. Cultural work enables us to see that the world is multifaceted, and, if anything, my view of the world is little more than mine. Leadership, then, becomes an endeavor where the leaders do not force their view onto others but first are able to see how others see the world and then try to move in a

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world with multiple perceptions. Reflexiveness is critical, not only in research but in how we lead organizations. The methodological concern reflects the challenges of the time. Speed is valued on every level. We expect our assistant professors to come up with a problem, study it, and then get the study published. The result is a research design that is short of data and analysis and frequently misunderstands common ideas, such as “generalization.” I have done a fair number of life histories, for example. What I have tried to do with those life histories perhaps results from the fact that I was a tenured full professor when I conducted most of them (e.g., Tierney 2013b). An “n” of 1 is not going to enable generalizable findings. For a life history to be a life history, the researcher also needs to spend an extended amount of time with the research subject. The writing of the text also needs to be empathic and interesting enough that a reader will want to read the text (Tierney and Clemens 2012; Lanford et al. 2019). Consider how different that method is from someone who interviews ten people on three campuses for 1 hour each and then writes up a text that presumably gives us not only answers to the puzzle that the paper is attempting to write but also recommendations about how the reader might act when in a similar situation. The problem, of course, is that ten 1-hour interviews on three campuses tell us nothing that can be generalizable. The theoretical framework will be absent, and, if truth be told for most readers, they will skip over the first half of the text, flip through the data, and head straight to the “discussion” section to find the recommendations. Such a way to read is the complete opposite of what I have aimed for in life history. The reader needs to spend time with the theory and read the data so that they come to care about the person’s life. My own standpoint is relevant, but it is not the purpose of the piece. Ultimately, then, for cultural research to be useful, the author has to be able to enable the reader to reflect on their own positions and what that means for their lives as administrators, faculty, or members of the community. We can still make remarkable advances with cultural understandings of academic life, but, to do so, our authors need to be more theoretically sophisticated than we currently are, we need to have a better understanding of cultural methodologies and terms, and we need the ability to spend time in the field and with one’s writing so that the reader will care about the text in a way that is antithetical to those who are simply concerned with quick and dirty findings.

The Enduring Challenge of Equity Social and intellectual activism came relatively easy for me. As a high school student, we worked against the Vietnam war, and in college, the protest against unfair national policies only grew. I also am someone who probably does better by experience, instead of just reading about something. In that light, I know that the time I spent at the Pine Street Inn, as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco, and then as a young academic dean at Fort Berthold Community College gave me a firsthand

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understanding of the challenges individuals face because of who they are and the conditions they experience. Someone once asked me if I thought that I had been so socially active when I was young because I was transferring my energy as a closeted gay man to other causes. He had a point. I do not think it was necessarily transference. The closet, however, enabled me to think about “the other” and issues pertaining to identity long before the topics were current in academic work. I never felt tortured because I am gay or wished not to be gay. I think, however, that any gay person of my age had a puzzle to figure out, and they had to think through issues largely on their own. Why am I this way? Why do people treat gay people in this manner? Am I really alone? One of the most significant issues in the social sciences and humanities in the late twentieth century, and continuing until today, has to do with identity and how one thinks of and constructs “the other.” If postmodernism has any legacy, it is that, rather than smushing everyone together as if we are alike, postmodern theorists enabled us to concentrate on difference. The result was that we began to realize that women are paid less than men, for example, and that, for them to succeed, they should not have to act like men or that people with a Latino or African American sounding name were less likely to get a job interview, even if they had the same vitae as an individual with a white-sounding name. The point became, obviously, not to force someone to change their name from Carlos to Charley but to change the racist environment in which Carlos resides. And, too, gay people should be able to marry and raise children, just like straight people, because their lives were no worse (or better) than their heterosexual counterparts (Tierney 1997, 1999, 2000; Tierney and Rhoads 1993). A focus on the other and identity created possibilities and challenges. The possibilities pertain to cross-group alliances. On a practical level, at places like Penn State, there are so few of “the other” that all of us on the margins needed to work together. On an intellectual level, we also were able to think through where those of us on the margins were similar and different. Gay people can pass in ways that people of color largely cannot, which creates opportunities. Gay people experience being expelled from their families because of who they are; people of color do not, for example. The challenges pertain to what some of us think of as “the oppression Olympics.” One or another group points out the oppressive structures in which they exist, and a member from another group counters with their own oppression and how, presumably, it is that much worse. And in true postmodern fashion, there are those who refuse to acknowledge any similarity across identities. The result is that, if someone fashions a response to someone else talking about the challenges she faces as a woman in academe and a gay man points out that the problems he faces are similar, the point can be seen as a “pivot.” In effect, we are not here to talk about your problems; we are here to talk about my problems – and the two have no overlap. I have been centrally involved in these issues intellectually, as well as on policy-related issues. The first research funding I received pertained to documenting the challenges and possibilities of Native American community

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colleges. I published a great deal of work that highlighted the lives of Native American students and faculty on mainstream campuses (e.g., Tierney 1993d; Tierney and Kidwell 1991; Wright and Tierney 1991). Anyone who is not from the particular group that they are writing about runs a particular risk. Oscar Lewis (1961) thought he was doing admirable work in The Children of Sanchez through his ethnography of a Mexican family, but his book became a textbook case for blaming the victim for their situation because they presumably lived in a culture of poverty. John Steinbeck made a career documenting through fiction the lives of his friends in novels such as Tortilla Flats and Cannery Row, but, from a twentyfirst century reading, the texts portray his characters as largely a foolish bunch of drunks. For years, if gay people were portrayed on screen, they were seen as deviants, and when the time came for gay men and lesbians to be portrayed in a more positive light, they were always seen in relation to their heterosexual counterparts who invariably saved the day. I have appreciated and welcomed the challenges of portraying individuals who are different from me. My sense is that, for many of us, portraying difference is fraught with cultural baggage – but we should embrace that challenge rather than avoid it or run from it. I reject the easy assumption that only the person who is a member of a certain group can study/write about that group – only gay men can write about gay men, etc. I freely acknowledge how wrong someone can get a portrayal of someone from another group (or their own group, for that matter). I have done work on a Native American who was dying of AIDS, gays and lesbians in academe, Latino and Black youth in high school, Latino and Black youth in college, women navigating tenure, Latin American faculty in Central America, and, as I have aged, the problems that young faculty face. With all of these studies, and many others, I have been a border crosser. Most recently, I have done studies of Dalit (untouchable) youth in India (Pathania and Tierney 2018; Tierney et al. 2019). Obviously, there are ways that one employs “member checks.” I have had member checks so that those I have interviewed have been able to react to what I have drafted. Quite often, they have helped me understand where I was wrong or misinterpreted something in a way that was not entirely correct. I also have had several advisory boards primarily composed of individuals from the groups I am studying. One inevitably takes a risk when we study topics. I do not accept the idea that we only should study only what we know, or we ostensibly know, or that we should avoid risky intellectual terrain. If one’s work gets them to an area that requires new ways of thinking and mastering new literatures, then that is what the academics should do. Academic life has to be about pushing norms, trying to create equitable change, and finding breakthroughs on an intellectual or policy-related level that makes a difference. If we are not going to risk making a difference on some level, then why engage in the academic life? Equity has taken me in unexpected directions. Most higher education scholars spend their time in some sort of postsecondary institution, and I have certainly done a fair amount of research in community colleges, colleges, and universities, looking

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at multiple aspects of higher education. However, over the last 15 years, the bulk of my field research and work has been spent in high schools. My work on college preparation and access to college inevitably – at least, to me – meant that I needed to spend time in schools. Recall my old dean’s comment that I was a dilettante. I am certain that, for some individuals, starting to study a new type of organization when one is a senior professor is a fool’s errand, but I found it necessary, invigorating, and useful. The bulk of my research in the twenty-first century has focused on the challenges low-income youth face en route to college. I have seen far too much research that considers the challenges poor youth face in college, but we have no understanding of the environments from which they come. And by no means am I suggesting that those environments fit within Lewis’s paradigm of a culture of poverty. We overlook, however, that the sorts of students with whom I have spent my time have less “college knowledge” through no fault of their own. Capitalism as a structure creates an environment where some gain cultural and symbolic capital almost by osmosis, and others – those with whom I have worked – need it taught to them in a clear, deliberate way. Perhaps, for me, even an odder point of departure has been my work on games and access. After several years of overseeing and researching college access programs, I realized how labor-intensive that sort of college readiness program is. I hypothesized that if we created games, we might be able to reach a larger audience. One irony is that I am a technological idiot who has no idea how to put together any sort of software on any level, much less to develop a game that would be of interest to teenagers. Fortunately, USC has a premier laboratory that specializes in games, with a brilliant director, Tracy Fullerton. For about a half dozen years, we collaborated on games for high school youth. Tracy put the games together, and we tested them with various audiences. Individuals in our higher education center, especially Zoe Corwin, primarily found funding for the work, conducted a series of studies, published work, and refined the games based on what we know (Corwin et al. 2016; Tierney et al. 2018, 2014). My own conclusion is that games are not yet there yet with regard to widespread use that might enable a revolution in college preparation and college access. I am glad I did the work, however, for it was a logical extension of my work pertaining to equity, and it also moved me from my comfort zone. I do not believe that we should conduct research and write on any topic that comes our way. I also know that whatever I do has to be deeply researched, tested, and vetted. That has often meant that I have had to spend more time reading than many others and I have had to spend more time in the field than those who do one or another kind of research. As I elaborate in the next section, I have been less interested in tearing down others’ research and simply trying to improve my own. However different it may seem to do a life history of a Native American professor struggling with AIDS in the 1980s and to investigate low-income Latino youth playing games as a way to gain access to college, the underlying parameters of what I have done have remained the same.

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On Theory, Method, and Writing I came of age intellectually when fighting positivism was all the rage. A great deal of ink was spilled – when one could spill ink – over the problems of generalizability and the harm hard social science had done to minorities and women. Although I tended to agree with many of the assertions about the importance of one’s standpoint, as well as the problems with generalizability and the like, I was much more interested in what I needed to do, rather than in telling my scientific colleagues about what not to do. Method and writing, for me, always have followed theory. Ever since graduate school, I have spent a great deal of time reading about theoretical presuppositions of particular theorems and then thinking through what the implications are for education. My quantitative colleagues in education largely eschew theory for method. Their assumption is that the elegance of the design will enable findings that are valid, reliable, and generalizable. If we can replicate the sterility of the laboratory and repeat tests again and again with the same measures and sterile environment, the thinking goes, and then we will have a useful finding. I always have been able to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas at the same time. I appreciate the challenge of generalization, reliability, and validity. I also know, however, that scientists have made remarkable breakthroughs that have enabled viruses to be eradicated and medical cures to be found for any number of illnesses. Sure, mistakes and quackery happen, but that should not obfuscate the point that scientists following the scientific method have been responsible for scientific advances that have improved society. The implication for me is that I have been entirely comfortable working alongside scientists and positivists on large-scale studies when that sort of framework and method advanced what I wanted to study. Insofar as I have largely worked from a cultural framework, my theoretical reading was in the midst of the challenges many of us faced about positionality, identity, understanding the other, and the structural conditions that enabled and disabled educational opportunity. The master’s degree at Harvard and, in particular, my doctorate in education and master’s in anthropology at Stanford were steeped in the challenges that theory presented to us. I had the opportunity to read, and ultimately write, a great deal about culture, critical theory, postmodernism, and structuralism. My master’s thesis in anthropology was on the use of culture for two theorists – Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Pierre Bourdieu. I appreciate that reading theorists like Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and Claude Levi-Strauss, among others (Sturrock 1980), can simultaneously seem like a task no one would wish on anyone because of their impenetrable writing but also self-indulgent since their work seems so far afield for those of us concerned about educational equity. What reading theory has enabled me to do, however, is precisely focus on the challenges we face with putting forward solutions that will improve outcomes for those who are most at risk. What scientists too often forget is the theoretical assumptions made when undertaking a social science experiment; what those of us in a naturalistic paradigm too often forget is that there are theoretical presuppositions that might support or refute the framework we utilize.

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How we understand one another, the structures that structure all of us, and how and why they change over time are the essential questions that have very few answers. And yet, because theoretical questions often fail to provide answers, we ought not assume the questions are irrelevant. Indeed, I have arrived at the opposite position. I raise questions of identity, positionality, and the like not because they have answers but because the answers escape us. Knowledge is provisional. Because knowledge and understanding are partial, we ought not to suggest that we have nothing to offer; rather, our findings are put forward with a modesty that enables users to adapt them to their own local and temporal contexts. I was fortunate at Stanford to read an obscure French anthropologist who, at the time, very few in education had heard of, much less read: Pierre Bourdieu (1973, 1977, 1986; Bourdieu and Passeron 1990). Unlike others, such as Foucault, whose work was admittedly a stretch for education, Bourdieu’s was not. He was centrally concerned with ideas of cultural and social capital and how they informed educational inequity. I was one of the first to use his work in education and have maintained an interest ever since. I do not want to suggest that Bourdieu’s work should frame all educational work or that he provides answers that no one else can, but his research, and mine based on his analyses, expands our understanding of what is taking place in educational settings. What good qualitative research should be doing is first making sense of an environment and then be able to portray that environment to readers in a way that is understandable and hopefully will inform educational policy and action. To say that one does qualitative or quantitative methodology tells us at least from which paradigm someone is working, but there are a range of methodological strategies at one’s disposal, and I have called on many of them over my career. I have conducted ethnographies, case studies, life histories, interviews, and observations and utilized historiographic techniques and document analysis. I chose each method because it fits the theoretical and/or policy-driven questions I sought to answer. When I use words such as “ethnography” or “life history,” the words mean something to me. Ethnography is different from a case study, and a life history is different from an interview. I do not mean one is better from another but that they are different. They have different intellectual frameworks and different approaches to how one conducts and analyzes one’s research. A primary worry I have today pertains to the theory and method that is employed, or not employed in much of our current research pertaining to education, in general, and higher education, in particular. Too much of our work is atheoretical and ahistorical, lacks comparative perspective, and is to I-centric. There is a certain irony that I express this last concern because I have pointed out the challenge of understanding the other and the importance of acknowledging one’s positionality. However, there is a tendency today to opt for an easy approach to doing one’s research: the assistant professor writes an article about assistant professors; the Black professor writes about the challenges Black professors face; the person who comes from a low-income family studies low-income students; and the queer researcher writes about growing up gay.

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We run a dual risk when we conduct such research. I want to emphasize that obviously one can study the social group with whom they identify. Autobiographical work also can be insightful and useful. However, just as it is incumbent for someone who is from a different group to clarify how one has ascertained the trustworthiness of one’s findings, the same has to be said from the person who is studying the group with whom they identify. Too often, the tone of an article is that “I have experienced these things, and now I am going to show what I have experienced.” Such an assertion may make for a wonderful op-ed or essay, but it is not research upon which we can place much trust. The additional challenge is that our research is too thin and we make too much of the research and end up generalizing. Generalization of qualitative research shows a fundamental misunderstanding of theory and method, and it shortchanges what qualitative work is particularly good at doing – providing what Geertz (1973) called “thick description” and enabling readers to understand phenomena in a manner that is not attainable through other methods. Quantitative research has gained currency not only because their methods have improved over the last generation but because qualitative researchers’ methods have largely not. If anything, the focus on strategies such as autoethnography and the casual employment of work that reinforces what the author already believes and set out to prove have set qualitative work back in the policy arena. Is there a place for strategies such as autoethnography? Of course. But these sorts of strategies are not useful for policy reform or implementation. Careful case studies, ethnographies, interviews, and the like, however, can provide extremely helpful evidence for policy analysts and educational reformers. An additional preoccupation of mine has been the manner in which we write. Perhaps simply because I majored in English I have had an interest in how one articulates what one wants to say. What I have focused on is not simply the writing style in which we present qualitative research but also the audiences for whom our work is intended. I have written in various registers – articles for academics, books for academics, but also general audiences, op-eds, essays, policy briefs, and fiction. Each form of writing involves a different writing style because the audience will be different. Far too often, individuals think their work has pertinent findings for informing policy, but the manner in which they write is for fellow researchers (Lanford and Tierney 2018; Sallee et al. 2011; Tierney and Clemens 2011). I have enjoyed trying to write for different audiences in different registers. A baseball pitcher has a repertoire of pitches. I have tried to develop my own narrative repertoire. My attempt at writing a novel helped me think about how I portray characters in qualitative research (Tierney 2013a). Op-eds force me to be economical in my use of words (Tierney 2018, 2019). Writing always makes me think about where I want to position my narrative voice. I do not think an author just “pounds one out” or “pulls an all-nighter” and does one’s best work. Writing requires reflection, time, and the humility to know that the best way to get to what one wants to say is to edit, edit, and edit again. I have not seen academic writing improve over the time I have been in the academy, even though the urgency remains for those of us who want to change educational practices. Baseball players do not think they can play basketball simply

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because they are an athlete, but academics frequently think they can write about policy or that their work has policy implications although they have not changed their method or writing. Different audiences require different messages, and that means we need to write in different registers. I have to admit that I remain troubled by the state of educational research. To be sure, there are gifted researchers, and some educational research has been of extreme utility with regard to reform. The bulk of our work, however, is fraught with theoretical, methodological, and narrative weaknesses. We seem unable and unwilling to think about how to improve them. Often, it seems as if the problem lies with the reader or the public: “they should read my article in the way I intended.” The good news is that we know what these weaknesses are so we can resolve them – if we so choose.

Advancing Democracy and Fighting Fascism One of my earlier books was Building Communities of Difference (Tierney 1993b). I was troubled by what I saw as assimilationist strategies on our campuses and in the nation that assumed if we were to have community, then we need to paper over our differences. I was trying to think through what a community means, what an academic community means, where our differences could be the organizing concept. About a decade later, I wrote Trust and the Public Good (Tierney 2006) based on several case studies I had done. I wrote about the role of trust in academic life as related to social networks, communities, and organizational communication. In the text, I continued a stream of thinking I have had since graduate school: how might one define and improve upon the unique relationship between higher education and the public. My argument was that trust was an essential ingredient for the public good to function as it should in a democracy. I pointed out that higher education was entering a period of rapid change which demanded experimentation and innovation. Organizations needed trust if the institution’s participants were to successfully participate. I have written about academic freedom for decades. (Tierney 1993a; Tierney and Lechuga 2005, 2010; Tierney and Lanford 2014; Tierney and Sabharwal 2016). I have pointed out its centrality and how it goes to the heart of academic life. What has concerned me is how we have viewed academic freedom and how it has been employed. People seem to have reverence for the topic – except in cases where they disagree. The “Ross Case” at Stanford, which is one of America’s first instances of academic freedom, would likely not be countenanced today because of the controversial nature of his language. As I mentioned earlier, currently people on the left and the right seem more focused on watching what they say so they do not run into trouble. Academic freedom cannot exist if everyone monitors their language and work because they fear sanction and rebuff. Although the social role of colleges and universities always has been a preoccupation for me, I could not have foreseen the current circumstances in which we live (Tierney 2020). The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a warning sign about the

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health of democracy in the United States. His election also mirrored what has been taking place throughout the world. In part, we have seen a rise in populism and fascism because of the changes brought about by globalization, technology, and neoliberalism. I do not believe these changes have been tracked very well in higher education, and our response to the attack on democracy has been feeble rather than straightforward. Indeed, if we look at the past few years, my sense is that the media has done a relatively good job at trying to refute falsehoods and stand up against fascism. Some governmental agencies also have tried to fulfill their obligations even when the president repeatedly has rebuked them and tried to hollow them out. I do not think, however, that colleges and universities have done an adequate job trying to stand up for, and preserve, democracy. There are a number of reasons for the quiescent nature of higher education, and I believe it is urgent that we reformulate the public role of higher education in the advancement of democracy (Tierney 2021). A great deal of emergent literature is following changes in Hungary, the United Kingdom, Italy, Greece, and elsewhere in Europe (Furedi 2017; Mondon and Winter 2019; Stavrakakis and Katsambekis 2019; Verbeek and Zaslove 2016). The obliteration of the Republican Party and the rise of Trumpism in the United States have evoked an enormous amount of analysis. In India, the emergence of the BJP and the elections of Prime Minister Modi, and its emphasis on Hindu nationalism, anticipated Trump’s message to his own constituencies (Faleiro 2019). And even though China has never had a tradition of democracy, its moves are more in the direction of “strongmen” regimes that have significant consequences for democratic outposts such as Hong Kong (Lum 2020). I think of democracy as a system where a state’s citizens are able to participate in choosing and replacing their leaders by elections. Human rights are essential. That is, individuals are free to express their opinions without fear of reprisal, and protection of those who disagree with the government is paramount. Electoral democracy finds its counterpoint in fascism that appeals to the masses need for a leader to solve their problems. Recall how at the 2016 Republican convention, one of Donald Trump’s most quoted lines was “I alone can fix the system.” What we are seeing today is a democratic recession throughout the world. In 1974 about 30% of the world’s independent states, about 46 in total, were thought of as democracies. We then had a democratic growth spurt for three decades. Since about 2006, however, we have seen countries move away from democracy (Diamond 2015, 2019). Some even ask if “the world’s largest democracy” – India – is even still a democracy, given how BJP and Prime Minister Modi have governed. I have found President Trump’s behavior particularly troubling. He has repeatedly pointed out that his power is absolute, he is above the law, and those who disagree with him are either dupes or villains. Any analysis that differs from his is fake. What I have found disconcerting is that our colleges and universities have been relatively mute as the president makes an onslaught on truth. Colleges and universities should be at the center of controversies that seek to destroy democracy and advance fascism. First, researchers of all stripes try to understand the truth. Whatever kind of research one does and whatever method a person employs, ultimately the

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researcher/author has to make an argument about why what they are saying is believable. Ought not that organization, then, be able to articulate whether the government is putting forth truths or falsehoods? Second, our postsecondary institutions ought to be able to have dialogues with those whom we disagree. As I have written for decades, one central aspect of academic freedom has to be the ability to have difficult dialogues. If we all agree with one another all the time, there is very little need for academic freedom. Academic freedom, in part, enables those with unpopular views to study them, to write about them, and to voice them in the classroom and on campus. Although we can certainly debate the finer points of what constitutes speech not worthy of protection, the problem on our campuses is quite different. Too many individuals fear speaking out or engaging in difficult dialogues because such conversations are exactly how I have framed them – difficult. Our reticence to engage in respectful conversations that enable alternative opinions has made us largely an observer in the democratic recession and fascist rise. If we worry about offending someone, then we have very little to offer. College presidents fret about the sensibility of donors. Student affairs personnel want a particular viewpoint to be put forward and want to contain those viewpoints many see as racist, sexist, or homophobic. Faculty do not want their classrooms to erupt into warring viewpoints. Silence, however, does not mean agreement. Our inability to engage with and understand those whom support a president who has little respect for democratic institutions and ideas only furthers all of our alienation – both those of us who support democracy and those who seek to muffle it. We must ask what academic institutions can do to bolster and foment democracy and defeat fascism. What sorts of changes need to occur so that colleges and universities model the best practices of democratic life and aid in securing democracy in society? As a recent report from the Brookings Institution notes, “Democracy’s fate rests in the hands of people, and securing it begins at home” (Eisen et al. 2019, p. 13). What concerns me about the Brookings report is that it offered several useful suggestions about how societies might bolster democracy, but higher education was largely overlooked. Democracy is at the heart of civil society. Robust organizations in a civil society keep democracy strong. These organizations provide citizens with information to make informed decisions, and they are meeting grounds to hash out differences of opinion. Colleges and universities are one of these civic organizations that help preserve and advance democracy in civil society (Tierney 2021). In addition to my long-term interest in the democratic prospects for higher education, my comparative work has helped me think about what role postsecondary institutions serve throughout the world. The university helped build the modern nation-state. It trained elites and an increasingly broad middle class through the accumulation of abstract thinking. The university made the case for the democratic project. The faculty in Hong Kong’s universities, for example, played a central role in putting forward a modern conception of Hong Kong that was internationally

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focused. In many respects, Hong Kong was the first global city in Asia. At the birth of an independent India, Nehru wanted universities to educate the mass of society and also achieve scientific excellence with its institutes – none more so than those universities in the nation’s young capital, New Delhi. Los Angeles has looked outward to the rest of the country and to the Pacific region with its postsecondary institutions being among the best importers of foreign talent of any organization. Why, then, are our postsecondary institutions throughout the globe not arenas for the advancement of democracy? A century ago, a stance of disinterestedness enabled the university to comment on the social mores of society and, through a belief in objective research, bring about change. The democratic state encouraged universities to have an arm’s length distance from society in order to analyze and improve that society regardless of the nation where the institution was located. That distance and disinterestedness is no longer sufficient in a world where we are facing a democratic recession (Diamond 2015). As Henry Giroux (2019) has stated, “We live at a time in which institutions that were meant to limit human suffering and misfortune and protect the public from the excesses of the market have been either weakened or abolished” (p. 27). How did a public and nonprofit sphere that once supported the enlargement of democratic dialogue shift to a defensive posture that has made the university either irrelevant or endangered? It is ironic that a topic that might be thought of as esoteric to some individuals is actually central to the health and well-being of the democratic state. Those of us who have written about the public good are often seen as too theoretical and abstract. The immediacy of budgetary problems or the daily challenges that our campuses face from any number of attacks make it appear that worrying about the social role of postsecondary institutions is a navel-gazing luxury. I disagree. We have recently lived through a pandemic that the world seemed particularly unequipped to handle. Again, daily medical challenges and the array of scientific mysteries that confront the human body made it appear that preparing to combat an unknown, unnamed, and nonexistent virus ought not be a national or international priority. We now understand the human and economic cost of our lack of concern when the world was shut down in 2020. For those of us concerned about democracy, similar consequences await our colleges and universities that opt out of the fight against fascism. I have spent the bulk of my time since Donald Trump was elected trying to think through and write about how our postsecondary institutions might be more responsive to political attacks on representative democracy. I do not believe that, if and when Trump goes away, we can go back to being quiescent. The end of the pandemic did not signal that we should no longer worry about pandemics. If anything, a key lesson we learned from the pandemic is that we need to be vigilant and prepared for the next disease that attacks modern society. The same can be said in terms of protecting and advancing democracy. Until higher education figures out its role in the twenty-first century, we leave democracies in harm’s way.

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Conclusion How to conclude a concluding chapter on one’s career? If we go back to the start of this chapter, we will see that, once again, my doubt has been a motivator, and I have finished this chapter after all, albeit the obsessive cleaning of the refrigerator once again. I suppose anyone will look back on their career and wonder if they should have done something differently. I am happy with my choices. In this chapter, I have tried to make sense of how I made those choices. I do not think life is like a cookbook with a recipe that one needs to follow step-by-step to make the perfect dish. I do think, however, that one’s personal, intellectual, and academic experiences will shape how an individual turns out as an academic. Life is not predetermined, but it is not a free-for-all either. The experience of being raised in a middle-class, Irish Catholic family and being gay shaped me. The various experiences I had in my 20s mattered a great deal. Sometimes, I see how others spend their 20s, and I am thankful for what I did. I sure did not earn much money, but working at Pine Street in college, and then as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco and at Fort Berthold in North Dakota, shaped my career. I also have had a love affair with writing, and I learned to listen to people all along the way. I intend none of this recounting as gratuitous praise for my work or me. Individual pieces of scholarship should stand or fall on their own. If an article or book is sound, then it should be applauded, and when a piece is theoretically or methodologically weak, then it should be pointed out. As a body of work, I have tried to point out how the range of my scholarship makes sense intellectually within a particular time horizon. Kurt Vonnegut (1952), in his epic Player Piano, has a character speak of the human condition on the final page by saying, “This isn’t the end, you know. Nothing ever is, nothing ever will be – not even Judgement Day.” Vonnegut’s anthropologist spokesman responds, and he announces cheerfully, as the book’s last line: “Forward March!” I feel much the same way. I am at the end of this chapter, but I have to end not with a period or as if I tied all my work up into a neat bow. As I sit here, the galleys have arrived for a book that is out this fall (Get Real). Another book is out for review (Higher Education for Democracy). I wrote a second novel about 2 years ago, and a very tough, excellent editor tore it apart. I have to do serious editing. After that, I am not sure, but I do know that Vonnegut’s dictum holds: Forward March!

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Chaffee, E., & Tierney, W. G. (1988). Collegiate culture and leadership strategies. New York: Macmillan. Corwin, Z. B., Danielson, R., Ragusa, G., & Tierney, W. G. (2016). Can games facilitate access to college? In H. F. O’Neil, E. L. Baker, & R. S. Perez (Eds.), Using games and simulations for teaching and assessment: Key issues (pp. 230–250). New York: Routledge. Diamond, L. (2015). Facing up to the democratic recession. Journal of Democracy, 26(1), 141–155. Diamond, L. (2019). Ill winds: Saving democracy from Russian rage, Chinese ambition, and American complacency. New York: Penguin. Duncheon, J. C., & Tierney, W. G. (2013). Changing conceptions of time: Implications for educational research and practice. Review of Educational Research, 83, 236–272. Duncheon, J. C., & Tierney, W. G. (2014). Examining college writing readiness. The Educational Forum, 78(3), 210–230. Eisen, N., Kenealy, A., Corke, S., Taussig, T., & Polyakova, A. (2019). The democracy playbook: Preventing and reversing democratic backsliding. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Faleiro, S. (2019). Absent opposition, Modi makes India his Hindu nation. New York Review of Books. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/07/29/absent-opposition-modi-makes-india-hishindu-nation/. Furedi, F. (2017). Populism and the European culture wars: The conflict of values between Hungary and the EU. London: Routledge. Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. In C. Geertz (Ed.), The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays (pp. 3–30). New York: Basic Books. Giroux, H. A. (2019). Neoliberal violence against youth in the age of Orwellian nightmares. In P. Kelly, P. Campbell, L. Harrison, & C. Hickey (Eds.), Young people and the politics of outrage and hope (pp. 27–43). Leiden: Brill. Hentschke, G. C., Lechuga, V. M., & Tierney, W. G. (Eds.). (2010). For-profit colleges and universities: Their markets, regulation, performance and place in higher education. Sterling: Stylus. Iloh, C., & Tierney, W. G. (2014). Understanding for-profit and community college choice through rational choice. Teachers College Record, 116(8), 1–34. Kolluri, S., & Tierney, W. G. (2018). “College for all” school cultures, neoliberalism, & equality. Tertiary Education and Management, 24(3), 242–253. Kolluri, S., & Tierney, W. G. (2019). Understanding college readiness: The limits of information and the possibilities of cultural integrity. The Educational Forum, 84(1), 80–93. Lanford, M., & Tierney, W. G. (2016). The international branch campus: Cloistered community. In Palgrave handbook of Asia Pacific higher education (pp. 157–172). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lanford, M., & Tierney, W. G. (2018). Re-envisioning graduate and early career socialization to encourage public scholarship. In A. Kezar, Y. Drivalas, & J. A. Kitchen (Eds.), Envisioning public scholarship for our time: Models for higher education researchers (pp. 163–178). Sterling: Stylus. Lanford, M., Tierney, W. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2019). The art of life history: Novel approaches, future directions. Qualitative Inquiry, 25(5), 459–463. Lewis, O. (1961). The children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican family. New York: Random House. Lum, A. (2020). American photographer who covered Hong Kong protests denied entry into city. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3044660/ american-photographer-who-covered-hong-kong-protests-denied. McCourt, F. (1996). Angela’s ashes: A memoir. New York: Scribner. Mondon, A., & Winter, A. (2019). Whiteness, populism, and the racialisation of the working class in the United Kingdom and the United States. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 26(5), 510–528. Oleksiyenko, A., & Tierney, W. G. (2018). Higher education and human vulnerability: Global failures of corporate design. Tertiary Education and Management, 24(3), 187–192. Pathania, G. J., & Tierney, W. G. (2018). An ethnography of caste and class at an Indian university: Creating capital. Tertiary Education and Management, 24(3), 221–231.

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Relles, S., & Tierney, W. G. (2013). Understanding the writing habits of tomorrow’s students: Technology and college readiness. The Journal of Higher Education, 84, 477–505. Sablan, J. R., & Tierney, W. G. (2014). The changing nature of cultural capital. In M. B. Paulsen (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 29, pp. 153–188). Dordrecht: Springer. Sablan, J. R., & Tierney, W. G. (2016). Evaluating college ready writing and college knowledge in a summer bridge program. The Educational Forum, 80(1), 3–20. Sallee, M. W., Hallett, R. E., & Tierney, W. G. (2011). Teaching writing in graduate school. College Teaching, 59(2), 66–72. Stavrakakis, Y., & Katsambekis, G. (2019). The populism/anti-populism frontier and its mediation in crisis-ridden Greece: From discursive divide to emerging cleavage? European Political Science, 18(1), 37–52. Sturrock, J. (Ed.). (1980). Structuralism and since: From Lévi-Strauss to Derrida. New York: Oxford University Press. Tichavakunda, A. A., & Tierney, W. G. (2018). The “wrong” side of the divide: Highlighting race for equity’s sake. Journal of Negro Education, 87(2), 110–124. Tierney, W. G. (1987a). Facts and constructs: Defining reality in higher education organizations. Review of Higher Education, 11(1), 61–73. Tierney, W. G. (1987b). The semiotic aspects of leadership: An ethnographic perspective. The American Journal of Semiotics, 5(2), 233–250. Tierney, W. G. (1988a). Organizational culture in higher education: Defining the essentials. Journal of Higher Education, 59(1), 2–21. Tierney, W. G. (1988b). The web of leadership: The presidency in higher education. Greenwich: JAI Press. Tierney, W. G. (Ed.). (1991a). Culture and ideology in higher education: Advancing a critical agenda. New York: Praeger. Tierney, W. G. (1991b). Native voices in academe: Strategies for empowerment. Change, 23(2), 36–44. Tierney, W. G. (1992). Official encouragement, institutional discouragement: Minorities in academe – The Native American experience. Norwood: Ablex. Tierney, W. G. (1993a). Academic freedom and the parameters of knowledge. Harvard Educational Review, 63(2), 143–160. Tierney, W. G. (1993b). Building communities of difference: Higher education in the 21st century. Westport: Bergin & Garvey. Tierney, W. G. (1993c). Self and identity in a postmodern world: A life story. In D. McLaughlin & W. G. Tierney (Eds.), Naming silenced lives: Personal narratives and the process of educational change (pp. 119–134). New York: Routledge. Tierney, W. G. (1993d). The college experience of Native Americans: A critical analysis. In L. Weis & M. Fine (Eds.), Beyond silenced voices: Class, race, and gender in United States schools (pp. 309–323). Albany: SUNY Press. Tierney, W. G. (1995). La privatación y la educación superior publica en Costa Rica. Universidad Futura, 6(17), 49–58. Tierney, W. G. (1997). Academic outlaws: Queer theory and cultural studies in the academy. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Tierney, W. G. (1999). The queer university: Imagining the postmodern academy. In N. Denzin (Ed.), Cultural studies: A research volume (Vol. 4, pp. 19–34). Stamford: JAI Press. Tierney, W. G. (2000). Undaunted courage: Life history and the postmodern challenge. In N. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 537–554). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Tierney, W. G. (2004). Globalization and educational reform: The challenges ahead. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 3(1), 5–20. Tierney, W. G. (2006). Trust and the public good: Examining the cultural conditions of academic work. New York: Peter Lang. Tierney, W. G. (2008). The impact of culture on organizational decision-making: Theory and practice in higher education. Sterling: Stylus.

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Tierney, W. G. (2010). Forms of privatization: Globalisation and the changing nature of tertiary education. In C. Findlay & W. G. Tierney (Eds.), Globalisation and tertiary education in the Asia Pacific: The changing nature of a dynamic market (pp. 163–199). Toh Tuck: World Scientific. Tierney, W. G. (2013a). Academic affairs: A love story. Indianapolis: Dog Ear Publishing. Tierney, W. G. (2013b). Life history and identity. Review of Higher Education, 36(2), 255–282. Tierney, W. G. (2014). Higher education research, policy, and the challenges of reform. Studies in Higher Education, 39(7), 1417–1427. Tierney, W. G. (Ed.). (2015). Rethinking education and poverty. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Tierney, W. G. (2018, May 28). As Max Nikias pushed USC to prominence, checks and balances were missing. Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-tierney-usc-tyn dall-nikias-future-20180528-story.html. Tierney, W. G. (2019, September 20). USC has been rocked by admissions and sexual assault scandals. Money could be its next crisis. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/ story/2019-09-19/usc-carol-folt-max-nikias-scandal. Tierney, W. G. (2020). Get real: 49 essays on the challenges confronting higher education. Albany: SUNY Press. Tierney, W. G. (2021). Higher education for democracy: The role of the university in civil society. Tierney, W. G., & Almeida, D. J. (2017). Academic responsibility: Toward a cultural politics of integrity. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 38(1), 1–12. Tierney, W. G., & Clemens, R. F. (2011). Qualitative research and public policy: The challenges of relevance and trustworthiness. In J. Smart (Ed.), Overview of higher education: Handbook of theory and research, 26 (pp. 57–83). New York: Agathon Press. Tierney, W. G., & Clemens, R. F. (2012). The uses of life history. In S. Delamont (Ed.), Handbook of qualitative research in education (pp. 265–280). Cardiff: Cardiff University. Tierney, W. G., & Colyar, J. E. (Eds.). (2006). Urban high school students and the challenge of access: Many routes, difficult paths. New York: Peter Lang. Tierney, W. G., & Corwin, Z. B. (2007). The tensions between academic freedom and institutional review boards. Qualitative Inquiry, 13(3), 388–398. Tierney, W. G., & Duncheon, J. C. (Eds.). (2015). The problem of college readiness. Albany: SUNY Press. Tierney, W. G., & Hallett, R. E. (2010). Writing on the margins from the center: Homeless youth and cultural politics. Cultural Studies $ Critical Methodologies, 10(1), 19–27. Tierney, W. G., & Hallett, R. E. (2012). Social capital and homeless youth: Influence of residential instability on college access. Metropolitan Universities, 22(3), 46–62. Tierney, W. G., & Hentschke, G. C. (2007). New players, different game: Understanding the rise of for-profit colleges and universities. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Tierney, W. G., & Holley, K. A. (2008). Inside Pasteur’s quadrant: Knowledge production in a profession. Educational Studies, 34(4), 289–297. Tierney, W. G., & Jun, A. (2001). A university helps prepare low income youth for college: Tracking school success. Journal of Higher Education, 72(2), 205–225. Tierney, W. G., & Kidwell, C. S. (1991). The quiet crisis: Native Americans in academe. Change, 23(2), 4–5. Tierney, W. G., & Kolluri, S. (Eds.). (2020). Relational sociology and research on schools, colleges and universities. Albany: SUNY Press. Tierney, W. G., & Lanford, M. (2014). The question of academic freedom: Universal right or relative term. Frontiers of Education in China, 9(1), 4–23. Tierney, W. G., & Lanford, M. (2015). An investigation of the impact of international branch campuses on organizational culture. Higher Education, 70(2), 283–298. Tierney, W. G., & Lanford, M. (2016). Creativity and innovation in the twenty-first century university. In J. M. Case & J. Huisman (Eds.), Researching higher education: International perspectives on theory, policy, and practice (pp. 61–79). Oxford: Routledge. Tierney, W. G., & Lanford, M. (2017). From massification to globalization: Is there a role for rankings? In E. Hazelkorn (Ed.), Global rankings and the geopolitics of higher education.

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Understanding the influence and impact of rankings on higher education, policymakers, and society (pp. 295–308). Oxford: Routledge. Tierney, W. G., & Lechuga, V. M. (2005). Academic freedom in the 21st century. Thought and Action, 21, 7–22. Tierney, W. G., & Lechuga, V. M. (2010). The social significance of academic freedom. Cultural Studies $ Critical Methodologies, 10(2), 118–133. Tierney, W. G., & McInnis, C. (2001). Globalization and its discontents: Dilemmas facing tertiary education in Australia. International Higher Education, 25, 19–21. Tierney, W. G., & Rhoads, R. A. (1993). Postmodernism and critical theory in higher education: Implications for research and practice. In J. Smart (Ed.), Higher education handbook of theory and research (pp. 308–343). New York: Agathon Press. Tierney, W. G., & Sabharwal, N. S. (2016). Debating academic freedom in India. Journal of Academic Freedom, 7, 1–11. Tierney, W. G., & Sabharwal, N. S. (2017). Academic corruption: Culture and trust in Indian higher education. International Journal of Educational Development, 55, 30–40. Tierney, W. G., & Sabharwal, N. S. (2018). Reimagining Indian higher education: A social ecology of postsecondary. Teacher’s College Record, 120(5), 1–32. Tierney, W. G., & Sirat, M. (2008). Challenges facing Malaysian higher education. International Higher Education, 53, 23–24. Tierney, W. G., & Venegas, K. M. (2009). Finding money on the table: Information, financial aid, and access to college. Journal of Higher Education, 80, 364–388. Tierney, W. G., & Ward, J. D. (2017). The role of state education policy in ensuring access, achievement, and attainment in higher education. American Behavioral Scientist, 61(14), 1731–1739. Tierney, W. G., Corwin, Z. B., Fullerton, T., & Ragusa, G. (Eds.). (2014). Postsecondary play: The role of technology and social media in higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Tierney, W. G., Corwin, Z. B., & Ochsner, A. (Eds.). (2018). Diversifying digital learning: Online literacy and educational opportunity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Tierney, W. G., Sabharwal, N. S., & Malish, C. M. (2019). Inequitable structures: Class and caste in Indian higher education. Qualitative Inquiry, 25(5), 471–481. Verbeek, B., & Zaslove, A. (2016). Italy: A case of mutating populism? Democratization, 23(2), 304–323. Vonnegut, K. (1952). Player piano. New York: Random House. Wright, B., & Tierney, W. G. (1991). American Indians in higher education: A history of cultural conflict. Change, 23(2), 11–18.

William G. Tierney is University Professor Emeritus and founding director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California. A past president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education and the American Educational Research Association, Tierney, received the Howard Bowen Distinguished Career Award from ASHE and the Distinguished Research Award from Division J of AERA. Tierney is a member of the National Academy of Education and an AERA Fellow. He has been a Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation Center in Bellagio, Italy, and a Fernand Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

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Reforming Transitions from High School to Higher Education Evidence on the Effectiveness of College Readiness Policies Christine G. Mokher

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Factors Contributing to Lack of Academic Preparation for College Coursework . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview of Early Assessment and Underlying Conceptual Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Impacts and Implementation of Early Assessment Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Early Assessment Impacts on College Enrollment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Early Assessment Impacts on First Year Coursetaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Early Assessment Impacts on Longer-Term Postsecondary Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implementation of Early Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview of Transition Courses and Underlying Conceptual Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Impacts and Implementation of Transition Courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transition Course Impacts on First Year Coursetaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transition Course Impacts on Longer-Term Postsecondary Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implementation of Transition Courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview of Summer Bridge Programs and Underlying Conceptual Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . Impacts and Implementation of Summer Bridge Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summer Bridge Impacts on First Year Coursetaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summer Bridge Impacts on Longer-Term Postsecondary Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implementation of Summer Bridge Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview of Early College High Schools and Underlying Conceptual Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . Impacts and Implementation of Early College High Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Early College Impacts on College Enrollment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Early College Impacts on Longer-Term Postsecondary Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implementation of Early College High Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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C. G. Mokher (*) Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Florida State University College of Education, Tallahassee, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7_5

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Abstract

Every year millions of high school students graduate unprepared for college-level work, resulting in persistent challenges with high remediation rates and low levels of degree attainment in postsecondary education. Policymakers have responded with a variety of reform efforts at the state and local levels including early assessments of college readiness, senior year transition courses in math and English for students at risk of placement into developmental education in college, summer bridge programs, and Early College High Schools. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the intended mechanisms of these reforms for academically unprepared students, the impacts on both short-term and long-term outcomes of postsecondary success, and common challenges to implementation. The empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these college readiness reforms is largely mixed – with the exception of Early College High Schools, which tend to demonstrate more consistently positive impacts on student success. The chapter concludes with considerations for future reform efforts and additional research to support academically underprepared students. Keywords

Academic preparedness · ACT · College access · College readiness · College placement test · Coursetaking · Developmental education · Early assessment · Early College High School · Education policy · Educational outcomes · K–20 · Student outcomes · SAT · Summer bridge · Transition courses · Underprepared students

Introduction Nationally, there have been persistent concerns regarding the number of students graduating from high school unprepared for college coursework and the lack of student awareness of their own academic preparation. About 40% of students starting at public 4-year institutions and 68% of those starting at public 2-year colleges had to enroll in developmental education courses in math, reading, and/or writing before entering college-level courses in these subject areas (Chen 2016). A recent meta-analysis of studies using regression discontinuity to examine the impacts of developmental education indicates that students scoring just below college-ready who were assigned to developmental courses were substantially less likely to pass college-level courses, complete college credits, and earn degrees than similar peers who narrowly avoided developmental education (Valentine et al. 2017). These developmental education courses also impose substantial costs on both students and institutions, which have been estimated at $7 billion annually nationwide (Scott-Clayton et al. 2014). Students’ under-preparation for college-level work also has implications for success on longer-term postsecondary outcomes like persistence and degree

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attainment. Even though college enrollment rates have continued to rise over recent decades, completion rates have remained stagnant in comparison (Bailey and Dynarski 2011). Success rates tend to be especially low among community college students, where only about 41% of students complete any credential within 6 years and there are considerable disparities among racial and ethnic groups ranging from 28.8% for Black students to nearly 50% for Asian and White students (National Student Clearinghouse 2019). Taken together, the context of high remediation rates, low levels of degree attainment, and inequitable access reflects a need for policy initiatives that go beyond supporting students in enrolling in college to increasing the likelihood that they will have the academic preparation needed to succeed. In response, policymakers have experimented with a range of college readiness initiatives intended to improve transitions from high school to postsecondary education for academically underprepared students. Common policy reforms at the state and local levels include the following: 1. Early assessment – initiatives which require high schools to administer the same assessment used by local 2-year or 4-year colleges for college admissions or course placement 2. Transition courses – college readiness courses in math, reading, and/or writing, which are typically offered in the senior year for students at risk of being placed into developmental education in college 3. Summer bridge – programs offered during the summer after the senior year that support the transition to college, including math or English courses for underprepared students 4. Early College High Schools – small schools that blend high school and college experiences to provide students traditionally underrepresented in higher education with opportunities to participate in college readiness activities, receive academic and social supports, and earn college credit The four reforms presented in this chapter were selected because they share several commonalities. First, the primary intent of these reforms is to improve academic college readiness. Other programs may address additional barriers to college readiness, such as text message programs that provide students with information about completing different steps in the college application and enrollment processes. These types of barriers are also important to address in order to improve college access, but the focus here is on how to better prepare students academically to succeed in college-level coursework. Second, the selected reforms are targeted specifically toward academically underprepared students. While other programs like Advanced Placement and dual enrollment also seek to improve academic preparation for college, they are typically limited to only the highest-performing students. Third, the reforms presented in this chapter are all state and local initiatives that have been widely implemented. There are also federal programs like Upward Bound and GEAR UP that seek to improve college preparation for students traditionally underrepresented in higher education, although many of these programs include extensive services beyond academic preparation such as work-study programs, counseling,

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financial and economic literacy, and scholarship components. Fourth, all of the policies presented here are designed to improve students’ academic preparation before they matriculate into college. Postsecondary institutions have engaged in a number of efforts to support academically underprepared students, such as reforming developmental education programs or using multiple measures for course placement. Yet there are often concerns expressed that reform efforts need to begin earlier to provide students with the greatest chance of success in postsecondary education. This chapter will explore the impacts and implementation of each of these four college readiness reforms for academically underprepared students and the implications for future policies seeking to further improve postsecondary success. The chapter begins by exploring some of the factors contributing to under-preparation for college coursework that these policies intend to address. While traditional policy approaches such as developmental education tend to place the blame on students for their lack of college readiness, contemporary reforms have begun to take a sociological approach considering that the educational system may be at fault for failing to adequately align K–12 and higher education (Lansing et al. 2017). The policies examined in this chapter all seek to improve cross-sector alignment to help underprepared students to fulfill college readiness standards prior to postsecondary enrollment.

Factors Contributing to Lack of Academic Preparation for College Coursework Disparities in Access to and Participation in Rigorous High School Courses Students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups face challenges throughout the educational pipeline due to issues of discrimination and racism, structural inequalities, as well as a failure of institutions to support their unique social and cultural values (e.g., Flores and Oseguera 2013; Mueller and Broido 2012). Nationwide, Black, Latino/Latina, and low SES students are less likely to attend high schools that offer rigorous high school courses (Adelman 2006; Venezia and Jaeger 2013). Further, differences in test scores and educational needs prior to high school entry further contribute to coursetaking gaps (Conger et al. 2009). These disparities continue to higher education, where low-income and underrepresented minority students have a greater likelihood of taking developmental education courses upon college enrollment (U.S. Department of Education 2017; Wilbur and Roscigno 2016). Further, students in rural schools often have less access to rigorous courses compared to students in urban or suburban schools (Anderson and Chang 2011; Levin 2007). Rural schools tend to have smaller enrollments (Jimerson 2006), which makes it difficult to provide a sufficient number of advanced courses for interested students. Rural schools also typically have limited financial resources to allocate to rigorous courses given the lower property tax base and associated lower per-pupil expenditure (Johnson and Strange 2008; Picciano and Seaman 2009). This means

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that students from these settings may lack opportunities to further improve their college readiness during the high school years. Avoidance of Rigor in High School Coursetaking Even if rigorous courses are available at the school level, students may not take advantage of these opportunities. The majority of students attending postsecondary education are enrolled in openaccess institutions that allow any students with a high school diploma to enroll, regardless of high school performance. Yet it is generally accepted that many students who receive high school diplomas do not have the requisite skills to successfully complete college-level work (e.g., Conley 2010; Venezia and Jaeger 2013). Students often do not understand that completing high school requirements and being admitted to a postsecondary institution do not indicate college readiness. As a result, about 70% of students go on to a postsecondary institution, but the percentage completing a bachelor’s degree has remained relatively stagnant at less than 30% (Kirst 2001). Although many high schools offer opportunities for students to go beyond the high school graduation requirements by taking advanced courses, students often fail to take advantage of these opportunities. Kirst (2001) argues that students do not understand the influence that advanced high school courses can have on postsecondary performance and degree attainment. Because the college admissions process begins in the first semester of the senior year, most colleges do not take into account grades earned during students’ last year in high school. By the second semester of their senior year, many students know where they will attend college, and the remainder of the school year is perceived as a time to have fun and relax. Kirst (2001) refers to this as the “senior slump” and argues that there is a disconnect between K–12 and higher education that disincentivizes students to work hard during the senior year to academically prepare for college. Additionally, students who plan to attend open-access colleges may not work as hard in high school because they do not understand how it would benefit them to do so (Rosenbaum et al. 2017). Lack of Awareness of Skills Needed to Succeed in College The Center for Community College Student Engagement (2016) found that, while 86% of students at community colleges perceived themselves as prepared for college, about 66% were assigned to take developmental courses. First-generation college attendees (National Commission on the High School Senior Year 2001), students who attend low-performing schools (Boser and Burd 2009), and low-income students (DeilAmen and Tevis 2010) tend to be especially unaware of gaps between the skills and knowledge required for high school graduation versus college-level work. One factor contributing to this lack of awareness of gaps in college readiness is that students do not receive clear signals from the assessments that they take in high school. In many states, K–12 and higher education institutions have different tests for assessing college readiness, and attempts to align measures of college readiness are often incomplete or fragmented (Lansing et al. 2017). The Every Student

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Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 emphasizes college and career readiness more than did its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. Under ESSA, high schools increasingly use such exams as the ACT and the SAT to assess students’ levels of college readiness (English et al. 2016). These tests, however, still differ from the placement tests used by many community colleges. When measures of college readiness are not consistent across high schools and colleges, students do not obtain a clear signal of college readiness, and educators may also fail to identify gaps in readiness that need to be addressed. There are problems both with the lack of information that students receive about the necessity of testing college-ready and the timing of when the tests are required to be taken. K–12 and postsecondary institutions often fail to communicate that students must first take a placement test to determine if they are eligible to take for-credit courses when they enter college (Boser and Burd 2009; Kirst 2001; Rosenbaum 2001). Further, waiting to assess students’ college readiness until after they leave high school may send a signal to students that achievement during high school is not important for attending college (Rosenbaum 2001).

Chapter Overview This chapter begins by providing an overview of the different types of college readiness reform initiatives at state and local levels, and the theories of action underlying the mechanisms through which these reforms are intended to improve college readiness. The specific reforms examined focused on the alignment between secondary and postsecondary sectors and include early assessments of college readiness, transition courses, summer bridge programs, and Early College High Schools. Next, the chapter reviews empirical studies assessing the impact of these reforms on student outcomes including college enrollment, first year coursetaking in college, and longer-term postsecondary outcomes like transfer and credential attainment. The evidence for early assessment, transition courses, and summer bridge programs tends to be largely mixed, with some reforms resulting in small gains in postsecondary success while others may have unintended consequences resulting in negative effects on student outcomes. Early College High Schools, which provide a more comprehensive array of services throughout high school, tend to demonstrate more consistently positive effects on both short-term and longer-term postsecondary success. Each section on program impacts also reviews some of the challenges to implementation that may hinder the effectiveness of college readiness reforms, such as insufficient financial resources or lack of professional development to support effective instructional practices. The chapter concludes with considerations for policymakers and directions for future research. In particular, many studies of college readiness reforms focus on short-term outcomes such as whether students test college-ready, but this may not translate into success in college-level courses or increased likelihood of degree completion. Additionally, there is a need to consider more comprehensive reform

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efforts that provide sustained support over time and promote alignment across services. This section emphasizes the need for greater consideration of reform efforts focused on preparation beyond academic skills, such as noncognitive attitudinal and behavioral attributes needed to succeed in college. Lastly, there is a need to consider whether reform efforts are addressing underlying social issues and structural barriers to college success and the implications for equity.

Overview of Early Assessment and Underlying Conceptual Frameworks While the majority of postsecondary institutions in the USA use standardized assessments for the purposes of evaluating students’ eligibility for admissions and/ or determining placement into specific levels of college coursework, a substantial number of high school students either do not participate in testing or fail to understand the implications of their scores. Early assessment policies seek to address this challenge by requiring students to participate in college admissions or placement tests while they are still in high school. The intent is to help more students complete the necessary steps for college enrollment and to gain a better awareness of their level of college readiness. Early assessment policies are particularly important for academically unprepared students who may not realize that they are not ready for college-level work. Many 4-year universities require applicants to submit admissions test scores on the ACT or SAT. The ACT has traditionally been more popular in the Midwest and the South, while the SAT has been more common in states on the East and West coasts – although most institutions will accept scores on either exam. The College Board’s SAT assessment consists of sections in reading, writing, and math; each section is worth 200–800 points, and students receive a total score ranging from 400 to 1600 (College Board 2020). ACT, Inc., has developed a separate assessment, the ACT, which includes multiple-choice tests in English, math, reading, and science that are each scored on a scale of 1–36 (Act, Inc. 2020). Both the SAT and ACT include an optional essay component where students provide a written response to a prompt. After taking the assessment, students receive a score report that includes their mean scores, percentile rankings, and indicators of college readiness benchmarks. These benchmarks are based on predicted probabilities of passing collegelevel courses given the student’s scores, as estimated by the test developers based on data on college performance among students who have previously taken the assessment. Community colleges and non-selective 4-year colleges are open-access institutions, so incoming students are not required to submit admissions test scores. Instead, most of these institutions have a requirement that students must take a placement test when they enroll to determine the level of courses that students should select in math and English, although there has also been a movement toward the use of multiple measures like high school GPA. Students scoring below college-ready are typically assigned to one or more developmental education courses that do not

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provide college credit but must be completed prior to enrolling in courses that fulfill the degree requirements. The number of approved placement assessments used by postsecondary institutions varies from one to over ten depending on the state or college system and may include locally developed assessments such as the Texas Success Initiative (TSI) in Texas or nationally utilized assessments like the College Board’s ACCUPLACER (Whinnery and Pompelia 2019). The lack of common assessments and college readiness criteria can send a confusing signal, as students who have similar levels of preparation may be assessed or placed differently depending on the policies at the college that they attend. Some states and districts have adopted early assessment initiatives, which require or encourage high schools to offer the same college readiness assessment used by local colleges. These initiatives may use different types of college readiness assessments including college admissions exams like the ACT or SAT, college placement tests like ACCUPLACER, or statewide tests that may be part of accountability systems (Barnett et al. 2013a). The first statewide policies for early assessment were adopted by Colorado and Illinois in 2001 (Klasik 2013). As of 2017/2018, there were 19 states that administered the ACT statewide and 14 states that administered the SAT statewide (Woods 2019). The use of ACT has largely served as the statewide assessment in grade 11, which is widely required for K–12 accountability purposes. Some additional states may offer their own college readiness assessments or have local initiatives for universal testing at the school or district level that do not have oversight by a state agency (Barnett et al. 2013a). Early assessment policies increase participation in college readiness testing by requiring most or all high school students to take the test and collectively registering students for the exam. The costs of the test (which typically range from around $30 to $50 per student for the ACT or SAT) shift from payments made by individual students to states or districts paying for all test administrations. Under early assessment policies, the test is usually administered at the school site during regular instructional hours. In the absence of these policies, tests like SAT and ACT are typically only offered on Saturdays, and students must find their own transportation to an authorized testing center. Previous research has demonstrated that students’ likelihood of taking a college admissions test is affected by the location of testing centers relative to the students’ neighborhood and that policies to provide exams at the high school as part of the regular school day can significantly increase student participation in testing (Bulman 2015). In many states that have early assessment policies, the college entrance exam or placement test is administered as part of the state accountability system, so there is little to no additional costs to districts or state departments of education beyond regular assessment practices. Policies providing universal testing for college readiness in high school have been promoted as costeffective ways of improving college attendance rates and reducing gaps in access for underrepresented student groups (e.g., Dynarski 2018). There are several mechanisms through which early assessment policies are intended to improve student outcomes related to college enrollment, first year coursetaking in college, and potentially longer-term postsecondary outcomes like degree completion. First, early assessment policies provide a signal to students of

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their level of college readiness, which can remove information barriers to college access by increasing students’ awareness of their level of preparation and the feasibility of college admissions (e.g., Foote et al. 2015; Hyman 2017; Jackson 2015). Students can then decide whether to use this information through actions such as changing senior year course selections or modifying plans for applying to college. Colleges may also use test score information to initiate communication and recruitment to students, such as mailing promotional materials to students’ homes. This additional information may increase the likelihood that students will consider college as a viable option. Additionally, test scores may provide school personnel, such as teachers and guidance counselors, with additional information to use in advising students about their postsecondary plans or strengthening the curriculum that students receive. The conceptual framework of sensemaking can be used as a lens for understanding how students make sense of the information provided from their test scores (Almeida 2016). Sensemaking is defined as the “social process that involves seeking information from others, collectively assigning meaning to the information, and then taking actions based on shared understandings” (Bess and Dee 2012, p. 155). In the context of early assessment policies, this process can help to explain students’ interpretation of test scores and potential responses such as seeking advice from a guidance counselor on how to improve college readiness. Students’ interpretation depends on the intersection between their prior knowledge and their social context. These interactions explain how individuals who receive the same message may interpret the message differently and respond differently. For example, students scoring below college-ready may not take action to improve their preparation unless they have prior positive relationships with a teacher or counselor who can motivate the student to change their behavior. Second, requiring students to take a test of college readiness may remove a process barrier from applying to college. A study from the National Center for Education Statistics (2004) found that among tenth graders who indicated an intent to attain 4-year degrees, only 70% took the ACT or SAT by grade 12. Making the exam mandatory provides a “nudge” that reduces the steps needed to apply to college. These types of nudges may be especially important for students from underrepresented minority and low-income backgrounds, who tend to be less likely to complete college application steps compared to wealthy or White students (e.g., Avery and Kane 2004; Cabrera and Nasa 2001). It may also matter more for students in small schools or rural schools, which tend to have lower participation rates in college testing (Cook and Turner 2019). Furthermore, mandatory testing can remove process barriers, such as missing deadlines for test registration (Cook and Turner 2019; Hurwitz et al. 2015; Hyman 2017). Third, the presence of early assessment policies has the potential to change school behavior. Some schools may be motivated to provide additional resources like online tools to support test preparation, or to offer special classes on test preparation which may result in higher test scores (Hyman 2017). States with universal college readiness testing often make test preparation available to all students at no cost via several options including Khan Academy practice tests, ACT online preparation,

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partnerships with course providers, free ACT/SAT practice exams, or other statesupported online providers for ACT or SAT review (Zinth and Woods 2018). This may be important because previous research has found that simply giving students more information regarding the implications of college placement test scores has little impact on students’ preparation or performance on the exam, which suggests that students may need more detailed information on the content of the test or study materials to improve outcomes (Moss et al. 2019). Other schools may provide breakfast or lunch on exam days or offer incentives for participation like a “comp” day during the week after the exam (Hurwitz et al. 2015). Taken together, changes in school behavior may improve students’ preparation for the exam and provide motivation for students to participate and try their best. It also may help schools think about the level of preparation of their students and try to structure the curriculum and school policies so that more students are prepared for college by graduation.

Impacts and Implementation of Early Assessment Policies Early Assessment Impacts on College Enrollment Given that one of the primary purposes of early assessment policies is to increase students’ awareness of their level of college readiness and the feasibility of college admissions, a primary outcome of interest is whether these policies impact students’ decisions on whether to enroll in college after high school. Klasik (2013) conducted an evaluation of several of the first statewide policies requiring students to take the ACT or SAT in grade 11 in Colorado, Illinois, and Maine. Institution-level enrollment data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and student-level data from the Current Population Survey were used to conduct an interrupted time series analysis. The author examined changes among in-state college enrollment in states that adopted an early assessment policy relative to a synthetic control group of other states that did not require college entrance exam testing. These comparison states had similar characteristics and outcome trends in the pre-policy years relative to the policy adopters. Models were estimated separately for each of the states with a policy change to account for differences in state context, such as the proportion of statewide college enrollments in private institutions. Klasik (2013) also conducted an analysis of individual student behavior using student-level records with a comparative interruptive time series model comparing the likelihood of enrollment in 2-year and 4-year colleges (including those located out of state) for students in policy change states relative to students in states without early assessment. Klasik (2013) found that the early assessment policies in Colorado, Illinois, and Maine had relatively few impacts on overall college enrollment. The institution-level analyses in Colorado and Illinois resulted in no significant changes in college enrollment. The individual-level results in Illinois indicated a positive and significant effect of the policy changes, and the difference from the institution-level analysis

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suggests that some students may have shifted to enrollment in out-of-state colleges. In Maine, there were small negative effects of the policy on overall enrollment in the institution-level results, and no significant effects in the individual-level results. There were some greater differences in college enrollment outcomes by sector, which indicates that the early assessment policies may have influenced how students were sorted across institutions. Illinois and Colorado experienced significant increases in enrollments at 4-year colleges, particularly among private institutions. Maine and Colorado had significant decrease in enrollment at public 2-year colleges and an increase in enrollments at colleges that require ACT or SAT for admissions. Taken together, the results from these three states suggest that the absence of exam scores may serve as a barrier to college access and that mandating participating in these exams can result in modest increases in college enrollment rates, particularly among 4-year institutions. Hurwitz et al. (2015) looked more closely at the statewide SAT mandate in Maine and heterogeneity in policy impacts by high school characteristics. The analysis linked student-level data from the College Board on SAT scores in Maine in prepolicy (2004–2006) and post-policy (2007–2008) years, along with National Student Clearinghouse data on college enrollment and Common Core of Data records for high school characteristics. A difference-in-differences analysis was used to compare college enrollment rates in Maine to a synthetic control group of other states. The intent-to-treat (ITT) analyses indicated an increase in 4-year college enrollment rates around 2–3 percentage points, while there was a larger treatment-on-the-treated (TOT) impact of around 10 percentage point increase in enrollments at 4-year colleges. There were no effects on out-of-state migration, indicating that these gains were concentrated among colleges in Maine. The gains also tended to be considerably higher among high schools in rural areas or small towns – contexts in which students traditionally have lacked information and support for college-going. Goodman (2016) further examined the impacts of the statewide ACT mandates in Illinois and Colorado while also exploring whether the policy impacts differed by family income. She hypothesized that these policies will provide students with an indicator of their eligibility for selective college admissions, which may factor into their decisions of where to apply to college. Microdata on students taking the ACT tests were matched to public high school data from the Common Core of Data. A difference-in-differences analysis examined changes in college-going in ACT states compared to neighboring states without testing mandates. The findings indicated that one-third to one-half of students were induced to take the ACT, and the majority of these students had test scores that were competitive among colleges with selective admissions. While there were no impacts of the policies on overall college enrollment, there was an increase of 10–20% in selective college enrollment (depending on how selectivity was measured). Many new test takers and recipients of high scores were from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. These results suggest that many students, especially those from low-income families, may underestimate their true abilities and lack information on their likelihood of admissions to selective schools. Goodman concludes that providing universal early assessment may reduce inequities in access to higher education, particularly at selective colleges.

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Hyman (2017) looked at heterogeneity in the impacts of mandatory college entrance exams in the state of Michigan. Student-level data were utilized from six cohorts of high school juniors in Michigan. A difference-in-differences analysis compared outcomes between the pre- and post-policy years among schools that did not have an ACT testing center in the pre-policy period to a matched group of similar schools that did have a testing center. The expectation was that the policy should have a greater effect in schools without a pre-existing testing center. The results provided evidence of undermatching in the college enrollment process. For every ten low-income students who took the ACT, there were five additional lowincome students who were not tested but likely would have scored above the college readiness benchmarks. The policy was associated with a small increase of around 0.6 percentage points in the likelihood of enrolling in a 4-year college. These effects were larger (around 1 percentage point) for males, low-income students, and students in schools with high poverty rates. The results also suggest that increasing 4-year enrollments do not seem to be coming at the expense of 2-year enrollments. Only one study by Cook and Turner (2019) has looked at the impacts of local early assessment policies rather than statewide testing policies. Just over half of high school graduates in Virginia took the SAT, but there was considerable variation by district. Some districts allowed students to opt in, and only a minority of students took the test, while other districts provided universal access where almost all students took the test. The lowest SAT participation rates tended to be in small and rural schools, as well as in districts with low family incomes, low population densities, and low college attainment rates. The authors used data from the population of public high school students in Virginia using the Virginia Longitudinal Data System. An imputation process using Bayesian bootstrap procedures was conducted to predict scores that non-tested students would have received on the SAT based on observable attributes including demographic characteristics and test scores on other assessments. The results suggest that if Virginia adopted universal testing statewide, the number of high school graduates eligible for admissions at broad-access colleges would increase by up to 40% and at selective institutions by up to 20%. The greatest gains would be for low-income students and for students attending small districts or districts located in rural areas. However, the authors caution that even though students may have test scores eligible for admissions, they may not complete other steps required for college application and enrollment. The results of this study may be upwardly biased if non-test takers are not as invested in test preparation or have lower motivation to perform well on the test. Additionally, there could be some bias at the district-level if districts offering universal testing tend to have greater gains in student performance or if they devote greater resources to SAT preparation. While most states and districts with early assessment policies have utilized national college admissions exams including the ACT and SAT, California took a slightly different approach by assessing whether students would need remedial coursework in college. In 2004 the California Department of Education, California State University (CSU), and California State Board of Education collaborated to develop the Early Assessment Program, or EAP (Kurlaender 2014). Students were already taking the California Standards Test in grade 11 as part of the school

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accountability system, and the EAP added an optional early assessment component consisting of 15 multiple-choice questions in math and an essay in English that students could complete during the same test administration. Students who took the EAP received a notification letter in the summer prior to grade 12 indicating whether their scores would make them exempt or non-exempt from remedial courses at CSU institutions, along with a description of online resources on how to improve preparation. In math, there was also a “conditional exempt” category for students who would be eligible for exemption if they completed specific math courses during grade 12 and earned a grade of C or better. (A conditional exempt category was later added for English in 2012.) About two-thirds of students opted to take the English EAP, and three-quarters opted to take the math EAP, although the percent of students completing all questions was considerably lower. The EAP also included optional components that provided high school teachers with professional development about how to improve students’ college readiness and provided students with the option to participate in a senior year reading course or an interactive online program in math to further improve their level of preparation. However, 7 years after implementation, only 20% of teachers participated in professional development, and around a quarter of high schools demonstrated full implementation of the senior coursework for students (Almeida 2016). Howell, Kurlaender, and Grodsky (2010) examined the effects of the testing component of the EAP on the likelihood of college enrollment and assignment to a remedial course at the CSU Sacramento (CSUS) campus. They used student-level data on pre- and post-policy cohorts of high school juniors to estimate a logistic regression model of the decision to apply to CSUS based on whether students’ EAP scores were classified as exempt, conditionally exempt, non-exempt, or non-participant. To account for potential selection bias among non-participants, the sample was limited to feeder high schools with a 90% or higher participation rate on the EAP. The results revealed relatively few differences in college enrollment rates. In English, students scoring non-exempt were slightly more likely to apply to CSUS relative to pre-EAP cohorts of students. In math, both exempt and non-exempt students had similar probabilities of applying to CSUS relative to pre-EAP cohorts. These findings suggest that students were not deterred from applying to CSUS from a signal of not being exempt from remedial coursework. Jackson (2015) further investigated whether early college readiness signals from the EAP may discourage college applications and enrollment using data on firsttime-in-college (FTIC) applicants from all 23 CSU campuses. A regression discontinuity design was used to examine outcomes among students who scored just above or below the EAP cutoff for an exempt score in English. Models were estimated separately for students with no scores, non-exempt scores, and exempt scores in math. Overall, students scoring near college-ready in English tended to have similar probabilities of applying to and enrolling in CSU institutions regardless of their exemption status. This suggests that students may be either ignoring the signal of college readiness or using the information to improve preparation in the senior year if they scored below college-ready instead of allowing the information to discourage college enrollment.

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A third study on EAP by Jackson and Kurlaender (2016) examined how schools have responded to the EAP and whether it has had an impact on school performance in existing accountability systems. The study used school-level data on all California public high schools in the 2 years before and 2 years after EAP implementation, merged with EAP test scores from the Educational Testing Service and data from the CSU Chancellor’s office on college applications and placement scores. A differencein-differences analysis was used to examine changes in school-level outcomes among schools with high and low participation rates in the years before and after the EAP. The model was also expanded to include a difference-in-differences-indifference specification to compare outcomes over time between grade 11 students who took the CST with EAP relative to grade 10 students who only took the CST. This allowed for an examination of whether the EAP provides an incentive to schools to improve student performance on the statewide assessment. The authors identified considerable variation in participation rates in the EAP by high school since the program was voluntary for students and high schools had control over how much encouragement they provided for student participation. There were small positive effects of the EAP on applications to CSU, but outcomes tended to be similar regardless of school-level EAP participation rates. There was also a lack of support for the hypothesis that EAP results may result in improvements in school accountability metrics. The authors posit that it could be that students were not trying hard enough or did not have sufficient motivation to improve their performance. They also suggest that state accountability systems lack incentives for high schools to improve their performance, and policymakers may need to more fully integrate the EAP into the accountability system for the program to demonstrate effectiveness.

Early Assessment Impacts on First Year Coursetaking Studies on the impact of early assessment policies on first year coursetaking outcomes in college are limited to the EAP in California. Howell, Kurlaender, and Grodsky (2010) used data from FTIC students at CSU Sacramento to estimate an interrupted time series model comparing college remediation rates for pre- and postpolicy cohorts. They found that the EAP was associated with a 6.1 percentage point decrease in the probability of needing remediation in English and a 4.1 percentage point decrease in math. Since college enrollment rates remained constant while developmental education rates declined, the results suggest that students improved preparation in high school, although more research is needed to explore how this may have happened. Kurleander and colleagues (2019a) conducted a follow-up study to further explore the impact of the EAP policy on remedial coursetaking by extending the sample from CSUS to all 23 CSU campuses. This study also expanded on prior research by examining whether the effect of the EAP varies by student background characteristics including race, gender, and baseline academic performance. An interrupted time series design was used to examine differences in the probability of placement in remediation in three pre-policy cohorts relative to pre-post cohorts

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of students who attended a CSU campus. Heterogeneity in program impacts was explored by adding interaction terms between the EAP variable and gender, race, and prior test score performance. The EAP was associated with a 2–3 percentage point decrease in the likelihood of needing remediation at CSU. While these effects were smaller than those in Howell, Kurlaender, and Grodsky (2010), the magnitude was still considered to be meaningful because it translated into a reduction of 1200–1400 students in development English and math across the CSU system. The effects tended to be greatest among students on the margins of college readiness, which is likely because these students were more likely to be misclassified in the pre-policy years. The authors also suggest that the intervention may not provide enough support to help students with the weakest levels of preparation to avoid remediation. In 2008, California Senate Bill 946 expanded the EAP to allow the California Community Colleges System to use EAP scores for placement, although participation by the community colleges was optional (Kurlaender 2014). By 2013, 71 community colleges accepted EAP scores and waived local placement tests for students classified as exempt. Kurlaender (2014) examined whether EAP participation was associated with gains in postsecondary success among community college students and the extent to which the EAP was predictive of students’ academic performance in community college courses. OLS regression was used to examine the relationship between EAP participation and first year coursetaking behavior while controlling for demographic characteristics of students, highs school cohort, and prior achievement. Participation in the EAP was associated with lower levels of enrollment in remedial courses, higher enrollment in transfer-level courses, and higher grades in the first year courses, particularly in English. The study also found that the EAP demonstrated predictive power in assessing readiness for college-level work, which led the authors to suggest that the EAP should be considered as a replacement for local exams or used as an additional indicator for course placement in community colleges.

Early Assessment Impacts on Longer-Term Postsecondary Outcomes While many early assessment policies have demonstrated small positive effects on college enrollment and first year coursetaking outcomes, much less is known about whether these gains continue into longer-term postsecondary success. If early assessment policies induce students to attend college but they fail to persist, then policy impacts on enrollment in college may overstate the benefit of these policies. Hyman’s (2017) difference-in-differences analysis compared pre- and post-policy cohorts in Michigan’ statewide ACT mandate on the likelihood of persistence to years 2 and 4 in college. The results indicated that there were similar persistence rates for marginal students induced to enroll in college by the policy relative to inframarginal students. A preliminary examination of bachelor’s degree completion also indicated that completion rates were similar regardless of whether the student was induced to attend college due to the policy.

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Hurwitz et al. (2015) also examined the impacts of early assessment on degree attainment in the context of the statewide adoption of the SAT in Maine. Using a difference-in-differences analysis of college enrollment rates in Maine relative to a synthetic control group of other states, there were no effects of the policy on bachelor’s degree completion rates within 5 years of high school graduation. The authors suggest that it may be too early to expect effects on longer-term outcomes like degree completion because students induced to enroll in college may be more marginal students who need more time to complete. Yet the authors also contend that even if students do not experience any change in degree completion, there may be still some benefits from attending some college in terms of labor market outcomes, as well as spillover benefits in areas like health and crime.

Implementation of Early Assessment Costs of Early Assessment Overall, there is a growing body of evidence that early assessment policies may lead to small improvements in college enrollment and first year postsecondary coursetaking outcomes, particularly for students from disadvantaged individual and school contexts. Importantly, these gains may be achieved in a way that is relatively cost-effective. Colorado’s statewide assessment program costs about $1.6 million annually, which is much less than programs designed to reduce financial barriers to college such as the Georgia HOPE merit aid program costing around $189 million per year (Klasik 2013). The statewide SAT program in Maine cost around $1 million per year in exam costs and administrative fees like test proctor payment, although many of these costs would have been encountered even if schools used another exam for state accountability purposes (Hurwitz et al. 2015). These policies also lower “social costs” because students and their families are not responsible for paying for exam fees (Hyman 2017). Yet in the absence of a statewide mandate, some districts may not have the financial resources or time available to support universal testing (Cook and Turner 2019). Additionally, the costs and benefits of offering universal testing may vary by district based on the level of academic achievement of the students. Challenges to Understanding and Communicating Test Results Some students may not appreciate the importance of the information received from early assessment, or the information may be poorly communicated, which may lead them not to take action to improve their level of preparation (Foote et al. 2015; Kurlaender et al. 2019a, b). Tierney and Garcia (2011) conducted focus groups with 25 high school seniors in the Los Angeles Unified School District, and only 1 of them had heard of the EAP. Students expressed frustration about the number of tests that they have to take and confusion about the purpose of these tests. High school staff including college counselors also knew very little information about EAP and expressed concerns that the EAP was not effective at communicating the implications of placing into remediation.

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Similar findings about poor communication on EAP scores were evident in a qualitative study by Almeida (2016) in a large California urban district with a large Latino population. Students had little prior knowledge about how to prepare for college from their communities or families and relied on their schools as the primary source of information on college readiness. Focus groups participants lacked prior knowledge about the purposes or benefits of the EAP, which meant that they did not know how to prepare for the exam or did not take the test seriously. Once students received their score reports, there was no discussion of results with school personnel. Only one student had spoken with a counselor or teacher about the EAP score report, and the other students reported that they did not think to ask anyone at the school for advice. Additionally, no students had visited the online resources provided on the school report – either because they were not aware of the resources or because they decided not to visit because the benefits were not communicated. Additionally, low-income students may have less access to the Internet, so providing information solely online may have been a barrier to these students. Challenges to the Content, Quality, and Timing of Information Even if students do understand the information provided by the early assessment, they may get the information too late to change their college-going behavior. Many students may be more than 1 year behind the sequence of courses required for selective college admissions, or they may receive information about their test scores too late to modify their course schedule during the senior year (Venezia and Voloch 2012). It is also important to consider whether supports are provided for underprepared students to act on that information and improve their preparation for college (Jackson 2015). For example, teachers participating in the professional development of California’s EAP demonstrated improvements to their instructional practices, strategies, and knowledge of preparing students for college literacy; and students in their courses reported feeling better prepared for college-level work (Hafner et al. 2010). Yet students at one high school that placed little emphasis on EAP indicated that students did not know what resources were available or how they should better prepare for college-level work (Tierney and Garcia 2011). The online resources provided by CSU to students testing below college-ready were described as “meager and passive” (p. 115), which suggests that even if students did take the initiative to seek out these resources, they may not have been very helpful in improving their college readiness.

Overview of Transition Courses and Underlying Conceptual Frameworks The second college readiness intervention of interest is transition courses, which are intended to improve students’ college readiness skills in math, reading, and/or writing. Transition courses are often coupled with early assessment policies to allow students to modify coursetaking in grade 12 based on their level of college

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readiness. A common goal of these courses is to support students who are at risk of needing remediation in college to address deficiencies before high school graduation and become prepared to begin college-level work upon college entry. In some cases, transition courses are offered at high schools statewide and overseen by a state agency, while in other cases transition courses are offered in certain schools with approaches that have been developed locally. A statewide scan of college readiness policies by Barnett et al. (2013a) found that there were 29 states in which transition courses were offered in 2013, including 21 local initiatives and 8 statewide initiatives. By 2017, the number of statewide transition course programs had more than doubled to 17 states, while the number of local initiatives remained relatively constant at 22 (Fay et al. 2017). There is considerable variation across state and local initiatives in terms of the purpose, content, and delivery of transition courses (Barnett et al. 2016; Barnett 2018a). While all transition courses are intended to improve college readiness, this term is used inconsistently and may refer to different levels of readiness (e.g., ready for a college-level course at a community college versus a 4-year institution). The term may also be operationalized to describe different goals – such as the percent of students who test out of developmental education versus the percent who successfully complete college-level courses. The content of the course may be aligned with high school standards, skills needed for college-level courses, placement or admissions exams, or other priorities of those who oversee the initiative. High school teachers, college faculty, or a mix of K–12 and postsecondary educators may develop transition courses. Programs use a variety of instructional approaches including direct instruction, online learning, and blended courses. While all transition courses focus on improving academic skills in math or English, some may also focus on broader college readiness skills (e.g., goal setting and time management skills) and postsecondary planning. Some transition courses may even provide college exposure by giving students an opportunity to visit a college campus or interact with college faculty. Transition courses may also vary across contexts in terms of the structure, organization, and context of the courses (Barnett et al. 2016; Barnett 2018a). Transition courses may be implemented as a subject area course that fulfills high school graduation requirements, an elective course, or as a supplement to existing courses. Students are typically targeted for participation if they score below college-ready on an early assessment, although some programs limit participation to those who are very close to college-ready. Non-targeted students may also enroll in transition courses due to factors such as student or parent preferences, counselor recommendations, or practical considerations such as the need to fill classes. Some transition courses include mechanisms that may alter students’ placement in college-level courses. States like Tennessee and North Carolina guarantee students who earn a particular grade in transition courses that they can enroll in for-credit courses, while other states like Massachusetts and New Hampshire provide students with an end-of-course test that guarantees placement

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in college-level courses for students who score college-ready. Transition courses can be taught by college faculty, high school teachers certified in the subject area, or high school teachers with additional support from the college. There also tends to be considerable variation in terms of funding and resources available to support the implementation of transition courses, such as professional development for instructors. One way in which transition courses are intended to improve students’ postsecondary success is by providing rigorous coursework that will help students to develop necessary academic skills. Prior research has demonstrated that high school curriculum may affect postsecondary outcomes including college persistence and postsecondary degree attainment. Students who complete rigorous coursework in high school and attend college are more likely than their counterparts to persist in college and continue on to bachelor’s degree program if they transfer (e.g., Attewell and Domina 2008; Horn and Kojaku 2001; Jacobson and Mokher 2014). There is also a strong correlation between high school curriculum taken and bachelor’s degree completion, as students who complete more rigorous high school coursework are more likely to complete a bachelor’s degree. Furthermore, the correlation of high school curriculum with postsecondary degree attainment is higher than that of class rank or high school test scores among college enrollees (Adelman 2006). The results of these studies suggest that policy initiatives like transition courses, which are intended to be more rigorous than traditional courses for underprepared students, may have a positive effect on students’ postsecondary outcomes. Courses that students would otherwise be taking may only fulfill the minimal high school graduation requirements. Furthermore, transition courses may be even more influential than other advanced courses in grade 12 that may not focus on the same specific skills as introductory college courses. If the content and curriculum covered in transition courses is better aligned with the types of skills assessed on placement tests and the content of college-level courses, students may have higher likelihood of testing college-ready upon completion of transition courses (Boatman and Bennett 2020; Pheatt et al. 2016). Yet it is also important to consider that there may be unintended consequences if transition courses are less rigorous than the courses that students would likely otherwise be taking if transition courses were not available. A transition course that simply reviews material from earlier high school courses like algebra and geometry may not prepare students as well for college-level coursework as more advanced courses such as pre-calculus. Additionally, if transition courses are limited to students scoring below college-ready, there could be negative consequences from being placed into a course with low-achieving peers. This has happened in other large-scale curricular reform efforts, such as a policy in Chicago Public Schools that required all students to complete English 1 and Algebra 1 in grade 9 (Allensworth et al. 2009). Not only did the policy fail to improve test scores and college enrollments, but it also tended to result in worse outcomes for higher-performing students by placing them in classes with lower-ability peers. A similar trend could

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occur with transition courses if students on the margins of college readiness are placed into courses with students who are far below college-ready. Another mechanism through which transition courses may impact postsecondary outcomes is by improving academic momentum through helping students to bypass developmental education in college. Early momentum can be defined as student success on early outcomes, such as first year credit accumulation, which have been identified as key predictors of success on longer-term postsecondary outcomes (Belfield et al. 2019). Some transition courses provide students with an exemption from developmental courses if they earn a certain grade in the transition course or achieve a score of college-ready on an assessment at the end of the course. This exemption can save students time and money and potentially reduce their time to degree. Success on early outcomes can also help students to develop self-efficacy and academic self-concept, which may result in greater commitment to completing degree programs (Attewell et al. 2012; Attewell and Monaghan 2016). A third mechanism for transition courses to support postsecondary success is by developing noncognitive skills (e.g., note-taking and time management) in addition to academic skills. While these non-academic skills are not assessed on typical placement exams or college entrance tests, they play an important role in helping students to succeed in college-level coursework (Pheatt et al. 2016). Some transition colleges integrate activities that develop noncognitive skills directly into the curriculum (Barnett 2018a). Yet other transition courses may indirectly improve noncognitive skills. For example, transition courses in Tennessee use an online curriculum that is self-paced, so students must develop self-regulation, which is an important skill for success in college coursework more broadly (Boatman and Bennett 2020; Fay 2017). Other transition courses may provide students with social capital to navigate the college choice process by covering non-academic information like how to apply for scholarships and complete the FAFSA. Fourth, transition courses may signal to students that they are “college material” as they are already on a path to college by virtue of being in a transition course. College students enrolled in remedial courses often feel stigmatized, and they spend substantial time and money completing these requirements, particularly if they are required to complete several remedial courses. These courses are commonly taught by adjuncts who are likely to be part-time employees with weaker teaching credentials. This creates a perfect storm for creating discouragement and failure in students enrolled in postsecondary institutions. Many first year students reported in interviews that they become distrustful as they belatedly discovered they gained no credit while paying tuition for indifferent instruction, which became particularly concerning when they may faced more semesters of remediation (Rosenbaum et al. 2016). In contrast, providing students with college readiness testing and instruction during high school could have many potential benefits. Transition courses may be seen as “college preparatory” courses that provide an opportunity to prepare for career and college, rather than being perceived as a stigma. In addition, students may have strong incentives to do well in these courses, as it may help them to prepare for jobs and college and to potentially reduce tuition costs in college.

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Impacts and Implementation of Transition Courses Transition Course Impacts on First Year Coursetaking The earliest evaluations of college transition courses focused on local initiatives. Fong et al. (2015) examined a pilot program between the Fresno County Office of Education and California State University to develop an Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC), which would later be made available statewide. High school and college faculty developed the grade 12 course for students who scored below college-ready on the reading or writing section of the EAP. Participating faculty were required to participate in extensive professional development and were provided with curriculum binders and textbooks for their students. The study used data from students in 24 high schools that offered ERWC and matched students in ERWC courses with similar demographic and baseline achievement characteristics to students in non-ERWC English courses. The matched students were included in a weighted OLS regression model to examine performance on an English placement test used by CSU, which would allow students to place out of developmental education courses if they scored college-ready. There was a small positive effect of ERWC on test scores, equivalent to an effect size of 0.13 standard deviations. However, the study did not continue to track students into college to examine actual enrollment and completion of first year courses. Trimble et al. (2017) evaluated another local initiative called the At Home in College program, which was developed by the City University of New York (CUNY). Students who took the high school exit exam and scored below the college readiness benchmarks in English or math were offered transition courses in the senior year. Participating students also had access to other resources including college visits, academic advising, and internship opportunities. The research design took advantage of a staggered approach to implementation across New York City high schools to conduct a difference-in-differences analysis that compared gains in student outcomes over time in schools participating in the At Home program relative to students in schools that had not implemented the program yet. There were no effects of the program on passing a gatekeeper English course during the first year of college. In math, there was a small positive effect of the program associated with a 1 percentage point increase in the likelihood of passing a gatekeeper math course. These findings suggest that the At Home program effects are largely neutral, and do not appear to particularly benefit or harm students. The first evaluation of a statewide policy was conducted in West Virginia by Pheatt et al. (2016) to assess the statewide rollout of math transition courses following legislation passed in 2009. Students who placed “below mastery” on a statewide assessment as juniors were assigned to a course called “transition mathematics” in the senior year. The curriculum for the course was developed by high school and college faculty and focused on reviewing content and skills from prior math courses (particularly algebra). The policy also included professional development and resources for teachers including a website with lesson plans and suggested class activities. The authors conducted a regression discontinuity analysis using

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outcomes for students scoring just above the mastery cutoff on the state assessment relative to those just below the cutoff. To account for non-compliance with assignment to treatment, the authors also utilized a TOT analysis using an instrumental variables approach to predict students’ likelihood of enrollment in transition courses. Both the ITT and TOT results indicated no statistically significant differences in the likelihood of scoring college-ready on a placement test at the end of grade 12 and being exempt from developmental education. Among first year coursetaking outcomes, students who scored below the cutoff were 5 percentage points less likely to complete a gatekeeper math course in the first year in the ITT analysis. The TOT results revealed even larger negative effects, as transition course participants were 19 percentage points less likely to complete a gatekeeper math course compared to similar students who were not assigned to the course. The authors offered several potential explanations for these null and negative effects. First, the majority of students scoring below mastery did not seamlessly enroll in college following high school graduation, which limits the ability to detect effects on postsecondary outcomes. Second, most students in transition courses substituted these courses for more rigorous courses in grade 12 like trigonometry and pre-calculus that may better prepare students for college. Third, the majority of students who took the transition courses did not test college-ready, which suggests that the transition course was not sufficiently aligned with college-ready benchmarks. Florida was another early adopter of statewide transition courses with the Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI). The FCCRI provided college readiness testing to students in grade 11, along with English and math college readiness and success (CRS) courses in the senior year to those who scored below college-ready. Yet unlike West Virginia, there was no uniform curriculum, and teachers largely had to develop materials for the transition courses on their own, which resulted in considerable variation across schools and districts. Mokher, Leeds, and Harris (2018a) estimated program impacts using two different methods. First, a regression discontinuity design was used to assess outcomes among students who scored just above and below the test score cutoffs for assignment to transition courses. Second, impacts were examined among students with different levels of prior academic performance using a before-after regression analysis to assess outcomes among targeted students before and after the schools had implemented the transition courses. The regression discontinuity results revealed little to no impact on students’ short-term success on outcomes including college enrollment or passing non-developmental (college-level) courses. The before-after analysis also found little to no effect among most short-term outcomes, with small positive effects on the probability of taking and passing non-developmental courses in math and English among the population of targeted students (which consisted of a broad range of achievement levels). Yet the magnitude of these effects were quite large for some portions of the achievement distribution, with impacts of up to 10.7 percentage point increases in the probability of enrolling in non-developmental courses. However, there were smaller effects on the probability of passing nondevelopmental courses which suggests that some students who enrolled in these courses were not adequately prepared to succeed.

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A follow-up study by Leeds and Mokher (2020) examined how the FCCRI affected grade 12 coursetaking and whether the impacts of the FCCRI differed depending on students’ prior high school coursetaking trajectories. Results from a regression discontinuity analysis indicate that some students substituted CRS courses for other standard level courses (e.g., non-honors English IV), but other students may have been diverted from higher-level courses. Additionally, the impact of assignment to CRS courses on the probability of taking and passing non-developmental courses varied by high school coursetaking trajectory. In math, students on the basic high school track had a greater likelihood of enrolling in college-level math (gateway) courses, but there were smaller impacts on the likelihood of passing these courses, which suggests that they may not have been adequately prepared. Students with advanced high school coursetaking trajectories in math were more likely to enroll in and pass gateway courses. However, they were also less likely to enroll in and pass higher-level courses beyond the gateway level, indicating that they may have been placed into a college course that was too easy. In English, many students on the standard high school coursetaking track assigned to CRS courses enrolled in lower-level courses in college, but they were also more likely to pass which suggests they may have been redirected to courses that better suited their abilities. The greatest benefits were for students on the most advanced English coursetaking trajectory who were more likely to enroll in and pass a gateway English course. Taken together, these results suggest that while some students may have been diverted to more appropriate courses, other students may have been better prepared to succeed in college if they had more flexibility to enroll in alternate high school courses instead of being required to take CRS courses. Legislation in Texas in 2013 required school districts to work with local postsecondary institutions to develop English and math transition courses for students who were not college-ready. The Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas developed a transition math course that dozens of Texas school districts utilized. Pustejovsky and Joshi (2019) conducted a quasi-experimental evaluation using weighted propensity score matching to compare students in these math transition courses to similar non-participants from a comparison group of previous cohorts or a comparison group from the same cohort. The results revealed no statistically significant differences in the likelihood of taking developmental or college-level math courses in the first semester using either comparison group. However, the passing rates in college-level math courses were about 3–4 percentage points lower for students in the transition math course relative to the comparison group. The authors caution that the results must be interpreted with caution because there may have been differences between the two groups in college readiness at the beginning of grade 12 that were not accounted for in the analysis. Xu et al.’s (2020) evaluation of another statewide transition course program in Kentucky revealed more consistently positive effects on student outcomes than the programs in West Virginia, Florida, and Texas. Kentucky’s policy required students scoring below the college readiness benchmarks on the mandatory ACT exam in grade 11 to participate in a targeted intervention (TI) program in grade 12. Many of the decisions about implementation were made at the local level, such as whether to

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offer stand-alone transition courses or integrate content with existing courses, as well as whether to offer TI during traditional school hours or as extended school services. Student-level records from seven cohorts of students in pre- and post-policy years were used to conduct two types of analyses. The first analysis used a difference-inregression discontinuity design to compare changes in outcomes over time for students scoring just above or below the ACT college readiness benchmarks. The second analysis used a difference-in-differences analysis to examine the impacts of the policy for students with a wider range of performance on the ACT. The TI program was associated with a decreased likelihood of enrollment in developmental education courses by approximately 5–10 percentage points in math and 3–4 percentage points in English. For students at 4-year universities only, TI was also associated with a 4 percentage point increase in the likelihood of completing a college-level math course during the first year. Program impacts tended to be similar among student subgroups including race, free or reduced price lunch status, enrollment in a low-performing school, and academic performance. Another statewide transition course program in Tennessee has also resulted in mostly positive impacts on postsecondary student outcomes. Boatman and Bennett (2020) examined the Seamless Alignment and Integrated Learning Support (SAILS) program, which provides the same online math courses used in community college developmental education programs to high school students who tested below college-ready on the statewide administration of the ACT. Students progressed at their own pace with the online materials in a course facilitated by licensed math teachers in a high school computer lab. If students passed the SAILS course, they became exempt from developmental education and could enroll directly in a college-level math course if they enrolled in a public 2-year college in Tennessee. Student-level data on five cohorts of high school students was used to conduct a difference-in-differences-in-difference design contrasting differences by treatment status (eligible vs. ineligible for remediation), school-level implementation of SAILS (first vs. later cohorts), and policy year (before or during the first year of SAILS). The results indicated that students eligible for SAILS were less likely to enroll in developmental math courses and had a greater likelihood of enrolling in college-level math. While the course-based passing rates in college-level courses declined by 6 percentage points, there were still more students completing collegelevel courses in the first year with a 12 percentage point increase in the cohort-based passing rates for SAILS eligible students. The policy impacts on college coursetaking outcomes were similar among subgroups including race, sex, and high school locale. Another evaluation of the Tennessee SAILS program by Kane et al. (2019) examined program impacts before and after other changes in the postsecondary policy environment. The first postsecondary change was the implementation of Tennessee Promise, a last-dollar scholarship program providing free community college to recent high school graduates. Tennessee Promise has the potential to increase the number of underprepared students who attend college. The second postsecondary change was the adoption of co-requisite remediation in community colleges, which provided students with the opportunity to enroll simultaneously in

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developmental education and college-level courses in the same semester. The policy change accelerates the pace at which students assigned to developmental education are exposed to college-level courses. The analyses included a difference-in-differences model that compared gains in schools that had implemented SAILS relative to other schools that had not yet implemented SAILS during the context of a changing postsecondary system. In addition, a regression discontinuity design was used to assess the impact of scoring just above or below the college readiness benchmark on first year coursetaking outcomes. For cohorts prior to the postsecondary policy changes, students assigned to SAILS were 13 percentage points more likely to take and complete college-level math in the first year of community college. However, after the policy changes, no differences were found in the likelihood of enrolling in or passing college-level math in the first year of college enrollment. Despite the null effects for later cohorts, students participating in SAILS still benefited from the cost savings of being able to take the course in high school instead of waiting until college where they would have been required to pay tuition. The Kane et al. (2019) study also examined the impact of SAILS on students’ math achievement using an abbreviated version of the ACT math exam that was matched with students’ prior ACT scores to assess gains in achievement. There was no evidence that the policy improved students’ math achievement, as students assigned to SAILS performed similarly to students in other high school courses who scored just above the college readiness threshold. The passing rates for collegelevel courses also remained relatively constant at around 50%, further suggesting that that SAILS did not have an “achievement effect” of improving students’ math skills. Instead, the reform seems to have a “delay effect” by removing the barrier of delayed enrollment in college-level courses under the policy context of traditional semester-long developmental education courses. After the policy change to corequisite developmental education, the benefits from the “delay effect” were diminished, as students in both high school SAILS courses and community college co-requisite courses were more likely to progress into college-level courses during the first year.

Transition Course Impacts on Longer-Term Postsecondary Outcomes Studies examining the effects of transition courses on longer-term outcomes like credit accumulation, persistence, and degree attainment have mostly demonstrated null effects. Trimble et al.’s (2017) assessment of the CUNY At Home program found there was only about a one-credit increase in the number of credits accumulated in the first year. Mokher and Leeds (2019) used a regression discontinuity design to examine the impact of the FCCRI on longer-term outcomes including persistence, transfer from a 2-year to 4-year institution, and degree attainment. Estimates for two cohorts of students tended to be insignificant or small in magnitude, which indicates that there was little long-term benefit of the FCCRI on higher education outcomes for students on the margins of college readiness. Additionally, Xu et al. (2020) looked at the impact of Kentucky’s targeted intervention program on

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persistence and credit accumulation through the second year of college and found little to no impact on these outcomes. Evaluations of Tennessee’s SAILS program have yielded mixed results of the longer-term benefits of transition courses. Boatman and Bennett’s (2020) tripledifferenced model examining credit accumulation indicated that SAILS was associated with 4.5 additional credits earned by the third year of college. These gains in credit accumulation were greatest for females and rural high school students. However, there were no significant differences by SAILS status on degree attainment after 2 years. The authors suggest that students may not have been tracked long enough to detect effects in outcomes like degree attainment, or the benefits of the program may not continue that far. In addition, Kane et al.’s (2019) study found that the SAILS program was associated with a 4.5 credit increase in the number of credits earned by the second year of college during the early years of the program, but there were no differences in credit accumulation by SAILS status after other postsecondary policy changes went into effect. The availability of co-requisite developmental education courses in later years would have allowed underprepared students to enroll in college-level courses in the first semester, so SAILS students were no longer making faster progress to college coursework.

Implementation of Transition Courses Costs of Transition Courses Transition courses have the potential to save students time and money by reducing the likelihood of assignment to developmental education courses in college (e.g., Boatman and Bennett 2020; Kane et al. 2019). Barnett, Fay, and Pheatt (2016) noted that transition courses can be offered inexpensively by diverting funding from existing courses or using pre-existing curriculum materials. For example, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB 2017) provides free curricula for college transition courses in math and literacy, as well as stipends for staff professional development on implementing these courses. States that develop their own transition courses incur additional costs. Scaling these courses statewide may require further funding, as in Tennessee (which used funding from the governor’s office) and Illinois (which used funding from Race to the Top) (Barnett et al. 2016). External funding from private foundations may also be available to support these efforts, such as the Gates Foundation which provided a grant to the Dana Center at the University of Texas to support the development and dissemination of a new math transition course (Mokher et al. 2019). Kentucky’s Targeted Intervention program was implemented at an average cost of about $600 per student, which is considerably less than the national average cost of around $1500 for a three-credit remedial course in college (Xu et al. 2020). In Florida, the FCCRI was implemented at an add-on cost of only about $1 per student, given that substantial resources were repurposed from other uses (Mokher et al. 2018b). However, state leaders need to consider if sufficient capacity is available among personnel to add reform activities to their existing

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responsibilities and consider activities they will need to give up to reallocate staff time. Additionally, there could be high opportunity costs due to reallocation of non-personnel costs including facilities, materials, and equipment. For example, many transition courses utilize online instructional materials, but computer labs may be needed for computer-based testing, classroom activities, and student projects and portfolios. The funding approach used for transition courses also has implications for program quality. Florida made a decision that the FCCRI would be implemented essentially like an unfunded mandate, which resulted in unequal resource distribution. These disparities resulted in program heterogeneity among schools and districts, including some that may have lacked sufficient resources to reach all students targeted for the program. If other states were interested in implementing a similar program, they could take a different approach to funding which could improve the effectiveness of the program as a whole and across schools and districts. Opportunity Costs of Transition Courses Some transition courses may count toward high school graduation requirements in the subject area, while others may be considered as elective courses. The decision of whether to count transition courses as a subject area or elective course may depend on local or state regulations (Barnett 2018a). Additionally, some transition courses in states like Massachusetts and Kentucky allow modules of content from transition courses to be integrated with existing English and math courses offered during the senior year instead of as a separate course. If students are required to take 4 years of math and English for high school graduation, then transition courses are typically taken as a substitute for other courses that students otherwise would have taken in the senior year. This was the case of CUNY’s At Home in College program, as most students took transition courses as a substitute for other grade 12 courses rather than taking no math or English course (Trimble et al. 2017). In West Virginia, most students in transition courses were substituting these courses for more rigorous courses like trigonometry and pre-calculus (Pheatt et al. 2016). The average test scores of students enrolled in transition courses also tended to be lower than other grade 12 courses in West Virginia, suggesting that assignment to these courses may have negative peer effects. Challenges were also identified in Florida, where some students assigned to transition courses were induced away from more advanced courses, particularly if they were already on a more rigorous high school coursetaking trajectory (Leeds and Mokher 2020). Additionally, since students in Florida’s CRS courses had a wide range of test scores and coursetaking histories, teaching to any one ability level would likely fail to serve a large number of students. This has implications for considering whether transition courses should be targeted toward all students scoring below college-ready versus a more narrowly tailored subgroup and whether students scoring below college-ready should be required to enroll in a transition course or have the ability to substitute another rigorous high school course in the same subject area (Mokher et al. 2019).

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Challenges of Aligning Transition Courses with College Courses Another challenge is ensuring that transition courses are appropriately aligned with postsecondary standards and expectations. West Virginia took the approach of aligning the content of transition courses with the placement test, in an effort to increase the likelihood that students would have the ability to test college-ready upon completion of the course (Pheatt et al. 2016). Yet the majority of students who enrolled in the transition course did not test college-ready, which suggests that the course may not have been sufficiently aligned with the college-ready benchmarks. Florida provided broad standards for transition courses, but teachers did not receive any instructional materials and were confused about what the courses were supposed to cover (Lansing et al. 2017). The Florida Department of Education advised high schools to work together with local postsecondary institutions to develop the transition courses, but this occurred very infrequently in practice due to a variety of challenges occurring at different stages of developing K–12 to postsecondary partnerships such as identifying leaders to initiate collaboration and developing a common understanding of objectives (Mokher and Jacobson 2019). Beyond issues of course content and curriculum, there could also be misalignment of expectations for student behaviors and practices. Fay (2017) conducted site visits at high schools and community colleges participating in Tennessee SAILS to compare course contexts in different settings. She wanted to understand why course completion rates tended to be much higher for SAILS students compared to community college students. The results indicated that even though the SAILS courses used the same curriculum and online program materials, there were different expectations of students depending on their setting. High schools provided more management of student behavior and encouraged students to comply with the SAILS course goals. This included more structured daily schedules, more frequent class meetings, greater enforcement of attendance, and regular reminders about course deadlines. Community college students had greater autonomy and were expected to complete their work more independently, which required greater self-regulation. Fay (2017) notes that even though SAILS may help students to accelerate through remedial requirements, it could be doing them a disservice if the high school courses do not adequately reflect the expectations for college courses or provide students with opportunities to understand college norms.

Overview of Summer Bridge Programs and Underlying Conceptual Frameworks A third policy initiative to improve college readiness is summer bridge programs, which typically occur during the summer prior to initial college enrollment to support students with the transition from high school to postsecondary education. The summer bridge model originated with the federal Upward Bound program in the 1960s; even though the focus of Upward Bound has changed over time, this early model for summer bridge has influenced the development modern programs

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(Sablan 2014). These programs are often targeted to underrepresented student populations including low-income, English language learner, international, minority, or first-generation students (Kezar 2000). Some bridge programs may have a more remedial focus and be limited to those scoring below college-ready on an assessment, while others may be targeted toward gifted students and focus on the transition to college rather than the development of basic academic skills. There are also summer bridge programs that target students within a specific field of study like math or science, or subgroups within these academic areas like women in STEM (see, e.g., Ashley et al. 2017). For the purposes of this chapter, the focus will be on summer bridge programs intended to develop academic skills for underprepared students. Summer bridge programs may include a variety of different program activities (Kezar 2000; Sablan 2014). Some are focused almost entirely on academic skills in reading, writing, and/or math. Many include non-academic skills like time management, study skills, or workshops on financial literacy. Some may also include “college knowledge” with a broader focus on college life, career counseling, and information on how to navigate resources and different departments on-campus. These additional components are intended to prepare students socially and financially in addition to offering academic preparation (Bettinger et al. 2013; Kezar 2000). In addition, some summer bridge programs include partnerships with community organizations such as community service projects or meetings with businesses that may provide future opportunities for internships. They may also be developed in partnership with K–12 educators to improve the transition from high school to postsecondary education. Summer bridge programs have been implemented in a diverse range of colleges including 2-year, 4-year, public, and private institutions (Sablan 2014). They are typically administered through student affairs departments but may also be run by departmental faculty in subject areas like math and English. The duration of the programs is typically 4–6 weeks. Student participation is typically voluntary. In some programs, students commute from their homes to attend daily meetings at the college, while in other programs students live on-campus to help them adjust to the campus environment. While there has been an interest in moving summer bridge programs online to help scale them to more students, it may be difficult to acculturate students to the college campus remotely. Given that summer bridge programs are intended to increase students’ academic preparation through coursework on developmental or basic skills prior to college enrollment, the underlying mechanisms are similar to transition courses. Summer bridge programs are designed to increase students’ postsecondary success with the development of academic skills and promotion of academic momentum by opportunities to earn college credit. Yet many summer bridge programs also support students in two additional ways. First, summer bridge programs often provide students with additional academic and social support services. Students may be required to take part in tutorials, receive support from math or writing labs, or participate in advising. This may help students form close relationships with faculty and staff to develop greater ties to the institution, which may affect their decision to persist or withdraw (e.g., Astin 1984; Tinto 1975). There are also opportunities for

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students to begin forming peer networks to further integrate with the campus community. These social aspects of the program may also help students to develop non-academic skills such as greater self-confidence (Kezar 2000). Early research on summer bridge programs indicates that these programs may contribute to participants’ positive self-perceptions of academic skills and academic self-efficacy (e.g., Strayhorn 2011). Second, summer bridge programs may help students to gain familiarity with the college environment and how to succeed there. Students may learn about navigating processes like how to select courses, apply for financial aid, or obtain help from campus resources. Transition knowledge and skills (also referred to as “college knowledge”) is one of the key dimensions of college readiness defined by Conley (2010, 2012) and is important for helping students to navigate the transition to college. The development of transition knowledge and skills may be particularly critical for students from underrepresented background who tend to have less access to this knowledge in the absence of these types of interventions (Rosenbaum et al. 2006). Prior research has shown that summer bridge participants tend to have higher levels of college knowledge after completing the program (e.g., Sablan and Tierney 2016), although it remains unknown whether or how students may use this knowledge.

Impacts and Implementation of Summer Bridge Programs Summer Bridge Impacts on First Year Coursetaking Most of the early evaluations of summer bridge programs were descriptive in nature and typically did not include a comparison group for contrasting outcomes of participants (Sablan 2014). Theses evaluations also typically focused on only a single institution and tracked student outcomes for a limited follow-up time (Wathington et al. 2016). The first rigorous evaluation of a large-scale summer bridge program was through a series of studies conducted through the National Center for Postsecondary Research (Barnett et al. 2012; Wathington et al. 2011, 2016) which assessed a developmental summer bridge program implemented with funding from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). The 4- to 5-week summer bridge program offered remedial coursework to students with weak academic skills at 22 public 2-year and 4-year colleges in Texas, although the evaluation was limited to 8 participating institutions. The bridge program consisted of four components: (1) accelerated developmental instruction in reading, writing, and/or math; (2) academic supports like tutoring and participation in math or writing labs; (3) college knowledge through advising activities and financial aid workshops; and (4) a $400 stipend for participants. The program format varied by institution with some course-based formats that provided developmental education courses in an accelerated format, and other freestanding formats that offered instruction in basic skills without being tied to a particular course. Students enrolled in developmental education courses through the summer bridge program could progress to the next

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course in the sequence if they earned a grade of C or higher in the course-based program. Other program models focused on preparing students to retake the placement test at the end of the summer, which allowed some students to place out of developmental education if they improved their performance on the test. Graduating high school seniors received information about applying for the Texas summer bridge program through their high school or outreach from the participating colleges. Those who applied were required to take a placement test to assess their level of college readiness. Each college offered different levels of developmental education as part of their summer bridge programs, so participation was limited to students who scored within the range for the courses available at their institution. All eligible applicants were invited to an information session, and those who consented to participate were randomly assigned to the summer bridge group or a comparison group under business-as-usual conditions. Using this randomized control trial design, ITT estimates of the impact of the summer bridge program on first year outcomes were generated using OLS regression. During the first semester of college, summer bridge participants were more likely to enroll in college-level courses in each subject area (Barnett et al. 2012; Wathington et al. 2011). Participants also had a greater likelihood of passing college-level courses in math and writing during the first semester. However, there were no differences in course passing rates by the second semester of college, indicating that the impacts of the summer bridge program may diminish over time (Barnett et al. 2012; Wathington et al. 2016). Two other studies have assessed the impacts of summer programs that include academic skill development for underprepared students, but do not include any social or college knowledge components. Chingos, Griffiths, and Mulhern (2017) evaluated an online summer math course at three Maryland universities. This was a low-cost intervention with a self-paced course taken over 4–6 weeks that included instructional resources like tutorials and videos, practice problems, as well as tests and quizzes. Students in both the intervention and comparison groups were provided with the opportunity to take the placement test again at the end of the summer. Each intervention site had a course coordinator to answer questions, provide “nudges” on course participation, and enable students to retest. Eligible students were randomly assigned to treatment or control groups. ITT estimates were calculated using a separate regression model for each institution to account for differences in implementation and placement score policies. Due to concerns with the study design at two of the institutions, the results discussed in the article only focused on one institution. At this institution, treatment students were slightly more likely to retake the placement test and receive a college-ready score relative to comparison group students. However, it is unclear how much of these improvements may be attributed to learning gains versus greater participation in testing retakes. There were no differences by treatment status in the likelihood of taking or passing math courses in the first year of college enrollment. The program had poor compliance rates, as only about half of students in the intervention group ever logged into the online program. Further, only about a quarter of participants reported spending 4 or more hours during each week of the program, even though the recommended time was 5–10 hours per week. The authors suggest that weak implementation could be due to

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several factors including issues with the quality of program, the requirement to independently complete work over the summer, or poor messaging to encourage students to participate in the program. Kurlaender, Lusher, and Case (2020) conducted an evaluation of another entirely academic summer program for students who needed remediation in math or English. The California State University (CSU) Early Start Program was mandated by the CSU Board of Trustees by executive order in 2011 and required incoming students to complete remedial courses in the summer if they had not demonstrated college readiness. The courses were taught by CSU faculty and were intended to help students understand the expectations for college by providing exposure to academic coursework. There was variation in the implementation of the program across campuses, with some courses offered in online versus face-to-face format, and the number of credit hours per course ranging from 1 to 3. A difference-in-differences analysis was used to compare outcomes for students who scored below collegeready in the pre-policy years under traditional remediation to those in the post-policy years under Early Start. Additionally, the study included a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to evaluate outcomes for students scoring just above college-ready who were assigned to Early Start relative to those scoring just above college-ready who were not required to take any remedial courses. Study findings indicate that more students met remediation requirements by the summer before college enrollment, but these early gains did not result in continued improvements on longer-term outcome. There was some evidence that participants were more likely to enroll in upper-division courses and complete more credits in the first year, but the magnitude of the effects were small. There were also no statistically significant impacts of the program on students’ GPA in the first term.

Summer Bridge Impacts on Longer-Term Postsecondary Outcomes Participants in the THECB summer bridge program in Texas were followed for 2 academic years to examine whether program participation affected long-term outcomes like persistence and credit accumulation (Barnett et al. 2012; Wathington et al. 2016). The results from the randomized control trial indicated that there were no differences among participants and non-participants on credit accumulation or persistence by the second year of college. While the summer bridge programs tended to be implemented with fidelity, about 20% of students in the control group took other summer courses which may have provided similar benefits to the bridge program, especially relative to credit accumulation. The authors also suggested that given the short-term nature of the program, the program duration may not have been adequate to reasonably expect impacts on longer-term outcomes. Kurlaender et al. (2020) also examined whether there were longer-term impacts of the CSU Early Start Program. The difference-in-differences analysis indicated that there were no impacts of Early Start on credit accumulation or persistence during the second and third years of college. Further, the regression discontinuity results showed that students narrowly assigned to Early Start had slightly weaker

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performance on persistence and credit accumulation outcomes relative to students who had narrowly avoided remediation. The plots of outcomes by institution revealed that there may be variation in program impacts by campus, with some sites experiencing gains in persistence and others experiencing declines. The authors suggest that there could be several reasons why the Early Start Program did not result in the intended improvements in student outcomes. These include a lack of student compliance with the policy, issues with delivery of content during the summer, and the potential for a “discouraging effect” of having to take courses in the summer that may lead students to drop out more quickly. Other summer bridge programs have resulted in more promising longer-term impacts. Wachen et al. (2018) assessed a 4- to 5-week residential summer bridge program implemented at multiple institutions in the University of North Carolina (UNC) System during 2008–2014. The program was designed for in-state students who were conditionally accepted or who only met minimum admissions requirements for high school GPA or SAT scores, who represented the lowest-performing 10% of the freshman class. The North Carolina General Assembly allocated funding for the program, which provided students with tuition, room and board, and books. Participating students had to complete college-level English and math courses with a grade of C or higher and could receive up to six credits toward their degree programs. Students also received support services consisting of tutoring, mentoring, support labs, and opportunities for social bonding. The program primarily utilized existing student support services but made participation mandatory for some components during the summer program and also through the first fall semester. Propensity score matching was used to match program participants with nonparticipants who had similar characteristics on variables including high school GPA and standardized test scores. The authors found that the summer bridge program was positively associated with a 6–8 percentage point increase in persistence in the second and third years of college and a 4 percentage point increase in the likelihood of completing a degree within 4 years. In addition, participants earned an average of eight credits more than non-participants during the first year of college, and these gains were sustained through the second year. Douglas and Attewell (2014) also found positive long-term impacts of summer bridge programs using national data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) Longitudinal Study and transcript data from a large multi-campus community college system. Students in BPS were identified as summer bridge participants if they took a 4- to 6-week academic course during the summer before college enrollment based on grades in the transcript records. The community college system provided a 4- to 6-week summer bridge program in math, reading, or writing for students who scored below college-ready on the placement test. In the first part of the study, propensity score matching was used to account for differences in student characteristics between summer bridge participants and non-participants in the BPS sample. In the second part of the study, data from the community college system was used to create a sample of students who had scored below college-ready on a placement test, and the same matching methods were used to create groups of participants and non-participants. The findings from the BPS sample indicate that

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summer bridge participants were 10 percentage points more likely to earn a degree within 6 years, with the largest effects for students who were most at risk for not completing a degree. The evaluation of the system-level program did not include degree completion, but still demonstrated promising evidence that summer bridge participants made better progress toward completion. Students participating in the bridge program had a 5 percentage point increase in the likelihood of persisting to the second year of college and had an increase of 4–6 percentage points in the ratio of credits attempted to credits earned. The authors caution that the relatively large impacts in this study should be interpreted with caution given the lack of effects from the more rigorous evaluation of the summer bridge program in Texas by Barnett et al. (2012). Douglas and Attewell (2014) also note that summer bridge programs may be particularly important in colleges that have high-stakes testing policies for course placement by providing students with an opportunity to retest prior to college enrollment. These policies can act like a “troll under a bridge” by misplacing many students into developmental education courses on the basis of a single test scores. Summer bridge programs may not matter as much if institutions do not use high-stakes testing for course placement.

Implementation of Summer Bridge Programs Costs of Summer Bridge Programs Summer bridge programs can be funded by a variety of sources including institutions, federal or state governments, private foundation grants, or a mix of sources (Sablan 2014). For example, 80% of the costs in the CSU Early Start Program were covered by state funding, and 20% came from the local campuses. There may also be considerable differences in the cost per student depending on the scope of the services. The summer bridge program in the University of North Carolina System covered the costs of tuition, books, room, and board at a cost of $3706 per participant. Yet Wachen, Pretlow, and Dixon (2018) note this summer bridge program is still relatively inexpensive compared to the 6–8 percentage point gains in persistence that resulted from the program. The summer bridge program under the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board was non-residential and could be implemented at a much lower cost of approximately $1300 per student including a $400 stipend (Wathington et al. 2011). There was considerable variation in price across Texas institutions participating in this program ranging from $840 to $2349 per student. There were many fixed per-student costs like stipends for participants that made it difficult to achieve economies of scale. Barnett et al. (2012) conducted a break-even analysis of the Texas summer bridge program and found that students would need to complete an additional 3.8 college credits under the program to justify the costs. However, the program had no impact on credit accumulation, suggesting that the program was expensive relative to the benefits. Summer bridge programs providing fewer services or utilizing alternative formats that take advantage of the cost reductions from emerging technologies can be implemented at a lower cost. For example, the online summer math program in Maryland included a licensing fee of $33 for the online program plus approximately

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$4000 for an on-campus facilitator (Chingos et al. 2017). The average cost per student was only $83, which is considerably lower than the $1319 per student in Texas. Yet this program also had few discernable effects on postsecondary outcomes, so it was not very cost-effective despite the low per-student cost. Issues of Instructor Quality Kallison and Stader (2012) conducted site visits at summer bridge programs at Texas colleges and administered surveys to participating students. The greatest area of concern on the student feedback survey was related to teacher quality. Students in the summer bridge program noted that their teachers were unhelpful, failed to explain the material well, used boring teaching methods, and presented limited opportunities for class discussion. The authors suggest that it may be helpful for program administrators to provide professional development to communicate expectations to instructors and provide training techniques relevant to the specific content covered and the student populations served by the bridge program. Additionally, summer bridge programs need to ensure that courses are taught with similar expectations to college-level courses. Wathington et al. (2011) found that some students in the Texas summer bridge program responded that they felt their courses had too much “hand holding” from the instructors and were similar to the instructional experiences in high school. Providing Sufficient Support in a Short-Duration Program Summer bridge programs typically last only 4–6 weeks over the summer, which is considerably shorter than a college semester that generally lasts about 12 weeks. This accelerated timeline may be particularly challenging for lower-performing students who score far below college-ready. Wathington and colleagues (2011) found that students in the Texas summer bridge program reported that the accelerated format of courses led to high workloads and homework demands. Some students also noted that teachers seemed rushed to get through all of the material by the end of the summer session. Barnett et al. (2012) note that program administrators should consider whether other strategies could be combined with summer bridge programs to further support student success. This could include a longer-term intervention to provide students with additional support through the fall semester after the summer bridge program. Alternatively, early interventions to improve college readiness could begin in high school so that students have fewer deficiencies in academic skills by the time they begin the summer bridge program. It may be too much to expect that these summer programs will substantially improve students’ progress on their own given the short duration of exposure to the intervention. Need for Strong Partnerships Summer bridge programs may benefit from forming partnerships with high schools and families. Kallison and Stader’s (2012) site visits at Texas summer bridge programs revealed that while feeder school districts were required to provide student test scores to colleges participating in the summer bridge programs, many districts went beyond this role. For example, some districts had employees serve as administrators or mentors in the bridge programs, participated in planning committees, provided bus transportation to the college

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campus for participating students, or assisted in the development of the curriculum. This additional integration of bridge programs into the high schools can allow the programs to reach more students. Wathington et al. (2011) also found that institutions participating in the Texas summer bridge program emphasized the importance of collaborating with local high schools for recruitment to scale up the programs. Nearly 40% of the students who applied to the program indicated that they had heard about the bridge program from a high school counselor. In addition, parents can be involved in summer bridge programs through activities such as participating in parental advisory boards, attending program orientation and closing ceremonies, receiving information on their child’s progress, and participating in sessions on topics like applying for financial aid (Kallison and Stader 2012). This parental support can be important for providing students with a strong college-going culture and encouragement for aspirations to attend college.

Overview of Early College High Schools and Underlying Conceptual Frameworks The final college readiness intervention explored in this chapter is Early College High Schools (herein referred to as Early Colleges), which are small schools that are intended to improve high school completion and college enrollment rates among students who are traditionally underserved in higher education (Zinth 2016). Participants complete a mix of high school- and college-level coursework beginning in grade 9, with the intent that students will be able to complete a year or more of college credit by high school graduation. Early College programs differ from dual enrollment programs which are typically limited to those with the highest levels of academic proficiency, with the exception of career and technical education (CTE) courses that may be available to students from a broader range of achievement levels (Barnett et al. 2015). Additionally, not all students have access to dual enrollment at their school, or families may not receive information about these opportunities. Early Colleges specifically target underrepresented students including English language learners, first-generation, low-income, and students of color. They tend to have minimal academic performance requirements, with admissions criteria focused on essays and interviews (Barnett et al. 2013b). Instead of allowing students to opt into college-level coursework, the expectation is that all students attending the Early College will participate in college classes. Even though Early College students usually have to take a placement test, they may be able to take a course or two prior to scoring college-ready, but then have to pass the placement exam to take more courses. Most Early Colleges follow a traditional 9–12 grade level design, but some include middle school grades to give students an early start on preparation (Barnett et al. 2013b). Additionally, some Early College programs include a fifth year of high school to allow students to complete up to 60 college credits or an associate degree by high school graduation. Early Colleges can be located on high school campuses (school-within-a-school), on 2-year or 4-year college campuses, or a mix between

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high school and college locations. Programs tend to be small with fewer than 100 students in each grade level, which provides a personalized learning environment. Enrollments tend to be limited because colleges lack the capacity to serve an unlimited number of high school students, not all students want to participate, and it is difficult to start and sustain Early Colleges (Barnett et al. 2015). The first Early Colleges started in the 1960s and 1970s and were predominately intended to serve high-achieving students who were limited by traditional high school courses (Webb 2014). However, there were a few early initiatives that took the opposite approach – such as LaGuardia Middle College which started in the 1970s with the intent of serving first-generation students (mostly immigrants) by accelerating instead of remediating instruction (Wechsler 2001). Large-scale national reform efforts to implement Early Colleges nationwide for at-risk students began in 2001 with the Early College High School Initiative (ECHSI), which was launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with intermediary partners like Jobs for the Future. To increase scale, the ECHSI sought support from other foundations like the Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Within a decade, there were 280 Early Colleges serving over 80,000 students. The ECHSI also developed five core principles for Early Colleges: (a) a commitment to serving students from underrepresented backgrounds; (b) joint collaboration and accountability between postsecondary institutions, local education agencies, and the community; (c) provision of an integrated academic program that allows students to complete 1–2 years of college credit; (d) availability of comprehensive academic and social support systems; and (e) advocacy for policies to advance early colleges. Even though the ECHSI funding from the Gates Foundation has ended, Early Colleges have continued to scale up across the country, and many programs remain committed to the same core principles (Edmunds et al. 2017b). The curriculum in Early Colleges often seeks to prepare students for postsecondary coursework by focusing on literacy and real-world contextualization across the curriculum (Zinth 2016). Some classes may be limited to Early College students, while others are mixed with regular college students. K–12 and postsecondary stakeholders often work collaboratively on activities such as academic design, advisory or planning committees, and professional development for instructors (Barnett et al. 2013b). College courses are not limited to core academic subject areas, and some students may complete college credits in applied fields. Tennessee requires Early College programs to lead to advanced certifications in health science, engineering, or teaching, while Early College programs in Michigan must be aligned with workforce needs in the local region (Zinth 2016). While dual enrollment programs tend to be geared toward students who are well prepared and do not need much support, many of the students in Early Colleges tend to be academically underprepared (Barnett et al. 2015). In order to help these students succeed in college-level work, Early Colleges provide comprehensive academic and social supports. This may include mentoring, tutoring, test preparation, and seminars on topics like goal setting and time management. Early Colleges also commonly provide students with resources for the transition to college

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including courses on college success that develop skills such as how to seek out campus resources and workshops on how to apply for college admissions and financial aid. Early Colleges can be created through local partnerships between high schools and colleges, state initiatives, or sponsorships through intermediary organizations. Some states allow Early Colleges to operate under waivers from traditional high school requirements, while others have their own specific policies that provide funding and/or institutionalized practices for Early Colleges. Approximately 70% of Early Colleges are public schools and 30% are public charters (Barnett et al. 2013b). The Education Commission of the States has identified four types of state policy components that may support Early Colleges (Zinth 2016). First, some states have policies promoting access and support such as requiring outreach and notification to potential students and parents about Early College options, providing advising before and during Early College participation, and requiring parental involvement such as parent conferences. Second, policies may support program quality such as setting criteria for qualifications of instructors, ensuring the content and rigor is comparable to college-level courses, and setting standards for accountability or evaluation. Third, policies may support finances and facilities such as prohibiting students from being charged tuition or encouraging Early Colleges to seek funding from non-traditional sources like the local county board of commissioners or private businesses. Fourth, state policies may focus on transferability of credits by ensuring that Early College students can transfer their college credits to other public 2-year and 4-year colleges. There are four mechanisms through which Early Colleges are intended to improve students’ postsecondary outcomes. First, Early Colleges provide college exposure and high expectations for all students. Students experience college immersion by being located on or near a college campus. They have access to college facilities like gyms and libraries so that they can become familiar with the campus environment and may also participate in other campus activities like summer bridge programs or weekend programs (Webb 2014). There is some evidence that participants in Early College programs report perceptions of significantly stronger collegegoing cultures relative to non-participants (Haxton et al. 2016). One of the factors perceived to be essential in the success of Early Colleges is “mandated engagement” by which students are required to be active participants in the school (Edmunds et al. 2013). Early Colleges create an environment of mandated engagement by developing a culture of high expectations for everyone, requiring academic support for struggling students, providing social and emotional support, developing strong relationships between students and staff, promoting peer relationships and support, and providing engaging instruction. The smaller size of most Early Colleges relative to traditional high schools may facilitate relationship building. Second, Early Colleges provide all students with a rigorous academic experience to develop college-level skills. Research on dual enrollment has consistently demonstrated that students who take college courses while in high school tend to experience positive outcomes on proximal indicators like college enrollment, as

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well as more distal outcomes like college completion (e.g., An and Taylor 2019). Yet Early Colleges tend to provide greater access to college-level courses than dual enrollment programs in most traditional high schools. A report by Jobs for the Future explains that “the early college model was based on the radical idea that schools could motivate struggling students by raising expectations, and providing supports for them to do more challenging work, rather than placing them in remedial classes” (Webb 2014, p. 8). Early Colleges often provide early assessments to determine students’ level of college readiness and then offer a clear curriculum pathway to prepare students with the skills and content needed for college success (Rosenbaum and Becker 2011). Advisors provide guidance on points at which students can enroll in college coursework. Teachers also commonly receive professional development on how to implement college-level standards. There is some evidence that Early College participants perceive more rigorous academic experiences (Edmunds et al. 2012; Haxton et al. 2016) and perform better on state assessments (Berger et al. 2009, 2010; Lauen et al. 2017; Muñoz et al. 2014) compared to traditional high school students. Additionally, students unengaged or discouraged by traditional school settings can gain motivation and see themselves as successful in the college experience (Berger et al. 2010). Third, Early Colleges provide support services and frequent monitoring to ensure that students stay on track. Many Early Colleges have mandatory advising sessions or integrate advisory periods into the school day to address issues that may affect academic performance (Rosenbaum and Becker 2011). Due to the small size of these programs, they also typically have smaller student-to-counselor ratios than traditional high schools, so counselors can more closely monitor student performance in coursework and provide outreach to those who fall behind. Many Early Colleges often include mandatory interventions like extra tutoring for students struggling academically (Edmunds et al. 2013). Additionally, about 90% of Early College programs require students to take a “College 101” or “introduction to college” course that addresses skills like time management, organization, and study skills (Rosenbaum and Becker 2011). Fourth, Early Colleges help students to develop college knowledge, a factor that has been identified as critical in the development of college readiness (Conley 2010, 2012). Early Colleges manage the transition to college instead of requiring students to do it on their own (Rosenbaum and Becker 2011). They provide help with understanding placement tests and remedial requirements, preparing for college entrance exams, and learning how to apply for scholarships and financial aid. Students also gain first-hand experience in navigating many college processes. Early Colleges often require students to fill out college applications before they can enroll in college courses, and students gain experience with the college course selection and registration processes. Additionally, Early Colleges often engage in activities to help students understand the college process such as taking students on college visits, providing help with applications for admissions, working with families on FAFSA forms, and making concerted efforts to improve parental engagement in the process (Edmunds et al. 2017a, b).

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Impacts and Implementation of Early College High Schools Early College Impacts on College Enrollment Many early evaluations of Early College programs have been descriptive in nature and did not have adequate comparison groups to account for selection bias between students who choose to attend an Early College relative to a traditional high school. One of the earliest rigorous evaluations was an experimental study conducted by researchers at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to assess the impacts of the Gates Foundation-funded Early College High School Initiative (Berger et al. 2013; Haxton et al. 2016). The sample included ten newly created Early Colleges that had graduates in 2005–2011 and used a lottery admissions process. Most sites (N ¼ 7) provided an established course sequence that allowed students to complete up to 2 years of college credit, while the others provided an opportunity for students to complete 1 year or “some” college credit. All ten sites offered tutoring and college preparatory support, and some provided additional services like advisories or evening/weekend classes. ITT estimates were based on the impact of winning the lottery for admissions to an Early College program, regardless of whether students attended. Compliances rates were approximately 88% for the Early College group and 98% for the control group. Impacts were estimated using two-level modeling to account for clustering of students within schools. Early College students were substantially more likely to complete any college credits in high school relative to comparison students (67% versus 20%) and more likely to complete at least 1 year of college credit by high school graduation (50% versus 5%). Haxton et al. (2016) used the same sample and found that students assigned to Early Colleges had a significantly greater likelihood of enrolling in college compared to students in the control group (81% versus 72%) within 4 years of high school graduation. A follow-up study by Song and Zeiser (2019) tracked the same sample of students for an additional 2 years and found slight increases in college enrollment rates for both groups (84% for Early College students and 77% for comparison students). Impacts were greatest in the 2-year college sector, with similar college enrollment rates for both groups among 4-year colleges. No differences were found in program impacts by student subgroups including race, gender, firstgeneration status, family income, or prior achievement. In addition, mediator analyses revealed that high school experiences (including instructional rigor, student supports, and college-going culture) accounted for about 30% of program impacts on college enrollment (Song and Zeiser 2019). Another large-scale evaluation of Early College programs was conducted in the state of North Carolina by researchers at the SERVE Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Participating sites were part of the North Carolina New Schools, a public-private partnership that managed Early Colleges in the state of North Carolina (Edmunds et al. 2017a, b). These programs targeted students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, low-income students, and first-generation college students. All participants were expected to complete a college preparatory curriculum required for admission to the University of North Carolina System and to

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take college courses. The majority of courses were taught on the college campus along with other regular college students. All sites also provided college experiences such as visits to other colleges, as well as academic and social supports. The evaluation used data from 12 Early Colleges throughout North Carolina that participated in the first 4 cohorts of the study and used a lottery system to randomly assign students to Early Colleges. The compliance rate for lottery assignment was 87% for the treatment group and 98% for the comparison group. ITT estimates were based on students’ initial assignment to treatment status, and weighted OLS regression was used to weight observations based on students’ probabilities of selection for an Early College. The results indicated large differences in college credits earned by the end of high school, with an average of 21.6 credits in the Early College group compared to only 2.8 credits in the comparison group. Early College students were also more likely to enroll in postsecondary education with 6 years of grade 9 than comparison students (90% versus 74%). College enrollment impacts were greatest at community colleges (relative to 4-year colleges), which was likely because most of the Early College students were in programs that partnered with 2-year colleges. However, there were also statistically significant positive effects on the likelihood of enrolling in a 4-year college, which suggests that students were not enrolling in 2-year colleges at the expense of 4-year colleges. Impacts on college enrollment tended to be greater for targeted populations including first-generation and low-income students. While the experimental studies of Early Colleges have provided promising evidence of the effectiveness of these programs, they may have limited generalizability due to the small sample of schools and weak external validity due to the requirement that schools must be willing and able to use a lottery for admissions. To examine the impact of these programs among a wider variety of schools and broader context, Lauen et al. (2017) conducted a quasi-experimental evaluation using all Early Colleges in North Carolina. The state had a mature program with 78 Early College sites, which was among the largest programs nationwide. Additionally, the North Carolina New Schools organization provided centralized support to all Early Colleges, which may have helped to ensure that these programs were well implemented. The researchers used doubly robust propensity score matching to develop a comparison group consisting of students with similar academic outcomes prior to high school entry and demographic characteristics. In addition, a moderation analysis examined heterogeneity of program impacts among student subgroup of race and economically disadvantaged status and school-level subgroups of district performance and Early College location (2-year versus 4-year college campus). The findings indicated that Early College students were slightly less likely to enroll in 2-year college, which could be due to students completing associate degrees during high school. Early College students were about 4.5 percentage points more likely to enroll in a public 4-year college in the University of North Carolina (UNC) System. However, most of the gains appeared to be among less selective institutions, as Early College students were 1.4 percentage points less likely to attend a public flagship institution. The authors posit that these results may have occurred because less competitive colleges may be more willing to provide transfer credit for Early College

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coursework. The impacts on UNC college enrollments were greater for Black students compared to White students. Additionally, the program had greater impacts on UNC enrollments for students in lower-performing districts, which suggests that students benefit most when the alternate high school options available are weak. Early College programs located on 4-year college campuses also had greater impacts on UNC college enrollments than programs on 2-year sites. Given the effectiveness of Early College programs in small schools across multiple evaluations, there was an interest in whether these types of programs could be replicated in a larger comprehensive high school environment. In 2012, Jobs for the Future received a federal Investing in Innovation (i3) grant to fund the Early College Expansion Partnership (ECEP), which expanded Early College programs to 12 high schools, 14 middle schools, and 2 mixed grade schools in Texas and Colorado. The participating sites were expected to implement four elements including (a) an academic program designed to prepare students for college, (b) a “college headstart” program to provide instruction on college readiness behaviors, (c) wraparound student support services, and (d) organizational practices such as providing teachers with professional development. Edmunds et al. (2018) used a quasi-experimental design to match Early Colleges to a similar set of comparison schools. Program impacts were estimated using hierarchical linear modeling to account for clustering of students within schools. The evaluation found no statistically significant differences in the likelihood of taking at least one college-level course during high school. There was also no impact on other high school outcomes including the likelihood of taking or completing college preparatory courses and the likelihood of high school dropout. The study did not examine any longer-term student outcomes after high school. One reason for the null findings is that schools in Texas had really high baseline coursetaking rates and the sample size may not have been sufficient to detect further gains. The authors also suggest that the lack of significant findings could be due to issues with uneven implementation, such as a lack of availability of coaching for teachers in Early Colleges and challenges to obtaining stakeholder buy-in. In addition, it is challenging for comprehensive high schools to transform into Early Colleges, as programs must go beyond just expanding access to college-level courses to also supporting broader efforts to ensure adequate student preparation.

Early College Impacts on Longer-Term Postsecondary Outcomes Many of the evaluations of Early College programs have continued to track students’ progress through college to degree completion. The experimental study of the Gates Foundation’s Early College High School Initiative included postsecondary outcomes up to 6 years after expected on-time high school graduation (Song and Zeiser 2019). Approximately 45% of Early College students had completed a postsecondary degree by this time compared to 34% of control students. This included a greater likelihood of bachelor’s degree completion for Early College students (30%) relative to comparison students (25%). There were no differences in degree completion by

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student subgroups including race, gender, and free or reduced price lunch status. Although there was some evidence that impacts on degree completion were greatest for students with higher levels of baseline achievement in grade 8, the strongest mediator for degree completion was the number of college credits accrued during high schools – particularly for the outcome of bachelor’s degree completion for which these factors accounted for about 87% of the impact of Early Colleges. In addition to having higher degree completion rates, Early College students also benefited from acceleration, which would allow them to enter the workforce earlier and accumulate additional lifetime earnings. Early College students were also able to complete their degrees at substantial cost savings due to the program covering most or all of the costs associated with college courses taken during high schools. The experimental study of North Carolina’s Early Colleges also demonstrated positive long-term impacts on degree attainment. Using the original sample with 12 Early Colleges that used random assignment, Edmunds and colleagues (2017a) tracked degree attainment up to 2 years after on-time graduation. Approximately 30% of Early College students had completed any degree by this time, compared to only 4% of the comparison group. Most of the degrees completed during this time were associate degrees due to the short follow-up period. Program impacts tended to be smaller for underrepresented students and lower-performing students. A followup study by Edmunds et al. (2020) continued to track student outcomes to examine credential attainment within 4–6 years after on-time graduation, as well as college performance as measured by cumulative GPA. The sample was also expanded to include students who had applied to 19 sites over 6 years for the GPA outcome, although only the original 12 sites were included for longer-term follow-up on degree completion. The findings revealed Early College students were more likely to attain postsecondary credentials and to complete them more rapidly. Four years after expected college enrollment, approximately 38% of Early College students had completed a degree compared to 22% of control students (a difference of 16 percentage points). After 6 years, the gap in completion rates narrowed, but Early College students remained ahead (44% for Early College versus 33% for comparison students, a difference of 11 percentage points). However, the control group had caught up to the treatment group on 4-year degree attainment after 6 years. The impact of Early Colleges on 4-year degree attainment was greatest for economically disadvantaged students. The study also found that there were no differences by treatment status on college GPA (measured at multiple time points). The authors indicate that the lack of significant differences on GPA suggests that Early College students were not particularly advantaged nor disadvantaged in terms of their level of preparation for college. Instead, the primary benefit appears to be in acceleration by allowing students to complete degrees faster. Earning college credits in high school could provide momentum for students to complete degrees more quickly. Lauen et al. (2017) also examined the impact of Early Colleges on degree completion using the larger sample of all schools in the state of North Carolina. Postsecondary completion of associate degrees was examined 2–3 years after the target for on-time college graduation. The quasi-experimental results indicated that there was an increase in the completion of associate degrees within 2 years of 22.5%

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and within 3 years of 14.9%. Program impacts on associate degree completion were greater for White students relative to Black students and also tended to be greater for Early College participants who attended a program on a community college campus. The authors suggest that institutional ties developed during the Early Program may differ depending on the site location, which has important implications for understanding the program’s effects.

Implementation of Early College High Schools Costs of Early College Programs Early College High Schools are more expensive to operate than traditional public schools due to additional costs that may include tuition for college courses, college fees, transportation, lab fees, payment to course instructors, and college textbooks (Barnett et al. 2013b). Early College programs may be funded in several different ways. First, state and district funding may be used to cover operational costs like other public schools and may provide additional resources for serving special student populations such as English language learners. Second, Early College programs may be funded through high school and college partnerships where both the school district and the college contribute to the cost of tuition. Third, intermediary organizations may provide support, such as the case of Ohio where the Knowledge Works Foundation partnered with the Ohio Department of Education and the Board of Regents to provide over $10 million for tuition, fees, and books in Early Colleges. Some Early College programs may also be able to supplement with other funding streams such as federal GEAR UP and Tech Prep programs. Greater federal support has become available for Early Colleges in more recent years. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), schools have to identify underperforming subgroups of students and develop plans to accelerate achievement, and Early Colleges represent one strategy that ESSA has explicitly encouraged (Jobs for the Future 2017). ESSA increases access to federal funding to develop and implement high-impact practices through Title I to Title IV and may be used by Early Colleges for activities such as providing professional development to improve teacher preparation for college-level courses and developing student support services. Only one study by Atchison et al. (2019) has examined how the costs of Early College programs compare to the benefits. The authors calculated benefits using impacts on degree completion 6 years after expected high school graduation from the experimental studies in North Carolina and the Gates Foundation-funded Early College High School Initiative. In addition, administrative data on expenditures was collected on a subset of participating Early College schools. The additional cost of Early Colleges beyond traditional high schools was about $950 per student in each year, which added up to $3800 over a 4-year high school program. The lifetime benefits from the impacts of Early College programs on degree completion was estimated at an average of $58,000 per student, which consisted of $34,000 in

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individual benefits and $24,000 in public benefits. More conservative estimates of costs and/or benefits ranged from a net present value of $27,000 to $35,000 per student. The average benefit-cost ratio was 15.1, and the conversation benefit-cost ratio was 4.6. These benefit-cost ratios are comparable to other college readiness interventions like the TRIO Program for Talent Search and greater than those of other interventions commonly used to prevent high school dropout. Challenges Ensuring Courses Meet College-Level Standards Early Colleges provide students with early access to college-level courses, but programs need to ensure that both colleges and high schools are maintaining the same standards as college courses without Early College students. Duncheon and Muñoz (2019) conducted interviews with 108 teachers across 12 Early Colleges in Texas using a conceptual framework of sensemaking to understand how teachers interpret college readiness and support students in becoming college-ready. There was considerable variation across classes, as teachers’ perceptions of college readiness were dependent on their personal and professional experiences. Personal experiences affecting their perceptions of college readiness were based on teachers’ own prior experiences as college students, including the types of challenges they faced and the level of preparation that they received in high school. Professional experiences also influenced teachers’ perceptions of college readiness, as indicated by greater familiarity with college readiness skills in their own subject area (e.g., literacy skills among English teachers) and their assessments of strengths and weaknesses of students in their own classes. Teachers also expressed concerns that policies from their districts prohibited them from using college-level teaching approaches and that they felt pressured to ensure that all students passed even if they had not met college standards. The authors concluded that teachers largely made sense of college readiness on their own and that Early Colleges should devote more time to conversations about which skills to prioritize and how to develop practices to increase college readiness. Berger et al. (2007) also identified challenges to maintaining college-level standards during site visits to programs participating in the Early College High School Initiative. The programs were expected to implement “rigor, relevance, and relationships” into classes at both the high school and college levels. The site visits revealed some examples of teachers and learning practices that represented these ideas, but there was still a need for improvement around rigor. In particular, high school math classes tended to emphasize mastery of basic concepts and memorization over higher-order thinking and applications. College instructors reported being more likely to maintain their usual course standards if their classes included a mix of Early College and regular college students. Some college instructors said that they used less rigorous instructional standards in classes that only included Early College students. Gaps in Participation and Achievement A related concern to maintaining college-level standards is ensuring that all students are able to participate and succeed in

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these rigorous courses even if they have weaker academic preparation. Even though the Early College High School Initiative had a core principle that all students need to engage in college-level courses, only about two-thirds of students had completed any college credits by graduation (Berger et al. 2009, 2010). Early Colleges also struggled with achievement gaps, as students whose parents did not attend college reported lower GPAs and weaker educational aspirations on a survey from a representative sample of Early College participants. Another study by Edmunds et al. (2019) found no statistically significant differences in the likelihood of taking at least one college-level course during high school among non-participants and participants of Early Colleges in a comprehensive high school environment – although this may be attributed to the small sample size and high baseline participation rates in the comparison group. There is also some evidence that Early Colleges may have smaller impacts for students from underrepresented backgrounds and/or lower-performing students on more distal outcomes dependent on prior academic preparation like degree completion (Edmunds et al. 2017a, b; Lauen et al. 2017; Song and Zeiser 2019). Barnett (2018b) examined a STEM Early College Expansion Partnership (SECEP) which used the Early College model to expand access to dual enrollment and other college experiences among students in traditional high schools. The extent to which schools were able to increase opportunities depended on students’ prior academic record. For students who were least advanced academically, schools were able to overcome barriers by implementing initiatives such as student success courses, summer bridge programs, CTE articulated credit programs, review programs for placement tests, and on-campus experiences such as opportunities to shadow a college student. Without these types of supports, many lower-achieving students may not be able to take full advantage of the collegiate experiences available during high school. While most Early College students continue on to postsecondary education after high school graduation, some do not. Hutchins, Arshavsky, and Edmunds (2019) found that students’ reasons for not continuing their education reflected a wide range of challenges and barriers including financial concerns, personal problems, career indecision, negative attitudes about school, low college expectations, and concerns about succeeding in college. Some students without college plans reported few financial or academic concerns, but instead were undecided about their careers or the need for a college degree. This suggests that the decisions of non-college-bound students are not necessarily due to hardships faced by students, but instead may indicate a need for more help in developing more concrete postsecondary plans. The authors suggest that interventions should provide more personalized supports that take into account differences in goals, motivations, and challenges among Early College students. Difficulties Scaling up and Sustaining Early Colleges Despite the promising evidence around the effectiveness of Early Colleges, these programs are difficult to scale up to serve larger numbers of students. It may be difficult to establish new

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partnerships with local colleges, especially among community colleges that may already be underfunded and overcrowded (Berger et al. 2010). Edmunds et al. (2018) found that when Early College programs were expanded as part of a districtwide improvement strategy, colleges were not prepared for the quick increase in demand and were unable to offer enough courses. Some Early Colleges responded by recruiting more adjuncts, while others supported a “grow your own” approach that subsidized high school teachers for attaining master’s degrees that would allow them to qualify as adjunct faculty and teach college-level courses. Beyond making college courses available to students, many of the traditional high schools adopting Early College programs also faced challenges in changing the college culture within the school and making comprehensive changes to support student success. Another concern is that many Early Colleges have been established with financial support from private foundations, but they need to find a way to become selfsustaining since foundations cannot continue to fund them indefinitely (Berger et al. 2010). The ongoing costs may be difficult to maintain since Early Colleges have higher per-pupil expenditures compared to traditional high schools (Berger et al. 2010). Some Early Colleges have expressed challenges to providing academic and social supports due to limited funding or lack of transportation outside of the regular school day (Berger et al. 2007). Maintaining adequate funding may require leveraging public support and generating buy-in from parents to create demands for sustainability at the local and state levels (Jobs for the Future 2018). Beyond just financial support, many Early College programs have also benefitted from intermediary organizations that have provided centralized leadership and instructional support for participating sites, which may be important for program effectiveness. North Carolina New Schools, which served all Early Colleges in the state of North Carolina, abruptly closed in 2016, and it remains to be seen whether other entities will step in to fill this role (Lauen et al. 2017). Early Colleges may benefit from developing their own governance bodies that can unite senior-level administrators from participating schools, districts, and colleges to provide regular communication and coordinate policies (Jobs for the Future 2018).

Conclusions Taken together, the empirical evidence to date suggests that college readiness reforms including early assessment, transition courses, and summer bridge programs tend to have limited effectiveness at improving postsecondary success for academically underprepared students. The focus on short-term outcomes like testing college-ready may not improve longer-term postsecondary outcomes, and the limited duration of these reforms may not be sufficient to address underlying issues contributing to students’ lack of preparation. Without additional support, many academically underprepared students will face substantial difficulties in trying to demonstrate college-level skills while transitioning to higher education, which can lead to discouragement and a higher likelihood of dropping out of college (Bettinger

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et al. 2013). There was more promising evidence from Early College High Schools, which provide students with a comprehensive array of services throughout the high school experience. Evaluations of Early College programs in small school settings have consistently demonstrated sizable gains in college enrollment and completion, although these programs may be difficult to scale up to serve a greater number of students or to replicate in comprehensive high school environments. This chapter concludes with three considerations for future reform efforts and additional research to support academically underprepared students: (a) the importance of developing college readiness beyond academic preparation, (b) a need for integrated programs that align services, and (c) implications for equity. First, college readiness reforms tend to focus on developing academic skills and may also include knowledge about college processes, but they often fail to account for noncognitive skills and behaviors needed for college success. Kurlaender, Reed, and Hurt (2019b) identified four domains for educational attainment including aspirations and beliefs, academic preparation, knowledge and information, and noncognitive competencies like fortitude and resilience. Beyond just defining college-ready skills, there is also a need to consider how to develop a comprehensive set of indicators in multiple domains of college readiness and to monitor students’ progress on these indicators throughout their educational trajectories. This may be a particularly daunting task in terms of defining and assessing noncognitive skills (also referred to as metacognitive skills, twenty-first century skills, or soft skills) since there is no consistent definition of what these terms mean or consensus on which skills may be the most important for college success. Rowan-Kenyon et al. (2017) developed a cross-sector framework to account for similarities across terms and contexts among noncognitive skills in the higher education and employment literatures. They identified 509 distinct terms used in prior research for describing noncognitive skills that could be grouped into 42 categories. These were further refined into three domains consisting of intrapersonal skills, approaches to learning and work, and social skills. While this framework may be useful for improving collaboration between education and workforce entities, there is still a need for additional work to identify which of these skills are the most important predictors of college success, the extent to which these skills are being developed in the education system, and the types of strategies that are most effective for improving the development of these skills. Second, when considering the complexity of the college transition process, there are many different barriers that vary across students, and interventions need to consider how to address multiple barriers at once rather than individually (Page and Scott-Clayton 2016). While high schools and colleges often offer an array of support programs, there is usually little collaboration across programs which may limit their effectiveness. Kezar and Holcombe (2018) have described a recent movement toward integrated programs “that are connected or linked in an intentional way. Integration can occur over time (e.g., connecting different courses in a sequence) or across experiences occurring over the same time period (e.g., linking interventions in and out of the classroom or two courses offered at the same time)” (p. 5). This is very much the approach taken by Early Colleges, which provide a

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comprehensive array of academic and support services throughout high school for underrepresented students in the transition to college. Another example from California State University is an integrated program for underrepresented students in STEM that includes a summer bridge program followed by a first year experience and redesigned courses in STEM during the first year of college. These types of integrated programs may be difficult to implement due to challenges such as costs and the bureaucratic structures within higher education that result in fragmentation, but they hold great promise for supporting students traditionally underserved in higher education (Kezar and Holcombe 2018). Another example of an integrated program around college readiness is CUNY Start, a pre-matriculation program for underprepared students that focuses on developing college readiness skills during intensive class meetings for an entire semester before college enrollment (Scrivener et al. 2018). The remedial program includes tutoring, advising, and weekly seminars on success in college. In addition, the coursework tends to make greater use of effective teaching strategies such as emphasizing real-world contexts, eliciting student discussions, and developing study skills (Bickerstaff and Edgecombe 2019). Early evidence from CUNY Start has been promising, with participants being more likely to become college-ready in the first semester and more likely to persist to the second semester (Scrivener et al. 2018), although a longer follow-up period is needed to determine whether short-term delays in college coursework result in longer-term gains in student success. It is also important to consider how to continue to provide support for students as they progress through higher education. As Bailey and Jaggars (2016) note, “reforms that focus on only one segment of a student’s experience are insufficient to improve graduation rates, because the positive benefits of any reform will quickly fade when a student returns to the wider college and its traditional un-reformed structures and practices” (p. 11). The authors suggest that in order to generate sustained benefits, educational leaders must develop ways to connect college services from intake to degree completion and consistently monitor progress along the way. Lastly, high schools and colleges need to continue to identify barriers that create inequities along the educational pipeline and ensure that college readiness reforms are addressing these barriers. Holzman, Klasik, and Baker (2019) found that racial and socioeconomic gaps in academic preparation for college were just as large as gaps in other process steps of application, admission, and enrollment in college. This indicates the important role of K–12 preparation in influencing equity beginning in grade 9 – if not sooner. Schools need to begin interventions early as many of the skills and knowledge needed for college readiness are developed throughout students’ lives. As Kurlaender, Reed, and Hurtt (2019b) note, “college readiness is not an event, but a dynamic process involving individual choices, actions and beliefs, and structural constraints in opportunities, often at the school level” (p. 24). This means considering inequities in who has access to resources such as rigorous coursework, college preparatory activities, and information about the college process – and how schools can equalize this access. These types of considerations are important for ensuring that all students have an opportunity to develop the college readiness skills needed to succeed in higher education.

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Dr. Christine G. Mokher is an Associate Professor of Higher Education in Florida State University’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, where she is also a Senior Research Associate with the Center for Postsecondary Success (CPS). Her research examines state and local policies focused on college and career readiness and success, with a particular emphasis on student transitions from secondary to postsecondary education. Dr. Mokher holds a Ph.D. in Education Leadership and Policy from Vanderbilt University and a master’s degree in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard University.

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Neoliberalism and the Contradictions of College Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . More Than the Color Line: Institutionalized Forms of Oppression and College Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Incomplete College “Choice” Theories and Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review of Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theoretical Perspectives in College-Going and College “Choice” Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Approaches to Examine the College “Choice” Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Paradox of Education and the Black Struggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Historical Perspective on Black Feminism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Black Feminist Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion: New Imaginings and Possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Research on the college decision-making process is extensive. However, fewer approaches have employed a critical lens to explore how power and its relation to students, schools, and higher education institutions shape students’ college pathways and trajectories. In this current chapter, Black Feminist Thought (Collins, Social Problems, 33(6):s14–s32, 1986; Collins, Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment, Routledge, 2002) is employed to examine how intersecting systems of oppression (i.e., institutionalized racism, sexism, capitalism, etc.) and power shape the college “choice” process. I extend on previous literature on educational inequities to consider the structural forces that constrain educational opportunities. In particular, through the standpoint of Black women and girls, I rely on constructs such as the matrix of C. C. McLewis (*) University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7_6

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domination and controlling images to highlight the limits of college “choice.” The aim is to the examine the various ways “choice” is constrained for Black women and girls, in order to develop transformative mechanisms to improve access to adequate education, increase college participation, and enhance life opportunities. Findings include how narrow depictions of Black women and girls and the trope of the advantaged Black woman in education stifle educational opportunity. Keywords

College choice · College access · Black college women · Black students · Black feminist thought · Intersectionality · Feminism · Controlling images · Race and gender in education · Educational inequities · Higher education · Power · AntiBlackness

Introduction Increasing the proportion of completed degrees is a national priority for the United States to become the leader in global educational attainment (College Board 2008). Thus, recent higher education inquiries and political agendas have shifted toward college completion, especially for low-income and/or Black and Brown students (Gándara and Hearn 2019). Although degree attainment is a pressing concern, student pathways first and foremost begin at the decision to pursue higher education. Though more Black students are graduating from high schools than in previous years, prevailing neoliberal logics and institutionalized forms of oppression that contradict equity and inclusion stifle their enrollment into higher education institutions. For example, among 18- to 24-year-olds, 93.8% of Black students, and 94.8% of white students completed high school (McFarland et al. 2019). However, 70% of white high school students enrolled immediately into college, compared to 62% of Black students (approximately the same rate nearly 20 years ago) (Hussar et al. 2020). Situating college access within the context of neoliberalism and antiBlackness exposes the significant challenges to increase Black students’ college entry and degree attainment. Others have begun to point out that “little attention has been paid to applying critical theoretical models of power itself to understanding higher education” (Pusser 2015, p. 61). With a few exceptions, college access research has not typically considered the power dimensions that are embedded in institutional practices and that drive policies harmful to Black progress. Germinal to this chapter is how systemic forms of oppression and the possession of power shape student pathways, and in particular, the college decision-making process.

Neoliberalism and the Contradictions of College Access The notion of access to and through college holds divergent and competing meanings for different stakeholders. On the one hand, there are efforts to enhance college access. For example, the goals of the college completion agenda include improving college

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counseling, aligning K-12 learning objectives with college admissions standards, and simplifying admissions and financial aid processes (College Board 2008). On the other, a commitment to broaden college access is not exercised by all institutions and, instead, is disproportionately relegated to community colleges, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), other Minority-Serving Institutions (e.g., Hispanic-Serving Institutions), and regional comprehensive universities (Baber et al. 2019; Elliott et al. 2019; National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Mathematics 2018; Orphan 2018). The reduction of stateallocated funds and the rise of the neoliberal university promote institutions to invest in their own sustainability, which threatens higher education’s commitment to public service (Orphan 2018; Slaughter and Rhoades 2004). Within this market-driven climate, college rankings, institutional performance, and reputation have become lucrative currencies (McDonough et al. 1998; Monks and Ehrenberg 1999; O’Meara 2007). Some colleges and universities are striving toward “the pursuit of prestige within the academic hierarchy” (O’Meara 2007, p. 122) by altering their purposes and making presumptions about student achievement and outcomes to inform their admission decisions (Dougherty and Hong 2005; Orphan 2018). For example, institutions “game the system” (Dougherty and Reddy 2011, p. 38) by ratcheting up admission standards and rejecting competitive candidates to appear more selective (Espeland and Sauder 2007). Restricting college entry indicates how college admissions are a political and economic decision that impacts students’ college destinations. The institution’s fiscal dependency on student enrollment, as well as weeding out students in admissions of those judged unlikely to complete (however determined), produces constraints toward adequately addressing inequitable college access. Further, policies that emphasize the recruitment of students who can pay out-of-state tuition dollars adversely impact not only the admission of in-state students, but also the admission of low-income and/or students of color (Jaquette et al. 2016). However, restrictive pathways into college also reflect racial ideologies and racist institutional practices driven by attitudes about communities of color, particularly Black students. For example, recent research mapping of university recruitment schedules on in-state and out-of-state geographic regions has indicated that high schools in key metropolitan areas where Black and Latinx communities are located receive the least campus visits, regardless of income level (Salazar 2019). Thus, institutional activity is driven by both neoliberal trends as well as racial ideologies that are longstanding and continuously emergent.

More Than the Color Line: Institutionalized Forms of Oppression and College Access The struggle for adequate educational opportunities for Black students continues to be met with the breach of the social contract, which in theory guarantees basic human rights (i.e., life), while upholding a racial contract that preordains and maintains white political and economic domination over racially minoritized groups (Dancy et al. 2018; Mills 1997). Though affirmative action in higher education was

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initially designed to redress racial disparities in educational attainment, enrollment rates into public 4-year institutions for Black college students, particularly selective public institutions, continue to be relatively low (Allen et al. 2018; Espinosa et al. 2019; Harper and Simmons 2019; Nichols and Schack 2019). Although the number of Black undergraduates is increasing, Black college students are concentrated in community colleges and disproportionately attend for-profit institutions, with the proportion of Black undergraduate students at for-profit institutions at 16% (Espinosa et al. 2019). The racial disparities in higher education are driven by the perpetuation of antiBlack racism (Allen et al. 2018; Dancy et al. 2018), which is exercised via not recognizing Black students’ forms of capital, counselors’ and teachers’ low expectations of Black students, the false racial neutrality of college admission policies, and persistent attempts to dismantle affirmative action (Harper et al. 2009; Powell and Coles 2020; Yosso et al. 2004). These structural barriers make it difficult to improve Black students’ college entry, yet reflect the racial and racist ideologies perpetuated by institutions. How college and universities convey their meanings about race and racism are linked to what some scholars describe as an organizational habitus (Byrd 2017; Carter 2012; McDonough 1997) that forms expectations and constrains aspirations regarding college opportunities. The notion that colleges and universities have an organizational racial habitus (Byrd 2017) is pertinent to the study of college “choice.” Racial ideologies are “the racially-based frameworks used by actors to explain and justify (dominant race) or challenge (subordinate race or races) the racial status quo” (Bonilla-Silva 2003, p. 65). Colleges and universities are racialized organizations (Ray 2019) that perpetuate their views of race through their organizational racial habitus (Byrd 2017). Byrd (2017) contends higher education institutions have a “particular set of cultural dispositions and accepted patterns of interactions,” which corresponds with how colleges prescribe “institutional fit” (p. 152). With the perspective that college decisions are an exchange between prospective students and higher education institutions (Byrd 2017; Hughes et al. 2019), further inquiry is needed on the meaning-making process that occurs among marginalized students and communities in making college decisions. Scholarship has demonstrated how ideologies impact how higher education institutions approach the college “choice” process (Byrd 2017); however, less is known on how racism and its intersection with other forms of oppression frame students’ college decision-making processes. While the habitus of students and their families contributes to decision-making, the present chapter expounds on how the intersection of systems of oppression can be an influential factor that shapes college pathways. This research underscores education as a site that reflects the racist and patriarchal ideological paradigms that marginalize Black women, who also are seriously understudied in higher education. Moreover, the challenges that shape Black women’s educational trajectories are often minimized in education research inquiry (Muhammad and Dixson 2008; Patton et al. 2016). Black girls and undergraduate women are marginalized in education research, policies, and initiatives. Research on women is primarily focused on white women, and research on the experiences of Black people is usually focused on Black men (Hull et al. 1982; Patton and Croom 2017; Smith and Stewart 1983; Winkle-Wagner 2015).

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Further, college access and success initiatives like “My Brother’s Keeper” and Black male institutes on college campuses exclusively concentrate on addressing the racial disparities in educational attainment for Black men (Butler 2013; NealJackson 2018). However, there are far fewer similar programs for Black women. The lack of a specific focus on Black women’s educational experiences obscures the understanding of their unique challenges and perpetuates divisive narratives that further marginalize Black women from receiving institutional support toward college-going. Within dominant discourses about academic success and educational attainment, Black women are represented as magical because of our1 ability to academically achieve despite the odds we encounter (Patton et al. 2016). This portrait is divisive. As contended by Lori Patton Davis and Natasha Croom (Patton and Croom 2017), “the failure to account for racism/white supremacy and gender/patriarchy when considering Black collegiate women’s experiences is nonsensical at least and absurd at best” (p. 2). I contend that despite considerable empirical data and factual evidence that illustrates how Black women are subjugated in different societal arenas (Crenshaw 1988), the negligence to include Black undergraduate women in higher education literature stems from a broader and retold pathological mythology involving controlling images such as the Black matriarch (Moynihan 1965), welfare queen (Roberts 1999), and superwoman (Wallace 2015), which are utilized to dehumanize and justify the oppression of Black women and girls (Collins 2002). I put forth that the trope of the advantaged Black women is used to evade addressing how intersecting systems of oppression affect Black women’s educational experiences and to justify educational inequities for Black students. Further, “fantasies of academic success and #BlackGirlMagic” (Patton and Croom 2017) do not reflect all the ways Black women and girls are seen in education. Black girls are also disciplined and pushed out of the educational pipeline (Morris 2016), which impacts their college “choice” processes. As researchers contextualize Black women’s educational pathways, it is imperative to examine the various ways systems of oppression shape college access. In postsecondary education, Black women are disproportionately concentrated at 2-year and for-profit institutions (Iloh and Toldson 2013), a trend that could be related to findings that Black high school girls are overrepresented in vocational curricular tracks (Muhammad and Dixson 2008). However, current analytical frameworks to guide scholarship on college “choice” do not fully account for a range of structural factors that distinctively affect Black women’s process of choosing colleges, such as the reasons behind the limited availability of outreach and mentoring

Throughout this chapter, I interchangeably use “our” and “we” for Black women for the reasons articulated by Patricia Hill Collins. I share her view of “inserting myself in the text” in which the “both/and [researcher and lived experiences as a Black woman] conceptual stance of Black feminist thought allowed me to be both objective and subjective” (Collins 2002, ix). I “take up grappling with positionality not as fixed and located in a physical space where research occurs, but rather, as it travels with us, within, and across social and geographic locations and communities” (Roegman et al. 2016, p. 47).

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programs tailored to Black girls (Butler 2013; Hardaway et al. 2019; Neal-Jackson 2018), the pervasive misconceptions surrounding Black girls’ talents and capabilities (Collins et al. 2020; Evans-Winters 2011; Ford et al. 2018; Watson 2016), and excessive disciplinary rates in the K-12 system (Crenshaw et al. 2015a; Hines-Datiri and Carter Andrews 2017; Morris 2016). Clearly, Black women’s college “choice” deserves more empirical inquiry in ways that take into account the intersections between racialized and patriarchal power structures.

Incomplete College “Choice” Theories and Models Traditional frameworks that address college “choice” center high school students and depict the college decision-making process as a linear sequence of events (Hossler and Gallagher 1987; Hossler et al. 1999). New approaches to college-going literature have pivoted to more inclusive lenses to examine the diversity of students and the variation of their pathways and trajectories (Acevedo-Gil 2017; Gildersleeve 2010; Iloh 2018). For example, though many college “choice” theories focus on students graduating from high school, in fact, 32.7% of Black undergraduates are over the age of 30 (Espinosa et al. 2019). Newer approaches to college “choice” inquiry that recognize the recent shifts in student demographics and students’ multifaceted identities, the processes of how students learn about college, and students’ mobility patterns or entry in and out of many colleges (Acevedo-Gil 2017; Gildersleeve 2010; Iloh 2018), are better positioned to address the holistic factors affecting these students’ postsecondary pathways. While each of these characteristics in college “choice” merits significant consideration, all are affected by larger social forces such as systemic racism, sexism, capitalism, and other forms of domination. As perspectives on college-going broaden, Black Feminist Theory is suited to grapple with how racism intersects with capitalism, sexism, and other forms of domination, which are perpetuated by various systems of oppression. In examining the role of forms of domination in the college “choice” process, it is imperative to interrogate the meaning and connotation of the word “choice.” As Black feminist education scholar Cynthia Dillard (2006) asserts, language is politically and culturally constructed, and “The very language we use to define and describe a phenomena must possess instrumentality” (p. 3). Therefore, throughout this chapter, I purposely use the terms college-going or “choice” instead of choice, to denote the “complicating conditions” (Cox 2016, p. 10) that have historically and perpetually troubled minoritized students’ postsecondary aspirations and plans, including those of Black women. In this piece, I argue that the application of Black feminist scholarship from the fields of Black and Africana studies, sociology, law, and gender studies can enhance inquiry about the college “choice,” particularly of minoritized students. In their critique of sociology as a discipline, Patricia Hill Collins (1986) described how “Black women’s outsider within status might generate a distinctive standpoint vis-avis existing sociological paradigms” and its benefits for social science research (p. S16). Living within the margins, Black women are granted a way of seeing reality, a standpoint that garners an outlook about the social world. Collins (1986) contended that by placing Black women “into the center of analysis may reveal

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aspects of reality obscured by more orthodox approaches” (p. S15). This approach can be applied to research in the field of higher education. Black women and girls’ perspectives and lived experiences provide mechanisms to perceive a reality that is typically obscured in traditional modes of higher education research. These perspectives, in particular, can reveal the intersections of systems of oppression that limit opportunity structures for not only Black women, but for historically marginalized students in general. Specifically, I contend that grounding conceptual and analytical frameworks from the standpoint of Black feminist theory (Collins 1986, 2002) can illuminate aspects of the college-going process that are obscured in privileged conceptions of “choice” that discount multiple and interlocking dimensions of oppression and power. This premise is fruitful for higher education because it not only positions Black intellectual women as producers of knowledge, but also invites consideration on how insights from Black feminist theory challenge and inform inquiry about college “choice.” For example, how might understanding the college-going experiences of Black girls and undergraduate women illuminate what we know and do not know about the social construction of college opportunities in general? In this chapter, I first review traditional theories of college “choice” and highlight aspects of college “choice” models that do not fully capture Black women’s education trajectories. Then I provide an abbreviated overview of the history of Black college access to illustrate the linkages between historical, material, and social conditions. Next, I conduct an overview of theoretical and empirical research on Black student’s college decision-making processes. Subsequently, I provide recommendations on how the application of Black Feminist Thought (BFT) can expand the understanding of students’ college-going processes. I conclude by proposing that new research on students’ college pathways and trajectories must continue to evaluate how power structures and the intersection of systems of oppression shape the higher education context and the experiences of students. In reviewing the literature, I follow Black feminist scholar Jennifer Nash’s (2019) spirit of critique, in that I envision this review of college-going frameworks as a “loving practice” (p. 58) to invite readers to consider and even reimagine perspectives of college-going that better examine power relationships between individual behaviors, institutions, and social structures. Focusing on these multiple levels, and how power is enacted within and between them to expand or limit college opportunity structures, expands possibilities for scholars to influence research and practice in a transformative way that advances social justice.

Review of Literature Theoretical Perspectives in College-Going and College “Choice” Research As early as the 1920s, scholars in the United States became interested in how students determine what college to attend and the factors that shape students’ decision-making processes (Comfort 1925). Since the 1990s, the body of research

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on college “choice” has grown, advanced by scholars like McDonough (1997), who examined how socioeconomic status interacts with school, family, and community contexts to shape college decisions. College “choice” theories and models are used to describe the influences and processes that shape college matriculation decisions. While college “choice” has traditionally been restricted to frame the steps toward fulfilling one’s higher education aspirations (Hossler and Gallagher 1987), other scholars like Perna (2006) have expanded the construct of college “choice” to include the process of “determining educational and occupational aspirations, which institutions to consider, whether to attend college, and which college to attend” (p. 126). The latter links the college decision-making process to college access in which the decision not to pursue higher education is recognized as an aspect of the college “choice” process (Perna 2006). Within the literature, the underlying assumption of college “choice” theory is that students (and their families and communities) have the autonomy to pursue higher education, and moreover, the “choice” to decide which institution to attend. Though a postsecondary institution must accept a college applicant before that applicant enrolls (a process that Hughes et al. (2019) describe as “institutions choosing students”), the narrative of equal opportunity nonetheless portrays students as having full agency to apply (Byrd 2017). While scholars problematize the notion that all individuals, regardless of their backgrounds, have equal postsecondary opportunities, literature has treated “college choice” and “college access” as two different, though related, areas of study. Gildersleeve (2010) describes how the field differentiates these areas of study in which college access research is framed as a “macro-level orientation that views the problem of educational opportunity as primarily structural” (p. 12), whereas college “choice” “addresses the micro-level processes of individual decision making” (p. 13). Hughes et al. (2019) operationalize college access and college “choice” in which the term “access” conveys the strong influence of structural forces on patterns of collegegoing. That is, it suggests that variations in the availability of, and student participation in, educational opportunities predict variations in outcomes. Conversely, the term “choice” focuses on individual determinants of college-going outcomes. Using a choice framing, it is possible to understand how students with functionally the same educational opportunities arrive at disparate outcomes as a result of their own preferences as well as messages communicated by significant others of influence (e.g., parents, siblings, friends, teachers, guidance counselors, and coaches). Studies of choice do not typically focus on how these patterns of disparate outcomes may reflect broader structural inequities (p. 416).

Scholars have contended that “the issues of college access complicate the study of college choice” (Bergerson 2009, p. 2). Yet, the framing of college access tends to focus on the role of social structures in affecting college opportunities, whereas college “choice” research focuses on how individuals and their behaviors shape college pathways. One of the major limitations of the “college choice” premise is that it minimizes how social structures and processes influence individuals’ behaviors. Yet, social structures not only dictate what “choices” are available, and to

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whom, but influence student perceptions about various pathways and their “choices.” College decisions entail a meaning-making process in which there is a reflexive interaction between individuals and their social positions with the hierarchical organization of institutions in society. In this section, I review the evolution of college “choice” scholarship with a focus on traditional and emergent theoretical perspectives that have been used to study college opportunity. By reviewing key frameworks, their scholarly assumptions, strengths, and limitations, this section engages with two questions: (1) How do higher education scholars conceptualize and discuss college choice? and (2) In what ways are social categories (e.g., race and gender) and social structures addressed in the theorizing and development of conceptual models related to college choice?

Traditional and Alternative Research Approaches Scholars have created models to systematically capture the complexity of the college “choice” process and to describe students’ transitions into colleges (Chapman 1981; Hossler and Gallagher 1987; Iloh 2018; Litten 1982; Perna 2006). These researchers have explored the multiple dimensions of the college-going process, including individual, organizational, and ecological influences through various approaches such as economic, psychological, sociological, and integrated approaches. Reviews of the extensive body of college “choice” literature have pointed to the need to better address the inequalities and stratification in college access and “choice” research, policies, and practices (Bergerson 2009; Perna 2006). For the purposes of this chapter, my focus is on the evolution of approaches to examine college decisionmaking for minoritized students and implicates how these perspectives address the issue of structural barriers in college access and “choice.” Combining both economic and sociological approaches, Hossler and Gallagher (1987) proposed a model to simplify the complexity of the college decision-making process. Through use of primarily a student perspective, the three-stage model depicts the college “choice” process as a sequence on how a “student develops a predisposition to attend college, conducts a search for information about the college, and makes a choice that leads them to enroll at a particular institution” (Hossler and Gallagher 1987, p. 230). The three-stage model captures the developmental process of college “choice,” in particular, how “students move toward an increased understanding of their educational options as they seek a postsecondary educational experience” (Hossler and Gallagher 1987, p. 208). It underscores how students’ interactions with individual and organizational factors produce student outcomes at each stage of the college “choice” process, which culminates in students choosing a college to attend (Hossler and Gallagher 1987). Individual factors include student characteristics, significant others, educational activities, educational aspirations and values, and college search activities. Germane to race and gender, the authors contend background characteristics are correlated with the predisposition stage and throughout the decision-making process. Organizational factors encompass school characteristics, college recruitment, and college and universities’ courtship activities. The model was employed in Hossler et al. (1999) study that centered on achievement of educational aspirations. Thus, the model focused on the individual level with

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attention to the role of parents, peers, and schools as contributors to students’ information processing. They argued that “students’ searches help them determine what characteristics they need and which colleges offer them” (p. 9). However, this approach is limited in that it misses the role of several social and environmental factors that include context (e.g., state policies on race and gender neutrality, longstanding effects of segregated higher education) and power differentials, and a white and upper middle-class assumption that all students have an equal opportunity to choose a college. Shifting from Hossler and Gallagher’s (1987) emphasis on individual student “choice” at various stages of process, McDonough (1997) adopted a sociological approach, employing sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural capital and habitus to examine how social class status and schools shaped high school students’ college decision-making processes. McDonough (1997) defined cultural capital as “the property that middle class and upper class families transmit...as a means of maintaining class status and privilege across generations” (p. 8). For McDonough (1997), a college education is a symbolic good that is for “using, manipulating, and investing it for socially valued and difficult-to-secure purposes and resources” (p. 9). In a qualitative study conducted with white high school women from higher and lower socioeconomic status levels, and their parents, friends, and counselors, McDonough (1997) found that the social class and context of families and schools contributed to patterns of and opportunities in college-going behavior. For example, high socioeconomic status parents used their cultural capital as a resource for their white daughters’ college preparation and admission into college. Their participation was further supplemented by school actors. Other parents from lower-socioeconomic backgrounds, however, were not as involved in examining college options, often leaving the college decision-making process more up to their child and/or school personnel. Such cases typically resulted in the child attending a less selective postsecondary institution, even if they were academically qualified for a more selective one. While the concept of cultural capital has been applied in diverse ways in education research, what is clear from emerging research on educational opportunity is that the forms of capital or wealth that marginalized students possess are often not valued in dominant spaces that are white, cisgender, and upper-class (Bourdieu 1973; Lareau and Weininger 2003; Rios-Aguilar et al. 2011; Sablan and Tierney 2014; Tichavakunda 2019; Yosso 2005). Unchallenged, the devaluing of minoritized students forms of capital reproduces inequities, particularly in schools. McDonough (1997) demonstrates how cultural capital contributes to the reproduction of social inequality in college access. In this instance, cultural capital is a resource for advantaged groups to maximize their privileged social position. In addition to examining the role of cultural capital, McDonough (1997) relied on the notion of personal schemas to describe how students filtered their social worlds and educational opportunities, and on the extension of Bourdieu’s concept of individual habitus to understanding how a high school’s organizational culture, or habitus, could enhance or constrain students’ sensemaking of college opportunities. This approach contributed to the body of research on the role of both individual and organizational habitus in shaping college trajectories.

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In comparison to cultural capital, habitus is less applied in general education research (Gaddis 2013) but is more often applied in college-going research (Acevedo-Gil 2017; Griffin et al. 2012; Horvat 1997; McDonough 1997; Nora 2004; Núñez and Bowers 2011; Paulsen and St. John 2002; Perna 2006; Squire and Mobley 2015; Wells and Lynch 2012). Bourdieu (1984) referred to habitus as a “structuring structure” and a “structured structure” (p. 170). Habitus is the “common set of subjective perceptions held by all members of the same group or class that shapes an individual’s expectations, attitudes, and aspirations” (McDonough 1997, p. 9). In other words, “habitus is a result of the social conditions and related practices and interactions of everyday life that shape a person’s perceptions of their location and relationship to others around them, and ultimately provides ‘reason’ for their actions while navigating the social world” (Byrd 2017, p. 148). Put simply, habitus is a set of shared dispositions that are ingrained and derived from one’s environment and social locations. Some scholars extend the concept of habitus from a familial and communal dimension to an organizational level to argue social institutions have their own set of cultural practices and dispositions (Byrd 2017; McDonough 1997). The organizational habitus of high schools, their contexts and cultures, shape whether and where students pursue higher education. On one hand, schools are a central hub for students to get to know more information about their college options. On the other hand, however, these institutions are “the mediator of collective social class consciousness” (McDonough 1997, p. 10). Based on their organizational habitus, schools transmit and translate “college knowledge” (McDonough et al. 1998) that is tailored to reflect the social positions of the majority of the students and families that they serve. The concept of habitus has provided a lens to make sense of the interplay between social contexts and college destinations. Yet, how larger power structures affect social contexts, and the associated development of organizational and individual habitus that enhance or constrain individual student college “choices,” is less specified and examined in the literature. That is, while many studies of how students’ individual habitus affect college “choice” have been undertaken, far fewer have examined how students’ habitus are situated within institutions or a field (Horvat 1997; McDonough 1997) that is historically designed to privilege opportunities for some groups and to marginalize those of others. That is, far fewer studies apply a structural approach to examine how students’ responses to living in an oppressive society could shape their college “choices.” Black feminist theory, which analyzes intersecting power structures that perpetuate domination and oppression of minoritized groups, can offer insights about the social reproduction of inequality, which was a central focus of Bourdieu’s original work. In particular, Black feminist theory can offer insights about the construction of the “field.” The field is “a network, or a configuration, of objective relations between positions” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, 97). At the same time, Bourdieu (1973) described habitus as a “system of dispositions which act as a mediation between structures and practice” (p. 487). Consequently, in this perspective, habitus describes how individuals and organizations embody social structures, because this concept defines how individuals relate to each other and the structures of society. Because

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habitus “reflects the internalization of structural boundaries and constraints” (Perna 2006, p. 113) regarding college-going, it constructs the rationale for students’ college “choice” behaviors. Without addressing the concept of field that accounts for asymmetrical power relations, the sole application of habitus to phenomena like college “choice” runs the risk of reinforcing deficit orientations and narratives of a culture of poverty about minoritized groups. Even still, Bourdieusian class concepts such as habitus were not originally intended to examine institutionalized forms of power, but rather, the process of internalizing and embodying social structures that reproduce class inequality, including how power relations are centered around symbolic violence and how social beings comply and participate in the maintenance of social division and hierarchies (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990). Even as scholars have looked to examine racial and class stratification in college access, social class often becomes focal. College “choice” research has often highlighted academic preparation and social class status as the strongest predictors of college enrollment; however, a predominant emphasis on these factors minimizes the role of race and racism and its intersection with other forms of domination in shaping higher education pursuits (Teranishi and Briscoe 2006). A limitation of habitus as a tool to explain disparate outcomes is that it is a means for singular axis analysis. As a strength of this framework, McDonough (1997) takes into account social class and social context to understand the college decision-making process. However, the focus on class as opposed to its intersection with gender and the omission of race obscures how other social identities could shape students’ trajectories. Byrd (2017) argues that habitus is not limited to class but intertwines with race. The social identities of elite college students influence their social interactions and racial attitudes, and Byrd (2017) demonstrates how habitus shapes students’ views of opportunities and racial inequities. As it has typically been applied in research, the concept of habitus serves as a useful way to understand patterns among homogeneous student populations. Yet, such applications of the concept may obscure variations of experiences within historically marginalized groups, including those along the lines of race and gender and the intersection of social identities. An emphasis on the perspective that high schools hold an organizational habitus that is class-based does not provide analytical tools to examine students’ experiences with racial and gender discrimination within the same environment. For example, considering McDonough’s (1997) finding that white high school girls and those from higher income backgrounds at a more affluent school (compared with those at a less affluent school) were more prone to attend selective colleges, it is not clear to what extent and how the advantages of attending an affluent school in the college “choice” process were also afforded to its Black students. On the one hand, we may argue that those that possess class cultural capital that is deemed congruent with the school’s organizational habitus reap rewards of college counseling and other support. Yet, studies have also found that schools have an organizational racial habitus (Carter 2012). When considering the disparate outcomes in student postsecondary destinations because of factors like tracking, counselor bias, and military recruitment, current models do not provide a clear framework to examine the full range of factors in an organizational habitus that shape

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postsecondary trajectories. Lastly, there are debates about the extent to which actors in Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory have agency to determine their life pathways, or the extent to which these actors’ life chances are already determined by societal structures (e.g., Swartz 1997). Expanding on the work of St. John et al. (2001) and Paulsen and St. John (2002), Perna (2006) developed a conceptual college “choice” model that conjoined human capital theory and sociological perspectives. Based on their review of prior research, Perna (2006) contended that separately economic and status attainment perspectives did not sufficiently address the college “choice” process, arguing economic approaches offer a framework for understanding decision making, but are limited by their failure to examine the nature of information that is available to decision makers. On the other hand, sociological approaches shed light on the ways in which individuals gather information, but do not identify the ways in which individuals make decisions based on this information (Perna 2006, p. 114).

In bridging these perspectives, Perna (2006) presents an integrated model that “assumes that an individual’s assessment of the benefits and costs of an investment in college is shaped by the individual’s habitus, as well as the school and community context, the higher education context, and the social, economic, and policy context” (p. 101). Through this approach, the model seeks to account for how there can be group differences in college decisions. Perna (2006) outlines the structural contexts that shape students’ college access and decision-making by capturing how levels of context are embedded and organize student’s pathways. The most internal layer is a student’s habitus which encompasses background characteristics and capital. Layer two is organizational habitus which entails the structures, institutional agents, resources of schools and communities. Next, layer three is the higher education context, which recognizes the place, role, and characteristics of colleges and universities. Lastly, the outlying and allencompassing layer involves the larger economic, political, and social contexts that influence life decisions like college “choice.” This approach has yielded a deeper understanding on how “situated contexts” shape the differences in educational attainment among social classes and racial groups (Perna 2006, p. 116), and has been advanced in more recent studies (e.g., Deil-Amen and Tevis 2010; Means et al. 2016; Squire and Mobley 2015). Perna (2006) also expanded their framework of college decision-making to more broadly examine student transitions and success. Drawing from psychology, economics, sociology, and education, Perna and Thomas (2008) developed a conceptual framework to provide a comprehensive definition of student success to encompass how it is a longitudinal process with four key transitions: college readiness, college enrollment, college achievement, and post-college attainment. The integration of human capital and sociocultural aspects underscores the importance of examining individual’s behaviors in their respective social contexts. However, this approach does not provide ways to examine how advantaged and minoritized groups’ differential power and privilege in those contexts could affect students’ trajectories.

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As carried out in earlier approaches, Perna (2006) relies on habitus to describe how “the system of values and beliefs that shapes an individual’s views and interpretations” (p. 115). While habitus accounts for the role of social context, the focus is on how individuals embody their social conditions. However, there is not a clear specification of what constitutes the field in this model to make sense of what social conditions are shaping behaviors. Further, this approach does not address how systems of oppression create social conditions. Examining further the concept of field and its associated systems of oppression could enhance the model, as the model strives to account for “sources of differences in college choices across groups” (Perna 2006, p. 107). For example, Squire and Mobley (2015) focus on the study of college “choice” to better understand how multiple marginalized social identities are negotiated in postsecondary decisionmaking. They found that, for Black gay men, racial factors shaped their college decision-making, like the decision to attend a predominantly white institution in part because of “larger societal narratives surrounding sexual minorities within Black communities” (Squire and Mobley 2015, p. 478). In another example, a man described experiencing racist remarks during an admission interview for a predominantly white campus, which shaped his decision to attend a HBCU instead. Although the racism evidenced in an admissions interview appeared to affect this student’s college “choice,” the use of Perna (2006) did not provide well conceptualized analytical tools to examine how racism might have influenced this student’s or other Black students’ college trajectories. A limitation of the employment of habitus in college “choice” frameworks is that it does not recognize the intersection of multiple systems of oppression, including racism and heterosexism, as “superstructures” (Ray 2019) that can circumscribe life chances. Though McDonough’s (1997) work spoke of how a high school’s organizational habitus reflected the broader US social class structure, it did not address how intersecting systems of oppression and power structures could shape college “choice.” Similarly, while Perna’s (2006) model focuses on the role of social contexts in shaping college “choice,” it is important to note that social contexts and the power relations that differentially affect individuals’ life chances based on their social and economic identities are not one and the same. Namely, a given social context involves the “internal dynamics of a given interpretive community” (Collins 2019a, p. 46), while power is exercised “where groups with greater power oppress those with lesser amounts” (Collins 2002, p. 274). More broadly, power also operates as “an intangible entity that circulates within a particular matrix of domination and to which individuals stand in varying relationships” (Collins 2002, p. 274). From this perspective, social contexts are situated in, but not the same as, the intersection of systems of oppression and power structures that shape experiences and inequities (Collins 2019a). Black women and girls live in a particular political context where the “convergence of race, class, and gender oppression characteristic of U.S. slavery shaped all subsequent relationships that women of African descent had” (Collins 2002, p. 5). While recognizing that accounting for social contexts to enrich analysis of social inequities (Collins 2019a) and to avoid essentializing

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individuals’ and groups’ experiences (Patton and Njoku 2019), it is also imperative to recognize the larger structural forces of power that shape those contexts and educational opportunities (Núñez 2014). Broadly, higher education research overwhelmingly examines students and their experiences, with less attention on the structural components (Hurtado 2007; Hurtado et al. 2012; Núñez 2014), and the structures that inhibit students’ pathways. While Perna (2006) contributes to framing how contexts influence each layer, the model does not account for racialized and gendered elements beyond demographic characteristics. New research on social inequities and social problems cannot be detached from complex theorization of power structures and systems of oppression. Such considerations call for new questions on how systemic forms of power are structuring student and organizational habitus and the ways they are manifested in college decisionmaking. A different theoretical construct that conceptualizes a “structuring structure” (Bourdieu 1984, p. 170) is the matrix of domination (Collins 2002). Through a Black Feminist lens, the configuration of society and social life is understood centrally through social and power relations. Collins (2002) approaches the analysis of power in two ways: (1) a dialectical approach that examines oppression and activism, and (2) an approach that examines the interconnected relationships between systems of oppression within their matrices of domination. Collins (2019b) describes how a matrix is a “structuring structure” that “gives structure to dynamic phenomena” but how “intersectionality adds a political analysis to these generic understandings” (p. 173). To conceptualize how power is structured, Collins’ (2002) concept of a matrix of domination shows how power is organized in various contexts via different domains. The matrix of domination “refers to how political domination on the macrolevel of analysis is organized via intersecting systems of oppression” (Collins 2019b, p. 171). According to Collins (2002, 2019b), there are four domains of power: structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal, that each and together, shape domination. Moreover, this framing provides a lens to analyze the arenas in which subordinate groups resist and seek empowerment. The structural domain describes how primary social institutions are interlocked and structured to perpetually subordinate Black women and men. The structural domain is defined as a constellation of organized practices in employment, government, education, law, business, and housing that work to maintain an unequal and unjust distribution of social resources. Unlike bias and prejudice, which are characteristics of individuals, the structural domain of power operates through the laws and policies of social institutions (Collins 2002, p. 301).

Through laws, policies, and procedures, social institutions, like higher education, enforce a social hierarchy that functions to disenfranchise and exclude. For example, higher education has systematically excluded Black students and other racially minoritized students from entering selective white institutions. Historically, this has been orchestrated through laws and judicial decisions that reflected the broader social order of de jure segregation. Today, the confluence of segregated housing, the

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placement of higher education institutions, and racial ideology continues the historical pattern of exclusion. Amalia Dache-Gerbino (2018) employed a critical geography analysis to examine how the depopulation of cities where Black and Latinx folks reside impacted college access and “choice.” Within a context of deindustrialization, white flight, and racially biased admission policies, Dache-Gerbino (2018) found Black and Latinx students lived in areas with a “college desert,” lacking 4-year institutions and limited to readily available community colleges and for-profit institutions. This finding is striking, as Dache-Gerbino illuminates, because college “choice” research has confirmed proximity is an influential factor in college decisions (Turley 2009), especially for Black and Latinx students (Braddock 1980; Butler 2010; Hillman 2016; Means et al. 2016). Dache-Gerbino’s (2018) conclusions demonstrate how white patterns of settlement maintain power and domination through the interdependence of social institutions like availability of housing, employment opportunities, and higher education. The entrenchment and rigid establishment of social institutions presents a challenge to reform, let alone abolish, oppressive social structures. Thus, focal to resisting within this domain is shifting the social order through changing laws of the land or establishing new doctrine. Collins’ (2002) examples of such a redistribution or reconciliation of the social order include revolutions, social movements, and war. Widespread transformation sounded unlikely a decade ago, but we find ourselves in a historic moment for reimagining or abolishing systems due to public outcry over police brutality and antiBlackness, structural inequalities uncovered by the world pandemic, and economic disruption today. These disruptions uncover large inequalities and call into question college “choice” frameworks that do not address the intersection of systems of oppression and the social structures that maintain the status quo. Where the structural domain organizes domination, the disciplinary domain maintains hierarchies through bureaucracy and surveillance. This encompasses how power relations operate within a social institution, despite the rhetoric of diversity and inclusion. “Discipline is ensured by keeping Black women as a mutually policing subordinate population under surveillance” (Collins 2002, p. 281). With the perspective of “intersectional surveillance,” Simone Browne (2015) contends racializing surveillance is a technology of social control where surveillance practices, policies, and performances concern the production of norms pertaining to race and exercise a power to define what is in or out of place...reify boundaries, borders, and bodies along racial lines, and where the outcome is often discriminatory treatment of those who are negatively racialized (p. 16).

College admissions criteria may be considered a mechanism for surveillance because they serve to detect who belongs and who does not. Studies have demonstrated that admissions criteria like standardized tests are biased against Black and/or lowincome students (e.g., Deil-Amen and Tevis 2010), and that performance on these tests is linked with access to material and human resources in one’s high school (Park and Becks 2015), as well as proclivity to stereotype threat (Perry et al. 2003), to which Black and other minoritized students are more vulnerable. Yet, these

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standardized tests continue to be used in college admissions, particularly to sort high numbers of applicants in selective public institutions. As a consequence, the doors of higher education are regulated in which access to selective white institutions is privileged and those who are “othered” are cascaded to other institutions (Allen et al. 2018; Contreras et al. 2018). The use of surveillance is further conspicuous when considering that it has become a common practice for higher education institutions today to purchase the names of students and track their web browsing history to collect information about their demographic background for recruitment and enrollment purposes (MacMillan and Anderson 2019; Selingo 2017; Zinshteyn 2016). Arguably, the use of surveillance technologies can further exacerbate inequalities, because it also informs institutions about whom to privilege or not privilege in recruiting, and the extent to which certain individuals might pose a “risk” to the institution in terms of factors like propensity to graduate (an example that illustrates how Black and minoritized students would be at a disadvantage in such predictive models). Discipline and surveillance occur before students submit their college applications. Extending Foucault’s (1977) notion that schools are disciplinary institutions, Black feminist scholars apply an intersectional lens to examine Black women and girls’ experiences with discipline, punishment, and surveillance within schools. In Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, Monique Morris argues that, similar to the experiences of Black boys, Black girls are under surveillance in school via mechanisms such as the use of metal detectors as a “security” measure, law enforcement in schools, and zero-tolerance policies (Morris 2016). However, for Black girls, their experiences with surveillance stems from negative perceptions that render them as deviant because their behaviors are deemed “un-ladylike,” because, as I will argue later, their behavior does not conform to narrow standards of white femininity (e.g., Collins 2002; Fleming 1983). As I will later return to, this exercise of power is exhibited through education and warrants consideration on how discipline and surveillance in K-12 schools impact college access and “choice.” Resistance in this domain is typically achieved through shifting procedures and practices from within a given social institution or system. For example, Black girls are unfairly disciplined in schools because of their choice of hairstyle. The Crown Act (2020) is a campaign to prohibit discrimination against students because of their choice of hair style; the implementation of Crown Act policies could decrease Black students’ receipt of school infractions. In contrast to the structural forms of power, the hegemonic domain of power involves “ideology, culture, and consciousness” (Collins 2002, p. 284). This domain provides the rationale for oppressive power relations. Collins (2002) describes it as “a popular system of commonsense ideas that support [the dominant group’s] right to rule” (p. 284). Through narrow narratives and controlling images, hegemonic ideologies maintain false constructions about race, class, gender, sexuality, and other identities that are perpetuated by both the ruling class and subordinate groups. Hegemonic ideologies are (re)produced in research, school curriculum, mass media and functions to “shape consciousness via the manipulation of ideas, images, symbols, and ideologies” (Collins 2002, p. 285).

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In higher education, an example of a hegemonic ideology is the notion of “Pell Runners,” defined as “people who purportedly find filing a FAFSA and enrolling into college an expedient way to obtain a few thousand dollars” (Goldrick-Rab 2016, p. 69). The belief that financial aid recipients are potential scammers who take advantage of financial aid programs subscribes to a narrative to undermine the use of federal resources for students in real financial need (Graves 2019). Hegemonic ideologies justify the use of other domains of power such as discipline because exercise of such power “protects” the social order, in this case, ensuring low-income and/or students of color do not receive money they do not deserve, though there is not sufficient evidence to merit financial verification processes (Goldrick-Rab 2016; Graves 2019). Graves (2019) argues that because it emboldens financial aid officers to implement detrimental policies and practices that delay students receiving their aid, the disproportionate emphasis on the existence of Pell Runners “has become a tool to inform policies such as verification and structured disbursement, which overregulate financial aid for students who need aid to access their higher education” (p. 111). Graves’s (2019) conclusion elucidates how Pell Runners as a controlling image justifies disciplining low-income and disproportionately students of color. Resistance in this domain constitutes subordinated groups reclaiming, creating, and affirming their own self-definitions. The fourth domain of power is the interpersonal. The interpersonal domain encompasses how power is maintained at the microlevel through daily routines and interactions. According to Collins (2002), this domain involves the “discriminatory practices of everyday lived experience that because they are so routine typically go unnoticed or remain unidentified. Strategies of everyday racism and everyday resistance occur in this domain” (p. 299). In higher education, an example of this is Black respectability politics that manifests within HBCUs and other Black social institutions. Higginbotham (1993) defined the politics of respectability as “reform of individual behavior and attitudes both as a goal in itself and as a strategy for reform of the entire structural system of American race relations” (p. 187). Building on the work of Higginbotham (1993), Harris (2003) describes how “respectability was part of uplift politics and had two audiences: African Americans, who were encouraged to be respectable, and white people, who needed to be shown that African Americans could be respectable” ( p. 213). While respectability politics has historically been perceived a mode to empower and used as a strategy for racial uplift, because it emphasizes challenging stereotypes of Black people through acting “respectable.” Yet, there is an argument that emphasizes that Black respectability politics has involved conforming to expectations of respectability defined by the white dominant social order in the USA. Nadrea Njoku, Malika Butler, and Cameron Beatty (2017) contend that Black respectability politics has “helped maintain a racial order and hierarchy” (p. 787). The authors examine how the politics of respectability impacts students at HBCUs and argue that the admonishment and condemnation of certain cultural esthetics and behaviors further marginalizes Black poor people, Black LGBTQ people, and Black women who refuse to yield to the paralyzing power of Black respectability politics(p. 787).

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Though HBCUs have historically and continue to provide educational opportunities to minoritized students, it is also imperative for these campuses to foster environments for marginalized students within subordinate groups. Disrupting the power within the interpersonal domain requires interrogating how individuals and groups participate in subordinating others. Resistance in this domain can take on diverse forms because it is focused on how individuals with different identities interact with one another or how groups interact with reference to one another. Among Black collegians, researchers have found negative campus racial climates and the lack of racial diversity deters Black students from enrolling into the University of California (Contreras et al. 2018). In the aftermath of racial campus unrest at the University of Missouri (Brewer 2018) the share of first-time, first-year Black undergraduate entrants at the University declined by 35% (Brown 2017), suggesting that some Black students may have decided that it was unsafe to pursue college in such an environment. Further, the pronounced racial hostility on white campuses has some students of color, and Black students in particular, seeking refuge at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (Johnson 2019; Mobley 2017; Williams and Palmer 2019) and other Minority-Serving Institutions (Thompson et al. 2019). Student enrollment at HBCUs has steadily declined in the past decade; however, this pattern shifted when the attendance of Black students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities increased from 223,512 in 2016 to 226,847 in 2017 (NCES 2019d). Changes in Black students’ enrollment patterns may in part be attributed to perceptions of supportive campus cultures; however, campus climate is not limited to what happens at the college but also shaped by external sociohistorical forces, “the events or issues in the larger society, nearly always originating outside the campus, that influence how people view racial diversity in society” (Hurtado et al. 1998, p. 282). The prevalence of antiBlack racism in US society may also contribute to Black students’ college “choice,” especially given the culture and climate of universities reflect broader society (George Mwangi et al. 2018). Factors like the expected cost of college, the amount of financial aid, and even academic qualifications do not sufficiently explain how students and families weigh safety, well-being, and humane treatment in the context of antiBlackness and other systems of subordination.

New Approaches to Examine the College “Choice” Process Indeed, more emergent frameworks of college “choice” have interrogated to a greater extent the structural forces that shape students’ college opportunity structures. In Fracturing Opportunity: Mexican Migrant Students and College-Going Literacy, Gildersleeve (2010) examined how Mexican migrant students “come to know college access” (p. 11) with the perspective of college-going as a mediated meaning-making system. Linking college opportunities and sustaining a democratic government in the United States, Gildersleeve (2010) argued college-going can be understood as “pedagogically produced” in the sense that it is a “learned social practice co-constructed by multiple agencies that interact with various social

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structures” (p. 2). Their critical inquiry on postsecondary educational opportunity applied cultural-historical activity theory and literacy theories to examine how college access is “a learned activity” that is “accomplished by the development of college-going literacies, which afford students the opportunity to respond to, navigate, and negotiate the complex power-laden processes that interact across collegegoing activity” (Gildersleeve 2010, p. 34). In sum, college-going can be “taught and enacted” (Gildersleeve 2010, p. 184). Specifically, in his qualitative research examining how Mexican migrant students practice college-going, Gildersleeve found that for these students, academic preparation, college access, college admissions, and college “choice” were more integrated and mutually constituting processes. For example, Gildersleeve underscored how study participants and their families had high aspirations to attend college. However, the students also had to learn “rules” to attend college, like (in their state of California), the requirement to pass the California exit exam in English to earn a high school diploma. Gildersleeve conceptualized college-going literacy as “a learned social practice” (p. 33), which for participants in this study dependent on a “community of labor.” The racialization of students in particular school contexts (including assumptions about their abilities due to factors like being Latinx or English Learners) and perceptions of financial ability to pay affected their meaning-making about college opportunities. Their motivation and dedication to their communities also shaped how they made sense of their college opportunities. In acknowledging the sociocultural contexts that minoritized students navigate and negotiate, the author focused on the role of higher education institutions, schools, outreach programs, and families in shaping and supporting a culturally relevant college-going identity and college-going literacy. Incorporating Chicana feminism to existing college-going models, Acevedo-Gil (2017) presented college-conocimiento as a conceptual framework to examine intersecting identities and college pathways. Bridging Perna’s (2006) model and use of habitus with Gloria Anzaldúa’s (2002) theory of conocimiento, Acevedo-Gil (2017) argued college pathways are mediated by students’ intersecting identities and inequitable educational resources. The college “choice” process for Latinx students is complex because of the developmental process of conocimiento, “a theory of epistemological development that entails challenging oppressive conditions through individual consciousness and social justice actions” (Acevedo-Gil 2017, p. 833). The culturally relevant concept of conocimiento draws attention to an individual’s consciousness and its interconnections with family, schools, and community. Consciousness is a compass on how minoritized groups navigate college-going and their social worlds. The college-conocimiento framework reckons with the worlds Latinx students navigate. College-conocimiento is defined as “a serpentine process where Latinx students reflect on the college information that they receive in relation to their intersectional experiences when preparing for college” (Acevedo-Gil 2017, pp. 834–835). Acevedo-Gil (2017) approaches the study of college pathways through a critical lens to “account for racialization, interconnected identities, and multiple contexts” (p. 834). Where deficit orientations about minoritized students proliferate, collegeconocimiento provides a culturally relevant model of college “choice”

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(Garcia et al. 2020). With the first space being el arrebato, the rupture and birth of something anew, the college-conocimiento framework describes an evolving, sevenstage progression toward an orientation of spiritual activism. The collegeconocimiento framework forges new ground in college “choice” literature in that it captures how aspirations and college decisions can be influenced by cultural aspects of particular social identities. For instance, in the college-conocimiento framework, el arrebato is conceptualized as the space where Latinx students’ develop college aspirations that stem from their individual, school, and community habitus. Acevedo-Gil (2017) advances college-going literature in connecting aspirational capital, defined as the familial and community motivation to attend college (Yosso 2005), to Perna’s (2006) application of habitus in college decisions. This approach employs a reflexive, asset-based perspective that affirms the agency of students as they process their educational opportunities and navigate oppressive conditions such as under-resourced high schools. Acevedo-Gil’s (2017) research challenges the linearity of the Hossler and Gallagher (1987) model by demonstrating the circular and spiral-oriented movement between the predisposition, search, and “choice” stage. Similar to Iloh (2018) (later discussed), both authors underscore the importance of information and perceptions of opportunity; however, Acevedo-Gil takes it one step further in thinking about “the mind-body-spirit connection” (Acevedo-Gil 2017, p. 841). This culturally relevant perspective invites a fresh conceptualization of habitus that incorporates how students’ multifaceted identities and cultures play into their college “choice.” AcevedoGil (2019) also applied the college-conocimiento framework in an empirical study on the college “choice” process for low-income, first-generation Latinx students. The author found that “participants considered various identities and knowledge of institutional resources to construct narratives about the likely obstacles they would experience in college” (Acevedo-Gil 2019, p. 121). Other scholars have also applied this framework to examine the role of fathers in shaping Chicanas higher education pursuits (Garcia and Mireles-Rios 2019), and first-generation and low-income Latinx students’ summer experiences that present challenges to successfully transition into college such as “summer melt” (Tichavakunda and Galan 2020). Though the college-conocimiento acknowledges oppressive conditions, this framework does not address the intersecting power systems that might constrain Latinx and low-income students’ perceptions of and capacity to pursue a full range of college opportunities. Acevedo-Gil (2017) aligns students’ reflexivity to Perna’s (2006) discussion of habitus and suggests college-conocimiento allows a student to reflect on their “intersectional demographics within a deficit institutional context” and how that awareness of multiple identities “facilitates the student internalizing the possibilities of pursuing a postsecondary education” (Acevedo-Gil 2017, p. 840). While one’s “intersectional demographic” could reflect one’s level of power and disenfranchisement in society, examining the role of intersectional social identities in college “choice” does not necessarily equate to an analysis of systems of power. To this point, Black and Gender Studies scholar Jennifer Nash (2019) articulates a Black feminist perspective that “who people are can never be understood apart from the way things work” (p. 75). Nash further elaborates that

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the stark distinctions drawn between identity and structure, distinctions that neglect how experiences of embodiment; projects of self-making, and self-performing; sensations of pleasure, pain, injury, desire, and so on are always fundamentally altered, shaped and constituted by social location, experiences of power and disempowerment (2019, p. 74–75).

Thus, students’ subjectivities and the social structures that shape their experiences are inextricably interwoven. Acevedo-Gil’s college-conocimiento framework situates one critical factor as affecting Latinx students’ college “choice” as the context of racially segregated high schools with fewer educational resources. However, this model can be expanded to better consider the ubiquitous nature of racism and its intersection with other forms of oppression. For Acevedo-Gil (2017), the crux of the framework is contextualizing how the gross inequities in the K-12 system shape students’ college “choices.” The statistical portrait of Latinx educational outcomes, similar to that of Black students, illuminates how structural inequities (i.e., lack of college guidance counselors, variation in academic preparation, and oppressive learning environments) limit college opportunities. Schools, whether they are public or private, with predominantly white or majority students of color, in urban, suburbia, and/or rural areas, maintain practices that sustain inequities. This is pertinent to understanding the college-going process for minoritized students because scholars have found that even in well-resourced schools, race still matters in influencing college-going outcomes, with Black students attending less selective institutions or receiving less support from their teachers and counselors, despite being equivalently academically qualified as others (Chapman 2014; Lewis and Diamond 2015; LewisMcCoy 2014). This is important to be mindful of as researchers determine where one might suspect inequities exist, and instead consider how all schools are susceptible in reproducing oppressive conditions. While arguing that empirical research on college “choice” tends to employ an economic perspective, a “rational process by which an individual estimates the economic and social benefits of attending college” (p. 229) or a sociological perspective in which “the extent to which high schools graduates’ socioeconomic characteristics and academic preparation predispose them to enroll at a particular type of college” (p. 229), Iloh (2018) argues that an ecological approach that takes into account a broader a way of settings is most appropriate to fully understand college decision-making parameters. The author employs an ecosystem perspective to advance considerations on the relationship between individuals, conditions and experiences, and the environments they inhabit. Through her proposed framework, the author is attentive to how the context of information, time, and opportunity ultimately shape enrollment decision(s). In this framework, information describes “both the access to and the quality of information students harness in making college-going decisions” (p. 236), while time is a term employed to encompass the “moments and events that have occurred throughout one’s life as well as an individual’s chronological age” (p. 237). The dimension of context of opportunity is utilized to capture “the perceived and real opportunity any student has in their pursuit of higher education generally and specific institutions in particular” (p. 238). While

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Iloh’s framework calls for context-specific data collection to gather deeper understandings of students with diverse backgrounds and their pathways, the theory centers on the roles of the individual and their ecosystem, rather than how broader economic and social structures shape social realities, and therefore, college pathways. That is, although the framework takes into account a broader array of settings and students (including post-traditional students), how oppressive power dynamics shape student college pathways are not made as clear. Taken together, traditional and new models have aided in advancing the understanding of the complexity of the college-going experience. However, one of the findings from this brief review of theories of college “choice” is that all have limited analytical capability to articulate interlocking systems of power and oppression that can also construct college opportunities. These limitations leave scholars without more precise perspectives, concepts, and language to address how institutionalized forms of oppression and power constitute structures that stifle college opportunity. The central objective of the rest of this chapter is to deepen the understanding about college pathways by applying Black Feminism, broadly, and Black Feminist Thought (BFT) specifically, to put forth an intersectional approach that considers how racism, sexism, and other forms of domination interlock and shape student pathways. The employment of an intersectional approach grounded in Black Feminist Thought can encourage scholars to “engage in more critical analyses of their data and generate more accurate conclusions” (Museus and Griffin 2011, p. 6). More recently, scholars have underscored the importance of examining larger forces that contribute to shaping students’ experiences and that shape institutional and social contexts (Hurtado et al. 2012; Núñez 2014). However, this is often neglected in higher education research. Núñez (2014) concluded “the application of intersectionality to empirical studies has largely been limited to descriptions of these actors’ experiences, rather than organizational dynamics among social actors or other entities that shape those experiences” (p. 46, emphasis original). The current chapter seeks to further these developments in applying Black Feminist Thought to understand how multiple dimensions of the college “choice” process are affected by intersecting systems of oppression and power structures. To be clear, this is not to suggest Black Feminist Thought as a new college “choice” model, but rather, to position Black Feminist Thought as having the potential to advance understanding of the various factors and forces that constrain and foster equitable access to college for Black women and girls in particular, and minoritized students and systematically advantaged students more broadly.

The Paradox of Education and the Black Struggle Problematizing College “Choice” Moving toward a Black feminist approach to examine students’ college pathways and decision-making processes, I begin this section by problematizing the notion of “choice.” Previous scholarship has used “choice” to denote the inequities in college access for minoritized and nontraditional students (Cox 2016; Goldrick-Rab 2006;

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Iloh 2018; Rodriguez and Nuñez 2015). Similarly, I approach the limits of college “choice” from a critical race and Black feminist standpoint that centers on how educational systems in the United States are entrenched with structural impediments that undermine college equity and reflect broader systems of oppression (Collins 2002; Harris 1993; Ladson-Billings 1998; Patton 2016). As contended by Núñez (2014), Collins’s (2002) concept of the matrix of domination provides a lens to examine the intersection of systems of oppression and how higher education shapes and is shaped by power relations. Applying the structural domain of power, how interlocking social institutions dominate through law and policies, entails identifying how power and oppression in higher education has constrained “choice” and evolved over time (Collins 2002). Thus, I take into account a long-term historical perspective of the Black struggle to access education (Mustaffa 2017) that has been fortified by other social institutions such as the US legal system (Chapman et al. 2020), and de jure and de facto patterns of racial segregation and housing (Dache-Gerbino 2018). Examining the historicity, or “the macro-level role of history in shaping these broader dynamics” (Núñez 2014, p. 52), of “choice” elucidates the importance of taking a historical perspective in understanding how societal structures are constructed and evolve to circumscribe educational opportunities for minoritized groups. One of the issues that more traditional conceptions of “choice” overlook, particularly in college “choice” of Black folks, is how historical violence has shaped opportunity structures and systematically restricted access to a quality education. The history of Black people in higher education indicates that several interlocking and distinctive societal structures – including chattel slavery, de jure and de facto restrictions on access to postsecondary education – have restricted their postsecondary opportunities (Anderson 1988; Dancy et al. 2018; Evans 2008; Harper et al. 2009; Mustaffa 2017; Rogers 2012). In this section, I discuss the history and concept of educational violence (Mustaffa 2017) to illustrate the limits of college “choice.” Education violence is a term to describe “how marginalized people both in and outside of formal systems of schooling have had their lives limited and ended due to white supremacy” (Mustaffa 2017, p. 711, emphasis original). This history of white supremacy goes back four centuries before the founding of the United States. As late as 1619, Black folks were abducted, chained, battered, and rendered chattel: The African was represented as chattel in their economic image, as slaves in their political and social image, as brutish and therefore inaccessible to further development, and finally as Negro, that is without history (Robinson 2000, p. 187).

The process of racializing and dehumanizing “the Other” (Collins 2002) in instituting chattel slavery laid the foundation for the formation of a racialized capitalist state. Those who survived the gruesome transatlantic voyage to the eastern shores of colonial America were forced into slavery. Enslaved African people were subjected to dehumanization, including being prohibited from and criminalized for learning how to read and write. In fact, it was deemed a crime to teach an enslaved or free Black person (Anderson 1988).

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As the institution of slavery expanded into occupied Indigenous land, the birth of US higher education institutions to serve the white ruling classes began. It is no mere coincidence that the same decade enslaved African people arrived in Massachusetts, the first higher education institution, Harvard University, was founded in Cambridge in 1636. Foundational to the development of colonial colleges was a dependency on the institution of slavery; exploited labor was instrumental in the construction of colleges. Harvard University, then Harvard College, was bestowed as the locale to train and prepare the elite class of white men for clergy and leadership positions, while enslaved African people were subjected to serve the constituents of the college (Wilder 2013). That is, “Black people erected the buildings, cooked the food, and cleaned the dormitories and yet were not understood as laborers, but as property” (Dancy et al. 2018, p. 182), while Black women who maintained the campus were abused, sexually assaulted, and raped on college grounds by students (Wilder 2013). The history of the development of the first US colleges exposes exclusion as a fundamental feature of higher education in the nation. Since the founding of the colonial colleges, the “choice” to attend college was not afforded to racially minoritized groups and white women. For Indigenous populations, the college served as grounds to impose evangelism (Wilder 2013). It was not until 1823, 187 years after the first colleges were established, that Alexander Lucius Twilight became the first Black American to earn a college degree from Middlebury College (Slater 1994). For Black women, receipt of a college education first occurred decades later, with Lucy Ann Stanton earning a certificate in 1850, and Mary Jane Patterson earning a degree in 1862, followed by Fanny M. Jackson and Frances J. Norris in 1865, all from Oberlin College in Ohio (Commodore et al. 2018; Evans 2008; Perkins 1993; Rogers 2012; Slater 1994). During the nineteenth century, it was disputed whether college participation should be afforded to Black people, for we were viewed other than human (i.e., Dred Scott v. Sandford) (Anderson 1988). Amidst controversy and during an era when the majority of Black Americans were enslaved, Oberlin College was one of the first higher education institutions to admit Black students (Perkins 1993; Waite 2002). Under Plessy v. Ferguson, however, de jure segregation maintained “separate but equal” educational institutions in theory, a position supported and sustained by both Northern and Southern politicians and judges. Oberlin College was made available to Black folks from its inception (Waite 2002), whereas the majority of historically white institutions did not accept Black students until the 1950s and 1960s (Allen and Jewell 2002; Slater 1994). The need for racially segregated institutions was affirmed in the Morrill Act of 1890, which established “land” grants to establish Historically Black Colleges and Universities (Allen et al. 2007). The exclusion of Black students from higher education in these times reflected a “possessive investment in whiteness” (Lipsitz 1995) in which higher education and the right for white people to exclusively enjoy its benefits functioned as a form of “whiteness as property” (Harris 1993; Ladson-Billings 1998). In the aftermath of slavery, the education of Black people was perpetually perceived as a threat to white dominance and the social order (Browne 2015; Hartman 2007). For example, Rogers (2012) describes how the expansion of Black higher education through the Great

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Depression, particularly the Atlanta University Center Consortium, was met with white resentment: “For many whites who did not attend college, and most did not, the presence of articulate, confident, polished black students oftentimes undermined their sense of superiority and thus their sense of self” (p. 23). After the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that overturned the conception of “separate but equal” established in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case, racial injustice and separation of postsecondary opportunities through segregation in higher education persisted. For instance, the case of Adams v. Richardson (1973) found that ten states were noncompliant to adhering to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because of their failure to desegregate their higher education systems (Allen et al. 2018; Egerton 1974). Today, scholars have shown how antiBlack racism thwarts equitable access to education (Allen et al. 2018; Dancy et al. 2018; Dumas and ross 2016; Mustaffa 2017), citing as evidence affirmative action bans (Okechukwu 2019), opposition of school integration and the aftermath of desegregation policy (Dumas 2016), overdisciplining Black students in schools (Powell and Coles 2020; Wun 2016), and hostile racial climates in schools and universities (Abrica et al. 2020; Chapman 2014). An especially notable example is the perpetual underfunding of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which provide significant and unique educational opportunities for Black and other minoritized students (Williams et al. 2019). HBCUs constituted 2.2% of degree-granting institutions and 1.48% of total college enrollment in 2017 (NCES 2019a, c). In 2017–2018, these institutions served approximately 9% of today’s Black college enrollment population, and conferred 13.5% of the bachelor’s degree conferred to Black students in 2017–2018 (NCES 2019e, f). Yet, they continue to receive far less funding than other institutions, although they provide educational opportunities to students who require much more academic and financial support than those at more well-funded institutions (Carnevale and Strohl 2013; NASEM 2018). The historical patterns of yesterday continue to impede the present educational conditions for Black students, restricting access to full college “choice” for Black students. Despite the sociopolitical conditions that have limited Black Americans’ postsecondary opportunities, Black students, their families, and communities have always highly valued and strived to pursue higher education (e.g., Freeman 2005). Formerly enslaved Black Americans seized their freedom and immediately sought education as a mechanism to improve their social position. Education was yearned by free and formerly enslaved Black people because education was viewed as a portal toward liberation (Anderson 1988; Collins 2002). Collins (2002) describes how Black women’s support for education encompasses how “education has long served as a powerful symbol for the important connections among self, change, and empowerment in African American communities” (p. 210). Black women in particular were instrumental in using education as a tool for racial uplift (Perkins 1993). For instance, Lucy C. Laney, a graduate of Atlanta University, founded Haines Normal and Industrial Institute in 1886. In 1904, Mary McLeod Bethune, Laney’s protege, opened the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School, now Bethune-Cookman College (Giddings 1984). For Black students, pursing higher

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education has been a site of struggle, but also perceived as a tool for liberation (Horvat and Davis 2011; Sojoyner 2016). This tension is worth exploring further when exploring the disparity between Black students’ higher education aspirations and attainment rates (Freeman 2005).

Racial Theories in Higher Education and Empirical Research on Black Student’s College-Going Processes Early empirical research on college “choice” found that Black Americans “choose” postsecondary education pathways in ways that incorporate racial concerns. To investigate the role of race in the college “choice” process, McDonough et al. (1997) expanded on Hossler and Gallagher’s (1987) three-phase model to incorporate Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural capital and habitus as class- and race-specific constructs that impact how and where Black students decide to attend a college or university. Specifically, the authors compared factors that influenced Black students’ college “choice” process to attend HBCUs or predominantly white institutions. They framed college “choice” as a “result of a complex relationship (not a simple matching) between background characteristics, high school activities, aspirations (which are affected by perception of available opportunities), college choice behaviors, and self-concept” (McDonough et al. 1997, p. 12). This model emphasizes how Black students convert their cultural capital into what the authors describe as “social profits” (McDonough et al. 1997, p. 15). This study’s descriptive and regression analysis compared the characteristics and predictors of Black student’s enrollment into a HBCU or a predominantly white institution. It found that student religion, schools’ reputation, parents’ wishes, referrals, and belief that alums obtain good jobs positively influenced decisions to attend a HBCU. Its findings were consistent with more recent findings that HBCU alumni in students’ families and communities positively influence decisions to attend a HBCU (Johnson 2019). Moreover, McDonough et al. (1997) found a positive relationship between students’ individual aspirations and self-concepts and subsequent decisions to enroll in a HBCU. In comparison, college guidance counselors, athletic involvement, the close proximity of the college to their home, availability of financial aid, and college’s academic reputation and specialized programs were key indicators for matriculation into white institutions. The authors contended that students who are interested in promoting racial understanding may be more interested in improving race relations by attending a predominantly white institution (McDonough et al. 1997). In conducting research about the disconnection between Black students’ high education aspirations and their low participation in higher education, Kassie Freeman (2005) advanced the Hossler and Gallagher’s (1987) model to include her concept of predetermination. Specifically, she explored how environmental “circumstances that are outside of the students’ control” (p. 111), such as the culture and characteristics of one’s high school, influence college decisions. Freeman found that school officials’ low expectations of Black students negatively shaped students’ perceptions of their ability, and, in turn, what higher education institutions they were “channeled” into. Further, she found that culturally relevant curricula, services, and

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resources to support and guide college decision-making for Black students were missing from schools. This finding highlighted the importance of structural factors, including differential resource allocation to schools, in shaping college “choice.” Further, Freeman (2005) found that familial influence plays a significant role in college decisions, but not in the ways considered in preexisting “choice” frameworks. She found that, regardless of their educational attainment, Black families instilled in their children high academic aspirations. In cases where these families had low or no postsecondary attainment, a central motivation for instilling these aspirations was for the students to achieve an educational level never before obtained in the family. Considering that having higher parental educational attainment confers fewer benefits (including transmitting income and wealth) for Black students than white students (Bumpus et al. 2020), it is important to expand consideration of how the role of educational attainment may differ for Black students compared to other groups. Black and Latinx students are stratified in lower selectivity schools that provide fewer resources to encourage their persistence and completion, and trends indicate that, in recent years, the most “elite” colleges have become more predominantly white (Carnevale and Strohl 2013). These findings have long-term occupational, income, and wealth implications, as Black students who graduate from selective institutions are more likely to enroll in graduate school and earn higher salaries (e.g., Bowen and Bok 1998). Therefore, akin to the perpetual patterns of Black exclusion in higher education, some studies on Black students’ college decisions have rightly focused on the factors that shape the type of institutions they attend (Freeman 1999; Johnson 2017; Tobolowsky et al. 2005). For example, Van Camp, Barden, Sloan, and Clarke (2009) conducted a quantitative study with 167 Black undergraduates of a HBCU to provide insight on the race-related factors that influenced their decisions. They found that racial composition and the opportunity to develop one’s racial identity were two factors positively influencing Black students’ decisions to attend a HBCU. In another study, Van Camp et al. (2010) examined the role of race in the college decision to attend a HBCU. The authors found that students with fewer Black intragroup interactions prior to college were more likely to attend a HBCU. In a similar vein, Freeman (2005) found that Black students who attended predominantly white high schools were more likely to want to attend a HBCU, because of a desire and sense of obligation to learn more about their culture and roots. Such an opportunity might not have been available in their high schools. Holland (2020) found that the quantity and quality of cross-racial interactions in high school and perceptions of how a college environment would prepare them to navigate diverse environments influenced Black students’ college “choice.” Van Camp et al. (2010) found Black high school students whose race was central to their identities were more likely to attend HBCUs. Likewise, in their study of Black gay mens’ college “choice,” Squire and Mobley (2015) found that “participants who self-identified more with their race ultimately attended the HBCU. Those who self-identified more as gay or neither identity attended the PWI” (p. 476). The authors also found students’ perceptions of the campuses climates as an influential factor, in that some Black gay men did not attend a white campus because of how

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they perceived the racial climate, and concluded that attending HBCUs would enable them to feel more a part of a scholarly community, at an institution that valued their contributions (Squire and Mobley 2015). The larger body of college “choice” literature also indicates that geographical proximity to a student’s family of origin shapes college decisions. Research about Black college “choice” further indicates how geographical proximity or location interacts with systems of oppression and identity that shapes Black students’ college destinations. For example, a study on Black gay men’s college decisions found that their assessments of a college’s location was linked to their perceptions of being able to “come out” (Strayhorn et al. 2008). Butler (2010) conducted a quantitative study to examine the relationship between the process of college “choice” and segregation. He interpreted the resulting association between being Black and attending a HBCU in Texas (where he conducted his analysis) as related to the disproportionate proximity of the HBCUs to Black students’ homes in that state, itself a product of historical residential segregation in that state. In their study of Black rural students’ college “choice,” Means et al. (2016) found that these students aspired to attend college, but were concerned about leaving home and being away from their families. Participants in this study lived in a “college desert” (Dache-Gerbino 2018), with even the “local” community college being 45 min away (Means et al. 2016). Geographical location is also a reason why Black students matriculate into community college and for-profit institutions. For example, Lowry (2017) investigated the factors that led Black students to “undermatch,” that is, attend a community college, although they were academically eligible to attend a 4-year institution. Students expressed how concerns about responsibilities to their families of origin, the capacity to pay for college, geographical proximity to their families, and potential to adjust smoothly to college shaped perceptions of where they could enroll. These considerations led them to perceive that community college was their only enrollment option. While lack of information about college options also played a role in these particular students’ “choices,” other research indicates that even among Black high school students whose teachers and counselors encourage their higher education pursuits, some students still lack college-going knowledge or accurate information about financial aid because of the limited resources at their schools (Means et al. 2016), including limited access to school personnel (Corwin et al. 2004). Studies have also found that, even when Black students have demonstrated high academic ability, high educational aspirations, and high support and encouragement from their families, Black students tend to be stigmatized by their high school teachers and counselors (Chapman 2014; Goings and Sewell 2019; Muhammad 2008). Many scholars have interrogated the underutilization of racial theories to examine racial disparities in society (Bonilla-Silva and Baiocchi 2001; Omi and Winant 2014). Similarly, higher education scholars have argued that the development of educational theories that incorporate racial theories could significantly enhance the understanding of racial disparities in school inequities and student outcomes (Harper 2012; Ladson-Billings and Tate 1995; Patton et al. 2007). In response to these critiques, Thandeka Chapman et al. (2020) developed a model “for African

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American college choice and agency” (p. 12). Previous scholarship has in fact utilized Critical Race Theory to examine college “choice” (Acevedo-Gil 2015; Comeaux et al. 2020; Muhammad 2008; Teranishi and Briscoe 2008). However, the strength of Chapman and colleagues’ framework is that it integrates Critical Race Theory to develop a college “choice” framework that examines institutional and political forms of exclusion that circumscribe the said “choice.” Further, by recognizing the assets and community cultural wealth (Yosso 2005) that Black students hold in the “choice” process, their model challenges deficit frames of Black underachievement.

Research on Black Women and College “Choice” While research on Black women’s college experiences has emerged (Chambers and Sharpe 2012; Commodore et al. 2018; Patton et al. 2016; Patton and Croom 2017; Porter et al. 2020; Winkle-Wagner 2015), there were only 48 publications on Black collegiate women in higher education-related research from 1991 to 2012 (Patton et al. 2016). Within higher education journals, Everett and Croom (2017) surveyed 49 higher education journals and found that within the last 10 years, only 14 articles within 7 journals have publications focused on “Black undergraduate womyn.” The dearth of education research focused on Black collegiate women warrants considering the theoretical implications and practical consequences when there is a vast erasure of a student group. At the minimum, we are obligated to question the breadth of what we think we know about these students and interrogate what is taken for granted. Though literature on college “choice” is extensive, empirical research on Black women’s college “choice” is far less common. Within the scant literature, empirical studies on Black women’s college decisions have focused on the roles of parental influence and schools (Butner et al. 2001; Horvat 1997; Muhammad and Dixson 2008; Muhammad et al. 2008; Smith 2008). Notably, most studies on Black women’s college decision focus on the differences in college enrollment between Black women and Black men (Smith and Fleming 2006). Using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth and Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to examine gender differences in the college-going process, Jez (2012) found that Black women were more likely to come from low-income households, have higher academic achievement, apply to college, have higher expectations to complete college, have parents that are more confident that they will complete college, and discuss their college plans with their parents. To further examine these differences, Jez (2012) controlled for habitus, cultural capital, and social capital by selectivity of institution and found no gender differences. Jez (2012) concluded differences in academic achievement, household characteristics, expectations, peer group influences, parent involvement, and school type do not explain the gap in application and attendance rates between African American females and males (p. 54).

Such statistical analyses may not be able to account for exogenous factors that are not measured in these data sets, including factors found to be salient in other

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qualitative research in Black women’s college-going processes. Put differently, such findings and conclusions can obscure other factors that employing a Black feminist lens in the study of college “choice” can bring to light.

A Historical Perspective on Black Feminism The history of Black exclusion from postsecondary education indicates that higher education institutions are racialized institutions (Ray 2019). This history calls on college “choice” scholarship to address the racialization of college opportunity structures. A Black feminist approach is well-positioned to address this racialization because it illuminates the processes that create conditions of subordination and the unjust effects such processes have on minoritized groups’ lived experiences. A Black feminist perspective underscores the complex confluence of race, gender, class, sexuality, nation of origin, religion, disability, and other social identities and forms of domination that circumscribe life chances. In this section, I will provide a brief explanation and history of Black Feminism, followed by analyzing how concepts in Black Feminist Thought provide conceptual tools to study the racialization of the college “choice” process. I will argue that Black Feminist Thought provides an analytical apparatus to identify and examine “racialization” in college “choice” through concepts such as controlling images. Such controlling images include the common positioning in research and in popular media of Black women as a comparatively advantaged and resilient “model minority,” despite considerable evidence otherwise. I also address how Black Feminist Thought’s concepts of self-definition and self-valuation can serve as a corrective to challenge stereotypes about Black women that influence how they are supported (or not) in their educational advancement and postsecondary pursuits. The application of Black Feminism emphasizes that “if you could free the most oppressed people in society, then you would free everyone” (Taylor 2017, p. 5). Black Feminism is an endeavor that offers a way of knowing (Dillard 2006), being (Collins 2002), and reimagining (Davis 2012) that might be pragmatic and/or radical in that it centers Black perspectives as key to shaping the future. Black feminist ontology and epistemology call for examining history as a perspective to inform how to navigate onward. The genealogy of Black Feminisms ties together Black women’s history of subjugation, invisibility, and empowerment with their contemporary social conditions, experiences, and activism. Though often unnamed, unacknowledged, and “behind the scenes,” Black women were the architects in shaping social movements such as the Civil Rights, Black Nationalism (Blain 2018), and the Black Power and Freedom movements (Farmer 2017; Ransby 2003; Spencer 2016). The lineage of Black women’s crusade for liberation can be traced to their leadership in resistance in slave quarters on plantations (Davis 1972; Hartman 2016). Black women were not mere bystanders of the process of their dehumanization but actively challenged their oppressions, in that they participated in slave rebellions and uprisings, or resisted enslavement through various forms, including death (Davis 1972). For the current chapter, I situate Black Feminism in the historicity of Black women’s

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development and engagement with antiracist and antisexist discourses and their involvement in social movements and social justice projects, which are inextricably intertwined (e.g., Collins 2019a). Among the concepts in Black Feminism, that of intersectionality may be more familiar to a wider audience, because of its “travels” to various disciplines, including the field of higher education (Harris and Patton 2019). The concept of intersectionality foundationally reflects a larger Black feminist intellectual and activist tradition (Collins 2019a; Cooper 2016; Hancock 2016; Nash 2019). Common accounts denote the 1960s and 1970s as when the concept of intersectionality was initially developed (e.g., Harris and Patton 2019). However, before critical legal scholar and Black feminist Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term that emerged in academic and legal discourse as intersectionality in the late 1980s (Collins 2019a), Black women were describing and documenting how the intersection of race, gender, class, and sexuality shaped their treatment in US society. In 1861, Harriet Ann Jacobs introduced the enslaved Black woman as the subject while exposing the ills of American slavery in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Early narratives and writings of scholars and activists like Sojourner Truth, Maria Stewart, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, Frances Beal, and Angela Davis also addressed the structural oppression of Black women based on race and gender (see Hancock 2016, for an account of the evolution of Black feminist theory and intersectionality since the 1800s). In 1974, the Combahee River Collective, a collective of Black lesbian feminists, called for the “development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking” (Hull et al. 1982, p. 13). In framing this activity as Black feminist theorizing, Cooper (2016) states this body of proto-intersectionality theorizing advanced the idea that systems of oppressionnamely, racism, classim, sexism, and heterosexism-worked together to create a set of social conditions under which black women and other women of color lived and labored, always in kind of invisible but ever-present social jeopardy (p. 5),

As evidenced in the teachings and praxis of Black feminists, intersectionality is a social justice project that is invested in a political struggle against multiple systems of oppression that constrained those with marginalized identities’ life chances (Collins 2019b). This chapter considers how the application of Black Feminist Thought can be expanded beyond the concept of intersectionality to examine equity in higher education.

Black Feminist Thought Black Feminism includes intellectual lines of inquiry that incorporate diverse disciplinary origins, political connotations, and purposes. Specifically, Black Feminism encompasses Black Feminist Thought (Collins 2002), Critical Race Feminism (Wing 1997), intersectionality (Crenshaw 1991), and womanism (Walker 2004).

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As such, Black Feminist Thought is an “arm of Black Feminism” (Collins 2019a) and is applied here to theorize college-going pathways. As outlined by Collins (1986, 2002), there is not one prescriptive method on how to apply Black Feminism, but Black Feminism approaches center antiracist and antisexist research and activism (Evans-Winters 2019; Guy-Sheftall 1995). Black Feminist Thought is a critical social theory that “encompasses bodies of knowledge and sets of institutional practices that actively grapple with the central questions facing U.S. Black women as a collectivity” (Collins 2002, p. 9). Put differently, Black Feminist Thought is the “ideas produced by Black women that clarify a standpoint of and for Black women (Collins 1986, p. S16). As a theory and methodological process, Black Feminist Thought is a framework to analyze race, class, gender, and sexuality within a system of power and oppression. Black Feminist Thought relies on Black women’s standpoints to analyze the construction of structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal domains of power that hinder life opportunities for Black women. It postulates that analyzing these constructions can also lead to transformation and undoing of oppressive structures. As a theoretical approach, Black Feminist Thought has the potential to advance the field of higher education and student affairs. Scholars have applied Black Feminism to examine the experiences of undergraduate and doctoral students, faculty and administrators, and education leadership. In arguing that Black Feminist Thought and Critical Race Theory can be applied to enhance theories of student development and socialization, Howard-Hamilton (2003) contends that “the use of a single lens or perspective, even one including a “melting pot” view of diversity, cannot help all students, particularly African American women, to feel secure about immersing themselves in the university environment” (p. 20). Following HowardHamilton’s perspective that Black Feminist Thought can enrich the field of higher education, I apply it to the study of college “choice.” For this theoretical contribution, I apply three concepts of Black Feminist Thought: (1) self-definition and self-valuation, (2) the interlocking nature of oppression, and (3) the importance of Black women’s culture to make sense of the factors that constrain Black girl’s and women’s college “choice.” In relation to these themes, I first discuss the importance of the Black Feminist concept of controlling images that necessitate self-definition and self-valuation as interventions to affirm the agency of Black women and girls to draw on their cultural strengths to navigate college and life pathways, expanding their capacity to reach their highest potential. In the following section, I begin by describing what controlling images are to interrogate how various stereotypes about Black women and girls influence institutional behaviors that shape college “choice.”

Controlling Images Black feminist critics contend that controlling images are mechanisms to control, dehumanize, and exploit Black women and Black womanhood (Collins 2002). Defined as external, socially constructed stereotypes, controlling images are used to objectify Black women and justify discriminatory practices. As such, controlling images “make racism, sexism, poverty, and other forms of social injustice appear to

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be natural, normal, and inevitable parts of everyday life” (Collins 2002, p. 69). Taken for granted, the stereotypes of Black women and girls are hegemonic, ideological symbols that shape individual consciousness, relationships with others, and societal values. Though often examined in public policy, cinema, and media (Bogle 2002; Hancock 2004; Wallace-Sanders 2008), I apply the concept of controlling images to understand Black women’s educational experiences that are relevant to college “choice.” Historical and contemporary controlling images of Black women include the mammy, the matriarch, the sapphire, and the Black lady. The mammy is a stereotype of jolly Black mothers that sacrifice their family and self (Wallace-Sanders 2008). The mammy “symbolizes the dominant group’s perceptions of the ideal Black female relationship to elite white male power” because she knows and accepts her subordinate position (Collins 2002, p. 72). Within the context of the exploitation of Black women’s labor, the mammy as a controlling image depicts Black women as aggressive, independent, asexual, and overly devoted to their work (Collins 2002). Within the white gaze, the working status and position of the Black matriarch within familial households emasculates Black men, and Black women’s work commitments are also perverted to suggest how they are unable to properly care for their children and their educational needs (Collins 2002). Originating in pioneer Black sociologist Edward Franklin Frazier’s (1939) book The Negro Family in the United States, the concept of the Black matriarch or “matriarchate” was invoked to describe Black women’s survival response to subordination under racism and capitalism. As pointed out by scholars, however, Frazier’s lack of specificity in defining this concept left it open to deficit interpretations and applications (Allen 1995; Collins 2002), as evidenced in Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s (1965) study, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, commonly referred to as the Moynihan Report. The Moynihan Report popularized an ideology that Black women who failed to fulfill their traditional “womanly” duties at home contributed to social problems in Black civil society (Collins 2002, p. 75). Through the pervasiveness and durability of the controlling image of the Black matriarch, “black women became scapegoats, responsible for the psychological emasculation of black men and for the failure of the black community to gain parity with the white community” (Dill 1979, p. 548). In the higher education setting, Jacqueline Fleming (1983) found that Black undergraduate women on predominantly white campuses developed confident and assertive traits that could be associated with the Black matriarch controlling image. In her interpretation, having to navigate and negotiate white supremacy and patriarchy in historically white institutions required Black women to develop confidence and assertiveness. A contemporary version of a controlling image that bridges the mammy and matriarch is the Black lady. Black ladies are assertive Black women that “stayed in school, worked hard, and have achieved much” and who have become “middle-class professional Black women who represent a modern version of the politics of respectability advanced by the club women” (Collins 2002, pp. 80–81). Similar to how Collins (2002) demonstrates how the depictions of “welfare queen” and “Black lady” work together to construct classed images of Black women, their femininity,

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and work, the construction of Black girls as either “loudies and ladies” (Morris 2007), “good and ghetto” (Jones 2010), and/or ratchet girls are controlling images that stigmatize and limit educational opportunity (Morris 2016; Watson 2016). Previous scholarship has also drawn connections between these deviant characterizations of Black girls and the controlling image of the sapphire. The sapphire is described as “emasculating, loud, aggressive, angry, stubborn, and unfeminine” (Epstein et al. 2017, 5). There is evidence to indicate that controlling images of Black women adversely shape Black women and girls’ educational experiences in the United States (EvansWinters and Esposito 2010). In the schoolyard and in the classroom, Black girls are often rendered as ghetto, “a euphemism for actions that deviate from social norms tied to a narrow, white middle-class definition of femininity” (Morris 2016, p. 10). Sociologist Nikki Jones (2010) argues that the construction of ghetto Black girls is juxtaposed to a Black respectability politics that instructs and deems what is acceptable behavior, and Black women following this respectability politics “distance themselves from behavioral displays of physical aggression or overt sexuality” (Jones 2010, p. 8). Black respectability politics may impose expectations to conform to certain standards of behavior, including those of white femininity, but Black girls, especially those who live in neighborhoods with pervasive structural and interpersonal violence, encounter myriad challenges to survive and defend themselves (Jones 2010). Such conditions of economic deprival and exploitation, gendered racism, segregation, and gentrification necessitate resistive responses for protection and survival. Locating “ghetto girls” outside the caricature of being a “Black lady” or a “good girl” pervades school officials’ perceptions about Black girls and how they should behave. In schools, the image of Black girls as ghetto is read as nonconformity, and there is evidence that it can be utilized to exercise what has been well documented as excessive discipline of Black girls in the K-12 system (e.g., Morris 2016). Moreover, Black girls tend to be viewed as loud and abrasive when they are assertive in the K-12 classroom (Fordham 1993; Morris 2007). Howard-Hamilton (2003) contends that the application of stereotypes of Black women in higher education to educational practices can infringe on Black women’s educational and career opportunities. As a remnant of historical caricatures of Black women and their roles in the community and wider society, including the trope of the Black matriarch, Black women have come to be portrayed as advantaged in comparison to Black men, a framing that, as described below, encompasses terms like “resilience” and “model minority.” Here Black girls and women are commonly framed as being “resilient,” while Black boys and men are perpetually in a “crisis” (Neal-Jackson 2018) or “endangered” (Butler 2013) state. In a related vein, Black women have come to be viewed as a “model minority” within their race (discussed in more detail below), and this phenomenon adversely affects resources for Black women’s education. Interventions for Black boys and adolescents have become well-funded to address their needs (Dumas and Nelson 2016), for example, the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, which aimed “to improve measurably the expected educational and life outcomes for

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and address the persistent opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color” (Office of the Press Secretary, White House 2014), has received at least $200 million in funding (Neal-Jackson 2018). By contrast, although significant evidence indicates that Black women face unique and comparative challenges to Black men, the investment in the similar initiatives to serve Black women and girls and women is estimated to be less than 1 million dollars (Cooper 2014; Neal-Jackson 2018). Disparate resources afforded to Black men and women’s educational advancement initiatives circumscribe Black women’s college “choice.” In association with the resilient controlling image, the model minority controlling image has also been applied to Black women. The model minority image is a stereotypical image of high achievement and success that functions as a tool in “discrediting one racially minoritized group’s real struggles with racial barriers and discrimination through the valorization of oversimplified stereotypes of another racially minoritized group” (Poon et al. 2016, p. 474). Usually applied to Asian Americans in the media and popular discourse, the model minority myth has been critiqued by scholars (Chang 2011; Museus and Kiang 2009) because it is an “insidious racial device used to uphold a global system of racial hierarchies and white supremacy” (Poon et al. 2016, p. 474). More recently, the model minority controlling image has been applied to Black women in understanding their educational experiences and outcomes. For example, Kaba (2008) states the model minority concept could now be extended to include Black American women, because even more than Asian Americans, they have been the subgroup to have suffered the most in the history of not only the USA, but the entire Western Hemisphere or the New World. However, by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Black American women are among the most productive members of the American society (p.331).

Headlines of popular news media have crowned Black women as the “most educated group” in the United States, although, as indicated earlier, the evidence distorts the realities of Black women’s educational attainment (Bronner Helm 2016; Davis 2016). For example, across all racial groups (not just among Black folks), women are more likely to be enrolled in college compared to their male counterparts (NCES 2019b), yet, as discussed earlier, there is an emphasis in research and policy on this enrollment gap among Black students in particular. Further, analyses of Black women’s college enrollment patterns reveal that they disproportionately attend for-profit institutions in comparison to other groups, a pattern that can adversely affect their educational attainment and college debt (Davis et al. 2020; Espinosa et al. 2019). Moreover, Black women’s 6-year graduation rates from 4-year institutions are among the lowest of all racial groups, with the exception of those of Indigenous students (NCES 2019f). Further, the research on Black women’s and girls’ experiences in the United States carceral state disrupts the dominant narrative that Black girls are shielded from gendered racism and state-sanctioned and education violence (Wun 2016, 2018). In reference to the murder of Tamir Rice, Morris (2016) provides a particularly vivid portrayal of how Black girls are adversely affected by police violence:

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Even in high-profile cases involving boys, we often fail to see the girls who were right there alongside them...officers tackled his fourteen-year-old sister to the ground and handcuffed her. Not only had she just watched her little brother die at the hands of these officers, but she was forced to grieve his death from the backseat of a police car (p. 2).

Assertions that Black women, or any racially minoritized group, are an exemplar for other disenfranchised groups to emulate obscure how white supremacy, including that related to state sanctioned violence, impacts the everyday lives and opportunities of minoritized groups. The argument of a “new model minority” inflicts harm to Black women and men because it implies that accountability for societal equity rests on the individual and/or status group to overcome institutional barriers, instead of interrogating how systems of oppression impede on the potential for equitable livelihoods across race and gender. As noted earlier, critics have pointed out that “the failure to account for racism/ white supremacy gender/patriarchy when considering Black collegiate women’s experiences is nonsensical at least and absurd at best” (Patton and Croom 2017, p. 2). While the rhetoric of a “new model minority” may be absurd, given the evidence cited earlier, its implications nonetheless extend into empirical research as well as popular media. For example, Black men are currently the most researched racial group in education studies (Harper and Newman 2016). Such research is warranted and definitely needed. Yet, too often the rationale for research with Black men and boys centers comparing their plights to Black women and girls’ educational attainment and perceived academic success. As noted before, the constant portrayal of Black men and boys in crisis dominates social science literature and influences or reinforces the proliferation of outreach, policies, and initiatives that almost exclusively focus on enriching the education and life opportunities for Black (and Latinx) men (Butler 2013; Dumas and Nelson 2016), while initiatives to support Black women are hardly resourced at all in comparison. The advantaged Black woman trope, as a descendant of the Black matriarch controlling image, reflects the accumulation of persistent trends to pathologize Black woman and to misinterpret statistical data on educational attainment, including data related to college access and “choice.” The failure to see Black women and girls beyond hyperbolic caricatures of educational success results in inadequate approaches to address expanding Black women’s college access and cultivate enriching experiences that support their aspirations to reach their highest potential, thus compromising Black women’s potential for college “choice.” In examining the historical and ideological underpinnings of the educational advantage of Black women, we can identify the limitations of incomplete portrayals and move toward a research agenda that reframes Black women and girls worthy of an education and a life that does not necessitate taxing endurance and resilience against adversity. Further, organizing policy and programmatic approaches to address Black girl’s and women’s unique needs can expand their potential to pursue a wider range of postsecondary possibilities and to expand their college “choice” options.

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Interlocking Nature of Oppression Evidence about the consequences of the prevalence and enactment of these controlling images of Black women and girls indicates how these stereotypes perpetuate interlocking racialized, gendered, and class systems that can channel Black girls’ and women’s opportunities into narrower confines of college “choice.” For instance, studies have found how school officials and educator’s negative perceptions of Black girls are biased in that they reflect the personnel’s preconceived notions about students, and yet penalize students and disrupt their educational pursuits (Crenshaw et al. 2015a; Morris 2016). From this perspective, controlling images of Black girls in the K-12 education can influence how institutional agents and teachers in schools treat these girls. In essence, this treatment embodies the enactment of interlocking systems of power in schools which can affect whether these girls are pushed out of the education system, pursue higher education, seek vocational training, in the criminal legal system, or follow other alternative life paths. One critical case where interlocking systems of power is exercised involves the disproportionate disciplinary rates of Black girls by school officials and administrators (e.g., Morris 2016). Morris and Perry (2017) have found that disciplinary action imposed on Black girls is typically conducted through office referrals, and that Black girls are often cited for dress code violations, disruptive behavior, and disobedience, which are offenses that open to officials’ interpretation and susceptible to ambiguity, subjectiveness, and implicit bias. In their analysis of disciplinary data of Denver Public Schools, Annamma et al. (2019) found that Black girls were suspended at rates higher than other girls, than white and Latino boys, and more than the school district average. These researchers concluded that excessive discipline and policing practices are exercised through filters of controlling images and dominant narratives about Black women and girls (Annamma et al. 2019). The punitive inequalities experienced by Black girls are perpetuated by the dominant discourses about Black girlhood and Blackness. Black girls often challenge hegemonic notions of docile femininity (Morris 2007), and behaving outside of white norms of feminity (e.g., Collins 2002; Fleming 1983) can lead school officials to render Black girls outside of femininity itself. In such cases, “Blackness compromises and modifies perceptions of appropriate femininity, which is coded as white” (Morris and Perry 2017, p. 144). Interlocking with racism and sexism, other systems of power including classism, heterosexism, able-bodiedness and colorism preclude Black girls from confirming with narrow cis-white narratives of girlhood that are privileged in schooling. For example, Morris (2016) found that a gender nonconforming Black youth was characterized as a “distraction” and “disruptive” by their teachers, a characterization which led to excessive disciplinary measures against the student. Such policing reflects a desire to surveillance and punish Blackness and othered genders. And even more so, excessive and inappropriate policing deprives Black girls of experiencing a full childhood (Morris 2016). Historical analyses and current research indicate that over time, in contrast to their non-Black peers, Black girls have often not been perceived as children, but rather, as adults. Adultification is a term that “comprises contextual, social, and developmental processes in which you are prematurely, and often inappropriately, exposed to adult

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knowledge and assume extensive adult roles and responsibilities within their family networks” (Burton 2007, p. 329). For Black children, adultification has historical lineages to the institution of slavery. For example, enslaved Black children were expected to work and live under the same repressive conditions as enslaved Black adults and elders (Dumas and Nelson 2016). Further, enslaved Black children were often separated from their families and auctioned to different plantations as a method to control and alienate the Black child. The Black child was systematically denied a “childhood.” Reflecting and mirroring the horrors of the past, there continues to be systemic cultural prejudice that becomes operationalized in social policy and everyday institutional practices. But more than prejudice, Black children are subject to a process of dehumanization. While prejudice signifies negative attitudes that can lead to discrimination, dehumanization involves something far more dangerous: a construction of the Other as not human, as less than human, and therefore undeserving of the emotional and moral recognition accorded to those whose share humanity is understood. (Dumas and Nelson 2016, p. 29)

In a report, Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood, researchers conducted a community survey to elicit data on perceptions about children’s innocence and adultification. Among 325 adults, with 74% of participants being white, the survey data indicated that Black girls are viewed by adults as knowing more about sex and adult topics than other girls (Epstein et al. 2017). They are also perceived as having independent personality characteristics, a perspective associated with school officials’ views that Black girls need less support and protection to navigate school. Taken together, the educational violence that Black girls endure in school contribute to a “spirit murdering,” which is “the denial of inclusion, protection, safety, nurturance, and acceptance because of fixed, yet fluid and moldable, structures of racism” (Love 2016, p. 2). The intersection of systems of oppression adversely impacts college-going pathways and decision-making as revealed in Black women’s educational experiences: “The criminalization of Black girls is much more than a street phenomenon. It has extended into our schools, disrupting one of the most important protective factors in a girl’s life: her education” (Morris 2016, p. 3). The unfair disciplinary practices that target Black girls restrict their educational opportunities. As contended by Annamma et al. 2019, “channeling Black girls out of schools and into carceral institutions, schools are protecting education for the most privileged...education is a property right instilled by Whiteness, with the absolute right to exclude those outside of Whiteness” (p. 217). The school-to-prison nexus indicates how disciplinary practices and punishment within schools can lead to educational pushout and incarceration. The sanctioning of students via suspension, expulsion, or grade retention is the strongest predictor of incarceration among adolescent girls (Annamma et al. 2019; Wald and Losen 2003). Previous college “choice” studies have found repeating a grade (often necessitated with incarceration) is associated with being pushed out of high school and not pursuing college. Further, incarceration can have a lasting impact on an individual’s college and career aspirations. For example, incarceration and/or one’s conviction can be used to deny college admissions (Annamma 2018) and to restrict or deny financial aid eligibility for federal and many state programs

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(Custer and Akaeze 2019). This is important, given that the provision of financial aid has been shown to influence decisions for low-income, Black students and the growing population of formerly incarcerated students and students in prisons (Castro and Zamani-Gallaher 2018). Moreover, the excessive exercise of school discipline interrupts academic and college preparation. Even when punishment does not necessarily involve law enforcement, detention in school detracts from students’ educational time to pursue required academic coursework for college. This is especially concerning given research that has shown academic and college preparation is the strongest predictor of college enrollment (e.g., Cabrera and La Nasa 2000). Excessive discipline also informs the biases of teachers and counselors on the extent to which certain students are provided college knowledge and who receives alternative options, if any at all. Muhammad and Dixson (2008), addressing the well-documented fact that Black girls are overrepresented in vocational tracks, questioned whether this condition is due to a “. . .concerted effort on the part of these students to get ahead in the workforce...or whether these women, who are most likely ‘average’ students, are being pushed out of the general curricular track on to tracks where more success for people ‘like them’ is perceived” (p. 171). In sum, academic and disciplinary trends regarding Black girls in K-12 schooling can shape the extent to which these girls have full agency in college “choice.”

Black Women’s Culture, Self-definition, and Self-valuation Black women’s culture refers to “the ideological frame of reference – namely, the symbols and values of self-definition and self-valuation – that assist Black women in seeing the circumstances shaping race, class, and gender oppression” (Collins 1986, S22). With the contention that Black girls’ socialization and identity development is racialized and gendered, consideration on how students come to know who they are, their social positions, and how to navigate their social worlds is imperative. Research has expanded to apply an intersectional lens to examine the identity development and socialization of Black women and girls (Mims and Williams 2020; Porter 2017; Porter et al. 2020). Lauren Mims and Joanna Williams (2020) applied the multiple worlds model (Phelan et al. 1991) to examine how families, peer groups, classrooms, and schools shape what and how Black girls learn about race and racism. The authors approached the study with the assumption that Black girls navigate different worlds that may or may not be congruent with each other (i.e., homelife and school). Examining identity development within the context of systems of oppressions, the authors found Black adolescent girls’ understandings of race were based on their social interactions that predominantly occurred within schools. The prevalence of dehumanized portrayals of Black women in the curriculum and experiences of being ridiculed by peers because of those of images influenced students’ understandings of race and their own racial identity development. Mims and Williams (2020) concluded that “Black girls’ discussions of what being their own race meant to them indicated that they were connecting race with social processes related to bias and discrimination” (p. 118).

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The interplay between oppression, consciousness, and activism that is so salient to Black women’s lives and ways of knowing (Collins 1986) could also be salient to their college “choice.” Collins (1986) argues that Black women’s culture suggests that the relationship between oppressed people’s consciousness of oppression and the actions they take in dealing with oppressive structures may be far more complex than that suggested by existing social theory. Conventional social science continues to assume a fit between consciousness and activity; hence, accurate measures of human behavior are thought to produce accurate portraits of human consciousness of self and social structure (p. S23).

Because Black women and girls are not monolith, their college decisions and the processes that shape those decisions may vary. Such processes may be attributed to the various ways that students exercise their agency as they navigate their social worlds. Considering Black women’s potential to enact the agency in their educational pathways, the appeal of advancing a new positive trope in place of limiting and controlling images to apply to their educational experiences is captivating. However, Collins (1986) asserts that “replacing negative stereotypes with ostensibly positive ones can be equally problematic if the function of stereotypes as controlling images remains unrecognized” (p. S17). To truly expand Black women’s college “choice” possibilities, it is critical to develop research and praxis perspectives and approaches that fully and authentically honor their humanity and well-being. Accordingly, the Black feminist concepts of self-definition and self-valuation are of particular relevance to understanding the capacity to broaden Black women’s educational opportunities. Self-definition refers to affirming Black women’s lived experiences as fully human (Collins 1986). Self-valuation “stresses the content of Black women’s self-definition – namely, replacing externally-derived images with authentic Black female images” (Collins 1986, p. S17). This concept centers on Black women as subjects – persons who are shaped and shaping their social context and the lives they live on their own terms. As noted, in her education research on the experiences of Black collegiate women, Fleming (1983) challenged the Black matriarch controlling image, asserting that the persistence of this stereotype resulted from biased research that implicitly or explicitly compared the experiences of Black women to those of white women with respect to work and labor: Perhaps the real truth is not that black women are stronger or more dominant than black men, but rather that they are less passive and dependent less “feminine,” in terms of white stereotypes than white women. (p. 43)

Her findings suggest the importance of understanding Black women’s postsecondary experiences on their own terms – rather than in relationship to an inappropriate and unrealistic (and in this case majoritarian) standard. Thus, Fleming’s (1983) findings confirmed the necessity of self-definition and self-valuation in examining women’s experiences in domains such as higher education (Collins 1986, 2002).

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One recent example of self-valuation and self-definition can be found in a recent scholarly, praxis-oriented, and activist response to the pervasiveness of inaccurate narratives around how the carceral state affects Black women and girls. The African American Policy Forum founded by Kimberlé Crenshaw and Luke Charles Harris have developed initiatives (i.e., #WhyWeCantWait) and campaigns (i.e., #SayHerName) to address the status of Black women in education and their suffering at the hands of state violence (Crenshaw et al. 2015b). This includes combatting the invisibility of Black women in My Brother’s Keeper and public discourses surrounding the Movement for Black Lives (Black Lives Matter) (which contradict controlling images of Black women as advantaged). Their report, Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced, and Underprotected analyzed how school discipline impacts Black girls and has deepened the knowledge on the prison-to-school nexus (Crenshaw et al. 2015a). This form of knowledge production is linked to praxis that works to dismantle oppressive power relations and transform public policy and discourse. In the context of Black women and girls’ college “choice,” self-definition and self-valuation challenge narrow orientations that reinforce intersection systems of oppression that subordinate Black women and girls in education and society. As the evidence discussed in this review indicates, controlling images and tropes like “ladies and loudies” (Morris 2007) or “good and ghetto” (Jones 2010), and the associated surveillance and over policing of Black girls forecloses the capacity to obtain a full range of educational options in K-12 schooling, with significant consequences in constraining college “choice.” Conversely, when Black girls are inappropriately perceived as being advantaged, their specific challenges become invisible, and opportunities are missed on how to fully address the challenges they may be encountering. A Black feminist perspective and associated concepts can be applied to inquiry about college “choice” about populations beyond Black women and girls. Engaging with questions such as the following can expand considerations of how power structures enhance or constrain students’ postsecondary options: (1) What controlling images and stereotypes affect a population’s access to collegegoing resources? How do practices related to these controlling images expand or constrain such resources? For example, how does the model minority myth regarding Asian Americans affect the support offered by teachers and school personnel to Hmong students and other Asian American ethnic subgroups with far lower than average college-going rates? (e.g., Museus et al. 2016). (2) What interlocking systems of power affect a population’s capacity to pursue a full range of college options? For example, how do systems such as racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and nativism constrain or enhance postsecondary options for Afro-Latinx students who might be considering attending HBCUs, where they might encounter distinctive kinds of microaggressions? (Palmer and Maramba 2015). (3) How do members of minoritized communities draw on their cultural resources such as college conocimiento in the case of Latinx students (Acevedo-Gil 2017) to challenge and navigate interlocking and oppressive power structures that constrain college “choice”?

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(4) How do self-definition and self-valuation based on a student’s cultural background affect college “choice”? For example, how does an emphasis on “giving back” to one’s community, as evidenced in U.S. Native and indigenous communities (e.g, Reyes 2019), influence where, how, and for what purpose members of these communities pursue postsecondary education? As evidenced in this review, such applications of Black Feminist Theory show great potential to help scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and activists specify dimensions of economic, political, and social power structures that can serve as sites for interventions to expand college “choice” for minoritized groups and to identify and develop institutional processes that foster greater equity in college opportunity.

Conclusion: New Imaginings and Possibilities Looking to advance college “choice” research, policy and practice, Bergerson (2009) called for increased attention to the specific experiences of groups with different social identities as they move through the college choice process. . .[and] solutions for the stratification of higher education in educational systems, social contexts, and policies...enhancing the ability to identify and address the barriers (p. 113).

This review extends college “choice” research on the connection between racial identity and college pathways to invite examining Black and minoritized students’ college “choice” in ways that situate college decisions within structural systems of power and oppression. Examining whether and to what extent students account for forms of domination like racism, patriarchy, classism, heteronormativity, and nativism when making a college “choice” can expand the understanding of how students construct a “consideration set” (McDonough 1997) of college options. Simultaneously, such an examination can also illuminate how these systems of power contribute to constructing – and often limiting – that set of college options. Like other critical social theories that focus on the role of institutional and societal power in affecting life chances, Black Feminist Thought provides analytical tools to examine the oppression of minoritized students and to draw on the resulting knowledge to develop equitable pathways into higher education for all students, particularly Black women and girls. Black Feminist Thought provides a lens to examine power relations and the intersection of systems of oppression as forces that have shaped and continues to shape the higher education and who has access to college participation. Realizing equity in educational and life opportunities requires transformative change in which systems that infringe upon minoritized groups are dismantled and abolished. Collins (2002) argued that “. . . becoming empowered requires more than changing the consciousness of individual Black women via Black community development strategies. Empowerment also requires transforming unjust social

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institutions that African-Americans encounter from one generation to the next” (p. 273). Her concept of the matrix of domination illuminates how societal power structures work in tandem to circumscribe college pathways and “choice.” Collins’s (2002) concept of matrix of domination recognizes a full range of individual, cultural, and structural factors intertwined with interlocking systems of power shown to affect Black students’ college “choice” in this chapter’s review. Future studies can employ Black Feminist Thought and other critical lenses to examine how racialized and gendered violence, homelessness, and criminalization contribute to limiting postsecondary opportunity structures for minoritized students (Edwards 2020; Huerta et al. 2020). As of 2020, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has raised significant uncertainty about how higher education will serve students with diverse backgrounds. Further, the consequences of the pandemic could exacerbate the already widespread economic, social, political, and educational inequality. Simultaneously, through worldwide protests, Black folks and others are challenging how global antiBlack racism, racial capitalism, and white supremacy have asymmetrically distributed life opportunities toward historically advantaged groups. It is a pivotal time for higher education scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to redress the various ways postsecondary inequities have been maintained through the construction and maintenance of racist, gendered, capitalist, nativist, and associated power structures. Rapid responses to the pandemic’s consequences in higher education that have necessitated quick shifts to online learning in 2020, or to some universities waiving their typical SAT and ACT testing college admissions requirements, ought to illustrate that historically resisted innovations can be implemented quickly, when the political will is there. Such lessons can be applied to future innovations to expand equity in higher education.

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Turley, R. N. L. (2009). College proximity: Mapping access to opportunity. Sociology of Education, 82(2), 126–146. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2019a). Total fall enrollment in degree-granting postsecondary institutions, by attendance status, sex of student, and control of institution: Selected years, 1947 through 2029 Biennial Survey of Education in the United States; Opening Fall Enrollment in Higher Education, 1963 through 1965; Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS), “Fall Enrollment in Colleges and Universities” surveys, 1966 through 1985; Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), “Fall Enrollment Survey” (IPEDS-EF:86-99); IPEDS Spring 2001 through Spring 2019, Fall Enrollment component; and Enrollment in Degree-Granting Institutions Projection Model, 2000 through 2029. (This table was prepared December 2019.) https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/ d19/tables/dt19_303.10.asp?current¼yes. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2019b). Total fall enrollment in degree-granting postsecondary institutions, by level of enrollment, sex, attendance status, and race/ethnicity or nonresident alien status of student: Selected years, 1976 through 2018 Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS), “Fall Enrollment in Colleges and Universities” surveys, 1976 and 1980; Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), “Fall Enrollment Survey” (IPEDS-EF:90); and IPEDS Spring 2001 through Spring 2019, Fall Enrollment component. (This table was prepared September 2019.) https://nces.ed. gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_306.10.asp?current¼yes. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2019c). Fall enrollment, degrees conferred, and expenditures in degree-granting historically Black colleges and universities, by institution: 2017, 2018, and 2017–18 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), Fall 2018, Completions component; Spring 2018 and Spring 2019, Fall Enrollment component; and Spring 2019, Finance component. (This table was prepared November 2019.) https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_313.10.asp?current¼yes. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2019d). Fall enrollment in degree-granting historically Black colleges and universities, by sex of student and level and control of institution: Selected years, 1976 through 2018 Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS), “Fall Enrollment in Colleges and Universities,” 1976 through 1985 surveys; Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), “Fall Enrollment Survey” (IPEDSEF:86-99); and IPEDS Spring 2001 through Spring 2019, Fall Enrollment component. (This table was prepared November 2019.) https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_313.20.asp. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2019e). Selected statistics on degree-granting historically Black colleges and universities, by control and level of institution: Selected years, 1990 through 2018 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), “Fall Enrollment Survey” (IPEDS-EF:90); IPEDS Spring 2001, Spring 2011, and Spring 2019, Fall Enrollment component; IPEDS Spring 2019, Finance component; and IPEDS Fall 2018, Completions component. (This table was prepared November 2019.) https://nces.ed. gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_313.30.asp?current¼yes. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2019f). Bachelor’s degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions, by race/ethnicity and sex of student: Selected years, 1976–77 through 2017–18 Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS), “Degrees and Other Formal Awards Conferred” surveys, 1976–77 and 1980–81; Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), “Completions Survey” (IPEDS-C:90-99); and IPEDS Fall 2000 through Fall 2018, Completions component. (This table was prepared October 2019.) https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_322.20.asp?current¼yes. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2019g). Percentage distribution of first-time, full-time bachelor’s degree-seeking students at 4-year postsecondary institutions 6 years after entry, by completion and enrollment status at first institution attended, sex, race/ethnicity, control of institution, and percentage of applications accepted: Cohort entry years 2007 and 2012 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), Winter 2013–14 and Winter 2018–19 Graduation Rates component; and IPEDS Fall 2007 and Fall 2012, Institutional Characteristics component. (This table was prepared October 2019.) https://nces. ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_326.15.asp?current¼yes.

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Van Camp, D., Barden, J., Sloan, L., & Clarke, R. (2009). Choosing an HBCU: An opportunity to pursue racial self-development. Journal of Diversity in Negro Education, 78(4), 457–468. Van Camp, D., Barden, J., & Sloan, L. R. (2010). Predictors of black students’ race-related reasons for choosing an HBCU and intentions to engage in racial identity-relevant behaviors. Journal of Black Psychology, 36(2), 226–250. Waite, C. L. (2002). Permission to remain among us: Education for blacks in Oberlin, Ohio, 1880– 1914. Greenwood Publishing Group. Wald, J., & Losen, D. J. (2003). Defining and redirecting a school-to-prison pipeline. New Directions for Youth Development, 2003(99), 9–15. Walker, A. (2004). In search of our mothers’ gardens: Womanist prose. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Wallace, M. (2015). Black macho and the myth of the superwoman. Verso Books. Wallace-Sanders, K. (2008). Mammy: A century of race, gender, and southern memory. University of Michigan Press. Watson, T. N. (2016). “Talking back”: The perceptions and experiences of black girls who attend City High School. The Journal of Negro Education, 85(3), 239–249. Wells, R. S., & Lynch, C. M. (2012). Delayed college entry and the socioeconomic gap: Examining the roles of student plans, family income, parental education, and parental occupation. The Journal of Higher Education, 83(5), 671–697. Wilder, C. S. (2013). Ebony and ivy: Race, slavery, and the troubled history of Americas. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. Williams, J. L., & Palmer, R. T. (2019). A response to racism: How HBCU enrollment grew in the face of hatred. https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/98987. Williams, K. L., Burt, B. A., Clay, K. L., & Bridges, B. K. (2019). Stories untold: Counternarratives to anti-Blackness and deficit-oriented discourse concerning HBCUs. American Educational Research Journal, 56(2), 556–599. Wing, A. K. (Ed.). (1997). Critical race feminism: A reader. New York University Press. Winkle-Wagner, R. (2015). Having their lives narrowed down? The state of Black women’s college success. Review of Educational Research, 85(2), 171–204. Wun, C. (2016). Unaccounted foundations: Black girls, anti-Black racism, and punishment in schools. Critical Sociology, 42(4/5), 737–750. Wun, C. (2018). Angered: Black and non-Black girls of color at the intersections of violence and school discipline in the United States. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(4), 423–437. Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. Yosso, T. J., Parker, L., Solórzano, D. G., & Lynn, M. (2004). From Jim Crow to affirmative action and back again: A critical race discussion of racialized rationales and access to higher education. Review of Research in Education, 28(1), 1–25. Zinshteyn, M. (2016). The colleges are watching. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/educa tion/archive/2016/11/the-colleges-are-watching/506129/.

Channel McLewis is an Assistant Project Scientist in Higher Education and Organizational Change at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research investigates Black participation in higher education, with an emphasis on the sociology of race, gender, and inequities in accessing postsecondary options. Specifically, McLewis examines how Black women, as they navigate the higher education terrain, experience intersecting systems of power and how they negotiate their multifaceted identities.

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Queer and Trans College Student Success A Comprehensive Review and Call to Action Jason C. Garvey and C. V. Dolan

Contents Queer and Trans College Student Success: A Comprehensive Review and Call to Action . . . Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Framing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Epistemology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jay’s Positionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dolan’s Positionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Identity Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Student Development Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Outness and Identity Disclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Queerphobia and Transphobia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Normativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Finances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptual Model of Student Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Free Application for Federal Student Aid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . College Choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relationships and Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multicontextual Model for Diverse Learning Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Belonging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transformational Tapestry Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . National Inventories of QT Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutional Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutional Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Minority Stress Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nondiscrimination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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J. C. Garvey (*) · C. V. Dolan University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7_2

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Violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sexual Stigma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutional Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Policy and Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Using Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to explore queer and trans (QT) student success. We center our own positionalities and utilize intersectionality and queer theory as epistemologies to frame our explorations. The core focus of our manuscript is rooted in undergraduate student experiences with goals of illuminating how various overlapping contexts are uniquely experienced for QT collegians. Within our manuscript, we highlight the relevance of identity development, finances, relationships and spaces, institutions, and society on QT student success. We present this chapter with a commitment to social change for QT students and an obligation to engage campus administrators, higher education researchers, and legislators as our primary audiences. In order to maximize the impact of our scholarship, we organize our implications to focus on five important dimensions of success for QT students: institutional change, data collection, data analysis, policy and legislation, and using frameworks. In all we do and write, we strive to uplift QT students through equity-driven scholarship. Keywords

Queer · Trans · Undergraduate students · Higher education · Student success · Intersectionality · Queer theory · Identity development · Finances · Relationships and spaces · Institutions · Society · Frameworks · Student development theory · Multicontextual model for diverse learning environments · Belonging · Transformational tapestry model · Minority stress theory · College and university administrators · Higher education researchers · Legislators

Queer and Trans College Student Success: A Comprehensive Review and Call to Action In the current hostile sociopolitical landscape, students, educators, education administrators, and legislators are witnessing and experiencing vacuums in federal and state protections for equitable education outcomes for queer and trans (QT) students. The current political administration has wreaked havoc on protections for QT people, including narrowing federal nondiscrimination legislation to exclude QT

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people, while local and state legislators have contested restroom bills to limit the safety of trans people. Further, QT students of color and QT immigrant students have faced additional threats to their success in school and overall safety through the Muslim ban, uncertainty of the continuation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, increased detention and deportation, continued voter suppression, and threats to affirmative action. These legal and political acts, along with many others, have put QT students in danger. In addition, education leaders must reckon with the invisibility and exclusion of QT students in education policy that has predated these rollbacks. Without federal mandates or consistent statewide legislation, institutional nondiscrimination policies rarely include protections for sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. This concern is symptomatic of not only the political attacks on QT survival but also of a demonstrated lack of institutional priority to ensure QT student success. As institutions undergo massive budget cuts at federal, state, and local levels, campus advocates and activists are concerned with the diminishment or removal of QT and other identity support services. Too few education data sets exist nationally that include QT students, and there is vast inconsistency institutionally as colleges and universities fail to prioritize collecting and analyzing quantitative or qualitative data about QT students. This dearth of QT student data demonstrates disregard of QT students, dehumanizing and erasing their experiences in student success scholarship and initiatives. Student success literature and research has a strong foothold in education research priorities. However, this literature heteronormatively and cisnormatively flattens students without attending to the unique and identity-specific conditions for QT student success. Although student success scholarship has grown to include examinations within and across social identities, rarely does this body of work include QT students. Therefore, the ways in which scholars define student success is based on cisgender and heterosexual dominance and identity-neutral politics. Yet, even when researchers recognize the need to discuss QT student success, the void of demographic data for QT students prevents scholars from producing nationally representative implications or conclusions. Defining student success broadly is a bold and important task, requiring the recognition and measurement of multiple methods of resilience situated within a multiply-oppressive system. Further, to define QT student success requires a holistic understanding of QT students’ academic, social, community, and personal experiences within educational contexts. Then, the barriers and facilitators of QT student success begin to emerge.

Purpose The purpose of this chapter is to explore QT student success. The core focus is rooted in undergraduate student experiences, with goals of illuminating how various overlapping contexts are uniquely experienced for QT collegians. Within

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our manuscript, we illuminate the relevance of identity development, finances, relationships and spaces, institutions, and society on QT student success. In all we do and write, we strive to uplift QT students through equity-driven scholarship. The intended audiences for this chapter are campus administrators, higher education researchers, and legislators. Although we expect a number of stakeholders to develop meaningful insights from this manuscript, we direct our conversation specifically to administrators, researchers, and legislators to recognize the dearth of scholarship that discusses large-scale educational contexts or policy for QT students in postsecondary education. Such a void in the literature is a disservice to QT students, and we place responsibility on administrators, researchers, and legislators to remedy these inequities through institutional and systems reform. We expect campus administrators to develop greater understanding about the institutional resources and policies that may foster student success among QT collegians. Recognizing the financial demands to support such initiatives, we direct our chapter to administrators who are in positions to advocate for socially conscious and equity-driven resource (re)allocation to serve QT students who have been historically ignored in higher education. There are a number of important methodological, theoretical, and empirical insights throughout the chapter, all of which will be relevant to researchers in higher education across all subdisciplines. Although most content relates directly to QT student success and experiences, we encourage higher education researchers with other focuses (e.g., methods, faculty, organizations and administration, policy and finance, teaching and learning) to pay close attention to the broader scholarly and social change implications of this chapter. Furthermore, contents in this chapter are not meant to be read solely by QT researchers who perform QT scholarship. QT students occupy all facets of higher education, across all sectors, institutional types, and student populations. Every education researcher is responsible for uplifting QT students in their broader body of scholarship. Regarding legislation, there is a deep void of institutional, state, or federal policies to support QT student success. We implore legislators to read this chapter and create new legislation or reform current legislation to elevate student success among QT students. Recognizing the power of coalition building, we encourage legislators who want to foster positive social change to begin institutionally and then develop cross-institutional partnerships to advocate for state and federal legislation that uplifts QT people in education. We begin our chapter by introducing our epistemology and positionalities as authors. Within the framing section, we also overview our intention to ground administrative, scholarly, and legislative conversations in existing student success frameworks commonly used in higher education scholarship. Next, we overview five major themes within our chapter that shape QT student success: identity development, finances, relationships and spaces, institutions, and society. We close with implications for institutional administrators, higher education researchers, and legislators in how to take action to value, measure, and improve QT student success.

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Framing Within this section, we ground ourselves by discussing our epistemology or how we understand the nature of knowing (Patton et al. 2016). Intimately connected to how we know what we know are our own positionalities and how we have come to devote ourselves to uplifting QT students through scholarship, practice, and advocacy.

Epistemology In this chapter, we use intersectionality theory to explore QT student success. While often misunderstood or utilized below its capacity for impact, intersectionality has the potential to transform education scholarship and approaches for social change. Additionally, we use queer theory as a tool to expose binary oversimplifications of QT student success concepts and focus on institutional and policy-level transformation rather than a focus on improving individual student persistence. Intersectionality. Intersectionality is a call to recognize interlocking systems of oppression (Crenshaw 1989, 1991) by moving past single-axis ways of thinking, being, and knowing (May 2015). We scaffold this epistemic approach by employing six core intersectionality constructs developed by Collins (2019) to synthesize literature on QT student success. These constructs include relationality, power, social inequality, social context, managing complexity, and using social justice as praxis. Critical thinking and creating knowledge through an intersectional lens require a focus on relational processes and the connections among categories and identities. Recognition of multiple ways of being is only the first step in using an intersectional approach; we must consider the ways that power manifests within these identities. We do not believe in neutral or static categories of identities. Rather, we know that dominant identities hold power and that oppressive systems anchor hierarchies. In these ways, social inequality provides the context for our understandings of QT student success. Additionally, we commit to analyzing QT student success with matrix thinking rather than through binary analyses and buzzwords (May 2015). We commit to strategies that de-center dominance and re-center the most marginalized students as we make recommendations. Intersectional theory requires researchers to manage complexity, rather than avoid or flatten complexity (Collins 2019). Power dynamics mark bodies, and researchers must resist flattening social problems by viewing them through monocategorical lenses of sexuality or gender (Collins 2017). Therefore, we embrace matrix thinking (May 2015) in order to analyze the intersections and overlaps of identity categories and propose complicated solutions to complex and textured social issues. We recognize the lure to simplify nuance by constructing binary ways of defining concepts such as retention, success, persistence, and degree attainment (Denton 2020). Further, we commit to describing and addressing QT student success with a vision of social justice and demonstrating that this praxis in inherently joined with liberatory research and legislation.

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Queer theory. Similar to intersectionality, queer theory rejects simplified solutions to complex social problems (Jagose 1996). Discourse about including QT students in retention and success initiatives often centers the most palatable, normative, and dominant QT students’ needs, othering QT students who do not fit the normative narrative of the institutional culture (Denton 2020). In this way, institutional agents are constructing normative QT subjects worthy of success and inclusion and nonnormative QT subjects who are excluded (Foucault 1990). As QT researchers, we disavow hierarchies of worthiness within our QT communities, and we resist the falsity of inclusion narratives that inevitably seek to fold QT students into dominant cultures (Conrad 2014). Rather, we seek to illuminate hegemony and normativizing rhetoric that exist in QT student success research, asserting that all QT students deserve healthy and successful educational experiences. Throughout this chapter, we weave Collins’ (2019) six constructs and matrix thinking (May 2015) with the goal of illuminating new understandings of QT student success. Queer theory anchors us in our resistance toward mere QT inclusion in dominant narratives of success. Further, using intersectionality theory and queer theory as analysis tools grounds us in the logic that studying and serving the most marginalized students is liberating for all students.

Jay’s Positionality The lens through which I primarily view the world is through my gay/queer identity. I also situate myself as a white cisgender man who currently benefits from the financial and positional privilege of being a faculty member in a state university. Combined, these social locations shape my interactions with and perceptions of academia as a site for transformation and liberation. I began my undergraduate experience in 2002 and largely determined my college choice based on tuition remission afforded to me from my mother’s employment as an accountant at a university. Her professional sacrifices afforded me the opportunity to attend college. Throughout college, I had loving support from my parents, yet had to navigate multiple contexts on my own. Although I performed during high school and college with high academic achievement, I rarely had a clear direction of my purpose in life. From an outside view, I was doing well academically and socially. Yet internally, I was struggling to find faculty or staff mentors. I relied heavily on peer supports, largely through my cocurricular engagements in athletics and performing arts. All through college, I hid my sexuality from everyone in my life. To cope with my secret second life, I would engage in high-risk binge drinking and other unhealthy behaviors. This substance abuse took a toll on my relationships with close friends and family, yet I did not know how to exist in the world any other way. It wasn’t until a week before I graduated with my undergraduate degree that I came out to friends as gay/queer. I would come out to my parents and sisters 2 years later as a graduate student. However, I had then become so acculturated to a gay/queer nightlife that my

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high-risk binge drinking continued throughout my graduate education. Yet, my academics thrived, and I was finding community and kinship among gay/queer friends. After a series of life-altering events accumulated to demand I change my life, I finally gave up drinking at the end of my doctoral studies. My relationship with gay/queer social life and peer supports transformed as a result, because most of my social supports were part of the gay/queer nightlife scene, which for me was synonymous with high-risk behaviors. I did not find my purpose or vocational calling until partway through my master’s program. I was studying school psychology with the intention of working with young students in elementary education. However, I experienced a number of queerphobic instances with faculty members and site supervisors that discouraged me from pursuing a career in elementary education. I quickly pivoted my interests and energy into working with college students and later enrolled in a doctoral program in student affairs. During my doctoral studies, I worked as an academic advisor, in QT student involvement and advocacy, and in residential life. I then began realizing the potential for higher education in serving as a site for liberation and affirmation for QT people. Partway through my doctoral studies, I developed close relationships with two influential mentors, Drs. Noah Drezner and Sue Rankin. Both modeled for me how to uplift QT people in educational research and demonstrated how to thrive as a queer person in academia. Having originally intended on pursuing administrative positions in student affairs, my interests shifted to becoming a researcher and studying QT student experiences. I delved into as many quantitative methods and survey design courses as I could because I saw an invisibility of QT people in largescale education surveys. I was determined to receive as much training as possible to promote inclusion of QT people in large-scale higher education survey research. I am now 7 years into my faculty career and still primarily focus on uplifting QT students in quantitative research with the goals of developing more inclusive and equitable methods and college experiences. Recently, I have refined my interests in directing my scholarship to college administrators, researchers, and legislators, recognizing the power and influence of quantitative research for resource allocation, new initiatives, and policy (re)formation to serve QT students. I embrace the beautiful messiness of performing critical quantitative research, understanding the importance of being adaptive to rather than dismissive of the potential of large-scale survey research to promote QT student success.

Dolan’s Positionality I situate myself as a simultaneously highly privileged person with multiple marginalized identities and experiences. I am a queer bisexual, nonbinary transgender person who is light-skinned, often white-passing, identifying as both white and Latinx with predominantly Cuban, Spanish, and Irish heritage. I grew up in the Northeast and was expected to and did attend college immediately after high school. I acquired a BS in mechanical engineering, where I was extremely underrepresented

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and felt no sense of belonging, community, or connection in my academic field. I found affinity with identity centers on my college campus, which emboldened me in my student success journey. Shortly after graduating, working briefly as an engineer and working in social services, I changed fields to enter education and received my MEd in higher education and student affairs administration. Since entering student affairs, I have been passionate about centering marginalized students and focusing on their persistence in often-hostile environments on college campuses. Since my master’s degree, I have worked 8 years in university QT resource centers, serving students and campus communities through student empowerment and mentorship, curriculum development, program planning, and policy advising and writing. I have also served on regional and national boards in leadership roles, advancing advocacy agendas for and with trans people in higher education. I have experienced extensive cissexism and binarism both as a student and professional, and I have also witnessed and acted as an advocate alongside nonbinary students and communities in my professional roles. I am eager to bring their experiences into literature. Now, as a PhD student in educational leadership and policy studies, I am particularly interested in building power with nonbinary and QTPOC students through learning about their resilience, senses of belonging, and experiences of minority stress. Within the scope of defining, describing, and analyzing QT student success in education, I know that my privileges throughout my early and continual education contribute to my ability to have a voice in this discussion and influence my understanding of student success. I credit identity centers and the advocates in those spaces with supporting and empowering me in ways I did not know I deserved. And I recognize those who were not granted the privileges from which I benefit and who are not afforded the opportunity to contribute to this discourse. In that vein, I am wary of the whiteness centered in the majority of QT student experience literature and the normative nature of the topic of student success. I seek to agitate the binary conceptualizations of success/failure, retention/attrition, graduation/failure, and grit/unqualified, among others. I recognize that assessments of merit (e.g., school testing, standardized testing, and other norming practices such as IQ tests) tend to be formed through racism, sexism, and other oppressive forces that distort the true definitions and depictions of success. I devote myself to helping to end policing and prison pipelines in schools and consistently center Black and Indigenous leadership. I ground myself in the knowledge that heterosexism, cissexism, and binarism are steeped in and cannot be separated from other interlocking systems of oppression, such as racism, classism, and ableism. My embodied knowledge as a benefactor of white supremacy and as a racialized body, a queer and trans person, and highly educated current student guide me as I dissect and describe QT student success in this chapter.

Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks Student success scholarship has not historically included QT students, mostly due to the void of national data that includes sexuality and gender demographic variables to

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Table 1 Theoretical frameworks used in manuscript by section Section Epistemology Identity development Finances Relationships and spaces Institutions Society

Framework Intersectionality (Collins 2019; Crenshaw 1989, 1991) Queer theory (Jagose 1996) Student development theory (Abes et al. 2019; Patton et al. 2016) Conceptual model of student success (Perna and Thomas 2006) Multicontextual model for diverse learning environments (Hurtado et al. 2012) Belonging (Strayhorn 2012) Transformational tapestry model (Rankin and Reason 2008) Minority stress theory (Meyer 2003, 2015)

identify QT people in higher education (Garvey 2014). The historical exclusion of QT students in these national higher education surveys is indicative of the devaluing of QT people broadly, and it has had great impact on the misalignment of QT student success scholarship with general student success frameworks. For years, scholarship about QT students required separate data collection and instrumentation given the exclusion of QT people from broader student success surveys (Garvey 2016; Nicolazzo et al. 2017). Influential student success frameworks developed by higher education scholars were not initially intended to study QT students, and this theoretical and conceptual disparity continues. To combat the historical exclusion of QT people in student success frameworks, we use a number of theoretical and conceptual frameworks in our chapter. Although most were not originally created to study or understand QT student success, we argue that higher education scholars must align existing and new student success frameworks with QT student experiences to more wholly represent success. We begin each section with a brief overview of various frameworks that we find relevant for the content examined to encourage creativity in theoretical application (Table 1). Although many of these frameworks have wide applicability across all sections overviewed in this manuscript, we chose to place them within specific sections given their close connections to certain concepts. We include implications at the close of our chapter to support researchers, administrators, and legislators who want to advocate for QT students using empirically grounded theoretical and conceptual frameworks.

Identity Development Theories of identity development help educators understand how students grow and increase complexity of their own developmental capabilities (Rodgers 1990). As noted by Patton et al. (2016), student development theory encompasses “A collection of theories related to college students that explains how they grow and develop holistically, with increased complexity, while enrolled in a postsecondary educational environment” (p. 6). Although student development and success are canon in

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higher education scholarship, these core concepts are not often examined together in research concerning QT collegians. For a number of reasons, including the historical exclusion of QT people in student success initiatives and void of data about QT students, researchers do not have a firm understanding of how sexual and gender identity development shape QT students’ pathways into and through higher education. In the following section, we use student development theory to discuss development and QT students’ success.

Student Development Theory Abes, Jones, and Stewart (2019) defined three waves of student development theories, beginning with foundational theories of development in the first wave. Identity development theories did not emerge until the 1990s during the second wave of student development theories, including sexual and gender identity development. These theories relied on stage-like psychological understandings of sexual identity, mostly focusing on coming out as a catalyst for identity formation among lesbian, gay, and bisexual young adults (D’Augelli 1994). Since most early models focused on monosexual identities of lesbian and gay people, Weinberg, Williams, and Pryor (1994) proposed a model for bisexual identity development, and Mollet (2020) developed a stage model for asexual college students. More recently, development models have emphasized the complex relationship between internal and external developmental processes for sexual identity formation (Dillon et al. 2011). Regarding gender identity, few models have historically included people outside of the restrictive gender binary of (cisgender) man and woman. Only recently have development scholars emphasized the entanglement of sex, gender, gender identity, and gender expression in the formation of a person’s gender and gender identity (Jourian 2015). Included among these gender identity development scholars is an emerging focus on gender identity among trans students (Beemyn and Rankin 2011; Nicolazzo 2017). In the third wave of student development, scholars began to incorporate critical and post-structural perspectives, recognizing the importance of deconstructing and critiquing prevailing assumptions about development and placing power, privilege, and inequity at the forefront. Critical theories like intersectionality (Collins 2019; Crenshaw 1989, 1991) and critical race theory (Delgado and Stefancic 2001; Ladson-Billings 1998; McCoy and Rodricks 2015) challenged hegemonic norms by analyzing the impact of structural and systemic oppression and privilege on students’ development. Intersectionality in particular challenged the false silos that are created by addressing only a single dimension of a person’s identity and complicated environmental influences by emphasizing structural, representational, and political intersectionality as relative to growth and development (Collins 2019; Duran et al. 2020). Post-structural theories like queer theory raised questions about development and the stability of identities, instead articulating identity as enacted, dynamic, fluid, and largely influenced by constructions of people and society.

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Outness and Identity Disclosure Outness refers to the extent that QT people disclose their sexual and/or gender identity to others (Sorgen 2011). Second-wave development theories typically framed outness as “a process by which individuals pass through a series of key stages on a pathway from a split self into a person whose sexual orientation [and/or gender identity] has been fully integrated into a healthy, whole self” (Klein et al. 2015, p. 317). Contemporary identity development scholars do not view outness as a singular experience, or one that should be exalted as an ending point to a developmental journey (Garvey et al. 2019a). Nonetheless, a number of scholars have examined identity disclosure among QT collegians, determining that it is an influential dimension to student success (Garvey et al. 2018b, 2019a; Sorgen 2011). Much like QT student success scholarship broadly, there is little empirical evidence to connect identity development processes with students’ transitions into and through postsecondary education. However, most studies examining outness privilege dominant assumptions of whiteness by undersampling (or not including) QT students of color, using white QT students as reference groups in analytical coding, and ignoring other identity classifications as influential to outness, all of which complicate how student success scholars understand identity disclosure relative to student success measures. Although limited in scope, stage-like models that promote outness as a catalyst for sexual and/or gender identity development provide helpful insights for student success. Regarding college choice and matriculation, having a clear formation of one’s identity can promote greater clarity in which academic and professional goals to pursue (Hurtado et al. 2012). Additionally, identity disclosure promotes community and kinship among peers, faculty, and staff (Garvey and Inkelas 2012; Garvey et al. 2018b, 2019b). These connections are particularly important, because fostering connections among first-year QT students is a defining characteristic for promoting first-year retention and persistence (Squire and Norris 2014). Although we disagree that outness should be viewed as a desired or attainable outcome for all, we do affirm that students who have a strong internal sense of self will be able to navigate potentially negative external contexts in order to persist into and through college.

Queerphobia and Transphobia One specific benefit of intersectionality and other critical frameworks is the necessity of centering systems of oppression and privilege in analyses of student success. Particularly for QT collegians, they must continually navigate hostile environments that perpetuate queerphobia and transphobia. Furthermore, asexual students report acephobia (Mollet and Lackman 2018, 2019), and bisexual students experience monosexism and exclusion within QT communities (Dolan 2013; Garvey et al. 2018b). For students with multiple marginalized identities, these environments are also deeply connected to racism, classism, ableism, xenophobia, and other oppressive contexts. Although not traditionally included in the lexicon of student

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development theories, critical theories like intersectionality and others provide helpful frameworks to examine and understand the role of environments in growth and development. Queerphobia and transphobia are ever-present and can have deep impacts on students’ educational trajectories. When considering representational intersectionality (Crenshaw 1991), a student who does not have QT educators may not wholly see themselves represented in their academic experiences. Such isolation and lack of representation may impact students’ decisions to pursue specific academic disciplines or an undergraduate education altogether. Regarding systems for matriculating into a college or university, there are innumerable processes that require students to place themselves in restrictive sex binaries of male/female per federal education guidelines (Linley and Kilgo 2018). The perpetual misgendering of trans people in the college application and enrollment process can cumulatively have a detrimental impact on a student’s decision to continue pursuing their undergraduate degree.

Normativity Queer theory embraces fluidity and nonnormativity, and it uplifts the complexity of sexuality and gender. When QT students are able to embrace more complex images of themselves, they are more likely to feel whole and centered (Garvey et al. 2017b). However, academia is perpetually governed by normative expectations of gender, sexuality, and expression (Denton 2020). Academic disciplines, particularly accredited and professional preparation programs, require uniform curricula that discourage critical co-construction of knowledge. Subjects like education and engineering conform to national standards within their disciplines and therefore may not as often embrace critical dimensions of learning or knowing. Dominant societal narratives of masculinity and femininity are key examples of how academic disciplines are microsystems that reinforce society’s dominant and oppressive rules for expressing gender and sexuality. In such positivistic fields like nursing or business, there may be little room for nonnormative approaches to learning or development. Within these academic environments, QT students may translate disciplinary foreclosure to their own sexual and gender identities. Disciplines that enforce strict learning and curricula may not be the most welcoming space for QT students to come into their own queerness and transness (Linley and Nguyen 2015). The concept of homonormativity provides another angle of understanding and critiquing normativity. Coined by Duggan (2003), homonormativity refers to actions QT people take to assimilate to hegemonic structures, such as seeking the right to legally marry, forming a family unit, pursuing acceptance in the military, petitioning equal rights in prisons and detention facilities, and otherwise toning down QT identities to be more palatable within a cisheteropatriarchal society. QT people who ascribe to homonormativity often perpetuate the narrative that “we are just like you,” instead of resisting normative ways of being. Rather than seeking liberation through actions of claiming and carving unique and inherently queered ways of

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being, homonormativity tempts QT people to seek acceptance into rather than subvert cisheteropatriarchy (Conrad 2014). When seeking this acceptance, QT people assume and center dominance, such as whiteness, being cisgender, and monosexuality, thereby marginalizing QT people of color, agender, asexual, bisexual, intersex, and nonbinary people, as well as people with other QT identities that do not fit neat and clear binary conceptualizations of identity (Cohen 1997). Creating hierarchies of power within QT communities is not only inherently a non-queer act, it is detrimental to QT liberation, causes active harm, and perpetuates oppression within QT communities (Cohen 1997; Conrad 2014).

Finances College and university budgets rely on a diverse portfolio of revenues, including tuition and fees, philanthropy, federal grants and contracts, and state appropriations. Yet, state appropriations to higher education have been significantly reduced over the past several decades to close budget gaps caused by economic recessions and resource allocation to other public goods (Long 2016). With declining state support for colleges and universities, administrators may increase tuition and fees as a way of balancing institutional budgets (Zhao 2019). These increased costs limit access to an undergraduate education and place financial onus on students. With costs rising, more students will question whether they have finances to access college. The decision to incur student debt and the amount of debt accrued vary by students’ social identities and family contributions (Beal et al. 2019). Given the importance of students’ identities and familial relationships, one may logically conclude that QT students’ financial needs are an important area for research and policy formation. Yet, few scholars have examined the impact of finances on QT student success. Although higher education finance scholars have written that “Future research should also further consider variations in the effects of student loans across demographic groups” (Perna et al. 2017, p. 282), QT students are seldom considered as an identifiable student population with unique needs. Next, we use Perna and Thomas’ (2006) conceptual model of student success to discuss the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and college choice relative to QT students’ finances and success.

Conceptual Model of Student Success We frame our conversation of student finances and student success using Perna and Thomas’ (2006) conceptual model of student success. Their framework relied on a cross-disciplinary examination of student success, including insights from economics, education, psychology, and sociology. Perna and Thomas’ (2006) student success framework represents students’ completion of four key academic transitions: college readiness, college enrollment, college achievement, and post-college attainment. Their framework assumes that multiple layers influence student success:

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internal context, family context, school context, and social, economic, and policy context. Perna and Thomas (2006) discussed that student success processes vary across groups. They noted that “the path to student success may vary across racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and other groups based on differences in culture, as well as differences in family resources, local school and community structures and supports, economic and social conditions, and public policies” (p. 3). Yet, few (if any) student success studies attend to QT students or identities. As discussed by Braxton, Brier, and Steele (2007–2008), “a paucity of research on [QT students] exists making it difficult to identify specific recommendations for policy and research rooted in empirical research” (p. 383). Legg, Cofino, and Sanlo (2020) echoed this observation more than 10 years later, noting that there remains a scarcity of scholarship about QT student retention. Students’ finances have a strong influence on their potential success across a number of layers. Perna and Thomas (2006) noted that financial aid involves students’ aspirations to pursue higher education, student, and family knowledge about financial aid, availability of aid, and information and support for financial aid provided by institutions and schools. For QT students, financial opportunity and wellness play an especially important role in college access and completion. Financial problems harm QT students’ academic studies more than their cisgender heterosexual peers (Greathouse et al. 2018). Particularly among trans students, they experience more financial strain then their cisgender peers (Rehr and Regan 2020). Families may choose to terminate financial support if a student is outed or choses to disclose their QT identity (Garvey et al. 2018b). Although there is scarce research that examines QT students’ finances, two key notable dimensions deserve close attention: federal financial aid and college choice.

Free Application for Federal Student Aid A vast majority of college students rely on federal financial aid in order to attend college (Perna et al. 2017). These federal loans provide necessary funds to pursue an undergraduate education at a low interest rate. In order to qualify, students and/or their families submit a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to the government, detailing their assets and accounting for income and family wealth (Baum 2008). After calculating assets and determining where families fall above or below government thresholds for financial access, the FAFSA process provides college students access to need-based grants, such as the Pell grant; need-based subsidized loans, such as the Stafford loan; and need-based work subsidies, known as the campus work study. Although the FAFSA benefits many students in their pursuit of a college education, it contains many roadblocks for QT students and also excludes many students with financial needs. Specifically, undocumented students and international students are not eligible for federal aid, providing additional

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financial burden on undocumented and international QT students. The precarity of QT students’ familial relationships and financial needs also creates potentially problematic contexts for FAFSA. QT youth are more likely than their cisgender heterosexual peers to experience family rejection (Ryan et al. 2009) or to be disowned by family resulting in homelessness (Choi et al. 2015), impacting their financial status and ability to cover the costs of college. Students under the age of 24 who are not legally emancipated from their guardians cannot submit the FAFSA without parent or guardian approval, information, and signatures. Therefore, if a QT student lives in or has left a hostile, abusive, or unaccepting environment with family, they will experience roadblocks to accessing federal financial aid (Burns 2017). Unsupportive guardians may refuse to sign the FAFSA; estranged QT youth may not be able to acquire a guardian’s financial information and signature in order to submit the form; and guardians with enough resources may not qualify for financial aid but monetarily cut off or disown QT students. Trans students, even those from supportive and affirming families, encounter barriers to accessing financial aid when their forms of legal identification do not perfectly match their social security records. This problem may arise when a student changes their name or sex marker on some state and/or federal records or if their birth certificate does not match another form of identification (Burns 2017). Trans students also rely more strongly on scholarships to finance their college tuitions than their cisgender peers (Rehr and Regan 2020), which makes FAFSA access even more important for these students.

College Choice Financial burdens and QT campus climate are major considerations for QT people who are applying to college and selecting where to matriculate or transfer. QT students are likely to fear discrimination from family or schools if they disclose their QT identities in financial aid forms, scholarship applications, or admissions applications (Garvey et al. 2017c). In addition to finances influencing college choice, QT students also consider where they can experience a QTaffirming campus when selecting where to matriculate (Squire and Mobley 2015). The Campus Pride Index (CPI), created and housed by the national nonprofit organization Campus Pride, is a rubric-based self-assessment tool that institution administrators can use to calculate QT-affirming climate scores. Also included in the CPI website are student testimonials and contact information for QT campus resource professionals. When shared publicly, these self-assessments can support QT students’ college choice and enrollment decisions by promoting transparency and QT-affirming environments within colleges and universities. Of note, few community colleges have completed the CPI, primarily because few have QT campus resource professionals to assess and improve QT campus climate (Garvey et al. 2015).

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Relationships and Spaces The campus ecology is a complex landscape of varying influences, including both informal and formal academic and social spaces. From informal interactions with peers to academic classroom experiences, students’ success is greatly shaped by the interactions and relationships that they experience across various spaces. Particularly for students who are marginalized in academia, spaces that promote warm climate, belonging, and community are critical for academic outcomes, wellness, and overall success (Rankin and Reason 2008; Strayhorn 2012). QT students need spaces where they can build peer communities, get involved on campus, build leadership and civic engagement skillsets, and benefit from mentorship from campus professionals or peers. Especially because QT students must exist in colleges and universities that inherently disadvantage QT people through interpersonal, institutional, and societal oppression, spaces that promote kinship and community are vital for student success (Nicolazzo et al. 2017; Pitcher and Simmons 2020). However, many QT spaces tend to center dominance by privileging white, cisgender, and homonormative norms (Johnson and Javier 2017; Mitchell and Means 2014; Nicolazzo 2016). For example, when QT resources are primarily focused on bringing white cisgender gay speakers or when QT trainings do not include trans allyship, not only are QT students of color and trans students broadly excluded, these QT resources are replicating the hegemony that marginalized students face on campus. When QT resource centers center whiteness and multicultural centers do not consider, include, or represent QT identities, QT students of color report inability to be fully authentic in a space built with the intent to support them (Blockett 2017). QT students of color, especially at predominantly white campuses, construct counterspaces (Delgado and Stefancic 2001; McCoy and Rodricks 2015; Yosso and Lopez 2010) where they develop kinship networks as a form of survival and community care (Blockett 2017). Institutions of higher education must center the most marginalized and commit to intersectional campus cultural and resource centers in their efforts to ensure student success (Blockett 2017; Duran et al. 2020). In the following section, we overview spaces and relationships that are critical for QT student success. To frame our conversation, we introduce campus climate and belonging as frameworks for understanding and examining the importance of these environmental contexts on QT student academic achievement and overall wellbeing.

Multicontextual Model for Diverse Learning Environments Campus climate refers to “the cumulative attitudes, behaviors, and standards of employees and students concerning access for, inclusion of, and level of respect for individual and group needs, abilities, and potential” (Rankin 2005, p. 17). Campus climate is a difficult construct to measure and assess (Rankin and Reason 2008), yet is critical to students’ success in higher education (Garvey et al. 2018c).

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There are a number of theoretical and conceptual models to understand climate in higher education. One such model is the multicontextual model for diverse learning environments (MMDLE) by Hurtado, Alvarez, Guillermo-Wann, Cuellar, and Arellano (2012). The MMDLE emphasizes an ecological examination of climate to account for the influence of multiple intersecting spheres within higher education. A number of scholars have examined campus climate among QT students, noting a gradual improvement in campus climate perceptions across time (Garvey et al. 2017b). Although there has been a progressive improvement in campus climate for QT students generationally, QT students still experience uninviting campus environments that are not conducive to their academic or personal success (Linley et al. 2016). Among QT students, campus climate has been studied in regard to student success (Pitcher et al. 2018), student perceptions and experiences (Garvey et al. 2017b), faculty experiences (Garvey and Rankin 2018), and faculty-student relationships (Linley et al. 2016; Vaccaro 2012). Scholars have examined campus climate both within and outside of the classroom (Garvey and Rankin 2015a; Linley et al. 2016) and across different institutional types (Garvey et al. 2015).

Belonging Belonging is defined as “students’ perceived social support on campus, a feeling or sensation of connectedness, the experience of mattering or feeling cared about, accepted, respected, valued by, and important to the group (e.g., campus community) or others on campus (e.g., faculty, peers)” (Strayhorn 2012, p. 3). One prevailing higher education framework to understand belonging is Strayhorn’s (2012) college student sense of belonging model. Belonging has both cognitive and affective dimensions, combining students’ self-perception of their role within groups with students’ self-assessment of their own actions. Strayhorn noted that sense of belonging is not solely a human need but also a dominant motivating force that shapes student behavior. Belonging has strong ties to students’ academic achievement and success; it is especially salient for QT students because experiences of marginalization can generate barriers to fulfilling a sense of belonging within academic experiences. When students’ personal safety is at risk, they are less likely to feel a sense of belonging or identify with that campus community. As an act of survival, they are then more likely to disengage where they perceive there may be a risk (Garvey and Rankin 2015a; Garvey et al. 2015). Trans students’ higher exposure to discrimination is directly linked with a lower sense of belonging than cisgender students (Garvey and Rankin 2015a). Further, nonbinary students are more likely than binary trans people to experience isolation and lack of acceptance from QT communities, leaving nonbinary students to create their own support communities (Nicolazzo 2016; Rankin and Beemyn 2012). Although important for QT student success, Blockett (2017) noted that the concept of belonging refers to fictive kin and imaginary ties of choice, thus reinforcing cisheteronormative assumptions by emphasizing biological bonds.

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Relationships Relationships with peers and faculty are the cornerstone of student success (Mayhew et al. 2016). Particularly among students with marginalized identities, positive interactions with peers mitigate negative campus climate experiences (Garvey et al. 2017b). For QT people, community is integral to surviving and thriving in higher education (Blockett 2017; Miller 2017; Nicolazzo 2017; Pitcher and Simmons 2020). In the following section, we discuss peer and faculty relationships as important components to promoting QT student success. Peer relationships. QT students seek or form friendships, community, and kinship networks in order to explore identity, build friendships, and engage with campus resources or activism (Miller 2017; Pitcher and Simmons 2020). These relationships may take the form of looser networking, tight connections, or chosen family relations, all of which have proven to be survival strategies for QT students in oppressive institutions (Pitcher and Simmons 2020). Kinship is considerably important for QT students, as it often is considered chosen family. For QT students who experience rejection or discomfort from their families, these kinship relationships often take the form of familial bonds (Nicolazzo 2017). Since most US family structures are cisnormative and heteronormative, centering monogamy and childbearing (Eng 2010), many QT people have created and named typologies of romantic or non-romantic and sexual or nonsexual intimate relationships outside of these structures (Pitcher and Simmons 2020). These kinship relationships transcend college friendships and often form the basis for QT students to create safety for and with each other on college campuses and beyond. QT peer relationships foster space for students to share stories, make meaning together, and validate each other when QT students feel isolated (Garvey et al. 2019a). Affirming support networks promote positive self-esteem, sense of purpose, and adjustment for QT students (Ellard-Gray and Desmarais 2014; Schmidt et al. 2011). Often, QT students may bond in community over common campus struggles and build power through planning actions or engaging in activism together to bring about change. Additionally, scholars have demonstrated the critical need for trans, nonbinary, and agender students to carve spaces for regrouping in order to build power and to practice self and community care (Flint et al. 2019; Garvey et al. 2019b; Nicolazzo 2017; Nicolazzo et al. 2017). Conversely, the absence of kinship is detrimental to QT student success. When trans students do not have access to supportive resources or meaningful relationships of kinship, they are less likely to graduate (Goodrich 2012; Singh et al. 2013). Faculty relationships. Faculty have a significant impact on QT students’ success, persistence, personal wellness, and academic outcomes, whether it be positive or negative. Faculty support students outside the classroom as advisors, through being role models, and through being visible on campus in informal settings (Kilgo et al. 2019). QT students feel more academically integrated and socially connected on campus when they have consistent and meaningful interactions with faculty (Woodford and Kulick 2015), especially at community colleges (Garvey et al. 2015). Students feel supported when out or ally faculty or administrators take on

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leadership roles on campus, hang Safe Zone placards in their offices, or when an out leader brings their partner to a campus event (Kilgo et al. 2019). QT students have reported that faculty can create harm in and outside of classroom environments when they promote queerphobic or transphobic rhetoric, erase QT themes from their course materials, or uphold binary and cissexist understandings of gender. Unfortunately, QT students who are more out or who disclose their QT identities in academic spaces have been found to experience higher rates of harassment and bias (Tetreault et al. 2013), demonstrating a higher rate of vulnerability for out QT students and more negative perceptions of classroom climate (Garvey and Rankin 2015b). Pryor (2015) noted that even when faculty and peers make well-intentioned efforts to include and affirm trans people in the classroom, trans students still are likely to consider the classroom a normatively gendered environment (Bilodeau 2009) and feel isolated, frustrated, and uncomfortable in academic spaces. Additionally, faculty have the propensity to positively impact QT students within formal and informal learning environments. QT students notice when faculty interrupt and confront heterosexist, cissexist, and binarist classroom comments and defend QT rights. QT students feel supported in their classroom participation when faculty tie QT inclusivity to the overall academic mission of the institution, weaving QT inclusion into their classroom culture. Faculty who are knowledgeable about QT issues and include QT topics in their course material empower QT students who wish to research QT themes and center QT people in their academic pursuits (Garvey and Rankin 2015a; Linley et al. 2016). QT students also feel safer and report an overall stronger sense of wellness when faculty ask for and use affirming names and pronouns for students in and outside of their classrooms, notice the way heterosexist assumptions and gender binary manifest in their course material and instruction, and make efforts to mitigate harm or accommodate students (Kilgo et al. 2019).

Spaces Physical spaces and organizations provide direct support to QT students by serving as a community or gathering place. Just as importantly, these spaces enrich QT students’ lives by serving as signals for inclusion, community, and support. When considering spaces that uplift QT students, we highlight three key areas within undergraduate education: student organizations and activism, QT resource centers and services, and academic spaces. Student organizations and activism. QT student groups create opportunities for students to grow as leaders, build community, learn from each other, and engage in activism. In these organic, yet sometimes bureaucratic organizations, students engage with QT discourse, create community, and mobilize together (Garvey et al. 2019a). Additionally, QT student organizations provide space where students experience belonging and connect with support, both of which have positive impacts on QT student retention and success (Garvey 2020; Pitcher et al. 2018). Particularly for students whose identities are not always centered within QT student services, most

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notably bisexual, pansexual, fluid students (Garvey et al. 2018b), asexual students (Mollet and Lackman 2018), trans students (Garvey et al. 2019b), and QT students of color (Duran 2019), finding community in student organizations can be invaluable for belonging and transitions. Trans students specifically navigate identity development, build community, and foster belonging in QT student organizations, and these organizations also have a positive relationship with trans students’ persistence in college (Nicolazzo et al. 2017). QT students may engage as positional leaders within QT organizations and formal networks, or take a different path as queer transformational activists (Renn and Bilodeau 2005). These students often envision and enact change outside of formal decision-making channels at their institution through organizing actions and by creating other ways to voice their concerns on campus. QT students and those with multiple marginalized identities engage in activism as a form of survival in hegemonic spaces (Blockett 2017; Linder et al. 2019; Nicolazzo 2017). Unfortunately, administrators often protect dominance within campus structures and policies, and student activists receive backlash from educators and student affairs professionals when perceived to be too radical. Such repercussions often lead student activists to experience burnout, decreased academic performance and learning, and increased distrust in campus leadership (Linder et al. 2019). QT students of color often do not report experiencing the same levels of support or amount of space allocated to their white QT peers for activism (Blockett 2018). These inequities demonstrate that although higher education institutions may take symbolic actions of support, whether they involve fiscal resources, undertaking educational trainings, or committing personnel resources to solve student concerns, the impact of these actions does not always trickle down to reach the QT students who most need them (Rankin and Reason 2008). QT resource centers and services. The Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals (Consortium 2020) reports that approximately 320 institutions worldwide have QT resource professionals on their campuses. Since this statistic includes campuses with at least one professional who works 20 hours per week or more, far fewer institutions support QT resource centers with more than one full-time staff. Many of these professional positions and resource centers exist because of student activism and demands (Marine 2011; Renn 2010). These professionals, often situated in QT resource centers or departments, serve students through advising QT student organizations and training campus departments and communities, host events and programs, and advocate for QT student needs (Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education 2019). QT services often provide physical space for QT campus community members, offer support such as counseling and advocacy services, and serve as symbols of QT inclusion (Pitcher et al. 2018). QT resource centers are more common at large public institutions and are more prevalent in geopolitically neoliberal regions, such as the West Coast and large cities (Fine 2012). Few two-year community colleges provide fiscally supported QT resources or professionals to serve QT students (Garvey et al. 2015). At present, five of approximately 101 historically Black colleges or universities employ QT resource professionals and provide a QT student affairs department, office, or

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resource center, and 32% have recognized QT student organizations (Mobley and Hall 2020). Little data exist on the prevalence of QT resource centers and personnel at other types of minority-serving institutions, such as Hispanic-serving institutions, Asian American and Pacific Islander serving institutions, or tribal colleges and universities. Religiously affiliated colleges are less likely to host and support QT resource centers on their campuses (Fine 2012); in fact, some religious institutions have antagonized their QT students through exclusionary policies (Wolff et al. 2017). Unfortunately, institutions that need QT resource centers the most are the least likely to have one on campus (Fine 2012). QT resource professionals advocate for QT students’ needs, serve as role models, and have a strong positive impact on QT students’ academic outcomes (Oliveira 2017; Pitcher et al. 2018). Additionally, the presence of a QT resource center or QT resource professional staff sends a message to prospective students that the institution values and supports QT student success. Centers and staff that support QT students can also lead initiatives in collecting assessment data for retention initiatives (Garvey 2020), emphasizing the importance of documenting, researching, and making visible the experiences of QT students (Legg et al. 2020). When institutions allocate resources to QT resource centers and professionals to bring speakers not just about but for QT communities (Marine and Nicolazzo 2014), QT students feel validated and represented, and cisgender heterosexual students have an opportunity to learn without it being at the expense of other QT students. QT resource centers also host high-impact educational practices, such as Lavender or Rainbow Graduation ceremonies, centering QT graduates and providing space for them to celebrate with chosen family in ways they may not be able to if they cannot be out during their university commencement. QT resource centers and staff also often write curriculum and offer trainings for university community members to learn more about heterosexism, cissexism, binarism, and how to be better allies and accomplices to QT students. Hiring QT resource staff and providing space through a QT resource center or department for QT students is a great first step; however, it does not often build enough capacity for QT equity work on campus (Hoffman and Pryor 2018). Underfunded, understaffed, and overscheduled, QT resource center staff consistently report a need for more institutional support for their work. Many QT resource centers do not employ one or more permanent, full-time, professional staff and often rely on undergraduate and graduate students to direct these resources with little mentorship, guidance, or training (Catalano and Tillapaugh 2020; Tillapaugh and Catalano 2019). Too often, QT resource centers and professionals do not have the institutional power or influence needed to make systemic changes needed to have a strong and holistic positive impact on QT student success (Hoffman and Pryor 2018). The presence of a QT resource center on a college campus does not negate the presence of queerphobia and transphobia that QT students must confront every day (Pitcher et al. 2018; Preston and Hoffman 2015). Academic spaces. Queerphobia and transphobia are pervasive throughout academic spaces, as documented by numerous scholars studying campus and classroom climate in colleges and universities (Linley and Nguyen 2015; Patridge et al. 2014; Sevecke et al. 2015). Indeed, overt and hostile aggression toward QT people can

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have devastating effects on student success. Moreover, subtle discriminatory acts also detrimentally shape QT student success. Whether QT students do not feel represented in curricula (Linley and Nguyen 2015; Patridge et al. 2014) or observe faculty and peers as being silent when QT discrimination does occur (Mathies et al. 2019), negative experiences and poor perceptions of climate increase QT students’ likelihood of leaving campus (Garvey et al. 2018c; Tetreault et al. 2013). On the other hand, affirming and validating classroom spaces positively contribute to student engagement and, ultimately, student persistence (Garvey and Inkelas 2012; Garvey et al. 2018c). Many of these positive dimensions of classroom experiences are led by faculty initiatives, demonstrating the critical role of affirming faculty in QT student experiences (Garvey et al. 2015). Academic disciplines further escalate the problematic cultures in academic spaces for QT students and serve as meaningful environments in which QT students’ experiences and climate perceptions vary considerably across disciplines (Rankin et al. 2019; Vaccaro 2012). Certain academic disciplines may be chilly and uninviting for QT students, for example, in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors (Hughes 2017; Patridge et al. 2014). Conversely, other academic disciplines, social sciences, and humanities in particular are typically more welcoming for QT people (Rankin et al. 2019). Linley and Nguyen (2015) postulated that disciplines which embrace positivism and objectivity (i.e., business, health professions) minimize the impact and importance of sexuality and gender in curricula, whereas other disciplines like social work and social sciences offer more open and affirming environments for students to engage with their own social identities. Though not directly related to academic spaces, a number of scholars have recently explored high-impact educational practices (Kuh 2008) and the inequities experienced among QT students. These practices are particularly influential in student success because they promote student-faculty interactions, which are a strong antecedent for academic achievement among QT students (Garvey and Inkelas 2012). Students who engage in high-impact educational practices find greater academic and personal success because of their involvement (Kuh 2009). Although few scholars have studied high-impact educational practices among QT students, recent scholarship affirms student-faculty relationships as highly influential for QT students’ participation (BrckaLorenz et al. 2017; Garvey et al. 2018a). Yet, scholars have recently asserted that pervasive whiteness detrimentally permeates high-impact educational practices and undermines trans students’ educational success (Stewart and Nicolazzo 2019). When institutional and structural oppression limits QT students’ access to high-impact educational practices, it restricts opportunities for developing meaningful and sustaining relationships with faculty, which ultimately impacts student success.

Institutions Individual and interpersonal contexts have proximal impact on QT student success. However, the responsibility for ensuring success for all students, including QT students, must primarily rest on the actions and advocacy from college and

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university administrators. In the following section, we introduce the transformational tapestry model (Rankin and Reason 2008) to emphasize administrator responsibility for institutional transformation. Following, we highlight resources that provide national inventories of institutional policies that promote QT success, including the CPI, Trans Policy Clearinghouse (TPC), and a policy and practice recommendation hub created by the Consortium. In the major portions of this section, we overview key institutional policies and contexts that foster QT student success.

Transformational Tapestry Model Rankin and Reason’s (2008) transformational tapestry model (TTM) is a comprehensive strategic model to support campus communities in conducting inclusive assessments of campus climate. Their model includes four dimensions: current campus climate, climate assessment, transformational interventions, and the resulting transformed climate. Rankin and Reason define climate as “current attitudes, behaviors, and standards and practices of employees and students of an institution. . .particularly on those attitudes, behaviors, and standards/practices that concern the access for, inclusion of, and level of respect for individual and group needs, abilities, and potential” (p. 264). The TTM utilizes a power and privilege lens, recognizing the centrality of these concepts for transformational processes. Rankin and Reason’s model emphasizes the complexity of colleges and universities, as well as the necessity of multiple contexts to systemically transform a campus climate as opposed to conducting a singular intervention. In particular, the TTM conceptualizes the entanglement of various contexts, including access/retention, research/scholarship, inter- and intragroup relations, curriculum and pedagogy, university policy/services, and external relations. Although the TTM supports institutions in developing climate assessments, the core role of the model is to create sustainable and strategic initiatives accompanied by implementation and accountability practices to improve campus climate.

National Inventories of QT Resources Within the TTM, Rankin and Reason (2008) emphasize university policies and resources as necessary to a transformed campus climate. Because most higher education scholars and administrators are uneducated about institutional-level policies and resources that serve and uplift QT student success, a number of nonprofit entities have pooled together lists of important policy and services that college and university administrators may offer. We highlight three such national inventories for QT services: the CPI, TPC, and a policy and practice recommendation hub created by the Consortium. Campus Pride is a national nonprofit that advocates for QT-friendly college environments by developing necessary resources, programs, and services to support QT and ally students on their campuses. One of their signature services is the administration of the CPI, launched in 2007. The CPI was created to support

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campuses in assessing policies, programs, and practices that promote QT inclusion across eight dimensions of QT inclusion: policy inclusion, support and institutional commitment, academic life, student life, housing, campus safety, counseling and health, and recruitment and retention efforts. Participation in the CPI is voluntary, and there are 385 participating institutions as of 2020. For some campuses, administrators use the CPI to assess their support of QT initiatives, whereas others use the CPI as a recruitment tool to highlight a commitment to QT inclusion. Campus Pride also houses and sponsors the TPC, run by Genny Beemyn (2020), resident researcher and QT campus resource professional. The TPC serves as a hub of information where prospective students and institutions can view lists of campuses that have adopted a variety of trans-affirming policies. Such policies include QT-inclusive nondiscrimination policies, student health insurance coverage for transition care, gender-inclusive housing, chosen name policies, gender marker change policies, policies to denote pronouns on campus records, QT identity data collection in admissions, and women’s colleges with trans-inclusive admissions policies. One additional national inventory of QT resources is the policy and practice recommendation hub created by the Consortium. The Consortium is a professional development organization that supports QT campus resource professionals by providing opportunities for networking and resource sharing, developing promising practices, and advocating for and with QT college students and resource professionals to influence their respective campus cultures. The policy and practice recommendations developed by working groups from the Consortium (2016) currently include documents with promising practices for working with QT students of color, collection of QT admissions data on college applications, suggestions for supporting trans students, and supervision tips. These documents direct leaders in the QT resource field in student affairs to unite with common values and advocate for QT student needs through sharing best practices and benchmarking with peer institutions.

Institutional Policies Institutional policies have deep impact on not just the success of QT students but the basic dignity and worth of QT people in higher education. Below, we overview six policies that promote QT student success: nondiscrimination policies, housing, restrooms, student health policies, data collection, and student records. Although not an exhaustive list, these policies have symbolic and practical importance in promoting holistic wellness and success for QT students. Nondiscrimination policies. Nondiscrimination policies affirm that discrimination will not be tolerated, outline what qualifies as discrimination, and explain the consequences for violating such policies. Because there are no federal protections for QT people and a number of states without statewide protections based on sexual orientation and moreso for gender identity, institutional nondiscrimination policies may be the only protection and recourse for QT people. Yet, there is a large

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discrepancy across colleges and universities for including protections based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity inclusive of trans people. According to the TPC (Beemyn 2020), 1054 higher education institutions currently have nondiscrimination policies that include protecting gender identity and expression. QT students cite QT-inclusive nondiscrimination campus policies as sources of support for QT community members, signals for QT-affirming institutional values, and mechanisms for shifting and maintaining a less queerphobic and transphobic campus (Dirks 2012; Pitcher et al. 2018). Housing. Policies that govern access to facilities based on gender and/or sex have great impact on trans students because being provided with a safe living environment can positively promote belonging, safety, and ultimately success (Garvey et al. 2018d). Conversely, trans students who do not have access to gender-inclusive housing options face isolation and institutional genderism, rarely feel comfortable, and struggle academically (Pryor et al. 2016). According to the TPC, 272 higher education institutions provide gender-inclusive housing options (Beemyn 2020). Institutions approach these policies in different ways depending on campus culture and the organizational structure of residential living facilities. Gender-inclusive housing may entail an apartment-style arrangement where students share a common space but have personal bedrooms. In these situations, it is common for housemates to share a private single-user restroom, which mitigates the need for gender-inclusive restrooms on residence hall floors. Most residential colleges are known for halls where multiple students share one living space, where their beds reside in the same location. In these scenarios, gender-inclusive housing options may allow students of different genders to live together. Often, residential buildings will be designated as gender-inclusive where students of multiple genders will reside, thereby allowing students looking for a single-gender hall to opt out. Some universities that do not provide gender-inclusive options may provide a special accommodation for trans students to stay in a single or double room alone without a roommate. Trans students have reported preference for singles or apartment-style arrangements (Krum et al. 2013); however, being assigned to a single can result in trans students feeling isolated and separated from their peers, and often these rooms are more expensive (Pryor et al. 2016). Assessment of gender-inclusive housing options is critical, as student needs may shift over time, thereby causing the intent and the impact of the policy to no longer align (Garvey et al. 2018d). Restrooms. Gender-inclusive restrooms are important for college campuses that seek to create a safer and more affirming environment for trans students, who often report harassment and violence in gendered bathrooms (Pryor et al. 2016). For trans students specifically, having non-gendered, all-gender, or gender-inclusive restrooms makes campus safer and slightly more comfortable (Goldberg et al. 2019b). These restrooms often take the form of single-occupant restrooms with a toilet and sink behind a locking door. Unfortunately, many of these single-user restrooms have been and may continue to be gendered even though only one person uses them at a time. Therefore, campuses that seek to provide more trans-affirming facilities should convert all of these restrooms by changing the signage to genderinclusive or all-gender (Goldberg et al. 2019b). Single-user restrooms promote

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intersectional access because they provide safe facilities for trans people, caretakers, disabled people, and people who require a private space for health, medical, or religious reasons. Many existing campus buildings may contain multiple-occupancy restrooms, those with multiple stalls and/or urinals and shared sinks. Increasingly, institutions have been converting these restrooms to all-gender by changing the signage, educating the campus communities about why these facilities matter and, in some cases, changing the stall partitions to reach the floor and removing urinals when applicable. Every campus navigates these shifts differently, and the conversions usually rely on budget allocations and availabilities. Most residential halls have one gendered, multiple-occupancy restroom on each floor, and students and campus leaders who seek to convert these restrooms navigate this quandary in different ways. Some campuses, such as Oberlin College, ask students on each floor to designate the restroom as women’s, men’s, or all-gender with consensus. Some residential facilities may have a single-occupancy restroom on the first floor, open to the public, and many campus leaders may expect and ask students who are looking for a nongendered option to travel to the first floor every time. These restrictions are not ideal for many reasons, including the hassle of traveling for the facilities and the continual burden for trans people who seek a safe place to use the restroom in their living, academic, and/or workplace environments. Finally, institutions often create campus maps where community members can locate gender-inclusive restrooms in different buildings. Typically, QT resource professionals work with administrators and facilities staff to host these maps on websites or create mobile applications for ease of use. These maps may also contain other information, such as whether specific restrooms are accessible, contain infant changing tables, or provide menstrual products. Administrators that prioritize converting and creating gender-inclusive restrooms and facilities on their campuses demonstrate their values of equity and inclusion by taking fiscal and administrative action, which can transform campus climate (Rankin and Reason 2008). Student health policies. Much like their cisgender or heterosexual peers, QT students often rely on their campus student health services for medical appointments, preventive care, sexual healthcare, mental healthcare, and other health concerns. Unfortunately, many QT students encounter heterosexism and cissexism in healthcare spaces (Goldberg et al. 2019a; Singh et al. 2013), such as being misgendered, assumed to be heterosexual, or interacting with a provider who is not informed on how to treat or care for their needs based on their gender identities or the genders of their sexual partners. Some trans students may seek gender transition care while in college, and 112 institutions cover hormone therapy in their student health plan, 89 of which also cover some gender-affirming surgeries (Beemyn 2020). These coverages are important for students who seek what are often life-saving medical interventions in order to mitigate dysphoria and live authentically (Goldberg et al. 2019b). Data collection. With the absence of federal and state-level data collection for QT students, institutional data collection is especially critical. Institutional data collection enables administrators to make evidence-based decisions for retention policies

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and initiatives at colleges and universities because these data provide insights into student outcome trends (Garvey 2020). Data illuminate specific campus environments and high-impact educational practices that promote retention (Kuh 2008), and they highlight disparities in retention within and across student populations. Resource allocation and policy (re)formation are driven by data-informed decision-making, and the intentional exclusion of QT students from institutional data collection systematically removes administrator responsibility from serving these students. Higher education institutions that receive federal funding are required to report student race and sex data to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) through the Department of Education. Unfortunately, the only reportable gender categories are men or women, thus conflating sex with gender (Garvey et al. 2019c). Further, institutions report legal sex, which misrepresents many trans students who are nonbinary, agender, or those who have not changed their sex markers on legal identification documents. When institutions cannot confirm a student’s gender because they have not collected it through a mandatory question on the admissions application, the institution reports these individuals to IPEDS as either men or women, based on the majority of the institution’s population. These practices are highly problematic for collecting accurate data, erasing and misgendering trans students. One missed opportunity for QT student data collection is the absence of sexual orientation or gender identity questions on the Common Application, which prospective students use to apply to more than 800 higher education institutions worldwide. In response, Elmhurst College (2012) and the University of Iowa (Hoover 2012) became the first private and public institutions, respectively, to begin collecting students’ QT identifiers on their admissions applications. According to the TPC, approximately 29 other institutions and state school systems collect these data in some form (Beemyn 2020). These optional questions provide an opportunity for QT students to self-identify and be counted among their campus communities. Though many students do not answer these questions, potentially because they have yet to disclose their identities to themselves or family or worry about it affecting their admission to university, these data make it possible for researchers and practitioners to strengthen their understanding of QT college student success. Unfortunately, these data are not often shared with QT campus resource professionals, which prevent them from providing outreach to or assessing the experiences of the QT students they serve. Student records. Institutional records should provide options for students to report their sexual orientation, chosen name, pronouns, and gender identity, because these student records are often tied to class rosters, alumnx communications, and identity- and community-specific campus initiatives. Institutional data, whether collected through admissions or federal reporting, enables administrators to connect students with resources and track student success (Rankin and Garvey 2015) and promote QT alumnx engagement (Garvey and Drezner 2016). Unfortunately, these mechanisms are not available for QT students at most colleges or universities, which in turn create negative consequences for building community, sharing resources, and

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examining differences or trends in retention across sexual and gender identities (Garvey 2020). According to the TPC, 260 institutions have begun collecting and displaying data for students who use chosen or preferred names (Beemyn 2020). These policies directly benefit trans students, many of whom may shift their names to align with their true selves. It is challenging, expensive, bureaucratic, or even impossible to change names legally, and access depends on the state where the student lives. Aligning federal, state, and other legal identifications, such as birth certificates, drivers’ licenses, and/or passports, is time-intensive, expensive, and complicated depending on state and federal guidelines. Additionally, many trans students do not wish to legally change their names, and international or undocumented students may not have that option. Therefore, it is important for higher education institutions to provide ways for students to be able to go by their chosen names, rather than defaulting to legal names (Goldberg et al. 2019b). Chosen names should appear everywhere instead of legal names, except where it is not possible, such as employment forms or financial documents. Critical places where chosen names should appear include course rosters, advising records, housing lists, diplomas, and campus identification cards. Trans students are not the only ones who benefit from these policies; international students frequently anglicize their names, and many students go by nicknames, shortened versions of their names, or their middle names. However, it is important for campus leaders to take the initiative to learn to pronounce non-anglicized names and empower international students by providing a safer space for them to go by their given name if they prefer. Currently, only 42 campuses collect pronouns and list them alongside student names on course rosters. According to the TPC, 60 colleges allow students to adjust or update their gender marker on campus records without evidence of medical intervention or transition (Beemyn 2020), thereby allowing trans students to transition and utilize the appropriate gendered resources, as needed. For example, if a trans woman student can update her gender marker, she should be able to live in women’s residential facilities, join a sorority, be eligible for women’s scholarships, and compete on women’s teams.

Institutional Contexts Although progressive and inclusive institutional policies are paramount to fostering QT student success, the uniqueness across and within institutional types requires a nuanced understanding of how various college and university contexts shape QT student success. In the following section, we overview single-gender institutions, learning communities and themed housing, athletics, and fraternity and sorority life as such contexts that have pivotal influence on QT student experiences and success. Single-gender institutions. Women’s colleges, historically restricted to student assigned female at birth, have begun to slowly shift their admission policies and institutional protections to include trans women, intersex, agender, and nonbinary students (Farmer et al. 2019; Nanney and Brunsma 2017; Weber 2016). Though

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some QT youth are publicly coming out at younger ages than ever before (GLSEN 2019), students navigate and question their sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions in college (Beemyn and Rankin 2011). Therefore, many trans feminine, nonbinary, agender, or trans woman students who are not out or, in some cases, who have not changed their legal identifications to denote their sex as female (Weber 2016) will be denied admission from the start. Adopting trans misogynist (Serano 2007) understandings of gender, women’s colleges have been more likely to allow recently transitioned trans men or nonbinary students who were assigned female at birth to be admitted and/or to continue to graduation than to admit trans feminine or trans women students who were assigned male at birth (Weber 2016). Trans- and gender-expansive students at women’s colleges report high rates of genderism (Bilodeau 2009), trans misogyny (Serano 2007; Jourian 2015), compulsory heterogenderism (Nicolazzo 2017), and monosexism (Dolan 2013). These oppressive structures lead to feelings of institutional betrayal (Smith and Freyd 2014) and administrative violence (Farmer et al. 2019; Spade 2011). According to the TPC, 20 women’s colleges have adopted formal policies that include some trans students, though three specifically ban trans men from continuing as students at the university if they are out (Beemyn 2020). Most (but not all) institutions that are specifically men’s colleges have since converted to include all genders. Morehouse College will begin admitting trans men starting in 2020 (Beemyn 2020). Nonbinary students are allowed to continue, but if a student comes out as a trans woman while matriculated, they will not be allowed to continue to graduation. Learning communities and themed housing. Living-learning communities provide residential options for college students to build intentional space to live together and commit to cocurricular learning together. Student engagement with livinglearning (L/L) residential environments has been proven to be linked with improved academic performance, stronger persistence rates, higher likelihood of degree attainment, gains in intellectual development, and increased informal faculty interactions (Inkelas and Soldner 2011). Learning communities and themed housing are designed to foster a sense of community and belonging for their residents (Fink and Hummel 2015). Underrepresented students can find identity-based residential communities to be spaces of respite from minority stress and facilitate a feeling of connection to their broader campus community (Quaye et al. 2009). QT students also benefit from QT-themed L/L residential communities, especially when gender-inclusive housing is not an option otherwise (Garvey et al. 2018d). This space, however, may be challenging for students who are not out to their families or who do not feel safe being out on campus. Therefore, some QT students may need to conceal their identities with visiting family members or ask QT-themed housing spaces to shift the narrative during family visit weekends. Athletics. Many QT student athletes face heterosexism and cissexism in sports, including anything from homophobic comments to being barred from competing based on assigned sex or gender identity. Furthermore, the cost of college intramural and club athletics may exclude students from participating, creating disparities based on social class privileges that are further exacerbated given financial contexts for QT

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students. According to the TPC, 19 institutions have a trans-inclusive intramural athletics policy (Beemyn 2020). The NCAA (2011) adopted a policy and best practice recommendations for including trans athletes on college teams. Specifically, the NCAA does not require that student athletes legally change their sex markers or medically transition in order to play on a team that matches their identity. NCAA policy allows trans feminine or trans women students to undergo 1 year of hormone therapy in order to play on a women’s team. Trans men or nonbinary students can compete on women’s teams as long as they do not start hormone therapy, and if they do, they are eligible for men’s teams. These policies are not ideal, as they rely on students to medically transition in order to compete on a team that aligns with their gender. Trans and nonbinary athletes and gym attendees face binarist resources and often report avoiding the use of restrooms or locker rooms in order to avoid harassment or violence. Therefore, some institutions have created policies to create gender-inclusive locker rooms, either by building or allocating single-user shower and restroom facilities or by converting multiple-user locker rooms to be open to anyone regardless of gender. Similar to gender-inclusive restrooms, the conversion or creation of gender-inclusive locker rooms requires fiscal and administrative action, which demonstrates that institutional values of equity are worthy of campus resources, catalyzing institutional change and improved campus climate for trans students (Rankin and Reason 2008). Fraternity and sorority life. Fraternities and sororities are gendered organizations designated by Greek letters with chapters on many campuses, creating a network of brothers and sisters. Historically created by and for white, affluent, cisgender, heterosexual individuals to curate communities that centered common values, many of these organizations have been enmeshed with social class privilege, exclusivity, cisheteronormativity, patriarchy, white supremacy, and compulsory heterogenderism (Stone and Gorga 2014). Historically Black colleges and universities founded Black organizations, known as the Divine Nine, which carry rich history, culture, and strong familial bonds. Additionally, other cultural groups have created fraternities and sororities, including Latinx, Native, and Asian organizations. Unfortunately, cisheteronormativity is still present in many of these organizations, creating an exclusionary environment for many QT students. However, a number of QT students seek community in fraternities and sororities (Rankin et al. 2013), reporting mixed experiences (Yeung et al. 2006). Recently, some fraternities and sororities have been founded specifically with QTinclusive missions and values, such as Gamma Rho Lambda, Lambda Delta Lambda, Phi Tau Mu, and Delta Lambda Pi (Fielding and Pettitt 2008). Historically, QT students have founded other Greek letter organizations that have since been absorbed under other existing chapters (e.g., Alpha Lambda Tau has been dissolved and has mostly been affiliated with Tau Kappa Epsilon; Fielding and Pettitt 2008). These organizations either welcome QT students among their cisgender and heterosexual members or specifically seek to form QT communities where QT students are affirmed and centered in their policies and membership details. For example, Sigma Phi Beta policy explicitly includes and centers QT affirmation and empowerment in

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their mission and values statements (Fielding and Pettitt 2008). Although these organizations intend to create more QT-inclusive spaces, they are not widely available, not well-resourced, and not often recognized by Interfraternity Council or the National Panhellenic Conference. These small QT fraternity and sorority chapters lack large networks for mentorship and structural support and are often marginalized by mainstream organizations.

Society The politicization of QT students in federal and state governments has left these students largely ignored in research and policy reform, which is particularly troubling given the tumultuous current political climate for QT people in the USA. There is a moral imperative to center QT student experiences in education research given the hostile national and local climates for these students. The substance and tone of exclusion from the current presidential administration have called into question the status and rights of QT students, creating polarizing and contentious debates about student success and access in education (Rogers et al. 2017). The negative political rhetoric has shaped the consciousness and well-being of QT students locally and nationally, and if such concerns continue to grow, the hostility toward QT students may affect their success. The pervasive queerphobia and transphobia may lead QT students to feel devalued and unwelcome in educational environments. From oppressive legislation at the federal level to contentious Supreme Court cases debating the dignity and worth of QT people, these societal factors must be acknowledged when discussing success among QT students. In this section, we first overview minority stress theory as an overarching framework and then discuss nondiscrimination and federal policies, violence, and sexual stigma as influential societal contexts for QT student success.

Minority Stress Theory Although societal factors may likely not have a direct impact on QT student success in higher education, there are ancillary impacts of a perpetually oppressive society against QT people. QT students encounter queerphobia and transphobia and the impact that stems that stem from these forms of oppression. Intertwined with these experiences, QT students of color also experience racism, disabled QT students face ableism, and classism confronts poor QT students. One way of understanding how systemic forms of oppression impact people throughout their lives is through the frame of minority stress theory (Meyer 2003, 2015), which considers how external, interpersonal, and internalized stressors affect persistence and resilience. For QT students, external distal stressors include discrimination, rejection, victimization, queerphobia, misgendering, and structural binarism. These external stressors manifest from an oppressive environment, whether it be broader society, the geographic region, the campus climate, or even specific areas of campus such as

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residence halls or academic departments. Internal proximal stressors include concealment of identity or (re)closeting, expectations of rejection, and internalized queerphobia or transphobia. Minority stress theory argues that while these proximal stressors are unique in their own right, the external environment’s distal stressors strongly influence the anticipation and internalization of proximal stressors. Therefore, understanding and addressing distal stressors and systemic oppression is an important first step in ensuring that QT students can thrive in higher education and throughout their lifetimes. Although trans students are more visible in society and on campuses as time progresses, they still encounter ignorance, stigma, and discrimination when navigating their identities, which perpetuates overall oppressive perceptions and experiences in society broadly. While experiencing direct harassment on individual and human levels, agender and nonbinary students in particular encounter discrimination on the institutional level through binarism and cisnormativity, which limits their ability to succeed and persist (Bilodeau 2009; Nicolazzo 2016). Since agender and nonbinary people may identify both as trans and also as outside of the widely normed gender binary in US white society, they have unique experiences of oppression that impact their collegiate experiences, including cisnormativity (Simmons and White 2014), compulsory heterogenderism (Nicolazzo 2017), institutional cisgenderism (Seelman 2014), and binarism. Examples of the oppressive ways that the gender binary and binarism play out include assuming all college students (a) can be separated by the gender binary in facilities such as housing, restrooms, and locker rooms and (b) can be segregated by gender in equitable and safe ways on athletic teams (Beemyn 2015). Other examples include not offering ways for trans students to denote their affirming name and pronouns on records and forms (Beemyn 2015) or not providing affirming counseling and healthcare (Beemyn 2015; Linley and Kilgo 2018).

Nondiscrimination Many legislative actions can contribute to QT student minority stress. Federal policies are rolling back sex-based discrimination protections to exclude gender identity, thereby leaving trans people especially vulnerable to exclusion from basic needs, such as access to education, healthcare, and housing. Even when QT students are not explicitly affected by these policies, witnessing the federal dehumanization of QT identities compounds external and internalized minority stress. Regardless, we expand this discussion to center trans students, unhoused QT students, and undocumented QT students, who are highly underrepresented and already face many barriers to student success. Title IX. The evolution of Title IX is emblematic of the shifting political climate and its influence on QT student retention. Title IX of the Educational Amendment Act of 1972 is a federal law that “protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.” The applicability of Title IX for QT students has changed drastically in recent years,

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guided by different political motivations within Obama and Trump’s presidential administrations. In 2010, during Obama’s presidential administration, the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (DOE OCR 2010) clarified the scope of Title IX and gender-based harassment in a dear colleague letter, expanding protections to QT students for sex discrimination. In a follow-up 2016 Dear Colleague letter issued jointly by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and DOE, the administration explicitly stated Title IX’s role in protections for trans students, noting that “A school’s Title IX obligation to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of sex requires schools to provide transgender students equal access to educational programs and activities” (DOE OCR 2016, p. 2). Administrators noted that their interpretations of Title IX regarding gender identity are “consistent with courts’ and other agencies’ interpretation of Federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination” (p. 2). The 2016 election marked a shift in Title IX interpretations governed by a withdrawal of protections previously articulated for QT students. In 2017, the DOE and DOJ withdrew the documents clarifying gender identity and Title IX issued by the Obama administration, rescinding all protections for QT students. Trump’s administration clarified its stance on Title IX in 2018, with a Department of Education spokesperson stating unequivocally that “Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, not gender identity” (Holden 2018). Secretary of Education Devos and the DOE finalized their regulations for Title IX in 2020, further disrupting protections for QT students, as well as survivors of sexual assault on college campuses. These new regulations limit the definition of sex as a biological construct, citing Title VII prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sex: “The appropriate construction of the word ‘sex’ does not extend to a person’s sexual orientation or transgender status. . .[and] discrimination based on transgender status does not constitute sex stereotyping” (DOE OCR 2020, pp. 556–557). However, in June 2020, the US Supreme Court made a landmark decision regarding Title VII and nondiscrimination, contradicting recent changes to Title IX. Evolving federal policies. In 1964, during the civil rights movement and in the wake of racial tensions and anti-Blackness, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was passed to outlaw discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in schools, employment, and public accommodations. New regulations have clarified the definition of sex relative to nondiscrimination legislation and Title VII. In June 2020, the US Supreme Court ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes employment discrimination protections based on gender identity or sexual orientation. In the 6–3 majority ruling, Gorsuch wrote for the Court that “We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law” (Bostock v. Clayton County 2020, p. 1). The US Supreme Court’s decision to include QT people in nondiscrimination legislation on the basis of sex will likely have rippling effects on other federal sex-based legislation in education, employment, and housing. We extend our deepest gratitude to the trans and Black queer women lawyers who led the legislative charge for the recent Title VII decision.

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Additionally, the Trump administration worked to redefine sex discrimination to exclude trans people. In early June 2020, the administration removed such protections from the Department of Health and Human Services, allowing medical providers to refuse trans patients care and deny them treatments that may be linked to sex or gender (i.e., ovarian cancer or hysterectomy procedures). This change limited the definition of sex-based discrimination in section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act to exclude discrimination of the basis of gender or sexual identity, making it unclear if this will affect insurance coverage for QT people (Simmons-Duffin 2020). Days later, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced an anticipated change in accommodation rules for single-sex homeless shelters, allowing these shelters to deny access to unhoused trans populations seeking services. It is no coincidence that these reversals were announced during Pride Month on the 4-year anniversary of the Pulse nightclub massacre, where 49 people were killed and over 50 were injured, almost all of which were QT people of color. As QT students attempt to access medical care or seek shelter when they experience homelessness, they face federal dehumanization and discrimination, adding more minority stressors to their already heavy burdens. However, the US Supreme Court’s ruling regarding Title VII nondiscrimination contradicts these directives from the Trump administration, thereby contesting the legality of these changes. The US Supreme Court is also currently debating the viability of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which grants access to work permits for undocumented people who meet very specific criteria (Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California 2019). Undocumented students, many of them undocuqueer and undocutrans, have demanded a pathway to citizenship that is not based in exceptionalism, including protections for their parents and family members, decriminalizing border crossings, and abolishing the border entirely. These US Supreme Court decisions will transform the landscape of nondiscrimination in education and employment.

Violence QT people experience state-sanctioned violence at the hands of on-campus or offcampus police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, community vigilantes, the prison industrial complex, immigration detention centers, and youth carceral systems. Additionally, QT people face interpersonal hate violence, including mass shootings and murder epidemics. These high rates of violence have existed throughout history, and we believe that these will not end until queerphobia and transphobia end, police and prisons are defunded and abolished, education and social services are refunded, and racism ends. Hate and state-sanctioned violence. Police have been known to protect and serve a particularly privileged portion of the population, namely, white, heterosexual, cisgender, non-disabled, and documented people. QT people, especially QT people of color, QT people with disabilities, and undocuqueer and undocutrans

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communities, experience extremely high rates of police violence and are less likely to call the police when they are victims of a crime (James et al. 2016). When a large number of Black people were being consistently lynched by police, three Black women, two of whom are openly queer, started the Black Lives Matter movement to re-center and address Black lives lost to police and other state-sanctioned violence. It is important to name that this movement has always included and centered Black QT lives, founded by Black queer women and allies, and solidarity is a critical tool for ending anti-Blackness, racism, queerphobia, and transphobia. Gendered prisons and immigration detention centers often force trans people to be incarcerated based on assigned sex at birth rather than their gender identities, putting them at extremely high risk for violence from prison mates and guards. Further, QT people are often denied life-saving transition care or medications while incarcerated (James et al. 2016). These facts, while disheartening, are not surprising since police and state violence against QT people is nothing new. QT people, predominantly trans women of color and sex workers, have been highlighting the realities of and fighting back against police brutality since the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in 1966 and the Stonewall rebellion in 1969. QT people also experience hate violence in the USA and worldwide. On June 12, 2016, the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in an Orlando QT bar directly targeted people of color who were dancing and enjoying “Latin night.” In addition to the fact that many of the victims and survivors were college students, this massacre had a lasting impact on QT people nationally, instilling fear for QT people of color, especially Black and Latinx QT people, who were targeted. Additionally, the American Medical Association (AMA 2019) declared an antitrans violence epidemic in 2019, noting the high number of murders, especially of Black trans women, in the USA and worldwide. At least 26 trans people were murdered in the USA in 2019, 91% of whom were Black women (Human Rights Campaign 2019). The AMA also noted that the high number of trans people killed is likely extremely underreported due to stigma and inadequate data collection (AMA 2019). Campuses and communities observe International Trans Day of Remembrance annually on November 20 to name and mourn trans people lost to violence. These policing and carceral systems may seem largely societal, yet they permeate higher education in multiple ways. Most institutions of higher education have campus police forces, work and give funds to local police forces, and take disciplinary actions against students through conduct channels. The presence of police, increased militarization in higher education, and campus administrators’ compliance with ICE and CBP create dangerous environments for college students, especially undocuqueer, undocutrans, and QT students of color. Further, formerly incarcerated people and undocumented people face numerous barriers to accessing education and employment because of their experiences with incarceration and the ways their identities are criminalized. Campus leaders that commit to restorative practices can learn from the harm QT people have experienced from policing and carceral systems and listen to QT abolitionist leaders who offer just solutions to repair communities rather than punish those who perpetrate harm.

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Intimate partner violence and sexual violence. Often, intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual violence are considered “women’s issues,” or recognized as a form of patriarchal power and control (Johnson 2008). However, rarely do researchers recognize that heterosexism, cissexism, and binarism are forms of patriarchal violence, which should not only include QT people in IPV discourse but also create new lenses of understanding the phenomenon of patriarchal violence (Cook-Daniels 2015). In fact, QT people experience higher rates of sexual violence and IPV than their cisgender or heterosexual peers, thereby making this an important experience to study, understand, and mitigate (Guadalupe-Diaz 2019; Langenderfer-Magruder et al. 2016; Messinger 2017). These experiences are major sources of stress for QT students and may negatively impact students’ persistence and graduation rates (Garvey et al. 2017a). Further, students who experience sexual violence or IPV victimization are not likely to report their experiences to campus officials or local police, because they do not think their experience is serious enough or they do not trust authorities to take them seriously (Cantor et al. 2020). Therefore, higher education leaders must enact systemic change that demonstrates that administrators believe survivors, care deeply about preventing future acts of IPV and sexual violence, and are well-suited to serve and support survivors on their campuses. QT people experience extremely high rates of IPV in their lifetimes. The 2015 US Transgender Survey (USTS; James et al. 2016) collected data from 27,715 trans people and found that 54% of participants reported having experienced IPV in their lifetimes and 35% reported experiencing physical violence. More specifically, 24% of participants reported experiencing severe physical violence, reflecting higher rates of severe physical IPV victimization among trans people than that of the total US population (18%; James et al. 2016). Within higher education, QT students also have higher rates of victimization than their cisgender and heterosexual peers (Cantor et al. 2020). According to a campus climate survey on sexual assault conducted by the Association of American Universities (AAU), 10% of college students who had been in a partnered relationship experienced IPV. Rates among QT students were much higher than overall rates, with 22% of trans students, 11% of gay or lesbian students, 17% of bisexual students, and 16% of asexual or questioning students with partners reporting IPV. QT people also experience higher rates of sexual violence victimization than their cisgender and/or heterosexual peers (Langenderfer-Magruder et al. 2016; James et al. 2016), and QT college students experience this victimization on campuses as well (Cantor et al. 2020). According to the AAU survey, QT students had higher prevalence rates of nonconsensual sexual contact than cisgender heterosexual students. Compared to 12% of heterosexual students; 26% of bisexual students; 19% of asexual, queer, and questioning students; and 15% of gay or lesbian students reported having experienced nonconsensual sexual contact. Among undergraduate students, 23% of trans, gender queer, and nonbinary students reported this type of victimization, similar to the rate of nonconsensual sexual contact for cisgender women (26%) but much higher than the rate among cisgender men (7%). There is no acceptable number of students experiencing sexual violence until all students and subpopulations experience no sexual violence. However, we present these statistics

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to demonstrate disparities in nonconsensual sexual contact among QT students and recognize that efforts to serve QT students will benefit all students.

Sexual Stigma In addition to discrimination and gender-based violence, QT students face sexual stigma as external stressors. In this section, we overview the sexual stigma of the pathologization of QT identities; gatekeeping for trans students to access transition care; and HIV prevalence, prevention, and testing. When institutional leaders commit to understanding these sources and impact of these stressors on QT students, they can mitigate negative outcomes by adopting affirming healthcare policies and protocols that benefit all students. QT pathologized identities. QT identities have been widely pathologized throughout the Western and colonized worlds. In the US, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has labeled QT identities, in various forms, as disorders or at-risk behaviors. Specifically for LGBQ+ individuals, homosexuality was listed as a disorder until 1974 in the DSM-II (Drescher 2015), and electric shock, genital mutilation, or conversion therapies have been considered “treatment.” The DSM-5 uses disorders of sex development to refer to intersex individuals’ experiences, which is often used to coerce parents to make decisions to force their newborn, young, or otherwise underage child’s body to conform to a medically defined sex binary without the intersex person’s consent. This often takes the form of multiple medical procedures that can cause physical pain, reduce bodily sensitivity or reproductive ability, and produce shame for the intersex young person who may internalize that something is “wrong” with their body and/or gender. For trans people, transsexualism was listed starting in 1980 in the DSM-III, until later replaced by the gender identity disorder in 1994 in the DSM-IV, and is now listed as gender dysphoria since the release of the DSM-5 in 2013 (Drescher 2010). This pattern of pathology has created systemic harm to QT people and created a medical system rooted in gatekeeping or controlling access to affirming care for QT people who seek transition services (Cavanaugh et al. 2016; Lev 2009). Medical providers typically follow one of two popular mechanisms in order to treat trans people seeking transition care: the WPATH Standards of Care or the informed consent model. The World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) has compiled the Standards of Care for physicians, therapists, and all medical providers to follow when treating trans patients. These guidelines emphasize the role of mental health providers to diagnose gender dysphoria and assess a trans client’s readiness to pursue medical transition. Now in its seventh iteration, the Standards of Care have consistently included a wait period for patients to explore their interest in transition, sometimes asking them to live “full time” in their gender without any medical intervention (WPATH 2012). This can create safety hazards, especially for binary trans people who seek to “pass” in a different gender but cannot without the medical interventions they seek (Cavanaugh et al. 2016). After the mental health professional deems the patient ready for medical transition care,

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they must write a letter on behalf of the patient to an endocrinologist, primary care practitioner, surgeon, or other medical provider (WPATH 2012). These letters may also help the patient gain access to insurance coverage for their care. Given that many trans people see transition opportunities as life-saving procedures, this process has been widely understood by trans communities as medical gatekeeping (Lev 2009). Another model that has been widely used is the informed consent protocol. The informed consent model gives physicians the opportunity to review all known and potential risks involved in transition care with the trans patient. This can be empowering for the patient, giving them the knowledge and autonomy in order to make the best decision for themselves (Cavanaugh et al. 2016). Because there are many unknown medical factors with regard to hormone therapy, when patients consent as adults to assuming risks, they are often stating that their mental health and survival rely on access to medical transition because of dysphoria. Many US colleges and universities practice either the informed consent model or follow the WPATH Standards of Care when providing transition care to trans students. However, there is often a lack of transparency in protocol, which can be disempowering and confusing for trans students. Institutions should create more trans-affirming health policies (Goldberg et al. 2019b), potentially adopting the informed consent model since it provides more autonomy to trans students, in order to mitigate student identity stress (Meyer 2003; Singh et al. 2013). HIV. Additionally, QT students experience stigma and stress in other health settings, such as sexual health discourse. According to HIV.gov, there are approximately 1,100,000 people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the US. Among those diagnosed, men who have sex with men (MSM), many of whom identify as QT, account for more than half of all new infections annually (HIV.gov n.d.). These cases of new infection are also most prevalent within Black and Latinx communities (Center for Disease Control [CDC] n.d.). Although HIV rates were statistically stable between 2012 and 2016, Black women are increasingly diagnosed with HIV (CDC n.d.). College students have an elevated risk for HIV because although they are often informed about HIV risks, their knowledge does not automatically translate to safer behavior. Students tend to be aware that HIV is an epidemic, is sexually transmitted, and can be prevented through the use of condoms. However, because of their lack of personal exposure to people with HIV and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and their perception of being invincible to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), many college students feel disconnected from HIV (Marsiglia et al. 2013). College students also frequently underestimate their partner’s susceptibility to infection, often citing the fact that they “seem” STI-free as a reason for not using condoms (Renfro et al. 2020). Many students believe that condoms interrupt the sexual experience, inhibit pleasure, are unnecessary in the presence of birth control, and communicate lack of trust to their partner; as a result, college students have low rates of condom use (Marsiglia et al. 2013). Most US college campuses offer on-campus healthcare services as well as STI treatment or diagnoses (Habel et al. 2016). Despite these services, a number of campuses fail to offer condoms and safer sex tools, while even fewer offer rapid and express HIV and STI testing (Habel et al. 2016). Current

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approaches to combatting HIV beyond condom negotiation and abstinence include pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), and treatment as prevention (TasP). The presence of PrEP, PEP, and TasP varies greatly by campus types, norms, and values (Habel et al. 2016). Queerphobia, transphobia, and the pathologization of QT identities are major multilevel stressors for QT college students who seek medical or mental healthcare on- or off-campus (Goldberg et al. 2019a; Singh et al. 2013). These stressors, such as discriminatory medical care, medical gatekeeping, anticipated rejection, and internalized stigma, can lead to concealment of identity, avoiding medical care, and negative health outcomes (Goldberg et al. 2019a; Meyer 2003; Shipherd et al. 2010; Singh et al. 2013).

Implications We present this chapter with a commitment to social change for QT students and an obligation to engage campus administrators, higher education researchers, and legislators as our primary audiences. In order to maximize the impact of our scholarship, we organize our implications to focus on five important dimensions of success for QT students: institutional change, data collection, data analysis, policy and legislation, and using frameworks.

Institutional Change Institutional reform must not be a one-time fix; rather, change is ongoing and requires considerable and sustainable effort to enact more socially just policies and practices. Doing so necessitates multiple stakeholders, including campus administrators, student affairs staff, faculty, students, and key influencers outside of institutions (e.g., state legislators, community nonprofit organization administrators, community organizers). Below, we provide implications that will not only benefit QT students but also positively transform campus for all constituents. • Perform an equity audit for all marginalized communities to assess current policies and practices and consider the impacts of campus climate and minority stress through intersectional lenses. Consider using the Trans Policy Clearinghouse (Beemyn 2020) and the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals (2016) resources for benchmarking and promising practices, and administer the Campus Pride Index in order to identify areas of improvement for QT students. • Support QT resource professionals and host space for a QT resource center. Once that is established, incorporate these staff in the institutional planning for sustainable impact. • Bolster any existing QT committees with administrative representation, support, and communications. For example, QT resource centers may develop a QT

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advisory board or a trans taskforce in which campus stakeholders meet periodically to discuss the state of affairs for QT students and work on projects to advance QT equity. Administrators should ask these entities for recommendations and input as they create a one-year, five-year, and ten-year strategic plan for campus equity. Embrace sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression as part of campus equity lexicon, whether that be in framing areas of growth for campus equity or in nondiscrimination statements and policies. Consider who is at the leadership table and what other leadership tables may already exist with underrepresented visionaries at the helm. Representation matters to underrepresented students and communities. Therefore, promote, hire, and recruit more QT people, QT people of color, and QT people with disabilities in campus positions. These QT people should be present in all areas of campus, not just QT resource professionals and faculty specializing in QT studies. Countless studies call for a need for equity training for all campus professionals. Often QT resource professionals will offer Safe Zone trainings for staff and faculty to learn more about QT identities, experiences, and allyship. It is critical that these trainings are intersectional in nature, considering and recognizing the unique needs of QT people of color, QT people with disabilities, and many other underrepresented QT people. Trainings are critical for faculty and campus professionals within the division of student affairs, and there are many factions of campus staff that are overlooked as major stakeholders. These include dining and cleaning staff, as they often interface often with students and have less access to training and resources than student affairs employees. Additionally, administrators must be trained in order to have a strong direction when making major campus decisions and planning for systemic change. Promote involvement among QT alumnx and increase QT representation on the board of trustees, in particular QT people of color, trans people, and young QT alumnx. Representation is both symbolic for QT campus community members and may also foster healing and reconciliation for QT alumnx who had negative or violent undergraduate student experiences. A thriving QT alumnx population may also promote involvement and philanthropy among QT graduates, which can have a positive impact on QT student services resource allocation (Garvey and Drezner 2016). However, philanthropy from QT alumnx should never serve as a substitute for institutional financial and resource support for promoting QT student success. Currently and historically, police and security officials have created significant harm to QT communities, communities of color, and people with disabilities. We recommend demilitarizing, defunding, and abolishing campus police and desisting relationships with local police forces. In their places, we advise creating systems of community accountability and restoration, community care, and spaces for healing.

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Data Collection More inclusive data collection is a critical intermediary step to promoting progressive institutional and societal change for QT students. Although including QT students in data collection will not bring about change on its own, Garvey (2020) noted that “the lack of empirical data about QT students renders these students invisible to most researchers and policymakers” (p. 435). The following recommendations are guided at institutional stakeholders (e.g., institutional researchers, student affairs assessment professionals) and policymakers at institutional, state, and federal levels. • Educate yourself on federal guidelines per Title IX, Title VII, FAFSA, and statelevel nondiscrimination legislation, and understand the role of these laws on QT data collection and student experiences broadly. Visit https://www.lgbtmap.org for more information about state and federal legislation concerning QT people in education and beyond. • Embrace activism as a critical component of data collection reform, recognizing power and influence of data on policy and professional practice. Recognize that intersectional activism is necessary because all oppression is interrelated (Crenshaw 1991), and to recognize queerphobia and transphobia requires a deep understanding of racism, classism, ableism, and all forms of oppression. • Use professional influence and power to advocate for systemic change in how gender and sexuality student data are collected. Develop partnerships between institutional administrators and government officials to uplift QT student data collection and use in legislation and institutional priorities. • Develop systems to account for students’ genders and sexualities, enabling students to update and modify their social identity classifications throughout their undergraduate experiences and beyond and providing options for more nuanced and fluid terms related to sexuality and gender (i.e., sexual identity, sexual behavior, sexual attraction, gender identity, gender performance, assigned birth sex) (Rankin and Garvey 2015). • Make data-informed decisions regarding institutional, state, and federal legislation concerning QT students. Use institutional data to advocate for more resources, improved campus/classroom climates, and enriching experiences among QT students. Listen to QT people and researchers when modifying or developing new data collection procedures. • Longitudinal data collection is critical for enacting positive change in higher education. Connect data collection processes to track QT student success. There should be a clear empirical connection between students’ high school education, admissions and matriculation into college, experiences throughout undergraduate education, and outcomes related to college completion. Develop techniques to enable survey participants to modify or update their identity classifications to reflect the evolving nature of sexuality and gender and develop adaptable coding schemes to support data classification and analyses.

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• Embrace flexibility and adaptability, recognizing that QT data collection requires frequent updating and cannot be achieved with one static reform. • Seek out all opportunities to use existing information as data to inform decisionmaking (e.g., intake forms, student involvement records, class rosters, student work applications). Use data responsibly and without harm to QT students, seeking to clarify what data align with institutional goals and supporting students.

Data Analysis Although progress has begun for institutional, national, and governmental data collection that includes QT people in education, there is scarce information for scholars, administrators, or policymakers on how to use data once QT students’ information is collected in large-scale surveys. We provide the following implications as a beginning point to advocate for more equity-driven analytical decisions in higher education research and practice. • Use tenets of critical and queer theories across the span of scholarship development. In order to embrace liberation as central to QT student success scholarship, you must employ critical perspectives within survey and item construction, data collection and coding, and manuscript development and dissemination. Explore quantitative criticalism as an approach to push normative and hegemonic research (Wells and Stage 2015). • When appropriate, utilize basic descriptive and inferential statistics to advocate for more equity-driven education policies and resource allocation for QT students. Particularly among legislators and administrators, having large-scale survey data that demonstrate trends can have a powerful impact on educational reform. Because there is such scarce QT student data, providing overviews using descriptive and inferential statistics can be a powerful tool for change. • Embrace the messiness of QT student data and adapt to challenging contexts for coding and analyzing demographic information. Data classification is political and can have great impact on analytical results. Understand that demographic coding schemes are not static, and you may have to develop multiple coding classifications within gender and sexuality variables depending on the student population of interest, research purpose and goals, and intended audience. Consult with QT scholars and experts who have analytical expertise for classifying and coding QT data. Be adaptive to rather than dismissive of the potentials within each data set. Do not use poor data as an excuse to exclude QT student variables in analyses (Garvey 2017). • Understand the problem with deficit-based approaches to education research. Scholars often compare QT students to their heterosexual cisgender peers in social, academic, and career outcomes to demonstrate disparities in achievement for QT students. Such analyses are often well intentioned to advocate for more resources or improved policies, but they place onus on QT students rather than acknowledging the detrimental impact of queerphobia and transphobia on QT

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student success. When QT students are compared to their heterosexual cisgender peers, it can have detrimental impact individually among students, institutionally in how administrators view QT students and broadly in society by needing to demonstrate disparities to prove worth. We acknowledge that comparative analyses are a common practice for educational reform. If you choose to perform between-group comparisons, we recommend contextualizing student outcome results with holistic perspectives to emphasize that the disparities and required solutions must be placed on institutions and society, not solely QT individuals themselves. • Learn about structural equation modeling (SEM; Schreiber et al. 2006) and bootstrap multiple mediation (Preacher and Hayes 2008) as effective analytic approaches for examining QT student success. Both techniques provide a complex structure to understand the relationship between multi-item measures like belonging and campus climate with direct outcomes like matriculation and graduation. There are three particular benefits with SEM and bootstrap multiple mediation for QT students in particular: (1) developing complex structures across influential factors, (2) smaller sample sizes required compared to regression and other analyses, and (3) the ability to examine QT students without a comparative sample of heterosexual cisgender students. • Avoid dummy variable coding (i.e., using white as the reference group when conducting research across racial identities). Doing so places analytical advantage on privileged groups and dilutes the impact of comparisons across groups. Instead, employ effect coding, which uses “average responses as a means for interpreting information” (Mayhew and Simonoff 2015, p. 170). • Be transparent about analytical decisions. Particularly when utilizing intersectionality or examining QT students across multiple identities, you may likely have to make difficult choices about which demographic variables to include and how many categories within each identity group depending on sample size and quality of data. Include a positionality statement, sharing how your social identities influenced your analytical decisions. Be open with the process and limitations of your scholarship so that readers may use your research with nuanced understanding.

Policy and Legislation The void of QT-affirming policies across sectors requires a lens that includes institutional, state, and federal reform. Some of the implications below are specific to individual stakeholders, whereas others are broad foundational insights that apply to all policymakers and legislators. These may not be germane to higher education; however, these recommendations matter to QT students and have significant impacts on their success in college. • Educate yourself about queer and trans oppression across all facets of society. Use knowledge to actively dismantle institutional and societal oppression to promote

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equity and thriving among QT people in education and beyond. Visit http://www. ustranssurvey.org/ and https://www.thetaskforce.org/ for more information about QT oppression societally. Embrace QT people as an important constituency in state and federal policy, and recognize how the historical exclusion of QT people in legislation has festered invisibility for QT people and unaccountability among public officials. Advocate for reform in federal data collection procedures and policies, and in particular institutional reporting for IPEDS and other data that misuse sex/gender. Look beyond current restrictive federal and institutional guidelines for data collection and replace with more inclusive processes (Garvey 2019; Garvey et al. 2019c). Consider how underrepresentation of QT people in political office affects policy inclusion and equity. Encourage QT people to run for local, state, and federal government positions to provide voice and representation across all sectors of public office. Advocate for state and federal legislation that provides free access to higher education. Education is a human right. Work to reform harmful and restrictive interpretations of Title IX to protect QT students, and expand other federal and state legislation to include protections for QT people. QT students experience all facets of life. In order to promote their success in higher education, more progressive policies must be passed to guarantee universal healthcare, protect against discrimination in work and education, defund and demilitarize police, provide pathways to citizenship and decriminalize immigration, increase gun control, and mandate paid family leave, among others.

Using Frameworks For decades, higher education scholars have employed conceptual and theoretical frameworks to understand the impact of college on student success and experiences, and nearly every one of these frameworks has either willingly or unknowingly excluded QT students from this body of work. As a field, it is shameful that QT students have not been welcomed into the lexicon of higher education frameworks, and this exclusion has great impact across policy (re)formation and resource (re)allocation. We offer the following implications for administrators, researchers, and legislators to embrace more inclusive student success frameworks. • Question historical and contemporary student success and college impact frameworks, particularly if they do not involve (or include) students’ social identities and institutional/societal systems of power and marginalization. • Modify existing student success and college impact frameworks to account for the experiences of QT students. Upon modifying, empirically test newly adapted frameworks to ensure empirical soundness and theoretical rigor.

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• Utilize intersectionality and other critical frameworks that attend to students’ multiple identities and multiple systems of dominance and marginalization. Center QT students of color; QT disabled students; first-generation QT students; asexual, agender, and nonbinary students; and other QT students who have multiple marginalized identities. • Frameworks that center people of color are critical for education equity and should be centered in all discussions of student success. Do not isolate QT identities without examining the intersection of students’ additional identities and experiences; to discount the complexity of students’ identities and lives is a disservice to all students. • Challenge scholars, administrators, and legislators who use frameworks that omit social identities and systems of power. Require more inclusive and socially just frameworks when collaborating with others, especially when important decisions will be made from results and interpretations. • For faculty who teach in higher education and student affairs masters and doctoral programs, require students to critically interrogate existing student success and college impact frameworks. Provide opportunities for students to study crossdisciplinary critical and post-structural frameworks to broaden frameworks studied and employed in higher education scholarship. • We call on administrators, faculty, and staff to make value-based decisions and to recognize power dynamics present in decision-making and policy-writing. Higher education institutions are not values-neutral. Centering the most marginalized communities’ needs is an important step toward true equity and liberation. We recommend applying intersectionality theory and critical race theory to practice.

Conclusion Throughout this chapter, we provided empirical insights into QT student success, guided by existing higher education frameworks to shape our insights. We structured our writing with intersectionality and queer theory, and we led with our own positionalities and lived experiences. The main body of our manuscript overviewed influential contexts relative to student success: identity development, finances, relationships and spaces, institutions, and society. Our chapter closed with key recommendations across four dimensions of QT student success: institutional change, data collection, policy and legislation, and using frameworks. As QT people ourselves, we are exhausted with the continual treatment of QT students as peripheral to higher education practice, scholarship, and policy. For too long we have witnessed a general disregard for centering (or including at all) QT students in student success practices, research, or legislation. We implore all who read our chapter to claim individual responsibility for transforming higher education for the betterment of QT students. In particular, we demand that college and university administrators, researchers, and legislators move toward action. Inclusion and progress initiatives must involve financial, public, collaborative, and enduring

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change if all QT students are to be afforded the circumstances to reach their fullest potential. Finally, we close with gratitude and solidarity with other QT administrators, scholars, policymakers, and students. Our QT communities are strengthened through a tightly knit fabric of kinship, and all we have achieved (and will achieve) in higher education comes from uplifting each other. We extend deep thanks for the blessings and gifts that QT people have given us individually and to higher education and society broadly.

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Dr. Jason C. Garvey (he/him/his) is the Friedman-Hipps Green and Gold Professor of Education and Program Coordinator for the Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration program at the University of Vermont. His research examines student affairs and college classroom contexts primarily using quantitative methods, with particular attention to uplifting queer and trans collegians. Jay identifies as a quantitative queer, navigating the borders of post-positivistic survey design/quantitative methods and critical/post-structural queerness. His approach to scholarship and professional practice is rooted in positive affect and love, recognizing the grounding and uplifting role of emotions and relationships in higher education. C. V. Dolan (they/them/their) is pursuing their PhD in the Educational Leadership and Policy studies program at the University of Vermont. Dolan’s research focuses on building power with nonbinary college students and cultivating a deeper understanding of their experiences of belonging, resilience, and minority stress. Prior to their doctoral studies, they completed their MEd in Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration at the University of Vermont in 2013, followed by 6 years working as a QT resource professional in higher education. They adore and have learned so much from QT students and are grateful to serve and uplift QT students in their work.

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Strengthening Outcomes of Adult Students in Community Colleges Peter Riley Bahr, Claire A. Boeck, and Phyllis A. Cummins

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining Adult Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Age as an Imperfect Proxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Subjective Sense of Adulthood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adult Learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adult Students Cross-Classified as Nontraditional Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Synthesizing a Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Operationalizing Adult Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adult Students’ Participation in Postsecondary Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Enrollment in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Role of Community Colleges in Adult Undergraduate Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adult Students as Diverse Learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Differences Between Older and Younger Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Improving Adult Community College Students’ Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Previous Work on Classifying Community College Support Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Programs and Initiatives with Potential to Improve Adult Students’ Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . Mapping Mechanisms onto Adult Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Directions for Future Research and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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P. R. Bahr (*) · C. A. Boeck Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA e-mail: [email protected] P. A. Cummins Scripps Gerontology Center, Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7_3

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Abstract

Students who are over 24 years – older than the age deemed “traditional” for higher education – account for about one in every three students enrolled in community colleges. Unfortunately, their educational outcomes lag behind their younger peers. A greater understanding of what it means to be an adult student in higher education is a crucial step toward determining how postsecondary institutions, particularly community colleges, can improve adults’ experiences and chances of achieving their goals. With the overriding objective of providing guidance to stakeholders about how to strengthen adult students’ success and increase college completion, we draw from extant literature to develop a Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS). We propose a corresponding set of measures to identify adult students in a community college’s student population and to differentiate the gradations of experience, responsibility, and subject sense of adulthood that constitute adult status. We review evidence on adult students’ participation in higher education, how their approaches to college tend to differ from younger students, and community college programs and initiatives that aim to improve adult students’ outcomes. Finally, we discuss the alignment of the programs and initiatives with adult students’ learning needs and with the dimensions of the MCAS. Keywords

Community college · Age · Adult students · Survey · Graduation · Completion · Success

Introduction The phrase new student or first-time student in postsecondary discourse often invokes an image of a young person, 18 or 19 years of age, recently graduated from high school, and heading off to college with few pressing responsibilities other than those associated with schooling itself. The reality, however, is that a sizeable fraction of undergraduate students in higher education are considerably older than 18 and have lives that differ markedly from their late-teen peers, shouldering numerous obligations and commitments while attending school. In fact, as of fall 2017, adults 25 years of age and older accounted for one-quarter of undergraduates enrolled in public postsecondary institutions and 27% of undergraduates across both public and private institutions (US Department of Education [ED] 2019). The question that one may be led to ask is whether the age of students matters for postsecondary institutions, particularly for the nation’s community colleges, which serve about three-fifths (58%) of students age 25 and older enrolled in public postsecondary institutions, who in turn make up 33% of students who attend community colleges (ED 2018). Does the age of students matter for the curriculum, instruction, programs, and services that are provided by these institutions?

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The answer depends at least in part on our understanding of what it means to arrive to college at a period of time in one’s life that is not immediately or shortly after high school, potentially with many nonacademic obligations and commitments that cannot be placed on hold while one is attending college. Indeed, in everyday conversation, the term adult connotes maturity, responsibility, and experience. However, the definition of adult students in education research frequently does not capture the dimensionality of adult status or the diverse paths that contribute to its development (Kasworm 2003c, 2018; Richardson and King 1998). Yet, states and individual institutions have a vested interest in increasing the attainment of adult students. Recognizing the importance of postsecondary education for economic vitality and individual opportunity, over 40 states have developed postsecondary attainment goals for their populations in general alignment with the Lumina Foundation’s goal that 60% of individuals ages 25–64 have a postsecondary certificate or degree or professional certification by 2025 (Lumina Foundation 2019). Achieving these goals will be nigh impossible without significant improvements in recruiting, retaining, supporting, and graduating students who are outside the pool of recent high school graduates, whether individuals who never attended college or those with some prior college education but no degree (Shapiro et al. 2019). Recruiting, retaining, and supporting adult students’ postsecondary completion outcomes would be more successful if the diversity of adults were taken into account. Adult students are a heterogeneous group and often need or benefit from program structures and support systems than differ from those offered by colleges and oriented toward younger students. The scarcity of programs that align with adults’ needs, motivations, and circumstances, and insufficient communication about those programs that are designed to foster adults' success, are significant barriers to adults’ participation in higher education (Cross 1981; Kasworm 2018). In this chapter, we take up the question of what it means to be an adult student in undergraduate higher education and the implications for community colleges, which serve a disproportionate share of these students. We begin with a critical review of definitions that researchers have applied in classifying and differentiating adult learners from other segments of the student population. Building on the strengths offered by these definitions and seeking to address their limitations, we propose the new Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS), capturing the rich diversity found among adult students and countering the too-prevalent deficit perspective applied to them. The MCAS reflects three dimensions of adulthood that are relevant for advancing our understanding of adult students’ goals, needs, and outcomes: past experiences and acquired skills, current responsibilities, and subjective sense of adulthood. Informed by the three dimensions, we then propose a set of survey measures, response categories, and a response weighting scheme that community colleges can use to identify, better understand, and more effectively design supports for the adults in their student population. We follow the MCAS and survey measures with a discussion of adult students’ participation in postsecondary education, the diversity of their motivations for enrolling in college, the role that community colleges play in providing access to

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higher education for adult students, and how adult students’ enrollment patterns, learning, and outcomes frequently differ from those of younger students. We then identify programs and initiatives with promise to improve adult students’ outcomes and summarize research on these programs and initiatives. We conclude the chapter by discussing how the programs and initiatives can align with adult students’ learning needs and their prior experiences and skill development, responsibilities and life circumstances, and subjective sense of adulthood embodied in the MCAS, with the overarching goal of improving adult students’ progress and attainment. By highlighting the intersections between the strengths and needs frequently found among adult students and the programs and initiatives offered by community colleges, we seek to inform and advance the work of policymakers, community college administrators, practitioners, and educators to strengthen adult students’ outcomes, as well as to advance scholarly efforts to understand the mechanisms that promote adult students’ success. We recognize and thank the scholars who previously reviewed literature on how adult students are defined and the programs that can improve adult students’ academic outcomes (e.g., Bragg 2011; Donaldson and Townsend 2007; Karp 2011; Kasworm 2003c, 2018). This chapter is not intended to replicate prior reviews or to serve as a comprehensive review of all literature pertaining to adult students or adult learning theory. Our primary concern is how community colleges can improve outcomes for adult learners. Gaining a better understanding of adult learners is particularly important for community colleges, as adults who are returning to college are more likely to reenter postsecondary education through community colleges (Shapiro et al. 2019). We circumscribe our discussion to students participating in undergraduate education in community colleges, excluding from our discussion students enrolled in adult education or GED programs in community colleges. Occasionally, we draw on literature on adult students in 4-year undergraduate institutions, but we do so selectively and only insofar as it has the potential to inform our understanding of particular aspects of adult learners’ experiences that have not been well researched in the community college context.

Defining Adult Students The phrases adult student and older student, along with other similar phrases like nontraditional student, are to some degree ambiguous and unsatisfactory in the absence of concrete definitions. In this section, we elaborate the concept of adult students, addressing how they have been defined in the research literature, and what it means to be an adult student. This section has three parts: (1) a review of previous criteria used to define adult students, (2) our proposed Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS), and (3) a proposed set of MCAS-based survey measures, response categories, and response weighting scheme by which institutions can gather information about the student populations that they serve in order to better enumerate and illuminate their adult students.

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We begin by discussing the limitations of chronological age alone as a marker of adulthood, followed by a review of research on subjective sense of adulthood to further illustrate the limitations of age. We then consider the conceptualization of adults as learners offered by Knowles et al. (2005) to illustrate how adults’ learning experiences and approaches differentiate them from younger students. We conclude our review of previous definitions applied to adult students with a critical discussion of adults cross-classified as nontraditional students, critiques of the concept of nontraditional, and efforts to reframe the concept of nontraditional. Finally, we introduce the proposed MCAS and the survey measures aligned with the MCAS.

Age as an Imperfect Proxy In research, policy, and practice, adult students often are defined by age alone, frequently as students who are 25 years of age or older when entering college as undergraduates (Kasworm 2010). While birthdate is a convenient and logical way to identify adult students as distinct from other students, age alone can mask the considerable diversity found among students grouped together in this manner. Indeed, the limited research on adult students has tended to oversimplify the concept of “older student,” treating all students above the age of 24 as “older” (e.g., Calcagno et al. 2007; Sorey and Duggan 2008; Weaver and Qi 2005). The homogenization of adult students in this manner fails to consider the marked differences in life circumstances found among students in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond. A more nuanced understanding of adult students is needed if postsecondary institutions are to serve them effectively. Recognizing age as an imperfect proxy, Kasworm (2003c) suggested that adult students be defined in terms of experiences and life circumstances, described as statuses, that inform unique motivations and goals for postsecondary participation and, in turn, distinguish adult students from their younger counterparts. She describes an adult student as “one who represents the status of age; the status of maturity and developmental complexity acquired through life responsibilities, perspectives, and financial independence; and the status of responsible and oftencompeting sets of adult roles reflecting work, family, community, and college student commitments” (2003b, p. 3, italics added). Kasworm (2018) recommended identifying adult students through the following four criteria: being 25 years of age or older; having family, employment, or civic responsibilities; having a discontinuous college enrollment record; and being independent from parents. Combining age with responsibilities, as suggested by Kasworm, attends to the circumstances, experiences, identities, and motivations that distinguish adult undergraduates from younger peers. We note, though, that the responsibilities that are the marker of adulthood also can be found among students under 25 years of age, demonstrating a weakness of relying on an arbitrary age threshold when identifying adult students. Kasworm’s recommendation to draw on information about life circumstances when identifying adult students, however, is supported by research implicating students’ role-based identities as a key factor in understanding their

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interaction with higher education (Kim et al. 2010). Kasworm’s focus on life circumstances also aligns with research demonstrating the growing diversity of experiences and roles found among individuals in their 20s (Arnett 2000; Settersten and Ray 2010). Over the last four decades, individuals in their 20s have been delaying roles and responsibilities traditionally considered to be markers of adulthood in Western countries, such as moving out of their parents’ home, marrying, and having children (Côté and Bynner 2008; Settersten and Ray 2010). That said, delays of adult responsibilities vary by race/ethnicity, gender, culture, immigration status, and socioeconomic status (Settersten and Ray 2010). Individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and those whose parents did not attend college (i.e., first-generation students) are more likely to be married or to have children at a younger age than are individuals from advantaged backgrounds (Osgood et al. 2005; Settersten and Ray 2010). Using a nationally representative dataset, Ho and Park (2019) found that continuing to live with or near parents was more common and valued by Southeast Asian, South Asians, and Hispanic 26-year-olds in the United States than it was by White, Black, and East Asians in the same age groups. National data from the 2008 Current Population Survey revealed that individuals of ages 18–34 who were born in the United States and whose parents were immigrants (i.e., second-generation immigrants) were less likely than first-generation or thirdgeneration immigrants to leave their parents’ home, marry, or have children, which are historically accepted markers of adulthood (Rumbaut and Komaie 2010). On the other hand, youth from Latinx, Filipino, and/or immigrant backgrounds may remain in their parents’ home to support or assist them, thus taking on adult responsibilities before turning 25 years of age (Fuligni and Pedersen 2002; Rumbaut and Komaie 2010). Therefore, the definition of adulthood should take cultural differences into account. Furthermore, the demonstrable variation in the age at which individuals assume adult roles by socioeconomic status, culture, and immigrant status complicates the use of age alone to determine who is an adult student, and it supports Kasworm’s (2003c, 2018) recommendations for defining adult students in a more nuanced manner.

Subjective Sense of Adulthood The degree to which individuals perceive themselves to be adults, referred to as subjective adulthood (Arnett 2003), is another consideration in defining adult status. Perceiving oneself as an adult could have stronger implications for behaviors and motivations than does age alone. For example, adults adopt roles and positions within community college classrooms consistent with assumed adult behaviors, such as mentoring younger students (Kasworm 2005; Levin 2007), being a leader in the classroom (Kasworm 2005), or holding themselves responsible for their own academic success (Katsiaficas et al. 2015). Supporting Kasworm’s (2003c) critique of age as the sole indicator of adulthood, Katsiaficas (2017, p. 398) found that, among ethnically diverse community college students, having multiple

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responsibilities was more frequently viewed as a marker of adulthood than was age (66% compared to 6%, respectively). Being an adult intersects with other social identities and statuses (Kasworm 2003c; Levin 2007), and those intersections have implications for how the status of adulthood is interpreted. Empirical findings demonstrate variation in how people define and reach markers of adulthood by race/ethnicity (Arnett 2003; Benson and Elder 2011; Ho and Park 2019), gender (Arnett 1997), and immigration background (Katsiaficas et al. 2015; Rumbaut and Komaie 2010). In a survey of a racially/ ethnically diverse students ages 18–29 years about criteria for reaching adulthood, taking responsibility for one’s own actions was the most commonly cited indicator (Arnett 2003). Yet, other reported markers differed across racial/ethnic groups, with African American (43%) and Latinx (50%) respondents being more likely than Asian American (35%) and White respondents (19%) to say that being employed full-time is necessary for being an adult (Arnett 2000, p. 67). Other evidence indicates that women are more likely than are men to assert that ability to manage a household is a mark of adulthood (Arnett 1997). First-generation immigrant college students have reported being propelled into adult roles before they are ready, indicating that they adopted adult responsibilities but did not feel like adults (Katsiaficas et al. 2015). Working-class individuals ages 24–34 years who believed that they missed or failed to maintain traditional markers of adulthood, such as being financially stable or having children, constructed other narratives to demonstrate transition to adulthood, such as going through a divorce or overcoming an addiction (Silva 2012). Reitzle (2007) astutely observed that the question of what role transitions constitute adulthood has shifted away from global conclusions concerning “What are the main ingredients of adulthood?” and toward “Which ones are for whom?” (p. 37). Perceptions of being an adult can fluctuate due to context and events. First- and second-generation immigrants ages 18–25 years who were enrolled in a community college noted that they were not treated like adults at home, yet they had to engage in adult behaviors in order to be successful in college, and they resented college personnel who did not treat them like adults (Katsiaficas et al. 2015). Similarly, undocumented individuals tend to adopt adult responsibilities early to help support their family, but their sense of working toward adulthood can be complicated by legal barriers to postsecondary education and pursuing their desired career. They sometimes are forced to work low-wage jobs in their late 20s and beyond, jobs that they associate with teenagers or high school dropouts, not adults who were successful in high school (Gonzales 2011). Major life events, such as loss of a loved one, can influence subjective adult status as well (Reitzle 2007). One could anticipate that other role transitions, such as reducing or leaving work to return to formal education, could influence a person’s perception of being an adult, though Reitzle (2007) did not find a significant relationship between changes in subjective adulthood and leaving employment to enroll in college. In sum, subjective sense of adulthood is complex and multifaceted and may be an important dimension of adult status among college students.

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Adult Learners Kasworm’s (2018) definition of adult students may be further informed by a consideration of what characterizes an adult learner specifically. Knowles et al. (2005, pp. 64–69) proposed six facets of adults as learners that differentiate them from younger learners: 1. “Need to know” – They need to know the value of what they are asked to learn. 2. “Learner’s self-concept” – They see themselves as autonomous and are accustomed to having an independent role in daily life and therefore may perceive being a learner as a dependent role, which can make the transition to the classroom difficult. 3. “The role of the learner’s [prior] experiences” – They have a wealth of experiences that are tied to their identities, habits, values, and ideas that can influence their learning process. 4. “Readiness to learn” – Adults’ responsibilities, roles, skills, and maturity influence their enthusiasm and preparedness to learn course content. 5. “Orientation to learning” – They are motivated to learn when material is applicable to real-life scenarios. 6. “Motivation” – Internal factors, like learning and improved self-esteem and quality of life, are more powerful motivators than are external factors, such as grades achieved. Consistent with Kasworm’s (2003c, 2018) definition, Knowles et al. (2005) draw attention to the fact that the experiences and goals of individuals define them as adult learners more so than does their age. Further, the characterization offered by Knowles et al. (2005) suggests that the rich experiences and grounded goals of adult students can inform both their learning preferences and their motivations to learn, which further distinguishes them from younger students. For instance, adult learners tend to prefer greater autonomy in their education and, therefore, can be motivated by an opportunity to be self-directed in their learning.

Adult Students Cross-Classified as Nontraditional Students Defining nontraditional. Adult students often are captured in other methods of classifying undergraduate students. For example, the phrase nontraditional students sometimes is used as a synonym for adult students in discourse about postsecondary education (Kim 2002; Kim et al. 2010; Langrehr et al. 2015). Bean and Metzner (1985) defined a nontraditional student as one who meets all of the three following criteria: 1. 25 years of age or older, and/or commutes to campus, and/or is enrolled part-time. 2. Less concerned with the social aspects of the college. 3. Primarily focused on a college’s academic programs and qualities.

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Other researchers have offered broader definitions of nontraditional, some facets of which are usually associated with age. Horn and Carroll (1996) defined nontraditional students as those with any of the following characteristics: (1) delayed enrollment in postsecondary education for some time after graduating from high school, (2) attended college part-time, (3) financially independent, (4) held full-time employment while attending college, (5) had dependents other than a spouse, (6) single parent, or (7) did not have a high school diploma. Drawing on these criteria, they assessed students’ degree of nontraditionality; individuals meeting one of the criteria were minimally nontraditional, two or three criteria moderately nontraditional, and four or more criteria highly nontraditional. These categories acknowledge that individuals’ experiences and characteristics have a cumulative effect on their educational motivations, goals, and behaviors. However, the broad definition of nontraditional students has been criticized because the students so classified actually are normative in higher education, especially in community colleges (Choy 2002; Levin 2007; Ma and Baum 2016; Soares 2013). Empirical studies of nontraditional students typically do not disaggregate students by age (Choy 2002; ED 2015; Horn and Carroll 1996), limiting the clarity that they can provide about the intersection of age with characteristics deemed nontraditional. One would expect that some of the facets of nontraditionality are correlated with age. For example, adult students may be caring for children, their own parents, or other dependents. Importantly, given their mature status and acquired skills, we may anticipate that the manner in which adult students manage nonacademic responsibilities (e.g., working full-time, having dependents) could affect their academic outcomes differently than the same nonacademic responsibilities carried by younger (less mature or less experienced) students. Unfortunately, the lack of specific analyses on the experiences and outcomes of adult community college students greatly limits our understanding of the barriers that they face, how they leverage their skills and pre-enrollment experiences to succeed in college, and the institutional strategies that can support their progress and success most effectively. Problematic assumptions of nontraditionality. A significant concern regarding Horn and Carroll’s (1996) definition and others like it, which Levin (2007) described as arising from the trait framework for understanding nontraditionality, is that they confound markers of nontraditionality (as they define nontraditional) with circumstances that vary with class and citizenship. The distinction between traditional and nontraditional may be more a matter of privilege than of normativity, especially considering that nontraditional students are a majority of the population served by community colleges. For instance, on one hand, financial limitations and associated family obligations prevent some students from attending college full-time and immediately after high school, leading them to be classified as nontraditional. On the other hand, being able to obtain a full-time job that pays enough to maintain financial independence – a marker of adult status and nontraditionality – is not within reach of every adult. Over four million people in the United States work parttime because they have not been able to find full-time work or because their

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employers have involuntarily reduced their hours (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2020), and immigration laws prevent employment for undocumented individuals (Enriquez 2015). Horn and Carroll’s criteria for being financially independent implies that adults leave their family to support themselves, which, as discussed in the previous section, does not apply equally across cultures, ethnic groups, and socioeconomic classes (Côté and Bynner 2008; Fuligni and Pedersen 2002; Rumbaut and Komaie 2010; Settersten and Ray 2010; Silva 2012). To the extent that there is value in identifying nontraditional students, it is important that the criteria used not exclude people based on assumptions of cultural universality or universal privilege. A more troubling consequence of Horn and Carroll’s (1996) definition of nontraditional, which revolves around circumstances that compete with academic responsibilities or otherwise may hinder success in college, is a deficit view of nontraditional students (Levin 2007). A deficit view focuses on what individuals lack, ignores their strengths, and assigns responsibility for struggle or failure to individuals (Valencia 1997). To the extent that maturity intersects with nontraditionality, this deficit view is extended to adult students as well. Characterizing a group of students by their struggles can result in negative stereotypes (Richardson and King 1998). Deficit framing tends to perpetuate the practice of privileging one set of skills or qualities over others and ignores the assets held by marginalized populations (Yosso 2005). In this case, the deficit perspective emphasizes nontraditional students’ limitations rather than their potential contributions to college, to other students, and to the academic experience more broadly (Keith et al. 2006; Richardson and King 1998). Although researchers have developed conceptual models that acknowledge the strengths that community college students bring to and develop in higher education (e.g., Laanan and Jain 2017; Moser 2013), those models were not developed for or applied to adult students in particular. In addition to deficit framing, the widespread practice of labeling individuals as “nontraditional” is rooted in the problematic assumption that their needs are less important because they are not the target audience for whom postsecondary education was designed. A circumspect and balanced view of the subject recognizes that all students have strengths and limitations, though younger and older students tend to differ from one another in the nature of their strengths and limitations. It happens that postsecondary institutions are adapted more to the strengths and limitations of younger students than to those of older students, but this is a shortfall of the institutions not the students. In that regard, Donaldson and Townsend (2007) argued that viewing adult students as nontraditional presumes that adult students’ needs, goals, and behaviors are problematic and that adult students bear the full responsibility to adapt to existing institutional norms, thus relieving institutions of responsibility to adapt to adult students’ needs and goals. To better understand how researchers characterize adult students, Donaldson and Townsend (2007) reviewed seven higher education journals and developed a four-category classification scheme for how adult undergraduate students are discussed: “invisible,” “acknowledged but devalued,” “accepted,” and “embraced” (p. 37). Invisible referred to adult students being ignored owing to the assumption that the postsecondary experiences of younger

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students are universal. Articles categorized as using the acknowledged but devalued perspective framed adult students’ differences from younger students as deficiencies in the former, thus privileging the normative status of younger students. The accepted perspective also addressed adult students’ differences from younger students but did not privilege one group over the other. Authors employing this perspective typically used age to identify adult students and treated identified adults as a monolithic group. Though the accepted perspective offered a more balanced viewpoint than acknowledged but devalued, these articles still utilized existing theories and concepts rather than seeking to develop new approaches to understanding and serving adult students specifically. The embraced perspective highlighted adults’ strengths and contributions to the college, recognized adults are a heterogeneous group, and sought to advance theory and practice on how to improve postsecondary education for adults. Donaldson and Townsend found that 32% of the articles that focused on adult students utilized the acknowledged but devalued perspective, but none of them were published after 2000, suggesting that scholars were moving away from that viewpoint. The accepted perspective was reflected in 46% of the articles, while 32% were classified as exhibiting the embraced view. We argue that researchers and practitioners should adopt the embraced perspective identified by Donaldson and Townsend (2007, p. 37) in order to orient their work toward adult students’ strengths and investigate ways that institutions can facilitate their success. In addition, as research on adult students moves away from a deficit perspective, the definition of adult status should reflect this shift. Efforts to reframe nontraditionality. In addition to the trait framework, Levin (2007) describes two other frameworks applied to understanding nontraditionality in higher education. The behavioral framework focuses on the experiences and struggles of students within and against institutions. Students’ voices and perspectives on their experiences and circumstances dominate the behavioral framework, offering a counterpoint to the externally imposed categorizations of the trait framework. Levin (2007) explains, “within this framework, nontraditional students become students with disadvantages who struggle, because of their identities, against economic, institutional, and social constraints” (p. 36). The action framework examines how entities – postsecondary institutions, governments, public and private organizations, and their respective actors – treat nontraditional students, either equitably or inequitably. It aids in identifying “both institutional and public policies that either thwart or enhance student access to and attainment in postsecondary education,” with the primary focus being on disadvantaged nontraditional students (Levin 2007, p. 39). Levin’s elaboration of the frameworks through which nontraditional students are viewed enriches our understanding of how educational experiences are shaped by socioeconomic privilege. It also shifts the weight of responsibility for the success of nontraditional students away from the deficit-framed traits that presumably define nontraditionality and toward the institutions and organizations that do (or could) serve and support these students. In doing so, Levin emphasizes the important role of community colleges in providing opportunities for social mobility and justice for these students. Still, though these alternative frameworks shift some of the

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responsibility for the success of nontraditional students to institutions, they do not highlight the assets possessed by nontraditional students that oftentimes are not recognized by institutions (Yosso 2005). Other work has aimed to reframe nontraditionality from a positive perspective. Soares (2013) argued that the term “nontraditional” is “institution-centric” and assumes that these students are “aberrations” to the current higher education system (p. 2). Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, Soares demonstrated the growing number of undergraduate students who are older than 24, who work, and/or who are parents, making “nontraditional” an outmoded description. Instead, Soares (2013, p.2) offered the phrase post-traditional learner to describe the diverse group of students who have the following characteristics in common: 1. Are needed wage earners for themselves or their families; 2. Combine work and learning at the same time or move between them frequently; 3. Pursue knowledge, skills, and credentials that employers will recognize and compensate; 4. Require developmental education to be successful in college-level courses; 5. Seek academic/career advising to navigate their complex path to a degree. (p. 2)

Importantly, this approach serves to characterize students based on their educational goals, strategies, and learning needs, rather than circumstance-driven limitations in their conformability to the traditional structures and demands of postsecondary education.

Synthesizing a Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students Drawing on the several lines of work discussed up to this point, it is clear that adult college students are a diverse group of learners who represent a multiplicity of identities. Their life experiences and personal context inform their goals, needs, and engagement with college more so than does a chronological measure of age alone. A subjective sense of adulthood is an important factor in students’ motivations and behaviors in college and how they interact with faculty and peers. Drawing from these conclusions, we offer the Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS), comprised of three dimensions: responsibilities, experiences, and subjective sense of adulthood, as shown in Fig. 1. Experiences encompass students’ past roles and responsibilities, the challenges that they faced and overcame, and the skills (personal, professional, and academic) acquired or enriched through fulfilling their responsibilities and overcoming challenges. Responsibilities refer to the professional, family, personal, civic, and community duties for which students currently are accountable. Subjective sense of adulthood is the degree to which students perceive themselves to be adults. The three dimensions intersect. Prior experiences and the skills acquired from those experiences often influence current responsibilities. Both experiences and

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Fig. 1 Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS)

responsibilities influence subjective sense of adulthood. Subjective sense of adulthood may alter individuals’ perceptions of their experiences, as well as the responsibilities that they seek out and embrace. Figure 1 recognizes the intersection of the dimensions but also captures how dimensions of adulthood need not be in balance. For example, an adult student who is retired with grown children living on their own might have extensive experience and numerous skills, a strong subjective sense of adulthood, but relatively fewer immediate responsibilities. We note that the MCAS is located within a larger ecology of social identities, such as race/ethnicity, gender, citizenship, and socioeconomic status. These identities influence and are influenced by the experiences, responsibilities, and subjective sense of adulthood that define the MCAS. We also acknowledge that the dimensions of adulthood are not specific to the activities of being a student, but the MCAS is intended to inform our understanding of individuals in the context of higher education, hence student (the S) in MCAS. Collectively, adult students’ past experiences, acquired skills, current responsibilities, and their sense of being an adult contribute to the perspectives and expectations that they bring to college and to their goals, academic choices, and interactions with postsecondary environments. The greater responsibilities of adult students can conflict with youth-centered norms and expectations of college life even as they also enrich the contributions of adult students to the academic environment and to their fellow students (Kasworm 2003c, 2018; Knowles et al. 2005). If the characteristics that distinguish adult learners are understood by researchers, policymakers, institutional leaders, instructors, practitioners, and other stakeholders, postsecondary institutions will be better equipped to implement policies, programs,

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and instructional strategies that embrace adult students and leverage the strengths that they have acquired from their experiences to fuel their academic success and the success of their fellow students (Donaldson and Townsend 2007).

Operationalizing Adult Status Research, instruction, and practice regarding adult undergraduate students would benefit greatly from a set of survey measures to collect data on students’ experiences, responsibilities, and self-perception of adulthood. While the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) collects some information about students’ responsibilities, it does not capture the additional domains of the MCAS – experience and the degree to which students perceive themselves to be adults – though, admittedly, this is not the purpose of the CCSSE instrument. Data that captures the complexity of adult student status and results in a more accurate understanding of the adults present in the college population has implications for support programs, course scheduling, advising, and professional development for faculty and staff, among other aspects of the institution. Using experiences and circumstances, rather than age, as a marker of adulthood is particularly relevant for community colleges because they serve more first-generation college students and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds than do 4-year institutions (Ma and Baum 2016). As noted earlier, individuals from lower-SES backgrounds are more likely to make adult transitions at an earlier age (Settersten and Ray 2010), and these adult responsibilities inform students’ behavior, goals, and experiences more so than does their age (Kasworm 2018). Yet, if age alone were used to identify an adult student, undergraduates 24 years of age and younger who have significant employment or family responsibilities, who hold leadership roles in their communities, and the like, would not be considered adults. More accurately enumerating adults in a community college’s student population could improve equitable resource allocation, while also adding depth to institutional understanding about the adults served by a particular college could improve institutional initiatives designed to support these students’ outcomes. Data regarding students’ experiences, responsibilities, and subjective sense of adulthood would provide valuable nuance in what it means to be an adult student that a measure of age alone clearly cannot. If survey data were collected as part of an admissions application that all prospective community college students completed, quantitative indices could be derived, offering gradations of the dimensions of adult status to inform institutional research on adult students. The needs and goals of students with high subjective adult status and high level of responsibility but less experience are likely different from those of students with relatively more experience. Programs that encourage and reward adults for prior experiences would better serve the latter than the former, but both could benefit from advising and teaching styles that acknowledge their adult status. With these aims in mind, we propose the survey measures, response categories, and weighting (scoring) scheme in Table 1, which map onto the three dimensions of the MCAS. The items in Table 1 acknowledge the complexity of adulthood and aim

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Table 1 Proposed measures, response categories, and scoring scheme for a student survey informed by the Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS) MCAS dimension Responsibilities

Item number 1

Measure Do you currently have unpaid direct caregiving responsibility most days of each week, such as for a child, younger sibling, or ailing or developmentally delayed family member? [if response 5 no, then skip to item #4] For how many persons do you currently have unpaid direct caregiving responsibility most days of each week?

Responsibilities

2

Responsibilities

3

About how many hours per week do you typically spend providing unpaid caregiving, such as for a child, younger sibling, or ailing or developmentally delayed family member?

Responsibilities

4

Responsibilities

5

Do you currently work for pay? [if response 5 no, then skip to item #8] Considering only work for which you receive pay, about how many hours each week do you typically work?

Responsibilities

6

Regarding your work for pay, which of the following are a significant part of your work responsibilities: A. Overseeing money or monetary transactions B. Supervising or training employees C. Planning work/projects/

Response categories Yes/no

Points assigned Screening question only. No points

1 person 2 people 3 people 4 people 5 or more people 1–10 hours per week 11–20 hours per week 21–30 hours per week 31–40 hours per week 41 or more hours per week Yes/no

1.000 2.000 3.000 4.000 5.000

1–10 hours per week 11–20 hours per week 21–30 hours per week 31–40 hours per week 41 or more hours per week Response categories for all questions: This is a significant part of my work responsibilities This is not a significant part

1.000 2.000 3.000 4.000 5.000

Screening question only. No points 1.000 2.000 3.000 4.000 5.000

Scoring for all questions: 0.625 0.000

(continued)

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Table 1 (continued) MCAS dimension

Item number

Responsibilities

7

Responsibilities

8

Responsibilities

9

Responsibilities

10

Measure

Response categories

Points assigned

jobs or assigning tasks to employees D. Managing inventory, supplies, product output, or product transportation E. Deciding how much employees are paid or whether they receive raises F. Hiring, firing, laying-off, or furloughing employees G. Deciding other employees’ work schedules or hours of work H. Deciding which work/ projects/jobs will be accepted and undertaken and which will be declined or rejected Are you self-employed?

Yes/no

Yes ¼ 2.500 No ¼ 0.000 Screening question only. No points

Do you currently volunteer your time for any civic, religious, or public service organizations? Please do not count paid work, and please do not count caregiving responsibilities, such as for a child, younger sibling, or ailing or developmentally delayed family member. [if response 5 no, then skip to item #11] About how many hours per week do you typically spend volunteering for civic, religious, or public service organizations?

As a volunteer, do you hold any formal positions of leadership within civic, religious, or public service organizations? A position of leadership would require you to make decisions about the goals or plans of the

Yes/no

1–10 hours per week 11–20 hours per week 21–30 hours per week 31–40 hours per week 41 or more hours per week Yes/no

1.000 2.000 3.000 4.000 5.000

Yes ¼ 2.500 No ¼ 0.000

(continued)

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Table 1 (continued) MCAS dimension

Item number

Responsibilities

11

Experiences

12

Experiences

13

Experiences

14

Experiences

15

Experiences

16

Experiences

17

Measure organization or decisions about the use of organizational resources. Though you may discuss important life decisions with others, how often are you responsible for making the final decisions for yourself? Have you ever worked for pay? [if response 5 no, then skip to item #16] Over the course of your life to date, for approximately how many years have you worked for pay (the total number of years across all paid jobs)? Have you ever held a paid job for which your main responsibilities were supervising or managing others? [if response 5 no, then skip to item #16] Over the course of your life to date, for approximately how many years has your paid work been focused mainly on supervising or managing others? Have you ever had direct caregiving responsibility most days of each week for a child, a younger sibling, or an ailing or developmentally delayed family member? [if response 5 no, then skip to item #18] Over the course of your life to date, for approximately how many years have you had direct caregiving responsibility most days of each week for a child, a younger sibling, or an ailing or developmentally delayed family member?

Response categories

Points assigned

Never Rarely Sometimes Often Always Yes/no

0.000 1.250 2.500 3.750 5.000 Screening question only. No points 1.000 2.000 3.000 4.000 5.000

1–5 years 6–10 years 11–15 years 16–20 years 21 or more years Yes/no

Screening question only. No points

1–5 years 6–10 years 11–15 years 16–20 years 21 or more years Yes/no

1.000 2.000 3.000 4.000 5.000

Less than 1 year 1–2 years 3–4 years 5–6 years 7 or more years

1.000 2.000 3.000 4.000 5.000

Screening question only. No points

(continued)

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Table 1 (continued) MCAS dimension Experiences

Item number 18

Experiences

19

Experiences

20

Subjective sense of adulthood

21

Measure Have you ever held a volunteer position in a civic, religious, or public service organization that involved weekly effort or work? Please do not count paid work and caregiving responsibilities for a child, younger sibling, or ailing or developmentally delayed family member. [if response 5 no, then skip to item #20] Over the course of your life to date, for about how many years have you served as a volunteer in ways that involved weekly effort or work? How many of the following activities have you done? A. Applied for unemployment or governmental assistance B. Applied for a passport, travel visa, or permit to work C. Applied for a business license or commercial license D. Completed your own personal income taxes or business taxes E. Applied for a marriage license For each of the following statements, please fill in the blank with one of the five responses in the drop-down menu: A. I ——— see myself as an adult. B. The people who are most important to me ——— treat me like an adult. C. My responsibilities ——— require me to act like an adult. D. I ——— think that I have earned the right to be called an adult.

Response categories Yes/no

Points assigned Screening question only. No points

Less than 1 year 1–2 years 3–4 years 5–6 years 7 or more years

1.000 2.000 3.000 4.000 5.000

Response categories for all questions: I have done this activity at least once I have never done this activity

Scoring for all questions: 1.000 0.000

Response categories for all questions: Never Rarely Sometimes Often Always

Scoring for all questions: 0.000 1.250 2.500 3.750 5.000

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to differentiate gradations of adult status that arise from differences in experience, responsibility, and subject sense of adulthood. However, though they are grounded in the empirical literature discussed earlier, the validity and reliability of the items have not been tested and will require scrutiny in future research. To the extent possible, we sought to develop measures that did not privilege economic opportunities, such as being financially independent or living on one’s own. For example, not all individuals have equal opportunity to secure full-time work and a living wage, and instead may be working low-paying or part-time jobs that are insufficient to attain financial independence (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2020). We also expanded the dimension of responsibility beyond having children as dependents by asking about other care-taking roles that individuals may hold, such as caring for adult family members. As noted, we propose a set of response categories for each measure and associated scores with the goal of enabling institutional researchers to calculate separate indices capturing the three dimensions of MCAS. Indices of this sort will permit researchers to move beyond problematic dichotomies of adult status or trichotomies of nontraditionality (e.g., Horn and Carroll 1996). The weights (scores) applied to response categories, however, are debatable and may need to be adjusted for institutional context. One would expect variation in the occurrence of maturing experiences across geographic regions, socioeconomic status, sociocultural groups, and other contextual and demographic characteristics, which may be relevant to the weight applied to the response categories of each measure. That said, regardless of the weights applied, the survey items improve institutions’ capacity to identify their adult students and understand their circumstances, which in turn will inform institutional efforts to design and implement programs that leverage adults’ assets and meet their needs. With the intention of providing practical guidance to institutional and policy leaders, in the third section of this chapter, we discuss community college initiatives and programs that have demonstrated potential to increase adult students’ outcomes. First, we provide context for those initiatives and programs with an overview of adults’ participation in higher education.

Adult Students’ Participation in Postsecondary Education In this section, we examine what empirical research tells us about the participation of adult students in higher education. We note, however, that most research relies on age alone as an indicator of adult status, with the many limitations that we discussed earlier. For the sake of clarity when discussing the findings of these studies, we use the phrase adult students to refer to individuals that the authors of the studies identified as adults, typically 25 years of age and older. We use the phrase younger students to refer to students under 25 years of age. We begin with a discussion of adult enrollment in postsecondary education and the prominent role that community

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colleges play in serving the adult undergraduate population. We then provide an overview of the differences between adult and younger students in terms of participation in postsecondary education.

Enrollment in Higher Education Adult students comprise a significant fraction of the undergraduates in the United States. As of Fall 2017, students 25 years of age and older accounted for 25% of students enrolled in public undergraduate postsecondary education and 27% of all students in undergraduate education, including private and public institutions (ED 2019). Adult students tend to differ from younger students in their enrollment intensity. When looking at combined enrollment numbers in public 2- and 4-year institutions, 69% of students 25 years of age and older enrolled part-time (fewer than 12 semester credit hours) compared to 34% of students 18–24 years of age. Fully 77% of adults in public 2-year institutions enrolled part-time (ED 2018). Public 2-year colleges, which served 5.7 million students in the fall of 2017, are the primary point of access to higher education for adult students (ED 2019). Students 25 years of age and older accounted for 33% of public 2-year institution enrollment compared to 19% of undergraduate enrollment in public 4-year institutions (ED 2019). Comparing the college choice criteria of students 25 years and older attending a community college with those attending a university, Broekemier (2002) found that adults at the community college placed higher value on affordability, being able to enroll part-time, job placement services, and the amount of time college staff and faculty devote to students. This suggests that adults choose community colleges believing them to be more aligned with their external responsibilities, goals, and expectations. Enrollment of older students is projected to increase in coming years (Hussar and Bailey 2018), affirming the urgent need to understand the goals, experiences, needs, and educational and labor market outcomes of this segment of the student population (Bahr 2019; Bahr et al. 2020a). In sum, older students rely on community colleges more so than do younger students and enroll part-time more frequently than do younger students, likely due to greater responsibilities outside of school (Kasworm 2003b, 2018). Given the prominent role played by community colleges in serving adult students in higher education, we focus much of our attention in the remainder of this chapter on community colleges.

Role of Community Colleges in Adult Undergraduate Education As noted, adult students account for 25% of undergraduates in public postsecondary institutions (ED 2019) and frequently enroll in college to stabilize or strengthen their labor market opportunities. It follows that the success of adult students has significant implications both for the postsecondary institutions in which they enroll and for the workforce and economy that they enter after leaving college.

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Unfortunately, empirical studies demonstrate that older students have lower rates of first-year persistence and lower 6-year completion rates than do their younger peers (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center 2018; Shapiro et al. 2017). Furthermore, some institutional factors that promote students’ persistence, such as sense of belonging and perceiving the campus as a supportive environment, have been found to be lower among adult students than among younger students (Erb and Drysdale 2017; Rabourn et al. 2018). This lower sense of belonging could be attributed to adults’ perceptions that their postsecondary institution is oriented more toward younger students (Cox and Ebbers 2010; Lynch and Bishop-Clark 1998) and students who do not have obligations outside of school (Rowan-Kenyon et al. 2010). These findings indicate that, despite comprising a significant portion of the undergraduate population, adult students disproportionately experience obstacles to their progress and success, one of which may be inadequate support by colleges. As bastions of access to higher education, community colleges have taken a leading role in providing educational opportunities for lifelong learning, meeting needs to maintain or upgrade workforce skills and acquire new competencies or credentials for workforce reentry or mid-career transitions, and developing personal, familial, or civic interests (Bahr and Gross 2016; Cohen et al. 2014). Responding to workforce shortages in the communities and regions that they serve is embedded within the multifaceted missions of community colleges. Evidence indicates that community colleges will adjust their degree offerings and program foci to meet local demand (Bahr 2013; Barringer and Jaquette 2018). Employers increasingly rely on community colleges to provide job-specific training for their workers, including in high-need areas such as middle-skills professions in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Hagedorn and Purnamasari 2012; Weeks 2009). Recognizing the power of community colleges to train adults, the US Department of Labor awarded community colleges $1.9 billion dollars in grants to create training programs in healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, information technology, and energy (U.S. Department of Labor 2019). Likewise, the open admissions policies, low cost, and geographic accessibility of community colleges make them a primary source for training or retraining for adults experiencing periods of unemployment (Arkes 1999; Cummins 2014). In addition, community colleges offer a wide range of noncredit courses that allow students of all ages and levels of experience to continue to develop their personal and professional potential throughout their lives (Kasworm 2012). A study of one state’s community college system revealed that 61% of the students enrolled in noncredit courses were 25 years of age or older, and 80% of noncredit classes in which adults enrolled were for occupational training (D’Amico et al. 2014). Results from a national survey of state community college system directors indicate that nearly 60% of noncredit courses offered were for job training (D’Amico et al. 2017). In sum, community colleges hold a uniquely important role as the colleges of the community and therefore are well situated to attend to adult students’ goals and needs (Bahr and Gross 2016). Indeed, community colleges serve a disproportionate share of adult students (ED 2018). Given the weaker credential completion rates of adult students, however, community colleges should grow and strengthen programs

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and initiatives that meet adults’ diverse needs and offer opportunities for them to capitalize on their strengths and experiences as they advance toward their educational goals (Donaldson and Townsend 2007; Kasworm 2003c, 2018).

Adult Students as Diverse Learners Any consideration of adult students in higher education must be careful to avoid a monolithic view of the population (Richardson and King 1998). A more accurate perspective recognizes adult students as a diverse group of learners whose motivations, experiences, and outcomes are informed by their varied life circumstances, identities, roles, and responsibilities. For example, undocumented immigrants and students who speak English as a second language often are found in the adult student population in community colleges (Rodriguez and Cruz 2009). Likewise, veterans frequently are found among adult undergraduates, as 84% of veterans in postsecondary education are 24 years of age or older (Radford 2011). Adult students commonly are assessed as needing varying degrees of developmental support in math and/or English prior to or in conjunction with college-level courses. Using a nationally representative sample of community college students, Chen (2016) found that, in 2003, 62% of first-time students in public 2-year institutions who were 24 years of age or older took remedial courses. Though this figure is lower than the 73% of students 20–23 years old and 70% of students 19 years of age who took remedial courses, it remains that a majority of adult students enrolled in remedial courses. The diverse range of identities that intersect with adult status illustrates the complexity but also the importance of arriving at a more sophisticated understanding of adult students in higher education and how to better serve these students.

Differences Between Older and Younger Students Adult students’ goals, enrollment patterns, and engagement in college are shaped by their prior experiences, current responsibilities, and their sense of adulthood – the dimensions of the Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS). Consequently, we find differences between older students and younger students in goals, enrollment patterns, and engagement in college. Goals. The range of purposes and goals that motivate adult students to enroll in community college frequently can differentiate this group from their younger counterparts. Changes in life circumstances and responsibilities, often initiated by sudden triggering events, can prompt the decision to become an active learner, including enrolling in college (Aslanian and Brickell 1980; Ozaki 2006). For example, in one qualitative study at six postsecondary institutions (a mix of community colleges and 4-year institutions), the sudden loss of a job or a divorce were reported as precipitating events of enrolling in college (Kasworm 2003c; Kasworm and Blowers 1994). Unanticipated events relating to relationships, responsibilities, and finances can have greater implications for adults than they do for younger individuals due to the

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former’s independence from parental support (Kasworm 2003c). However, changes in circumstances also can be gradual and anticipated. For example, in a study conducted with first-time adult women in an evening program at a small liberal arts college, participants frequently cited as a reason for entering postsecondary education an increase in their disposable time deriving from children moving out on their own (Mohney and Anderson 1988). Adult students are more likely to enroll in college to gain or enhance professional skills (Compton et al. 2006), frequently choosing programs that lead to a workforce credential, such as a postsecondary certificate or an associate degree in a career and technical education field (Bahr et al. 2020a). Results from the 2018 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (Center for Community College Student Engagement [CCCSE] 2018) indicated that, nationwide, 56% of students 25 years of age and older enrolled in community college to change careers, compared to 22% of students 24 years of age and younger. Although less striking in its contrast, 66% of adults versus 59% of younger students reported obtaining job skills as a reason for enrolling. In addition to a greater focus on acquiring skills, adult students were less likely than were younger students to plan to transfer to a 4-year institution (55% of adult students versus 73% of younger students), but adult and younger community college students were equally likely (78%) to report being invested in earning an associate’s degree (CCCSE 2018). That said, some research suggests that many adult students do not necessarily aspire to a degree or certificate and have other reasons for enrolling in college (Laanan 2003). Adult students, and especially older adult students, are likely to view education as enabling a healthy and independent lifestyle (Lakin 2009). Indeed, community college adult students are more likely than are their younger peers to indicate personal improvement or enjoyment as a reason for participating in postsecondary education (CCCSE 2018). More broadly, the variation evident in research findings concerning adult students’ purposes for their higher education pursuits is an important reminder of the diversity of experiences, identities, and needs that adult students bring to higher education. Institutions seeking to improve adult recruitment and retention must consider both adult students’ educational goals and the obstacles to pursuing those goals. Cross’ (1981) Chain-of-Response model argues that the subjective (relative) importance of an adult’s goals and the degree to which the adult believes that education is an efficacious route to achieving those goals influence the likelihood that an obstacle will prevent the adult from pursuing education. Cross identified three categories of barriers that prevent adults from enrolling in formal education: situational, institutional, and dispositional. Situational obstacles are elements of the adult’s life and responsibilities, such as working hours that conflict with attending school or not having access to supportive childcare arrangements for one’s children. Institutional barriers refer to those presented by the college itself, such as courses scheduled at inconvenient times. Dispositional barriers are personal concerns or traits, like lack of confidence, that might block an adult’s path to education. Enrollment patterns. Given the differences between older and younger community college students in goals, as well as external responsibilities and obligations, it is

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unsurprising to find different enrollment patterns. As noted earlier, adult students are much more likely than are younger students to enroll part-time (ED 2018). That said, having different motivations and attending part-time does not necessarily mean that adult students fail to make academic progress. For example, using statewide data from Virginia, Cho and Karp (2013) found that students 23 years of age and older are more likely to earn credits in their first year of enrollment in a community college than are their younger counterparts. Similarly, Bahr et al. (2020b) found that older students have higher credit success rates in the first year of community college. Focusing on first-time community college students in California, Bahr (2010) developed a typology of students based on their course-taking and enrollment patterns. He identified six behavioral profiles: transfer, vocational, drop-in, noncredit, experimental, and exploratory. Overall, students 26 years of age and older at community college entry accounted for 34% of his statewide sample, but they accounted for just 6% of the students in the transfer cluster and 13% of students in the exploratory cluster, both of which took courses across the curriculum positioning them to transfer or complete an associate’s degree. On the other hand, older students accounted for 64% of the sizeable drop-in cluster, characterized by enrolling in college for just a short time and taking only a few courses but being highly successful in those courses. It seems like that these students were utilizing community colleges to gain necessary skills or knowledge but were not seeking a credential, illustrating the overlap between adults’ goals and enrollment patterns. Older students also accounted for 70% of the noncredit cluster, characterized by enrollment in more noncredit courses than any other cluster and an exceptionally long duration of enrollment. In addition, we note that students 26 years of age and older accounted for only 25% of the experimental cluster, compared with their 34% representation in the overall student population. The experimental cluster was composed of students who enrolled in few courses over a short period of time with low success (Bahr 2010). Experimenting with college and failing courses can be more costly in time and lost wages for adult students with external responsibilities than it is for their younger peers (Bodvarsson and Walker 2004). Of note, although evidence indicates that community college students move back and forth between institutions and enroll simultaneously in multiple community colleges more often than one might expect, adult students are much more likely to focus their course-taking in a single institution (Bahr 2009). This holds true even after accounting for differences between adult and younger students in duration of enrollment (Bahr 2012). Thus, individual community colleges hold the potential to have an especially focused impact on the academic experiences and outcomes of adults in their student populations. Engagement. Adult students frequently differ from their younger counterparts in motivations for learning (Knowles et al. 2005; Purcell 2010), expectations for classroom experiences (Strage 2008), and approaches to academic engagement (Bradley and Graham 2000). Adults attending a public urban university were less likely than younger students to report concerns about criticism from the instructor or classmates hindering their participation in class (Weaver and Qi 2005). The same

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study found that adults were more determined to engage in class, despite obstacles like large class sizes and lecture-based instructor. Purcell (2010) found that adult students at a public university and a community college were more likely than were younger students to stay after class to discuss course content with a professor. Adult students also indicated that they spent more time studying and were motivated more by the goal of learning rather than the goal of achieving high grades (Purcell 2010). These findings affirm that adult students are more intrinsically motivated, supporting assertions discussed earlier in this chapter regarding the characteristics of adult learners (Knowles et al. 2005). Findings from a qualitative study of community college students indicated that adult students believe their prior experiences helped them to develop resilience and skills that aid their successful in college (Kasworm 2005). Adult students describe themselves as highly committed, arguing that they must balance multiple responsibilities and make sacrifices in order to pursue a postsecondary education (Kasworm 2005; Markle 2015). In addition, studies of undergraduates in 4-year universities have noted that adult students report believing that self-reliance, self-discipline, and self-determination will facilitate their success in college, thus highlighting the importance of autonomy and independence in adult students’ learning (Donaldson et al. 2000; Kasworm 2010). Since adult students are more likely to have significant responsibilities outside of college (Fairchild 2003; Kasworm 2003c), their participation occurs primarily in the classroom as opposed to being distributed across a range of environments, like tutoring centers, academic clubs (e.g., math club), office hours, and study groups (Donaldson and Graham 1999). Therefore, adult learners frequently seek to maximize their engagement with peers and instructors during class in order to enhance their learning (Bradley and Graham 2000; Kasworm 2003c). Rabourn, BrckaLorenz, and Shoup (2018) noted that, even though adult students reported having fewer interactions with faculty than did younger students, adult students rated the quality of those interactions higher than did younger students. The authors noted that fewer interactions with faculty may not necessarily be of concern since older students generally have clearer goals and, therefore, do not need as much guidance from faculty. Moreover, adults have reported perceiving that instructors favor them or rely on them to be classroom leaders (Kasworm 2005). Conversely, students have reported feeling disrespected when community college instructors expressed shock that the student did not know something the instructors perceived to be standard knowledge for adults (Kasworm 2005; Katsiaficas et al. 2015). These findings suggest a potentially important relationship between instructor-student interactions, subjective sense of adulthood, and the roles that adult students fulfill in the college classroom. Donaldson and Graham’s (1999) concept of the “connecting classroom” captures the idea that adult students connect to the college experience through the classroom. It is the place where they “construct, for themselves and others, what it means to be a college student” (Donaldson and Graham 1999, p. 31). This is important because adult students also may hold multiple identities (e.g., worker, parent) that they bring to their academic experiences (Compton et al. 2006). Utilizing the classroom as the

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place to draw from those life experiences and identities provides students with the opportunity to integrate the other components of their lives with their educational experiences and develop a college student identity (Donaldson and Graham 1999). However, as noted earlier, it is important to recognize that adult students are not a monolithic group or homogenous in their experiences, circumstances, behaviors, and subjective sense of adulthood. In a six-institution qualitative study, Kasworm (2003a) identified five categories of adult students’ beliefs about academic and experiential knowledge, suggesting that the manner in which students connect classroom experiences to their lives could be affected by their perspective (pp. 87–88). Students that Kasworm dubbed as having an “entry voice” valued academic knowledge above experiential knowledge, believing their experiences could not inform classroom learning. The “outside voice” category was characterized by valuing real-world knowledge and experience over course content, again highlighting the importance of experiences in defining adult status. Those with a “cynical voice” were skeptical about the utility of academic knowledge. Students described as using a “straddling voice” valued both experiential and academic knowledge and worked to build connections between them. The “inclusion voice” also integrated life and classroom knowledge and, in addition, sought to connect their classroom learning to real-world circumstances (Kasworm 2003a). Those students actively reflected on their learning processes, sought learning experiences outside of the classroom, and described academic knowledge as enhancing their understanding of themselves and the multiple contexts in which they interacted (Kasworm 2003c). In sum, the classroom is the primary place for adult students to engage with postsecondary institutions, but there is considerable variation among adult students in their views of the classroom and beliefs about the knowledge acquired there. In addition to how they perceive and use the classroom and the knowledge gained there, evidence suggests that adult students sometimes differ from younger students in their criteria for what defines an ideal instructor or course. In a study of a large metropolitan university, Strage (2008) found that older students described the ideal course and professor as organized and flexible, whereas younger students wanted professors and courses to be funny and engaging. Adult students in Strage’s study also noted that they were comfortable interacting with instructors and viewed them as resources. Greater subjective sense of adulthood could make adult students more at ease engaging with fellow adults, including instructors. Perceiving faculty members as approachable resources is especially important for adult learners given that, as noted earlier, the classroom is their primary place of academic engagement and learning (Bradley and Graham 2000; Kasworm 2003a). Furthermore, by sharing institutional knowledge, faculty members can increase adult students’ social capital, which facilitates students’ connection to other staff or faculty as well as students’ successful navigation of the institution (Dika 2012; Stanton-Salazar 1997). In sum, previous research has found that adults tend to be highly motivated to learn, engaged with course content, and interested in capitalizing on their classroom experiences and likely to perceive and value their instructors as resources. Institutions should urge instructors to interact with adult learners individually as well as to encourage their participation in class, thus attending to adult students’ inclination

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toward using the classroom as the primary place for academic engagement. Instructors also should seek opportunities to assist adult learners with integrating their knowledge and experiences inside and outside the classroom, helping them to shift toward the inclusion voice described by Kasworm (2003c). These strategies recognize and respond to adults’ experiences, responsibilities, and sense of adulthood, expressing the institution’s investment in adult students.

Improving Adult Community College Students’ Outcomes In this section, we provide an overview of previous efforts to identify and classify successful student support programs, and we discuss what they can tell us about supporting adult community college students specifically. We then draw on extant research on community college programs and initiatives to identify those that have potential to positively influence adult students’ outcomes. Connecting back to the first section of this chapter, we map these programs onto characteristics of adult learners identified in the literature and provide examples of how the programs and initiatives connect to the three dimensions of the proposed Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS), with the aim of describing hypothesized mechanisms that may explain why certain programs are particularly beneficial for adult learners.

Previous Work on Classifying Community College Support Programs Scholars have categorized community college student success and support programs in a variety of ways (e.g., Crisp and Taggart 2013; Hatch and Bohlig 2016; Karp 2011). Karp’s (2011, p. 2) categorization of “nonacademic support” programs offered at commuter and community colleges included (1) enhanced or intrusive advising; (2) student success courses designed to facilitate a student’s transition to college through the dissemination of information about institutional resources and services, major program of study and course selection, and instruction in study skills; and (3) learning communities, which are pairs or groups of courses taken by a cohort of students. Karp observed wide variation within and across program elements in the studies reviewed, leading her to argue that the process or mechanism contained within the program that helps students succeed is more important than the type of support program. Her examination of the literature led her to identify four mechanisms that facilitate student success: “clarifying aspirations and enhancing [goal] commitment,” “creating social relationships,” “developing college know-how” regarding strategies for and services to support success, and “making college life feasible” by helping students address challenges outside of college (Karp 2011, p. 6). Two of the mechanisms described by Karp likely are as applicable to adult students as to their youngers peers, including addressing the external challenges that prevent students from staying in college (“making college life feasible”) and providing the information that students need to navigate the academic environment

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efficiently and successfully (“developing college know-how”). Direct evidence regarding how the other two mechanisms may differ in expression or strength for adult students versus younger students is more limited, although indirect evidence can lead us to tentative conclusions. Regarding clarification and enhancement of goal commitment, we note that perceived utility of course content has been found to be important for adult students’ persistence (Sorey and Duggan 2008). For individuals with significant external responsibilities and who already have acquired significant experience and skills, course material that is clearly applicable to their lives or careers offers some assurance that their investment in the course and the opportunity cost that they bear is worthwhile (Knowles et al. 2005). Metzner and Bean (1987) discovered that nontraditional students’ perceptions of how useful a course was to their career goals had a positive association with persistence. In Metzner and Bean’s study, a “nontraditional” student was defined as enrolling part-time (less than 12 credits) and commuting to campus. While age was not part of the sample selection criteria, onethird of the students in the sample were 25 years of age or older. Results from a study of adults enrolled in 2- and 4-year degree programs at a private university demonstrated a positive relationship between persistence and the level of confidence students had in their ability to select a career (career decision-making self-efficacy), suggesting that adults value college experiences that support their path to an occupation (Sandler 2000). Viewing Karp’s (2011) proposition about clarification and enhancement of goal commitment in light of the aforementioned research on adult students, we might hypothesize that a key mechanism by which student support programs influence adults’ success is through illuminating the connections between prescribed coursework and the students’ goals, as opposed to helping students clarify their goals in the first place. Clearly, this also is needed in the coursework itself, it being incumbent on instructors to ensure that they are communicating the relevance of course material to students’ goals. Regarding creating social relationships, there is some debate regarding the importance of social experiences for adult students’ outcomes. Sorey and Duggan (2008) found that developing relationships with peers was the strongest predictor of first-to-second-term persistence for adult students. Likewise, Sandler (2000) found that making friendships predicted persistence among a sample of adults at a private university. However, Metzner and Bean (1987) found no relationship between measures of social experiences (number of important friendships at the college, frequent contact with faculty, and participating in student organizations) and term GPA or persistence for “nontraditional” students.1

Metzner and Bean (1987), Sandler (2000), and Sorey and Duggan (2008) use the term “social integration” to refer to social experiences, based on Tinto’s (1975) work. However, given the assimilationist assumptions and origins of the term (Museus 2014) and the differences in how these authors measured the variable, we describe the social variables with terminology that better represents how the variables were measured. 1

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Sorey and Duggan (2008) hypothesized that this discrepancy between their findings and those of Metzner and Bean (1987) may be attributed to the fact that they conducted their study in a community college and specifically used being 25 years of age and older to define adult in their sample, while Metzner and Bean’s participants were from a 4-year commuter institution and were not limited to students 25 years of age or older. The discrepancy also could be attributed to differences in variable operationalization, as Sorey and Duggan and Sandler assessed social experiences with items relating to ability to make friends and the quality of relationships, not the number of friends on campus, faculty interactions, or participating in organizations. The latter two items may not align with adults, as adults likely have a greater share of their important friendships arising from experiences prior to college, and adults are less likely to participate in student organizations than are younger students due to time constraints. Indeed, Kasworm (2005) found that adult community college students valued their in-class friendships, but those relationships did not extend outside the classroom. Thus, quality social experiences and peer interactions may be important supports for adult students, but adults may not (or may not be able to) engage in the social life of the college in the same way or to the same extent as their younger peers. Other studies indicate that adult students prefer having other adult students in their classes (Cox and Ebbers 2010; Lynch and Bishop-Clark 1998). If adults use the classroom as their primary place to engage with peers (Donaldson and Graham 1999; Kasworm 2003a), preferences for wanting other adults with whom to engage could be interpreted as adults valuing social connections on campus. Still, evidence suggests that viewing the institution as supportive of learning and personal growth has a stronger positive effect on adult students’ self-reported learning gains and career development than does the number of hours that the student is involved in campus activities (Bradley and Graham 2000). Adult students have reported that favorable interactions with faculty increase their sense of belonging (Cox and Ebbers 2010), which in turn positively influences persistence and institutional commitment (Hausmann et al. 2009; O’Keeffe 2013). Institutional commitment, or the degree to which a student is dedicated to attending and graduating from a particular college, is positively associated with adult students’ persistence (Sorey and Duggan 2008). Factors related to institutional commitment, such as belief that institutional agents (e.g., advisors, faculty) are supportive, are associated with persistence and completion (Bergman et al. 2014) and learning gains (Bradley and Graham 2000). Similarly, frequency of meeting with academic and faculty advisors also is positively associated with adult student persistence (Shields 1994). Based on the evidence, we might hypothesize that course sections that are designed for and marketed to adults could address adults’ prioritization of learning while also providing opportunities to create the social relationships that Karp (2011) suggested may be important. Colleges also could increase opportunities for adults to engage with faculty, such as through faculty mentoring programs. A peer mentoring program may be less effective for adult students as adults may not view a mentor of a younger age in a markedly different life stage as a peer.

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To further understanding of the components of student success programs, Hatch and Bohlig (2016) developed a typology of community college student success programs using data from the Community College Institutional Survey. Using factor mixture modeling, they identified four latent types of programs, defined by combinations of five factors or component elements. The component elements included (1) college success skills, (2) collaborative and contextualized learning, (3) academic and student services, (4) co-curricular and community activities, and (5) ancillary instruction (p. 86). Their research is a first step in understanding how and why some program elements or combinations of program elements may be more or less important for certain student subpopulations, such as adult students, though this was not tested in the study. For example, adult students may respond differently than do younger students to a program that features opportunities to exercise autonomy. Other research is this area includes Crisp and Taggart’s (2013) review of the effectiveness of student success programs that are prominently featured in community colleges, such as student success courses, learning communities, and supplemental instruction. The Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE 2012) also presented a three-part framework for “promising practices” in community colleges. The framework organizes practices into three categories: “planning for success,” “initiating success,” and “sustaining success” (p. 8). The planning category consisted of course placement assessments and methods, orientation, advising centered on academic goal setting, and prompt registration. Programs to support first-year students, accelerated paths through development coursework, learning communities, and student success courses comprised the initiating category. The sustaining practices were attending class, early alert, hands-on learning, tutoring, and supplemental instruction. However, neither of this studies delved into how support programs may or may not align with adult students’ needs. In contrast, Van Noy and Heidkamp (2013) identified and categorized support programs, forms of financial assistance, and practices at the state and community college level that can improve adults’ experiences and completion outcomes. The state reforms included academic programs (e.g., career pathways), financial aid specifically for adults, building relationships between stakeholders, and increased use of data to monitor and inform programming. The authors provided a list of institutional practices that address adults’ various needs, strengths, and goals in the domains of academics, transitioning to college, and holistic support services, including transportation and financial aid. The authors also noted subsets of adults who benefit most from particular services, such as low-skilled adults or dislocated workers, recognizing the heterogeneity within the adult student population. More broadly, Van Noy and Heidkamp (2013) draw attention to the importance of recognizing that the practices that can improve adults’ experiences and outcomes sometimes are different from those for younger students (Bailey and Alfonso 2005). Their work provides a broad overview of college and state programs and policies that can transform adults’ educational experiences. This chapter adds to their efforts by providing a more detailed discussion of the extant research and identifying connections between dimensions of adulthood in the college context (the MCAS) and

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aspects of the programs that align with those elements. Van Noy and Heidkamp also stress the importance of data as “essential for states and colleges to understand the needs of adults as well as the results of their policies and practices” (Van Noy and Heidkamp 2013, p. 21), and we seek to advance this position with our proposed survey measures aligned with the MCAS (see Table 1).

Programs and Initiatives with Potential to Improve Adult Students’ Outcomes We focus here on community college programs and initiatives that feature characteristics that can promote adult students’ success, including prior learning assessment (PLA), accelerated programs, distance learning, advising, student success courses, and learning communities. Prior learning assessment (PLA) counts toward academic progress the educationally relevant experiences and knowledge accumulated by adults. Accelerated programs offer adults a faster route to a credential, recognizing that adult students often are juggling work, caregiving, and other competing obligations. Distance learning programs recognize adults’ advanced capacity to learn autonomously and allow them to do so at times that do not conflict with their other obligations. Adult-focused advising processes and techniques can acknowledge adult students’ responsibilities, roles, and motivations, in addition to guiding adult students in the efficient identification and completion of programs that are most relevant to their goals. Student success courses can teach adult students the skills needed to maximize their learning and likelihood of completing their programs of study. Learning communities offer unique opportunities for adult students to construct their college student identities and engage in productive relationships with peers and faculty in the context of the classroom, the primary location of adult students’ involvement in postsecondary institutions. Prior learning assessment. PLA helps students to earn credits based on knowledge gained outside of school and, therefore, decreases the time required to earn a credential. Offering PLA can signal to adult students that the institution values their prior experiences, and it can contribute to students’ perceptions that the institution supports them. Believing that the institution is responsive to their needs is associated with adult students’ persistence and completion (Bergman et al. 2014) as well as selfreported learning gains (Bradley and Graham 2000). Providing a means by which adult students can earn college credits for prior learning is not a new practice, but the extent to which it has been adopted widely by community colleges is unclear (Kamenetz 2011). PLA involves “evaluat[ing] for academic credit the college-level knowledge and skills an individual has gained outside of the classroom, including from employment (e.g., on-the-job training, employer-developed training), military training/service, travel, hobbies, civic activities and volunteer service” (Brigham and Klein-Collins 2010, p. 1). There are different methods that colleges use to evaluate prior learning experiences for the purpose of earning college-level credit. These methods include (1) standardized exams, such as Advanced Placement (AP) or the College-Level Examination

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Program (CLEP), (2) institutional challenge exams, (3) military or professional training programs that have been formally evaluated by the American Council for Education (ACE), and (4) individualized portfolio assessments (Brigham and KleinCollins 2010; Sherman and Klein-Collins 2015). PLA is tailored to benefit adult students because it acknowledges the learning gained prior to and alongside college enrollment (Kamenetz 2011). Therefore, PLA can smooth the transition into academic life for many adults who bring to their education a diverse set of skills and experiences, while also accelerating their progress toward their goals, saving time and money. Due to the relatively high level of standardization in military training compared to on-the-job training in other fields, active duty military students and veterans are especially well positioned to benefit from PLA offerings (National Adult Learner Coalition 2017). Higher education plays an important role in the transition from military service to civilian life (DiRamio and Jarvis 2011), but the costs of starting over can be prohibitive (Winston 2010). Awarding credit for the training and experience that veterans gained during their military service can assist them in both obtaining a postsecondary credential and communicating the educational value of their military service to potential employers (Bergman and Herd 2017). There is surprisingly little information available about how many community colleges offer PLA or the extent of PLA policies in these institutions. While there are studies that focus on particular college systems that utilize PLA (e.g., Finkel 2017; Hayward and Williams 2015), we are unaware of any nationwide assessments of PLA policies. Results from a 2010 survey asking community colleges about their utilization of PLA indicated that 90% of responding community colleges offered credit for CLEP exam scores, 85% had challenge exams, and 64% conducted portfolio assessments (Brigham and Klein-Collins 2010). However, the responding institutions represented only 20 states and, therefore, may not be indicative of the extent to which community colleges nationwide offer PLA. A 2017 report found that 24 states had policies that permitted or mandated postsecondary institutions to accept PLA, but the number of college systems that offer PLA remains unknown (Whinnery 2017). Some states are actively supporting PLA, such as Washington and Colorado (e.g., Colorado General Assembly 2017; Finkel 2017; Whinnery 2017). Colorado’s legislature adopted a bill in 2017 requiring each postsecondary institution in the state to develop and implement a PLA policy for veterans (Colorado General Assembly 2017). Furthermore, the law mandated that any credits earned by veterans under PLA would be transferable to other public institutions in the state, which is especially beneficial to community college students who are pursuing a 4-year degree. Washington state is using PLA as one strategy to achieve its goal of 70% of state residents between the ages 25 and 44 having a postsecondary credential (Washington Student Achievement Council [WSAC] 2017). Over the past 10 years, the state has passed legislation requiring postsecondary institutions to collaborate to increase the number of credits earned through PLA, develop methods of assessing prior learning including knowledge gained in military training, provide training for faculty and

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staff to assess prior learning, and convene a working group of state board officials, faculty, and college leaders to monitor progress in increasing PLA participation (WSAC 2017; Washington State Legislature HB 1795 – 2011-12 2011). (WSAC 2017). The state subsequently has seen an increase in the number of credits awarded for prior learning (WSAC 2019). Empirical research on the influence of PLA on student learning, persistence, and completion generally and in community colleges specifically is limited. Among the relatively few studies in this area, Klein-Collins (2010) conducted a multi-institution study of the association between PLA and key student outcomes. She explored the methods of PLA used within and across institutions and the ways in which adult students – age 25 or older – were able to apply awarded credits toward educational program requirements. She found that study institutions often used more than one form of assessment, including standardized exams (e.g., CLEP), ACE-evaluated corporate and military training programs, exams designed by the institution, and student-prepared portfolios. Offering multiple assessment options allows adult students to use the method best suited to communicate their knowledge and learning experiences (Klein-Collins 2010). The majority of institutions allowed adult students to use PLA-earned credits to meet elective requirements, general education requirements, or program/major requirements, although the policies affecting the use of PLA-earned credits varied by institution and, within institutions, by department. Klein-Collins’ study suggests that PLA contributes to higher rates of persistence and completion for adult students across the age spectrum. However, the cross-sectional nature of the data, lack of important controls, and self-selection of institutions into the study place significant limits on confidence in the internal and external validity of the study. A separate study (Hayward and Williams 2015) examined whether the associations between PLA and key student outcomes vary by PLA assessment method (i.e., ACE, CLEP, Portfolio, or combination) and found that students who earned PLA credits through CLEP exams were more likely to graduate than were students who earned credit through ACE programs, a portfolio, or combination. However, like Klein-Collins (2010), this study was limited by the cross-sectional nature of the data and the lack of a comprehensive set of controls. Bergman, Gross, Berry, and Schuck (2014) found that earning credits from PLA was positively associated with persistence, but their study was conducted with adult students in a baccalaureate program and may not be generalizable to community colleges. Given their accumulated experience and skills, PLA clearly is more useful to adult students than to their younger peers, but adult students cannot benefit from PLA programs if they are not aware of them. Using nationwide data about community colleges, Van Noy and Heidkamp (2013) found that offering PLA did not have a statistically significant relationship with adult enrollment. The authors interpret this finding as an indication that students are not aware that PLA is available, pointing to the importance of communicating these programs to prospective adult students. Accelerated programs. Increasingly, academic programs are being offered in accelerated formats that shorten time to content mastery and program completion (Kasworm 2012). Some of the most popular accelerated programs are in business

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administration, information technology, and healthcare (Wlodkowski 2003). Rising tuition costs have heightened the appeal of such programs for students of all ages, but adult students in particular may benefit from accelerated programs due to their frequently greater opportunity cost for taking time out of paid employment. Additionally, older students often have multiple, competing roles that limit the time that they can allocate to coursework. Accelerated programs are one strategy to address the challenge of competing responsibilities, which frequently instead require students to enroll part-time, lengthening the time required to complete a program of study. Research on students’ experiences offers a mostly positive view of accelerated programs. In interviews with 20 adult students in an accelerated degree program, Kasworm (2003b) found that participants believed the accelerated program offered a better fit for their age and stage of life, whereas the traditional programs were structured in a way they perceived to be more appropriate for younger students. The peer support available in the accelerated program had a positive influence on students’ experiences. While some missed the breadth of material covered in more traditional degree programs, they appreciated that the accelerated program offered a more focused and direct path to meeting their goals. However, the students also expressed that there was too much structure and not enough flexibility in program requirements (Kasworm 2003b). Johnson (2009) investigated faculty members’ experiences with accelerated programs and found that those who had taught both traditional and accelerated classes encountered similar challenges in the two types of classes. They did not find that the quality of instruction was compromised in accelerated programs. On the contrary, accelerated classes tended to have higher levels of student engagement and attendance compared to traditional courses. Some of the factors that could influence students’ success in accelerated programs, such as competing demands at work and home, are beyond institutions’ control, but colleges can create accelerated programs that are compatible with adults’ schedules, expectations, and interests. According to Husson and Kennedy (2003), successful accelerated programs minimize barriers to access, are student-centered rather than instructor-centered, are responsive to student and employer demand, are designed with adult learners in mind, offer multiple course delivery options, and maintain high standards of academic quality. Furthermore, institutions can tailor advising, assessment, and course schedules to better serve adult students enrolled in accelerated programs (Walvoord 2003). To the extent that credentials serve as signals of employability, accelerated programs have one potential disadvantage, namely, that institutions granting accelerated credentials are sometimes perceived as less credible or prestigious (Kasworm 2003b; Wlodkowski 2003). Still, given that accelerated programs are largely designed to serve students who already are engaged in the workforce, there is potential for colleges to build corporate partnerships and encourage employer buy-in (Husson and Kennedy 2003), perhaps most easily through short certificate programs in programs of study that align with employers’ needs.

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Distance learning. Another way that community colleges have sought to increase accessibility and success for adult students is by expanding courses offered in an online or hybrid format and making support services like tutoring available online (Hardin 2008; Kasworm 2012). In 2015, community colleges hosted over 36% of all undergraduate distance learning enrollment (Allen and Seaman 2017). Despite assumptions that adult students are less willing to engage with technology, they are especially likely to take advantage of online and hybrid classes (Ausburn 2004). Distance learning options allow adult students to build their course schedules around their responsibilities, such as employment and caregiving. Previous studies of student outcomes in online courses have produced mixed findings. Using nationally representative data, Shea and Bidjerano (2014) found that community college students who completed at least some online coursework during their first year of college were more likely to earn a credential as compared with students who took classes on campus only. However, other studies of distance learning at community colleges have found that key course outcomes, such as grades and persistence, are lower for online classes as compared with face-to-face classes (e.g., Bahr et al. 2020c; Xu and Jaggars 2013). Adults may be more successful in online courses than younger students due to a greater preference for self-direction and skill at self-regulation (Donaldson et al. 2000; Kasworm 2010). A study conducted with relatively older community college students (mean age of the sample was nearly 28) showed that autonomy has a positive relationship with course final grades (Yen and Liu 2009). Online learning provides more opportunities for autonomous learning by removing constraints on how, when, and where students learn (Barak et al. 2016). Students also can adjust the pace of their learning, pausing when necessary or when confusion arises, drawing on a variety of tools to obtain clarification, and then returning to the lesson, thus allowing students to control their learning experience and achieve mastery (Barak et al. 2016). Being able to direct their own learning, have flexible scheduling, and use tools that they find most helpful were the main reasons adult undergraduates at universities said they that prefer online courses (Bourdeaux and Schoenack 2016). The availability of distance learning opportunities is growing, and community colleges are poised to take advantage of improvements in online learning tools and platforms. Online learning is especially important for rural institutions, which serve geographically dispersed student populations who may be especially likely to benefit from distance learning options. The median age for rural communities is higher than it is for urban communities, and therefore rural community colleges are likely to have a higher proportion of adult students (Day et al. 2016). Yet, rural institutions face challenges in offering online programs due to a shortage of personnel to create, support, and deliver those programs (Leist and Travis 2010). Based on key informant interviews at six rural community colleges, where planning for distance learning was typically short-term and reactive, Leist and Travis (2010) concluded that long-term strategic planning regarding programming, course development, and faculty training

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will be essential for ensuring the successful implementation of online programs in rural institutions. In addition, access to resources, such as a high-quality internet connection, has implications for adult participation in higher education (Rosen and Vanek 2017). The growth of online and hybrid courses illustrates the role that technology can play in making education and training more accessible for students who need greater flexibility. However, the effectiveness of this strategy depends on students’ access and ability to engage with technology. Some scholars conceptualize age differences in technology skills in terms of generational exposure to technology in education, employment, and everyday life (Margaryan et al. 2011; Prensky 2001; Ransdell et al. 2011). The term “digital natives” has been used to describe students who grew up using technology and, therefore, are assumed to be more technologically adept (Prensky 2001, p. 1). In contrast, “digital immigrants” refers to those who entered adulthood before the use of digital technologies became widespread in education and employment (Prensky 2001, p. 2). The immigrant/native metaphor offers an explanation for observed age differences in technology use and skills. As “digital immigrants,” older students would be expected to face additional obstacles to using technology in educational contexts. That said, the immigrant/native terminology creates an arguably inaccurate dichotomy and has negative connotations, implying that one group belongs while the other does not. Moreover, the use of these terms assumes that students must bear the burden of adapting to current practices, rather than colleges being responsible for teaching adult students the skills and knowledge that they need to succeed (Donaldson and Townsend 2007). Several researchers have challenged this dichotomy, citing evidence of significant diversity within age groups in technology usage and skills (Jelfs and Richardson 2013; Jones et al. 2010; Katz 2007; Lai and Hong 2015; Margaryan et al. 2011; Stoerger 2009; Wang et al. 2013). Over 90% of individuals ages 30–49 in the United States and 79% of individuals ages 50–64 own a smartphone (Pew Research Center 2019). Differences in digital literacy can be found among younger students as well as adult students (Reder 2015). Moreover, longitudinal data suggest that older adults become successful technology learners over time (Sayago et al. 2013), and there is evidence that short-term computer literacy interventions can improve older adults’ technology skills (Seals et al. 2008). Findings from a 2013 study of community and technical college students in Washington indicated that adult students may have greater adaptability to online learning as compared to younger students, although both age groups had better outcomes in face-to-face classes (Xu and Jaggars 2013). Because existing evidence belies the existence of a simple dichotomy between older and younger students, while also supporting the conclusion that students who did not grow up with computers can acquire technology skills later in life, Wang et al. (2013) propose the concept of digital fluency as an alternative to the immigrant/native metaphor. Digital fluency, or digital literacy, represents a continuum of skill levels. Similarly, Stoerger (2009) introduces the concept of a “digital melting pot” (para. 5) to account for the possibility

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of “digital immigrants” (para. 5) becoming assimilated through learning technology skills. As online learning continues to expand, course development should be informed not only by students’ digital fluency but also, according to Cercone (2008), by theories of adult learning (e.g., Knowles’ theory of andragogy; Knowles et al. 2005). Like other course formats, online learning is not one-size-fits-all, and understanding students’ characteristics and learning styles is vital for promoting successful outcomes. One study found that adults prefer the same characteristics in online learning that they value in face-to-face courses, namely, variety, autonomy, content that can be applied to real-world problems, and a sense of belonging to a community (Ausburn 2004). Examples of strategies for making online courses more age-friendly include self-pacing, exit points (ability to earn credit for completing a designated portion of a course), and the ability to review prior material, helping to facilitate adult students’ autonomous learning (Cercone 2008). Advising. With regard to advising, we recognize that faculty are important sources of support and guidance for students generally and especially for adult students (Deil-Amen 2011; Dika 2012), but we focus more narrowly here on formal advising as part of an array of student services in community colleges. Adult students tend to view and utilize the advisor-student relationship differently than do younger students due to their past experiences and current responsibilities and therefore could benefit from a different advising approach than that used with younger students. However, there is a lack of consensus regarding the advising strategy that is most beneficial for adults. Giczkowski and Allen (1994) argue that adult students are not likely to pursue a mentor relationship with their academic advisor. The authors recommend that advisors utilize a consulting approach, which prioritizes efficient transmission of information over working to build a close mentoring relationship. This method may align better with older students’ independence and desire for efficient advice (Giczkowski and Allen 1994; Horn 1997). Others argue for the importance of advisors working to build relationships with their adult advisees. Bland (2003) promotes a developmental model for advising adults, which emphasizes a collaborative partnership between the advisor and student. In the developmental model, both parties share responsibility for the students’ outcomes, and the emphasis is on the student’s growth, not just the transmission of information. Hughey (2011) recommends an interpersonal approach, stressing the importance of active listening, continuous support, high expectations, and encouraging students to identify and use their strengths to solve problems. Though Hughey’s strategies were not specific to adult students, active listening could help advisors understand how adults’ experiences, responsibilities, and subjective sense of adulthood inform their needs and choices. In addition, advisor guidance about how to utilize the strengths arising from prior experiences and skills could aid adult students’ motivation and success. Consistent with Hughey’s assertions, a study of women ages 25 and older enrolled at women’s colleges found that advisors’ recognition and understanding of students’ ages, income levels, family roles, and prior experiences was an important factor in positive student-advisor relationships (Auguste et al. 2018).

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Some community colleges offer personalized career advising designed to assess skills and match interests with programs in defined academic or occupational areas (Cummins 2014). While advising addresses students’ academic needs, it also can support their nonacademic needs, such as navigating the bureaucratic requirements of college and developing interpersonal relationships with college staff (Karp 2011). Those relationships help students gain more information about college and feel that they belong in college – outcomes especially important for adult students who may have been out of formal education for some years and may perceive that college is mainly for younger students (Kasworm 2018; Lynch and Bishop-Clark 1998; Simi and Matusitz 2016). Some approaches to advising are designed to be intrusive or proactive, assuming that all students will need some form of advising support along the way (Karp 2011). In this model, the institution shares the burden of identifying when students may be struggling (Donaldson et al. 2016; Earl 1988). Giczkowski and Allen (1994) noted that, despite frequently projecting autonomy, determination, and confidence, adult students may be masking concerns and fears about their academic performance, adjustment to college, and ability to juggle coursework while maintaining their other responsibilities. Donaldson et al. (2016) conducted in-depth interviews with students at a large community college in Texas who were required to meet with their advisor twice during their first semester. The authors found that students reported benefiting from the intrusive advising because it gave them the opportunity to develop an ongoing relationship with their advisor and engage in individualized academic and career planning. Participants indicated that the mandatory nature of the meetings helped them to plan early and that they would not have met with their advisor unless required to do so. However, it is important to note that only two of the students in their sample were 24 years of age or older, and therefore it is unclear if adult students would view required advising sessions in such a positive manner given their often significant familial and work obligations and preference for autonomy. Little is known about the effect of intrusive or developmental advising on academic and career success for adult undergraduates, but individualized advising may be especially beneficial for adult students (Smith 2007; Sutton 2016), and it may be an efficient way for adult students to receive important information (Horn 1997). Shields (1994) found that the frequency of seeing an academic advisor was correlated with adult students persisting to the next term. However, frequency of advising does not necessarily indicate that students believe their needs or goals are being addressed. It seems likely that any advising approach will be more effective for older students when advisors are knowledgeable about the needs of adult students and the challenges that they often face in balancing school with other responsibilities. As noted earlier, perceiving that institutional agents, such as academic advisors, care about them is positively associated with adult students’ persistence (Bergman et al. 2014). Student success courses. A growing number of community colleges offer student success courses designed to introduce students to academic and career services and help them to develop skills needed to be successful in college, such as study skills and time management, among others (Cummins 2014; Hatch et al.

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2018; Karp 2011). While some community colleges require all first-year students to complete a student success course, others require this only of students taking developmental (remedial) classes (O’Gara et al. 2009; Zeidenberg et al. 2007). Several studies have provided evidence of the positive influence of success courses on student outcomes but have not evaluated whether these positive relationships hold true across the spectrum of age found among community college students (Cho and Karp 2013; Hatch et al. 2019; Zeidenberg et al. 2007). Qualitative research on student success courses provides some insights into students’ experiences. For example, Duggan and Williams (2010) interviewed 60 students who recently had taken a student success course at one of ten community colleges, seeking to determine the topics and teaching methods that students perceived to be most helpful. While most students reported that their student success course was useful, some said they did not need the course because they perceived themselves to be sufficiently prepared for college prior to the course or believed that the information provided was “common sense” (Duggan and Williams 2010, p. 125). For example, some students indicated that they already possessed the study skills covered by the course and that guest speakers presenting various career options were not helpful. While the authors did not identify the ages of the students who said that their student success courses were not useful, Duggan and Williams noted that adult students who have held jobs or started careers may not benefit as much as younger students from some of the course topics, such as how to dress for a job interview. To increase the utility of these courses, student success programming should account for the age diversity of student populations (Duggan and Williams 2010). Empirical investigations that illuminate the effectiveness of program elements or combinations of program elements for particular student subpopulations, including a range of age groups, could be useful in addressing this concern (e.g., Hatch and Bohlig 2016). Considering previous findings on factors that promote positive outcomes for adult students, one element of student success courses that could be particularly relevant for adult students is helping them to acclimate to college expectations and the bureaucratic processes of postsecondary institutions, as well as to develop college student identities. Concerning the latter, in their study of student success courses offered by community colleges, Hatch et al. (2019) noted that the courses provided an opportunity for individuals to practice and construct their identities as college students. Students learned from one another, had close relationships with the instructor, and could rehearse their skills and role as a college student in a relatively low-stakes environment. Having a college student identity could promote sense of belonging, which has been found to be positively associated with persistence (Hausmann et al. 2009; O’Keeffe 2013). Extracurricular responsibilities limit the amount of time that adult students can spend on campus, making their classes the primary place for them to engage with others and form their identities as college students (Bradley and Graham 2000; Donaldson and Graham 1999; Kasworm 2003a). In addition, a course focused on skills and strategies for success in college aligns with adult students’ preference for course content that is applicable to other courses

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(Knowles et al. 2005). Though this assertion conflicts with Hatch et al.’s (2019) finding that the skills-based elements of student success courses are less influential than the role that the courses play in providing an opportunity to gain experience in the new college student role, we note that findings were not disaggregated by age. Their findings may not reflect adult students’ experiences. In addition, Hatch et al. identified the conceptual difficulty of a student success course being simultaneously a means to teach skills for college success and an introduction to the format of a college course. Due to prior workforce and caregiving experiences, learning in the course of carrying out their responsibilities, adult students may be more equipped than younger students to benefit from the content and format of the course simultaneously. College success courses also can be opportunities for interpersonal support and receiving information about academic planning. Karp, Hughes, and O’Gara (2010–2011) found that the instructor of the college success course became students’ main source of information and support due to positive classroom experiences and the instructor’s capacity to provide individualized guidance. In sum, student success courses appear to have the potential to improve adult students’ engagement, identification as a college student, and ultimately their academic outcomes. Learning communities. As explained by Malnarich (2005), “[l]earning communities intentionally restructure students’ time, credit, and learning experiences to build community among students and faculty and to build curricular connections across disciplines, professional and technical programs, and skill areas” (p. 52). In some institutions, block scheduling allows students to take sets of courses together. In other institutions, students may be required to enroll in the same courses for the first semester. Learning communities also may be organized in a manner in which courses from different disciplines share a common theme (Spaid and Duff 2009; Tinto 2003; Wathington et al. 2010; Weiss et al. 2015). Some developmental education learning community programs incorporate student support services, such as tutoring and advising, providing a more holistically supportive academic experience for the student (Weiss et al. 2015). Studies suggest that learning communities can strengthen community college students’ relationships with faculty (Jackson et al. 2013) and improve persistence (Tinto 1997) and credit success rate (Weiss et al. 2015). By providing opportunities for sustained interaction among a group of students, cohort programs promote the creation of social and academic support networks (Wathington et al. 2010; Weiss et al. 2015). This may be especially beneficial for older students in community colleges, who often spend little time on campus outside of classes due to competing roles and obligations (Tinto 1998; Wathington et al. 2010; Weiss et al. 2015). Moreover, as noted earlier, interactions with faculty are associated with positive outcomes for adult students (Cox and Ebbers 2010; Shields 1994). Online or hybrid classes that involve a cohort structure also can promote student interaction and social support, but creating opportunities for collaboration and engagement in an online setting requires deliberate efforts on the part of the institution (Rausch and Crawford 2012).

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Well-designed cohort programs have many potential advantages, but introducing a cohort structure does not guarantee positive outcomes. Unintended consequences of learning communities can include groupthink, the formation of cliques, and suppression of dissenting views, among others (Beachboard et al. 2011; Jaffe et al. 2008). These could diminish students’ engagement if they do not perceive the classroom as a place where they can share their individual perspectives and draw on their unique experiences (Knowles et al. 2005). Additional research is needed to identify factors that may mitigate negative social dynamics for students who participate in cohort models, particularly adult students in a community college setting. Hatch and Bohlig (2016) noted that learning communities typically do not target any particular subgroup of students, such as adult learners. Yet, researchers have highlighted the value that adult students place on having other older students in their classes (Cox and Ebbers 2010; Lynch and Bishop-Clark 1998). On one hand, a learning community that is designed for students with “adult statuses” (Kasworm 2003c, p. 3) would not only provide a support network of students with similar needs and goals but also could be tailored to meet adults’ preferences regarding the delivery and utility of course content (Knowles et al. 2005). On the other hand, an adult-targeted learning community runs the risk of marginalizing adult students; to mitigate that risk, colleges would need to ensure that adult students also have meaningful opportunities for academic and social engagement with the larger campus community.

Mapping Mechanisms onto Adult Characteristics Prior learning assessment (PLA), accelerated programs, distance learning options, adult-attentive advising practices, student success courses, and learning communities can be utilized by colleges to capitalize on adults’ experience and skills with the aim of supporting adults and helping them advance efficiently toward their goals. A suite of such interventions targeted at adult students could increase flexibility, improve peer networks and relationships with institutional actors, help acclimate adults into the college environment, and signal to them that their experiential knowledge and skills are valued, while decreasing risk of attrition and time to graduation. That said, the diversity within the adult student population ensures that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to attend to all of their goals, needs, and preferences. In fact, some of the programs and policies mentioned here emphasize seemingly contradictory aims. For example, online courses offer flexibility, while intrusive advising emphasizes targeted support. Accelerated programs and prior learning aim to shorten the time to a degree, while learning communities aim to build supportive relationships, and a college success course targets skills to aid learning and navigate the college experience and environment. These contrasting objectives should not be interpreted as inherently problematic or disorganized. Instead, they point to the varied needs of adult students and the many ways that adults’ strengths and experiences can be leveraged to improve their educational outcomes. As explained by

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Bailey and Alfonso (2005, p. 21), “No program, however well designed, can work in isolation.” Any one program or initiative likely is insufficient to counter multiple institutional elements that act as barriers to adult students’ success, such as an unwelcoming environment and course schedules that conflict with external obligations for working adults. Identifying the mechanisms within a program or initiative that foster adult students’ success is important for understanding how a program works, the subpopulations who can most benefit, and the most effective design and implementation of the program, including necessary professional development for those involved (Karp 2011). In Table 2, we show how elements of the programs and initiatives discussed above align with adults’ learning preferences and needs, as identified in the literature (e.g., Donaldson and Graham 1999; Donaldson et al. 2000; Kasworm 2003a, 2010; Knowles et al. 2005; Sorey and Duggan 2008). We note, though, that Table 2 focuses on connections between adult learning and the defining elements of each of the programs and initiatives. Depending on design, additional intersections are possible, over and above those noted in Table 2. Reviewing Table 2, we note that credit for prior learning communicates to adults how their academic program is aligned with their lives outside of school (Kamenetz 2011). Accelerated programs recognize adults’ goals and capabilities by offering a learning format that is more intense and a shorter path toward credential attainment (Husson and Kennedy 2003; Kasworm 2003b). Distance learning provides more

Table 2 Alignment of adult students’ learning characteristics and needs with community college programs and initiatives that have strong potential to foster successful academic outcomes of adult undergraduate students

Program or initiative PLA Accelerated programs Distance learning Advising Student success course Learning communities

Adult students’ learning characteristics and needs in postsecondary educational context Connection to Learning that is Classroom as Autonomous real-life relevant to primary place of approaches to experiencesb goalsc engagementd learninga X X X X X

Notes: Donaldson et al. 2000; Kasworm 2010; Knowles et al. 2005 b Donaldson and Graham 1999; Kasworm 2003a; Knowles et al. 2005 c Sorey and Duggan 2008; Knowles et al. 2005 d Donaldson and Graham 1999; Kasworm 2003a a

X

X

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opportunities for adults to practice autonomy in their learning, giving them greater control of when and how to engage in learning activities and coursework (Barak et al. 2016; Bourdeaux and Schoenack 2016). In addition, distance learning capitalizes on adults’ capacity to self-motivate (Yen and Liu 2009). Advising strategies that tailor information and course planning specifically for adults’ goals aligns with their preferences for learning experiences having relevance for their objectives (Giczkowski and Allen 1994; Horn 1997; Knowles et al. 2005; Sorey and Duggan 2008; Sutton 2016). Student success courses and learning communities are effective venues for students to build connections and gain skills because, for adults, the classroom is the primary place of engagement (Donaldson and Graham 1999; Kasworm 2003a). The development of our Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS) and the corresponding survey measures were driven by the premise that a better understanding of what it means to be an adult student, and the number of individuals within a college that fit that description, will inform the work of colleges and the resources allocated to support students. Therefore, it is important to identify the connections between the dimensions of the MCAS and the design elements and underlying mechanisms of college programs and initiatives that align with those dimensions. Table 3 illustrates some of the ways in which the programs discussed above – PLA, accelerated learning, distance learning, advising, student success courses, and learning communities – could be or already are tailored to address and support adults’ experiences, responsibilities, and subjective sense of adulthood. As with Table 2, this is not an exhaustive list of connections. Yet, clear connections between MCAS and the programs and initiatives illuminate possible mechanisms underlying the influence of the programs on adults’ outcomes. For example, from a practical standpoint, adult-attentive advising practices mean offering times and formats that are convenient for working and parenting adults. Furthermore, advising techniques that acknowledge, validate, and leverage students’ experience and autonomy can also support students’ subjective sense of adulthood and sense of belonging in college. Together, Tables 2 and 3 summarize our findings from the literature about what it means to be an adult, what can increase adults’ opportunities for success in community college, and how colleges can create, modify, or refine their services and structures to become more attentive to adult students’ strengths, needs, and goals.

Directions for Future Research and Practice In this chapter, we contributed to theory, research, and practice on facilitating adult community college students’ success by offering the Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS) and a corresponding set of survey measures, response categories, and response weighting scheme for identifying adult students and illuminating differences in the characteristics of adult students served across programs and institutions. Improving the identification of adult students will help college administrators understand the scale of adult students’ enrollment and how

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Table 3 How community college programs and initiatives support and align with dimensions of the Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS) Program or initiative PLA

Accelerated programs

Distance learning

Advising

Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students dimensions Subjective sense of Experiences Responsibilities adulthood • PLA provides adult • PLA reduces time to • PLA affirms the value students with college graduation, thereby and relevance of adults’ credit for the skills and reducing opportunity prior experiences for knowledge that they costs, helping adults their present pursuits in gained prior to college reenter or advance in the higher education workforce more quickly, and reducing time diverted from other responsibilities, such as work and caregiving • Accelerated programs • Like PLA, accelerated • Accelerated programs allow adult students to programs reduce time to acknowledge the selfcapitalize on time graduation, thereby motivation and mature management, selfreducing opportunity learning and time regulation, and other costs, helping adults management skills of skills gained from their reenter or advance in the adult students experiences and workforce more quickly, maturity to complete a and reducing time program of study more diverted from other quickly responsibilities, such as work and caregiving • Like accelerated • Distance learning • Distance learning programs, distance programs reduce time acknowledges adults’ learning programs spent on campus and capacity for selfallow adult students to conflicts with other directed learning capitalize on time responsibilities that may management, selfhave rigid schedules (e. regulation, and other g., work shifts, caring for skills gained from children), thereby experiences and increasing learning maturity flexibility and opportunity • Adult-attentive • Adult-attentive Adult-attentive advising: advising supports advising helps adult • Offers appointments at adults’ sense of students align their times convenient for autonomy by goals with educational working adults acknowledging that programs while also • Offers virtual advising they may have helping them to to increase flexibility considerable prior capitalize on their • Constructs enrollment experience making accumulated skills to plans that balance the decisions enhance their success in need to reduce time to graduation with the need • Adult-attentive college to fulfill other advising acknowledge nonacademic that adults’ have responsibilities different needs and • Helps adult students goals and greater navigate the (continued)

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Table 3 (continued) Program or initiative

Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students dimensions Subjective sense of Experiences Responsibilities adulthood

Student success course

• Student success courses help adult students understand how to apply their acquired skills and knowledge to their learning and success in college, bridging prior experiences and present academic goals

Learning communities

• Adult-focused learning communities could combine experiential and classroom-based courses to encourage students to build connections between prior experiences and their academic learning

institutional bureaucracy efficiently and identify relevant resources and supports • Student success courses offer content that facilitates adults’ management of nonacademic responsibilities and roles, as well as providing a venue to communicate relevant resources, such as PLA programs, job placement services, affordable childcare services, and online courses or programs • Student success courses help build support networks of students sharing similar life circumstances • Adult-focused learning communities combine courses of different subjects into a scheduled block to help adults maximize the return to their time on campus and complete key courses early, while also building academic collaborations and support networks of students sharing similar life circumstances

responsibilities than do younger students

• Content in student success courses that is specific to adults validates their needs and belonging in college, as well as their capacity to achieve their goals

• Adult-focused learning communities affirm adults’ sense of belonging in college and the value of their goals and investment in their education

adult students are utilizing the institution, and it will inform decisions about institutional programs and initiatives that should be strengthened or deployed in order to help adult students reach their goals. However, additional work is needed to investigate the validity and reliability of the survey items, both generally and across demographic groups. The latter may be especially important in light of variation in how adult roles are perceived and taken up by individuals of different backgrounds.

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We also highlight six programs and initiatives that align with adults’ academic characteristics and needs. Though we identified community college programs and initiatives that have been demonstrated to improve students’ outcomes, we also recommend researchers examine variability in the benefits for adults of different cultural backgrounds or life stages. For example, it may be that student success courses are more beneficial for adults who have been out of formal education for several decades than they are for adults in their late 20s or early 30s. Regarding more immediate measures that colleges could take, we recommend implementing programs and initiatives in alignment with the MCAS (see Table 3). Some of those programs already may be utilized by a college but not necessarily with adult learning in mind. For example, community colleges already may have student success courses but could offer a section tailored for and marketed to adults, which would be a relatively low-cost investment in a college’s current adult students and a possible means of attracting other potential adult learners in the local community. We also recommend that colleges create an institutional adult student advisory board, bringing together student representatives, student service program leadership, faculty representatives, and administrators to guide institutional efforts to support adult students and facilitate understanding of data collected through the MCAS survey instrument about their students’ prior experiences, current responsibilities, and subjective sense of adulthood.

Conclusion Adult students are a diverse group of individuals whose life experiences and responsibilities differentiate them from younger students. In this chapter, we discussed the ways that researchers have conceptualized and operationalized adult undergraduate students. Drawing on prior research, we proposed the Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS) and a corresponding set of measures to identify and advance research on adult community college students. We recommend education researchers and practitioners recognize the heterogeneity among adult students and acknowledge that age alone is an insufficient proxy of the motivations, needs, strengths, experiential knowledge, and circumstances that distinguish adult students from their younger peers. Furthermore, adult students have academic engagement styles and learning preferences that often differ from younger students, and these should be prioritized and supported by postsecondary institutions. Given adult students’ diversity and multiple responsibilities, community colleges likely will continue to be their primary point of access to postsecondary education. In that regard, we identified community college programs and initiatives that have potential to foster adult students’ success and that align with their learning preferences, life circumstances, and goals. Our efforts were driven by the objectives of better equipping stakeholders to support adult students and better equipping scholars to study how these and other student success programs can be implemented to greatest effect. Furthermore, our

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recommendations can guide policymakers’ work to identify, fund, and support initiatives and programs that benefit and improve the outcomes of adult students. Research-informed collaboration between state and local policymakers and college leaders can improve adult community college students’ learning experiences, academic outcomes, career opportunities, financial security, and quality of life, as well as strengthen the nation’s workforce. Acknowledgments Work on this paper was supported in part by the Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, through Grant R305A160156 to Miami University and the University of Michigan. The opinions expressed are those of the researchers and do not represent views of the Institute or the US Department of Education. The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Leigh Arsenault, Mollie Bush, Alfredo Sosa, Kathryn McGrew, and Annabelle Arbogast. The authors also thank James Benson of the Institute of Education Sciences for valuable feedback and support.

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Peter Riley Bahr serves as associate professor in the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education. His research focuses on students’ pathways into and through community colleges and other sub-baccalaureate institutions, and then into the workforce or onto four-year postsecondary institutions. His current work includes a number of federal and foundation-funded investigations. Among these are studies aiming to improve educational and labor market outcomes of students in postsecondary career and technical education, and, separately, to illuminate how noncredit workforce education programs are being utilized by community colleges. His funded research also includes studies seeking to strengthen STEM pathways from community colleges to universities and to optimize developmental education reform in community colleges. Claire A. Boeck is a Ph.D. candidate in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include discourses about being a “successful” college student, the personalized meaning students attach to attending college, and what and how environmental factors influence students’ expectations of what they will experience in college. Before pursuing the Ph.D., Claire taught humanities courses and served in multiple student support roles at Wilbur Wright College, a community college in Chicago. She thanks the students at that college for continuing to inspire her work. Phyllis A. Cummins is a senior research scholar at Scripps Gerontology Center, Miami University. Her research foci are workforce issues for middle-aged and older workers, including examination of the benefits of ongoing training and workforce development and the role publicly sponsored training programs and community colleges play in facilitating work throughout the life course. Transitions between full-time employment and retirement have become increasingly complex, and research to better understand these phenomena are of great interest to her. An important component of her research is gaining an understanding of the demographic characteristics of middle-aged and older workers, especially those who have experienced cumulative inequality over their life course and are at risk for economic insecurity. She is currently a principal investigator on two grants funded by the Institute of Education Sciences.

Toward a Critical Social Movements Studies Implications for Research on Student Activism in Higher Education Samuel D. Museus and Brenda Jimenez Sifuentez

Contents Defining Social Justice Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Outer Edges of Higher Education Research on Campus Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social Movements Theory and Critical Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social Movements Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Critical Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Brief History of Social Justice Movements in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Complicating Analysis of Social Justice Movements in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Toward a Critical Social Movements Studies Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Utilize Catalytic Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Foster Critical Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cultivate Solidarity in Social Justice Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bolster Social Justice Movement Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Enhance Efficacy Social Justice Movement Strategies and Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Expose How Systems Resist Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Expanding Social Movements Research in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Expanding and Sustaining Movement Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deciphering Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Complicating the Role of Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Understanding the Complexities of Strategies and Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Exposing University Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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S. D. Museus (*) University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] B. J. Sifuentez Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7_4

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Abstract

US higher education has witnessed increased interest in understanding social movements and activism over the last decade. While some higher education researchers have utilized social movements theory and others have applied Critical Theory to the study of college student activism, the full potential of these frameworks in higher education research has yet to be realized. Integrating social movements theory and Critical Theory discourses into the study of social justice movements and activism in the field can create new possibilities. In this chapter, the authors push this theoretical integration further and propose a more robust critical social movements (CSM) studies agenda in the field. Keywords

Critical theory · Social movements · College students · Campus activism

US higher education has witnessed increased interest in understanding social movements and activism over the last decade (Wheatle and Commodore 2019). This trend is partly due to the growing visibility of contentious politics on college campuses and need for institutional leaders to respond to them. Over the last decade, increasing numbers of college students have mobilized to demand that their institutions build more diverse, inclusive, and equitable campuses (American Council on Education [ACE] 2016). In addition, conservative student groups on many campuses have organized to collectively resist the calls for a greater focus on equity and social justice (Burston and Twine 2019; Conner 2020; Ince et al. 2018). These heightened rates of student activism are unlikely to dissipate anytime soon. National surveys of incoming US college students show that students’ commitments to activism are at an all-time high, with approximately 1 out of 11 incoming students expecting to be involved in a protest during college (Higher Education Research Institute 2016). Higher education scholars have built an important foundation of knowledge on campus activism (Barnhardt 2019; DeAngelo et al. 2016; Grim et al. 2019; Haynes et al. 2019; Hope et al. 2016; Linder et al. 2016; Maldonado et al. 2005; Morgan and Davis 2019). Recently, some higher education researchers have utilized social movements theory (Barnhardt 2019; Rhoads et al. 2005) and others have applied Critical Theory (Cho 2018; Desai and Abeita 2017; Hernandez 2016) to the study of college student activism. Yet, we believe the full potential of these frameworks in higher education research has yet to be realized. Integrating Critical Theory and social movements theory discourses into the study of social movements and activism in the field can create new possibilities. We seek to push this theoretical integration further and propose a more robust critical social movements (CSM) studies agenda in the field. We define critical social movements studies as the analysis of how systems of oppression, social structures, and social justice movements all interact to shape each other, with the goal of empowering and liberating historically oppressed populations. As we

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demonstrate, this perspective is both grounded in a moral commitment to social justice aims and examines the complexities of movement dynamics. To advance this conversation, we outline a CSM framework that can guide future scholarly research and discourse on social movements and activism. In doing so, we hope to fill a major theoretical void in the study of social justice movements. We also discuss the proposed framework’s relevance to the study of college student social justice movements in particular. In the following sections, we discuss the approaches taken in existing research on college student activism within the field of higher education and map its outer edges to show how a CSM perspective might extend existing ways of studying student movements and activism in the field. We provide a brief overview of social movements theory and Critical Theory, highlight some of their strengths, and consider how they might complement each other. Next, we offer a brief history of student social justice movements and activism in higher education and discuss how social movements theory and Critical Theory complicate and refine understandings of these historical contexts. In the remainder of the discussion, we utilize social movements theory and Critical Theory to construct and present an integrative CSM framework, as well as discuss its implications for the study of social justice movements and activism in the higher education field. Three caveats are warranted. First, our intent is not to offer an exhaustive review of all relevant bodies of theory and research. Rather, we engage works that are especially useful in understanding how a CSM perspective might enhance knowledge of social movements in higher education and what such an approach might entail. Second, our primary concern is analyzing and responding to the current state of scholarship on social movements within US higher education, but we selectively draw from research of social movements across the globe. Thus, we do not claim that the framework presented herein is equally relevant in other cultural contexts. Third, given that the vast majority of scholarship on activism in higher education examines students, we primarily focus on student movements. However, we recognize that community members, educators, and others all comprise these movements as well. Finally, while college students engage in a wide range of social movements, keeping in line with Critical Theory foundations and philosophies, our central concern is with social justice movements.

Defining Social Justice Movements There is still no consensus around a single definition of social movements, and scholars conceptualize them in different ways (Diani 1992; McAdam 1982; McCarthy and Zald 1977; Meyer 2007; Opp 2009; Snow and Soule 2010; Tilly 2019). Nevertheless, a review of existing definitions of social movements suggests that several key elements characterize them. First, social movements are characterized by collective action (Almeida 2019a, b; Diani 1992; McAdam 1982; Snow and Soule 2010; Tilly 2019). The collective has a set of common political objectives and is often grounded in one or more shared identities. Second, social movements are

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organized to some degree (Almeida 2019a, b; McAdam 1982; McAdam et al. 2003; Snow and Soule 2010). Third, these collectives take action to challenge existing social systems and structures (Almeida 2019a, b; Snow and Soule 2010). Finally, the challenge to existing structures is sustained over time (Almeida 2019a, b; Rojas and King 2019; Snow and Soule 2010). Movements for social justice specifically focus on challenging systems of power and privilege and are geared toward the liberation of historically minoritized and marginalized communities (Kriesi 1995; Larana 2009). These movements are grounded in collective consciousness of how existing systems privilege some groups while denying rights, resources, and opportunities to others (Freire 1996; Solórzano and Bernal 2001). They also recognize that these systems enact violence on oppressed communities. Social justice movements are focused on resisting these systems of oppression and moving beyond them (Kriesi 1995; Larana 2009). Building on prior scholarship (Almeida 2019a, b; Diani 1992; Kriesi 1995; Larana 2009; McAdam 1982; McAdam et al. 2003; Rojas and King 2019; Snow and Soule 2010; Tilly 2019), we define social justice movements as sustained collective actions that challenge existing power structures that dehumanize historically oppressed communities. These movements encompass activities of both advocates who are fighting for systemic change from within mainstream social institutions and activists who mobilize externally to disrupt and challenge existing power structures.

Outer Edges of Higher Education Research on Campus Activism Prior to the 1990s, the small body of higher education research focused on student social justice movements was aimed at discussing and understanding broad trends in activism (Altbach 1979; Altbach and Cohen 1990; Bayer and Dutton 1976). This research highlighted the surge in student activism that emerged during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, sought to understand the impact of this movement, and analyzed the causes of the supposed decline in campus activism after the 1960s. Much of this research was historical, conceptual, and descriptive in nature. Moreover, while taking a macro-level approach to examining college student activism trends, this scholarship arguably adopted a politically neutral stance on campus activism that did not incorporate a thorough critique of the oppressive systems that the movements sought to challenge. We illustrate this point in the following sections. During the 1990s, higher education scholarship on student activism became increasingly focused on the student experience. Scholars progressively framed campus activism as integral to student development (Hamrick 1998; Levine and Cureton 1998; Levine and Hirsch 1991). Higher education researchers in this period also highlighted that college students were increasingly engaged in activism in the form of community service and advocacy for campus diversity and multiculturalism. This shift coincided with postsecondary institutions placing greater emphasis on civic engagement and volunteerism (Hirsch 1993; Rhoads 1997, 1998).

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In the late 1990s, Rhoads (1998) published the groundbreaking book Freedom’s Web, which was one of the first contemporary comprehensive accounts of college student activism through the eyes and voices of students. Rhoads provided an indepth analysis of how student activists in the 1990s built on the efforts of social movements and activists in the 1960s to advance the ongoing civil rights project. He also highlighted how student activist voices could shed light on larger political issues. Specifically, he employed their voices to challenge conservative dismissals of identity politics as self-centered by underscoring how student activism grounded in identity politics advanced larger goals of systemic transformation. Since Freedom’s Web, several scholars have centered student social justice activists’ voices in their work (e.g., DeAngelo et al. 2016; Haynes et al. 2019; Hope et al. 2016; Linder et al. 2016; Maldonado et al. 2005; Morgan and Davis 2019; Quaye 2007). By and large, these scholars have focused on understanding students’ experiences participating in social justice activism and how they engage in forms of resistance to oppression. Thus, compared to their predecessors, higher education scholars studying social justice activism in the 1990s and beyond have focused on more experiential analyses and centered the voices of students from historically oppressed communities. These shifts are not surprising, given that psychological research on individual developmental processes has heavily shaped the study of college students. As we discuss later in this chapter, higher education research on student activists has greatly contributed to the field, but we believe there is room for growth. Due in part to higher education scholars’ disproportionate focus on individual processes and experiences, with few exceptions (e.g., Barnhardt 2014; Rhoads et al. 2005), they give little attention to larger systemic dynamics of contentious politics. For example, higher education researchers have been slow to invest their energies in empirical analyses of the impact of political opportunity structures, campus networks and organizations, and differential utilization of strategies and tactics on larger student movement efficacy and outcomes. Similarly, with few exceptions (Davis and Harris 2015; Hoffman and Mitchell 2016; Squire et al. 2019), scholars within the field of higher education have not critically examined the ways in which systems respond, adapt to, and suppress social justice movements. A more thorough engagement of social movements theory and Critical Theory in the study of campus activism within higher education has the potential to catalyze the formation of more complex and robust bodies of knowledge about the relationships among national and state sociopolitical contexts, institutions of higher education, social movements, and individual activists.

Social Movements Theory and Critical Theory Social movements theory and Critical Theory are both characterized by extensive bodies of knowledge. Both theoretical perspectives offer valuable insights that can inform the study of social movements and activism in higher education. The former brings into focus complex dynamics among various organizations and social actors

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to advance a more holistic understanding of social movements, while the latter challenges researchers to ensure that their approaches have a positive moral impact on social systems within which they are embedded.

Social Movements Theory Social movements theory refers to a body of knowledge that emerged in the fields of sociology and political science and seeks to explain social movements. Social movements theory scholars have constructed an expansive body of theoretical and empirical knowledge on the causes, dynamics, and consequences of a wide range of movements (Almeida 2019a, b; Diani 1992; Jasper 2008; Tarrow 1998; McAdam 1982; Meyer 2007; Snow and Soule 2010; Tilly 2019). This knowledge can be parsed into three categories: • Movement life cycles: Social movements theory examines the factors that permit or catalyze micro-mobilization (individual participation in movements) and mass mobilization (collective action) processes. For example, they analyze how political threats, political opportunities, and movement resources lead to movement formation and continuation. In addition, social movements theory scholars examine how and why movements spread and decline over time. • Movement strategies and tactics: Social movements theory analyzes movement strategies, such as how movements strategically frame issues to mobilize people to support their causes or influence public opinion to advocate for policy changes. Social movements theory scholars also underscore and analyze the effectiveness of social movement actors’ tactical repertoires, which include a range of tactics from disruptive (e.g., staging a protest or sit-in) to conventional (e.g., speaking at a public meeting or disseminating pamphlets) in nature (Jasper 2008; Tarrow 1998). Finally, this scholarship examines the efficacy of the institutionalization of movements. • Impact of movements: Social movements theory examines whether, to what degree, and how social movements shape individual lives, societal cultures (e.g., perspectives and behavior of a generation or population), and policies. Social movements theory also acknowledges the complexities of social systems and prompts scholars to take these intricacies into account. For example, Fligstein and McAdam (2011) proposed a theory of strategic action fields. The theory describes social life as a complex web of intersecting fields that consist of incumbents who possess disproportionate power and make rules that protect their interests, governance structures that enforce rules that maintain the status quo, and challengers who contest the order of things. Such perspectives can be particularly useful for understanding the dynamics of social systems because they reject the notion of a singular hegemonic state and can prompt a more nuanced analysis of power structures. In doing so, they promote a more multifaceted study of the complexities of webs of power and how they interact to subjugate oppressed communities within and across societies.

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However, while social movements theory researchers engage macro-level systems in their analysis, they often do not take an explicit political stance on systemic oppression and politics. As a result of this assumed neutrality, social movements theory scholarship often clarifies how it advances knowledge while falling short of explicitly elucidating whether and how it contributes to social justice objectives to eradicate systemic oppression or advance the emancipation of marginalized communities. As a result, social movements theory might not adequately capture the realities of marginalized communities or provide room for researchers who are motivated to advocate with them.

Critical Theory Critical Theory was born in the Frankfurt School, where scholars developed theoretical foundations and perspectives to examine the dynamics of systemic oppression for the purposes of emancipation (Horkheimer 1993). While the term “Critical Theory” is often associated with the Frankfurt School, it is also utilized to categorize a wide range of theoretical perspectives that align with these goals, including Critical Race Theory, Feminist Theory, Queer Theory, and Post-Colonial Theory. While a comprehensive review of these areas of Critical Theory is beyond the scope of the current discussion, Critical Theory scholarship that is focused on understanding the impact of neoliberalism on society and higher education is especially relevant to our analysis. Today, much Critical Theory analysis advances a critique of neoliberalism, which can be understood as an ideology that permeates societal structures and individual and collective logics (Ayers 2005; Brown 2006). Whereas capitalism prioritizes free markets and choice over state intervention, neoliberalism transcends economic systems to infuse free-market rationalities into all political and social spheres of society (Giroux 2011; Harvey 2007; Slaughter and Leslie 1997). As neoliberal ideologies permeate political and social systems and reorganize them around freemarket logics, they divert attention and energy away from moral imperatives (Giroux 2008; Harvey 2007; Slaughter and Leslie 1997). These neoliberal ideologies and structures generate logics that permeate institutional and individual values, views, and behaviors. At an institution level, neoliberal logics espoused by incumbents, or those who wield significant power in a field, work to maintain the status quo (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004). At the individual level, these logics become embedded in people’s cognitive structures and worldviews, making them extremely difficult to recognize, challenge, and change (Brown 2006; Museus 2020b). Neoliberalism and the structures that emerge from it concentrate control over economic resources, political power, and social life in the hands of a few while exploiting the vast majority of society (McChesney 1998). While neoliberalism cannot be encapsulated in any single definition, research that critiques neoliberal systems reveals several common elements of it. Based on prior literature (Adsit et al. 2015; Burford 2017; Darder 2012; Davies 2005; Giroux 2008;

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McChesney 1998; Morrison 1993; Muehlebach 2013), Museus and LePeau (2019) offered the following dominant elements of neoliberal ideologies and logics: • Consumerism: Neoliberal ideologies prioritize individual choice in a market of goods and services, and determine the worth of people, actions, and values by how much revenue they can generate in a consumer market. Views and behaviors that are consistent with these consumer logics are glorified. • Competitive individualism: Neoliberalism is grounded in the values of freemarket competition, which reifies misleading beliefs in meritocracy and encourages people to prioritize their individual self-interest. • Surveillance: Neoliberalism’s focus on individual choice generates a false sense of autonomy, as its fuels the creation of surveillance systems (of monitoring, evaluation, and reporting) to ensure compliance with neoliberal ideals. These systems of surveillance erode trust within the system. (e.g., monitoring and reporting) to ensure that members of the system comply with neoliberal ideals, and trust is eradicated; • Precarity: Neoliberal systems make resources scarce and place the burden of fiscal sustainability on individuals, leading to people perceiving themselves to be in a perpetually precarious position and channel their energy on fighting for their own survival. • Declining Morality: In promoting a hyper-focus on fiscal stability, revenue generation, and the accumulation of prestige and profits, neoliberal ideologies detract attention and energy away from developing public institutions responsible for the public good. Since neoliberalism rose to prominence in the 1970s, scholars have documented its spread throughout societies across the globe, including Asia (Hadiz 2006), the Middle East (Bogaert 2013), Africa (Narsiah 2002), Australia and New Zealand (Davies and Bansel 2007), Latin America (Klak 2014; Silva 2009), Europe (Warlouzet 2017), and North America (Davies 2005). In the USA and arguably a large portion of the world, neoliberalism now permeates every aspect of society. In addition, it is important to note that neoliberalism is intertwined with other forms of systemic oppression, including White supremacy, settler colonialism, and cis-heteropatriarchy (Goldberg 2009; Inwood 2015; van Heerden 2016; Paperson 2017). While Critical Theory is focused on both critiquing neoliberalism and other forms of systemic oppression and advancing emancipation efforts to move beyond current oppressive regimes (Freire 1996; Horkheimer 1993), scholars note that it is often preoccupied with critique and falls short of providing insights regarding how oppressed peoples can effectively challenge existing hegemonic systems and structures (Schlosberg 1995). For example, it is common to encounter Critical Theory analyses that provide deep insight into the ways in which social structures perpetuate systemic violence, followed by relatively broad recommendations around the need for education that is more focused on democracy. This reality could partly be due to Critical Theory’s philosophical foundations and focus on broad goals of emancipation rather than pursuit of specific concrete objectives (Horkheimer 1993).

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Explicitly integrating social movements theory and Critical Theory into a unified analytical framework can prompt more holistic critical analysis of the intersection between social systems and movements (Cini and Guzmán-Concha 2017). In addition, such efforts can generate a more cohesive picture regarding how knowledge of social movements can inform efforts to combat systemic forms of oppression and inform social justice efforts. It is worth noting that both of these theoretical knowledge bases are underutilized, even if increasingly deployed, among higher education scholars. This underutilization means that much of what scholarly communities know about systemic oppression and social movement dynamics has yet to be fully engaged and their benefits have yet to be realized in the field of postsecondary education.

A Brief History of Social Justice Movements in Higher Education While social activism has existed for centuries in the USA (Altbach 1979; Astin et al. 1975; Broadhurst 2014; Hamrick 1998), it was the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s that inspired the eruption of some of the most well-known and studied social justice movements. These movements included the American Indian, Asian American or Yellow Power, Black Power, Chicano, Third World Liberation Front, queer and trans* rights, and women’s liberation movements. During this time, college campuses also witnessed heightened levels of critical consciousness and mass mobilization (Rhoads 2016). Within higher education, Ferguson (2017) notes three student movements that were especially noteworthy in the mid-twentieth century. In 1968, the Black Student Union and the Third World Liberation Front, a multiracial coalition of activists at San Francisco State University and the University of California at Berkeley, mobilized to demand a higher education that more effectively served their communities. Their top demand was to create a School of Ethnic Studies, which was established at San Francisco State University shortly thereafter. In 1969, the Lumumba-Zapata Coalition at the University of California at San Diego organized to demand that the new college under construction at the university be dedicated to providing education relevant to racially minoritized youth. The same year, Black and Puerto Rican students at City College in New York organized to demand education relevant to their communities. These demands sparked a wave of protests, demonstrations, sitins, and teach-ins on college campuses across the nation (Ferguson 2017). Some have argued that the visibility of mass protests and confrontational politics declined throughout US society between the early 1970s and 1990s (Altbach 1979; Altbach and Cohen 1990). Similarly, they note that confrontational politics and protests on college campuses decreased during this so-called period of apathy (Altbach 1979). However, college students continued to mobilize during this time period. For example, in the late 1970s and 1980s, activists intensified pressures for public postsecondary institutions to divest from corporations and businesses that operated in South Africa to protest their apartheid system (Soule 1997). In these years, student activists pressured universities that were investing their endowments in such companies to divest from them. Similarly, in the 1990s, students mobilized to

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protest the Persian Gulf War, World Trade Organization, sweatshops, attacks on affirmative action, inadequate support for ethnic studies programs, graduate student labor organizing, and widespread tuition increases (Astin et al. 1975; Barnhardt 2014; Rhoads 1998; Rhoads and Rhoades 2005). As mentioned, after the 1960s, college students’ efforts to have a positive impact on society were channeled into new forms (Levine and Wilson 1979). For example, volunteerism and service-learning were increasingly emphasized in addressing societal problems (Bickford and Reynolds 2002; Hamrick 1998). During this period, student lobbies were also developed on state and national levels (Altbach and Cohen 1990). In fact, an estimated 22% of US college campuses had created student lobby organizations by the 1970s (Altbach and Cohen 1990). These organizations focused mostly on maintaining student loan programs, opposing tuition increases, and fighting against restrictions on students’ rights (Altbach and Cohen 1990). As student lobby organizations were established, Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) were also formed, and these organizations introduced new types of collective action that operated within formal institution channels. This period also saw an increased focus on “diversity” and “multiculturalism” agendas on college campuses (Levine and Cureton 1998; Rhoads 1998). The last decade has seen a rising tide of large-scale contentious politics throughout society (Museus et al. 2015; Conner 2020; Wheatle and Commodore 2019). In 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement swept across the USA and the globe, eventually operating in over 80 countries (Roos and Oikonomakis 2014). Within the next few years, the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements become centered in national discourse (Lebron 2017; Mendes et al. 2018; Mislán and DacheGerbino 2018). In addition, the decade witnessed new waves of movements to defend indigenous land and rights, including the #NoDAPL movement to resist the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (Estes 2017) and the desecration of indigenous land to construct a 30-meter telescope (TMT) on the sacred Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii (Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua 2017). In 2015, the USA witnessed a surge in students mobilizing to demand that their institutions do more to address ongoing injustices (ACE 2016). During this year, students on over 80 campuses issued demands to pressure their institutions to advance social justice efforts. These students’ demands include more inclusive and equitable diversity and campus climate policies, leadership that is more dedicated to advocating for students, the allocation of more resources to underserved populations, and increased diversity training and curricula for campus members, to name a few (ACE 2016). Since 2015, students have continued to mobilize in the name of equity on campuses across the nation. In addition, contingent faculty and their allies have also been mobilizing to challenge exploitative working conditions (Rhoades 2015), and graduate students have been demanding livable wages. Through demanding that universities prioritize communities and people over prestige and profits, these movements all challenge the neoliberal assault on college and university life. What caused these shifts in the intensity and nature of student activism over the last 50 years? Engaging social movements theory and Critical Theory perspectives can help make sense of the downward and upward trends of disruptive politics on

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college campuses and provide a more holistic and complex understanding of the nature of these shifts. We demonstrate how this integrative perspective can provide insights into the ways in which systems of power might play a role in social justice movement life cycles in higher education.

Complicating Analysis of Social Justice Movements in Higher Education Early on, higher education scholars argued that the decline in student activism in the 1970s was facilitated by multiple factors (Altbach 1979; Altbach and Cohen 1990). For example, they contended that college students were no longer focused on the foreign policy issues that ignited widespread activism in the previous decade and students’ concerns during this decade shifted to issues that were not conducive to mass mobilization and collective action (e.g., spiritual concerns and betterment of campus conditions). In addition, these scholars pointed to the changing nature of campus student organizations, as they became institutionalized through the creation of student lobbying groups on state and national levels. While these factors might partially explain the aforementioned decline in student activism, such perspectives ignore the shifting political, social, and economic conditions that might have helped facilitate the regression during this period. Equally important, such explanations ignore the role of state and corporate power in eradicating and transforming social movements. Social movements theory scholars note that comprehending power struggles within larger political fields is necessary to understand movements (Fligstein and McAdam 2011). Moreover, critical social movements scholars argue that capitalist and neoliberal formations are at play wherever movements operate and must be taken into account in their analysis (Cini and Guzmán-Concha 2017). Thus, a consideration of social movement dynamics and neoliberal hegemony might lead to a more holistic understanding of the aforementioned shifts in student movements and activism. Neoliberalism emerged from the economic crises and social justice movements in the 1960s and 1970s (Harvey 2007). Keynesian economic theory, which promotes entrenching government and corporate activities in social networks to prevent excessive economic exploitation of the working class, was prevalent during this time. However, conservatives pointed to the economic crises of the 1970s as evidence of the failure of Keynesian approaches to economics (Harvey 2007). Conservative powers promoted an alternative economic approach, grounded in market deregulation and mass privatization, which gained increased public support in the 1980s and provided the foundation for the domination of neoliberal values and policies. As a result, the responsibility of social institutions to strengthen US democracy was replaced by their duty to expand free markets (Giroux 2007). This shift undermined the increased democratization transpiring at the time by diverting the emphasis from the collective to individual responsibility in addressing societal inequities.

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Not surprisingly, the rise of neoliberal reforms also meant that social movements and student activism came to be viewed as a threat to higher education institutions and society (American Council on Education [ACE] 1970). Ferguson (2017) notes that, during this time, politicians and institutional leaders began having conversations about how they could contain and suppress campus activism. One notable manifestation of this response was President Richard Nixon’s The Report of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, which framed campus activists as threats to democracy. Another telling manifestation of this reaction was The Powell Memorandum, a confidential letter issued to the Chamber of Commerce to advocate for an organized elite effort to suppress activism, which was characterized as a threat to social systems. Therefore, Powell’s defense of neoliberalism prioritized the needs of corporations over those of historically oppressed and marginalized communities (Ferguson 2017). Understanding these origins of neoliberalism highlights the ways in which it is inextricably intertwined with other systems of oppression and social justice movements (Goldberg 2009; Inwood 2015). Utilizing a lens that is grounded in a critique of neoliberalism and social movements theory paints a more complex picture of shifts in campus activism over time – one that acknowledges the centrality and influence of state power. Ferguson (2017) notes at least three ways in which the rise and expansion of neoliberal ideologies contributed to the 1970s decline in confrontational politics. First, after the National Guard and local police forces murdered students to suppress protests on multiple university campuses in 1970, dozens of college presidents requested that their state governments expand police powers on their campuses. Campuses began growing their police forces to build capacity to quash demonstrations and protests (Ferguson 2017). Second, institutions of higher education sped up the development of their administrative bodies in order to increase centralized institutional surveillance (Ferguson 2017) and have continued this expansion ever since. As just one example, it was recently reported that, between 2013–2014 and 2015–2016, the University of California’s system administrative offices increased their annual spending by 28%, equivalent to $80 million (California State Auditor 2017). This funneling of resources away from frontline educators and students constitutes one element of the larger shift in power into the hands of centralized administrative bodies (Ferguson 2017). In turn, this concentration of power in the administrative ranks permits institutions to exert greater control over educators and students, who find themselves in increasingly precarious circumstances. Finally, and related to the expansion of administrative powers, leaders at national and campus levels began to increasingly focus on promoting diversity as something that is good for all people (Ferguson 2017). This emphasis constituted a marked shift away from the central aims of many social justice movements that sought to advance conversations about addressing systemic forms of oppression and providing education that served historically marginalized populations. One effect of this institutionalization is that it provided colleges and universities with administrative oversight of matters related to diversity, inclusion, and equity. The post-1960 period witnessed the spread of institutionally created administrative positions (e.g., chief diversity

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officers), campus units (e.g., cultural centers and diversity and inclusion centers), and initiatives designed to advance diversity agendas across the nation (Patton 2010). Increasingly, administrators and staff have functioned as mediators of institutional change (Kezar 2010). Social movements theory underscores that systems can channel resources and energy toward more moderate aspects of institutions and decelerate them (Jenkins and Eckert 1986). The neoliberal suppression of the mass mobilization to advance democracy in the 1960s arguably made it more difficult for collective organizing to thrive on college campuses. However, the fact that this suppression was coupled with increased institutionalized opportunities to engage in community service and diversity efforts incentivized educators and students dedicated to moral causes to shift their energies to these other avenues to effect change (Ferguson 2017). This example illustrates the utility of engaging social movements theory and Critical Theory in the analysis of movements, as doing so leads us to very different insights than scholars not engaging these perspectives (e.g., Altbach 1979; Altbach and Cohen 1990). Doing so also exposes the ways in which the dynamics among hegemonic systems, institutions, and movements shape the peaks and valleys of mass campus mobilization.

Toward a Critical Social Movements Studies Framework Our framework for the critical analysis of social movements is grounded in a critique of systemic oppression and aimed at advancing concrete knowledge about social justice movement and activism dynamics. While the core elements of this framework can be applied to the analysis of social movements and activism outside of the field of higher education, we aim to demonstrate ways in which such a lens can advance more systematic analyses of social justice movements within the context of postsecondary educational institutions. The framework is not intended to be an exhaustive synthesis of the ways in which hegemony, institutions, and social movements intersect or a prescriptive guide for acceptable critical social justice movements research. The purpose of offering the current framework is twofold. First, we seek to extend prior arguments regarding the need to integrate a consideration of social movements theory and Critical Theory in scholarly research (Cini and Guzmán-Concha 2017). We contribute to this theoretical integration by offering a concrete set of ideas that are grounded in this intersection and can guide critical analyses of social movements. We hope to prompt more dialogue among social movements theory scholars and critical theorists about the ways in which these bodies of knowledge complement each other to produce more holistic understandings of social movement dynamics. Second, we aim to spark discussion about how this framework can be used to advance scholarly inquiry on campus movements to advance social justice agendas. Nor is the goal to suggest that the critical or useful analysis of social movements must reflect all of the tenants outlined herein. Rather, our intent is to suggest that the more approaches to studying social movements incorporate these elements, the more

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they are aligned with our integrative CSM perspective. Thus, we hope that the framework offered herein will constitute one useful tool for scholars who seek to advance this theoretically integrated lens. The framework suggests that CSM studies transcend generating knowledge for its own sake and is grounded in explicit commitments to social justice. Put another way, we conceive of CSM research as seeking the emancipation of oppressed communities through supporting social movements that advance these goals. This CSM perspective consists of six interconnected elements, which can be viewed as broad principles to guide an area of study or serve as a conceptual framework for specific targeted scholarly analyses: 1. Utilize catalytic approaches: CSM studies are grounded in a commitment to social justice and prioritize catalytic validity, or the degree to which theory and research can contribute to the positive transformation of individuals, social institutions, and society toward the construction of a more equitable world. 2. Foster critical agency: CSM studies are concerned with generating knowledge that can inform efforts to cultivate critical agency, or the capacity to exercise one’s ability to engage in actions to advocate for social justice. 3. Cultivate solidarity in social justice movements: CSM studies recognize the importance of solidarity in strengthening and sustaining social justice movements and seek to understand how to cultivate solidarity within and across identities and communities. 4. Bolster social justice movement resources: CSM studies also engage in research that helps advance efforts to cultivate more robust social justice movement resources. 5. Enhance efficacy of social justice movement strategies and tactics: CSM studies seek to advance knowledge that can inform the utilization of more effective social justice movement strategies and tactics. 6. Expose the ways in which systems control movements: CSM perspectives prompt critical analysis of social systems, including how they suppress, adapt to, and undermine social justice movements and maintain the status quo. In the following, we discuss each one of these tenets and ways in which they can help make sense of social movements and activism dynamics in higher education in more depth.

Utilize Catalytic Approaches While some social movements scholars might prioritize objectivity in their research processes, our CSM studies is grounded in the assumption that social science research is inherently political and research that seeks objectivity and neutrality often reinforces the status quo (Borda 2006; Mertens 2008). Thus, our CSM perspective prioritizes catalytic validity, or the degree to which scholarship can contribute to the positive transformation of participants and systems toward the construction of a more equitable world (Lather

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1986). Aligned with these aims, CSM studies utilize data collection, analysis, and reporting techniques and processes that can support the work of social justice movement actors. There are at least three ways to enhance catalytic research, including practicing continuous critical reflexivity, prioritizing reciprocity with communities, and disseminating knowledge in ways that might effect change. First, catalytic research centers continuous critical reflexivity. Such reflexivity requires that researchers give attention to the complexities of their positionality and constantly consider how power, context, and environments shape the research process and participants’ lived realities. A continuous critical reflexivity involves relentless reflection on how the researchers’ privileged and subjugated positionalities might mutually shape the process (Clarke 2005; Fine 1992) and can help minimize likelihood that they will use, silence, or misrepresent participants and hinder the positive impact that they seek to achieve. In particular, CSM research should involve constant consideration of how scholarly researchers can exploit community members through research and avoid doing so. Second, catalytic research cultivates reciprocity with communities (Dillard 2000). Aligned with the notion of social responsibility, several researchers highlight the importance of reciprocity, and researchers tending to their partnering communities’ desired outcomes (Broom and Klein 1999; Mertens 2008). CSM researchers who aim to ensure catalytic validity can invest energy in understanding social justice activists’ self-identified needs and co-construct knowledge that is useful in responding to them. Relatedly, CSM studies also seek to advance knowledge that is useful to resistance and emancipation agendas. The remaining five tenets of our CSM perspective, discussed below, flow from this desire to generate useful and transformative knowledge. Finally, catalytic research involves the transformative dissemination of knowledge to improve society (Hadley 2019). In CSM, scholars can aim to advance scholarly discourses but also to have a positive impact on the focal movements themselves. The latter might involve figuring out ways to leverage the research to communicate movement messages to broader audiences, develop useful frameworks and tools for movements, or provide evidence-based answers to critical questions possessed by movement actors.

Foster Critical Agency One way that CSM studies can catalyze change is through generating knowledge that can inform efforts to cultivate critical agency. For the purposes of this discussion, we define critical agency as a belief in one’s capacity to effect change. Such agency consists of three elements, including consciousness of systemic oppression, belief in one’s ability to effect change, and urgency to do so (Fig. 1). Evidence suggests that such critical agency increases the likelihood that one will be compelled to combat systemic oppression and positively transform social systems (Museus, in press). CSM studies find value in generating knowledge that can aid in fostering critical consciousness among potential movement participants. People who cultivate a

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Fig. 1 The elements of critical agency

Critical Consciousness

Agency

Urgency

critical consciousness about how these systems perpetuate violence toward oppressed communities are more likely to develop a commitment to and engage in social justice movements (Enriquez 2014; Freire 1996; Klandermans 2017; Solórzano and Bernal 2001). Such consciousness increases the likelihood that individuals see societal problems as symptoms of unjust social systems instead of the product of individual choices. Scholars demonstrate that political opportunity structures can provide contexts that cultivate a sense of agency that induces movement participation through sending signals to potential participants that their efforts can result in change (Arthur 2016; McAdam 1999; Meyer and Staggenborg 1996). Almeida (2019a, b) notes four types of opportunities that might increase a sense of agency. For example, those in power can provide institutional access, or an opening for marginalized populations to claim a voice. Second, changing political alignments can lead those in positions of power to become more aligned with the movements’ values and goals, creating new opportunities for change. Third, when communities have multiple avenues to challenge the system, such structures provide more opportunities for collective action. Finally, when decreased levels of repression occur, it provides opportunities for marginalized communities to mobilize to address grievances. CSM studies aim to understand how to shift systems and structures to be more conducive to cultivating agency. CSM studies also assume that systemic oppression gives rise to political threats that can spark a heightened sense of urgency to participate in social justice movements. More severe, widespread, and visible threats are more likely to induce collective action (Einwohner and Maher 2011; Zepeda-Millán 2017). Common threats to social justice movements include violence toward oppressed populations (e.g., policy brutality, hate crimes, and sexual assault). One reason that threats create

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a sense of urgency is that, when they arise, marginalized groups expect their conditions to erode if action is not taken (Tilly 1978). Another reason that threats produce a sense of urgency is that they induce emotional responses such as anger, and outrage, and sorrow (Beyerlein and Sikkink 2008; Brym 2007; Luker 1984; Jasper and Poulsen 1995; Taylor 2013). CSM perspectives seek to understand how to constructively harness emotions to induce and sustain participation in social justice movements.

Cultivate Solidarity in Social Justice Movements A CSM perspective seeks to understand how to more effectively cultivate solidarity in social justice activism and advocacy. Building on prior scholarship (Anner 2011; Bandy 2004; Fougner and Kurtoğlu 2011; Keck and Sikkink 2014; Taylor and Whittier 1992), we define solidarity as social cohesion that makes collective action possible and sustainable. Especially relevant to social justice movements are both identity group solidarity (based on shared identity) and intersectional solidarity (across identity groups) grounded in shared values, interests, or agendas. With regard to identity solidarity, scholars highlight the critical role of collective identity in social justice movements (Snow and McAdam 2000). Systemic oppression imposes socially constructed identities on minoritized communities, enabling structural violence toward them (Delgado and Stefancic 2001; McCoy and Rodricks 2015; Museus et al. 2015). As a result, many movements are characterized by collectives with shared oppressed (e.g., people of color, women, and queer and trans*) identities that mobilize to challenge the systems that perpetually enact harm toward their communities. Therefore, group solidarity that is grounded in collective identity is particularly important for these movements. Grounded in the work of feminist scholars of color (e.g., Anzaldúa 1987; Cho et al. 2013; Collins 1980), intersectional solidarity is typically used to denote cohesion of communities across multiple types of identity groups (racially minoritized, working class, feminist, queer and trans* populations) that are primarily focused on combatting different systems of oppression. However, this term might also be used to refer to solidarity across different identity groups challenging the same form of oppression (e.g., different racially minoritized groups challenging systemic racism). Such forms of intersectional solidarity can be a source of strength for social justice movements and inherently resist the individualizing effects of neoliberal ideologies, systems, and logics (Connor 2020). While social movements theory scholars note that intersectional solidarities can be powerful vehicles for social justice movements (Rojas 2017), these solidarities are complex and can cause challenges for these movements (Luna 2016). First, shifting political contexts can change the degree to which an environment is conducive to intersectional solidarities (Meyer and Corrigall-Brown 2005). Second, if some identity subgroups are marginalized and silenced within movements, tensions can arise and strain such solidarities (Barnett 1993; Matthews 2015). The task for CSM researchers, then, is to understand how social movements can cultivate

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stronger, broader, and more durable forms of solidarity. Doing so involves comprehending the complexities of solidarities and the mechanisms that function to eradicate or strengthen them within movements.

Bolster Social Justice Movement Resources CSM studies can also promote research that helps advance efforts to bolster social justice movement resources, including social movement networks, organizations, and media tools. Strong networks can increase social justice movement efficacy (Crossley and Diani 2019), as they help recruit potential activists (McAdam 1986) and increase the likelihood that connected people will mobilize (Crossley 2015). With regard to how networks induce activism, they appear to foster connection and communication conducive to mobilization. Relatively dense networks that are characterized by shared identities, higher levels of trust, and greater mutual support are especially effective at facilitating mobilization. This effectiveness is partly a function of the fact that dense networks often become cut off to external adverse influences (Coleman 1988). Social movement organizations (SMOs) help connect people to activist networks. SMOs also serve as a mechanism through which movements amass resources and utilize them to mobilize, support, and sustain their activity (Edwards et al. 2019; McCarthy and Zald 1977; Snow et al. 1980). SMOs provide access to social (e.g., social networks and the resource), cultural (e.g., including political frames and tactical repertoires), and institutionalized (e.g., legitimacy through the acquisition of awards, endorsements, and recognition) resources. SMOs also serve as abeyance structures, or organizations that support the survival of activist networks, tactical repertoires, and collective identities during times when the environment is not receptive to movement activity (Staggenborg 1988; Taylor 1989). Over the last decade, there has been increased attention given to the significant value that technology can have in social justice movements (Davis 2019; Gismondi and Osteen 2017; Reynolds and Mayweather 2017). This is not surprising, given that some of the most visible social justice movements in the last decade have heavily relied on social media to disseminate messages about their causes and mobilize (Carney 2016; Cox 2017). Social media has played a central role in facilitating the recruitment and mobilization of participants in some of the most visible local (e.g., challenges to the Dakota Pipeline and TMT), national (e.g., the DREAMers), and global (e.g., Occupy) social justice movements. These new technologies drastically decrease costs associated with participating in social movements (Earl et al. 2010; Han 2014; Walker and Martin 2019; Yang 2016) and facilitate rapid mobilization (Caren et al. 2012). In addition, social movements continue to utilize more traditional forms of media (e.g., newspapers, newsletters, radio shows, news stations, music, books, and poetry) to disseminate messages, influence the framing of focal issues in public discourses, and mobilize potential participants (Andrews and Caren 2010; Davis 2019; Gamson 1990; Gamson and Meyer 1996; McCarthy and Zald 1977; Roy 2013; Snow and Benford 1992).

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Although networks, organizations, and technologies often do enhance the capacity and efficacy of social justice movements, they can also present challenges that have the potential to adversely affect movements. For example, non-movement networks and organizations can hinder individual connections to and participation in social justice movements (Coleman 1988), the media can frame movements in derogatory ways that negatively affect public perceptions of them (Hailu and Sarrubi 2019), and social media can induce superficial and unconstructive forms of activism (Cabrera et al. 2017; Christensen 2011). CSM studies are, therefore, especially interested in producing knowledge to understand how these resources can more effectively be deployed to achieve social justice movement goals.

Enhance Efficacy Social Justice Movement Strategies and Tactics Our CSM perspective seeks to advance knowledge regarding whether, the degree to which, and how social movements lead to concrete outcomes that advance emancipation goals. While it is difficult to assess the impact of movements and activism on their intended outcomes, we believe that such efforts are worthy of time and energy. Scholars can examine the extent to which social justice movements cultivate longlasting commitments to social justice agendas (McAdam 1988, 1989; Polletta and Jasper 2001), shift the culture in ways that cultivate stronger social justice commitments among non-activists in the same cohort and people in future cohorts (Jennings 2002; Masclet 2016; McAdam 1999; Whittier 2016; Wilhelm 1998), or lead to concrete equitable policy changes (Amenta et al. 2019; Gamson 1990; Giugni 2009; Kitschelt 1986). CSM studies is also concerned with the extent to which social justice movements cause unintended consequences that might advance their agenda or conversely amplify the problems they seek to address (Amenta and Young 1999; Andrews 2004). CSM studies can also advance knowledge that can inform the utilization of more effective social justice movement strategies in generating positive outcomes. Movement strategies refer to how movements define the mobilizing group seeking to effect change, the claims that they aim to advance, their targets (e.g., audiences that they seek to influence), and the tactics they utilize to advance their claims and impact their intended audiences (McCarthy and Zald 1973). There are at least three common elements of movement strategies that social movements theory scholars have thoroughly studied and are relevant to the current discussion of social justice movements: strategic framing, tactical repertoires and choices, and institutionalization processes. How movements use strategic framing of agendas to mobilize supporters is an important element of their social justice movements’ strategy (Benford and Snow 2000). The framing perspective suggests that objects and events do not necessarily have intrinsic meaning but are often characterized by ambiguities and frames assist in interpreting them. When frames are utilized to mobilize people to address a problem, they perform three key tasks (Snow et al. 2018). First, diagnostic framing is utilized to identify an object of attention as problematic. These frames also attribute blame for the problem to particular actors. Second, prognostic framing

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articulates a plan of action to address problems, and sometimes counter alternative solutions to them. Finally, motivational framing conveys a call to action. Motivational frames encourage people to transcend fear and risk to take action by centering and highlighting the severity of the problem, urgency of corrective action, and potential to achieve a positive outcome (Benford 1993). Thus, social justice movements might seek to diagnose the systemic social problem, convey ideas about how it can be addressed, and mobilize people to act. Frames are not developed in a vacuum, but are socially constructed, contested, and deployed within discursive contexts. For example, discursive fields are created through debate and dialogue and include relevant actors (e.g., agents of control, media, audiences) who are affected by and have a stake in the issue at hand that is being framed. These discursive fields can shape frames, and the efficacy of frames depends on the degree to which they resonate with target audiences in these fields (Robnett 2004). The same issue can be framed in ways that are more or less effective at garnering buy-in of those in power or the public (Bloemraad et al. 2016), and the same frame can produce drastically different outcomes among two different audiences (Robnett 2004). In addition, what constitutes an effective frame is not always clear, as a frame that advances efforts to enact a particular policy can simultaneously reinforce oppressive structures. These realities make framing processes complex. CSM studies, therefore, are interested in aiding social movement actors in understanding which frames strategically will be most effective within various contexts and audiences. Social movements theory also underscores the reality that social justice movement actors have tactical repertoires that include disruptive (i.e., confrontational) and conventional practices (Jasper 2008; Tarrow 1998). When less disruptive tactics are ineffective at advancing change, movement actors are more likely to deploy more confrontational tactics. More confrontational tactics refer to those that break routines and cause disruption in daily lives (e.g., a protest or sit-in), whereas conventional tactics converge with existing norms and routines of target audiences (e.g., speaking at a public meeting or disseminating pamphlets). A CSM approach aims to grasp which tactics are effective at advancing social justice objectives within a given context. The term institutionalization refers to the process by which SMOs and movement actors become a part of the institutions that they seek to change to advance their causes (Andrew 2010). This institutionalization allows movement actors to bring about change from within existing structures (Zald and Berger 1978). When institutionalization occurs, SMOs and movement actors become part of the system that they seek to change and resort to more tempered strategies (Meyerson and Scully 1995). These tempered radicals typically have limited formal power within institutions, “identify with and are committed to their organizations, and are also committed to a cause, community, or ideology that is fundamentally different from, and possibly at odds with the dominant culture of their organization” (Meyerson and Scully 1995, p. 586). Such movement actors deploy subtle or moderate challenges to authority to advance their causes through pursuing and achieving incremental changes (Meyerson 2003).

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Some social movements theory scholars assert that this institutionalization of movements can arguably lead to important policy gains (Meyerson and Scully 1995; Zald and Berger 1978). However, others note that bureaucratization is a process that often de-radicalizes movements (Jenkins and Eckert 1986; McCarthy and Zald 1977). Therefore, CSM perspectives must engage this complexity to understand the complicated and sometimes contradictory consequences of the institutionalization of social justice movements.

Expose How Systems Resist Movements Finally, CSM perspectives are interested in exposing the ways in which power structures resist social justice movements. When challenged by such movements, systems adapt in ways that allow them to eradicate the impact of movements and maintain the status quo. Building on the work of prior scholars (e.g., Ahmed 2012; Barnhardt 2019; Cho 2018; Lammers 1977), we can identify five ways that institutions react to minimize the impact of student movements: suppression, isolation, evasion, conciliation, and co-optation. First, the suppression of movements refers to institutions using force (e.g., arresting and suspending protesters) to subdue movement actors (Tilly 2019). Second, institutions can identify a scapegoat to be held accountable (e.g., fire someone who committed a racist act) for the problems that sparked the mobilization in order to ensure the isolation of responsibility (Lammers 1977). This tactic of isolation increases the likelihood that an institution can maintain an image that they are responsive to social justice agendas without making more significant institutional changes that are aligned with movement goals. Third, evasion refers to institutions taking a neutral stance and waiting out political conflict (Lammers 1977). Fourth, the conciliation of movements occurs when institutions patronize more moderate forms (e.g., allow students to serve on a diversity committee) of movement activity (Jenkins and Eckert 1986; McCarthy and Zald 1977). This form of control is also described as making minor concessions or appeasing activists, as it entails minimal recognition and inclusion of movement actors but does not produce any substantive changes (Cho 2018; Lammers 1977). Finally, when conciliation leads to co-optation, institutions absorb movement actors without the latter making gains and advancing their agendas (Ahmed 2012; Cho 2018; Gamson 1975). If the co-optation aligns social movement actors more with administrative powers than communities they initially represented, it can advance the institution’s interests and lead to the decay of movements.

Expanding Social Movements Research in Higher Education A CSM approach that honors the centrality of reciprocity in catalytic research would ideally co-construct research goals, designs, and approaches with movement actors. Researchers bring knowledge and methodological tools to the table to contribute to

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this co-construction. To help advance thinking about how our CSM perspective might enhance this toolkit, we discuss four broad areas of research on social justice movements and activism within higher education research and how a CSM approach might help expand possibilities in each respective area.

Expanding and Sustaining Movement Activity Our CSM lens might prompt lines of inquiry that help shed light on how individual college student involvement in social justice movements can be expanded and sustained over time. Generating such insight might require developing deeper understandings regarding how systems constrict or promote the development of potential activists’ critical agency and solidarity within existing social justice movements. The degree of existing political opportunities for social justice movements on college campuses can be examined at government and institutional levels. For example, elected officials who encourage political engagement, campuses that expand the presence of educators who create opportunities to develop critical consciousness, and the expansion of opportunities to engage in civic action might all interact to facilitate the mobilization of campus community members to address social injustices (Barnhardt 2014; Kezar 2010; Museus et al. 2012; Museus and LePeau 2019; Rhoads 1998). In contrast, campus structures that offer limited opportunities for students to engage in efforts to effect positive change can lead to decreased academic performance and both physical and emotional fatigue (Linder et al. 2019a, b). Such structures may limit students’ agency, as they make it difficult for students to simultaneously engage in social justice activism and thrive in college. In addition, higher education research often implies that systemic violence and inequities lead to threats among social justice movement actors (e.g., Hope et al. 2016; Jacoby 2017; Jones and Reddick 2017; Museus et al. 2015; Wheatle and Commodore 2019). These threats can exist at national (e.g., election of officials who promotes xenophobia), state (e.g., tuition increases), and campus (e.g., hostility in the campus climate) levels. Higher education scholarship on threats is difficult to find but does provide some indication that they play an important role in motivating those who are dedicated to social justice. For example, research on undocumented student activists underscores the ways in which they acknowledge their longstanding fear of the threat of criminalization and letting go of it can fuel their participation (Muñoz 2015). Scholarship also suggests that it might be difficult to disentangle the effects of political opportunities and threats, as they can simultaneously characterize an environment. For example, some research indicates that hostility within and negative perceptions of institutional environments are related to increased levels of activism (Julius and Gumport 2003; Linder and Rodriguez 2012; Linder et al. 2019a, b; Vaccaro 2009), while other evidence suggests that institutional missions and cultures that support activism can make it more likely that student activists will mobilize and be effective in their efforts (Broadhurst and Martin 2014; Kezar 2010).

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Evidence regarding how such opportunities and threats spark critical agency might be particularly useful in understanding how to expand movement participation but is difficult to find in higher education. The evidence that does exist on this topic suggests that emotions can fuel a sense of urgency. For example, scholars have found that participating in a rape prevention program and ongoing institutional racism can both lead to feelings of helplessness, anger, and frustration (Klaw et al. 2005; Quaye et al. 2017), all of which can spark urgency to act (Beyerlein and Sikkink 2008; Brym 2007; Jasper and Poulsen 1995; Luker 1984). In addition, higher education research suggests that emotions, such as passion, can drive individuals to get involved in efforts to effect changes aligned with social justice agendas and goals (Kezar et al. 2017, 2018). Higher education scholars have also underscored the important role that identity and consciousness play in connecting people to social justice movements and leading to their mobilization (DeAngelo et al. 2016; Julius and Gumport 2003; Linder and Rodriguez 2012; Rhoads 2016; Renn 2007; Renn and Bilodeau 2005). This small and growing body of research largely frames identity and consciousness as catalysts of and assets to social movements. However, empirical studies that shed light on how political opportunities and threats might shape college students’ critical agency (urgency, consciousness, and agency) are few and far between (Museus, in press). With regard to scholarship on solidarity and coalitions that might sustain movement activity, higher education research that examines intersectional coalitions is difficult to find, and this is a ripe area for empirical inquiry. Existing literature on college students, most of which is produced outside of the field of higher education, does highlight the importance of intersectional coalitions in student movements (Enriquez 2014; Museus 2020a; Terriquez et al. 2018), the value of shared intersectional ideologies in making coalitions possible (Connor 2020; Enriquez 2014; Terriquez et al. 2018), the promise of emotions as a lever for cultivating solidarity (Castro Samayoa and Nicolazzo 2017; Connor 2020), and the importance of space to negotiate conflict in coalitions (Enriquez 2014). It is worth nothing that centering voices of communities often marginalized within social justice movements might be especially useful in shedding light on how activists cultivate and maintain solidarity, given that doing so can be a necessity element of social justice activism for these populations (Museus 2020a). Higher education, for example, might benefit from a greater focus on how trans* communities within feminist movements, Asian Americans within racial justice movements, and indigenous communities who are often marginalized in social justice movements cultivate and deploy solidarity tactics. A CSM perspective might help extend knowledge on critical agency and solidarity in multiple ways. First, our CSM approach might focus empirical analysis on how neoliberal ideologies, systems, and logics hinder the cultivation of critical agency. Neoliberal forces channel energy away from social movement participation. Yet, for the most part, existing research on college student social justice activism is focused on those who have already committed to social justice agendas. Much remains to be learned about what we might call social justice movements’ lost power, or the potential agency of those who do not, or have not yet chosen to, engage in social

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justice work. However, higher education researchers traditionally study the most engaged students, as these individuals constitute information-rich cases and are often most willing to participate. Shifting to examine lost power would require higher education scholars to expand their notions of key informants and invest additional energy in accessing them. Such research could also aid social justice activists in developing optimal tools to expand their circles of support. Second, CSM research might examine how neoliberal forces erode and constrain possibilities for solidarity. Neoliberal logics grounded in hyper-competition and hyper-surveillance can infiltrate social justice movements and pose significant challenges for maintaining solidarities within and among them (Museus 2020b), but these dynamics are not well-understood empirically. Researchers note that intersectional solidarities are one mechanism by which today’s activists resist neoliberal forces (Connor 2020), but much remains to be learned about how social justice movement actors maintain solidarity despite these forces that are designed to erode it. Ethnographic work can prompt deeper analysis into the dynamics of solidarities, which can include how competition for resources, horizontal hypersurveillance, and the audit cultures of colleges and universities might hinder solidarities. Such lines of inquiry have the potential to generate useful long-term knowledge about social justice movements.

Deciphering Impact As mentioned, recent research on campus activism is disproportionately focused on the benefits accrued to individual activists (Hamrick 1998; Klar and Kasser 2009; Renn and Bilodeau 2005). While such knowledge is obviously important, it only offers a partial picture of the consequences of movements. Analyses of the impact of social justice movements on larger systemic outcomes are necessary to develop a more holistic understanding of movement impact. There are at least two types of systemic outcomes important to social justice movements on college campuses: policy (or structural) and cultural outcomes. Policy and structural outcomes are inextricably intertwined. Policies implemented in response to social movements are often necessary to eliminate or generate new structures in response to movement demands. In the realm of policy or structural outcomes, higher education scholars have argued that some student social justice movements have effectively advanced important policy changes at institution and state levels, but the extent and nature of their overall impact is inconclusive (Wheatle and Commodore 2019). These researchers assert that student activists have been instrumental at pressuring institutions and states to pass policies to protect the rights of undocumented immigrants and more effectively address sexual assault on college campuses. In addition, protesters on many campuses have pressured their institutions to make changes to advance diversity and equity, which include administrator resignations, establishment of gender-neutral policies and intercultural centers, the renaming of racist building names, and the changing of racist Native American mascots (Case et al. 2012; Hofmann 2005; Wheatle and Commodore 2019).

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However, the larger, multidimensional, and long-term policy impact of student movements is often difficult to decipher. Take, for example, protesters who deployed campus demonstrations, a hunger strike, and a football team strike to protest the hostile racial climate at the University of Missouri in 2015. The students who mobilized were able to convince their institution to terminate the chancellor and establish a plan to diversify the faculty and curriculum (Wheatle and Commodore 2019). Since the protests, the campus has adopted an inclusive excellence framework and developed multiple diversity and equity programs. However, the American Council on Education’s (2020) recent analysis of the racial conflict’s aftermath highlights that, while the university has replaced the chancellor and developed a greater capacity to deal with racial crises, the aftershock of the campus racial conflict is complex and campus community members have mixed feelings regarding whether the university has made substantial progress. With regard to broader cultural impact, higher education scholars know relatively little about how student social justice movements affect nonparticipants, future generations of students, or lives within larger external communities. Social movements have played a critical role in establishing, expanding, and defending ethnic studies (Museus and LePeau 2019; Rojas 2010; Umemoto 1989) and doing so resulted in long-lasting changes that have shaped and continue to impact the lives of college students who are now able to access culturally relevant education on some campuses (Campbell 2016; Museus et al. 2012, 2018; Osajima 2007; Tang 2017; Wang et al. in press). There is also some indication that these changes might increase the degree to which their respective campuses are conducive to future political mobilization (Barnhardt 2015). With few exceptions, however, these types of long-term effects are not empirically analyzed in-depth. However, the impact of social justice movements on broader populations is complex. When movement cultural traits are adopted by beneficiaries, it is likely that social structures, social justice movements, and broader populations that these movements intend to influence engage in ongoing processes of negotiating and reshaping them. One example that highlights the complexity of such processes is the term Asian American. This term arose from the Asian American movement of the 1960s (Espiritu 1992). While Asian American ethnic groups share little in common, the Asian American movement underscored the reality that these communities experienced shared forms of racial oppression. Asian American activists adopted this term “Asian American” as a symbol of American-ness and in solidarity with each other (Espiritu 1992). Today, this term is used broadly to label programs, centers, and initiatives designed to serve Asian Americans on college campuses and by many students who identify with these communities but might not consider themselves social justice activists, which could be interpreted as a positive cultural outcome. However, scholars have also noted that this racial label is used to essentialize Asian Americans, obscure the challenges they face, and justify their exclusion (Museus 2014; Museus and Kiang 2009). As a result, Asian Americans advocating for social justice have to simultaneously engage the label as a mechanism of solidarity and deconstruct it in order to combat oppressive dominant racial narratives (Iftikar and Museus 2019).

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Engaging these nuances highlights the complex nature of processes of movement language adoption. Scholars might trace similar complexities in the ways in which language within higher education shifted from being focused on liberation in the 1960s to diversity and inclusion in the decades that followed and how social movements have strategically used and contested this language. CSM studies might prompt higher education researchers to extend existing scholarship on social justice movements’ impact in at least a couple of ways. First, this perspective might prompt scholars to expand the scope of analysis and examine what we might call movement ripple effects, or long-term intended and unintended policy and cultural outcomes of student movements and activism. To do so, higher education scholars should consider the value of adopting and employing empirical methods that consider short-term and long-term intended and unintended consequences of mobilization. Longitudinal case studies that analyze policy implementation processes in real time could provide a much more complex understanding of social justice movement outcomes. The utility of such methods has been thoroughly demonstrated in areas outside of higher education, such as health research (Calman et al. 2013). However, longitudinal empirical studies require significant investments of time and energy and are increasingly difficult to find in the field of higher education. Second, a CSM perspective might prompt more robust analyses of the ways in which social justice activists in college reach beyond their campus walls to support external communities in resisting various forms of systemic violence. Dache (2019) offers a compelling example of such analysis, as she documents the ways in which students blurred the lines between community and campus activism to fight multiple intersecting forms of racial violence, including state sanctioned police brutality, capital accumulation, and repressive campus climates. Many college student social justice activists are simultaneously involved in advancing multiple community and campus agendas. Thus, research on the ways in which college student activists might contribute to realizing positive outcomes beyond the campus are important.

Complicating the Role of Resources A CSM approach to examining social justice movements can complicate the ways in which higher education scholars analyze and discuss movement resources (networks, organizations, technologies). Scholars note that networks can play a role in expanding social justice activism by forming and sustaining connected masses of movement actors on campuses and recruiting new participants into them (Biddix and Park 2008; Crossley 2008; Renn 2007). Higher education research also demonstrates that networks of educators and students allow the former to help the latter diversify their advocacy strategies (Astin et al. 1975; Kezar and Maxey 2014), refine the requests and demands that they make of administrators (Kezar and Maxey 2014; Wolf-Wendel et al. 2004), translate between administrators and students to help the latter understand the institutional landscape (Kezar and Maxey 2014; Wolf-Wendel et al. 2004), embed opportunities to engage in activism within

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existing institutional structures (e.g., courses and cocurricular programming) (Kezar et al. 2011), cultivate opportunities for them to learn how to build coalitions (Rhoads et al. 2005), and sometimes engage in protest with them (Astin et al. 1975). Evidence suggests that campus networks can also be formed and sustained online (Biddix and Park 2008). Higher education scholars note that SMOs housed within and outside of higher education institutions can play an important role in fostering the conditions that are conducive to social justice activism (Linder and Rodriguez 2012; Museus 2008; Renn 2007; Swank 2012). For example, student organizations with social justice foci and those with missions to serve underserved communities can promote activism among their members (Broido 2000; Museus 2008; Renn 2007; Swank 2012). Research also highlights the reality that, when students do not have access to organizations aligned with their political causes on their campuses, they often create their own organizations to facilitate activism (Linder and Rodriguez 2012; Renn 2007). Existing higher education scholarship also demonstrates that ethnic studies departments and programs and federally funded minority-serving institution programs can foster increased political consciousness and community engagement (Barnhardt 2015; Campbell 2016; Museus et al. 2012, 2018; Osajima 2007; Tang 2017; Wang et al. in press), which contribute to the cultivation of critical agency and commitments to social justice agendas. Anecdotally, we know that scholars, researchers, and advocates who operate national research and policy centers designed to advance equity can also provide valuable support for social justice movements. The National Institute for Transformation and Equity at Indiana University and the University of California in San Diego works with campuses across the nation to provide assessment and consulting services for institutions that seek to transform their campuses to respond to calls for more equitable environments. At the University of Southern California, the Pullias Center offers an example of how these national centers collaborate with networks of other SMOs to advance a shared social justice agenda. Through the Delphi Project, the Pullias Center works with labor unions and other organizations that support collective bargaining to advocate for contingent faculty rights. SMOs like these provide social justice movements with increased access to networks of researchers, data and evidence, and technical support to advance agendas. At the same time, to sustain the work, these SMOs compete for resources and visibility, which arguably reinforce neoliberal logics surrounding competition and revenue generation. Information technologies can also play a powerful role in student social justice movements. For example, researchers know that sexual violence activists utilize social media to enhance their efforts to raise consciousness, build community, and disrupt power dynamics (Linder et al. 2016). In higher education, social justice movements and activists can also use niche media outlets (e.g., The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed), campus newspapers, and spoken word poetry to disseminate messages, cultivate coalitions, and advance their causes. Such news media outlets can serve as important mechanisms through which movements challenge those in positions of power and authority.

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However, it has also become increasingly clear that, while resources bolster social justice movements, they can also create challenges. For example, when an individual is connected to a network that is ideologically misaligned with a movement, it can function as a form of social control and inhibit mobilization (McAdam 1982). This reality raises questions for the study of social justice movements on college campuses, where many students spend a significant amount of time in their academic departments and programs. If the existence of ethnic studies and diversity curricular requirements on campuses increase the likelihood that students will mobilize (Barnhardt 2015), it could be hypothesized that students who are immersed in departments and majors that are less likely to center social justice (e.g., science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) will face greater challenges cultivating critical agency and commitments to social justice. If this hypothesis is true, research might be able to shed light on how social justice movements can create avenues to mobilization for students with less access to social justice networks. Media does not have a uniformly positive impact on social justice movements either. For example, news outlets sometimes frame social justice movements in disparaging ways (Hailu and Sarrubi 2019), which might hinder potential or diffuse existing support for their agendas. In addition, social media activism poses challenges, such as the spread of “slacktivism,” or armchair activism more focused on performing activism and acquiring personal gratification than working hard to effect long-term systemic changes (Cabrera et al. 2017; Christensen 2011). In addition, social media can function as a space where misinformation and hostile exchanges can become increasingly commonplace at the expense of complex conversations, which can have damaging effects on the well-being of social justice activists and hinder solidarities among movement participants (Museus 2020b). Social movements scholars have also demonstrated that other forms of digital communication, (e.g., email) increase hierarchies, impede consensus, hamper participation, and marginalize some group members (Fominaya 2016). Given these realities, it is important to better understand the role and impact of technology on social justice movements. Yet, with few exceptions (e.g., Davis 2019; Gismondi and Osteen 2017; Linder et al. 2016; Reynolds and Mayweather 2017), higher education scholars have not centered technology as a focus of empirical analysis in the study of social justice movements. CSM studies can fill important gaps in knowledge about the role of social media in such movements. Engaging a CSM perspective in the study of movement resources can prompt more complex analyses of the role that they play in social justice agendas. First, higher education scholars can more thoroughly examine the evolution, strategies, and tactics of SMOs. With some exceptions (Barnhardt 2015; Campbell 2016; Museus et al. 2012, 2018; Osajima 2007; Tang 2017), higher education scholars have generated relatively few empirical analyses focused on the role of SMOs in advancing social justice movements within postsecondary education. What factors lead a student organization to become more politicized and connect themselves to social movements over time? What are the various ways in which SMOs, such as ethnic studies and minority-serving institution programs, deploy resources to maximize the likelihood of students cultivating the agency to mobilize? What are the

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neoliberal barriers that such organizations encounter when they support movement activity and how are they overcome? What other types of support do intermediaries provide social justice movements? These are just a few questions about SMOs that remain unanswered but could expand our understanding of these vital aspects of social justice movements. Second, scholars can examine the impact that digital activism has on movement non-participants. It is likely that exposure to digital activism leads to both positive (e.g., greater exposure to knowledge that might increase critical consciousness) and negative (e.g., excessive exposure to systemic violence with limited agency to act on social media) experiences with social justice movements among this population. If this is the case, research can shed light on which uses of social media might be more likely to attract participants to social justice movements and which forms of online activity might repel potential members. In addition, while existing research shows that social media can be a tool to foster collective identity (Khazraee and Novak 2018; Ray et al. 2017), it could also be hypothesized that digital spaces where deep, prolonged, and meaningful interactions are less likely to occur might cause added challenges to student social justice activists’ cultivating identity and intersectional solidarities. Empirical research can help tease out these complex and potentially contradictory effects of social media on social justice movements. Mixed-methods studies might be especially useful in examining the complex role and impact of digital technologies. Such approaches can deploy quantitative methods to document perceptions of and reactions to movement activity through various media and social media outlets, while leveraging qualitative techniques to gain deeper insight into how these bystanders process these observations. Qualitative approaches can also excavate the ways in which student activists navigate the complex and potentially contradictory effects of digital technology to maximize their positive influence on social justice movement solidarities.

Understanding the Complexities of Strategies and Tactics A CSM perspective might also be useful in understanding the complex roles of movement strategies and tactics to help social movement actors understand how to most effectively choose and deploy them. With regard to strategic framing, researchers note that social justice movement actors might strategically frame their messages to different contexts and audiences (e.g., researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and community members) in order to optimize impact (Yi et al. 2020). However, framing processes are also complex and can be characterized by contradictions. For example, given neoliberalism’s pervasive infiltration of higher education, efforts to advance racial justice in the 1990s and 2000s were often justified by framing people of color as potential resources that could boost the national economy (Iftikar 2016; Iverson 2007). In doing so, many people involved in advancing social justice agendas arguably reinforce neoliberal logics as they were advocating for racial equity. While social justice movements have shifted the climate and it is more common for systemic oppression and liberation to be explicitly centered in national

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and institutional conversations, neoliberal ideologies are still prevalent in these spheres, and many people continue to tailor their messages to ensure that it resonates with neoliberal policymakers, institutional leaders, and educators. Despite the fact that such contradictions require complex analysis and we could learn much from them, research on strategic framing within the higher education field is difficult to find. Higher education scholars point to the wide range of tactics that campus activists utilize, including marches, rallies, sit-ins, teach-ins, picketing, boycotting, petitions, and volunteerism (Anderson 1996; Bickford and Reynolds 2002; Heineman 2001; Rhoads 1998; Vellela 1999). As mentioned, the last decade of heightened student mobilization has seen an increase in confrontational tactics on campuses, such as organized demonstrations to prompt institutional action. Anecdotally, we know that these more confrontational tactics have led to different outcomes across varied contexts, with some institutions responding with substantial investments in diversity and equity efforts, while others refuse to react with the same substance. However, empirical research that sheds light on which tactics are more or less effective within various contexts are virtually nonexistent in higher education literature. Of course, social justice activists in college do not rely solely on confrontational tactics. For example, students might run for election to student government or serve on institutional committees to advocate the prioritization of movement agendas among the larger student body. They might also be hired as employees, who advanced social justice causes from institutionalized positions. And through their student organizations, they might invest significant energy in raising consciousness among their peers and directly addressing problems in their communities. Researchers note that college faculty and staff who advocate for causes aligned with larger social movements can be considered tempered radicals, who use more subtle forms of advocacy, such as hiring like-minded activists and utilizing data to advance their causes (Kezar 2010; Kezar et al. 2011). Many students who assume institutionally recognized positions likely have to utilize similarly tempered strategic approaches to advocacy, and questions remain regarding the extent to which institutions end up co-opting these movement actors. There are at least two ways in which CSM studies might help advance existing knowledge about the efficacy of students’ social justice movement strategies. First, recognizing that neoliberal forces are always at play and working to co-opt the efforts of social justice advocates, scholars can paint a more complex picture of strategic framing, confrontational tactics, and institutionalized movement efforts. Any CSM analysis of movement strategies and tactics should grapple with this neoliberal paradox, or the reality that these movement dynamics can generate contradictory effects that simultaneously advance social justice and de-radicalize these efforts by adapting to neoliberal pressures and logics. With regard to strategic framing, for instance, how do social justice movements frame messages that most effectively garner support for their causes within these contexts? What is the relationship between neoliberal contexts and framing choices? Exploring and answering such questions might help maximize the likelihood that campus activists are able to select frames most likely to garner support for the causes.

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Case studies might also be an optimal approach to capturing the complexity of social justice student movement strategies and tactics. Case studies not only allow for gathering and triangulation of data from many different actors, but they also permit the integration of a wide range of data collection techniques to inform analysis of the case. Such designs might allow researchers to triangulate social justice movement actor perspectives, institutional and movement artifacts, and media coverage. Second, a CSM analysis might prompt scholars to utilize more complex methods to assess the efficacy of social justice movement strategies and tactics. Higher education scholars can conduct multiple case studies to examine how the same tactics lead to differential effects across different institutional contexts. For example, researchers can compare institutions where student mobilization and protest led to a significant institutional investment in social justice efforts and those were institutional leaders failed to respond with an investment of resources. Designs that allow for such comparisons would permit stronger claims about which factors exhibited differential effects across contexts and contributed to disparate administrative responses.

Exposing University Resistance Institutions of higher education operate in ways that allow them to garner and sustain power, prestige, and resources (Scott 2007; Slaughter and Rhoades 2004). It is widely known that institutions can utilize power and authority (e.g., police forces and campus sanctions) to suppress movement activity. For example, campuses might disperse disruptive protests or terminate educators and students who go on strike. In Spring of 2020, for example, several dozen students protesting for a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) at the University of California, Santa Cruz were fired, providing an example of university repression of a movement. This specific case also demonstrates how responses designed to repress movements can have unintended consequences, as the firing of students in Santa Cruz may have contributed to the spread of the COLA campaign to other campuses within the University of California system. Existing research shows that institutionalization can lead to the absorption of social justice movement actors and activities, as dominant systems utilize isolation, conciliation, and co-optation tactics to gain influence over their agendas and lead to movement demobilization (Ferguson 2012). Colleges and universities, for example, might hire chief diversity officers as a symbol of commitment to diversity but give them inadequate support and resources to effect substantial systemic change (Aguilar et al. 2017). Scholars have only begun to examine how institutional responses to activism lead to the absorption of activist agendas (Anderson 2019; Hoffman and Mitchell 2016; Squire et al. 2019). They note that institutions, in response to student social justice movements, invoke diversity language in ways that declare an institutional commitment in the absence of meaningful action, thereby diminishing the movements’ efficacy and relinquishing the burden of change to students. This scholarship has provided important new models for critical analysis of

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institutional responses to student movements but has largely been conceptual or discourse analytic to date. Research also raises questions about the absorption of products of movement success. While higher education scholarship acknowledges that movements and activists have fought for the institutionalization of ethnic studies, cultural centers, and other forms of targeted and community-oriented educational and support programs (Museus and LePeau 2019; Rojas 2007; Umemoto 1989), the larger impact of these units is not always clear. Many would argue that movements that push for and eventually establish such units have made progress in their political agendas, but the impact might be complicated. Many scholars who work in academic programs that were established to advance democratic goals have been forced to adopt traditional academic norms and practices to ensure their legitimacy in the academy, which can remove them from communities they are designed to serve and adversely affect their capacity to effect social change (Darder 2012). Especially at more “prestigious” and wealthier institutions that do not have strong community-engaged missions, the creation of these programs might allow their campuses to avoid supporting more radical political agendas (Ferguson 2012). There are multiple ways a CSM perspective can enhance the study of institutional responses and control over student social justice movements. Historical analyses might be most useful in advancing such lines of inquiry. Through such analyses, researchers can collect and examine data (e.g., meeting minutes and campus newspaper coverage) in campus archives to develop in-depth accounts of the relationships between institutions and their student social justice movements across time. Given that neoliberal contexts are often absent from the institutional memory possessed by those in positions of authority, taking them into account, as we did in our discussion of national student activism trends earlier in this chapter, might allow researchers to generate new perspectives regarding how institution-movement dynamics have shaped current conditions surrounding social justice efforts on campus. In addition, CSM can promote more complex designs that combine the aforementioned historical analyses with the examination of current perspectives to understand how histories of institutions exerting control over social justice movements and agendas live on within student bodies. Anecdotally, while institutional leaders might not always center a critical analysis of the suppression of social movements in their historical memories, students can transmit such histories across generations, shaping the perspectives of future cohorts at their institutions. Such approaches might, for instance, offer insight into whether and how institutions exerting control over movements can have their own ripple effects that corrode trust in their relationships with student activists in subsequent generations. In doing so, such inquiries could expose often-invisible costs of institutions failing to meaningfully answer to movement forces and bolster the argument for more meaningful responses to student activist pressures. Perhaps the immediate outcome of students’ mobilization for social justice that is most aligned with goals of emancipation is an authentic partnership in which students have control to address their needs and demands (Cho 2018). If this is the case, higher education scholars using a CSM approach might seek to understand

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what political opportunity structures and movement strategies and tactics are most likely to lead to this short-term goal. Doing so would involve identifying and analyzing complex cases in which students feel that they have been able to, at least partially, cultivate such partnerships, and this would be a difficult task. Currently, empirical inquiries that advance this understanding are virtually nonexistent.

Conclusion In this chapter, we discuss the utility of integrating social movements theory and Critical Theory perspectives into the analysis of student social justice movements. We also offer a framework to spark conversations about developing an area of critical social movements studies and offer ideas about what it might look like. We offer these ideas as a starting point and hope that the larger community of social movements scholars, critical theorists, and higher education researchers might engage in more robust conversations about the potential power of these theoretically integrated lines of inquiry. Such efforts might have the potential to revolutionize the way we analyze and understand social movements within and across disciplines and fields. In addition, throughout the discussion, we make recommendations regarding how scholars might generate new and deeper insights into the nature, dynamics, and impact of social movements in higher education. However, we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge the contexts within which scholars generate, disseminate, and apply knowledge today, and that might make these recommendations difficult to implement. The same neoliberal ideologies that have affected social movements also constrain and shape ways in which scholars produce research (Museus and LePeau 2019). While a thorough analysis of how these neoliberal forces affect knowledge production, dissemination, and application is beyond the scope of this chapter, a few implications of these systemic realities are worth noting. Neoliberal logics have led to the expansion of audit cultures that assess and reward scholars based on oversimplified quantifiable (and often superficial) metrics, such as the number of publications produced, number of citations accumulated, and impact factor of publication venues (Strathern 2000). These realities make it especially difficult for researchers to implement some of our most important methodological recommendations. For example, many of our methodological suggestions call for deeper partnerships with activist communities and more complex case study, longitudinal, and mixed-method designs. While such methodological approaches could allow researchers to have a greater impact than less complex designs utilizing more traditional notions of “quality,” they might not yield the same quantifiable outputs rewarded by widespread, problematic, and simplistic neoliberal evaluation systems. Therefore, many scholars will be unable or choose not to implement the recommendations herein unless scholarly communities more aggressively collectively resist neoliberal pressures and ensure space for more complex research agendas. Scholarly communities within professional associations and postsecondary

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institutions that truly value social justice movements and agendas must have conversations about how they can collectively mobilize to redefine notions of quality and impact within their spheres of influence. For example, scholars should collectively consider ways that they can integrate qualitative methods of evaluating impact into promotion and tenure, annual review, and award selection processes. Such systemic changes are necessary if our academic disciplines and fields want to encourage scholarship while maximizing its positive impact on research participants, society, and the world.

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Samuel D. Museus is Professor of Education Studies at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and Founding Director of the National Institute for Transformation and Equity (NITE). His research examines inequities in higher education systems, how colleges and universities can and do cultivate equitable and empowering environments, and social movements and activism in postsecondary settings. Brenda Jimenez Sifuentez is an assistant professor in the Student Affairs Administration program at Lewis & Clark College. Her research is guided by her desire to alter relations of power in institutions of higher education. Her current research examines the role of Hispanic-Serving Institutions in the Pacific Northwest, governance and social justice, and activism in higher education. Sifuentez earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education at the University of Denver and her M.A. in Higher Education Administration & Leadership from Fresno State University. She is a graduate of the University of Oregon.

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Patterns in the Study of Academic Learning in US Higher Education Journals, 2005–2020 Lisa R. Lattuca

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Framing and Scope of This Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Overview of the Corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptualizing Academic Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Illustration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theorizing Academic Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Using Conceptual Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Literature Reviews as Framing Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary: Conceptualizing Academic Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Studying Students’ Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary: Studying Students’ Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Studying Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Using Students Surveys to Study Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Using Multiple Data Sources to Study Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary: Studying Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Studying Programmatic Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary: Studying Programmatic Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Studying Students’ Interactions with Faculty and Peers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary: Studying Students’ Interactions with Faculty and Peers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions: How Have Researchers Studied Academic Learning in US Institutions? . . . . . . . Broad Patterns in the Study of Academic Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reflections on the Criteria for the Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptualizing Academic Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Studying Students and Their Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Studying Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Studying Learning in Courses and Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Imagining the Future of Studies of Academic Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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L. R. Lattuca (*) Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7_7

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Abstract

This chapter presents an analysis of articles on academic learning published by US researchers between 2005 and early 2020 in major higher education journals. The goal of the review was to identify patterns in the conceptualization and study of academic learning, defined as learning that is the intended or actual outcome of formal academic courses and programs in 2- and 4-year institutions. The analysis identified differences in the kinds of academic learning examined by researchers studying learning in 2- and 4-year institutions; limited use of theory and conceptual frameworks to guide research; the dominance of cognitive theories of learning and relative absence of sociocultural, situative, and critical perspectives; and near-exclusive use of quantitative research designs. In addition, whereas research in 2-year colleges examined students’ learning of knowledge and skills related to particular academic disciplines and fields, research in 4-year institutions emphasized students’ development of general reasoning skills such as critical thinking. Across the corpus of studies, researchers focused on determining the effectiveness of educational programs and practices rather than on understanding the learning process. Reflections on these patterns of study yielded recommendations for advancing research on academic learning in college. Keywords

Learning · Postsecondary education · Learning experiences · Learning outcomes · Curriculum · Subject matter learning · Instruction · Research strategies · Conceptual frameworks · College and university education · Academic programs

The goal in this chapter is to understand and critically reflect on how researchers have studied academic learning in US higher education institutions over the past 15 years. Through a review of articles published in major US higher education journals, I identified patterns related to the kinds of academic learning studied and research strategies utilized to consider the affordances and limitations of these choices. My reflections on these patterns ground recommendations for advancing research on what and how students learn in college.

Introduction Analyzing studies of undergraduate’s academic learning in US higher education yields two insights critical to higher education scholarship, specifically, the kinds of academic learning that have been accorded research attention and those that have not, and the potential influences on learning examined and those that were not. Both have consequences for what we know about learning itself in colleges and universities and the contributions that such studies make to advancing research, theory,

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practice, and/or policy. While many kinds of learning occur during college, this chapter focuses specifically on studies of academic learning, which I defined as learning that is the intended or actual result of formal academic courses and programs in 2- and 4-year institutions. While we often think of college as promoting general cognitive abilities, such as critical thinking or communication, much of what students learn in college, particularly in their major fields of study, are genres of thinking and writing and communicating that are tied to particular academic fields of study (Donald 2002). Moreover, as Pallas and Neumann (2019) observed, disciplinary knowledge is “higher education’s unique offering to society and something that no other current social institution can offer in depth” (p. 23). The breadth of higher education researchers’ interests in learning is a marker of the field, although trends in attention to discipline- and field-based learning appear to wax and wane. In the second volume of the research synthesis series, How College Affects Students, Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) noted a reduction in studies of particular “subject matter,” observing that although the overall number of studies of college students produced between 1989 and 2000 was nearly as large as that produced between 1967 and 1989, there was a relative decline in studies of students’ learning of subject matter knowledge. Notably, in their first volume Pascarella and Terenzini (1991) had called for greater attention to transferable skills, writing: Beyond postsecondary education’s undeniably significant role in the imparting of specific subject matter knowledge, claims for the enduring influence of postsecondary education on learning must be based, to some extent at least, on the fostering of a repertoire of general intellectual or cognitive competencies and skills. These cognitive competencies and skills go by a number of different names (reasoning skills, critical thinking, intellectual flexibility, reflective judgement, cognitive competencies, and so on), and they differ somewhat in the types of problems or issues they address. Nevertheless, most, if not all, seem to have as a common theme the notion of applicability across a range of different content areas (Pascarella and Terenzini 1991, p. 114).

In a third volume of How College Affects Students, Mayhew et al. (2016) suggested a reversal of this trend away from subject matter learning, observing a significant increase in the number of journals devoted to the study of teaching and learning generally and in specific disciplines as well. Mayhew et al. connected this growth in publication venues to the trend toward the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL; see Boyer 1990); however, the growth in studies on college students’ learning can also be traced to the rise of discipline-based education research (DBER) produced by existing and emerging research communities and in fields such as science education, physics education, STEM education, and engineering education research (Fensham 2004; National Research Council 2012). One question raised by this chapter is whether DBER scholars have stepped into a gap left by scholars who study academic learning in 4-year institutions; in the time period I studied, research on academic learning in 4-year institutions focused on the development of general cognitive competencies rather than students’ learning in their academic fields of study. This trend seems a break, perhaps temporary, from past

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studies in 4-year institutions and also stands in contrast to the continuing focus on discipline-based learning by scholars conducting research in community colleges. This chapter is not designed to support any surmise regarding discipline-based education research and its impact on the field of higher education but to note such trends and to advocate for greater attention to college students’ learning in their academic fields. Even as they encouraged the study of students’ general cognitive abilities, Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) argued that scholars should also assess the knowledge and skills college students learn in the academic subjects they study in college. The need is no less evident today. The study of an academic major is what brings many students to college, and subject matter learning is an expected outcome of college. The quality of that learning is a long-standing concern of the public, policymakers, accreditors, and others who have pressed for more and better assessment of what students actually learn in college. Given a desire to understand how the field of higher education has been thinking about academic learning in the recent past, this review sought to answer three questions: What kinds of academic learning have US higher education researchers studied in recent years and on what dimensions of the learning process have they focused? What patterns are evident in researchers’ conceptualizations of academic learning? What are the affordances and limitations of this body of empirical literature on academic learning? The answers to these questions suggest future directions for higher education research and researchers. My goal, then, is not to synthesize the findings from studies of academic learning, which range across different types of learning and different academic fields, but rather to identify patterns in how researchers studied academic learning in colleges and universities to understand the scholarly contours of this body of research. These questions have occupied my mind for some time, and my thinking about them has benefitted from conversations with many colleagues, but three in particular – Becky Cox, Vilma Mesa, and Bob Reason. With regard to this chapter, I am particularly grateful for the thoughtful feedback from Becky and Bob, who served as reviewers for this chapter; they share much of the credit and none of the blame for this work. Following a discussion of the scope of this review, I provide a high-level overview of the study corpus as a prelude to a detailed examination of what researchers actually studied and how they studied it. To do this, I focused on the main dimensions of the learning experiences to which researchers attended, which are patterns in and of themselves, and the patterns of attention within each of these dimensions. I begin with how researchers conceptualized academic learning – using theoretical frameworks, models, and literature – to understand how researchers thought about the study of academic learning. With this foundation, I analyze the aspects of the learning experience that researchers emphasized in their studies, considering what they studied and how as well as affordances and limitations of different approaches. In the concluding section of this chapter, I reflect on key findings from this analysis and offer some directions for the future.

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The Framing and Scope of This Chapter Defining academic learning was a first, but also ongoing, task in this review. At base, I define learning to be a change in thought, behavior, or disposition, and for the purposes of this chapter, academic learning is the change in knowledge, skills, competencies, or attitudes expected to result from students’ experiences in undergraduate academic courses and programs that lead to a certificate or degree. I thus excluded studies of learning achieved through participation in student organizations or other cocurricular activities not explicitly linked to students’ degree programs. Without question, the learning that students do in student organizations and activities can contribute to their academic success and personal development, and many scholars study such learning. It is, however, beyond the scope of this chapter. Further, to be included in this review, a study of academic learning had to include a performance-based assessment of what students learned. The evidence from a performance-based assessment of learning can be qualitative or quantitative. Quantitative measures include final course grades and grade point averages; scores on standardized tests of subject matter knowledge or problem-solving; and scores or grades on course assignments such as quizzes, research papers, midterm and final exams, or other course assignments. Qualitative assessment evidence includes judgments of learning via assessment rubrics, portfolios of student’s learning products, or ratings of on-demand performances, such as music recitals or design projects in engineering or architecture. This focus on performance-based excluded studies that relied solely on students’ perceptions of what they learned, but not those that included both self-reported and performance-based evidence of students’ academic learning. One reason for this decision rests on convincing critiques of the validity of selfreported learning. While for some the question of validity focuses on the truthfulness of students’ reports, my concerns lie elsewhere. First, there is the question of how and how well students understand the terms researchers use when they ask questions about learning, whether those questions are asked in one-on-one interviews or on surveys (see Fowler 1995; for extended discussions, see Bowman 2010, 2011; Bowman and Hill 2011; Porter 2011, 2013). A second rationale is the variation in students’ confidence in their learning and its impact on findings; for example, studies consistently show systematic variation in self-efficacy ratings by gender (e.g., Bandura et al. 2001; Williams and George 2014). Finally, to succeed in courses and programs, students must demonstrate their learning. While educators want students to develop the ability to accurately assess their own learning, they nonetheless require evidence of how well students have learned what a course or program intended. Without a doubt, performance-based assessments of learning have limitations that must be considered in judging the quality of the evidence they provide. Standardized achievement tests measure learning more accurately than self-reports, but they are more limited in the knowledge and skills they assess (Astin 1991). Standardized tests

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such as the SAT have been criticized for racial, class, and gender biases (Sedlacek 1994, 2004). Course grades or grade point averages are not standardized across courses and institutions and may be susceptible grade inflation; they may also include factors other than what has been learned, for example, points for class attendance or participation (Klein et al. 2005). Researchers also turn to self-reports when performance-based measures are not available or not feasible to develop. So, although this review is limited to studies that used at least one performance-based measure to assess learning, that criterion does not imply that all performance-based assessments of learning are equally valid or even appropriate measures or assessments for a particular study. Furthermore, all studies that include a performancebased measure of academic learning, however, are not studies of academic learning. For example, Kilgo et al. (2018) examined the relationship between students’ parents’ educational levels and students’ scores on a test of critical thinking, but their purpose is not to study academic learning but rather an association with a factor outside the academic experience that can affect learning. Other studies that included a measure of learning but did not meet the criteria for a study of academic learning sought to demonstrate the impact of state policies on students’ academic progress, persistence, or success. For example, Park et al. (2018) used data on students’ grades in developmental education courses to determine the impact of a legislative change that made developmental education courses in Florida’s public community colleges optional for many students. Also excluded are studies of educational achievement that solely examined degree attainment (e.g., Martin et al. 2017), that modeled degree completion (Yue and Fu 2017), or that used data on student learning to make methodological contributions, for example, to assess the construct validity of scales from the National Survey of Student Engagement (e.g., Campbell and Cabrera 2014). Working with these inclusion and exclusion criteria, I searched for studies of academic learning in journals that focus only on higher education. My review included five journals with a general focus on higher education – The Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, and Higher Education – and two journals that specifically focus on research on community colleges, Community College Review and Community College Journal of Research and Practice. I included only journals that were ranked by Scimago in its journal rankings (SJR) for the 15-year period I set for the review. Also, while Higher Education is international in focus, I included only articles on academic learning in US higher education contexts. My rationale was twofold. First, there are substantive differences in the structure of higher education across national contexts that complicate comparisons of foci. Second, there are differences among higher education researchers working in different global contexts and communities. Tight (2012, 2014) identified differences between US and European higher education researchers in the use of emphasis on theory and methods. While further comparison of approaches to the study of academic learning of international and US-based researchers could be an important complement to this chapter, my goal was to understand how the US higher education research community has been studying academic learning and with what consequences.

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There are other US journals that publish research on learning in colleges and universities, and my review is thus not an exhaustive one. Arguably, however, it brings into focus empirical research on academic learning that was deemed significant by the various editors of these seven journals and the peer reviewers who evaluated them. These journals also primarily, although not exclusively, publish the research conducted by scholars with strong ties to the US higher education research community. Many faculty members and graduate students in higher education programs in the US seek to publish these journals to build and maintain their visibility and reputations as higher education scholars. I delimited my search to empirical articles published in the approximate 15-year period between January 2005 and May 2020. Practically, this produced a manageable set of articles; it also largely post-dates a handbook of higher education specifically focused on teaching and learning (Perry and Smart 2007). Other handbooks published during this period include one or more chapters on instruction, pedagogies, or learning theory (e.g., Tight et al. 2009), but these volumes are broader in focus, and none that I examined included a chapter examining how academic learning has been studied by higher education researchers.

An Overview of the Corpus A brief, high-level overview of the corpus of studies reviewed in this chapter provides context for the more detailed discussions that focus on how researchers studied academic learning to come. The set of criteria described above yielded a corpus of 67 studies, nearly evenly divided between studies conducted in 4-year colleges and universities (32 articles) and in community colleges (35 articles). While my search might have inadvertently omitted some studies of academic learning that met the criteria I established, the corpus can be assumed to be largely representative of studies of undergraduate academic learning using at least one performance-based measure in the selected higher education journals. Most of the patterns I identified would not substantially change with the addition of a few more articles. A prime example is the pattern in the distribution of articles: the two community college journals published more studies that met the inclusion criteria than the five higher education journals combined. Distinctive patterns arise based within this distribution as well. Of the 32 articles in the 4-year study corpus, 22 articles, or twothirds of the corpus, utilized data from 1 of 2 large-scale studies of learning. Reflecting the time period for the review, a few studies utilized data from the National Survey of Student Learning (NSSL), but most were based on subsamples of data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNSLAE). These studies were conducted by a small group of researchers associated with one or both projects at different points in time. The corpus of community college studies is more varied in terms of authorship, conceptualization, and method. Studies in the 2-year corpus tend to be smaller in scale, often conducted at the course level, using both single- and multisite designs. A significant number were conducted by community college faculty members analyzing data from their own courses, programs, and/or colleges.

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In the great majority of the studies in the 2-year corpus, researchers examined students’ learning of the particular subject matter knowledge and skills associated with specific courses or academic programs intended to build those knowledge and skill sets. A subset assessed the effectiveness of interventions or larger-scale curricular and instructional reforms designed to improve learning in specific programs, such as developmental education courses that serve as gateways or gatekeepers to associate’s degree programs and transfer. Even when comparing community college students’ learning in online, face-to-face, and hybrid courses, many researchers retained the focus on students’ learning of subject matter knowledge and skills (e.g., developmental writing, psychology, opticianry). In contrast, the 4-year study corpus included only four studies of academic learning in single discipline or field. Studies instead examined academic learning across many disciplines and, given the dominance of studies using NSSL and WNSLAE data, focused on a small number of transferable cognitive competencies. Specifically, of the 32 studies in the 4-year corpus, more than half (n ¼ 17) focused on students’ critical thinking skills. The WNSLAE studies also often included two self-reported measures of students dispositions to learning: need for cognition (Cacioppo et al. 1996) and positive attitudes toward literacy (Bray et al. 2004). These various cognitive measures served as the learning outcome in studies that sought to understand the contribution of instruction, of students’ engagement in diversity courses or in their classroom encounters with ideas and people with perspectives and experiences different than their own, and of a variety of practices and programs commonly found in 4-year institutions (e.g., honors programs, undergraduate research opportunities, first-year seminars, internships). More than a third of the studies in the 4-year corpus used grade point averages as a measure of learning, typically to assess the effectiveness of a program or practice, and sometimes in conjunction with other measures of learning. In comparison, two-thirds of the studies in the 2-year corpus used either locally developed or standardized tests of subject matter knowledge to assess students’ learning in specific courses and programs. In studies at the course level, researchers often combined these measures with students’ course grades and other coursespecific measures of learning (such as grades on interim/unit exams and homework assignments). The community college corpus also included a subset of 12 studies that used course grades and course-passing rates to evaluate the effectiveness of developmental education courses (typically in a single discipline, such as mathematics or English) and college orientation/success courses. Every study in this review used quantitative methods, and no study used qualitative assessments of learning (e.g., rubrics, judges’ ratings, observations of student musical, artistic, or other performances). A handful of multi-method studies included both quantitative and qualitative measures of students’ experiences, but not of their learning. Still, contrasts in methods of analysis were evident. Given the goals of many of the small-scale community college studies, researchers compared pre- and post-test scores of learning for matched samples of students or between groups of students who experienced different curricular and instructional methods using analyses of variance or t-tests. Some studies in the 4-year corpus included pre- and posttest measures of learning, but like the great majority, these also used multilevel

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models and regression methods to examine relationships among sets of potential individual and environmental factors and students’ academic learning outcomes. A small subset of articles across the corpus used propensity score matching methods to control selection biases in the absence of random assignment of students to treatment and comparison groups for studies of widely used practices (in the 4-year corpus) or in assessing the impact of developmental education reforms (primarily in the 2-year corpus). In the sections that follow, I look more closely at what researchers examined in their studies of academic learning. I open with a discussion of the use of conceptual and theoretical frameworks and literature reviews that researchers used to situate their studies, followed by three sections that focus on four elements of the academic learning experience that researchers commonly investigated: student characteristics, interactions with instructors and peers, instruction, and programmatic effectiveness. In each section, I seek to identify the affordances and limitations of the approaches used.

Conceptualizing Academic Learning To understand how researchers who conducted studies of academic learning conceptualized that learning process, I examined their assumptions about how learning would occur in the course or program they studied. What would the learning process entail? What factors might influence that learning either positively or negatively? In this section, I explore how these assumptions about learning were expressed through theoretical or conceptual frameworks or signaled through discussions of educational problems and literature reviews. This section provides a foundation for a discussion of what researchers investigated in their studies.

An Illustration Since the studies of academic learning in this corpus varied considerably with regard to the specificity of their assumptions about the process of academic learning, I begin by contrasting two studies to illustrate differences in their approaches studying academic learning and the influences upon that learning, with an emphasis on their conceptualization of the learning process. These two studies asked a similar question about the impact of variations in course scheduling – how frequently courses met weekly and for how long – on students’ learning. Both Diette and Raghav (2018) and Gallo and Odu (2009) observed that their colleges were adjusting course scheduling changes in response to different organizational and educational pressures. Diette and Raghav (2018) used their literature review to discuss the pros and cons of biweekly and triweekly courses from the perspectives of students (who, they argued, might find biweekly courses fit better into their schedules), administrators (who might value the savings in operational costs of twice-weekly courses), and faculty (who might benefit by gaining three business days each week to focus on research). They

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argued that the impetus to move to biweekly courses would grow stronger as “institutions are facing the constraints of classroom scheduling, need for innovative pedagogy and individualized instruction, faculty preferences, and tenure requirements for more research” (p. 522). The authors did not discuss how the learning process might differ between longer or shorter class sessions held more or less frequently or how that might affect students’ grades (their outcome measure). Examining the limited literature at the postsecondary level and studies in K-12 settings, they noted mixed findings. Obtaining 2 years of data from a selective liberal arts college, they identified a time period when the school modified the academic calendar, changed how students were assigned to multiple section courses, and changed its grading scale. Their analyses controlled features of courses (i.e., size, semester), instructors, departments, student fixed effects (gender, class year, SAT math, and verbal scores), and fixed year effects. The sample included more than 125,000 observations, but the analysis found no differences in grades between biweekly and triweekly courses. Diette and Raghav (2018) thus concluded that there were “no observable differences with response to student learning” but also called for further studies to understand if effects differed by institutional size and selectivity (p. 526). Gallo and Odu (2009) similarly noted and documented the trend toward compressed and intensive course offerings in Florida’s community colleges and designed a study to examine the relationship between scheduling formats and students’ achievement in college algebra courses. While attentive to organizational concerns, Gallo and Odu drew on research and theory from cognitive psychology, primarily information processing theories, to argue that students who take a semester-length course that meets three times per week will learn material more effectively and retain more information than those who take a course that meets less frequently. They based this argument on the “spacing effect,” which “refers to the finding that for a given amount of study time, spaced presentations yield substantially better learning than do massed presentations (Dempster 1988, p. 627)” (p. 303). Gallo and Odu observed that several cognitive theories had been used to explain this effect. Some attributed the spacing effect to how information is encoded in memory and thus retrieved; others posited spaced presentations providing individuals with more opportunities to connect their prior knowledge to new knowledge during a learning experience, thus increasing the meaningfulness of the new knowledge, which would in turn promote active strategies of rehearsal, retrieval, and storage in memory. Spaced presentations are also thought to provide more opportunities for elaboration, a process in which “the learner expands on new material by imposing the learner’s own interpretations” (p. 304). Citing inconsistent findings regarding compressed courses in college algebra, the researchers argued for a more systematic approach to studying the relationship between schedules and learning in college algebra that accounted for the influence of student and teacher attributes. They identified 3 different class schedules for college algebra courses, developed a comprehensive final examination to be used in these courses, and recruited 7 instructors (for a sample of 116 students).

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To ensure the equivalence of instruction, the pace and administration of unit exams followed a prescribed timetable so that all courses covered the same unit materials for the same amount regardless of schedule. Review sessions were also time limited and scheduled. Instructors used the same textbook and assessments and followed the curriculum defined by the state of Florida for college algebra. Regression analyses that controlled for student and teacher attributes and adjusted for unequal sample sizes showed class schedule accounted for 9 percent of the variance in students’ final exam scores and was significantly related to final exam scores, with students in the 1-day-per-week group consistently scoring significantly lower on final examinations than students in the other schedule groups. While student attributes accounted for 15 percent of the variance in exam scores, they were not significantly related to final exam scores. Teacher gender and years of teaching were significant, with a small-to-medium effect sizes. Interaction analyses revealed that students with lower levels of prerequisite knowledge (assessed through a placement test) had higher final exam scores if they took college algebra three times a week; students who scored 70% or better on the exam had higher scores if they took algebra two times a week. An analysis of the four end-of-unit exams given prior to the final exam showed that students in the 1-day-per-week course had considerably lower scores on each test and, on the final unit exam, with scores that were more than 15 points below students in the 3-dayper-week courses. Gallo and Odu (2009) concluded from this evidence that spaced practices were superior to what they called “massed practice” and returned to their theoretical assumptions for an explanation of the spacing effect, speculating that in the 2- and 3-day-per-week classes, material was presented in smaller chunks and spaced so that students could make meaningful connections through elaborative rehearsal. Information may also have been stored in long-term memory in a manner that facilitated retrieval and retention, as evidenced by the results on the fourth unit and final examinations. Limitations of the two studies aside for the moment, there are notable contrasts between the ways in which the researchers studied learning. Gallo and Odu posited a theoretical argument for how learning would be affected by changes in course schedules, chose a single subject for study, and sought to control aspects of the instructional experience. Diette and Raghav examined courses across disciplines, seeking to control some attributes of the courses, instructors, and students available through administrative data. Both studies used course grades as a measure of learning, but Gallo and Odu also examined the results of a common final exam and unit-level exams given during the courses they studied. These approaches yielded different findings, with Diette and Raghav noting no “observable” differences in learning and Gallo and Odu identifying differences in learning by course schedule as well as by instructor. The differences between the approaches used in these two studies are conceptual as well as methodological. In this section, I focus on the conceptual dimension of the studies in the corpus – how researchers used theoretical frameworks, conceptual models, and literature reviews. In subsequent sections, I focus on study methods.

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Theorizing Academic Learning About a quarter of the studies in the corpus invoked specific theoretical concepts or theories of learning to explain a phenomenon of interest or problem of concern and to study it as well. In these studies, researchers used specific theoretical frameworks to study the effect of change in or type of instruction (e.g., Carbone 2018; Gallo and Odu 2009) or interventions to improve student learning (e.g., Bol et al. 2015; Heller and Marchant 2015; McArthur and Philippakos 2013) and, in one case, to examine latent theoretical constructs through available data (Chan and Wang 2016). In each kind of study, researchers sought to align the chosen theoretical framework with study methods to determine the effect of a learning experience on students’ learning, albeit with varying levels of fidelity to the theory or concepts. For example, four studies in the corpus studied interventions designed to promote the development of metacognition, specifically self-regulation skills, among community college students in developmental education courses (Bol et al. 2015; Heller and Marchant 2015; Lavonier 2016; McArthur and Philippakos 2013). The justification of the self-regulation in each study is similarly grounded in the needs of particular populations of community college students (e.g., adult learning, students in developmental mathematics or writing). In their article, McArthur and Philippakos (2013) described the phases of a design research project to improve instruction in writing skills of adult learners enrolled in a first-level developmental writing course in a community college. Defining design research as “a systematic approach to the development and improvement of instructional methods in natural classroom settings through cycles of development, implementation, evaluation, and revision” (p. 181), the researchers described two rounds of curriculum and instructional development to incorporate explicit instruction in self-regulation skills into the course and to understand how it affected student learning and use that data to improve the curricular intervention. The researchers articulated a theory of change that stated how the intervention components and instructional processes were related first to specific learning outcomes (e.g., discourse knowledge, cognitive process strategies, self-regulation, motivation) and then to writing achievement (i.e., beginning proficiency in academic writing; writing for different purposes, e.g., to explain or persuade), as well as how professional development was used to adapt the course design to the local community college setting. Each of these components of the theory of change is explained in detail, making explicit the researchers’ assumption that writing is both a cognitive and social process “that draws on writers’ knowledge, skills, and strategies, as well as self-regulation and motivation” (p. 179). Other studies of self-regulation interventions drew on Zimmerman’s (2002) theory (Heller and Marchant 2015; Bol et al. 2015), with Bol et al. designing an intervention aligned with the tenets of Zimmerman’s cyclical theory. In contrast, Lavonier (2016) called upon adult learning theory (i.e., Knowles 1984) and situated learning theory (i.e., Lave and Wenger 1991) to argue for instructional support to build adult learners’ reading skills and self-regulatory skills by engaging adult learners’ prior experiences and knowledge from workplace, home, and community settings. In contrast to the other intervention studies, Lavonier briefly described the

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strategic-reading intervention developed, reflecting her emphasis on the role of the learning environment over particular theories of self-regulation. Across studies of academic learning in community colleges, researchers called upon a variety of educational theories to ground their examinations of changes in classroom and program practices. A study of the role of mathematics knowledge and skills in developmental courses by Quarles and Davis (2017) provides an example of a small-scale study that used the concepts of procedural and conceptual knowledge to examine what students learned in their college algebra courses and the consequences of their learning for their academic progress. Similar to other studies of developmental math education in community college (e.g., Bishop et al. 2018; Yamada et al. 2018), Quarles and Davis (2017) contrasted the kinds of knowledge and skills typically taught in developmental mathematics courses. While acknowledging that both kinds of knowledge are components of mathematical proficiency, the authors argued that to develop mathematical proficiency, students must go beyond the procedural application of algorithms and stepwise sequences for solving specific particular problem types typically emphasized in developmental algebra courses, combining it with conceptual understanding, which Quarles and Davis defined as “comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations, and relations” (p. 35). This view of mathematical proficiency and instruction guided the study’s data collection and analyses, which examined the grades students earned in a traditional intermediate algebra course and pre- and posttests of both procedural and conceptual knowledge and skills that used questions taken from previously used exam questions (procedural, textbook-like problems) and three multipart questions selected from tests that were professionally designed and validated. Through different analyses of their data, Quarles and Davis determined that students in their college’s intermediate algebra courses primarily learned procedural skills. Moreover, the researchers argued that the correlation of students’ procedural learning scores with grades in their courses – and the lack of correlation between conceptual test scores and course grades – suggested an alignment between instructors’ emphasis on procedural problems in their intermediate algebra courses and their assessments of such problems on exams (although a direct linkage was not made since the study measured neither teaching focus nor exam content). The study also showed that after controlling for course grades, stronger procedural algebra skills did not contribute to students’ grades in subsequent courses in college-level math; additionally, for students enrolled in subsequent college math courses, procedural skills declined as the number of terms between developmental and college math course enrollment increased, while conceptual skills were relatively constant. In one of the few multi-method studies in the corpus, Benson et al. (2005) used a conceptual framework that linked an existing theory of distance learning with concepts from educational psychology. The researchers studied five courses in different career and technical (CTE) fields at three community colleges with two questions in mind: Do students’ motivation and learning strategies differ for “campus-based” and online students and how do “course interaction, content organization, student support, and transactional distance (i.e., feelings of closeness to the instructor and the program)” differ between online and campus-based programs?

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(p. 369). These researchers posited that students’ motivation to learn is affected by the value they placed on a course as well as by their levels of test anxiety, sense of self efficacy, and prior knowledge and experience. All of these student characteristics were assumed to interact with course design and structure to influence achievement. These assumptions are derive from Moore’s (1993) transactional distance theory, which posits that learning is influenced by (1) course dialogue, defined as course content, the instructor’s beliefs about education, the psychological character of both instructors and students, and the characteristic of the medium of communication, and (2) course structure, which refers to the potential for individualizing the learning experience through course objectives, instructional strategies, and evaluation. To operationalize these constructs, Benson et al. (2005) utilized a multi-method study design that combined quasi-experimental analyses of students’ grades in matched pairs of courses with qualitative case studies of the five selected courses. Observations of student-faculty interactions, interviews with students and instructors, a student survey, and reviews of online courses and course artifacts aligned data collection with the components of the researchers’ conceptualization of the academic learning process. They measured students’ reports of their use of learning strategies at post-test and measured course performance using grades on field-specific pre- and post-tests. Presenting their analysis of the experiences and learning of students in each college as a case study, the authors concluded that students enrolled in the online CTE programs were similar in terms of motivation and satisfaction to students enrolled in on-campus CTE courses. Further analyses did not reveal differences between these groups of students in test anxiety, self-efficacy, goal orientation, or task value. Qualitative data revealed that students were required to be employed in their field of study for 20–30 hours per week, but that in contrast to expectations about online courses, instructors used online technologies and methods of teaching and evaluation, including tutorials, hands-on practice in campus labs, and practical experiences that students gained through employment to keep them connected to their programs. Studies grounded in specific theories or theoretical concepts were rare in the 4-year study corpus. A few researchers, however, used WNSLAE data to conduct theory-informed investigations of academic learning (Laird et al. 2014; Mayhew et al. 2012; Roksa et al. 2017a, b). Two examples demonstrate the approaches taken using existing data. Laird et al. (2014) examined the relationship between “deep approaches to learning” and students development of critical thinking in their first year of college study. The researchers offered a detailed and specific discussion of theoretical assumptions of what higher education scholars have called deep approaches to learning and aligned this conceptualization of the learning process to measures of student engagement designed to tap deep learning. Laird et al. (2014) described the concept of deep approaches to learning (DAL) as a means of understanding learning processes that may lead to “better learning and improved thinking” (p. 403). Scholars who have studied DAL define it as consisting of students’ study activities and behaviors (Biggs 2003; Ramsden 2003) that are marked by students’ desires to understand what they are studying. Deep approaches include the use of different

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strategies to achieve that learning, such as “reading widely, discussing ideas with others, pulling from multiple resources, reflecting on the learning process, and applying knowledge in real world situations” (Laird et al. 2014, p. 404), but also integrating and synthesizing what has already been learned with current information. In contrast, students who use surface learning approaches tend to focus on remembering information rather than identifying relationships and applying new knowledge, with the goal of avoiding academic failure. To assess students’ use of deep learning, Laird et al. used three deep learning scales from the NSSE survey that Laird helped develop. These measures, the authors wrote, are “best thought of as general measures of DAL or indicators of a student’s preferred approach” (p. 405), suggesting that students have a general disposition toward learning. Reflecting the focus of NSSE scales on measuring student engagement, Laird et al. described students as making decisions about the effort they will expend and the strategies they will use in their college studies and briefly defined learning as “a structural-developmental cognitive process involving the interaction between the individual and the environment and the individual’s ability to ascribe meaning to that interaction” (p. 409). Other references to the work of psychologist Jean Piaget and higher education scholar William Perry presumably signaled the assumption of a developmental conception of learning, in which individuals develop more complex ways of thinking in a sequenced or stage-like process. The study, however, is framed using Bigg’s (Biggs 2003) 3P model, in which the first P, presage, includes both student factors and those of the teaching context; the second P, process, is the learning process (in this case, students’ approaches to learning); and the final P, is product, or the learning outcome. This conceptualization undergirds the assumption that “the mechanisms embedded within DAL will engender movement in each of the three cognitive outcomes examined” (p. 409) – critical thinking, need for cognition, and positive attitudes toward literacy. The developmental approach is reflected in the analysis of pre and post-test measures of these outcomes, with the DAL scales – higher-order learning, integrative learning, and reflective learning – as independent variables. Laird et al. utilized zero- and partial-order correlations to understand the relationships among the DAL measures and the three outcomes measures and regressions to understand any unique effects of each scale on the outcomes. While the partial correlations showed that the DAL scales were modestly related to the two selfreported outcomes, the need for cognition and positive attitudes toward learning, the regressions indicated that only the reflective learning scale was significantly and modestly related to critical thinking scores at the end of year 1 (controlling for pretest scores). The authors addressed the absence of the theorized relationship between learning and their measure of critical thinking writing: “Though our measures of DAL likely tap a general or preferred approach, it is important to remember that they are indicative of the approaches taken in relation to the learning tasks of college” (pp. 424–425). Referencing prior studies that also found no significant relationship between a composite measure of the DAL scales and critical thinking skills, they argued that colleges and universities may not be asking students to engage in the kinds of learning experiences that would encourage the development of critical

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thinking skills. This explanation accords with the use of a student engagement framework that measures how often students are asked to engage to “deep learning” but sits less comfortably with the theoretical assumption that deep learning is a disposition rather than a strategic response to instruction (see Studying Instruction, for further discussion). Roksa et al. (2017b) observed that their study was unusual among higher education studies in its attempt to identify mechanisms that promote learning. Specifically, these researchers explored three possible mechanisms by which instruction affected students’ critical thinking: students’ motivation, engagement, and faculty interest in teaching and student development. In specifying these variables, the authors explicitly drew on elements of constructivist learning theory to explain how an instructor’s use of clear and organized instruction would support students’ knowledge construction: “When students report that faculty are clear and organized that may in part indicate that faculty have successfully engaged with their prior knowledge and helped them to see the relevance of the material” (p. 287). This active engagement in the learning process, they posited, signals to students the important role of behaviors such as studying, participating in class, and preparation in academic success. In these ways, they suggested, clear and organized instruction might motivate learning. Examining their various regressions models, Roksa et al. observed that a substantial percentage of the relationship between clear and organized instruction and GPA was mediated by faculty interest in teaching and student development and that students who reported that they experienced clear and organized instruction also reported greater levels of academic motivation and engagement in their courses. The researchers viewed changes in the coefficients in the full model as evidence that the relationship between clear and organized instruction and GPA was explained by students’ motivation and engagement. These findings, they concluded, provided support for the theorized connections between faculty interest, students’ motivation, and students’ academic engagement. Following Neumann (2014), they called for greater attention to theories of learning and potential mechanisms in research on college impacts. In the studies just discussed, a theoretical framework substantially informed the logic of the study: it contributed to the identification of learning outcomes, selection of variables, analytical approaches, and interpretation of study findings. Not all studies that named theoretical frameworks, however, used them in this way. In some cases, a study’s theoretical framework was primarily used to justify the selection of variables or relationships among variables, but the theoretical framework itself was not operationalized; in such studies the framework faded into the background after a discussion of methods rather than informing the interpretation of findings.

Using Conceptual Models In many cases, authors offered discussions of learning of varying specificity, but rather than attempting to test theoretical propositions, they used a conceptual

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framework to guide their research. Among these articles in the 4-year study corpus, the most frequent conceptual framework invoked was a model of college impact. College impact models, which were developed by higher education scholars to guide studies of students’ experiences in college, are premised on an approach to the assessment of college students’ learning described by Astin (1991) and expressed as input-environment-outcomes (I-E-O) model. Astin argued that to evaluate the impact of college on students’ outcomes (the “O” in the model), such as learning, persistence, and degree attainment, researchers must take into account students’ characteristics – for example, their prior learning and life experiences, the “I” in I-E-O, because students’ characteristics affect their “experience” in college. This experience (the “E”) includes the many possible formal and informal educational and other social activities and interactions that comprise the college experience. These student characteristics and experiences shape students’ outcomes. Following Astin’s delineation of this general model, a number of higher education scholars provided elaborations that further specified the college experience and the kinds of outcomes expected from college attendance. These elaborations include models by Pascarella (1985), Terenzini and Reason (2005, 2014), and Weidman (1989) among others. Developed to guide research on students’ experiences in higher education, college impact models are often used in studies of persistence in college, and they also guided most of the large-scale 4-year studies of academic learning in this corpus. In this corpus, most studies that used a college impact model cited the work of Astin, Pascarella, and Weidman. Pascarella’s (1985) model assumes that changes in students’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions result from the interaction of the student and an institution’s structural and organizational characteristics (e.g., its size, selectivity, residential or commuter status), which create the “institutional environment” that students experience. This institutional environment in turn shapes students’ interactions with others in the institution – students, instructors, and staff – whom Pascarella called agents of socialization. All of these, in combination, influence the quality of student effort. Weidman’s (1989) model similarly posited an important role for students’ characteristics but included many more environmental factors to reflect the “normative context” and socialization processes that he viewed as shaping students’ college experiences, including those both internal and external to the institution. In most cases, one or more college impact models nominally served as a study’s conceptual framework. Studies sometimes included only a general description or a reference to one of more of these authors; in other cases a model served primarily as a rubric for organizing the variables used in an analysis. Some studies that named college impact models as their conceptual framing also referenced theories that contributed to their conceptualization of learning. Examples from studies of the impact of students’ diversity-related experiences illustrate the variety of approaches (Loes et al. 2012; Mayhew and Engberg 2010; Mayhew et al. 2010; Roksa et al. 2017a, c). Each study defined these diversity experiences, at least operationally, as experiences in which students encountered unfamiliar ideas and perspectives and/or interactions with people who had different life experiences and/ or held different views, and sought to understand their relationships to students’

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scores or development of critical thinking, moral reasoning, and/or dispositions toward learning. Each study further suggested that students’ experiences with diversity can spur more complex forms of thinking (referencing research by Gurin et al. 2002) but varied in the emphasis on theoretical propositions of Gurin et al. or others to explain how cognitive change might happen. The studies by Mayhew and Engberg (2010) and Roksa et al. (2017a) offered the most detailed explanations, relying on the concept of cognitive disequilibrium, a state of imbalance (sometimes described as discomfort), as the mechanism that encourages students to think more complexly as a result of a diversity-related experience. For example, in their study of how students’ reports of positive and negative interactions with diversity influenced their critical thinking and dispositions toward learning between their first and fourth years in college, Roksa et al. (2017a) explained that “interactions with diverse peers in college present occasions for discontinuity and discrepancy and thus cognitive development” (p. 299). According to Piaget (1985), who used the term disequilibrium to capture this state of discontinuity and discrepancy, it is disequilibrium that produces uncertainty and instability that offers opportunities for learning. Roksa et al. signaled this connection to learning through a quote from a student from a small town who expressed a need to learn about “other people who they are and where they come from” (p. 299) and brief discussion of identity development during early adulthood, which involves “learning about oneself and others” (p. 299). Mayhew and Engberg (2010) similarly focused on disequilibrium in a study of how interactions related to diversity in two undergraduate courses influenced undergraduate’s development of moral reasoning. Offering a more detailed discussion, they linked the concept of disequilibrium to Kohlberg’s (1981, 1984) moral development theory to explain how academic experiences related to diversity might shape moral reasoning. Kohlberg, they explained, viewed moral development as a cognitive task for individuals, who develop cognitive structures (or patterns of thinking) through experience and use these understandings in reasoning or decision-making. Mayhew and Engberg observed, however, that while Kohlberg stressed the individual nature of this cognitive task, he also believed that individuals’ experiences in the world – for example, their interactions with peers in courses or college – could stimulate new patterns of thought. When social interactions introduce individuals to new or unfamiliar situations or ideas, they can create cognitive disequilibrium which may result in enduring changes in individuals’ ways of thinking, thus contributing to their cognitive development. Mayhew and Engberg (2010) then indicated how they used Astin’s I-E-O model: “Justification for the variables organized into this rubric comes from a series of empirical efforts investigating moral reasoning and those demographic covariates, curricular contexts and educational practices known to influence its development” (p. 466). In contrast, references to how diversity contributes to cognitive development were less prominent in Loes et al. (2012) and Roksa et al. (2017c). One study in the corpus utilized a conceptual framework that integrated students’ experiences on campus and in the larger society to understand their responses to their experiences in community colleges and the outcomes of those experiences. In their

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study of non-first-generation community college men of color, Palacios and Alvarez (2016) utilized Harris and Wood’s (Harris III and Wood 2014) Community College Socio-Ecological Outcomes model to examine differences by race in grade point average, noncognitive factors, and perceptions of the campus ethos. Harris and Wood posited that the academic success of men of color in community colleges can be attributed to four interconnected domains – noncognitive, academic, environmental, and campus ethos. In their model the background characteristics of community college men of color, as well as societal factors (including prejudice and stereotypes and social conditions such as mass incarceration), influence the experiences of men of color in “socio-ecological domains.” These socio-ecological domains include the noncognitive domain (identity, self-efficacy, interests, etc.); experiences in the academic domain (i.e., faculty-student interaction, use of academic services, commitment to a course of study); the environmental domain (including mediators such as finances and transportation); commitments (i.e., family responsibilities, employment); and the campus ethos domain (e.g., sense of belonging, racial and gender climate). All of these domains influence students’ success, which takes the form of persistence, achievement, attainment, transfer, goal accomplishments, and labor markets outcomes.

Literature Reviews as Framing Devices Many studies included a discussion of the learning process as part of the introduction to their study or literature rather than as part of a theoretical or conceptual framework. These discussions varied substantially in the specificity and length, and the range of approaches is demonstrated in an overview of studies intended to understand how particular instructional methods or changes in instruction affected students’ learning. On one end of this continuum are studies that used their literature reviews to argue for the instructional practice with minimal attention understanding its intended effect on the learning process. A study by Dyer and Hall (2019) sits on this end of this continuum. The authors argue for explicit instruction in critical thinking using evidence of the prevalence of individuals’ beliefs in pseudoscientific beliefs (such as extraterrestrial visitations, paranormal activity, and other “epistemically unwarranted beliefs”) despite the lack of empirical evidence to support them (p. 294). Why explicit instruction is expected to improve critical thinking is not addressed. Further along this continuum are studies of instructional efforts to improve learning in community colleges; these studies used literature reviews to support the necessity for the particular instructional change under study, but did not clearly describe the learning process and its expected results (e.g., Allen et al. 2017; Bishop et al. 2018; Felderman 2016; Skuratowicz et al. 2020; Tila and Levy 2020). At the other end of this continuum are studies that explicitly described a learning process that was the basis for a specific educational intervention that the authors evaluated (e.g., Britt et al. 2018; Nabours and Koh 2020). For example, in their report of a study on the use of mindful breathing in developmental writing courses, Britt et al. (2018) reviewed literature and theory on writing apprehension in college

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students, empirical research on the factors that contribute to writing apprehension, and the evidence regarding the effect of writing apprehension on students’ writing performance to explain the learning process in which they sought to intervene. They then reviewed the literature on the effects of mindful breathing to argue for their classroom intervention using mindful breathing to focus students’ attention. In the 4-year corpus, studies tended to fall on one end of the continuum described above. Studies of specific educational practices such as honors programs (Bowman and Culver 2018; Seifert et al. 2007), learning communities (Holt and Nielson 2019), and first-year seminars (Culver and Bowman 2020; Clark and Cundiff 2011) used literature reviews to describe the practice under study and to review the empirical evidence of its effectiveness. Rather than explicating the learning processes involved, these studies focused more on the methodological weaknesses of prior studies and how new methods would better estimate the effectiveness of these practices in promoting learning. The 4-year corpus also included a few research efforts that examined in a single study the impact of a large number of educational practices or experiences on students’ learning outcomes (e.g., Kilgo et al. 2015; Seifert et al. 2014). Using multifaceted literature reviews to address the learning outcomes of interest, these studies did not try to explain how learning processes might happen across these many different formal and informal educational experiences. Beyond linking their results to past findings, such studies can say little about why the expected learning did or did not happen. For example, in their study of ten high-impact practices, Kilgo et al. (2015) investigated relationships among students’ characteristics, participation in these educational practices and programs, and seven learning outcomes (critical thinking, moral reasoning, inclination to inquiry and lifelong learning, intercultural effectiveness, and socially responsible leadership). Findings indicated that only two high-impact practices – active/collaborative learning and undergraduate research – had significant unique relationships with a majority of the seven fourth-year outcome measures, while first-year seminars, academic learning communities, and writing-intensive courses were not significantly related to any of the outcomes studied. Still others – study abroad, internships, service learning, and capstone course/experience – appeared to have lower levels of impact, some which were positive and some of which were negative. Kilgo et al. systematically addressed the significant relationships, but these explanations were, as they noted, speculative. Their discussion of the absence of relationships between the measure of moral reasoning and the ten high-impact practices reveals the downside of such broadly conceived analyses; they risk misalignment between educational practice, learning process, and outcomes. Kilgo et al. noted, for example, “perhaps high-impact practices may not be designed to address growth in moral reasoning” (p. 522), and “future studies should examine differences in administration and facilitation [of the high-impact practices] in order to determine how effective these practices truly are in educating students” (p. 522, emphasis added). Finally, studies that sought to identify and examine disparities in students’ learning outcomes also relied on literature reviews to make the case for a focus on disparities (e.g., Kugelmass and Ready 2011), to summarize findings from earlier studies, to build on that work by refining its focus (e.g., Palacios and Wood 2016),

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and/or to address methodological limitations (Kugelmass and Ready 2011). While such studies referenced theory, the use of administrative data precluded researchers’ ability to operationalize theoretical constructs (see, e.g., Coleman et al. 2018). I discuss these further in the section, Studying Students’ Characteristics. The great majority of the studies that used or theoretical frameworks or theoretical concepts and constructs to ground their discussions of learning, or that referenced these briefly (and sometimes without attribution), drew from cognitive psychology or cognitive science. These included metacognition and self-regulated learning theories: information processing theories (Dempster 1988); prior knowledge (Ausubel 1963; Bransford et al. 2000); motivation and attribution theories (e.g., Pintrich and Zusho 2007); psychological (individual) constructivism and disequilibrium (Piaget 1985); growth mindset (Dweck 2006); involvement, effort, and engagement (Astin 1993; Pace 1998); and deep approaches to learning (Bowden and Marton 1998; Marton and Säljö 1976). Cognitive theories of learning view the role of environment as a potential stimulus or catalyst for cognitive growth, which is governed by the individual’s mental processes. A few studies in the corpus referenced sociocognitive concepts such as self-efficacy (Bandura 1977, 1997; Pajares 2003) and validation (Rendón 1994), and fewer studies mentioned situative (Lave and Wenger 1991) and sociocultural perspectives (Vygotsky 1978) on learning, but these were passing references rather than clearly articulated and driving forces in a study.

Summary: Conceptualizing Academic Learning The research questions that motivate a study provide varying levels of insight into researchers’ conceptualizations of learning but greater understanding ensues from reading researchers’ discussions of the theoretical and empirical scholarship they identify as relevant to the learning they seek to understand. When a study is designed with a specific theory of learning in mind, the researchers’ assumptions about the process of learning are explicitly stated, and discussion of research findings can be tied back to theoretical propositions. Roughly one-quarter of the studies across the 2and 4-year corpus used, albeit to varying degrees, theoretical frameworks that permitted such linkages. The authors of these studies examined both theoretical and empirical scholarship on the academic learning of interest and, in the case of studies of instructional interventions, used theory and empirical findings to justify the intervention they evaluated. Nearly all these theory-driven studies used cognitive theories of different kinds to conceptualize and study learning; only a few referenced sociocognitive or sociocultural theories. The reasons for this skew toward cognitive theories cannot be determined from this study, although the use of quantitative methods and existing survey and/or administrative data clearly limited researchers’ ability to operationalize and assess the role of sociocognitive concepts and to study learning as conceived in situative and sociocultural theories. In the 4-year corpus, researchers’ use of college impact models as conceptual frameworks constitutes another strong pattern. One affordance of these models is

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their acknowledgment of the complexity of the educational process; each assumes that students’ experiences and learning prior to college affects their experiences and learning in college. The complex relationships that link students, their experiences, and their learning, however, are rarely leveraged in studies that relied on college impact models to study academic learning during this time period. Many studies nodded to one or more college impact model or referenced them as a collective rather than operationalizing the specific propositions of the models by Bean and Eaton (2000) or Pascarella (1985) that were often cited. Instead, references to college impact models typically served as an analytical template into which variables were distributed (i.e., precollege or student characteristics, educational practices, outcomes) and to signal how these variables would be treated in an analysis. This permitted the inclusion of large numbers of variables that could possibly be related to learning, often with minimal rationale (for further discussion, see the next section, Studying Students’ Characteristics). As a whole, then, the studies in the 4-year corpus varied considerably in the extent to which they described the learning process that was assumed to produce the learning outcomes studied and the extent to which their discussions of findings speculated about explanations for their findings. In those studies that used theoretical frameworks or well-defined conceptual frameworks, researchers not only shared specific assumptions about how academic learning would happen, but they commented on the presence or absence of theorized relationships or mechanisms in their findings. These discussions were thus less broadly speculative than those in studies that lacked theoretical moorings, as well as more focused in their recommendations regarding future studies of academic learning. The use of theoretical and conceptual frameworks did not preclude speculation but rather focused researchers’ attention.

Studying Students’ Characteristics Studies in this corpus took a variety of approaches to understanding how students’ personal characteristics were related to their academic learning, but only a portion sought to understand learners. Instead studies across the corpus investigated the impact of educational practices or experiences on learners, thus elevating the goal of improving academic learning experiences over the understanding of students’ academic learning overall. In a small subset of studies, however, researchers combined efforts to determine the effectiveness of an educational practice or experience with analyses to understand how learning might vary for particular populations of students. And in a very few studies, they focused squarely on disparities in the educational experiences and learning among student populations, if not to understand learners specifically and then to understand how their learning experiences varied. Across studies in the 2- and 4-year corpus, researchers often assessed the extent to which students learned to evaluate the effectiveness of the educational experiences and practices of interest. Only a few studies used experimental methods, and only

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Baker et al. (2019) conducted a randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of a low-cost, email-based intervention to improve students time-management skills during a 5-week course. Felderman (2016) tried to approximate experimental conditions in her psychology course by creating comparison groups, alternating treatment conditions during her course, and synchronizing these with assessments of students’ learning to understand the impact of the units across the treatment/no treatment conditions. Beyond these exceptions, in most of the small-scale studies of instructional methods and interventions in community colleges, researchers assessed learning for students who self-selected into courses. These studies employed pre- and post-tests of subject matter knowledge and skills to determine how well students learned what was intended to determine if the instructional practices being examined had the desired effect (e.g., Carbone 2018; Skuratowicz et al. 2020; Wilson et al. 2018). In these studies, researchers variously sought to account for how students’ personal characteristics, for example, their academic preparation prior to the course under study, affected their academic learning. Those researchers who addressed this question examined a small set of student variables assumed to be closely related to the subject matter under study in an effort to establish that students in their comparison and treatment groups, or between treatment groups, were substantially similar to permit a more confident assessment of the effectiveness of an educational practice (e.g., Bol et al. 2015; Carbone 2018; Gallo and Odu 2009; Heller and Marchant 2015). The majority of studies in the corpus overall used quasi-experimental statistical analyses to examine learning outcomes for students; students’ characteristics were included in these analyses to understand their potential contribution to estimates of the effects of the learning experiences of interest. Underwood and Hernandez-Gantes (2017), for example, asked if different delivery modalities and a students’ age affected their learning in a career program in opticianry, while Sheldon and Durdella (2009) compared community college students’ success rates in compressed and regular-length developmental courses, controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, and cumulative grade point average. Focusing instead on a specific student populaton, Whaley (2017) designed a study to determine if evidence that writing assignments enhanced students' understanding of statistics was generalizable to Black college students at an Historically Black university. The great majority of the studies of 4-year students’ academic learning analyzed existing, multi-institutional data, which complicated the effort to estimate the effectiveness of educational practices. Students in these study samples are not situated in particular types of courses and programs with observed features but rather are enrolled in a variety of courses and programs across many colleges and universities. These datasets thus rely on general learning outcome measures (e.g., standardized tests of critical thinking, self-reported dispositions toward learning) that are not intentionally aligned with particular educational experiences but that might be expected to result from college attendance overall. To understand the impact of students’ educational experiences, researchers using this data statistically controlled a broad array of student characteristics that could conceivably be related to students’ scores on one or more of the practices and learning outcomes studied. These

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included demographic characteristics such as gender and race/ethnicity, sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., parents’/guardians’ educational levels, first-generation status), pre-college achievement variables (e.g., high school grade point average, standardized admissions test scores, pre-tests of outcome measures), measures of engagement in high school activities, and motivation measures. Statistical models accounted for these covariates to understand their relationship to the outcome variable, removing them, statistically, to estimate the independent and unique effect of the educational experience. Similarly, some studies used propensity score analyses and average treatment effects to estimate the effectiveness of an educational experience or practice (e.g., Bowman and Culver 2018; Karp et al. 2017; Okimoto and Heck 2015; Ryan et al. 2016; Yamada and Bryk 2016; Yamada et al. 2018). Researchers using propensity score methods create matched samples of students to reduce selection bias rather than statistically modeling the unique, independent effects of a practice or experience through regression-based analyses. Both approaches, however, shift the focus from learner to the practice or program under study to determine effectiveness. Yet, when regression-based and propensity score analyses were used in conjunction with analyses to determine if the effects of an educational practice or program were conditioned by students’ characteristics, the focus returned to students as learners. A number of studies in the corpus sought to identify conditional effects (e.g., Bowman and Culver 2018; Cruce et al. 2006; Karp et al. 2017; Loes et al. 2012; Loes et al. 2015; Parker III et al. 2016; Pascarella et al. 2014; Mayhew et al. 2010; Roksa et al. 2017b; Yamada and Bryk 2016; Yamada et al. 2018). Many other studies, however, noted that sample limitations precluded the search for conditional effects – and educational inequities – by ethnicity. Consequently, in these studies we do not know if the significant and nonsignificant interactions found are generalizable to the particular groups of students included in these aggregates. Finally, several studies in this corpus were specifically conducted to identify disparities in academic learning among minoritized populations of students (a term I use to describe students whose educational, economic, political, and other social opportunities are constricted by societal barriers; when reporting study findings I use the racial/ethnic categories used in the study). Even as they studied educational experiences, these studies brought students to the front of the stage. For example, Xu and Jaggars (2014) observed that while studies of online learning in elite institutions found few differences in learning outcomes for students in online versus face-to-face courses, in community colleges online courses had lower retention rates and course grades even after controlling for students and course characteristics. Xu and Jaggars’ analyses of 500,000 online and face-to-face courses taken by more than 40,000 degree-seeking students enrolled in Washington state’s 34 community or technical colleges in 2004 used OLS regression and a fixed-effects model to assess the impact of online versus face-to-face course delivery. They reported that the typical student received lower grades in online courses but were most concerned with differences in standardized grades in online courses among students of different ethnicities. In a similar vein, Palacios and Wood (2016) examined outcomes in online course versus face-to-face course but focused particularly on men of color in 112 California

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community colleges. Two studies in the corpus focused on disparities in students’ critical thinking; however, whereas Kugelmass and Ready (2011) focused on institutional characteristics to understand differences by ethnicity in scores on the Collegiate Learning Assessment test, Roksa et al. (2017c) used WNSLAE data from 43 institutions to examine unequal gains in critical thinking scores using the ACT CAAP test among students of color and White students. After accounting for covariates, Roksa et al. found African-American students gained on average 0.20 of a standard deviation less on the critical thinking assessment than White students by the end of college (differences between White, Hispanic, and Asian students were not significant). Of particular interest is the finding that the unequal gains in critical thinking between African American and White students were not related to differences in the academic experiences studied (i.e., quality of instruction and students’ time on task) but to students’ encounters related to diversity; specifically, students’ reports of negative experiences had a statistically significant and negative relationship with critical thinking. The researchers thus recommended additional research on campus climate, but it is not clear that the academic experiences should be exonerated on the basis of this study. Further study of college classrooms is needed to understand how interactions with instructors and students’ responses to specific curricular content (e.g., representation of work by people of color, biases in instructional materials, instructors’ beliefs and attitudes) might shape learning experiences and outcomes.

Summary: Studying Students’ Characteristics This examination of how studies in the corpus treated students’ personal characteristics and life experiences illustrates variations in research goals, as scholars made decisions about whether to focus on the effectiveness of educational practices and experiences or to understand learning by focusing on variations related to students’ social identities. In the studies of educational practices, researchers used an array of covariates and interaction terms but varied in the extent to which they explained these choices. In studies seeking to identify educational inequities or disparities, researchers offered detailed rationales for their attention to how social identities and life experiences might shape students’ learning experiences and learning. Robust explanations as to why researchers think a particular kind of learning will vary among students with particular characteristics are needed for the sake of transparency. Also critical is sufficient representation of students in racial/ ethnic groups or other populations who might be expected to differentially experience the learning environment (e.g., those with other marginalized social identities, but also student subgroups such as second-language learners, returning adults, international students, etc.). Even in studies using large, multi-institutional samples, researchers typically aggregated all minoritized students into a single group due to concerns about sample sizes for particular ethnic groups, which precluded analyses to determine if and how learning experiences and learning might have differed for specific groups.

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Studying Instruction In our work on the college curriculum, Joan Stark and I noted that content – what is to be learned – is one of the decision points that educators must address when they plan a course or program (Lattuca and Stark 2009). The decision about what is to be learned reflects the purposes of a particular course or program, both of which are related to decisions about what to teach, what resources to use to teach that content, and what to assess to understand if students have learned what was intended and how well. Academic learning, then, is influenced not only by content but by how content is taught (e.g., through lecture, discussion, small group work), by the educational resources that instructors use (e.g., problem-solving exercises, readings, lab or classroom, demonstrations, media), and also by how learning is assessed. In this section, I consider the ways in which researchers studied instruction, broadly defined to include the decisions about what and how to teach and how to evaluate students’ learning. About 30 percent of the articles in this corpus examined instruction as part of their analyses of academic learning. Of those that did, most studied learning in 4-year institutions and relied on students’ perceptions to study instruction. These studies also considered instruction as one of multiple potential influences on learning. Although only a small number of studies examined instruction in community colleges offers, this is not evidence of the lack of attention to the study of instructional impacts in community college. Instead it reveals another difference between the approaches researchers used to study in academic learning in 2- and 4-year institutions. In the 2-year study corpus, many highly focused studies of individual courses and classrooms assessed students’ learning to understand whether changes in instruction worked, but did not assess instruction as part of the study. Given the differences in approaches, I first consider studies that used survey-based measures and then those that included additional kinds of data on instruction.

Using Students Surveys to Study Instruction Most of the studies of instruction in 4-year institutions analyzed data from two multiyear, multi-institutional research efforts: the National Study of Student Learning (NSSL) and the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNSLAE); the NSSL research effort preceded and informed the development of WNSLAE, and the resonances between the two are apparent in the sections to come. These studies utilized students’ perceptions of instruction to understand the impact of their instructional experience on their learning and relied on two kinds of survey items: one kind asks students to judge the quality of particular teaching practices, and a second asks students to report the extent to which their courses asked them to engage in particular instructional activities (e.g., writing a paper, working on a collaborative project). The two measures of instructional quality appear in many studies in the 4-year corpus. The rationale for the items came from Feldman’s (1989) synthesis and analysis of a previous meta-analysis that investigated the relationship between

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students’ grades in courses and their ratings of instruction in those courses. Feldman found that of all the ratings of instruction, ratings of instructor clarity and organization were the most strongly correlated with student achievement. Subsequently, researchers operationalized the two constructs to assess teaching effectiveness using the following ten survey items (see Pascarella et al. 1996): • • • • • • • • • •

Presentation of material is well organized. Faculty are well prepared for class. Class time is used effectively. Course goals and requirements are clearly explained. Faculty have a good command of what they are teaching. Faculty give clear explanations. Faculty make good use of examples and illustrations to explain difficult points. Faculty effectively review and summarize the material. Faculty interpret abstract ideas and theories clearly. Faculty give assignments that help in learning the course material.

The items appear in different forms in different studies in the corpus, with some researchers using two five-item measures – one that asked students to report the extent to which they perceived their classroom instruction to be organized (the first five items listed above) and a second measure that assessed the perceived clarity of instruction using the last five items (e.g., Loes et al. 2015). Other studies combined the ten items into a single measure (e.g., Pascarella et al. 2013; Roksa et al. 2017b). Data from studies of academic learning offered varying levels of support for the associations between clear and organized instruction and performance-based measures of learning. Pascarella et al. (2013) found that a large portion of the effects of attending a liberal arts college on cognitive growth was mediated through clear and organized instruction, while Loes and Pascarella (2017) and Roksa et al. (2017c) found significant but small effects of clear and organized instruction on critical thinking, a result similar to that of Pascarella et al. (1996). Few studies in this corpus, however, utilized these measures as the only independent variables assumed to influence students’ academic learning. Mayhew et al. (2010), Pascarella et al. (2014), and Seifert et al. (2014) all combined these instructional measures into larger composite scales. In one study in the corpus, Roksa et al. (2017b) sought to explain why clear and organized instruction might promote academic learning. Using WNSLAE data, the researchers assessed the relationship between first-year students’ grade point average and the ten-item clear and organized instruction scale, as well as a measure of faculty interest in teaching and student development. They described this last scale – which asks students the extent to which they believed the faculty with whom they had contact were interested in teaching and students, in students’ growth and development, and were willing to spend time with students outside of class – as capturing a dimension of instructors’ educational philosophy. For the study sample, the faculty interest scale correlated .647 with the measure of clear and organized instruction. Further, the study found that a large portion of the relationship between clear and organized instruction and GPA was explained by students’ academic motivation and

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engagement, in addition to their perceptions of faculty members’ interest in their learning. According to Roksa et al., these findings indicate that “clear and organized instruction, at least in part, conveys to students that their faculty are invested in their learning and development” (p. 292). The researchers also viewed the clear and organized instruction measure as consistent with constructivist learning theory and suggested such instruction might facilitate students’ motivation and their engagement in academic activities. The authors noted that their attempt to identify the mechanism by which clear and organized instruction influences learning was unusual among studies that used college impact models to frame their research. As is the case for the measures of clear and organized instruction, support for other measures of instruction used in the 4-year studies of instruction is based on reviews of earlier research findings. A significant number of studies in the corpus cited Chickering and Gamson’s (1987, 1991) Seven Principles of Good Practice to justify the selection of variables in their analyses, suggesting the role of this work in guiding the NSSL and WNSLAE research efforts. Chickering and Gamson (1987) developed the seven principles based on a synthesis of evidence on college teaching from the 1980s and previously. Most of the principles are closely connected to teaching (i.e., encouraging active learning, emphasizing time on task, giving prompt feedback, respecting diverse talents and ways of learning, and communicating high expectations to students) but also reflect broader goals for educational practice such as encouraging student faculty contact and cooperation among students. Cruce et al. (2006) cited an extensive list of studies that provided evidence of the predictive validity of measures of the seven principles and yet also observed that the evidence on which Chickering and Gamson relied was generated through non-generalizable samples, students’ self-reported measures of knowledge and skill gains, and analytical approaches that could have biased the estimates of the effectiveness of these practices upward. Many studies that utilized measures based on these principles of “good practice” specifically sought to mitigate these problems with larger, multiinstitutional samples and more rigorous statistical analyses (e.g., Kilgo et al. 2015; Seifert et al. 2008). An examination of the measures of good practices (the details of which are found in Pascarella et al. 2004) reveals that while some survey items and scales are measured at the course level, others are more global in nature. For example, a scale used in several studies to assess “good teaching/high quality faculty interaction” combines items asking students to rate instruction with other items regarding the extent to which they agree that “faculty I have had contact with” are interested in teaching and student development and the quality of non-classroom interactions with faculty such as “My nonclassroom interactions with faculty have had a positive influence on my personal growth, values and attitudes” (see Pascarella et al. 2005, p. 62 for scale used in Mayhew et al. 2010; Pascarella et al. 2014; Seifert et al. 2014)). Other studies combined this good teaching/high-quality interaction scale with even more measures of good practices, some assessing additional aspects of teaching (e.g., instructors use of higher-order learning) as well as perceptions of interactions with peers inside and outside the classroom (e.g., Seifert et al. 2008). While these encompassing scales permit researchers to include many different kinds

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of variables in an analysis (e.g., to measure liberal arts ethos, see Seifert et al. 2008), they complicate the interpretation of how students’ perceptions of instructional practices are related to their learning. Other survey measures were occasionally used to study instruction in the 4-year corpus. In a group of studies focused on influences on cognitive growth, Laird et al. (2014), Mayhew et al. (2012), and Pascarella et al. (2013) used scale variables grounded in the tradition of research on students “deep approaches to learning” pursued primarily by scholars in Europe and Australia (see Marton and Säljö 1976). Three deep approaches to learning scales developed for the National Survey of Student Engagement (see Laird et al. 2008) measure students’ perceptions of (1) the extent to which their courses emphasized higher-order learning skills such as synthesis, evaluation, and analysis of ideas; (2) how much they participated in integrative learning activities that required them to incorporate what they learned in different courses and engaged in discussions of course content with others; and (3) their reflective learning, that is, how often students’ reflected on the strengths and limitations of their own views, considered other perspectives, or changed their views due to something they learned. Whereas the higher-order learning scale specifically asks students to report on course-based activities and therefore can serve as measure of students’ perceptions of instruction, the other two DAL scales are composed of a mix of survey items less clearly tied to instructional activities. The reflective learning scale, in particular, assesses students’ dispositions toward reflection in general; none of the items in the scale refer to reflection as practice promoted by instructors inside or outside courses. Studying instruction from the perspectives of student engagement, a construct derived from Astin’s (1993) theory of involvement and Pace’s (1998) theory of effort, shifts the focus from students’ perceptions of the quality of their instructors’ teaching to what students are asked to do in their courses (e.g., write papers, work with other students). Interpretation of the scales in research on instruction thus requires researchers to clarify what was measured. For example, Mayhew et al. (2012) used the term learning environments rather than instructional methods to acknowledge the breadth of the DAL scales. A similar complication arose studies that used the NSSE “collaborative learning” scales to assess instruction. Interested in whether students’ involvement in collaborative learning experiences in their first year of college were related to gains on a standard measure of critical thinking skills, Loes and Pascarella (2017) offered an extensive discussion of evidence supporting the use of collaborative and cooperative instructional methods and acknowledged the differences between the two, noting that as an instructional method, cooperative education intentionally structures student groups to create interdependence among members of the group. Defining their measure of collaborative learning, Loes and Pascarella (2017) wrote: Our measure of collaborative learning explicitly measured the extent to which students interacted with one another in an effort to create knowledge and achieve shared learning goals. This occurs though the frequency with which students teach one another, the extent to which they are encouraged to and participate in study groups for a particular class, and the frequency with which they work with other students on projects outside class. (p. 735)

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The four-item scale (NSSE scale) used measured the extent to which students perceived they were “encouraged” to create study groups outside of class, to participate in one or more study group(s), and to work on class projects with students outside of class. As a measure of engagement, the scale captures the frequency of students’ behaviors associated with instructors’ exhortations but falls short as a measure of instruction because it does not assess instructors’ intentional use of collaboration, for example, their efforts to organize in-class and/or project group collaborations or to facilitate those activities to support learning. Culver et al. (2019) also utilized a set of engagement measures, this time to study of the potential relationship between what they termed rigorous instruction and students’ intellectual development. The authors contrasted two approaches to assessing rigorous instruction, one focused on the workload asked of students and another on the academic challenge a course presents. Citing Kuh et al. (2005), they distinguished “[w]orkload demands [that] include the number of hours students spend completing course readings, writing papers, and studying” from “academic challenge that stretches students to previously unrealized levels of student effort, understanding and accomplishment” (p. 178). Culver et al. opted for a rapprochement, arguing that intellectual growth depends not only on the workload demands made of students but on the expected levels of student understanding implied by the assignments that constitute the workload. Rigorous course practices and assignments are those that “require students to demonstrate higher-order thinking about course content rather than just recall and recognition (Braxton and Nordvall 1985; Nordvall and Braxton 1996)” (p. 612). Culver et al. developed an in-class rigor scale that asked students to estimate how often their instructors asked them “(1) to point out any fallacies in basic ideas, principles, or points of view presented in the course and (2) to argue for or against a particular point view,” and an assignment rigor scale that asked students to estimate how often their assignment and exams required them “(1) to compare or contrast topics or ideas from a course, (2) to point out the strengths and weaknesses of a particular argument or point of view, and (3) to argue for or against a particular point of view and defend their argument” (p. 617). Culver et al. noted as a limitation their reliance on students’ reports rather than objective measures of instruction. The absence of “objective” measures of instruction is common across the corpus, but it is critical to note that gathering information on students’ experiences of instruction is not necessarily a design flaw. Students’ perceptions of their learning experiences affect their academic performance – whether through their understanding of what is taught or in their responses to instruction rooted in their prior life and schooling experiences as people positioned in particular sociocultural places and times. Scholars might debate the merits of students’ perceptions of instruction as the only measure of instruction in a study focused on assessing the impact of teaching, but research evidence demonstrates that students’ perceptions and responses to instruction are quite relevant to their learning (e.g., Bandura 1986; Royston and Nasir 2017).

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Using Multiple Data Sources to Study Instruction While a few studies of academic learning in community colleges relied on student engagement survey measures to gather students’ perceptions of their instructional experiences (i.e., Kimbark et al. 2017), other researchers used a variety of data sources to assess the role of instruction in academic learning. For example, focusing on the impact of course delivery modes (online, face to face) on community college students’ learning in career and technical programs, Benson et al. (2005) examined variations in course interactions, content organization, and student support and how these were related to students’ feelings of closeness to the instructor and academic program, as well as their motivation and learning strategies. Their study is grounded in Moore’s theory of transactional distance (Moore 1993), which was developed for the study of distance education experiences and which stresses the importance of course “structure” and “dialogue.” Course structure refers to “the degree of individualization of the learning experience in terms of the course objectives, teaching strategies, and student evaluations” (p. 371). Both dialogue and structure are assumed to contribute to how students experience the distance between teacher and student: “A learning environment with low structure and high dialogue will yield ‘close’ transactional distance, whereas high structure and low dialogue will result in ‘remote’ transactional distance” (p. 371). This conception of teaching required the collection of several types of data on instruction, including a measure of students’ perceptions of transactional distance determined from the course interaction, structure, and support (CISS) survey, observations of classes, and interviews with students (although little specific information on the observation and interview procedures was provided). In a study to determine the effect of linked learning community courses on students’ learning in their liberal arts college, Holt and Nielson (2019) noted that most studies of learning communities to date examined “easily quantifiable factors (e.g., grades, retention) rather than measures whether curricular objectives are actually met (Lardner and Malnarich 2009)” (p. 672). They instead conducted classroom observations in ten pairs of courses across disciplines, in which one section of each course pair was linked to another learning community course and one was a stand-alone course. The researchers used structured observations, conducted at 2-minute intervals through each course observation, to summarize teaching behaviors in each course (e.g., group work, lecturing, questioning) and then combined the obseravational data with survey data on student engagement. Similarly, in a larger-scale study of redesigned College 101 courses in Bronx Community College, Karp et al. (2017) combined quantitative data to determine the effectiveness of the course redesign with qualitative data from interviews with students and instructors and classroom observations to supplement data on student learning outcomes in these courses. Interview with students focused on what they learned in the seminar course and whether it could be attributed explicitly or implicitly to the firstyear seminar experience. Classroom observations provided opportunities to assess instructional approaches across College 101 courses; and instructor interviews provided information on course content, instruction, and implementation challenges.

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Summary: Studying Instruction Stepping back from these illustrative studies, we can consider how instruction was conceived in higher education studies of academic learning between 2005 and early 2020. The 4-year corpus offers a relatively circumscribed conception of instruction. Measures of clear and organized instruction, arguably, are most suitable for lecture courses. These measures were sometimes combined with measures of faculty interactions, both inside and outside the classroom, into a single scale to assess a broad “good practices” construct that asked students for global assessments of their learning. The NSSE scales ask students to report their instructional experiences for all the courses taken over the course of a year – possibly 10 or 12 for a full-time undergraduate in a 4-year institution – rather than a single course; they also ask students to provide a global estimate of instruction across courses taken in different fields of study and in courses in which instructors likely took various approaches to the broad categories of instructional experiences included in these measures – collaboration, higher-order questioning, written assignments, and so on. The NSSE scales were not designed to assess instruction but rather to estimate student engagement across courses, and this recommends against drawing conclusions from them about instructional approaches. Acknowledging these limitations, these measures of quality of instruction and good practices nonetheless offer an important insight, which is that a holistic conception of teaching should acknowledge the link between instructional practices, the creation (intentional or not) of a learning environment and experience, and how that affects students’ academic learning. In the next section, I examine measures of faculty interactions to consider how these have been used to study academic learning experiences and how they, too, might expand the prevailing view of teaching in recent research on academic learning in 4-year institutions. The few studies of the effects of instruction on community college students’ learning contribute to this needed holistic view of instruction and teaching. These few studies demonstrated a greater range of data sources and were less likely to blur – conceptually and operationally – instructor, instruction, and students’ responses than measures of student engagement. The following examples illustrate how multi-method approaches differentiated what instructors do in courses and classrooms (via data from observations and instructor interviews) from how students received that instruction (collected via surveys and interviews) and even from the administrators’ view of instruction as the collective work of an academic unit. Data from instructors can also provide insights into intentions and plans that may or may not have been realized and why, as well as decisions made in response to formative assessments of students’ experiences and learning. Such data recognizes that teaching is set of ongoing thoughts and actions. Multi-method approaches to the study of instruction also benefit from triangulation of data sources, in which the limitations of one data source may be addressed by another and thus enhance validity. Each of the data sources utilized in studies of instruction across the corpus – students’ reports of instruction collected via surveys, surveys of faculty and administrators, interviews with faculty and students, or observations of classrooms – is perceptual in nature, and each gives us a different view of the complex act of

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instruction. Analytics data from course information systems, although used in only one study in this corpus (Ryan et al. 2016), further expanded the array of data sources. Yet while analytics data may appear to be objective, this data is also positioned by the choices made about what to collect and how and by the researchers who interpret it. Each source permits a different purchase on teaching and instruction, and this holistic approach is critical to understanding the role of instruction in academic learning.

Studying Programmatic Efforts This corpus of studies of postsecondary academic learning, as I defined it, includes a substantial number of studies designed to assess the impact of particular programmatic efforts in 2- and 4-year colleges. These include journal articles on the impact on students’ academic learning in first-year seminars (Clark and Cundiff 2011; Coleman et al. 2018; Culver and Bowman 2020; Karp et al. 2017; Kimbark et al. 2017), honors programs (Bowman and Culver 2018), diversity courses (Parker III et al. 2016), learning community courses (Holt and Nielson 2019), online course (Palacios and Wood 2016), curriculum redesign efforts to improve students’ learning in developmental education (Bishop et al. 2018; Okimoto and Heck 2015; Weisburst et al. 2017; Yamada et al. 2018; Yamada and Bryk 2016), developmental education programs (Allen et al. 2017; Smart and Saxon 2016; Wilson et al. 2018), changes in course scheduling (Reyes 2010; Sheldon and Durdella 2009), and the impact of prerequisite courses on students’ subsequent learning (Allen et al. 2017; McCarron and Burstein 2017). In 4-year colleges, these studies examined programmatic efforts that have been staple offerings in many institutions but that have not been rigorously evaluated. In community colleges, several large-scale studies examined the effects of systematic efforts to redesign developmental education courses using evidence-based practices and learning theory and following specified principles and processes (Okimoto and Heck 2015; Yamada et al. 2018; Yamada and Bryk 2016) or specific curricular interventions (Weisburst et al. 2017). While several studies utilized matched samples of students who did and did not participate in a program or curricular redesign to estimate the effectiveness of that program or curriculum, many others compared students’ learning before and after a curricular or instructional change without attention to possible differences in students’ characteristics that might also influence students’ learning in revised courses. Most studies of programmatic effects utilized grades and course-passing rates as measures of academic learning; only a few included data on students’ experiences in these courses (for examples, see Karp et al. 2017; Kimbark et al. 2017). An example from community college corpus permits comparison with studies discussed in the prior sections and illustrates variations in the ways researchers did or did not account for program features in this subset of studies. Yamada and Bryk (2016) studied the effectiveness of Statway, a redesign initiative that that resulted from the work of a networked improvement community (NIC)

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convened by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Statway was designed to accelerate students’ progress through developmental mathematics course sequences so they could earn college-level credits more quickly than typical for students needing preparatory coursework. The NIC developed the specific set of design principles that underlie the Statway pathway model; these principles center on improving mathematics instruction and pedagogy by encouraging instructors to emphasize conceptual reasoning over factual and procedural (“how to”) knowledge, to use structured group work, and to include multiple representations of mathematical problems (e.g., numerical, graphical, algebraic). The instructional system also targets students’ beliefs about their activities, applying concepts like Dweck’s (2006) growth mindset to counter the belief that ability is fixed; uses interventions to reduce students’ anxiety about mathematics; and provides guidance to faculty regarding the creation of engaging classrooms that foster students’ sense of belonging. Recognizing language and literacy barriers to mathematics competence, the instructional system also includes instructional tools that help students identify important concepts and vocabulary and recognize these in problems and readings, thus facilitating synthesis of information and reasoning skills. The Statway pathway was implemented in community colleges in numerous states. To compare students who completed Statway during the first 2 years of implementation with those who did not, Yamada and Bryk studied two cohorts of students from 19 community colleges in 5 states. The study took a multilevel model approach to propensity score matching to control for selection bias and improve causal validity by matching students across 44 student characteristics. The analyses compared the treated students with their matched comparisons through HLM models that nested students in classrooms and institutions. Yamada and Bryk (2016) found large effects of Statway, with community college students earning college math credits, persisting in college the following year, and earning more college-level credits. These outcomes held for each gender and race/ethnicity studied, as well as for students who had tested into different mathematics course placement levels. This study of redesigned courses, like others cited here, did not measure instruction; instead researchers evaluated the effect of redesign models that assumed institutions and instructors, across sites, followed the recommended curricular and instructional principles. In the Statway effort, Yamada and Bryk (2016) could assume similarity across courses and institutions due to the nature of the curriculum redesign process and faculty development efforts that were part of the Statway implementation (see also Yamada et al. 2018). Similar studies of program effects in this corpus demonstrated varying levels of certainty regarding the features of the programs and efforts they assessed. For example, in a study of students enrolled in developmental English courses at a single rural community college, Smart and Saxon (2016) sought to address this concern: The developmental English course maintained the same course format across the examined semesters, regardless of instructor or course format. The goal of the course was to prepare students for college-level English by teaching the basics of grammar, sentence structures, and paragraph writing. All courses involved a small lecture component, either in class or

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through online PowerPoint slides and other learning materials. Additionally, all courses were supplemented with a commercial online learning support program. Assignments, quizzes, and examinations were taken from the program as well as instructor generated. No changes were made during the study period that related to course formats or structures. (p 398)

Taking a different approach in a study of the impact in a change in course length in developmental algebra courses, Reyes (2010) only included courses taught by the same instructor in an effort to control variation in instruction. Karp et al. (2017) took an approach unique in this corpus, combining propensity score analyses with classroom observations in redesigned college orientation courses to understand how instructors were implementing the curriculum and instructional framework that guided the course redesign effort. Other researchers acknowledged unobserved variations in the courses they studied. For example, Weisburst et al. (2017) examined the effects of two kinds of innovations in developmental math course in public community colleges in Texas, noting, “While these course were similar in their shorter length, they may have varied across school in curriculum, delivery, and structure” (p. 188). Similarly, Culver and Bowman’s (2020) study of first-year seminars utilized data on participation in first-year seminar courses that were “academic inquiry” oriented or that primarily focused on student success skills, but the features of these seminars were otherwise unknown. The nature of the conclusions that can be drawn from these studies will vary depending on the quality of the propensity score matching and knowledge of the program or courses studied. With the exception of the studies of the Statway and Quantway studies (Yamada and Bryk 2016; Yamada et al. 2018), studies of programmatic effects included little specific information on the educational efforts under study. As Culver and Bowman (2020) noted, their analyses did not model differences in implementation of first-year seminars that might affect their effectiveness. Given their findings of “virtually no positive overall effects [on college grades, retention, or four-year graduation], with the lone exceptions of short-term college satisfaction” (p. 189), they recommended that researchers shift their attention to “what kinds of seminars are most effective for different types of incoming students” (p. 190).

Summary: Studying Programmatic Effects Studies of the effects of particular educational programs focused on a variety of educational efforts. Studies conducted in 4-year institutions assessed programs that enrolled students from across academic fields of study, while those conducted in community colleges typically focused on programs that sought to improve academic learning in a specific subject area. The exceptions in the 2-year corpus are two studies of college orientation courses and a study of the academic performance of men of color in 2-year online courses (Palacios and Wood 2016). Even studies of change in course formats examined the effect of these changes for students enrolled in particular subject areas (Allen et al. 2017; McCarron and Burstein 2017). The

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validity challenge in such studies is the unobserved variability across courses, instructors, students, and sites. In curriculum reforms such as Statway, which are premised on specific educational principles and recommended curricular and instructional practices, the question is one of the fidelity of implementation. In other studies of existing programs such as college orientation, honors, and learning community courses variations, the research challenge is the absence of information on program practices that vary across sites and that might affect findings and conclusions. Researchers studying the effects of programs and practices took different approaches to addressing these issues, and this raises questions about what we can learn about academic learning from studies in which key features of the learning experience – curriculum, instruction, and students’ responses to these – are unknown.

Studying Students’ Interactions with Faculty and Peers Higher education researchers have been studying the impact of students’ interpersonal interactions on their college experiences and outcomes since the 1970s. Haggis (2009) identified the concept of student-faculty interaction as one of the signature concepts in studies of college student experiences in the North American higher education literature. It is not surprising then that the corpus of studies for this chapter on academic learning includes 14 studies that studied the influence of college students’ interactions with their instructors. Analyses of student-faculty interactions appear most often in 4-year studies, and each of the ten studies in the 4-year corpus utilized survey-based measures from the NSSL and WNSLAE. Several of these studies also included measures of peer interactions (discussed below). Only four studies of academic learning in the 2-year study corpus included data on students’ interactions with their instructors (Benson et al. 2005; Chan and Wang 2016; Kimbark et al. 2017; Palacios and Alvarez 2016), and these varied in the attention accorded in these measures. There are also a substantial number of studies that examined the effects of peer interactions on academic learning in 4-year institutions, and the contrast with the 2-year study corpus is even greater. A single study of community college students’ academic learning considered the role of students’ interactions with their peers (Chan and Wang 2016), but there are 11 such studies in the 4-year study corpus, accounting for one-third of that corpus. All used measures from the NSSL, WNSLAE, or the Community College Survey of Engagement. While the long tradition of studying student-faculty interactions in 4-year colleges and universities continues, only a few studies in the corpus explained why such interactions matter in terms of academic learning. Similar to the observation made in the prior section on the study of instruction, researchers who included measures of student-faculty interaction in their analyses often relied on Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) seven principles of good practice to quickly justify the inclusion of the measure based on the predictive ability without substantive discussion (i.e., Cruce et al. 2006; Mayhew et al. 2010; Pascarella et al. 2014; Seifert et al. 2008, 2014). Others relied on references to student-faculty interactions as one of NSSE “clusters

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or effective educational practice” (Carini et al. 2006, p. 6) or noted links to the goals of liberal education (Seifert et al. 2007). As noted, these scales were sometimes combined with scales measuring instruction to create a reliable but conceptually unwieldy, composite measure. A small number of studies, in contrast, offered theoretically grounded explanations of the role of student-faculty interaction in their analysis of academic learning. Roksa and Whitley (2017), for example, examined how student-faculty interactions, race, and motivation might affect students’ grade point average after their first year of college studies. Combining understandings of motivation from self-determination theory and arguments for greater attention to variations in the effects of college environments on different student populations, they argued that students’ interactions with faculty might moderate the effect of motivation on academic learning: “though students may be academically motivated, the extent to which they can translate their motivation into high academic achievement may depend on experiences with faculty. This possibility is particularly pertinent to explore when considering racial differences” (p. 336). They cited research evidence that faculty can help African-American students navigate college environments by building relationships with students and conveying their commitment to students’ success. Focusing specifically on White and African-American first-year students, Roksa and Whitley (2017) found that when students perceived that the faculty with whom they interacted were student-centered, African-American and White students benefitted equally. However, their analysis identified an interaction between academic motivation and being African American that was primarily related to students’ perceptions that faculty were not interested in their learning and development. African-American students not only perceived this was the case substantially more than White students but they also benefitted less from being academically motivated than White students (in terms of their earned grade point average). The concept of validating relationships is also reflected in Palacios and Alvarez’s (2016) analysis of how noncognitive factors and campus ethos affect community college men of color. Using data from the Community College Survey of Men (CCSOM), the researchers sought to identify differences in perceptions of the nature of student-faculty interactions among non-first-generation African-American, Latino, and White community college men. Rendón’s theory of validation informed the development of the CCSOM measures of faculty validation and faculty belonging, which assess the ways in which faculty can enable, affirm, and support students through their interactions with them in and out of class. Specifically, the faculty validation scale assesses students’ perceptions of the extent to which they received validating communication about their ability to “do the work” and “succeed in college,” whereas the faculty belonging scale taps students’ perceptions that faculty value their presence in class and care about their success in their course (see Wood and Newman 2017, p. 11). While ANOVAs showed that non-first-generation AfricanAmerican men reported higher levels of faculty validation than Latinos, there were no differences among non-first-generation men on the measure of faculty belonging. In another study of community college students, this time in a manufacturing program, Chan and Wang (2016) challenged the typical ways in which scholars have

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characterized students’ interactions with faculty and peers in college. These interactions, they argued, have been conceptualized and measured based on (1) the setting for the interaction (inside or outside the classroom), (2) the level of formality (where formal interactions with faculty concern intellectual matters and informal interactions include personal concerns related to emotional and cognitive growth), and (3) according to who is involved in the interaction (student-to-student or studentfaculty). Following Lester et al. (2013), Chan and Wang argued that categorizations of interactions should instead be based on “the anticipation of desirable outcomes following each interaction that explains why students interact in the first place” (p. 29). In this view, explicit behaviors suggest implicit motivations, and motivation is “a latent drive that propels individuals to engage in certain behaviors to meet their needs” and, that following Pintrich (1999, 2004) can exert different impacts on students’ outcomes (Chan and Wang 2016, p. 31). Lacking data on motivation and given access to survey measures of student engagement, they sought to represent latent motivations by constructing three measures of interaction. The first factor, interaction for curricular demands, included three items that assessed students “attempt to fulfill course requirements by interacting with faculty and peers” (p. 37). A second factor, interaction for broader educational purposes, included students’ reports that they discussed ideas from readings or classes with instructors outside class or asked questions or contributed to class discussion. Finally, diversityrelated interactions assessed “students’ interactions with peers to gain diverse perspectives” (p. 37). A confirmatory factor analysis indicated the model fits the data well, but the curricular demands and broader educational purposes factors did not meet the typical threshold for Cronbach’s alpha of.70 (0.62 and .66, respectively). Chan and Wang found partial support for their proposed framework – broader educational purposes were related to GPA – and resonances with previous studies. Concerning the surprising finding that interaction for curricular demands was not significantly related to GPA, they pointed to the educational experiences of students in manufacturing programs, which “inherently facilitate SFI [studentfaculty interaction] and collaboration among classmates” (p. 42) through curricular arrangements such as workshops. While limited by existing samples and measures, the analyses by Roksa and Whitley (2017) and Chan and Wang (2016) suggest how existing measures can be utilized and interpreted in ways that open up new directions for research on students’ interactions in college. The CCSOM measures that assess students’ perceptions of faculty validation and belonging offer conceptual clarity that is lacking in a number of studies using composite measures of good practices. Such studies align with efforts to examine the role of sociocognitive factors in students’ learning, but they differ in that they link these concepts to evidence of student learning – which as this chapter attests, few recent studies published in the main higher education and community college journals have done. The set of studies that included analyses of peer interactions overlap with those studying student-faculty interactions, so it is not surprising that similar patterns are evident. A number of studies utilized composite measures that assess students’ cocurricular involvement and peer interactions (e.g., Mayhew et al. 2010; Seifert et al. 2007, 2014), finding either no significant effects or very small effects based on

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the outcome of interest. For example, Holt and Nielson (2019) triangulated data from interaction scales derived from the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement and structured classroom observations to detect collaborative learning or other kinds of peer interactions in linked and unlinked learning community courses in a small liberal arts college. Their analyses of students’ educational experiences in linked learning community courses and the same unlinked courses found no differences in students’ levels of engagement with peers. As in the corpus on articles on student-faculty interactions, however, a subset of articles proffered theoretical justifications for their focus on the relationship between peer interactions and cognitive outcomes (i.e., critical thinking, moral reasoning). Each of these five studies focused on the role of students’ interactions, primarily with peers, around diversity. Three studies (Loes et al. 2012; Mayhew et al. 2010; Pascarella et al. 2014) used measures that assessed positive interactions with peers, as well as measures of influential interactions that exposed students to differences of many kinds (i.e., social, economic, racial, ethnic, religious, political). Roksa et al. (2017a) also used a measure of positive interactions but added a measure of “negative diversity interactions” to assess students’ experiences of discrimination and prejudice or interactions that they felt were tense, hurtful, or threatening. Mayhew and Engberg (2010) also focused on negative interactions (exclusively) in a study of an intergroup relations course that purposefully brought students from different backgrounds together in facilitated dialogues around difference. With one exception, each of these studies justified the focus on interactions by referencing the argument made by Gurin et al. (2002). The argument, summarized by Loes et al. (2012), posits that students “will be more likely to engage in effortful and complex modes of thought when they encounter new or novel situations that challenge current and comfortable modes of thinking” (p. 1). Such experiences can occur inside the classroom, but they can also occur in many other interactions with peers as students “encounter others who are unfamiliar to them, when these encounters challenge students to think or act in new ways, when people and relationships change and produce unpredictability, and when students encounter others who hold different expectations for them” (Loes et al. 2012, pp. 1–2). Gurin et al. assumed the mechanism that promoted more complex thought in some encounters with diversity was rooted in “Piagetian notions of cognitive disequilibrium and perspective-taking” that encourage students to confront the limitations of their point of view (Mayhew and Engberg 2010, p. 462). All of these studies found support for their assumptions that students’ interactions around difference influence their cognitive outcomes, although the effects were generally modest and, depending on the sample, general or conditional for students at different levels of academic preparation for college or of different race/ethnicities.

Summary: Studying Students’ Interactions with Faculty and Peers Perhaps because they have been so often included in studies of students’ educational experiences in 4-year institutions, a substantial number of studies in the corpus offered little explanation of why students’ interactions with faculty and peers were

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assumed to affect critical thinking or dispositions toward learning. Studies of students’ experiences with diversity were an exception; here researchers supported the inclusion of these measures based on theorized cognitive effects of experiences in which students encounter new ideas and perspectives that challenge their own. Still, studies revealed small or nonsignificant relationships with the outcome predetermined by the data sets used, leaving other sociocognitive and cognitive outcomes unexplored. Although studies of faculty-student interactions tended to lack explanatory conceptual frameworks, some more recent studies in the corpus demonstrated how theoretical support could guide study designs and thus the interpretation of findings.

Conclusions: How Have Researchers Studied Academic Learning in US Institutions? My primary goal in this chapter was to understand how researchers had studied academic learning in US higher education institutions over the past 15 years. To support that goal, I searched for patterns in research approaches that would permit reflection on the affordances and limitations of those approaches and thus contribute to the design and conduct of future studies. In this section, I first provide a high-level summary of the patterns identified through my analysis and then consider the questions these raised and directions they suggest for research on undergraduates’ academic learning. Because I did not seek to synthesize research findings on the topics covered, my observations focus on the conduct of research on academic learning, and they are keyed to the main sections of the preceding review, specifically, how researchers conceptualized their studies and what and how they chose to study students experiences, instruction, and the impact of academic programs and practices on students’ academic learning.

Broad Patterns in the Study of Academic Learning The findings of this review suggest that, in general, studies of academic learning in US colleges and universities generally fell into two camps that shared the goal of improving learning but that differed in approach. One set of studies relied on multiinstitutional and/or administrative data to identify promising educational practices and programs, often by scanning a subsection of the US higher education landscape. A second set of studies, situated in classrooms and courses, sought to determine whether small-scale changes or innovations in curriculum, instruction, or assessment approaches had the expected impact on students’ learning. In addition, the researchers that populated these two groups tended to be differently situated in higher education settings. Generally, community college faculty conducted smallscale studies of learning situated in courses and institutions, occasionally reaching out to neighboring colleges and colleagues for multisite studies. Researchers based

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in the field of higher education or the broader educational research community typically conducted large-scale studies. Although both groups used quantitative research approaches, there were substantial differences in the ways researchers conceptualized and studied academic learning. Whereas studies in the 2-year corpus nearly always investigated learning in academic disciplines, studies in the 4-year corpus almost never studied discipline-based academic learning. In fact, only four studies conducted in 4-year settings examined students’ experiences in specific courses, and only two of these assessed how well students learned the subject matter of the courses chosen for study. Decisions about if and how to use educational theory and research led to another pronounced difference between the 2- and 4-year studies. Researchers studying academic learning in community colleges more often included theoretically grounded explanations of learning processes and offered substantial detail about the learning experiences and students under examination. Yet, even in these studies, as was the case in studies in 4-year institutions, researchers tended to discuss theory rather than use it to guide their research designs; only about a quarter of the 67 studies in the corpus utilized theory to explain their analyses, and within this group, only a few operationalized theoretical concepts and constructs as part of their design. Also across the corpus, researchers relied almost exclusively on cognitive theories of learning, with only a few studies in community college contexts incorporating sociocognitive theories. While the great majority of studies in 4-year study corpus utilized student data collected via surveys designed according to a student engagement framework, few considered this underpinning by discussing the originating concepts (Astin 1993; Pace 1998) or by expanding those by considering theories of engagement that include affective and cognitive investments as well as behavioral ones (see Fredricks et al. 2004; Lawson and Lawson 2013). The use of measures of students’ perceptions of, and their engagement in, educational activities points to another obvious pattern in the 4-year corpus: the dominance of studies that analyzed data from two large-scale research projects – the National Study of Student Learning and the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education. Such studies account for two-thirds of the studies in the 4-year corpus published over a 15-year period and contributed to additional patterns in what was studied in 4-year institutions, for example, a focus on students’ perceptions of and engagement in a limited number of instructional activities, attention to students’ interpersonal interactions, an emphasis on cognitive outcomes (i.e., critical thinking, moral reasoning, dispositions toward learning), and a concomitant inattention to discipline-based academic learning. Some patterns common to the WNSLAE and NSSL studies, however, are also reflected in other studies in 4-year institutions (i.e., inattention to subject matter learning in favor of general cognitive skills, the use of survey-based engagement data). Studies in 2- and 4-year institutions that did not use student survey data often relied on administrative data such as grade point averages and grades, to assess the effectiveness of a program or practice, although researchers who conducted small-scale studies in community colleges frequently combined administrative data with data from course-based performance assessments.

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Reflections on the Criteria for the Review To ensure that the studies in the corpus focused on what students learned in their college and university courses and programs, I only included studies that provided evidence of academic learning through a qualitative or quantitative performance assessment. This criterion unexpectedly excluded studies that focused on the process of learning but did not include performance assessment data; on the other hand, the same criterion opened the gate for studies that assessed academic programs using data on student learning. As a result there are very few studies in the corpus that examined in detail what happened in classrooms as students engaged with content, instructors, and peers – although such studies exist. Scholars such as Vilma Mesa (e.g., Mesa et al. 2014) and Rebecca Cox (2009, 2015; Cox and Dougherty 2019), for example, have stepped inside mathematics classrooms to study how instructors teach mathematics and the consequences of that instruction for what students learn about mathematics. Milagros Castillo-Montoya (2019) and Anna Neumann (2014) have observed how instructors help students grapple with concepts from sociology and philosophy (respectively) by connecting theoretical concepts to students’ lives and the concerns of their communities. Other studies have assessed the effects of learning environments on students’ beliefs about their abilities and their prospects for success in a field of study (e.g., Chemers et al. 2011; Sawtelle et al. 2012). This gap might be fruitfully remedied in future research that combine detailed study of students’ experiences in courses and programs – with instructors and instruction, with subject matter content, and with peers – to understand both what and how students are learning in college. A second consequence of the selection criteria is the inclusion of studies of program effectiveness – which some might not view as studies of academic learning. I gave this considerable thought and decided that such studies are conceptually and methodologically similar to studies that assess how changes in curriculum, instruction, and/or assessment at the course or program level are related to students’ academic learning. Studies that specifically identified their goal as assessing program effectiveness were strikingly similar in intent and outcome to studies that higher education researchers have long considered studies of curriculum, teaching, and learning; these studies focus on determining whether a program or practice “works” by either statistically controlling student characteristics in analyses or using propensity score methods to create comparison groups. Even small-scale studies of curricular and instructional changes in community college classrooms shared the goal of determining the impact of those changes on learning. Over the 15-year period studied, it appears that the vast majority of studies of academic learning published in the US journals that I examined are studies of the effectiveness of particular practices and programs. One consequence of this emphasis on impact of practices and programs is that few studies in the corpus sought to understand both a learning process and its outcomes. The studies of students’ learning in community college courses assessed students’ learning to see if the changes affected learning but did not examine how students responded to these curricular and instructional changes or why and how this shaped their learning. Multi-institutional studies in the 4-year corpus

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statistically controlled students’ characteristics to identify the unique, independent contribution of an instructional practice or program on a learning outcome, but could not explain how or why a practice or program produced that effect. Although both studies thus yielded findings similar to those of students with the expressed goal of program effectiveness, studies in the 4-year corpus differed in their attention to aspects of the students’ learning experiences; such attention was rare in the 2-year corpus, where researchers presented detailed descriptions of programs and practices but did not assess them. The consequences of the focus of outcomes of practices and programs, rather than the study of the learning processes of associated with these practices and programs, are not trivial. Although an examination of this corpus of studies provides information on what students learned in courses or across institutions, few studies tell us how and why particular educational practices or programs affected learning as they did. Consider the many studies of critical thinking in this corpus; these offered some sobering findings (i.e., students do not seem to develop critical thinking as expected) aligned with prior studies, and the group yielded mixed results, which may or may not be due to differences in samples or measures. Despite the focus on critical thinking as an outcome over the past 15 years (and years prior), we still have little understanding of why students in general, or particular groups of students, scored better or worse on their tests of critical thinking. We have evidence of correlations with broad educational experiences, and a couple of studies in the corpus suggest possible process-related experiences, suggesting the need for explicit instruction (see Dyer and Hall 2019) or the role of peer interactions (Roksa et al. 2017c). To truly inform educational practice and contribute to programmatic improvement, scholars and practitioners need to understand why and how particular practices and processes worked – or did not – for students with particular characteristics. Many studies in the 4-year corpus reached this conclusion after the fact, recommending the study of curriculum or program features to better understand that the learning outcomes researchers found but could not explain. A focus on programs and practices, without a corollary focus on the learning process, points to other lacunae in the study corpus: the absence of research attention to the societal and institutional contexts in which the curricula, instructional practices, and programs are embedded and how these can affect what educators do and what students experience and learn. While this may be a result of the inclusion criteria – such studies may not have included a performance-based assessment of learning – it raises the question of whether higher education researchers view the study of learning processes and learning outcomes as separate research realms. In the following sections, I discuss these high-level observations in greater detail, both to consider their consequences for study of academic learning and to suggest directions for future research.

Conceptualizing Academic Learning Roughly one quarter of the studies in this review aligned a specific theoretical framework with their study methods. Such studies were more common in the 2-year

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study corpus, where, with a few exceptions, researchers called upon theories from educational and cognitive psychology – most commonly those related to information processing, self-regulation, and motivation – to study learning in developmental education and introductory level courses. Whereas these researchers referenced specific elements of cognitive processes that they sought to examine, for example, the role of explicit and tacit knowledge in student’s early learning in a discipline or the development of conceptual and procedural knowledge in mathematics proficiency, many other studies relied on general discussions of the impact that a particular instructional method or curricular change might have on the academic learning under study. These latter studies assessed learning but did not necessarily connect their assumptions about the learning process to the findings they reported. Theory-based studies were less common in the 4-year corpus. When theory was used, researchers similarly relied on cognitive theories to ground their studies, but the range of theories was more circumscribed than in the 2-year study corpus. A few studies posited explanatory mechanisms but faced the challenge of operationalizing theoretical concepts using existing data that was not created for that purpose. Instead, studies in the 4-year corpus were more likely to use models of college impact as conceptual frameworks, but primarily to describe their analytical approach rather than to leverage a model’s specific propositions. In both 2- and 4-year studies, literature reviews presented relevant research and theory with varying degrees of attention to the specifics or strength of the evidence or the details of the theories invoked. While some researchers used the literature effectively to present their assumptions about the learning process or the effect of a particular practice or program, others left the task of determining the authors’ implicit understanding of the learning process to the reader. On the whole, then, specific theoretical perspectives and theories played a limited role in these studies of academic learning, typically providing a means of justifying a study rather than guiding its design. Theory sometimes appeared at the end of an article, but in the absence of its operationalization, a retrospective theoretical explanation had the same standing as other equally plausible speculations about why learning did or did not happen. A distressing finding was how many studies suggested a passing familiarity with the theories of learning discussed. Learning theories were often vaguely described and sometimes appeared to be conflated with one another. The infrequent use of theory to guide research designs combined with the emphasis on the effectiveness of practices and programs in the study corpus exacerbates the problem of study findings that tell us what, but not how or why, learning occurred. Although researchers studying community college courses and programs were more likely to theorize about the effects of their curricular and instructional practices or reforms, the studies they designed typically collected only outcomes data, thus also leaving unanswered questions about how or why an effort worked. In 4-year studies, theory was rarely invoked and more rarely operationalized, leaving explanations for findings speculative and focusing researchers attention on methodological issues rather than conceptual advances.

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Across the corpus, intervention studies were an exception; these defined a specific intervention, stated the assumed theory of change that linked the intervention to the learning process, and tested the intervention to determine its effects on learning. The almost exclusive reliance on cognitive theories across the corpus is surprising given the increasing use of sociocognitive, situative, and sociocultural theories of learning in studies of education across the K-20 spectrum. Such studies contribute to our understandings of how students’ social identities and life experiences shape their interpersonal and socioemotional experiences in educational contexts – classrooms, programs, and institutions with particular features, norms, and cultures – and how these shape academic learning (see, e.g., Good et al. 2012; Murphy et al. 2007; Wilson et al. 2015). Researchers represented in this corpus suggested such influences and intersections in their discussions of learning but did not translate them into study designs. In many studies, researchers alluded to the role of race/ethnicity or gender but treated social identities as theoretically, as static characteristics, and without attention to the intersectional nature of identity or its sociopolitical dimensions. (See Nasir and Hand 2006, and Royston and Nasir 2017, for discussions of race, culture, and learning processes.). This emphasis on cognitive theory appears to be connected to other patterns in the corpus, namely, the laser focus on changes in subject matter knowledge in the community college studies; the lack of detailed data on instruction, programs, and practices commonly assumed to promote learning across the corpus; the reliance on existing data in most of the 4-year studies; and the dominance of quantitative research methods, administrative, and/or survey data across the corpus. Moreover, although education researchers have increasingly used forms of critical theory to identify educational inequities and called for critical quantitative methods and studies, such perspectives were conspicuously missing from this corpus of studies of academic learning. Even studies of educational disparities, as well as those that tested for conditional effects by race/ethnicity or gender, hewed to traditional research methods and theories. Again, the question arises as to whether researchers view detailed studies of students’ formal educational experiences as a research genre distinct from studies of academic learning. Multi-method approaches would expand the kinds of data researchers could bring to bear in studies of academic learning that permit the detailed study of academic environments, experiences, and learning. A few studies by community college researchers in this corpus leveraged a variety of data sources to understand instruction and the teaching and learning process, yet most did not provide the kind of detailed contextual and student-level data that is likely to yield new insights into how students perceive and respond to particular learning environments, subject matter, and classroom interactions with faculty and peers. Future studies would benefit not only from expanding the methodological toolbox used in studies of academic learning but from aligning methods with theoretical and conceptual perspectives that promote holistic attention to the nature of learning experiences and processes to produce grounded understandings of why learning does or does not happen as educators intend.

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Studying Students and Their Experiences To estimate the effectiveness of an educational experience, higher education researchers studying students’ experiences in 4-year colleges and universities have traditionally used statistical methods to account for the contribution of students’ social identities, demographic characteristics, and prior academic experiences. Yet, increasing evidence of conditional effects, demonstrated in many of the studies in the 4-year corpus but also beyond it, calls into question the wisdom of an approach. Research across the educational levels demonstrates that students do not shed their histories when they enter a classroom; their identities and life experiences shape their experiences in courses and programs in many different ways. If researchers seek to understand learning, that is how and why it occurs and for whom, study designs should clearly conceptualize the role of particular students’ characteristics as they relate to specific educational practices and experiences. Relying on learning theories as well as empirical research to inform these studies, such studies would not seek to control for the “host” or “array” of student covariates but ask, as Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) advocated, how well does this educational practice work, for whom, and under what conditions. If researchers do not ask for whom and under what conditions a practice is effective, they risk recommending a practice or experience that is not effective for everyone and potentially harmful to some. But how to ask the questions “for whom” and “under what conditions” require further discussion. Several studies in this corpus asked the “for whom” question through analyses that searched for educational inequities rather than effective practices. Others tested for interaction effects, typically focusing on gender and/or race/ethnicity. As higher education scholars and practitioners increasingly seek to eliminate educational inequities, researchers should reflect on how to ask what works and for whom. Although few scholars will argue that researchers should rely whenever possible on relevant theory and empirical evidence to inform their studies, studies of higher education increasingly suggest the need to critically examine this literature since theory and prior studies might be predicated on samples in which students with specific identities, characteristics, and life experiences were underrepresented or simply not considered. Studies of academic learning (as well as other kinds of learning) need to conceptualize learning in ways that both build upon and challenge what we think we know about learning. Even in the multi-institutional research efforts, samples of students of color are often too small to disaggregate by ethnicity, and measures of social identity are limited. Gender is often a binary measure, and race/ethnicity is forced into categories that do not always reflect the identities students hold. Interaction terms provide an insufficient solution since they cannot address the multidimensional nature of social identities (Dubrow 2008; Warner 2008). Researchers seeking to understand intersectionality have sometimes focused on particular populations with the research goal of identifying and understanding variations within that population. Research on Black men’s experiences with faculty in community colleges (Wood and Ireland 2014; Wood and Newman 2017) is an example of how a sharper focus can yield more specific and actionable findings.

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Our current assessments of learning may also be flawed measures of what students have learned and can do with their learning; some measures are loosely linked to the learning experiences that students have in college; others may not be culturally equitable. Sedlacek (1994) observed that most existing measures were not designed for underserved populations, and Montenegro and Jankosksi (2017) warned that assessment designs may unintentionally skew scores for certain student populations. Consequently, although disaggregating data by student populations and/or including interaction terms in analyses may surface differences, studies of learning need to reveal the educational and/or assessment conditions that produced any observed learning disparities. The goal of understanding academic learning processes and outcomes is also not well served by normative research practices such as assigning multiracial students to a single category of race/ethnicity or using White students as the reference group in studies that require comparisons of race/ ethnicity (Mayhew and Simonoff 2015a, b); alternatives are needed if higher education research is to equitably serve the US college population. While comparisons of students’ learning by social identities may be a meaningful approach for certain studies, comparative analyses are not a requirement for understanding learning processes. Seifert et al. (2014) argued that the “higher education research community must question and modify theoretical and conceptual models to maximize their utility to transform higher education policy and practice. More methodologically complex models not only contribute to refining theory; they tend to yield more nuanced results” (p. 532). In many studies in the 4-year corpus, researchers stressed methodological advances, such as the investigation of conditional effects of students’ characteristics, the use of longitudinal data to assess learning, and multi-institutional samples to improve generalizability. Yet the recent studies in the corpus acknowledged that their large samples are not generalizable beyond the institutions studied, and theoretically rigorous investigations were quite rare. If greater understanding of learning processes and outcomes rather than singular explanations is the more reasonable goal research on learning, the door opens wider for new methods of data collection and analysis.

Studying Teaching Many studies of academic learning in community college classrooms and courses in this corpus did not assess instruction, describing changes in curriculum and/or instructional methods but assessing learning to determine their impact. In the 4-year corpus, a substantial number of the studies assessed students’ perceptions of instruction via measures of instructor clarity and organization derived from students’ ratings of course instruction. Based on studies conducted prior to 1989, teacher clarity and organization had the strongest association with students’ grades (see Feldman 1989), but given the timeframe, these findings were likely based on ratings from fairly homogeneous samples comprised largely of White students. Moreover, as Feldman (1989) reported, clarity and organization were only two of

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the practices that were positively related to students’ grades. Grades, it is worth noting, are not the only or best indicator of what students have learned. A few studies in the 4-year corpus broadened the range of instructional activities assessed, using students’ reports of their instructional experiences to assess the impact of teaching, but interpretation of results from these measures is complicated by their focus on behavioral engagement rather than affective and cognitive responses to instruction. Overall, studies in the corpus captured a sliver of the complex activities that comprise college teaching. Teaching begins as faculty plan and revise course and includes how they organize and approach content, how they use instructional resources, engage students, include or exclude perspectives and people, assess learning, and create, intentionally or not, the environment in which students are asked to learn (Lattuca and Stark 2009; Pallas and Neumann 2019). A small subset of studies in the community college corpus assessed instruction using an array of data sources; these included observations of classrooms, data from learning management systems, course artifacts, interviews, and survey data from instructors and students regarding their experiences. Mixed and multi-method studies recognize the benefits of multiple data sources to capture complex social phenomena (like learning in higher education) and enhance the validity of findings (e.g., Creamer 2018), but must also be guided by complex understandings of social practices such as instruction. Furthermore, research on the experiences of minoritized and marginalized students demonstrates that the classroom environment is a complex discursive setting whose normative expectations differently engage and affect students from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds (e.g., White 2011; White and Lowenthal 2011). Campus interactions with peers and instructors can support or prevent students from developing a sense of belonging and a desire to engage in learning (e.g., Nuñez 2009; Wood and Ireland 2014; Wood and Newman 2017). Given the diversity of students in college classrooms, researchers need measures of instruction that tap the learning environment that instructors and students conjointly create, how students experience this classroom environment, and how this affects students’ academic learning.

Studying Learning in Courses and Programs Another pattern that distinguished studies of academic learning in 2- and 4-year institutions in this corpus was the attention paid to the academic content that is assumed to shape students’ learning. In many studies of community college students’ learning in courses, the curriculum was described, often in detail, but only indirectly examined through assessments of students’ learning and on occasion through further analyses of students’ academic preparation or motivation to explain variations in students’ learning. In the 4-year corpus, researchers using multi-institutional data largely overlooked how course content might affect learning outcomes such as critical thinking and moral reasoning until study findings compelled some explanation of the trivial or absent relationships among the college experiences and

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learning examined. In the very few studies that included variables intended to capture patterns in students’ course-taking, these broad measures of numbers of course taken in categories such as science, social science, and humanities were variously effective in explaining academic learning. The curricular content of courses and programs is not an optional element of the student learning experience and thus requires researchers to consider it in their study designs. If higher education scholars hope to understand what promotes academic learning, studies need to attend to what is being taught in the courses and programs under study as well as how students respond to and understand that content. Studies of learning in community college typically assessed students’ knowledge and skills with respect to a particular discipline or field, but did not attempt to explain how and why learning occurred for some students but not for others. In studies in the 4-year corpus that focused on students’ demonstration of transferrable learning outcomes, efforts to understand why outcomes were or were not achieved were likely hampered by unobserved differences in course objectives and instructional approaches within and across academic programs and institutions. In studies designed to assess general cognitive outcomes such as critical thinking, researchers must ask at the beginning of a study: “Is this learning outcome is intentionally taught in the courses that students in our study will encounter in the time period studied?” Do we expect these outcomes to be emphasized across academic programs in this institutional setting or across research sites?” If they are not, we likely know the answer to the question and should look elsewhere to understand how students developed such knowledge and skills. Even in large-scale studies, researchers can gather information from instructors, administrators, and students to understand the content emphasized in courses and programs. This requires narrowing the focus on academic learning to specific kinds of courses or academic programs but better supports research goals related to the assessment of academic learning (e.g., see Lambert et al. 2007). As Neumann (2014) observed, students are always learning something; there is a “what” that is being taught and learned.

Imagining the Future of Studies of Academic Learning The contrast between studies of academic learning in 2- and 4-year institutions may suggest that these two communities of researchers draw different boundaries around the field of higher education, which appear complicated by preferences for research foci and methods. The expertise needed to study academic learning is, however, distributed across these two communities as well as beyond. Scholarly exchanges across educational research communities can support research on academic learning in disciplines and fields that are characterized by different curricular content and goals; academic cultures, norms, and histories; and instructor and student populations. Such exchanges and collaborations can also encourage reflection about the affordances and limitations of preferred methodological, conceptual, and theoretical approaches and thus contribute to the development of new research approaches that address current limitations.

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The contrast between the 2- and 4-year studies in this corpus raises further questions about the connection of research and practice. Arguably, studies in the community college corpus demonstrated a convergence of the concerns of practitioners and researchers (who are sometimes one and the same) through attention to topics that have been the daily concerns of faculty and administrators in those institutions for the past 15 years or more: the academic progress and success of students in developmental education, the effectiveness of online learning for community college learners, and promoting students’ metacognitive awareness and competencies to improve access to many educational pathways, and learning in specific discipline-based courses. In contrast, the focus in the 4-year corpus on a few outcomes assumed to result from the college experience overall addresses a small number of the myriad learning goals of educators – and the learning needs of students – in the diverse 4-year higher education sector. The growth of disciplinebased education research in the sciences and engineering (National Research Council 2012) and the growth of discipline-specific educational research and teaching journals attest to a widening arc of concern regarding the quality and improvement of academic learning in college. The field of higher education has long studied the disciplinary cultures and norms and their impact on students’ learning experiences (e.g., Braxton and Hargens 1996; Lambert et al. 2007; Smart et al. 2000) and on faculty members’ approaches to curriculum and instruction (e.g., Hora 2012; Stark 2000; Stark et al. 1988; Lattuca and Stark 1994, 1995; Umbach 2007) – but in general rather than in detail. Studies identifying educational disparities in the experiences and representation of minoritized students in specific fields of study have been essential expansions to this body of work (e.g., Charleston et al. 2014; Fries-Britt and Holmes 2011; Hurtado et al. 2009; Lord et al. 2019; Ong et al. 2011; Ro and Loya 2015). With critical studies of disciplinary cultures and their impacts increasingly common (e.g., Burt et al. 2018; Cech, 2013, 2014; Johnson et al., 2011; Ladson-Billings and Tate, 2006; McGee 2016), researchers will be better positioned to understand the mechanisms of inequality if education researchers view higher education institutions and educational processes as interrelated systems situated in sociohistorical contexts. Useful insights come from decades of higher education research on faculty, organizational cultures, curriculum, assessment, student development, and state and federal policy that can enlarge understandings of what happens in college and university classrooms – although as this review suggests, more research on academic learning and learning processes is needed. Concomitantly, higher education scholars would benefit from collaborations with colleagues who deeply understand the knowledge and skill base of a discipline or field as well as its pedagogical traditions. Members of both groups share a commitment to improving learning and, often, to addressing educational inequities as well. Pallas and Neumann (2019) argued that disciplinary knowledge is “higher education’s unique offering to society and something that on other current social institution can offer in depth” (p. 23). Scholars who seek to study, understand, and improve academic learning in our colleges and universities should welcome, and conduct, studies of what is learned, and how, across disciplines and fields. Studying

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the issues facing educators in different academic disciplines and fields acknowledges that students experience higher education in academic majors and programs as well as outside them. Expanding our research foci enlarges our ability to serve students, faculty, and administrators in US colleges and universities.

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Lisa R. Lattuca is Professor of Higher Education in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. In her research on curriculum, teaching and learning in higher education institutions, she uses a systems perspective to understand the different and interacting influences, both internal and external to colleges and universities, that shape academic programs, students’ educational experiences, and students’ learning. Her research often focuses on learning in engineering and science fields.

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The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same The Persistence, and Impact, of the Congruence and Assimilation Orientation in Doctoral Student Socialization and Professional Development James Soto Antony and Tamara Lynn Schaps Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organization of this Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theoretical Frameworks for Understanding Doctoral Student Socialization and Professional Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Psychological Perspectives of Career Choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sociological Perspectives on Career Choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Congruence and Assimilation Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Approaches to Understanding Career Choice that Move Us Beyond Congruence and Assimilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Approaches to Understanding Socialization that Move Us Away from Congruence and Assimilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Revisiting Antony’s Modified Framework for Doctoral Student Socialization . . . . . . . . . . . . An Agenda for Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Enhanced Advising Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Modified Programmatic Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deeply Integrated Professional Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Nearly two decades ago, Antony (2002) contributed a chapter in this Handbook entitled, Reexamining Doctoral Student Socialization and Professional Development: Moving Beyond the Congruence and Assimilation Orientation. That chapter illuminated how extant theoretical conceptions of doctoral student socialization and professional development assumed a substantial degree of congruence and assimilation on the part of doctoral students in order for them to be considered successfully socialized and professionally developed. Revisiting J. S. Antony (*) · T. L. Schaps University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7_9

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the arguments of that chapter, we now delve into new literature on graduate student socialization, and incorporate new theoretical perspectives on career choice, that serve to strengthen the original argument, leading to the articulation of a revised theoretical position. Keywords

Doctoral student · Socialization · Professional development

Introduction Nearly two decades ago, Antony (2002) contributed a piece in this Handbook entitled, Reexamining Doctoral Student Socialization and Professional Development: Moving Beyond the Congruence and Assimilation Orientation. This piece illuminated how extant theoretical conceptions of doctoral student socialization and professional development assumed a substantial degree of congruence and assimilation on the part of doctoral students in order for them to be considered successfully socialized and professionally developed. At the time Antony wrote the original piece, the availability of tenure-track academic careers was continuing a steady decline. The notion that a Ph.D. program’s sole purpose should be to train doctoral students for traditional academic careers seemed at odds with the empirical realities of the shrinking academic labor market. In addition, there was growing sentiment that many disciplines’ foundations, theories, epistemologies, and the research questions they pursued too often ignored the diversity of society. Growing more salient were arguments that disciplines could no longer justify continuing to give short shrift to, or even ignore, essential questions pertaining to communities of color, the disenfranchised, or the underrepresented (Antony 2002). Moreover, frustration was being shared with how, too often, these populations were studied in ways that marginalized them or de-centered their voices and experiences. The idea that doctoral programs were socializing and professionally developing future scholars in ways that were misaligned with the demands and promise of scholarship for a new century, Antony argued, was out of step (Antony 2002). Against this backdrop, Antony contended that doctoral students needed to be socialized and professionally developed in ways that allowed them to understand the cannon, mores, and traditions of their disciplines, while simultaneously extending them the latitude to maintain their own identities, orientations, and cultures. Antony argued that implicitly or explicitly requiring doctoral students to supplant their own identities, orientations, and cultures with those long-dominant in their disciplines – what Antony termed the congruence and assimilation orientation of socialization – was problematic. Such a requirement was also deleterious to the kind of disciplinary diversity that could be achieved if academia embraced a broader conceptualization of what it meant to successfully socialize and professionally develop a doctoral student.

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Over the past two decades our society has continued to steadily and progressively move in the direction of challenging academia to ask new questions, challenge old theories, adopt new approaches to teaching and research, and even evolve to create space for new disciplines and fields, and new subdisciplines and subfields. The academic labor market is as constricted as ever (Carey 2020; Dickey 2019; Milligan 2020). Given this, it is easy to assume that doctoral training has evolved in response, and that this training’s structure has moved in the expansive direction Antony argued for two decades ago. It is also easy to assume that, as academia has become somewhat more diverse (in its approaches, its theories, its faculty, and in whom it serves and trains) the traditional congruence and assimilation demands of doctoral student socialization and professional development that Antony identified two decades ago are no longer as prevalent today. But, as we will argue in the present piece, when it comes to the socialization and professional development approaches of doctoral education, the more things have changed the more they have stayed the same. As was true 20 years ago, traditional disciplinary Ph.D. programs continue mostly to be structured as training grounds for entry into a professoriate that no longer exists the way it once did. Even more true today than two decades ago, the availability of tenure-track academic posts in many fields has continued to decline and an everlarger percentage of doctoral degree recipients find themselves facing frustrating employment prospects, chief among them being contingent faculty positions, or other positions that create a treadmill-like existence with little chance of eventually obtaining secure academic employment (Benderly 2019; National Academy of Sciences 2014; Kolata 2016). In STEM disciplines, field-specific cultures develop, and these cultures can resist concerns about such important matters as gender and racial inequalities (Posselt 2020). Similarly, we believe that these cultures can resist acknowledgement or even discourage pursuit of alternative career pathways that are often viewed as less than desirable for doctoral degree holders. For example, often recent graduates pursue multiple postdoctoral positions over many years, with only a small handful ever converting these opportunities into stable academic employment. Most find this existence to be best described as “postdoc limbo” that, eventually, causes them to abort any dreams of an academic career (Kolata 2016; Zeddies 2017). Thankfully, many of these individuals have the potential to find employment in the scientific industry or related sectors outside of academia. But, for individuals in fields where postdoctoral opportunities are rare, many may conclude the only viable career options lie in sectors far beyond academia. This has led to a whole new terminology emerging, such as “alt-ac” careers and the “quitlit” movement to describe the phenomenon of searching for alternatives to academic careers (Flaherty 2015; Lee 2015; Linder et al. 2020; Ross 2020; Sanderson and Dugoni 1997). The growth of the so-called gig economy, in which independent contract work has become more readily available, albeit with less economic security and predictability, is yet another emerging sector where many doctoral students and underemployed recent graduates land. In these roles, students and recent graduates may find employment in which they can leverage their talents and skills to earn

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much-needed money but, all too often, not build the professional accomplishments widely considered necessary to land a traditional academic job (Kwok 2017; Wood 2018). The reduced availability of traditional academic jobs in many fields has been made worse by downturns of the economy, such as in 2008, and with the nowprojected prolonged negative economic impact from the coronavirus/COVID-19 crisis. Aside from economic reasons for the paucity of traditional academic jobs, an additional reason few tenure-track positions exist today is quite simply because of higher education’s now regularized reliance on contingent faculty and non-tenuretrack positions (Flaherty 2018; Griffey 2017; Kezar and Gehrke 2014). The above trends were evident 20 years ago, when Antony argued that the increased migration of a variety of doctoral degree recipients to alternative careers, or careers in the private sector, would require many doctoral training programs to consider reforming the structure and learning outcomes of doctoral training. But little has changed over these two decades. As we will argue, we think the inertia is rooted in fear of changing what is familiar and comfortable to faculty who are at the helm of doctoral program structural decision-making. We address this idea later in the chapter, and even suggest avenues for future research to probe this idea more deeply. Twenty years ago, Antony imagined that the changing labor market, employment prospects, and professional aspirations of doctoral degree recipients inevitably would lead to progressive program reforms aimed at assisting doctoral students in becoming more employable by increasing their skill development and breadth of learning. Sadly, such progress has been slow. As we argue in this chapter, if doctoral training continues to stubbornly adhere to the same traditional socialization and professional development demands Antony identified two decades ago, the potential for doctoral training to meet the realities of the present time and, arguably, the future, will be limited.

Organization of this Chapter In this piece, we partially echo Antony’s original argument, namely, that doctoral programs tend to structure the socialization and professional development of students in ways that demand congruence and assimilation with the dominant norms, traditions, values, and approaches of students’ respective disciplines. But rather than simply restating that original argument, we delve into new literature on graduate student socialization, as well as incorporate new theoretical perspectives on career choice, that serve to strengthen the original argument, leading to the articulation of a revised theoretical position, which appears toward the end of the chapter. As a reminder, Antony’s original argument was rooted in two theoretical traditions: career choice theory and socialization theory. As Antony explained,

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. . .career choice theorists lay the foundation for all future research on both career decisionmaking and professional career development and socialization. Career choice theorists have attempted to explain the factors that operate on the individual level to motivate career decision-making and development. Socialization theorists, on the other hand, have attempted to explain how the organization (either work or academic) has motivated individuals’ career decision-making and development. The career choice and socialization theorists share the goal of explaining career decision-making and development. Where career choice theorists do so from the standpoint of the individual, socialization theorists do so from the standpoint of the organization. (Antony 2002; Arthur and McMahon 2018)

We will strengthen the career choice and socialization theories that serve as the foundation upon which Antony’s original (and, as we argue, still relevant) argument is based. We do this by introducing two additional career choice theories that fortify Antony’s original conceptual position: planned happenstance theory and chaos theory of careers. Both bolster Antony’s original position that career choice theories point to mechanisms operating at the individual level that help us understand how doctoral programs can socialize and professionally develop students beyond requiring assimilation and congruence. We also do this by introducing recent work by scholars who, like Antony did two decades ago, make calls for refinements to socialization theory (Weidman 1989; Weidman et al. 2001) that create room for more expansive socialization and professional development approaches. Finally, when it comes to expanding socialization and professional development practices, we suggest doctoral program inertia is rooted in fear of the unknown. Specifically, most faculty members fear trying new ways of socializing or professionally developing their doctoral students because they are not sure how to do it, or what the results of new approaches would be. There has been some progress on the margins, and we review studies of progressive efforts that attempt to push the boundaries of traditional graduate program structures. We review this work and offer a new theoretical stance. We believe that fear can only be conquered by building evidence for the efficacy of new approaches. As such, we will close this chapter by articulating an agenda for further research aimed at potentially building this empirical evidence.

Theoretical Frameworks for Understanding Doctoral Student Socialization and Professional Development As Antony contended (2002), two theoretical frameworks form the foundation for understanding doctoral student socialization and professional development: (1) the psychological and sociological frameworks of career choice and professional decision-making (Antony 2002; Katz 1963; Klein and Weiner 1977; Holland 1966, 1973, 1985, 1997; Williamson 1965; Zaccaria 1970), and (2) frameworks of professional socialization (Antony 2002; Bragg 1976; Merton et al. 1957;

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Tierney and Rhoads 1994; Weidman 1989; Weidman et al. 2001). Because a detailed review of these appears in the original piece, we will summarize the main elements.

Psychological Perspectives of Career Choice Psychological theories of career choice and aspiration development began to appear in the early 1900s. These early theories were narrowly focused on career guidance in the United States and also often purported gender-specific career guidance reflective of the times. A prime example is found in the work of Parsons (1909). Parson’s approach had three basic tenets. First, an individual should establish a clear understanding of their aptitudes, abilities, interests, ambitions, resources, limitations, and of their causes. Second, an individual should establish knowledge of the requirements and conditions of success, advantages and disadvantages, compensation, opportunities, and prospects in different lines of work. Third, an individual should establish true reasoning on the relations between these two groups of facts (Parsons 1909). Rooted in Parsons’ second tenet, the perceived need to select individual workers for the training required by specific jobs became the new orientation of career choice theorists. This led to the development of numerous tests (e.g., the Minnesota aptitude tests and the Army General Classification Tests) and occupational interest inventories (Antony 1996, 2002). The testing movement formed the basis of many psychological and social-psychological theories guided by what has been called the trait and factor approach to understanding occupational choice and decision-making. Perhaps, the best-known derivative theory among all trait and factor theories of occupational decision-making is Holland’s structural-interactive theory of career choice (Holland 1966, 1973, 1985, 1997).

Trait and Factor Theory: Matching Personality and Occupations Trait and factor theory is based upon the assumption that each individual is characterized by a unique pattern of capabilities and potentialities, or what might be called traits. Trait and factor theory, very simply, suggests that these traits are correlated with the requirements of specific jobs, and successful persons in any given job will tend to possess those traits (Katz 1963; Klein and Weiner 1977; Williamson 1965; Zaccaria 1970). Although trait and factor theory led to the development of numerous tests, instruments, inventories, and scales, the application of the theory has not been without its critics, chief among them being that the theory is overly deterministic, ignoring interactions between personality and environment. In an effort to address this criticism of trait and factor theory, Holland created a structural-interactive theory of career choice (Holland 1966, 1973, 1985, 1997) and, as a result, offered what is still considered one of the most widely cited career choice theories. Holland’s Theory: A Personality-Occupation Typology Holland’s structural-interactive theory of career choice (Holland 1966, 1973, 1985, 1997) is derived from the notion that human behavior is a function of the interaction

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between individuals and their environments (Smart et al. 2000). Three components make up Holland’s theory: individuals, environments, and the fit or consonance between the two (Antony 1998a, b; Smart et al. 2000). Holland developed six basic personality types to describe both individuals’ personalities and environments: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. Much has been written about these six types, but the key idea we convey here is that Holland’s theory, like most of the psychological career choice theories before, form the theoretical basis for the congruence and assimilation orientation. For example, according to Holland, individuals can usually be viewed as belonging predominantly to one of his personality types, and environments are typically composed of individuals who share dominant personality characteristics. Ultimately, the more one resembles any particular personality type, the more likely he or she will be to exhibit the characteristics associated with that type, and the more likely he or she will be to choose to work in a job environment that is congruent with that personality type. Moreover, environments will tend to support the activities of individuals who more closely match the predominant personality type of others working in the environment. This match, or congruence, between individual and environment facilitates socialization in that individuals whose personalities are congruent with the environment are more likely to behave in ways that get rewarded and are more likely to be accepting of the culture and norms of the environment (Smart et al. 2000). Lastly, according to Holland, the congruence between individual and environment is a primary determinant of successful achievement, satisfaction, and development. Individuals who are in environments that match their personalities are more likely to change or develop in ways that are consistent with the fundamental values and norms of the environment (Smart et al. 2000). Said differently, academic or work environments are more likely to develop individuals in ways that are functional for professional success to the extent that there is a degree of consonance between the individual and the environment. Now, of course, even if one accepts the notion that certain personalities might dominate within a particular field, making such an observation falls short of explaining why or how that phenomenon of clustering occurs. Making this observation, yet failing to critically analyze how or why fields or disciplines come to be as reservoirs of certain personality types over others ignores the possibilities that there are sociological determinants at play. Holland’s theory moved traditional psychological approaches to career aspiration development away from the highly deterministic trait and factor camp toward the structural-interactive camp, which is the foundation of many sociologists’ theoretical perspectives on career choice. We will discuss this movement next, as it forms the other part of the foundation of traditional theories of graduate student socialization. First, we would like to address the language we use throughout this chapter. As we have indicated, this chapter is specifically aimed at understanding how to improve the socialization and professional development of doctoral students. But most early theoretical work addresses the broader category of graduate students. Therefore, when describing extant theories, we use the term graduate students when those theorists use that term so as to keep consistent with the language they have used. In this chapter our intent is to

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extrapolate from these early theories, to broaden these theories, and to advance new theoretical ideas that pertain specifically to doctoral students.

Sociological Perspectives on Career Choice The sociological approach to career choice and development is based upon the assumption that circumstances external to an individual, or elements beyond his or her control, have a profound influence on career aspiration. The sociological terrain has been well tread, and sociologists who have examined the relationship between social class and occupational aspiration have also concluded that variables such as race and racism, gender and gender discrimination, parental occupation and lack of opportunity, family income and poverty, place of residence and geographic descrimination, and parental marital status (to name a few) profoundly affect opportunities, training, life experiences, and professional and academic preparation. For our purposes, however, the important development within the sociological tradition is that of socialization theory. Socialization theory describes the stages or processes that individuals undergo as they evolve from early-career to full member of an occupation, and we summarize the major ideas next.

Socialization Theory Socialization is typically viewed as a process of active social engagement in which an individual or an organization directly influences the perceptions, behavior, and skill acquisition of another individual or organization. Traditional socialization theory, which we will review here, can benefit from some further refinement. We will set out to describe traditional theory and, with the introduction of new literature, offer this refinement. According to Daresh and Playko (1995), the socialization process culminates in students’ abilities to answer three key questions: (a) What do I do with the skills I have learned?; (b) What am I supposed to look like and act like in my professional field?; and (c) What do I, as a professional, look like to other professionals as I perform my new role? Weidman et al. (2001) describe socialization as an upward moving spiral carrying the new graduate student through recurring processes toward the goal of role acquisition. As the student ascends the spiral, they become more accomplished than at entry, having changed in specific ways at each step, and ultimately having been prepared to assume new professional roles. Socialization theorists such as Tierney and Rhoads (1994) and Mario (1997) have indicated that graduate and professional fields and disciplines in higher education exhibit the same structural dimensions of organizational socialization originally described by Van Maanen and Shein (1979). Borrowing from these same organizational socialization roots and from the work of Thornton and Nardi (1975), Weidman et al. (2001) describe how socialization is a developmental process. In so doing, Weidman et al. (2001) point out that identity and role commitment are not

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accomplished completely during professional preparation, but rather continue to evolve even after individuals begin professional practice. Thinking about socialization as a developmental process essentially ascribes a serial nature to the development of identity, commitment, and role acquisition. This serial development takes the early-career individual from initial thinking about what it might be like to be a member of a particular role and, through interactions with the training or professional preparation process, socializes them to become an accepted member of that profession or role. Throughout that socialization process, the new individual’s conceptions of self and the role are challenged. These classical stage theories of socialization see the ultimate end of socialization as being one in which the early-career individual has adopted not only the identity of the role, but also the values and norms of the profession (for a more complete description of socialization theory, including its developmental aspects and core elements, see Antony 2002).

Socialization Theory and Doctoral Student Socialization The conceptions of the socialization process we have reviewed underscore that, during the socialization process, doctoral students explore aspects of themselves and ideas about the career or field that go beyond their own original conceptions. These new conceptions may be uncomfortable at times, but socialization theory makes it clear that it is through a reconciliation of these newer ideas and, eventually, an adoption or integration of these ideas, that an individual becomes socialized into a field. Similar to how Thornton and Nardi (1975), Weidman et al. (2001) describe, in the case of doctoral students, socialization can be thought of as a developmental process. In the initial stages of program identification and entry, the student carries great expectations and anticipations about what it will be like to be a student in a particular field and in a particular institution. During this initial anticipatory stage, a student becomes aware of the behavioral, attitudinal, and cognitive expectations held for a graduate student, as well as for a professional in the chosen field. Role acquisition and identity formation occur in a serial nature. Through interactions with fellow students, faculty, and the overall professional preparation process, the new doctoral student is taken from their earliest thinking about what it might be like to be a member of a particular field to becoming an accepted member of that field. Along the way, the student picks up new skills, makes increased commitments and investments to the field, and becomes increasingly involved in the field. As knowledge increases, investments continue, and as involvement intensifies the student gains insights into professional ideology, motives, and attitudes. Ultimately, adopting these motives, attitudes and ideologies brings about professional role identification. This role identification becomes the hallmark of socialization and allows the student to actually want to become, and be successful as, a member of the profession. This is what is the primary indicator of the student having been successfully socialized into the profession. As Antony (2002) argued before, psychological theories of career choice and the basic elements of socialization theory both have face validity and, as such, seem to accurately describe the socialization demands and professional development

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structure of most doctoral programs. Antony (2002) gave these demands and structure a name: the congruence and assimilation orientation.

The Congruence and Assimilation Orientation As in Antony (2002) our description of the psychological and sociological theories of career choice, and in our subsequent presentation of socialization theory, aimed to expose where the congruence and assimilation orientation finds its roots, theoretically speaking. But what is meant by the congruence and assimilation orientation? In short, the congruence and assimilation orientation found throughout psychological and sociological theories of career choice, and in socialization theory, requires the internalization or adoption of a profession’s norms, values, and ethics so that the early career individual’s own professional identity and self-image are defined by them. This internalization or adoption asks a student to replace their own norms and values with those of the field one aspires to enter. So the argument goes, to the extent a student’s own values are congruent with those of the field, they will tend to maximize their chances of being a successful professional in that field. As we have already stated, the congruence and assimilation orientation is limiting for a host of reasons. Nonetheless, it persists. Conceptually, this orientation finds its roots in traditional career choice and socialization theories. More recent developments in these two broad theoretical areas, however, open up avenues leading away from the strict congruence and assimilation demands of earlier career choice and socialization theories. It is to these we turn next, as they illuminate new ways of imagining how to structure doctoral student socialization and professional development that do not require congruence and assimilation.

New Approaches to Understanding Career Choice that Move Us Beyond Congruence and Assimilation Even though Holland’s more refined structural-interactive theory describes the socialization demands of most graduate programs, Antony (2002) argued for an expanded conceptualization – one that did not assume the need for congruence and, as Antony added, assimilation. Holland’s theory, and all career choice theories before it, operate with an assumed sense of order, a need for predictability undergirded by an epistemology rooted in the measurability of a career path and the elements that make up a successful match or fit within that career path. What seems missing from early career choice theories, including Holland’s, is the recognition that career choice may have an element of unpredictability, and may not easily be assumed to follow the logic and order conveyed by a search for fit or congruence. More recently, newer theories have emerged in the career development literature. Two conceptualizations of career choice, in particular, eliminate the demand for congruence and assimilation as a measure of a successful career choice and pursuit and in fact encourage preparation for unexpected events, uncertainty, and transitions.

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After describing these two theories, we will show how they help to broaden our theoretical conceptualizations of doctoral student socialization in a manner that makes clear the disadvantages of requiring congruence and assimilation.

Planned Happenstance Theory (a.k.a. Happenstance Learning Theory) Planned Happenstance Theory or Happenstance Learning Theory (HLT) was introduced in 1999 by Mitchell, Levin, and Krumboltz and centers the concept of chance within the career development process (Mitchell et al. 1999). It posits that human behavior is the product of learning experiences made available by both planned and unplanned situations. Every situation can be seen as presenting potential opportunities, if individuals can recognize them and then take action to capitalize on them. It emerged in response to both the rapid pace of change driven by the knowledge economy and also the need for a career theory that addressed increasing levels of career uncertainty. As it became more common for workers to pursue nonlinear and less predictable career pathways and hold many different jobs over a lifetime (or even at the same time, such as in contract work), the trait and factor theories of the past were no longer sufficient. Job complexity also has increased and the skills needed to succeed in an ever-changing knowledge economy continue to shift away from the “hard” skills of the industrial economy and towards the “soft” skills in demand today (Pew Research Center 2016). It is known that unexpected events over which we have no control happen all the time and produce surprising results. HLT posits that although it seems we have no control over such events, we actually can control the actions we take in response and capitalize on the outcomes we experience, whatever they may be (Krumboltz et al. 2013). Developing the skills needed to recognize these chance events and learning to harness such events for strategic use in one’s career is vital. Central to HLT are five skills: (1) curiosity: exploring new learning opportunities, (2) persistence: exerting effort despite setbacks, (3) flexibility: changing attitudes and circumstances, (4) optimism: viewing new opportunities as possible and attainable, and (5) risk taking: taking action in the face of uncertain outcomes (Mitchell et al. 1999). We explore each of these in-depth and discuss why these skills are important for doctoral students to develop, how doctoral students are uniquely suited to develop these skills, and how these same skills might also help doctoral students socialize into their academic disciplines in healthier and more productive (i.e., without feeling the need to capitulate to demands of congruence and assimilation) ways. 1. Curiosity: exploring new learning opportunities Throughout childhood, most people are exposed to a very limited number of careers. When asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” many children will answer with the jobs of their parents or with a job they’ve already encountered early in life, such as a doctor, teacher, or dentist (Baloch and Shah 2014). These simple answers are common because most people have little exposure to the broad array of careers that exist in the world even though new jobs and careers are being

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invented each day (Institute for the Future & Dell Technologies 2017). Consider that 5 years ago there was no such thing as an Uber driver and 10 years ago there was no such thing as a paid “social influencer.” This rapid pace of change in the modern world of work calls us to remain curious about career options and be open to exploring new learning opportunities. This willingness to explore and learn is important to career success over a lifetime, perhaps more now than ever before due to the rapid pace of change and constant uncertainty in the world of work. Ensuring doctoral students are prepared for such a rapidly evolving career landscape is challenging, especially when traditional preparation programs still rely upon congruence and assimilation approaches that often aim students towards the narrow career goal of a tenure-track faculty position, a goal that most graduate degree holders may never achieve. Doctoral students should be encouraged to embrace curiosity and expand their career knowledge by identifying multiple career pathways that could bring them satisfaction. For example, a doctoral student interested in a tenure-track faculty role at a research university should reflect upon the most appealing aspects of that role, such as job duties, required skills, and nature of the work. Next, students should research and identify 3–5 additional jobs that require those same skills and arrange informational interviews with people (alumni are perfect for this!) currently performing that work; meeting with a mentor or career advisor can be helpful to identify potential interviewees. HLT encourages this type of purposeful career curiosity and developing curiosity in doctoral students will prepare them well for the modern world of work. 2. Persistence: exerting effort despite setbacks Resilience and persistence are important career development skills to master because the modern knowledge economy has created stiff competition for roles now requiring advanced degrees, making it harder to stand out in a crowd of qualified applicants (Powell and Snellman 2004). With increased competition in the job market, it’s likely that applicants will experience more rejection and hence must be able to bounce back and learn from rejection. Career setbacks take many forms and HLT reminds us that it’s important to plan for the unexpected events so that we can capitalize on them. One way to do this is to develop high levels of resilience and practice overcoming roadblocks in everyday life. For doctoral students, persistence is often cultivated through the processes of research and experimentation that are central hallmarks of graduate study. For example, a Ph.D. student in performing arts who experiments with a new dance technique may envision the movement series with a particular pattern, cadence, and emotion, but it takes multiple hours of practice before that vision is achieved. Between conceptualizing the idea and achieving the end vision is where persistence grows; the many failed attempts to execute the pattern perfectly, followed by the rushed cadence of several unfocused rehearsals, or the inability to access the appropriate emotion at the exact right moment to bring the piece to life. Yet the doctoral student returns to the stage time and again to overcome the setbacks and push forward towards achieving the vision—this is persistence. HLT prioritizes

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persistence and doctoral students who understand how they are developing and practicing this skill are poised for career success. 3. Flexibility: changing attitudes and circumstances Being able to adapt and flex when plans change unexpectedly or to realign a viewpoint when exposed to a new perspective is an important skill to harness when preparing for the modern world of work. Although the knowledge economy often requires deep content expertise or specialized skills for a particular job, applicants who can demonstrate not only a match in expertise and skills but also a willingness (or even an eagerness!) to adapt and grow with the organization are very appealing. The old adage of “other duties as assigned” is still included in many job descriptions, demonstrating the continued desire of many organizations to hire those who are able to change their attitudes and adapt to unexpected and new circumstances with relative ease. Doctoral programs should find ways to imbed more purposeful opportunities for students to learn flexibility. A recent example of both institutions and students unexpectedly being called upon to demonstrate extreme flexibility was during the global pandemic in early 2020 when thousands of universities across the United States moved to entirely remote learning formats seemingly overnight in order to stop the spread of coronavirus/COVID-19 on their campuses while also maintaining educational continuity (Chronicle of Higher Education 2020; Witze 2020). This rapid and extreme shift in learning modalities has proven that when pushed, higher education institutions and the undergraduate and doctoral students, who both teach and learn within these institutions, can flex and adapt quickly. While not discounting the need to assess the effectiveness of these shifts in learning modalities, HLT purports that in order to capitalize on the many chance events in a lifetime, we must practice being flexible, so it’s vital that graduate programs find ways to cultivate this skill in students. 4. Optimism: viewing new opportunities as possible and attainable Learning about new or different career options may be overwhelming for doctoral students and in particular for those who have only ever had one solitary career goal up to that moment. Career exploration is not for the faint of heart and it requires an optimistic approach that centers on one’s ability to envision oneself obtaining and succeeding in a particular career. Self-efficacy is envisioning being able to achieve a realistic goal and also identifying the steps one must take in order to get there. For example, we can assume that doctoral students, in general, have fairly high levels of self-efficacy, since they successfully applied for and were accepted into an advanced degree program through a competitive admission process – even if the ways in which that admissions process works are opaque to many applicants (Posselt 2018). However, with the increasing numbers of diverse students entering graduate programs, it is important to examine the many factors that may influence one’s ability to “see oneself” as able to succeed in a particular career, such as traditional

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gender stereotypes, cultural norms, family expectations, or access to career guidance structures. Even if one is optimistic about newly discovered career opportunities, that doesn’t automatically translate to having optimism about one’s ability to attain the career goal. This is where faculty advisors and mentors can play crucial roles in helping doctoral students cultivate career optimism and high levels of self-efficacy so they are ready to pursue new career goals that may emerge during their time in school. 5. Risk taking: taking action in the face of uncertain outcomes Courage is a major component of career success and one must act courageously when taking risks in the face of career uncertainty, such as accepting a job offer that requires a cross country move to a small town in the rural Midwest or calling the hiring manager to follow-up on the interview that didn’t go very well for a job you really want. HLT centers on embracing the uncertainty that is increasingly present in life, recognizing the risk inherent within each event or nonevent, and harnessing the energy purposefully to take action in order to achieve success. Risk taking is a personal endeavor and each individual has differing levels of risk tolerance that ebb and flow throughout life depending upon circumstance (Warrell 2013). For example, a 25-year-old single doctoral student may have a higher risk tolerance than they will at age 35 when they are married with children. Taking risks related to career development is usually a smart move and almost always the risk feels greater than it actually is (Warrell 2013). Moreover, with taking risks comes reaping rewards and in the realm of career development the rewards can be exponential. For example, doctoral students could be encouraged to develop a practice of risk taking in their own professional development. This practice may involve intentionally reflecting on a career challenge the student is facing, identifying the barriers that exist as well as the opportunities to overcome, assessing risks and developing an action plan, implementing the plan, and then debriefing afterwards to see if the risk paid off.

Summary of HLT: Relationship to the Doctoral Student Experience HLT calls for a move away from the traditional approach of congruence and assimilation as the primary means of socialization and instead centers on an approach where a doctoral student’s life experiences, values, fears, and goals are welcomed into the conversation and play a central role in determining potential career pathways. Doctoral students experience nonlinear pathways as they navigate their degree programs and progress through the socialization process. The five dimensions we have described show the potential for HLT to free a doctoral student from having to identify one single occupational goal, such as a tenured faculty role at a research university, and instead encourages the asking of broader questions like what kind of work might make the student happy or allow them to live their values. These questions are asked so students think broadly about potential career options and remain open to possibilities with the aim of capitalizing on the inevitable chance

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events that interrupt the plan (such as job loss, not receiving an expected job offer, or even discovering a dream job doesn’t actually make you happy). As we know, no matter how much planning goes into a career goal, there is a high likelihood that an unexpected chance event will change the course of that goal over time. Especially in today’s volatile world of work, helping doctoral students develop skills like curiosity, persistence, flexibility, optimism, and risk-taking is vital.

Chaos Theory of Careers (CTC) Chaos Theory of Careers (CTC) was introduced by Bright and Pryor (2005) and recognizes that individuals are complex systems and also are part of interconnected systems that continually influence both stability and change within and beyond those systems. Nonlinearity and recursiveness are two important concepts that define CTC; nonlinearity describes when elements add up to more than the sum of their parts and recursiveness is how elements within and between systems influence one another in unexpected ways (Bright and Pryor 2005). Although systems can seem predictable and stable on some levels, they are susceptible to sudden changes that could dramatically alter outcomes. As such, it’s important to understand the elements and variables that comprise the system so individuals can capitalize on chance events and learn to make broad predictions about potential outcomes. Similar to the Happenstance Learning Theory discussed above, CTC centers on change, but goes even further by situating change within complex and interactive systems. This view of career development again moves us away from traditional trait and factor approaches by recognizing the need to continually revise career goals due to the constant changes happening within and between individuals and systems. In order to create doctoral programs that encourage an examination of, and flexibility to revise, career goals four key constructs of complexity, change, chance, and construction must be understood by those who hope to capitalize on chance events (Bright and Pryor 2011). We will explore each of these in-depth and discuss how understanding these aspects of CTC can help doctoral students prepare for successful careers and succeed in their academic programs. We will also show how CTC offers new strategies for socializing doctoral students into their academic disciplines, intentionally moving beyond outdated and potentially harmful congruence and assimilation approaches. 1. Complexity: consisting of multiple detailed parts Individuals are complex and the intersectionality of various identities and their impacts on careers has been underestimated in traditional career theories that rely on static codes or types. CTC recognizes the importance of continually examining the whole person, their networks, as well the environment, and external influencers instead of assuming an individual has complete agency over their own career decisions or that career goals remain static. Acknowledging that career development is a complex and ever-changing process occurring continuously over the lifespan can be freeing, especially for doctoral students who may feel pressure to pursue one steady career goal during a degree program.

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Encouraging doctoral students to understand and eventually embrace complexity in both academic and career environments is a helpful exercise. For example, doctoral students should be encouraged to explore the various systems, identities, and contexts that influence their career goals and to share openly with colleagues as well as mentors and faculty advisors who can help them make meaning of these complexities. Understanding how one’s familial background, religious beliefs, or racial identity impacts their career goals can be incredibly helpful (as we will see, below, other researchers make a similar argument) and graduate school would be an ideal time to consider how those goals intersect with one’s chosen academic discipline. 2. Change: constant movement or alteration Change is a central tenet of CTC and should be examined closely by doctoral students who themselves are experiencing significant life change as they begin and progress through their degree programs. Viewing change as a constant in career as well as understanding one’s own orientation towards change can be a helpful frame of reference. For example, doctoral students might find it helpful to reflect upon the significant changes they’ve encountered during their transition to graduate school – what unexpected roadblocks they overcame, what surprised them, how it felt to be accepted/rejected from a program, what it was like to leave a job to attend school, how their families felt about relocating, and the list continues (Watson and Kenny 2014). Acknowledging how change has impacted their careers thus far, how these changes have made them feel, and how multiple changes often interconnect across various systems can normalize change and help prepare doctoral students to navigate it successfully in the future. 3. Chance: the possibility that something might occur The role of chance events largely has been neglected in career theory, yet they are now the norm (Bright et al. 2005). In today’s rapidly changing world we face surprising yet increasingly common chance events like global pandemics, devastating natural disasters, and polarizing political figures, so it’s vital to incorporate chance into career planning. By understanding the role of chance and learning to recognize chance events, individuals can begin to capitalize on them (Bright et al. 2005). Our reading of CTC would suggest benefits to doctoral students of learning about chance because doctoral students are surrounded by countless chance encounters, both at the macro (e.g., at the level of the discipline or field) and micro (e.g., at the level of their specific doctoral program) as they progress through a degree program. Introducing doctoral students to the concept of chance should be coupled with an introduction to positive uncertainty, which helps individuals make decisions in times of uncertainty and capitalize on chance events (Gelatt and Gelatt 2003). For example, encouraging a doctoral student to make a list of 3–5 appealing and achievable careers as a way of increasing confidence when one or more options doesn’t work

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out or helping a doctoral student identify chance events by expanding their viewpoint to include not only the shocking events, like by chance being injured in a motor vehicle accident and needing to go on leave, but also more common events like attending a birthday party and by chance meeting the hiring manager from a dream organization and receiving an internship offer (Bright and Pryor 2005). Creating positive uncertainty around chance events can help familiarize doctoral students with what they will inevitably encounter in professional settings and is good preparation for career success. Ultimately the goal might be to prime doctoral students to recognize and capitalize on chance events. By this we mean that students could perhaps be taught to reframe chance events as opportunities for new outcomes, rather than becoming paralyzed when something unexpected happens and interrupts their previous plans. 4. Construction: building something out of different parts Construction is the act of claiming agency over one’s own life and making choices about the complex systems, constant change, and chance events that influence careers. Because humans crave predictability we often lean heavily on the methods that allow for us to set goals and plan ahead, however these plans can go awry and we must learn to navigate through inevitable challenges. One navigation strategy is to identify the patterns that guide our careers over time and to rely upon these patterns to guide decision-making in times of uncertainty. CTC provides several tools to assist with identifying the patterns that exist within complex systems, including attractors, fractals, nonlinearity, emergence, and phase shifts, which we will not dive into deeply here, beyond acknowledging that identifying the patterns within complex systems can help individuals become active participants in creating their careers, rather than passive watchers of the process (Bright and Pryor 2011).

Summary of CTC: Relationship to the Doctoral Student Experience To help doctoral students construct meaningful careers, they should be encouraged to identify the complex systems at play in their lives, embrace the constant change that surrounds them, and recognize the importance of chance events (some might even choose to frame such chance events as opportunities). Universities and the graduate degree programs housed within them are complex systems, so learning to identify and navigate complexity early on is an important step to successful doctoral student socialization. Next, embracing change and capitalizing on chance events are also helpful socialization strategies in preparation for modern career pathways, in particular for careers outside of academia. Higher education institutions are not necessarily known for eagerly embracing change or capitalizing on chance events, so it will be important for graduate program administrators and faculty alike to think creatively about how to develop these competencies in students and perhaps even incorporate these competencies into graduate program curricula. These strategies do not align with traditional congruence and assimilation approaches to socialization that still are prevalent in graduate education. Doctoral students are still expected to fit into predictable methods of operation, expected roles,

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or singular careers and often are not professionally developed in ways that prepare them for success in the modern world of work. Change and chance are newer ideas in the career development literature and more empirical research is needed to discern the efficacy of these theories when applied to graduate education and students. Often university faculty and program administrators fear what they do not know, so it’s not surprising that these newer career development concepts haven’t become commonplace in doctoral student socialization. Now is the time to take actionable steps towards making such changes in graduate education to ensure that doctoral students have positive experiences while enrolled and also are well prepared for a lifetime of career success upon graduation. Both CTC and HLT provide two frameworks from where graduate programs might start looking for new approaches to how they socialize students.

New Approaches to Understanding Socialization that Move Us Away from Congruence and Assimilation Recent work from contemporary scholars examines many facets of socialization. Much of this work raises critical questions about traditional theoretical conceptions of socialization, calls for a centering of minoritized students’ experiences, and challenges faculty members to take up the mantle of creating structural change. We find this work not only helpful in expanding theoretical conceptions of socialization, but also useful in supporting our core argument that congruence and assimilation, though still a feature of doctoral programs’ socialization and professional development approaches, remain problematic and limiting. What follows is a brief summary of some of these scholars’ supporting ideas, followed by a clarified statement of a modified doctoral student socialization framework.

Critical Approaches: Centering the Experiences of Minoritized Students Garcia et al. (2020) use Latino Critical Theory and Community Cultural Wealth as guiding frameworks to enhance Weidman’s model and make it more relevant to Latinx students. Their core argument is that students of color should not have to assimilate in order to succeed in educational environments, and that many models don’t account for the need to navigate larger systems of oppression or different success frameworks. They critique Weidman’s theory for not appropriately accounting for the assets and values brought by minoritized students, in particular cultural wealth, and its impact on student success. In addition, Garcia et al. (2020) point out that the lack of other Latinx graduate students as well as predominantly white faculty/staff make graduate-level socialization more challenging for Latinx students. Having a Latinx faculty mentor, and a curriculum that supports and addresses Latinx perspectives can reduce the tension between the scholarly or professional identities dominant in a field and the racial identities of Latinx students. We agree with Garcia et al. (2020) when they call for revised models of socialization, and when they call upon institutions, faculty, and staff to disrupt the legacy

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of discrimination, exclusion, and white supremacy pervasive on college campuses. We also agree with their suggestions that, right now, the socialization demands on college campuses can often be detrimental to Latinx graduate students. New models should examine how Latinx students’ cultural assets and wealth may actually change and enhance the university (instead of only asking how the university changes the student), while also enhancing a student’s own identity development (Garcia et al. 2020). Communities of support that students bring with them to graduate school are assets that are intertwined with their socialization experiences. These communities of support should not be separated out in models of socialization. And, they should not be disregarded or depicted in ways that suggest students’ reliance upon these communities of support is, by default, deleterious to successful socialization. Griffin et al. (2020) show how Black and Latinx graduate students struggle to establish relationships that translate into connections within their fields of study, particularly in STEM fields where numbers are small. Many encounter racism or low expectations from mentors. Griffin et al. (2020) indicate that at the core of good mentoring lies an inclination to offer specific guidance through core tasks; overall advocacy of the student, balancing support with autonomy; and exposure to key experiences. They discuss how effective mentors play a key role in providing opportunities for students to engage in the work of scientists (lab research, presentations, teaching, etc.); provide care and personal connection; and guide their students towards opportunities for learning and knowledge acquisition all while providing psychosocial and emotional support within a broader programmatic culture of care. Mentors who push students to achieve while also showing confidence in their abilities to succeed are socialized to understand the idea that mistakes and challenges are just part of doing good science (Griffin et al. 2020).

The Role of Faculty in Reshaping Socialization Phelps-Ward (2020) advances emancipatory research counter-spaces as a framework for examining socialization. In so doing, Phelps-Ward (2020) introduces intersectional identities as another important aspect of graduate student socialization to consider. In this conception of a doctoral program socialization and professional development approach, administrators and faculty acknowledge the racialized experiences of students, and the power of race and racism in shaping the experiences of Black doctoral students (Phelps-Ward 2020). Key to our understanding of effective socialization structures is the idea that graduate programs must center race in research and practice in order to dismantle systems that inhibit student success, and that this is not the responsibility of the students to do – it is the responsibility of graduate programs (Phelps-Ward 2020). By centering race and racism, faculty mentors are encouraged to ask themselves questions about race in mentorship and how they feel about mentoring students from other racial backgrounds. This faculty-driven inquiry takes the pressure off of students to do this stressful work and instead places the burden on faculty and administrators. And, simply put, centering race and racism in the curriculum and in structural decision-making provides a better environment within which minoritized students, and all other students, can develop and learn.

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Three realms for successfully socizaling and professionally developing Black doctoral students are identified by Phelps-Ward (2020). The first revolves around faculty advising, and includes: using holistic, asset-based approaches to understand a student’s background, adopting a variety of teaching strategies that incorporate diverse perspectives, and developing racial awareness of how to mentor diverse students. The second revolves around programmatic-level approaches, such as creating collaborative faculty-student research opportunities, organized programlevel or cohort-based mentoring, seriously examining what prevents successful Black faculty recruitment and retention, developing more robust avenues for students to offer programs feedback, and incorporating anti-racism into the curriculum. A third area, which can be described as extra-programmatic, involved codifying support beyond the institution through enhancing deeper student connections with professional associations and mentorship organizations, and creating additional training opportunities outside of the program or university, perhaps in affiliated organizations, industry, and so forth (Phelps-Ward 2020). Ultimately, it is also the responsibility of faculty and administrators to create structural support for Black doctoral students to ensure their success (Phelps-Ward 2020). Faculty members are the ones who determine how doctoral programs are structured, and have the power to make systemic changes. What this work advances is a philosophical orientation that faculty members could consider adopting that would lead to actual structural changes that reshape doctoral student socialization and professional development. These changes would maximize the chances that doctoral programs socialize students in ways that are not limited by congruence and assimilation.

Adopting an Assets-Based (or Anti-Deficit) Approach Similarly, Winkle-Wagner et al. (2020) make an argument similar to the anticongruence and assimilation view we are advancing here, and that Antony (2002) originally offered. Specifically, Winkle-Wagner et al. (2020) state that “...one reason for the persistence of racial inequities is the often-used one-way socialization process in graduate programs that assumes that students must set aside their differences to integrate themselves and their ideas into the norms of their disciplines” (p. 74). By examining how social reproduction theory applies to Black student socialization, Winkle-Wagner et al. (2020) use this theoretical approach to discuss how the oneway socialization process can be disrupted. They outline how aspiration capital is brought to the table by students and, when a graduate program uses a bi-directional socialization process, students’ backgrounds can be leveraged as assets rather than something that has to be given up in order to succeed. This is a concept also discussed by critical race theorists and, in particular, Yosso (2005). There is ample evidence to suggest that an assets-based approach that values students’ backgrounds and experiences makes for better learning environments. The same mechanisms that operate in theories of social reproduction (i.e., use and value of cultural and social capital) operate here, except that the backgrounds underrepresented students bring to graduate school can be seen as forms of capital that, if the graduate program allows it (i.e., the programs do not demand congruence and

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assimilation), can be useful to students’ development and socialization. Of course, this requires connecting the social capital of origin families to academia in a way that encourages academia to value that capital. What is evident is that contemporary scholars continue to raise this issue and interrogate why little has changed either in academia, generally, or within doctoral programs, specifically.

The Role of Mentoring and Advising, and its Long-Term Impact Several scholars, such as Baker (2020), Gardner and Doore (2020), and Perry and Abruzzo (2020), have also studied the socialization of doctoral students into professional careers. Baker (2020) examined the early-career socialization of faculty in liberal arts colleges, and the role of mission as driver of behavior, governance, and success. What Baker found was that graduate school in research university environments does a poor job of preparing or socializing these individuals for early faculty careers in liberal arts colleges. Baker (2020) compares and contrasts the Weidman model (Weidman 1989; Weidman et al. 2001) to career cycles and learning approaches to understanding the early careers of faculty. This research makes evident that early career socialization needs organizational networks that are fostered at the college or university level and move beyond the expertise of single mentors, as older mentors’ expertise might be out of date. What is evident in this research is that the role of advisors or mentors impacts not only the experiences during the doctoral program years for a student, but also impacts the kind of faculty member a doctoral student becomes. Advisors and mentors really matter and, as such, Baker’s (2020) work suggests that doctoral students need to develop their own networks (both with other senior individuals and within societies and associations, etc.) that allow them to tap into mentoring outside of their own doctoral programs. In recognition of this, Baker suggests that doctoral programs need to invest in departments, to make sure structures and supports are embedded to aid doctoral students’ wider network formation activities, and that – within liberal arts colleges – continued socialization and support of junior faculty must happen within departments. Mentoring Students for More than Just Academic Careers Gardner and Doore (2020) examine how well doctoral programs socialize doctoral students for a diverse set of careers. They argue that doctoral programs need to move away from simply socializing for academic careers and, instead, need to professionalize students for other careers. They suggest that current programmatic socialization approaches prepare students with an outdated map to pursue one particular kind of career, but – as we have stated earlier in the chapter – it’s highly likely nowadays that a graduate will pursue multiple different types of careers and, as a result, needs to be professionally prepared to do so (Gardner and Doore 2020). Echoing elements of Baker’s (2020) work reviewed, above, Gardner and Doore (2020) underscore the essential role of advisors, but clearly show that advisors are limited in their traditional approaches, unless they are deeply connected to industry or sectors outside of academia that might be attractive to their students. They

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helpfully point out that effective doctoral student socialization and professionalization are facilitated by mentors who know how to keep track of job market trends, and are able to help doctoral students stay current with the realities of the job market (Gardner and Doore 2020). By extension, these mentors would structure their programs’ socialization approaches in such a way as to help doctoral students develop skills relevant to the existing job market (Gardner and Doore 2020). In essence, Gardner and Doore (2020) remind us that effective doctoral student socialization and professional development provides professional development programs and collects data on employment outcomes of alumni that can be used to guide enhancement of future socialization and professional development efforts.

International Students and Socialization The literature reinforces the idea that doctoral programs need to more effectively recognize the characteristics of doctoral students, themselves. We saw elements of this in the literature reviewed, above, which called for the centering of minoritized students’ experiences, and in the need for doctoral programs to adopt an assets-based structural approach. Similarly, a growing focus of the literature is on international students, both those matriculating within US-based programs, and those in programs outside the US. International students constitute a large percentage of doctoral students in the United States, especially in STEM areas. When considering the socialization and professional development needs of international students, several scholars have discussed the ways in which traditional socialization and professional development approaches fail to aid international student adjustment and success. Veliz (2020) reminds us that international graduate students face unique challenges, including navigating different national, institutional, and educational cultures and customs. At times, these students face culture shock, language barriers, and challenges when trying to connect with domestic peers. Mentorship is critical for international student success, but programs need to help international students understand what is meant by mentorship in the United States, especially when defining what a mentoring relationship will entail, and how to go about identifying a mentor early on in a doctoral degree program (Veliz 2020). With all the challenges international students face, they may need a different kind of socialization that recognizes the unique aspects of their experiences. (Veliz 2020). This conclusion is not dissimilar from one we might arrive at when considering the critical race perspectives reviewed above, or when considering how to make doctoral programs more responsive to the assets that minoritized students bring into programs. Our analysis, conceptually, is that the literature is arriving at a type of convergence here – whether discussing minoritized US-based students, or international students studying in the USA, scholars are making clear that the structure of doctoral education needs to shift in ways that make it more responsive to these students, centers their needs and experiences, and promotes the kind of advising and mentoring that diversifies how students are supported (so as to not restrict students’ outcomes to academic careers, alone). More evidence for our analysis can be found in examining literature that studies international students. When probing international graduate student socialization,

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with a particular focus on Chinese tourism and hospitality graduate students, Sonnenschein (2020) examines how “Work Integrated Learning” can lead to successful socialization. Sonnenschein’s underlying premise is that international students need additional support securing professional opportunities due to language barriers and more limited in-country networks. Sonnenschein introduces the concept of graduate programs preparing students for boundaryless careers. The idea here is that few employees now spend their whole careers in or at one place. As such, the necessity for developing career management skills among all international graduate students, and professionally developing them to become increasingly comfortable with professional transitions, looms large. Again, the core argument in Sonnenschein is that, even in highly professional graduate programs like hospitality or tourism, traditional (and restrictive) approaches to socialization and professional development abound – in this case, to the detriment of international students. It is not lost on us that we have heard this refrain in the literature before. Traditional approaches to socialization and professional development may be perceived as effective in shaping a narrow set of career possibilities (i.e., academic careers), but do little to effectively shape the futures of those who choose other types of careers. Of course, our analysis suggests that the literature is calling into question whether traditional forms of socialization and professional development are even doing, if they ever did, a good job preparing doctoral students for traditional faculty careers, as Baker (2020) reminds us, above. Similarly, when examining the socialization of doctoral students in Germany, Hottenrott and Menter (2020) reinforce the notion that more integrated, more deeply coordinated, socialization and professional development structures can aid doctoral student success. Specifically, they introduce the notion of shifting doctoral programs towards shorter, more structured programs organized around Research Training Groups, which are interdisciplinary and international groups that focus on collective identity development, and that distinguish between formal and informal socialization. Such programs help students understand the nature of both random and sequential steps through the doctoral education experience, allow for flexibility so that pacing through the program is not always fixed but can at times be purposefully variable (Hottenrott and Menter 2020). Our analysis is that helping students understand the nature of both random and sequential steps through the doctoral education experience might be a structural feature that leverages what, conceptually, both Planned Happenstance Theory and Chaos Theory of Careers (reviewed above) suggest as optimal best practice.

Revisiting Antony’s Modified Framework for Doctoral Student Socialization The advancement of career choice theory makes clear that congruence and assimilation are no longer needed as elements in a conceptual foundation undergirding the study of career choice and decision-making, nor are these seen as requirements for

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guiding work with individuals when assessing what accurately describes the career choice process. Likewise, contemporary critiques of socialization theory continue to be aimed at the shortcomings of congruence and assimilation as conceptual requirements for guiding studies of effective socialization and, by extension, professional development of doctoral students. These socialization studies provide evidence that doctoral programs – in their very structures and socialization approaches – remain rooted in traditionalism, still demanding congruence and assimilation. The modified framework for doctoral student socialization Antony (2002) initially created still has currency. And, yet, given recent work in both career choice and socialization theory, the Antony framework can be enhanced in ways that strengthen its capacity to describe methods doctoral programs can use to divest from the congruence and assimilation orientation. The original Antony (2002) framework described three components that make up doctoral programs which have the capacity to socialize and professionally develop students in ways that extend beyond simple congruence and assimilation. Specifically, such doctoral programs: 1. Instill an awareness of a field’s content, values, and norms without expecting a student to accept those values and norms as one’s own 2. Allow room for more than one method for socializing doctoral students 3. Enhance, and support the assertion of, intellectual individuality Revisiting this framework, and taking into account advances in career choice and socialization theories, we assert that the framework must do more. The literature continues to support the idea that doctoral programs should help students develop an awareness of, versus developing a personal acceptance of, a field’s content, values, and norms. This type of socialization recognizes that an individual can master content and develop the acumen to work within the traditional norms, values, and standards of a profession without having to internalize, or accept as one’s own, those norms, values, and standards. A doctoral student socialized in this way learns about the values and norms that drive a profession but is not expected to adopt those values and norms as his or her own to be considered successfully socialized. Our reading of modern sociological theories suggests that there is one more requirement on the way to helping students develop an awareness of, versus developing a personal acceptance of, a field’s content, values, and norms: namely, to simultaneously encourage students do this work while critically questioning the role their field’s content, values, and norms play in devaluing traditionally marginalized people and their lived experiences. This critical stance will serve to enhance scholarship in every field, and also embed an additional value – that of centering the marginalized – which can only serve to finally decenter the traditionalism (too often rooted in unexamined race/racism, whiteness, gender bias, patriarchy, social classism, elitism, homophobia, xenophobia, and so forth) that has historically shaped the structure of graduate training. It is hard to be all those things when, at the very core of a program’s structure, lies the imperative to critically examine the roots of a field’s content, values, and norms.

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Our reading of current career choice and socialization theory also lends evidence for the continued assertion for the second component of Antony’s framework: allow room for more than one method for socializing and professionally developing doctoral students. Yet, we believe this component now needs elaboration in order to account for new theoretical advances. Simply stating programs should allow for a diversity of socialization approaches is too anemic a statement in that it allows for some of those methods to be the now well-understood ineffective approaches of hands-off, disinvested, and disconnected from broader extra-discipline developments and demands. Such an anemic statement also allows space for programs to adopt socialization and professional development approaches that are hostile, and do not place student wellness at their center. Continuing to use ineffective socialization and professional development approaches, especially when ample empirical evidence illuminates their ineffectiveness, is tantamount to educational malpractice. Therefore, a modified statement of the second component of Antony’s framework must make clear that doctoral training that is not rooted in congruence and assimilation doesn’t just allow room for multiple methods of socialization, but specifically adopts multiple methods of socialization and professional development that have been empirically shown to be efficacious in preparing students for the many professional outcomes that exist today – not just traditional academic career outcomes. Finally, the third component of Antony’s original framework – doctoral programs that have the capacity to socialize and professionally develop students in ways that extend beyond simple congruence and assimilation enhance, and support the assertion of, intellectual individuality – still has currency. But, knowing what we now know from a modern reading of the literature, we suggest an elaboration here, as well. Doctoral programs should ensure faculty do not penalize students for asserting their intellectual individuality but, rather, help students develop the critical, technical, and theoretical skills and tools to maximize the effectiveness of their intellectual individuality. Also, doctoral programs should teach students to appreciate the responsibilities that come with asserting intellectual individuality – the responsibilities of open-mindedness and debate; of learning how to work with, incorporate, and compellingly challenge studies that offer alternative conclusions; and to create a respectful and vibrant doctoral program climate that allows students and faculty to respectfully engage in intellectual conversations and debates without fear of retribution. Taking into account the latest literature, the modified and more elaborate AntonySchaps framework for effective doctoral student socialization and professional development is outlined in Table 1, below.

An Agenda for Future Research Our modified framework, we believe, can serve as a guide for reshaping doctoral program socialization and professional development practices. As we stated above, when it comes to expanding socialization and professional development practices, doctoral program inertia is rooted in fear of the unknown. Faculty members and

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Table 1 Antony-Schaps framework for effective doctoral student socialization and professional development Doctoral programs that socialize and professionally develop students in ways that extend beyond congruence and assimilation: Instill an awareness of a Adopt multiple methods of Enhance, and support the field’s content, values, and socialization and professional assertion of, intellectual norms... development that... individuality, while... Without expecting a student to Have been empirically shown Simultaneously ensuring accept those values and to work well, incorporate faculty do not penalize norms as one’s own; students’ unique backgrounds students for doing so but, and goals and enhance rather, help students develop holistic wellness among the critical, technical, and students; theoretical skills and tools to maximize the effectiveness of their intellectual individuality; By structuring their Recognize the rapidly Teaching students to curriculum, professional changing modern world of appreciate the responsibilities development, and training work and purposefully that come with asserting approach to encourage prepare students with skills intellectual individuality – students to critically examine needed to navigate multiple The responsibilities of openwhether, and how, the field’s career transitions over a mindedness and debate; of content, values, and norms lifetime; learning how to work with, center one people’s incorporate, and perspective or lived compellingly challenge experience over that of studies that offer alternative others; conclusions; By challenging students to Prepare students for the many Proactively and actively imagine expanding the legitimate professional creating a respectful and content, values, and norms of outcomes that exist today – vibrant doctoral program the field in the direction of Not just traditional academic climate that allows students developing more inclusive career pathways. and faculty to respectfully theoretical approaches, engage in intellectual methodologies, conversations and debates epistemologies, and research without fear of recrimination agendas. or retribution.

graduate program directors fear trying new ways of socializing or professionally developing their doctoral students because they are not sure how to do it or what the results of new approaches would be. Such fear can only be conquered by building evidence for the efficacy of new approaches. In what follows, we suggest a research agenda organized around three broad categories. These are studies that might examine the efficacy of each of the following: (1) enhanced advising approaches, (2) modified programmatic requirements, and (3) deeply integrated professional development strategies.

Enhanced Advising Approaches Advising is the foundation of doctoral training. Although advising is often thought of as the interaction between an individual advisor or mentor and an individual

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student, other models of advising are used in doctoral programs, as well. These include group advising, lab-based advising, peer-to-peer advising, and so forth, and much has been written about the efficacy of various forms of mentoring and advising (Breitenbach 2019; Barnes and Austin 2009; Grady 2016; Hande et al. 2019; McConnell et al. 2019). Many approaches to advising recognize there are two fundamental, and simultaneously essential, approaches: transactional advising, where specific goals or objectives for the student’s academic progress are discussed and addressed, and holistic approaches to advising, wherein broader topics about students’ lives that are not – at least on the surface – perceived as directly related to the taking of courses or the accomplishment of program goals are also discussed (Gildehaus et al. 2019; Luedke et al. 2019). The opportunity for research exists in extending the advising and mentoring literature to better understand how to effectively advise and mentor doctoral students. We recommend the following questions be asked by researchers, perhaps controlling for discipline or even comparing across disciplines: Are the holistic advising and mentoring approaches shown to be effective for undergraduate students also effective for doctoral students (Huggett 2004; Luedke et al. 2019; Museus and Ravello 2014)? In what ways do various approaches to advising and mentoring produce differential outcomes for doctoral students? How do faculty members arrive at their goals and objectives for their doctoral students, and to what extent do these goals and objectives match what students hold for themselves? What methods of advising can faculty members use to most effectively help students simultaneously achieve traditional programmatic goals and objectives while also achieving students’ own professional goals and objectives? Within disciplines, what is the variation of advising and mentoring models that exist and what is the efficacy of each (in helping students achieve both traditional, and their own, goals and objectives)? Do individual, one-on-one, mentoring and advising approaches work better in helping students achieve both traditional, and their own, professional goals and objectives than alternative approaches? If a goal of doctoral training is, partly, to diversify (by gender and race) who obtains a doctoral degree, then what are the methods of advising and mentoring used by those programs most successful in achieving this goal, and to what extent can these methods be generalized to other programs? What advising practices work particularly well for enhancing the recruitment, retention, and success of Black, Latinx, Native American, and other historically underrepresented groups in doctoral programs? We would suggest asking the same question aimed at increasing the participation of women in STEM, as well. What is the efficacy of extending the source of advising and mentoring beyond just faculty members, and including other students, mentors, and advisors from industry and outside of academia?

Modified Programmatic Requirements Program requirements vary greatly, even within disciplines, across different universities. For example, in some fields, programs are heavily course-based, whereas others have few course requirements. In other fields, the first-year is cohort-based

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with all students following the same sequence of courses, whereas in others there are no courses in the first year at all, rather having students rotate in and out of faculty labs. Some programs require comprehensive examinations midway through the program as a mechanism for assessing student knowledge and the passage of which signifies eligibility to continue toward the degree. Other programs have no such degree requirements and, rather, assess student progress simply on course grades. What is amazing is that such variation is observed not only across disciplines but even within disciplines, with students pursuing the same exact degree at different institutions having distinct programmatic structures. This programmatic variation is often rooted in the simple fact that different programs have different faculty members who, collectively, represent unique areas of expertise. Often, programmatic requirements are as much a reflection of the expertise of the faculty on the program’s roster (which affects what can be taught, and what programs of research are pursued) as they are of any common, field-driven, understanding of what a doctoral student should know, or how they should be trained. Unlike in professional fields, such as medicine or law, where there is broad-based consensus around a typical curriculum, and even profession-specific qualifying tests or examinations (e.g., the medical boards, or the bar examinations), variation in the programmatic requirements of doctoral programs is more the rule than the exception. Researchers should examine whether this variation is a net positive or negative when it comes to the outcomes we care about. For example, do deeper levels of consensus, within fields or disciplines, about programmatic curriculum or requirements yield better-trained students? Can such levels of consensus be achieved without risking student individuality, and without further reinforcing the very congruence and assimilation demands we have argued against in this chapter? What is the experience within fields (e.g., medicine, law, etc.) regarding this tension between conformity to field-specific standards and fostering student individuality? Is there anything doctoral programs can learn from these professions (both to do better, and to avoid)? What do students, within fields and disciplines, say about programmatic requirements (such as what is confusing, what serves as barriers to progress, what seems anachronistic or archaic, and what is missing)? What do employers (academic institutions, professional organizations, private labs, industry, etc.) say about recent doctoral recipients’ readiness for employment, and what do they identify as missing from these graduates’ preparation? What are the sources of resistance among doctoral program faculty to shifting programmatic requirements so that they align more fully with the demands of the current labor market, and how can institutions balance the possibilities of broadening programmatic requirements without threatening faculty autonomy and expertise in shaping those requirements? What can we learn from the way programs are structured in other nations that have a reputation for strong doctoral training?

Deeply Integrated Professional Development Deeply integrated professional development approaches could be useful in helping to transform doctoral education so students are prepared to succeed in traditional

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academic roles as well as increasingly common alternative careers, ready to navigate inevitable career transitions over a lifetime, and encouraged to develop and pursue their own individual career goals. By deeply integrated, we mean that professional development is nested within the programmatic experience, as opposed to only being extracurricular. Many doctoral programs are experimenting in this regard. For example, some programs are embedding required internship or field experiences, so that students rotate in industry-based labs or get exposed to field-specific applications of the topics being studied in the program. Other programs embed outside experts in the curriculum, inviting these experts to be part of the core faculty and requiring students to address disciplinary topics in ways that speak to outside interests or audiences. Many programs require a sequence of professional development seminars, taught by various experts, that help students address such topics as career development, presenting research to non-technical audiences, applying and interviewing for non-academic jobs, and so on. There are many other examples of ways in which programs are experimenting with embedding professional development into the structure of the programs. But, do such approaches work well? What are the best ways to help students develop themselves, professionally and personally, so that they become experts within their disciplines but also develop broader skills useful beyond those needed for success in traditional academic roles? And is such broader professional development advantageous, or deleterious, to student academic success within the programs, and why? Given that the academic roles of today and tomorrow are very different than those of prior years, how should professional development prepare students for academic roles? How should professional development prepare students for increasingly common alternative careers? In what ways can faculty members help shape meaningful professional development experiences, and what are the specific metrics faculty and programs should use to measure the effectiveness of their efforts? In what ways can students, themselves, be engaged to assist with professional development creation, delivery, and evaluation within their academic programs? What is the best delivery modality for various kinds of professional development? And, when done well, what does doctoral student professional development look like, by discipline?

Conclusion As we write this chapter, higher education faces one of the greatest challenges it has ever faced: addressing the multifaceted effects associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. The spring of 2020 brought with it a complete halt to normal operations for every college and university. Leaders were faced with having to make decisions about whether campuses could stay open and operate normally, and – in nearly every case – the obvious priority of needing to protect the health and safety of students, staff, and faculty members led most colleges and universities to make unprecedented decisions. For highly residential institutions, most students were sent home. Staff and faculty were asked to retool their work and teaching, delivering both remotely. Aside from higher education institutions that were already

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universally delivering services remotely or online, few if any of our colleges and universities were equipped to rapidly shift operations in this manner. It was a Herculean task that required everyone to drop everything they were doing, and to completely rethink all aspects of their work. Research in many disciplines has been adversely impacted, as researchers and doctoral students find it increasingly difficult to carry out traditional forms of data collection during a period of time characterized by intense social distancing and limited travel. Even in fields where research activity was maintained, or where it slowly ramped up again, overall research activity has been slowed down. The training model for doctoral students has thus been impacted in ways one could never imagine – during the spring and summer of 2020, few students were able to work in labs, or on research projects, to the extent that they had in the past, and there was no clarity as to when such work would resume at the rates realized before the pandemic. The end result is a profound slowdown in the progress to degree for most doctoral students. There is little end in sight for a return to completely normal operations. In some sense, higher education may never be the same again. Rounding the corner into the 2020–21 academic year, confusion abounds as the virus continues to actively spread across most communities. For doctoral students, the stakes are quite high. Budgets are in tatters, and many institutions’ efforts to reduce expenses included cuts to doctoral student funding, as well as reductions in the numbers of students accepted into doctoral programs. For doctoral students already matriculating, the job market outlook is bleak and is expected to be so for years to come, as colleges and universities engage hiring freezes in an effort to save their institutions from financial ruin. One might ask whether these conditions, the long-term impact of which are not yet fully clear, teach us anything about the ways in which we are preparing the current, and even next, generation of doctoral students? We think they do. For one, higher education will likely not return to business as usual ever again. Any person who is fortunate enough to earn a faculty position in the coming years will most certainly be required to have proficiency, dare we say high skill, in delivering instruction online or remotely. But doctoral programs have always been illequipped to teach doctoral students how to teach, in general, let alone how to teach remotely or online. Doctoral programs can now, more than ever, ill afford to prepare students in a limited fashion, for jobs that do not exist. As the availability of academic postings slows to a trickle, with the timing of a rebound in hiring hard to predict, those doctoral students on the cusp of graduating need to be prepared to approach their training and the eventual job market with the goal of developing, and offering, a diversity of skills – not just ones suited for traditional academic jobs. The future is unclear, but what we have outlined in this chapter held true even before the pandemic. The pandemic is only intensifying the clarity of our argument, which we restate, quite simply, here: doctoral programs must move beyond the congruence and assimilation orientation in their socialization and professional development approaches.

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For generations, recipients of doctoral degrees have gone on to reshape every sector of society. The impact of the work of doctoral degree recipients on society is sometimes thought to be intangible. But even the casual observer, if they take the time to think about it, might notice how every facet of life is enriched by what those with advanced degrees bring to society. The technical advances, whether in medicine or biomedical research, especially during times of pandemic, are an obvious example. But there exist equally profound, albeit not necessarily life-and-death oriented examples, as well. The clean water many of us drink in our cities and towns; the properly engineered bridges and highways and transportation infrastructure that we use on a daily basis; the museums or concerts or other cultural events that enrich our hearts and minds; the schools and school systems we send our children to; the libraries that serve as information hubs for our world; the pocket-sized supercomputer-like phones that are so ubiquitous and allow nearly everyone to communicate and gain access to information; the very infrastructure that supports the internet – all of these, and countless more, are examples of works we take for granted but, if not for those who possessed advanced degrees (many, doctoral degrees) would simply cease to exist. Doctoral degree recipients have an impact, directly and indirectly, on everyone’s lives. What happens in doctoral degree programs – how these students are trained, and how their socialization and professional development is structured – stands to have long-term effects not just on the individuals graduating with these doctoral degrees, but on the potential for these individuals to shape, and even help fundamentally change, the world. It is for this reason we believe doctoral programs have an obligation to assess their programmatic structures, and to embrace the possibilities and potential of moving beyond the congruence and assimilation orientation when socializing and professionally developing their students.

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Van Maanen, J., & Shein, E. (1979). Toward a theory of organizational socialization. In B. M. Straw (Ed.), Research in Organizational Behavior, 1, 209–264. Veliz, D. (2020). The socialization of international doctoral students in the USA. In J. C. Weidman & L. DeAngelo (Eds.), Socialization in higher education and the early career: Theory, research, and application. Cham: Springer. Warrell, M. (2013, June 18). Take a risk: the odds are better than you think. Forbes. https://www. forbes.com/sites/margiewarrell/2013/06/18/take-a-risk-the-odds-are-better-than-you-think/ #77b0cd1445c2. Watson, G., & Kenny, N. (2014). Teaching critical reflection to graduate students. Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 7. https://doi.org/10.22329/celt.v7i1.3966. Weidman, J. C. (1989). Undergraduate socialization: A conceptual approach. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 5). New York: Agathon Press. Weidman, J. C., Twale, D. J., & Stein, E. L. (2001). Socialization of graduate and professional students in higher education: A perilous passage? ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report. Washington, DC: The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development. Williamson, E. G. (1965). Vocational counseling: Trait and factor theory. In B. Stefflre (Ed.), Theories of counseling. New York: McGraw-Hill. Winkle-Wagner, R., McCoy, D. L., & Lee-Johnson, J. (2020). Creating porous ivory towers: Twoway socialization processes that embrace black students’ identities in America. In J. C. Weidman & L. DeAngelo (Eds.), Socialization in higher education and the early career: Theory, research, and application. Cham: Springer. Witze, A. (2020). Universities will never be the same after the coronavirus crisis. Nature, 582, 162– 164. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01518-y. Wood, M. (2018, April 30). PhDs and the “gig” economy. University Affairs. https://www. universityaffairs.ca/career-advice/from-phd-to-life/phds-gig-economy/. Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 1361332052000341006. Zaccaria, J. S. (1970). Theories of occupational choice and vocational development. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Zeddies, S. (2017, August 2). Who is to blame for postdoctoral collapse? A reflection on four stressors that many postdocs feel in academia, and how they can contribute to burnout. University Affairs. https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/the-black-hole/blame-postdoc toral-collapse/.

James Soto Antony is Dean of The Graduate Division at UC San Diego, where he also serves as Professor of Education Studies. Tamara Lynn Schaps is Assistant Dean of The Graduate Division at UC San Diego.

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A Mid-Career Faculty Agenda A Review of Four Decades of Research and Practice Vicki L. Baker and Caroline E. N. Manning

Contents Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Present Day Professoriate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Academy at a Glance: Full-Time Faculty Demographics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Challenges: Defining Mid-Career . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mid-Career: Four Decades of Research and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptual and Theoretical Models in the Study of Mid-Career Faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1980s: The Foundation for the Study of Mid-Career Faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tension Between Teaching and Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intersection of Institutional and Individual Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multifaceted Nature of the Faculty Career: A Professional Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary of 1980s Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1990s: A Focus on the Individual Faculty Member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intersection of Individual and Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multifaceted Nature of the Faculty Career: An Individual Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tension Between Teaching and Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary of 1990s Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2000s: The Role of Context to the Mid-Career Faculty Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Multifaceted Nature of the Faculty Career: Definitional Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Strategies and Interventions: Supporting Mid-Career Faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Women Faculty in the Academy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary of 2000s Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2010s: Barriers, Vulnerable Faculty, and Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barriers to Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vulnerable Faculty Populations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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V. L. Baker (*) Economics and Management, Albion College, Albion, MI, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. E. N. Manning Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7_10

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Interventions for Faculty Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary of 2010s Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mid-Career Faculty: A Research and Practice Agenda Moving Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intentionality Across Contexts and Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leadership Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Support to Help Mid-Career Faculty Manage the Evolving Nature of Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mid-Career Faculty: A Call to Action in 2020 and Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Need 1: Implement a National Database of Postsecondary Faculty and Instructional Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Need 2: Examine Intersectional Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Need 3: Support Nontenure Track Faculty at Mid-Career Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Need 4: Methodological Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concluding Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Described as the “bridge between faculty generations” (Baldwin and Chang, Liberal Education, 92(4), 28–35, 2006), mid-career faculty members play an important role in colleges and universities. Mid-career faculty members serve as mentors to early career colleagues and occupy critical leadership roles, formal and informal, on their respective campuses (Baker et al. Developing faculty in liberal arts colleges: Aligning individual needs and organizational goals. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2017a, 2018). Yet, mid-career faculty members often assume these roles with little to no support to be successful in these roles and often to the detriment of their own career advancement (Baker, Lunsford, Pifer; Ward and Wolf-Wendel, Academic motherhood: How faculty manage work and family. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2012). Despite the importance of mid-career faculty to a thriving academy, there is an opportunity for those tasked with faculty development responsibilities to better understand the experiences of their mid-career faculties, particularly women and other underrepresented academics, and to provide appropriate and adequate career-stage-specific supports. An important question arises: how can colleges and universities better support their mid-career faculty? This chapter presents a meta-synthesis of four decades of research and practice focused on mid-career faculty and offers an agenda moving forward to better serve this faculty population. Keywords

Mid-career faculty · Faculty development · Meta-synthesis

The professoriate has been a focus of research and practice since the inception of higher education (Welch 2005). Organizations including the American Association of University Professors and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, as well as initiatives such as ADVANCE, funded by the National Science Foundation, seek to shape American higher education by supporting diverse faculty members employed in

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US colleges and universities. Yet, realities of higher education create challenges for those individuals currently in and seeking to gain entry into the academy. Traditional conceptions of the professoriate are changing; scholars urge higher education stakeholders to develop a faculty model that accounts for individual and institutional outcomes, with a particular focus on professional support and advancement for all faculty (Kezar and Maxey 2016; Szybinski and Jordan 2010). Studying and understanding the faculty experience through a career-stage lens are necessary. The professoriate typically encompasses four stages, beginning with the graduate education experience through full professorship rank (Austin 2010; Austin and McDaniels 2006). Much research and practice have focused on graduate education and socialization into the academy (Austin and McDaniels 2006; Weidman et al. 2001), in addition to early career experiences of faculty members (Tierney and Rhoads 1993). Yet, much less attention, both in terms of research and practice, has been dedicated to understanding and supporting faculty in the middle years of their careers. Identified as the largest faculty population in higher education (Caffarella et al. 1989; Grant-Vallone and Ensher 2017), mid-career faculty members have been characterized as the “bridge” between faculty generations (Baldwin and Chang 2006), and they occupy critical formal and informal leadership roles in higher education (Baker et al. 2019a). However, this population also self-identifies as stuck, dissatisfied, and directionless (Baker et al. 2017a; Petter et al. 2018). In the words of Rice (1986), “To revitalize our institutions and individuals within them, we must utilize the talents of this large group of faculty [midlife] in new and imaginative ways” (p. 20). This chapter presents a meta-synthesis of mid-career faculty stage research and practice over the course of the last four decades. Our writing is guided by three goals: (a) to shed light on how the study and practice of the mid-career faculty stage has evolved, (b) to summarize knowledge gleaned about the mid-career stage, and (c) to advance a mid-career faculty stage research and practice agenda.

Methods This chapter incorporates findings and subsequent themes from a literature review spanning 40 years of research and practice focused on the mid-career stage and faculty experience. We employed a meta-synthesis approach to support our review, a technique first introduced by Bair and Haworth (1999, 2004) and later described by Saldaña (2015). A meta-synthesis is a technique that supports the integration of findings from both quantitative and qualitative studies. As Bair and Haworth explained, “It is integrative and expansionist, in that it compares and analyzes many studies together in a constructivist way, allowing interpretive themes to emerge from the synthesis” (Bair and Haworth 1999, p. 3). We included theoretical, conceptual, empirical, and practical works, as well as conference presentations and other unpublished works within the higher education, business, and medical fields. To support our efforts, we searched academic databases including EBSCO, JSTOR, PROQUEST, and Google Scholar. We used keyword searches such as “mid-career faculty,” “mid-career faculty experience,” “mid-career

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faculty development,” “associate professor,” and “advancement to full” and filtered search results by decade (e.g., 1980–1989). Our efforts resulted in the inclusion of 125 works. We relied on inductive and integrative approaches to support the literature review and identification of subsequent themes on a decade-by-decade basis (Creswell and Creswell 2017). We created article summaries, each compiling, reading, and summarizing the studies independently. Prepared article summaries included the following details: author(s), title, date of publication, research question(s), theoretical/ conceptual framework used, methodological approach (quantitative, qualitative), study participant details, main findings, future directions, and direct quotations. Upon completion of the article summaries, we identified commonalities and preliminary themes. During weekly meetings, we discussed and refined preliminary themes based on the extant literature. We iterated between the articles and corresponding article summaries to code each based on the primary theme represented. At the onset of our review efforts, we sought to only include studies with midcareer faculty participants and with 40 percent or more of the research focus on midcareer faculty and their related experiences. However, given the paucity of research that focused on mid-career faculty in the 1980s and 1990s, we had to broaden our literature review parameters. As such, we included works that focused on the overall faculty experience to incorporate important contextual and industry influences in which the needs of mid-career faculty were noted.

Present Day Professoriate Grounding in the broad professoriate is necessary to help situate the mid-career faculty themes presented and future directions offered throughout the remainder of this chapter.

The Academy at a Glance: Full-Time Faculty Demographics Over the past 40 years, the face of the professoriate has evolved in terms of gender, race and ethnicity, and faculty rank (Espinosa et al. 2019). However, diversity among faculty ranks does not mirror the diversity of students enrolled in US postsecondary institutions (Espinosa et al. 2019; Heilig et al. 2019). As of fall 2017, 1.5 million faculty members were employed across degree-granting postsecondary institutions; 53 percent of those faculty members were full-time (McFarland et al. 2019); a 1 percent decrease from 2016 figures reported by U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics (2017). Of those full-time faculty members, 22 percent were at the assistant professor rank, 19 percent at the associate rank, and 22 percent at the rank of full professor. The remaining full-time faculty members, those occupying the title of instructor, lecturer, and “other faculty,” represented 37 percent of full-time faculty.

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Additionally, men represented 54 percent of full-time faculty, and women represented 46 percent. Women represented 24 percent of assistant professors, whereas men represented 19 percent. At the associate professor rank, women accounted for 19 percent, and men accounted for 20 percent. Finally, women accounted for 16 percent of full professors, whereas men accounted for 28 percent. While women occupied the majority of assistant professor positions, they lagged behind men as they moved through more senior faculty ranks. Despite efforts to increase diversity, the academy is still predominantly white at 71 percent for full-time faculty. As of 2016, 10 percent of full-time faculty were Asian, 5 percent were Black, 5 percent were Hispanic, and less than 1 percent were Pacific Islander and Indian/Alaska Native (Digest of Education Statistics, 2016). Greater disparities exist when examining the intersectionality of sex, race/ethnicity, and academic rank. Sixty-seven percent of women assistant professors were white, 10 percent were Asian, 8 percent were Black, and 5 percent were Hispanic. Less than 1 percent of women assistant professors were Pacific Islander or Indian/Alaska Native. Seventy four percent of women associate professors were white, 10 percent were Asian, 7 percent were Black, 5 percent were Hispanic, and less than 1 percent were Pacific Islander or Indian/Alaska Native. Eighty-one percent of women full professors were white; 8 percent were Asian, 5 percent were Black, 4 percent were Hispanic, and less than 1 percent were Pacific Islander or Indian/Alaska Native. While these figures do not specifically parse out “mid-career,” they do help provide a greater understanding of the mid-career stage and the diverse individuals who occupy it. Many mid-career faculty members are at the associate rank, in institutions in which a tenure system is present; however mid-career faculty are also full professors. And although the academy is more diverse than it was even a decade ago, a focus on intersectionality of gender and race, as evidenced through the data discussed in this section, highlight opportunities to foster greater diversity and inclusion across all stages of the professoriate, particularly mid-career and beyond, which is a theme we introduce in our overview of research and practice about midcareer faculty beginning in the 2000s. What we learn from the statistics presented here is that while mid-career faculty share the same career stage, they are nevertheless a diverse group of faculty with a range of defining features and professional and personal experiences and needs. As we allude to, the mid-career stage can and does span faculty ranks, associate and full professorship, which creates challenges for how to define mid-career and how best to support faculty members who find themselves situated in this career stage. In the following section, we highlight the definitional challenges and associated implications of a lack of clear definition of mid-career in the professoriate.

Challenges: Defining Mid-Career Scholars and practitioners alike have sought to better characterize and define the midcareer stage, using descriptions such as “mid-career malaise” (Karpiak 1996) and “disengaged” (Hart 2016) juxtaposed with “hopeful” and earnestly seeking to

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re-envision and recraft the next phase of their careers (Baker et al. 2015; Grant-Vallone and Ensher 2017). One contributing factor to these diverging characterizations of midcareer faculty is the lack of a formal definition of the mid-career stage (Grant-Vallone and Ensher 2017). The absence of clearly defined markers or milestones that indicate a beginning and an end of this career stage creates challenges for mid-career faculty and for those individuals who seek to study and support mid-career faculty. While tenure decision and retirement define early and late-career stages, a lack of visible hallmarks or boundaries define mid-career (Baldwin et al. 2005). Baldwin and Chang (2006) similarly noted the challenges with the mid-career stage, describing it as the “long, ill-defined phase after their probationary years and before retirement emerges on the professional horizon” (p. 28). Austin (2010) contributed to this conversation by characterizing that the mid-career stage begins when faculty have been awarded tenure after the probationary period, which is typically a 7-year timeframe where a tenure system is present. Others have recognized how needs and opportunities change for mid-career faculty members within this long, ill-defined stage of their careers. Mathews (2014), through the efforts at the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE), classified associate-level, mid-career faculty members as early career associates (i.e., faculty members zero to 5 years post-tenure), and latecareer associates (six or more years post-tenure). This distinction recognizes that early career associates’ needs and experiences differ from those of their late-career associate peers. Baker et al. (2019b) relied on Mathews’ (2014) distinction at the associate professor rank to inform the development of their Academic Leadership Institute for mid-career faculty members employed across the 13 institutions in the Great Lakes Colleges Association. Their research and practice aligned with Mathews’ work (Mathews 2014) by revealing that the needs of early career associate professors differed in substantive ways from their associate professor peers who were at this rank for at least 5 years. However, institutions lag in both acknowledging this distinction and providing appropriate support to address these differences. In Success After Tenure: Supporting Mid-Career Faculty, Baker et al. (2019c) featured research and practice about the mid-career faculty stage spanning institution types, domestically and abroad. While their edited volume targeted the associate professor rank specifically, they too acknowledged that faculty members may have earned the rank of full professor but are still situated firmly in the mid-career stage. The focus on associate and full professor rank, as encompassing mid-career, serves as a critical definitional feature of our chapter and guides our working conceptions of mid-career. We thus acknowledge that faculty members at the associate and full professor ranks still have a great deal of career runway ahead and seek to remain engaged in their careers.

Mid-Career: Four Decades of Research and Practice Prior to the 1980s, limited research explicitly addressed the mid-career faculty stage; therefore we chose 1980 as a starting point for our review of research and practice focused on mid-career. The subsequent four decades of research uncovered the

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nebulous and ill-defined nature of the mid-career stage that contributes to mid-career faculty feeling professionally stuck and dissatisfied (Baker et al. 2017a; Petter et al. 2018). Those feelings are fueled by a variety of professional and personal factors such as evolving work expectations placed on mid-career faculty once tenure and promotion are earned, the need to assume administrative and leadership positions with limited training to be effective in those roles, and a notable reduction in careerstage-specific supports that were once available to early career colleagues. Couple these professional challenges with personal challenges such as simultaneously managing childcare and caring for an ailing or elderly parent results in many midcareer faculty feeling overwhelmed searching for resources to help manage these realities effectively. Throughout this meta-synthesis, we highlight key trends across the decades that only add fuel to the fire, further contributing to the vulnerable nature of the midcareer faculty stage. For example, a trend discussed in the 1980s and then sustained throughout subsequent decades is that mid-career faculty are burdened by the multifaceted nature of the career, as well as the tension created from balancing their teaching and research responsibilities. Literature in the 1990s begins to fully shed light on the general trend of diminished vitality that faculty experience in the mid-career stage. In the 2000s, scholars and practitioners started to highlight the gender differences between men and women faculty members by examining how they experienced the academy, highlighting their perceptions of barriers and available supports, and comparing their advancement trajectories on the path to the professoriate (Reybold and Alamia 2008). In the most recent decade, the literature points to the need for institutions to acknowledge the variety of pressing concerns facing mid-career faculty. Those concerns include increased reliance on contingent faculty members and lack of formal leadership development programs aimed at fostering the skills and competencies mid-career faculty need to manage and lead higher education institutions in the twenty-first century (Baker et al. 2019a; DeZure et al. 2014). In response, we saw a rise in research and practice in the 2010s that showcased institutional interventions and strategies aimed at supporting the diversifying professoriate. Although some trends remain a constant through recent history, other facets of academia affecting faculty in this career stage seem to emerge and then dissipate at the turn of the decade. Refer to Fig. 1 for a summary of the key themes by decade.

Fig. 1 Mid-career faculty: summary of research and practice themes

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Conceptual and Theoretical Models in the Study of Mid-Career Faculty Over the past four decades of mid-career faculty development research, theoretical models were woven into the fabric of scholars’ work as a means of thoughtfully discussing much of mid-career faculty member’s experiences in the academic career. Although many theories were addressed, three models remained particularly steadfast throughout all four decades. Erik Erikson’s theoretical framework for development has been at the foundation of an expansive body of work. Erikson’s psychosocial development model presents eight stages spanning from infancy to older adulthood, each of which presents a dichotomous scale consisting of a positive or negative outcome to be achieved during the life stage, such as either intimacy or isolation during the young adulthood stage (Erikson 1950/1963). Pertinent for the current topic, positioned at mid-life is the dichotomy between generativity, with generativity relating to productivity and contributions to society, and stagnation being just the opposite (Rice 1986). This dichotomy readily translates to the mid-career faculty experience, as Baldwin and Blackburn (1981) described that full professors five or more years from retirement face a diminished enthusiasm for teaching and question the value of the academic career. They are at a career turning point and must decide whether to continue in the same profession or diversify. These faculty thus emblematize the struggles experienced during the mid-life stagnation versus generativity stage. Also at the heart of understanding mid-career faculty needs is the conceptual model that outlines faculty career stages. Baldwin and Blackburn’s work (Baldwin and Blackburn 1981) offered necessary insight into the evolving needs of faculty as a function of career stage, which the authors outlined as (1) assistant professors in the first 3 years of full-time college teaching, (2) assistant professors with more than 3 years of college teaching experience, (3) associate professors, (4) full professors more than 5 years from retirement, and (5) full professors within 5 years of formal retirement. Such career stage differences include, but are not limited to, the finding that faculty in the first stage yearn to engage in scholarship, while more seasoned faculty in the mid-career stages seek to contribute professionally beyond the walls of their institution. Baldwin and Blackburn, in turn, suggested that “it should be possible to gain valuable information about college professors by studying them at successive ages and career stages” (p. 599). This theoretical understanding of career stages is thus positioned at the foundation of the current chapter, as we posit that it is critical to fully understand the nuanced needs of mid-career faculty in order to effectively provide the necessary developmental support needed at this career stage. Lastly, Parkes (1971) identified what he referred to as the “assumptive world,” which is a set of assumptions established as a means of providing understanding and clarity during times of change (Rice 1986). In the heyday of higher education in the mid-1960s, a set of assumptions gained traction regarding the academic professional and what it means “to be fully professional academically” (Rice 1986, p. 14). The focus of this model is on academic professionals being devoted to their research and scholarly work, which included assumptions asserting that “research is the central

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professional endeavor and the focus of academic life” (Rice 1986, p. 14) and “professional rewards and mobility accrue to those who persistently attenuate their specializations” (p.14). This model has been highly pertinent throughout the decades as many of the tensions that mid-career faculty experience that we discuss in the following sections derive from the one-dimensional, research-focused view of academics as posited by Parkes. We begin our meta-analytic review in the 1980s. As part of each decade discussion, we briefly describe the main themes and sub-themes that emerged followed by a more in-depth discussion of relevant research and practice. We conclude each decade review with a summary of the main contributions and provide a methodological critique.

1980s: The Foundation for the Study of Mid-Career Faculty A recurring theme woven into the literature on faculty in the 1980s was the necessity of expanding and redirecting career paths to increase faculty morale and job satisfaction (Baldwin et al. 1981). Mid-career faculty are particularly vulnerable to falling prey to the possibility of stagnation and frustration of feeling stuck as “faculty members can be full professors at the age of forty and have no place to go” (Rice and Austin 1988, p. 56). We highlight three main themes in this decade including tension between teaching and research, the intersection of institutional and individual considerations, and the multifaceted nature of the faculty career. The work during this decade began to shed light on the intricacies of the faculty career and the associated responsibilities of being a member of the academy. Most important, it was during the 1980s that the mid-career stage was recognized as an important career moment. The first theme we highlight, tension between teaching and research, revealed that faculty were shouldering too many responsibilities, as “many faculty drift, at midcareer, into a routine of teaching classes, updating syllabi, serving on committees, and perhaps ‘keeping a hand’ in research” (Baldwin 1981, p. 95). Faculty felt stretched in engaging in their responsibilities, unfulfilled and unsupported in the process. As part of our discussion, we include an historical overview of the evolution of teaching and researching as core professional activities in the professoriate. We also present research that examined related contextual factors in determining what was valued versus rewarded in career advancement evaluations. Intersection of institutional and individual considerations is the second theme we discuss. During the 1980s, scholars began to tease apart views of faculty development to provide greater understanding about the ways in which faculty developers and institutional leaders viewed their role in continued professional development of mid-career faculty (Belker 1985). As part of that discussion, we explore the notion of professional competence and the importance of continually fostering opportunities to expand and enhance skill sets. Lastly, we introduce research that explored the multifaceted nature of the faculty career with a particular focus at the mid-career stage. The career stage model was

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introduced as a framework that would guide research and practice on the faculty career and the professoriate for decades to come (Baldwin 1981; Baldwin and Blackburn 1981). As part of this theme, we delve into research by Rice (1986) in which he examined the working lives of faculty members and explored what it means to be an academic professional. This knowledge provided much needed grounding into the faculty career, particularly related to the context in which faculty do their work. As a collective, authors in the 1980s took a largely informational approach to studying the mid-career faculty stage by conveying key ideas regarding faculty experiences and offering commentary on faculty development. Some work included more detailed case studies of different institutions and particular development programs (Baldwin 1981; Berheide 1986; Goldman 1982; Rice and Austin 1988). Additional methodology included literature reviews examining faculty development programs and faculty pursuing their academic careers (Belker 1985; Caffarella et al. 1989). In a limited number of cases, methodology utilized surveys administered to faculty (Palmer and Patton 1981).

Tension Between Teaching and Research It is no secret the role overload faculty members experience as part of the academic profession (Berheide 1986; Sorcinelli 1985). Woven into the 1980s literature was an exploration of the tension faculty members experience when seeking to balance the roles of teacher and researcher. This tension prevailed as an omnipresent concern in the lives of faculty members and is the first theme we present in this decade.

Historical Insights The polarized dichotomy between the roles of teacher and researcher ultimately pulls faculty in separate directions. Berheide (1986) described the antithetical nature of these roles, pointing to after World War II, when the image of faculty switched from that of a “teacher-scholar” to a “professional researcher” (Berheide 1986, p. 35). That shift was prompted by an increased desire for “more scientists and more research” (Tighe 2012, p. 14) and was fueled by research dollars funneling into institutions to support the expansion of research universities focused on graduate education and to prepare scientific leaders (Geiger 1993). The aforementioned assumptive world posits that “research is the central professional endeavor and the focus of the academic life” and emphasizes discipline specialization and advancement of knowledge (Rice 1984, p. 7). The shift from teacher-scholar to professional researcher resulted in changes to the primary expected responsibilities of faculty. Publication production became the priority and “encouraged faculty members to focus less on teaching and more on research” (Berheide 1986, p. 35). However, despite the emphasis on research, faculty still had courses to teach. The time needed to be successful in both roles, coupled with the inadequate rewards for the time faculty spent on teaching and the other myriad responsibilities they had to manage, resulted in “resentment toward

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institutional demands” (Sorcinelli 1985, p. 51). As stated in Berheide (1986), ZeyFerrell reiterated the polarized dichotomy between teaching and other faculty roles as she astutely commented that time in the profession was a “zero-sum game. . . If you’re spending more time at something else, you’re spending less time teaching” (p. 35). The mid-career stage, and the evolving nature of this career (and life) period, only served to heighten these disconnects and resentments. The resentment was fueled by institutional contexts, particularly related to messaging about what institutional leaders said they valued in terms of faculty contribution in contrast to what was rewarded in relation to career advancement at mid-career.

Contributing Contextual Factors: Value vs. Reward Adding to the tension and dissonance over faculty roles, particularly those of teaching and research, is that faculty values and institutional values have been largely misaligned. Upon analyzing trends from a series of case studies on ten colleges with high levels of satisfaction and morale, Rice and Austin (1988) found that cultivation of positive faculty morale resulted in congruence between faculty and institutional goals. However, the literature produced in the 1980s showed this alignment was wanting. Goldman (1982) reported that within faculty development programs, teaching improvement efforts had been a prominent initiative. However, in a survey-based study regarding faculty perceptions of developmental needs, faculty members ranked support for research as the primary need, while improved teaching skills ranked 15th. In contrast, administers ranked improved teaching skills as the top need for faculty. Not only did this reiterate the lack of faculty-administrator alignment in perceptions of needs but also demonstrated a lack of consistency and alignment in how administrators upheld their reward and value system. Rewards in the form of salary and promotions are a function of research output, yet when it comes to skills in need of developing, teaching is what is prioritized among administration. This lack of alignment between institutional values and rewards, coupled with inconsistent resources for developing skills in the professional responsibilities that accrue rewards, exacerbated the tensions felt by faculty. Implicit and explicit pressures about prioritization of professional roles and associated tasks imposed by institutional administrators compounded this dissonance experienced by faculty members, particularly at mid-career, about where to invest time and energies. Faculty members had to identify what was valued for promotion versus those activities that largely went unnoticed. A study conducted by Sorcinelli (1985) at Indiana University on factors of faculty satisfaction found that some faculty discontent stemmed from frustration in the disproportionate value the institution showed toward research over teaching (Sorcinelli 1985, p. 51). Faculty voiced the concern that “the university requires us to spend our time teaching undergraduates and then rewards research” (Sorcinelli 1985, p. 51). This institutional value system aroused particular frustration among those faculty who preferred the teaching and service aspects of the profession to the research side. Faculty participants in the study noted that devoting their time to research was at the expense of their classes and teaching evaluations, but given the institutional reward system, research gets rewarded with tenure, with little consequences for lackluster teaching.

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Faculty who were most devoted to teaching and who received distinguished teaching awards reported being the “lower paid professors in the department,” thus further reiterating that teaching was not the priority from an institutional perspective (Sorcinelli 1985, p. 55). Similarly, Goldman (1982) found that medical school institutions were particularly guilty of basing salary and other rewards on publications and the reputation of the faculty member in lieu of good teaching. Although the effects of a reward system that disproportionately values research productivity penetrated all institutional types, including research universities, it was reported that the effects were especially felt in liberal arts colleges (Berheide 1986). At the time of the study, faculty participants at Indiana University suggested that to ameliorate the discontent, institutions ought to implement more inclusive evaluation and reward criteria based on teaching as well as research (Sorcinelli 1985, p. 58). Additional research published in the 1980s shed light on the latent effects of value systems implemented in institutions. Upon analyzing the responses from interviews with 532 faculty, Schuster and Bowen (1985) found that quality of work environment and morale deteriorated, largely due to the shift toward personnel decisions being based on scholarly research output. However, not only did this business gambit implicitly demonstrate discrepancies in what was valued, but it also contributed to the decrease in quality of the work environment and diminished faculty attention to teaching (Schuster and Bowen 1985). Given that faculty play a critical role in providing education, Goldman suggested that rewards should incentivize behaviors that expand knowledge and teaching skills, such as grants for goal development, sabbaticals, and opportunities to take advantage of special interests (Goldman 1982, p. 864). Rice (1986) discussed the extreme nature of the reward systems advocated by campus administrators and enacted by the faculty members who conducted reviews of their faculty peers and the resulting implications. For example, Mauksch’s 1980 study of tenure and promotion committee meetings (as cited in Rice 1986) revealed that faculty committee members shared that they did not cast decisions based on teaching during the promotion decision-making process purely because of the value other colleagues and administrators placed on nonteaching factors. This further reiterated the deep-rooted nature of the reward and value system as it pressured non-administration members to base decisions on complying with the value system imposed by the institution (Rice 1986, p. 17). Suggestions on how to mitigate this tension have been included in the literature. The tension stems from the narrow definition of the profession, set forth by the academic professional model, which emphasized specialized knowledge generation through research (Rice 1984, 1986). Rice (1984, 1986) sought to push back against the “old” academic professional model in which research was the central professional endeavor, and quality in academe was facilitated through peer review. Further, he observed that, in this traditional academic model, the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of knowledge was rooted in disciplines as members of the academy were in pursuit of “cognitive truth” (Rice 1984, p. 7). Knowledge generation was strictly for the sake of knowledge itself, fueled by professional rewards and mobility rooted in disciplinary specializations. The definitional tenets of this academic

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professional model suggested that anything outside the scope of this dimension and definition was peripheral to the profession and should not be valued as highly, much less rewarded. In order to overturn this commonly understood definition of what it meant to be an academic, Boyer, Rice, and others argued that higher education institutions should expand the notion of scholarship to include teaching, which in turn would place a greater value on teaching, thus helping to integrate attention to teaching more fully into institutional reward structures (Boyer 1990; Rice 1986). The push to expand conceptualizations of the academic professional model was directly aligned with early understanding of the mid-career faculty stage and the associated tensions and challenges faced once promotion and tenure were earned. Mid-career faculty members grappled with where to place energies based on their passions while accounting for institutional realities of priorities guided by institutional reward systems (Baldwin and Blackburn 1981). Scholarship in the 1980s did not delve into this tension as deeply as scholars in subsequent decades, but the work of Baldwin and Blackburn (1981) and Baldwin et al. (1981) served as a pseudo call to action and model from which to build. When we think about the primary roles of the faculty career, teaching and research are two prominent sides of the triumvirate that make up conceptions of the faculty career today (with the third side being outreach and service). The focus on teaching and research, and the associated tensions that evolved during the 1980s in relation to the study of the faculty career, provided critical insights into the evolution of the academic profession. Of particular import was the understanding gleaned about the tension between research and teaching, what that tension looked like, and how that tension was experienced by mid-career faculty members. Knowledge about the prioritization and relative rewards placed on teaching and research served to highlight the misalignment between the priorities of institutional leaders and the faculty members they sought to support. This misalignment between administrators, faculty, and the faculty development approaches employed was prominently featured in the 1980s.

Intersection of Institutional and Individual Considerations A second theme that began to surface during the 1970s through the 1980s was the need to better align individual and institutional views and approaches to professional development. The work of Belker (1985) and others (see, e.g., Golembiewski 1978) called attention to this need specifically. As Furniss (1981) noted: “If at some point in their careers they [faculty] do not seem to show the ability and talent they had when they entered the profession, it is worth looking at the environment to see where it might be altered so as again to give them the chance to shine” (p. 38). In this section, we discuss research that sought to align individual and institutional considerations as essential for supporting faculty, particularly those who appear in greatest need due to unclear and evolving professional and personal roles and expectations – that is, those in mid-career. We highlight research that focused on the importance of professional competence and the need to continually invest in skill and knowledge development

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to facilitate professional growth. Scholars during this period also examined views of faculty development, namely, who had primary responsibility for ensuring faculty had access to and the support needed to engage in continued learning. An important outcome of this work was the need to refocus the perspective on who has responsibility for faculty development and how faculty programming should be conceived to foster the type of continued learning needed in the academic profession and desired by mid-career faculty.

Professional Competence Willis and Tosti-Vasey (1988) suggested that in order to perform one’s roles and responsibilities competently, mid-career faculty must “exhibit the knowledge base and skills considered to be professionally current or up-to-date in their disciplines” (p. 1). To support this assertion, they studied professional competence at mid-career as informed by a model with four primary variables: (a) personal characteristics (e.g., demographics, educational attainment, academic rank), (b) personality characteristics (e.g., achievement, dominance), (c) institutional characteristics (work environment factors), and (d) professional activities (e.g., participation in professional organizations, scholarly engagement). The authors posited direct and indirect effects on these model variables but focused specifically on direct effects on professional competence related to personal and institutional characteristics and professional activities. As part of their research, they studied faculty members from 4-year, predominantly teaching institutions in English and Engineering disciplines. Their research findings revealed that most of the variables found to be associated with professional competence fell within the professional activities domain. Examples included being active in one’s field regionally and nationally through professional or disciplinary activities (e.g., annual meetings and conferences), as well as being engaged in scholarship and publishing. Despite these faculty members’ primary responsibility for teaching, being engaged in scholarship and publishing complemented teaching competence. Willis’ and Tosti-Vasey’s (1988) research provided a roadmap for those individuals tasked with faculty development responsibilities, showing them the need for more targeted and individualized career stage support and programming to meet the needs of mid-career faculty members. Study findings revealed that faculty members vary in terms of individual differences related to professional competence. This variance indicates that a one-size-fits-all approach to supporting faculty is misguided. Rather, individual needs and motivations and institutional demands and characteristics need to be accounted for if the needs of mid-career faculty are to be met. Refocusing the Perspective Caffarella et al. (1989) engaged in a review of the literature on the largest faculty cohort – mid-career. They categorized research and practice on mid-career into two dominant perspectives: institutional and individual. The authors noted that the institutional perspective was most prominent in the literature during that time period

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and was dominated by the stereotype that older is not better. In fact, there was a belief that having older faculty members resulted in increased costs, reduced administrative flexibility, and fewer opportunities to hire newly minted PhDs. The predominant focus was on the impact of aging faculty on their colleges and universities. Research questions that guided this line of inquiry focused on issues of stamina (e.g., can older faculty teach as many courses or students as they did when they younger?) and engagement in institutional activities (e.g., who will run the institution if older faculty are bored with committee work?). The individual or personal perspective acknowledged midlife as a time of continued change and growth, one in which career and personal considerations intersected. Scholars who studied mid-career from the individual perspective during this period of time examined the influence of personal considerations on professional accomplishments (e.g., what is the impact of health or family responsibilities on a faculty member’s productivity?) and individual differences (e.g., are there gender or ethnic differences in career paths?). This line of research highlighted the need for midlife professors to engage in self-assessment and reflection as they examined past, present, and future career considerations. Caffarella et al. (1989) argued that, rather than view mid-career as a negative period in time institutionally and individually, this career stage presents an opportunity for immense growth and evolution, one that benefited both the faculty members and the institutions that employed them. Mid-career faculty, they asserted, have immense potential during this career stage to contribute to their personal and professional communities. Caffarella and colleagues concluded their research by noting, “Perhaps the most important issue to explore is how faculty and administrators can create an institutional climate allowing the greatest use of mid-career colleagues and resources” (p. 408). The work presented by Caffarella and her colleagues (1989) began to debunk myths about mid-career productivity. Specifically, their review of the literature served to highlight the varying, and at times misguided, views of the mid-career stage. An important takeaway from research during this decade was the valuable role mid-career faculty members play on their respective campuses. Scholars identified opportunities to support mid-career faculty by better aligning institutional and individual efforts as a means of achieving outcomes at both levels. In addition, this line of inquiry highlighted the various roles, responsibilities, and ways in which mid-career faculty engage in their careers and lives and the types of support that were present and needed. In the next section, we delve more deeply into research and practice from the 1980s that highlighted the multifaceted nature of the faculty career and the implications of that on the mid-career faculty stage and faculty development programming.

Multifaceted Nature of the Faculty Career: A Professional Perspective Scholars during the late 1970s and 1980s drew attention to the multifaceted nature of the faculty career which is the third theme we present from this decade. As part of

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this line of inquiry, three sub-themes emerged in the literature which we discuss in the following section: the career stage model, an examination of the academic professional, and specific institutional efforts to support mid-career faculty members. Perhaps most important to current understanding about mid-career faculty members was the introduction of the career stage model (Baldwin and Blackburn 1981) which offered knowledge about the ways in which faculty members experience the different stages of their careers, associated characteristics, and professional needs. Baldwin and Blackburn’s (1981) framework of faculty career stages was and continues to serve as the foundation from which much research and practice about the mid-career stage emanates. Knowledge gleaned from the career stage model contributed to scholarship which sought to better articulate what it meant to be an academic during the 1980s, thus offering an image of the academic professional (Rice 1984). This line of inquiry called on members of the academy, and those who support them, to re-examine the nature and structure of the faculty career. The professoriate was at a turning point during the 1980s, prompting the need for additional scholarship. Lastly, while in its infancy during this decade, recognition of the importance of supporting mid-career faculty members prompted the creation of institution-specific programs geared toward this population of faculty members which we highlight as part of our discussion. In addition, scholars began to explore what professional and continuing education looked like in service to mid-career faculty members, noting the benefits to their institutions. We first start our discussion with a more in-depth look at the career stage model offered by Baldwin and Blackburn (1981).

Career Stage Approach Highlighting a decrease in academic vacancies across colleges and universities, Baldwin and Blackburn (1981) sought to answer the question, “How can colleges and universities most effectively capitalize on the potential of their currently employed, experienced faculty” (p. 598)? If limited vacancies were to characterize the academy, Baldwin and Blackburn (1981) posited that campus leaders would need to focus on supporting the faculty members working at their institutions in an effort to retain top talent. To study this question, they surveyed a population of 106 male faculty members from 12 liberal arts colleges in the Midwest. Through their research, Baldwin and Blackburn (1981) identified five distinct career stages: (a) stage 1, assistant professors within the first 3 years of full-time college teaching employment; (b) stage 2, assistant professors with 3-year-plus college teaching experience; (c) stage 3, associate professors; (d) stage 4, full professors more than 5 years from retirement; and (e) stage 5, full professors within 5 years from formal retirement. Of particular importance to the focus of this chapter are faculty members in stages three and four, who were more likely than their peers in other career stages to consider a career change and to feel their career was at a “standstill” (p. 606). Faculty members in these two career stages noted their desire to have access to additional opportunities for professional growth well beyond achieving full professorship status. Findings also revealed waning enthusiasm for teaching and research, causing midcareer faculty members to question the value of the academic profession.

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The career stage model informed research and practice during the 1980s and beyond that targeted mid-career faculty specifically. Baldwin and Blackburn (1981) noted, “Faculty described their career advancement as a series of new growth opportunities, role changes, new interests, and new responsibilities. This evidence stresses the need to maintain opportunities for ongoing career growth” (p. 611). The need for continued opportunities for growth and development was echoed by Clark and Corcoran (1989). Their literature review pulled together streams of research and practice that explored issues of faculty renewal and change. Their review also pointed to mid-career as a stage when faculty have been susceptible to plateauing and ask questions such as “‘is this all there is?’” (p. 26). Contributions of their review include a greater understanding of the conditions that affect faculty vitality, a concept discussed more in the subsequent decades, the need to apply a longer, life-course perspective on the faculty career, and the importance of employing a greater diversity of strategies to improve career development opportunities, particularly at midcareer.

Academic Professionalization Research by Baldwin and Blackburn (1981) established the foundation for the study of the faculty career, particularly through a career stage lens. Rice (1984) built on understanding of the faculty career and academic work by posing the question – “what does it mean to be professional academically”(p. 5)? Rice presented four diverse yet interrelated areas of research and practice that shed light on faculty careers: (a) being professional – meaning and practice, (b) research on organizational careers, (c) adult development theory, and (d) institutional policies and organizational development. Rice argued that higher education scholars and practitioners would benefit from pursuing an interdisciplinary approach to understanding careers, drawing from other fields such as business and human resources. An important implication of that interdisciplinary approach, Rice suggested, would be an appreciation for differences among faculty. He noted, “Much is being discovered about what professionals do when they get ‘stuck’ in mid-career and the kinds of ‘opportunity structures’ required to sustain personal and career vitality” (p. 4). Similar to the work of Baldwin and Blackburn (1981), Rice noted the importance of adult development theories to inform understanding of academic careers and the faculty experience. Such an approach to research and practice supports the knowledge that faculty members have different needs and experiences across career stages, thus requiring more tailored faculty development supports to navigate transitions successfully. Rice (1984) also highlighted the need to create experiences for faculty that encouraged them to engage in a diversity of learning experiences throughout their careers, as a means of facilitating continued growth given the nature of the faculty career. Such a view lent itself to an assessment of institutional policies and practices. While organizational policies and practices can support faculty learning and growth, Rice (1984) argued that the majority of governing structures and institutional policies impede, and even dampen, faculty growth (given their inflexibility). For

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example, when institutions hold to the myopic view of the faculty career as singularly research focused, they limit faculty members from being innovative in their search for sources of increased renewal, such as being involved in interdisciplinary studies (Rice 1984). Rice observed the academic profession at a turning point in the 1980s, one requiring new ways of understanding and supporting faculty members across career stages and institution types. He argued that the current, one-dimensional view of the faculty career was not only antiquated but detrimental to harnessing the collective power and contributions of faculty members. He closed his writing by noting, “Ways must be found to release the incredible imagination, curiosity, creativity, and commitments of our colleagues – the most talented of a generation. Only then can we ensure that the generations ahead will be well-served” (p. 11). This statement served as a call to institutional leaders and faculty developers to invest in targeted midcareer faculty development offerings. We highlight efforts to answer this call in our discussion of institutional examples and professional education, the remaining subtheme of this decade.

Institutional Examples and Professional Education The work of Baldwin and Blackburn (1981) and Rice (1984) not only forged a strong foundation from which to understand and study the faculty career; their research also informed faculty development practice by drawing attention to the ways in which faculty programming could be organized to better support the multifaceted nature of the faculty career. In this section, we highlight research by Menges et al. (1988) who shared findings from Stanford University’s Program for Faculty Renewal, which focused on mid-career faculty, followed by an examination of professional education in the 1980s in meeting the needs of mid-career faculty members. Program for Faculty Renewal Established in 1975 from the Lilly Endowment, and later by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 1979, the purpose of the Program for Faculty Renewal at Stanford University was to support faculty members and to provide an “opportunity to revitalize scholarly commitments through contact, study, and discussion with colleagues from Stanford and other postsecondary institutions” (Menges et al. 1988, p. 292) that offered targeted supports for mid-career faculty members. Faculty from across all institution types participated, resulting in over 400 participants engaging in one or more components of the program from 1979 through 1984. Faculty participants were engaged in a variety of ways, spanning an inresidence 2-week summer workshop and a reunion. Surveys assessing the impact of the workshop and reunion suggested high satisfaction with the program. Professional Education Belker (1985) posed a provocative question as the title of her manuscript, “The Education of Mid-Career Professors: Is it Continuing?” As part of her research, Belker described the evolution of professional education of midcareer faculty members, noting the shifting responsibility from the individual faculty member to one in which administrators should be engaged through joint collaboration. Belker noted, “There is a decline in the traditional means of sustaining

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intellectual vitality, such as visiting professorships, attendance at professional meetings, sabbatical leaves, and funds for research” (p. 68). Belker suggested that vital faculty members contribute to their institutions in a multitude of ways at the programmatic, departmental, and community levels. Therefore, a more deliberate partnership between faculty and campus administrators could serve to strengthen professional education for faculty members at mid-career. Through an extensive literature review and examination of existing faculty development programs, Belker’s efforts revealed four major themes. First, the majority of existing faculty development programs fell under the “traditional” model of faculty development, one in which the responsibility for said programming fell on the individual faculty member. The faculty member was left to decide the areas in which improvement was needed spanning professional, instructional, and personal levels, and the faculty member acted on that assessment accordingly. Second, the majority of faculty development programs targeted early career faculty colleagues. Belker noted, “Thus, it appears that most colleges and universities continue to view professional development as an individual concern for mid-career faculty” (p. 69). Third, institutional differences existed in terms of how professional development was viewed and enacted at the individual faculty level. Fourth, few faculty development efforts accounted for the institutional view as an important consideration to account for when developing and delivering faculty development programming. Research during the 1980s revealed the majority of professional development efforts were situated squarely in the traditional approach, placing developmental responsibility on faculty members individually. However, a few colleges and universities were beginning to consider the needs of their mid-career faculty and began investing in more targeted ways to support their professional growth. The movement toward more deliberate efforts in supporting mid-career faculty informed research and practice during the 1990s.

Summary of 1980s Literature Two fundamental contributions surfaced during the 1980s: The recognition that the mid-career stage was and is a unique and pivotal moment (Baldwin and Blackburn 1981) and an identification and understanding of the different elements that contribute to the academic career (Rice 1984). Associated literature on mid-career development was characterized by a focus on addressing the strain faculty members felt as a result of the tension between demands of teaching and research, further compounded by stilted institutional reward systems and a lack of dedicated institutional supports. Scholars in the 1980s replaced an individual approach with an institutional one, suggesting an intersection of institutional priorities and mid-career faculty members’ needs as a necessary approach to faculty development at this critical career stage. During the 1980s, scholars and practitioners set the charge for what research and practice at mid-career should look like moving forward.

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Despite the contributions to the study of mid-career faculty in the 1980s, there are some limitations worth noting. First, there was limited empirical research conducted that included mid-career faculty members as the target population. For those studies that did fill this gap, little attention was paid to the nuances of gender and race and ethnicity. For example, the groundbreaking work of Baldwin and Blackburn (1981) focused exclusively on the experiences of men faculty, but this sole focus was representative of the professoriate at the time. Additionally, mid-career research did not focus on mid-career faculty members as individuals with lives and needs that span professional and personal considerations. Third, the administrator perspective was lacking in relation to the experiences and needs of mid-career faculty members, highlighting the need for more collaboration between faculty members and campus administrators. Greater attention needed to focus specifically on the connection between advances in faculty development as a field in relation to knowledge gleaned about faculty career stages, particularly at mid-career. Research and practice during the 1990s began to address these gaps, and we discuss such developments in the next section.

1990s: A Focus on the Individual Faculty Member While the 1980s provided a critical foundation for understanding faculty career stages, the 1990s offered insight into the personal needs of faculty and how those needs ought to be met by the institution (Hubbard and Atkins 1995). Once again, we highlight three themes that emerged during this decade: intersection of individual and institution, the multifaceted nature of the faculty career, and tension between research and practice. While these themes are similar to what we presented in our review of research and practice from the 1980s, the ways in which these themes were conceived and studied differed from what was published in the prior decade. Research and practice during the 1990s focused on the institution as a source of strain and a cause of mid-career faculty members feeling stuck and somewhat disillusioned. While Erikson’s psychosocial model of development laid much of the theoretical framework in the 1980s literature regarding faculty well-being and development (Erikson 1950/1963; Rice 1984), the notion of “vitality” was woven throughout the literature on faculty in the 1990s (Kalivoda et al. 1994; Wheeler 1997), specifically the ways in which institutions either hinder or support faculty vitality. Finkelstein (1996) described faculty vitality as being “concerned with motivation, engagement with work and work-related goals – albeit motivation is sustained over time” (p. 71). A key nuance of vitality, compared to generativity, is the added notion of initiative. Finkelstein explained, “vital faculty create opportunities for themselves or manage to find opportunity in their immediate environment where they feel competent” (Finkelstein 1996, p. 75). As part of this theme, we highlight available and needed institutional supports to facilitate faculty vitality, focusing specifically on the role of institutional and relational factors, the department chair, and professional organizations.

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The study of mid-career faculty also evolved to provide greater understanding for the need to provide resources and support that promote well-being of the whole person – one who has both professional and personal responsibilities and contexts to navigate. The focus on well-being ties in with research and practice related to vitality, including the importance of tending to all the needs of mid-career faculty, not just professional considerations. Lastly, the tension between teaching and research was still present in scholarship focused on mid-career faculty during the 1990s. In fact, this line of inquiry was expanded as compared to work in the 1980s, especially given the shift in focus on mid-career faculty members as individuals who need support to balance their professional and personal responsibilities effectively. The focus on the individual perspective surfaced challenges mid-career faculty members felt related to competing time commitments pertaining to their professional responsibilities, coupled with feelings of isolation, and lack of recognition for the myriad ways in which they contributed to their institutions. Our review of the 1990s takes an in-depth look at research and practice across these three themes, but we first begin with a discussion of research and practice that focused on the need to situate mid-career faculty research and practice at the intersection of individual and institutional considerations.

Intersection of Individual and Institution While the 1980s highlighted the disconnect between the individual and the institution, the 1990s literature examined the alignment between faculty members and the institution they represented both in terms of research and practice. Researchers sought to better understand the mid-career faculty experience from the individual faculty member perspective (Karpiak 1996; Kelly 1991; Tucker 1990), as well as through institutional policies and infrastructure that had the potential to facilitate needed career advancement. Understanding faculty members as individuals and seeking to support their well-being in relation to their institutional contexts had the potential to contribute to their vitality, resulting in outcomes at the individual and institutional levels.

The Institution as a Source of Strain Karpiak (1996, 1997) engaged in research to better understand how faculty members experienced the mid-career and midlife period in their academic and community work, accounting for personal and professional relationships, and their evolving sense of self. In both studies, she offered a counter narrative to the assumptions permeating the academy about the quality and engagement of more senior faculty colleagues, building on the “deadwood” misconception of mid-career faculty (Kelly 1990). Rather than view senior scholars as drains on institutional resources and less frequent contributors to institutional priorities and activities both in terms of quality and quantity, Karpiak (1996, 1997) posited that mid-career faculty were a valuable resource for institutions and peers. Her research relied on adult development theory

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and research on higher education environments to understand the intersection of individual and environmental (e.g., institutional) considerations. Karpiak’s (1996) study provided insights into how mid-career faculty members evolved at this stage in their careers in relation to their discipline, research, teaching, and collegial relationships during midlife and career. As part of her research, she invited 120 associate professors from the humanities and social sciences to share their thoughts and experiences related to a guiding research question – “Why had a significant number of associate professors remained at that rank for so many years without further promotion” (p. 55)? Mid-career faculty members used terms like underappreciated, unacknowledged, and unsupported to describe the administrator-faculty relationship on their respective campuses. Study participants also shared concerns related to the tenure and promotion process. Many faculty members in Karpiak’s (1996) study aspired to earn full professorship but expressed a lack of trust in the process due to unclear promotion criteria and limited opportunities for feedback on progress toward advancement. These same faculty members shared a desire to broaden their knowledge and to pursue work beyond the discipline. Karpiak’s (1997) follow-up study was guided by three research questions that focused on gleaning knowledge about (1) how mid-career faculty members’ orientations to their scholarship, discipline, teaching, and relationships evolved at midcareer; (2) the types of changes and renewals mid-career faculty experienced during this stage of their career, and (3) the factors that supported or hindered their experiences. While her 1996 study focused on the individual faculty member, her follow-up study really sought to better understand the conditions of university professors in relation to institutional supports that either impact or impede the mid-career experience. Interviews with 20 associate professors (15 men, 5 women) in the Faculty of Arts brought to light four concepts relating to faculty members’ perceptions of their careers as they progress: (a) meaning (e.g., high interest and caring in regard to academic roles and responsibilities), (b) malaise (e.g., low interest and caring, stagnation), (c) marginality (e.g., belief that the university displays low interest and caring), and (d) mattering (e.g., others’ care and concern). She found that many mid-career faculty were highly invested in what they do and sought to find ways to be effective in teaching, and also in scholarship, but to a lesser extent. Despite finding high meaning in teaching, the associate professor participants also talked about feelings of malaise given the time and energy good teaching required. This malaise would then carry over to other core aspects of academic work. Relatedly, several mid-career faculty described feelings of marginality in which they felt disconnected from their disciplines, institutions, and colleagues. Fundamentally, the mid-career faculty in Karpiak’s (1997) study wanted to feel as though their contributions and work mattered to the university, and they were valued. Her research revealed the significance of mid-career faculty relationships and the institutional value placed on the myriad ways in which faculty contribute to the institutions in which they are employed. Karpiak’s (1996, 1997) research findings provided greater insights into the midcareer faculty experience from an individual perspective as well as through an

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institutional view lens. She discovered that mid-career faculty members identified professional and personal relationships as a life force, and they needed to believe their contributions to the institution, community, and departments mattered. Additionally, faculty felt a deep sense of responsibility to take care of the next generation of faculty members and also struggled with a promotion process that undervalued roles they deemed essential to the academy, such as teaching. Finally, the findings demonstrated women faculty were at an increased disadvantage when it comes to their professional esteem, such that women “must cope also with feeling unentitled and unaccepted” (Karpiak 1996, p. 60). Karpiak’s research provided a framework for and highlighted the importance of a conceptual framework that accounts for faculty and institutional characteristics as necessary to better supporting mid-career faculty and the institutions in which they are employed. In the next section, we present research and practice that delves more deeply into the institution as contributor to the mid-career faculty experience.

Institutional Supports Part of the focus on individual faculty research in the 1990s included an examination of institutional factors, including key leadership positions on campus that had the potential to influence and support mid-career faculty members as they advanced in the academy (Caffarella and Zinn 1999; Creswell and Brown 1992; Robbins 1993). Scholars who engaged in this line of inquiry sought to inform institutional efforts targeted at mid-career. Regarding institutional supports, Kazlauskas and Maxwell (1991) made a key contribution in extending this literature into the context of community colleges. Keeping community and 2-year colleges at the forefront of the literature on faculty development was particularly critical given the increased lack of vitality experienced by mid-career faculty at these institutions, in part due to their “heavy class loads and increasingly diverse enrollments” (p. 82), while also they were “concerned about staying abreast of new developments in their specific disciplines” (Kazlauskas and Maxwell 1991, p. 84). No institution type is thus exempt from needing to provide their faculty body with the necessary resources and support to foster development. Research throughout the 1990s offered insight into the role that institutions as a whole, as well as individuals within the institution, can play in providing the vital professional development that mid-career faculty crave. We discuss this work in the following sections. Institutional and Relational Factors Caffarella and Zinn (1999) examined continuing professional development, given that the process of learning does not cease once promotion and tenure are earned. As part of their research, they advanced a conceptual framework that highlighted four critical factors that enhance or impede faculty members’ professional development: (a) people and interpersonal relationships, (b) institutional structures, (c) personal considerations and commitments, and (d) intellectual and psychosocial commitments. Considerations across these four domains, according to Caffarella and Zinn, were central to professional development experiences.

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Their conceptual framework in the 1990s acknowledged the importance of people and interpersonal relationships within and outside of the work environment, noting that the nature of these relationships, and associated interactions, greatly impacted personal and professional development. Institutional factors such as available resources (e.g., financial) and overlapping commitments could either advance or impede continuous learning and growth. Personal commitments, roles, and experiences outside of the academy influenced the levels at which faculty members can commit to and advance professional responsibilities. In addition, faculty members’ sense of self and their beliefs about competence could either lead to advancement or feelings of burnout. In sum, the conceptual framework advanced by Caffarella and Zinn (1999) drew attention to the varying, and sometimes conflicting, interconnected factors that contribute to faculty members’ lived experiences, thus acknowledging the complexity of the professoriate, particularly post-tenure. In the following sub-theme discussion, we highlight research and practice focused on the role of the department chair as an example of an important institutional support and as someone on campus who can, and should, contribute to the development of mid-career faculty members. Department Chair Research by Creswell and Brown (1992), for example, examined the role department chairs play in the research productivity of faculty members. As part of their research, they examined faculty development practices of 200 chairpersons employed across a range of institution types, including research, doctoral-granting institutions, comprehensive colleges and universities, and liberal arts colleges. They developed a typology of seven roles assumed by department chairs with accompanying actions and behaviors ranging from advocate and mentor to collaborator and enabler. They found that the chairperson can, and should, take on a more formal faculty development role in support of departmental colleagues. Such a role could involve more focused one-on-one mentoring of their mid-career peers or leadership coaching for 1 day assuming the department chair position. According to Creswell and Brown (1992), department chairs wanted their posttenure colleagues to be departmental contributors who aspired to full professorship. However, the authors noted that department chairs in their study perceived posttenure faculty members as “harder to change” (p. 55); thus, any engagement with this population of faculty members was perceived as success. Despite this perceived lack of engagement by department chairs with mid-career faculty members, Creswell and Brown (1992) believed department chairs could, and should, engage with mid-career faculty members to facilitate career re-examination, especially for those faculty colleagues who have hit a career plateau. The department chair is well positioned to understand the day-to-day realities and responsibilities of their mid-career departmental colleagues. Department chairs were often familiar with their institutional and disciplinary contributions and were particularly poised to understand the institutional and disciplinary supports available to help combat those challenges. While this line of inquiry looked at persons and formal roles inside of the institution, specifically the department chair position, professional organizations also began to acknowledge the need to enhance faculty development supports

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beyond early career as not only important to the faculty member but also to the students they support. Such a view acknowledged the importance of a variety of stakeholders asserting agency over the development of a critical population of faculty members at mid-career and recognizing the effect of these faculty members on student learning. Professional Organization The Council for Undergraduate Research (CUR) is an example of a professional organization that saw an opportunity to engage and provide support for mid-career faculty members. The mission of CUR is to support and promote high-quality undergraduate student-faculty collaborative research and scholarship. It does so by hosting workshops and sharing other resources to facilitate student and faculty engagement in undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activity. In 1999 and early 2000, CUR hosted a workshop titled, “The Vital Faculty: Issues after Tenure,” which brought together faculty and administrator teams from 20 institutions to address the lack of alignment between individual and institutional considerations (Mills and Malachowski 1999). Each team included an administrator with oversight responsibilities in undergraduate research or faculty development, which provided accountability and decision-making authority. Workshop sessions addressed faculty development topics such as the evolution of faculty careers, including increased administrative responsibilities after tenure is awarded; the role of the institution in encouraging and rewarding post-tenure faculty development; the role of the department chair in creating a supportive environment for continuing faculty development; and the use of post-tenure reviews, summative and formative. What is particularly useful about CUR’s efforts to contribute to mid-career faculty development is that the model described here provides one example of how to deliberately facilitate collaboration among administrators, mid-career faculty members, and professional organizations to work toward a common aim. That aim is the career development of mid-career faculty members, which is a benefit to individual faculty members, their institutions, and the students they are tasked with developing. In sum, the focus on the importance of collaboration between administrators and mid-career faculty members related to faculty development efforts provided much needed guidance about the importance of strategic partnerships in career development initiatives. While mid-career faculty members have and should assume agency for their career development, they cannot do so alone or without the resources and investment in career development programming offered through their institutions. This line of inquiry which started in the 1980s and was expanded in the 1990s illustrates the power of the intersection between individual and institutional considerations in service to mid-career faculty members’ career advancement and development.

Multifaceted Nature of the Faculty Career: An Individual Perspective Scholars and practitioners during the 1980s drew attention to the evolving nature of the professoriate and the need to acknowledge and better understand career stage

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challenges and opportunities (Rice 1986; Sorcinelli 1985). Adult development theory informed this research and highlighted the importance of all aspects of midlife and mid-career as important contributors to the faculty experience, thus requiring a new approach to career development. A significant outcome of situating faculty development research and practice at the intersection of individual and institutional considerations was a focus on faculty members’ well-being. Researchers continued this stream of research in the 1990s by focusing on the whole person, a pivotal switch in perspective that acknowledged the interplay between professional and personal considerations. In our discussion of the second theme from this decade, we highlight research that acknowledged and examined the importance of personal wellbeing as requisite to supporting mid-career faculty members’ career advancement and overall health.

Well-Being of the Whole Person Mid-career research during the 1990s revealed the need to acknowledge faculty members as whole persons, including professional and personal environments, roles, and responsibilities (Hubbard and Atkins 1995; Tosti-Vasey and Willis 1991). Hubbard and Atkins (1995) sought to address “the larger issue of institutional, professional, and personal development as part of an interrelated and interacting, multi-faceted system” (p. 120). They linked physical and emotional well-being to work performance. Caffarella and Zinn (1999) corroborated the strong connection between personal life and professional vitality; they pointed out that unsupportive relationships, such as spouses at home failing to understand the demands of an academic career, served as barriers toward development. In contrast, when faculty felt supported at home, they were better able to engage in their professional work and find vitality in their careers. Hubbard and Atkins’s (1995) research focused specifically on the need for an expanded definition of faculty development, one that accounted for career and life stage realities as influenced by personal and professional experiences. Hubbard and Atkins (1995) sought to highlight the importance of knowing the extent to which, if at all, career expectations have been met for mid-career faculty given the importance of that knowledge to campus leaders and faculty developers tasked with providing support to this population of faculty. Similar to Karpiak (1996, 1997) and others (Tosti-Vasey and Willis 1991), terms like stuck, burnout, isolation, and disillusionment characterized mid-career faculty members’ sentiments. Hubbard and Atkins (1995) highlighted the experiences of women faculty and their reported challenges related to university politics and policies, personal and family issues, disproportionate workloads, and overall feelings of self-doubt and self-worth. A key point of their work, as well as research by Tosti-Vasey and Willis (1991), stressed the interconnectedness of personal and professional aspects as salient to the lived experiences of faculty members. Furthermore, in order to affect student learning, institutional leaders and faculty developers needed to invest in faculty members’ learning, to support the whole person. A focus on the whole person lent itself to an examination of work-life considerations. Lamber et al. (1993) conducted a qualitative study involving 33

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mid-career faculty members from a research university. In an effort to have a representative sample, they sought to include a cross-section of faculty perspectives from the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, the School of Business, and the School of Law while also paying attention to time in rank and scholarly productivity. They engaged in conversations about the shifting nature of faculty roles at mid-career as well as sources of stress. Findings revealed several themes. First, the newfound freedom upon promotion and tenure allowed these faculty members to explore new forms of research. Along with that autonomy came greater responsibility for career decisions, albeit with fewer resources to support those decisions. Another concern expressed by study participants was lack of time after promotion and tenure to engage effectively in all the roles assumed and miscommunication by campus administrators about how rewards and incentives align with those varied roles. With lack of rewards and incentives came beliefs that talents and contributions had been unrecognized. Faculty participants recommended that definitions of faculty development need to be broadened to acknowledge a diversity of professional and personal needs that account for their concerns, well-being, and career development and advancement needs. This shift in the definition of faculty development was critical, given it accounted for faculty members’ beliefs about the benefits well-being has on faculty vitality. When institutions offered support for both work and family through institutional policies and programs, employee productivity and retention increased; tension was reduced (Tosti-Vasey and Willis 1991). In closing, researchers during the 1990s continued to acknowledge the critical role mid-career faculty members can, and do, play on their respective campuses. However, in order for mid-career faculty members to contribute to their institutions, departments, and students, institutions must acknowledge and attend to their professional and personal needs, acknowledging that their lived experiences encompass so much more than just the ways in which they engage professionally. Treating midcareer faculty members as whole persons and supporting their well-being as they seek to advance and evolve in their careers were an important contribution of this decade.

Tension Between Teaching and Research The third, and final, theme we highlight from this decade focuses on faculty tension in balancing both research and teaching roles. This tension did not dissipate at the turn of the decade but rather continued into the 1990s and took on a shape of its own. Not only was research still disproportionately valued in comparison to efforts in the classroom, but feelings of isolation doing scholarly work became an additional concern. Researchers who delved into this tension during the decade provided a more in-depth look into the challenges of competing time commitments, the feelings of isolation felt by faculty at mid-career, and the lack of recognition and institutional rewards. In the following section, we highlight research that addresses these subthemes.

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Challenges of Competing Time Commitments During this decade, mid-career faculty members reported feelings of tension from balancing a vast number of responsibilities all within a finite 24-hour day. Austin and Pilat (1990) discussed the stress caused by dividing time between service and a discipline, as too much effort devoted to one aspect of the profession can stall the progress of another. Mid-career faculty found that the only way to “win” was to work long hours and dedicate lots of commitment to both. Caffarella and Zinn (1999) substantiated this source of tension as they reported that a prominent institutional barrier hindering professional development was the pressure to fulfill overlapping professional commitments and responsibilities within a finite amount of time. Faculty in the mid-career stage increasingly reported difficulty balancing numerous responsibilities as their roles and tasks diversified and became less clear after securing tenure (Lamber et al. 1993). Even within the domain of teaching, much of their responsibilities occurred outside of the classroom, such as directing theses, supervising internships, and overseeing teaching assistants. Lamber et al. (1993) identified the consequence of these commitments: “. . .faculty have less time to spend with each other, less time to provide the informal support needed to experiment with their teaching, and even to adequately reflect on and revise current instructional practice” (p. 25). Another concern creeping into the literature in the 1990s was that higher education institutions increasingly valued some responsibilities more than others and concomitantly neglected to value the work that often brings faculty the most satisfaction. A few campuses conducted studies to examine the alignment of priorities between faculty and the administration (Edgerton 1993). Notably, in a study conducted at Syracuse, the vice chancellor surveyed faculty, department chairs, and deans to gauge opinions on the perceived balance between teaching and research. The consensus of the results was that, from the faculty perspective, the institution’s priorities were too concentrated on research. Another noteworthy finding of this study was that individual faculty members learned that they were not alone in their perceptions; their faculty peers also shared the perception that the institution more strongly valued research, resulting in a reexamination of Syracuse’s institutional agenda. The focus on the balance between teaching and research was also on the forefront of discussion at other higher education institutions. For example, Stanford also put the balance of teaching and research under the spotlight, as the university’s president, “called on the Stanford faculty to recognize that teaching was ‘the first among our labors’ – and came down hard on the need for a recommitment to teaching” (Edgerton 1993, p. 13). He called for institutional changes such as “ending quantitative standards for measuring research productivity” and “broadening the definition of scholarship to include creative work beyond that reported in peer-reviewed journals” (Edgerton 1993, p. 13). These institutions served as trailblazers that set broadening the scope of scholarship and recalibrating incentives to value both teaching and research as an institutional agenda item. Olsen (1992) studied the effects of disproportionate value systems in the academy by surveying 14 faculty members who left their institution for reasons other than

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retirement. As we saw in the 1980s, the definition of scholarship was narrow and thus failed to include teaching. Failure to broaden the definition of scholarship, which was a recommendation suggested in the preceding decade, continued to have a vast array of consequences in the 1990s. As part of her research, Olsen interviewed faculty members who chose to leave their positions, as she sought to identify the factors that contributed to their decision. One prominent reason they provided was the lack of weight teaching held in tenure decisions and the misalignment between faculty’s investment in teaching and the institution’s emphasis on research. The resulting high faculty turnover rates then meant that these faculty left, taking their diverse sets of skills with them. Of more pressing concern to the institution was that the cost of turnover was equivalent to a faculty member’s annual salary, thus suggesting to the researchers, at least, the importance of realigning values to increase retention (Olsen 1992).

Isolation and Lack of Recognition The literature continuing into the 1990s reaffirmed the emphasis institutions placed on research. However, what became clearer during this decade was that, despite this focus, some institutions and departments neglected to cultivate an environment to ensure faculty members found satisfaction in scholarly pursuits which, at times, can contribute to an isolating experience (Finkelstein 1996; Hubbard and Atkins 1995). Given that it is the collaborative, intellectually stimulating nature of the academic profession that sustains productivity throughout the career and promotes vitality, it is not surprising that faculty members who experienced a sense of isolation reported a sense of loneliness (Lamber et al. 1993). In fact, Olsen found that the most prominent reason faculty members left their positions was the lack of support and camaraderie they felt within their department (Olsen 1992). One faculty member who left explained, “I’m lonely intellectually” (Lamber et al. 1993, p. 23). Since institutions value scholarly activity, it consumes much of faculty members’ time yet the remoteness that can accompany scholarly pursuits also seems to sap much of faculty members’ satisfaction. Another related concern was the lack of recognition faculty felt from others in their research endeavors. In a study conducted by Lamber et al. (1993), faculty reported a dearth of recognition and support from departmental colleagues and the institution as a whole, despite these faculty members being prolific scholars. One such faculty member expressed the concern that “the most stressful thing in my current work life is lack of recognition for what I have done. All these things I’ve done. Nobody has paid any attention to them” (p. 22). Similarly, faculty members also reported, “people are wonderful and friendly and at the same time the institutional culture is not congenial, not supportive of my brand of work” (Olsen 1992). This lack of recognition, coupled with the lack of colleague camaraderie, fueled the tension and stress faculty felt while performing the professional responsibility most valued by the institution. The 1990s literature did offer strategies to mitigate the stress, both at the individual and institutional levels. One strategy suggested was that institutions should clarify their expectations and how faculty members should allocate their effort

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among teaching, research, and service responsibilities (Austin and Pilat 1990). Other recommendations included ensuring that a department would have more than one faculty member in any particular field and encouraging communication between faculty pursuing similar focus areas of research. Also suggested was the need to increase departmental recognition for faculty members (Olsen 1992). Lastly, in regard to concerns faculty had toward salary, Olsen (1992) discussed fostering open conversation between administrators and faculty about the rationale behind an institutional reward structure, as well as increasing feedback for faculty at all stages of the career.

Summary of 1990s Literature One of the pivotal contributions of mid-career research and practice from the 1990s was the recognition that faculty members are individuals whose experiences are influenced by their professional and personal roles and responsibilities. This realization further elevated the need to situate mid-career faculty development at the intersection of individual needs and institutional priorities, highlighting the dynamic relationship between these aspects of academic work (Weiland 1994). By situating mid-career faculty development at this intersection, faculty vitality could be reinforced, resulting in fulfilling, productive academic careers of benefit both to faculty members and the institutions in which they were employed. However, the tension associated with the demands of the profession identified during the 1980s still permeated the academy in the 1990s, particularly the tension between teaching and research, resulting in feelings of isolation and a lack of clear career direction. Similar to the 1980s, methodology used in the 1990s included using development programs as a basis for reference and analysis as well as for more in-depth case studies (Hubbard and Atkins 1995). Compared to what was seen in the 1980s, the 1990s also shifted to include more qualitative-based data collection (Creswell and Brown 1992; Karpiak 1996). Despite methodological advancements from the previous decade, some limitations are worth noting. While there were greater efforts to represent experiences of mid-career faculty beyond research universities, the study and practice of mid-career faculty were predominantly situated in this institutional setting. The lack of institutional diversity and representation resulted in a near myopic view of mid-career faculty experiences. In addition, consideration for factors such as race and ethnicity was still wanting. However, scholars began to acknowledge the presence of gender differences in terms of experiences and needs in the academy, thus articulating the importance of applying a gender lens to the study and practice of mid-career faculty moving forward. Scholarship and practice during the 2000s began to incorporate a gender lens; additionally attention to institutional diversity found its way into the literature in the 2000s.

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2000s: The Role of Context to the Mid-Career Faculty Experience During the 2000s, as an extension of research initiated in the 1990s, researchers began to highlight and account for the role of context as a critical factor that influenced the experiences of mid-career faculty (O’Meara 2004; O’Meara et al. 2003). Three main themes emerged related to the study and practice of mid-career faculty that we present in this section: the multifaceted nature of the faculty career and the associated definitional challenges, a rise in strategies and interventions to better support mid-career faculty, and research and practice that focused on the experiences of women in the academy. Scholars highlighted the importance of the “middle years” professionally and personally as faculty members traversed their evolving roles and responsibilities (Baker-Fletcher et al. 2005; Baldwin et al. 2005; Trotman and Brown 2005). As Baldwin et al. (2005) noted in discussing their study, “The need to study faculty in the middle years intentionally and systematically is the ultimate conclusion of this exploratory investigation” (p. 117). Due to a lack of clearly defined boundaries, these “middle years” can span decades which causes challenges for mid-career faculty members as they traverse the ebbs and flows of professional and personal roles and responsibilities. Faculty developers tasked with supporting mid-career faculty must also contend with this challenge when working to develop appropriate career stage supports. In response, scholars during this decade sought to offer some definitional direction about the mid-career stage (Austin 2010). The 2000s also brought an emergence of scholarship and practice that highlighted strategies and interventions geared toward mid-career faculty that were led by specific institutional and professional associations. This line of inquiry both featured actual programming and evaluation and assessment of that programming which served as models for others seeking to better support their mid-career faculty. The professoriate evolved with the changing environmental conditions in higher education during the 2000s, as reliance on contingent faculty increased and student bodies and faculty became more diverse (Baker-Fletcher et al. 2005; Baldwin et al. 2008; Feldman and Turnley 2001). These changes required mid-career faculty to engage in and assume vital leadership roles on their respective campuses, requiring them to expand their existing skills and competencies. Similar to the evolving nature of the academic career seen in the previous decade, faculty vitality continued to be a pervasive idea discussed through the 2000s, and the strategies and interventions noted sought to support faculty vitality and career advancement. Lastly, this decade introduced a stream of research, practice, and national efforts focused on women in the academy. Toward the end of the 1990s, scholars began to note the differences men and women academics experienced as members of the academy (Kelly 1991). However, greater intentionality accompanied scholarly efforts during the 2000s to identify and understand the institutional and personal conditions women faculty experienced and the associated challenges and needed resources to support women’s career advancement. We begin our decade review

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discussing research focused on the multifaceted nature of the faculty career by delving more deeply into the definitional challenges examined.

The Multifaceted Nature of the Faculty Career: Definitional Challenges Research and practice throughout the 2000s emphasized a holistic approach to all aspects of the faculty career. In addition, the lack of a formal definition of the midcareer stage became more pronounced during this decade. For example, Baldwin et al. (2005, 2008) highlighted the challenges with studying mid-career, given the few visible hallmarks demarcating the beginning and end of this stage. They further emphasized the importance of career reexamination and revision as critical to supporting faculty members situated in mid-career. As part of their research, Baldwin et al. (2005) sought to better understand the unique experiences of midcareer faculty in comparison with their colleagues in other (early and late) career stages. Further, they sought to provide greater clarity on a mid-career definition, one that helped distinguish professors in their middle years.

Mid-Career Stage Criteria Baldwin et al. (2005) embarked on an exploratory study to examine an “overlooked but very important component of the academic profession: faculty in the middle years” (p. 97). Their research was guided by both chronological age and experience to help better define the middle years of work and defined mid-career as faculty 40–59 years of age and with 12–20 years of higher education teaching experience. Using data from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF), their research sought to answer the question, “Do midlife and mid-career differentiate among faculty in meaningful ways” (p. 101). Through their research, Baldwin and colleagues identified two categories of midcareer: early midlife (40–49) and late midlife (50–59). The research study, which resulted in this mid-career classification system, provided critical insights into the varying needs, challenges, and expectations of mid-career faculty, noting that those in early midlife experienced the academy quite differently from their late midlife colleagues. These differences meant that faculty in different stages of mid-career need varying kinds of support. Throughout this decade, scholars relied on the interplay of age and work experiences to help demarcate mid-career. Given the length of the midcareer stage, scholars began to highlight differences in terms of needs and challenges between those new to the mid-career stage and those deeply entrenched in it. Scholars who focused on a holistic approach to studying mid-career during the 2000s also acknowledged faculty members’ roles and responsibilities within and outside of the academy that influenced their experiences. Perhaps Baldwin et al. (2005) said it best: “At present, there is no comparable empirical basis for policies and programs to support faculty in the middle of their academic career. Basically, the largest and most important component of the academic profession has been ignored both by scholars and policymakers” (p. 97).

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Relying on age and years of teaching experience to ground mid-career scholarship, scholars during the 2000s revealed that time devoted to teaching was greater among late midlife faculty colleagues, while administrative responsibilities were greater at early midlife (Baker-Fletcher et al. 2005; Baldwin et al. 2005). Overall, midlife was the most productive stage of the faculty career, when productivity was defined as publications and other creative work produced. However, mid-career faculty were also the most dissatisfied, largely as a result of work expectations, which resulted in reduced time for advising students, keeping updated in their field, and managing family responsibilities (Baldwin et al. 2005). Such dissatisfaction caused mid-career faculty members to find satisfaction outside their institutions through their professional associations or in consulting opportunities, in order to engage in activities and other professional development that supported career examination and re-envisioning efforts. The lack of intentionality evident in higher education related to the middle years of faculty life, noted by Baldwin et al. (2005) was echoed by Baker-Fletcher et al. (2005) in their study of mid-career faculty. The authors posed a series of questions about the mid-career stage, and the accompanying responsibilities, to mid-career faculty participants attending a teaching-focused workshop. Session attendees described the mid-career stage as an underestimated focal point for development as a teacher beyond the classroom. Time devoted to teaching increases for late midcareer faculty members (Baldwin et al. 2005), and roles and responsibilities expand at this career stage (Morris 2004). Research by Baker-Fletcher et al. (2005) highlighted the tension that existed between teaching and research at mid-career; successful teaching includes other activities such as writing, committee leadership, and mentoring. Couple these evolving roles with the need to manage personal responsibilities (e.g., parental roles) and mounting frustrations abound. As stated by Baker-Fletcher et al. (2005), “Exploring the multifaceted aspects of teaching at mid-career suggests that both the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity lie in our [mid-career faculty members’] negotiation of the intensive multiple claims on our time” (p. 10). Perhaps more importantly, scholars and practitioners studying mid-career during this decade highlighted the importance of context, knowing the lived experiences of mid-career faculty were influenced directly by the institutional settings in which they were employed (Baker-Fletcher et al. 2005; Baldwin et al. 2008). Institutional context added yet another layer to understanding the complexity of the mid-career faculty stage. As Baldwin et al. (2008) explained, “Higher education institutions must look at their mid-career faculty in context in order to understand them fully and serve their professional development needs effectively” (p. 55). Taking into account institutional context and the needs of mid-career faculty contributes to the development of “meaningful faculty development programs” (Kang and Miller 2000, p. 7) as a preventative measure to helping mid-career faculty avoid becoming stuck professionally. Establishment and implementation of goals are a significant element of development during the mid-career stage in an institutional setting. Meaningful goals were a particular “renewal need” put forth by Strage et al. (2008) as they discussed mid-career faculty vitality. Baldwin and Chang (2006) added that

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structured goals in the mid-career phase were crucial in order to “chart a clear path forward without the structure and specific targets the goals of tenure and promotion provided earlier in their careers” (p. 28). To conclude, scholars and practitioners began to address the lack of definition which plagued the mid-career stage during the 2000s. The lack of definition or clearly delineated milestones creates challenges for mid-career faculty, and the individuals tasked with supporting them. However, the work of Baldwin and others provided much-needed guidance about differences that exist among faculty in the middle years which informed institutional and professional association strategies and interventions which we discuss in more detail in the following section.

Strategies and Interventions: Supporting Mid-Career Faculty Throughout the 2000s, scholars offered a discussion on different institutional programs and strategies that aimed to sustain faculty vitality. A focus on strategies and interventions is the second theme we discuss from this decade. For instance, Baldwin and Chang (2006) put forth a conceptual model for faculty development that included various elements determined to be important for faculty growth, such as career reflection and planning. Scholars in this decade also sought to challenge the entrenched practice of post-tenure review and then offered an alternative approach for post-tenure appraisals that is more conducive for faculty growth and well-being (Walker 2002). In the context of strategies and interventions, mentoring as a midcareer faculty development strategy was also a highly discussed topic in literature on mid-career faculty during the 2000s (Huston and Weaver 2008). With the importance of faculty vitality established in previous sections, in the subsequent sections, we more thoroughly discuss institution-wide strategies and interventions.

Elements and Benefits of Institutional Strategies In the previous decade, researchers shed light on the role of the institution in fostering faculty well-being and vitality. Researchers in the 2000s further contributed to this research through conducting qualitative studies examining elements of institutional programs important for promoting faculty vitality, as well as outcomes when such strategies are implemented. In one such study, Strage et al. (2008) illuminated the strong interdependent nature of faculty and institutional vitality through in-depth interviews conducted with self-identified thriving mid-career faculty members. Upon analyzing the faculty participants’ interview responses, Strage and colleagues identified three main themes, all of which point to the “positive impact ‘facilitative environments’ can have on engaging, sustaining, and nurturing a thriving faculty” (Strage et al. 2008, p. 73). One of the three themes focused on “the importance of culture and climate established by institutional leaders” in engendering faculty vitality. Specifically, these institutions fostered mid-career faculty wellbeing and vitality by (a) encouraging mid-career faculty to demonstrate initiative in assuming new roles (i.e., mentors); (b) invigorating administrators to support midcareer faculty; (c) giving faculty freedom to explore interests; and (d) maintaining accountability. Strage et al. (2008) also found mid-career faculty vitality improved

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when faculty were able to play to their strengths, such as outlined in Baldwin and Chang’s (2006) proposed model for mid-career faculty development. These findings have great implications in the realm of higher education as they point to the importance of institutional leaders’ intentionality in the programs and strategies in which they invest to support faculty development and well-being. In addition to faculty benefitting from institutionally provided support, Romano et al. (2004) asserted that institutional programs prove advantageous for the institution as well, as faculty members still have many years of contributing to the institution ahead of them: “There is evidence that many individuals at mid-career experience low morale, feel disengaged, and isolated, it is imperative that the institution not leave the professional vitality of these experienced faculty to chance” (Romano et al., p. 25). Upon conducting a systematic, web-based investigation as a means to examine midcareer development programs, Baldwin and Chang (2006) identified categories of development initiatives implemented at different institutions, all of which they found to fall short of addressing mid-career faculty needs in a comprehensive manner. With a comprehensive program left wanting, the scholars integrated the common themes of the various initiatives – career reflection and assessment, career planning, and career action/implementation – into a cohesive model for mid-career development. At the foundation of this model were the ingredients needed for mid-career faculty to reap the benefits of development: (a) collegial support (i.e., mentoring, networking, and collaborating); (b) resources (i.e., information, time, funding, and space); and (c) reinforcement (i.e., recognition and rewards). These elements coupled with a strong foundation serve as the scaffold for mid-career faculty development and growth, which can have a positive return on investment for not only the faculty experiencing the development but also the institution that benefits from faculty members’ wellbeing, productivity, and commitment to the institution.

Post-Tenure Review Another advantageous form of intervention relates to methods of post-tenure review, an institutional policy connected to faculty vitality and morale (Plater 2001). Drawing from qualitative and quantitative research on faculty well-being and vitality, Walker (2002) posited that many forms of post-tenure review were ineffective, as low performance at the post-tenure level was more likely due to a lack of vitality and morale than it was a characteristic of the faculty member. Accordingly, Walker (2002) argued a meager formative assessment should be replaced by a post-tenure review model embedded into a faculty development program and must be dedicated to improving the social and physical conditions of faculty members’ work and thus their vitality. With a goal of promoting mid-career faculty in mind, effective posttenure reviews is one institutional policy that can benefit faculty as they develop in their careers; thus, in the next section, we discuss the merits of mentoring as one possible post-tenure review model. Mentoring Mentoring is a career and personal development tool that results in outcomes at the individual and organizational levels (Darwin and Palmer 2009). This strategy benefits not only the mentee but also the mentor, a role often filled by a mid-career

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faculty member. Mentors have reported reaping such benefits from mentoring programs as (a) intellectual stimulation and improved managerial skills, (b) opportunities to reflect on their own teaching, (c) satisfaction from relaying knowledge, (d) opportunities for rejuvenation and enhancing productivity, and (e) increased professional networks (Miller et al. 2008). Also, given the career and life stages of midcareer faculty members and the importance of generativity and vitality, “mid-career faculty need opportunities to redefine and enlarge the scope of their professional careers” (Huston and Weaver 2008), and mentoring opportunities could help them move toward that goal. Golper and Feldman (2008) asserted that mentoring, both in the form of being mentored and providing mentorship, throughout one’s career was imperative, as “mid-level faculty members face the challenge of continuing to develop themselves in their own careers, addressing their evolving set of challenges. Among them is how to provide good mentorship. As faculty members move into mid-career, “seeking mentoring about providing mentoring can be very useful” (p. 1872). In addition to mid-career faculty benefiting from serving as mentors, they also benefit from being mentored, such as in the context of developing research proposals, redirecting research, and identifying new streams of research. Baldwin and Chang (2006) highlighted Macalester College’s co-mentoring program in teaching and scholarship, which partnered faculty at different career stages with the belief that senior faculty mentors benefit from the new perspectives of their junior colleagues.

Programs for Faculty Renewal and Development Scholars contributing to the discussion on strategies and interventions for mid-career faculty also suggested the benefits of reflecting on one’s professional life as a source of renewal. Baldwin and Chang (2006) identified career planning, development, and renewal initiatives as a means of encouraging faculty to “reflect on their professional lives, identify new professional goals, acquire new goals, skills, and develop concrete career plans” (p. 30). Part of these initiatives also includes helping faculty be exposed to opportunities for career development. For example, at Kansas State University, a program was implemented “to increase satisfaction and success ‘by redesigning their current position or developing a new job role in cooperation with their department heads’” (Baldwin and Chang 2006, p. 30), which enabled faculty to assume more leadership as a means for growth and development in their careers. In addition, Macalester College offered leadership seminars to faculty to learn about challenges facing higher education and in turn to “cultivate the skills needed to move into key leadership roles on campus” (Baldwin and Chang 2006, p. 30). Both of these programmatic initiatives serve a purpose of providing mid-career faculty the necessary means for experiencing growth and renewal. Institutions play a key role in implementing programs and initiatives to foster this much-needed vitality and provide career development resources (Sorcinelli et al. 2006). The 2000s mid-career faculty literature offered strategies and interventions to improve and sustain faculty vitality and satisfaction. Mentoring programs were one such intervention found to be effective, not only for the mentee but also the mentor. Providing the space and taking the time to reflect on their careers has also been an

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intervention method reported to be effective for mid-career faculty renewal and development. The facilitation of a reflection process enables faculty to identify career goals as a means of moving forward and developing in their careers. While all mid-career faculty benefit from such strategies, women have been found to be particularly vulnerable to increased hardships and barriers in academia and would benefit especially from institutional initiatives to increase mid-career satisfaction. We discuss the additional barriers and hardships that women face in the following section.

Women Faculty in the Academy Our third, and final, theme discussed in this decade focuses on women faculty and their experiences in the academy. Scholars and practitioners interested in the midcareer faculty experience began to acknowledge gender differences in the academy during the 1990s (Karpiak 1996; Tosti-Vasey and Willis 1991). Researchers suggested that men and women experienced the academy differently and also identified the need for policies and programs that recognized the needs of all faculty, but particularly women, related to work-life considerations (Tosti-Vasey and Willis 1991). However, it was not until the 2000s that scholars and practitioners, as well as funding agencies, began to focus energies, and financial resources, toward better understanding women’s experiences in the academy. A major initiative to support gender equity in the professoriate began in 2001. The National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE initiative aims to increase the participation and advancement of women in STEM fields. Funding has enabled institutional transformation through the development of innovative organizational change strategies, supported the adaptation and implementation of gender equity organizational change strategies, and facilitated partnerships involving two or more nonprofit academic institutions or STEM organizations (NSF, ADVANCE brochure). The work of Laursen and Rocque (2009) featured findings and lessons learned about faculty development and institutional change from an ADVANCE project at the University of Colorado Boulder. While their research was framed by gender issues, they sought to highlight a broad range of faculty concerns that spanned both professional and personal aspects of mid-career faculty members’ lives. Taking a faculty development perspective, Laursen and Rocque (2009) studied the Leadership Education for Advancement and Promotion (LEAP) effort which was part of the 2002–2008 ADVANCE project at the University of Colorado, Boulder. While evaluating the LEAP program, they interviewed 44 tenure track faculty across career stages and departments who participated in LEAP offerings. Laursen and Rocque collected insights about the skills and knowledge faculty participants sought, intended career directions, career challenges, and the extent to which institutional structures and policies supported or hindered faculty work. Data analysis led to the identification of three tiers of faculty needs: individual needs specific to career stage, organizational needs across career stages, and systemic needs. From an individual perspective, mid-career faculty noted their desire (and need) to develop

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leadership and managerial skills that would enable them to lead departments and committees effectively and foster collaborations, a skill set that was new (and lacking) based on how professional roles and expectations evolve once members of the academy find themselves situated at mid-career. Faculty members also noted the need for career planning support as they looked ahead to full professorship and considered career changes along the way. Despite earning promotion and tenure, the unknown and evolving expectations of the mid-career stage left many mid-career faculty members in need of greater individual supports. Organizationally, Laursen’s and Rocque’s (2009) research highlighted the central role department chairs have in supporting mid-career faculty members. Department chairs can, and do, set the tone in terms of overall effectiveness, fairness, and communication skills among and between departmental colleagues. However, lack of institutional strategies to support department chairs in fostering these skills contributed to poor communication, disagreements, and overall challenging departmental and institutional environments. Women faculty were especially hindered by such environments. Additionally, Laursen and Rocque (2009) identified relationships and connection to one’s peers as contributing factors to professional and personal satisfaction and productivity, particularly for women. Study participants in Laursen and Rocque’s (2009) research also discussed the need for more flexible faculty reward systems. Associated challenges included a lack of clear and consistent communication related to criteria and standards for tenure; disproportionate weighting of teaching, research, and service; disparities and differing norms across departments and faculty members on evaluating committees; and the negative side of effects of existing reward structures that discourage collaboration, collegiality, and risk-taking. Their research also highlighted the importance of worklife balance as a systemic issue that institutions need to address. As Laursen and Rocque noted, both men and women cited work-life balance issues. However, gender differences were evident: “Men expressed concerns about the faculty rewards structure nearly twice as much as women, while women discussed work/life balance 60 percent more often than men. Women also raised issues of diversity more often” (p. 25). The longitudinal, qualitative research by Reybold and Alamia (2008) explored mid-career women faculty experiences, specifically their academic transitions and the associated impact on faculty identity development and transformation. Their research focused on the dynamic nature of the faculty journey by acknowledging the role of academic transitions in faculty identity development. An examination of academic transitions is important because these transitions signify opportunities for professional growth and challenges to career advancement, both of which influence professional identity development. Knowledge about academic transitions is particularly salient for mid-career faculty members as they seek to navigate this long illdefined stage of the faculty career. Reybold and Alamia shed light on the experiential dimensions of these academic transitions by highlighting the dynamic journey that characterizes the mid-career stage. Study findings from Reybold and Alamia (2008) revealed two main themes: provisional faculty identity and transition response. While on the path to the professoriate, mid-career women faculty members’ initial sense of self as a faculty

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member developed as a result of doctoral study and early career faculty socialization. For most of the participants in the study, they acknowledged the temporary, or provisional, nature of that initial faculty identity, describing the developmental nature of it. Mid-career women faculty participants sought to stabilize their professional identity in response to career events, referred to as a transition response, such as promotion and tenure, or in balancing faculty roles and responsibilities across teaching, research, and service. Participants related to academic transitional events in three ways: professional equilibrium (e.g., a focus on balance and stability), professional advancement (e.g., a focus on career trajectory and advancement), and professional integration (e.g., career steadiness and maturity). Given the longitudinal nature of the study, patterns emerged revealing “the developmental and transformational character of faculty careers as well as the juxtaposition of faculty identity and transition response” (p. 120). Research findings identified critical development and identity transitions that accompany the mid-career stage. Knowledge about these transitions helps mid-career faculty members to assume personal agency to manage these transitions as well as informs the work of faculty developers tasked with supporting mid-career faculty members. Research by Sorcinelli and Yun (2007) focused on the evolving model of mentoring support. In particular, they urged members of the academy to move beyond the traditional one-on-one mentoring approach. Instead, Sorcinelli and Yun suggested that in order to support academic work, faculty members need to foster a network of multiple mentors with varying and complementary skills to support one’s professional and personal growth and development. Sorcinelli and Yun urged that such a model was of particular import for women and faculty of color. Their article provided a summary of research and practice in the 2000s focused on mentoring, particularly “multiple mentoring models.” As part of their review of literature and practice, Sorcinelli and Yun (2007) noted, “The literature indicates that researchers and practitioners are still struggling to determine which mentoring models and practices best support these groups” (p. 61). Their review affirmed that diverse populations want and benefit from mentorship, and there is a need to create a diverse network of mentors in order to address the varying experiences of women and faculty of color in the academy. An important contribution from their work was the acknowledgement that all faculty members are in need of and would benefit from multiple mentors. Faculty members’ needs evolve, particularly at mid-career, in relation to their roles as teachers, as scholars, and as contributors to their local and surrounding communities. Given this diversity of engagement across professional roles, one mentor alone is not equipped nor is able to provide the needed developmental support. In order to fulfill professional and personal needs, faculty members should seek the support of multiple mentors. While Sorcinelli and Yun acknowledged the importance of multiple mentors for men and women, fostering a mentoring network is especially helpful for women who are often handling a wide array of personal and professional responsibilities around which perspective of multiple mentors could be really helpful. Compared to previous decades, the 2000s focused more on understanding the experiences and needs of mid-career faculty women in higher education, resulting in

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the emergence of research and practice aimed at supporting this population of faculty. Programs such as ADVANCE aimed to address and provide support for the challenges and disparities women faculty face in STEM fields. The issues identified by Laursen and Rocque (2009), for instance, were just one example of the effect the ADVANCE program had on the experiences of women in the academy and the importance of institutional transformation as a contributing factor to those experiences. Efforts by researchers and practitioners affiliated with ADVANCE programs have elevated knowledge about mid-career women faculty members’ needs in the academy (for others, see Bell et al. 2005; Johnson et al. 2009). Specifically, Laursen and Rocque’s (2009) research highlighted the importance of strategies at the individual, organizational, and systemic levels. In brief, their research revealed that “. . .remedying underrepresentation requires interlinked strategies to provide the opportunities, resources, and environments that enable talented women to succeed – both individual support and institutional transformation, in short” (p. 20).

Summary of 2000s Literature Two key contributions emerged from research and practice about the mid-career experience during the 2000s: accounting for and studying the role of context are critically important to understanding the mid-career faculty experience, and institutional policies and practices contribute to the challenges women faculty members experience in the academy. Understanding related to these two contributions fueled the rise of national initiatives, such as ADVANCE, that have addressed gender issues within various disciplinary contexts of the multifaceted faculty career. An emphasis on context has supported calls for an increased focus on faculty well-being both within and outside of the academic career. Additionally, scholars discussed strategies and interventions to promote faculty development and vitality at the mid-career stage: “For institutions to succeed, in fulfilling their multiple missions, faculty members must be supported in all the roles they are asked to fulfill” (Sorcinelli et al. 2006, p. 167). Scholarship during the 2000s was driven by more empirically based methodology in order to glean disciplinary and institutional contextual understanding of midcareer faculty experiences. Data collection occurred in the form of interviews, survey-based data, and systematic web searches to examine extant strategies for faculty development (Baldwin and Chang 2006; Baldwin et al. 2005, 2008; Ellertson 2004). In addition, practice featured targeted mid-career faculty program components along with evaluative assessments. The increased attention paid to the experiences of mid-career women faculty was a much-needed next step in research and practice. Still lacking, however, was greater institutional and disciplinary diversity given the importance of context to the mid-career experience. Finally, not much scholarship explored the experiences of other faculty populations taking into account race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Efforts to address this paucity began to emerge in the 2010s.

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2010s: Barriers, Vulnerable Faculty, and Interventions Literature in the 2010s discussed the evolving roles of faculty and the increased types of support needed as the lines between personal and professional lives blurred (Canale et al. 2013; Hermanowicz 2012). Three dominant themes emerged that guide our discussion in the following sections: barriers to advancement that faculty sometimes encountered on the path to full professorship, vulnerable faculty populations, and a line of inquiry that explored interventions for faculty support. The most prominent barriers to advancement that were featured in research and practice during the 2010s included a lack of clarity both in terms of promotion criteria to advance to full professorship and the processes that institutions followed regarding advancement decisions. This lack of clarity resulted in many mid-career faculty members feeling trepidation about aspirations for their advancement to full professor status, causing them to question their decision to pursue this career milestone (Baker et al. 2017a). Women and faculty of color were disproportionately affected by this lack of clarity (Croom 2017; Ward and Wolf-Wendel 2012). Additionally, a lack of career-stage resources to support teaching development and disciplinary supports were wanting (Ross 2015). Scholars that explored barriers to advancement elevated the experiences of women and faculty of color. In particular, during the 2000s, researchers began to focus on the experiences of women in the academy in more targeted ways (Laursen and Rocque 2009; Reybold and Alamia 2008), and that line of inquiry continued during the 2010s. Additionally, this research began to provide an accounting of the barriers and challenges faced by faculty of color at mid-career as they sought to advance in the academy. Knowledge gleaned provided critical insights to campus leaders as colleges and universities worked to addresses issues of equity and inclusion. Although barriers to advancement and vulnerable populations areas of study were largely a continuation of the previous decades’ work, a key nuance of research and practice emerged in the 2010s, which was a focus on tangible interventions to better support mid-career faculty, particularly women and faculty of color. Programmatic details included more focus on specific goals, outcomes, and involvement of critical stakeholder groups in targeted programming who provided much needed guidance to mid-career faculty and faculty development programming. We begin our review of the 2010s literature on mid-career faculty by highlighting research and practice focused on the barriers to advancement.

Barriers to Advancement As can be seen through the themes depicted throughout the 2010s, various sources of pressure contributed to decreases in vitality among mid-career faculty. These challenges included a lack of clarity regarding promotion criteria resulting in many mid-career faculty members perceiving a lack of direction and limited resources such as career-stage-specific development opportunities (Bunch et al. 2011;

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Campion et al. 2016; Petter et al. 2018). Scholars and practitioners in this decade focused on how these sources of tension served as barriers for advancement in midcareer faculty members’ professional experiences. Although the faculty development literature in the 2010s still highlighted the same stressors for mid-career faculty that were discussed at the end of the twentieth century, the literature in the 2010s emphasized actionable strategies, interventions, and recommendations for institutions to help mid-career faculty members overcome the barriers inherent to this career stage. In a subsequent section, we discuss these suggested strategies.

Lack of Clarity The lack of clarity mid-career faculty faced as they sought advancement in their careers was one of the prominent challenges cited throughout this decade (Bunch et al. 2011). Since the mid-career stage has been characterized by feeling directionless (Petter et al. 2018), the unclear criteria for promotion along the pathway to full professorship (perhaps equal to or more than the lack of clarity characterizing the path to tenure) further exacerbated these feelings, making it arduous to advance in one’s career (Petter et al. 2018). To illustrate the magnitude of the challenge, Gardner and Blackstone (2013) conducted a qualitative study of mid-career faculty who applied for full professorship. Study results revealed that “seven of 10 faculty members repeatedly spoke to the lack of clarity around the expectations for promotion to full professor” (p. 418). Participants further discussed the disproportionate role certain responsibilities played in their concerns about uncertain criteria, such as teaching and service perceived as holding no clout in the decision-making process for promotion. Through interviews with faculty participants, Gardner and Blackstone (2013) found that when departments did offer criterion for promotion, they used very elusive language regarding what was expected, rather than using quantifiable objectives that clarified what was needed by and expected of associate professors to advance to the next rank. Faculty members in the study also reported little feedback after their applications to full professorship were denied, thus contributing to the barriers these faculty members faced in their career advancement pursuits (Gardner and Blackstone 2013). Lack of Resources Research and practice during this decade also highlighted a lack of resources (including time, career-stage-specific faculty development offerings, and financial resources) to support career development; this lack of resources contributed to barriers toward advancement for mid-career faculty (Petter et al. 2018). Exacerbating the effects of the already limited resources was the added challenge of increased competition for finite resources, thus “making success more elusive and momentum more difficult to sustain” (Bickel 2016, p. 1602) during a time when motivation was already fading (Petter et al. 2018; Campion et al. 2016; West 2012). Although limited financial resources were certainly a source of strain, of greater reported concern for mid-career faculty were time pressures and the paucity of mentoring support (Austin and Sorcinelli 2013; Petter et al. 2018). Upon accomplishing the feat of tenure, mid-career faculty often assumed they would “have it figured out” (Petter

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et al. 2018, p. 565) and would not require mentorship to advance professionally. However, Bunch and colleagues’ survey research showed 71 percent of participants reported that it would have been helpful to have a mentor as a resource on the path for promotion, while fewer than 12 percent of men and 12 percent of women actually had such a mentor (Bunch et al. 2011). Mentorship plays an advantageous role to mid-career faculty, given their need for maintaining focus during a time characterized by ambiguity and obligations (Petter et al. 2018; Welch et al. 2019). Scholars during the 2010s applied Baldwin and Chang’s Mid-Career Faculty Development Model (2006) as a lens with which to examine their own institutional and scholarly efforts. As noted earlier, Baldwin and Chang’s model incorporated three core areas that contribute to faculty development processes: career reflection and assessment, career planning including short and long-term goals, and career action and implementation. In addition, their model outlined essential elements that facilitate mid-career faculty development processes such as collegial support (e.g., mentoring), resources (e.g., information, time, funding), and reinforcement (e.g., rewards, recognition). This model served as a framework from which scholars and practitioners could evaluate existing mid-career faculty development efforts on their respective campuses to inform the development of actions to improve faculty development processes for mid-career faculty members (Pastore 2013; Pastore et al. 2019; Welch et al. 2019). The result was heightened awareness of various important resources for supporting mid-career faculty development, particularly time in the form of sabbaticals and course releases to allow for more time to be directed toward research. The increased burden of responsibilities faculty shoulder after obtaining tenure compounds the pressure faculty feel as they strive to accomplish goals and fulfill roles with limited amounts of time. As part of her review of faculty career stages, Austin (2010) astutely reported, “a common challenge for faculty at mid-career is the expectation from colleagues that they will assume more leadership, administrative, and service-duties” (p. 372). Given the little weight institutional service plays in bolstering a faculty member’s application for promotion, these added expectations were of great concern and ultimately served as a barrier on the path to advancing toward full professorship (Bunch et al. 2011). As is the case with service roles, hours spent on teaching was also inversely related to productivity research output, thus making hours spent on teaching a hindrance for mid-career faculty on their quest to full professorship (Welch et al. 2019). The consequences of having limited time coupled with increasing responsibilities extend to mid-career faculty members’ personal lives, as they reported challenges in maintaining a work-life balance (Petter et al. 2018). In the 2010s, we saw a shift in the literature that sought to better understand and determine where mid-career faculty members spent their time outside of the academy, specifically how midcareer faculty members struggled to fit in routine obligations outside academia, such as caring for a family or even sleeping (Petter et al. 2018). Although a majority of mid-career faculty members shared this stress, women and other underrepresented faculty populations were found to be particularly vulnerable to the hardships of balancing competing demands inside and outside of academia (Philipsen 2010).

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Literature in the 2010s illustrated the exciting ways in which intervention for these barriers helped mid-career faculty to advance in their research and practice. Two critical types of interventions surfaced, including targeted interventions being employed to help mid-career faculty navigate their way to full professorship on a path ridden with barriers, as well as increased efforts to better attend to the needs of vulnerable faculty populations.

Vulnerable Faculty Populations Throughout the 2000s, scholars began to highlight the experiences of non-majority faculty, specifically women. This research focus continued during the 2010s and delved deeper into the experiences of women and other underrepresented individuals in the academy which is the second theme we present from this decade. This area of research shed light on the chilly environment women experienced, which was exacerbated due to biased policies and practices that hindered advancement and retention (Gardner and Blackstone 2013; Hart 2016). An important contribution from this scholarship was a focus on the intersectionality of multiple roles and identities coupled with career stage challenges, specifically mid-career. Such work helped us, for example, understand the challenges of faculty life and motherhood (Ward and Wolf-Wendel 2012) and life as a Black womyn professor (Croom 2017; Croom and Patton 2011). These qualitative investigations provided rich narratives from mid-career women faculty participants as they shared insights into the barriers impeding their advancement in the academy and the challenges faced while juggling multiple roles within and outside of the academy. The focus on intersectionality of career stage, gender, race, and ethnicity highlighted the need for continued action to reform policies and practices to support all faculty members. During the 2010s, researchers began to examine the multiple roles and identities women occupy while on the path to the professoriate as well as in the role itself upon promotion. Ward and Wolf-Wendel’s groundbreaking study and subsequent publications (2004; 2012, 2016) explored how career responsibilities and concerns evolved along the career trajectory. They employed human development and feminist theory to help make sense of and share the stories of women academics. Ward and Wolf-Wendel (2012, 2016) expanded on the notion of “ideal worker norms” in the academy (Gappa et al. 2007; Whyte 1956; Williams 1999). An ideal worker is someone who earns employment immediately upon completion of postsecondary studies with the ability to work 40 to 50 hours of work per week, more if needed, to advance along the career ladder. The ideal worker can stay late at work to meet last-minute deadlines and is not beholden to child care provider hours or nonwork responsibilities. When situated in the context of the academy, an ideal worker is someone who moves directly from their doctoral studies into a tenure track faculty position with a focused commitment to their academic responsibilities during the probationary years (Gappa et al. 2007). This ideal worker stays at the office or lab late, travels to conferences and other speaking engagements with ease, and can engage in off-site scholarly endeavors with regularity. Important to this conception

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of the ideal worker is having a supportive spouse at home who manages the childcare and home responsibilities fully. The ideal worker, in sum, is someone who shows a near full dedication to the job and defines their life around their job. This conception of the ideal worker traditionally puts women academics at a disadvantage because it does not accurately characterize their professional and personal responsibilities. When studying the experiences of women in the academy, Ward and WolfWendel (2012) found that for women to overcome this notion of ideal worker norms, they had to approach work as if they do not have children which created stress due to an inability to live up to this ideal. The stress was particularly salient for women academics in early career. Through their research, Ward and Wolf-Wendel revealed that despite the stresses and tensions that exist for those serving as both academics and parents, women academics in the mid-career stage took on a more relaxed approach and mindset toward work and family compared to those in early career because the mid-career women in their study began to push back on this notion of ideal worker norms. Study findings revealed that mid-career women were aware of ideal worker norms but did not feel weighed down by them. The mid-career stage for women was, however, a time for career revelations and decisions about the next step for their careers in academia which could include advancement to full professorship or the pursuit of formal leadership positions. However, the mid-career women in their study expressed apprehension about these career pursuits due to the sometimes perceived (and real) political aspects of such processes that were disadvantageous toward women in the academy. Research by Ward and Wolf-Wendel paved the way for future scholars, practitioners, and women in the academy by providing better understanding into the experiences of academic motherhood. Through their work, Ward and Wolf-Wendel (2015) shed light on the importance of examining the intersectionality of multiple roles and identities that women assume in academia such as professional woman, partner, and parent. More specifically, these scholars situated their findings in the specific contexts in which women academics find themselves engaged professionally including academic departments and institutions. The emphasis and inclusion of context highlight the importance of studying the experiences of women academics in the disciplinary fields, departments, and institutions in which they are employed (Wolf-Wendel and Ward 2015). As Ward and Wolf-Wendel (2012) noted, “. . .the experience of women faculty who combine work and faculty is likely to vary according to their work context” (p 110). Their research recognized and acknowledged the role that disciplinary and institutional cultures play in shaping how men and women faculty engage in their work. Disciplinary differences such as preferred methodologies and how collaborative (or not) academic work is in a given field all drives the ways in which people engage in their disciplines. Then, and at present, the majority of research that explores the experiences of women faculty at mid-career is situated in research institutions (notable exceptions include research by Baker et al. 2017a; Crawford 2012; Terosky and Gonzales 2016). One of the many important contributions of research by Ward and Wolf-Wendel (2012) was their inclusion and examination of mid-career academic women from a

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diversity of institution types spanning research universities, comprehensive/regional campuses, liberal arts colleges, and community colleges. Their focus on institution types beyond research universities was an exception to the general body of scholarship about women academics. When examining the intersection of gender and career stage, Ward and Wolf-Wendel (2012) revealed, “The choices women make about where to work are, in part, constrained by perceptions about particular environments and how they fit with being a mother” (p. 148). Scholars Bunch et al. (2011), Hart (2016), Philipsen (2010), and Roberson (2014) studied the role of institution type and discipline on the intersectionality between gender and faculty status. For example, Hart (2016) sought to better understand the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields at mid-career. She applied Acker’s (1990) conceptual framework on gender substructures to explore how gender inequities persist in organizations. Acker’s review of the literature and subsequent theory building was groundbreaking at the time given she sought to move beyond the near sole focus of organizations and organizational theory as male dominated. Her work on organizations accounted for women and gender as critical considerations in how organizational units such as departments and positions are culturally constructed. Specifically, her framework pointed to gendered organizational substructures including organizational values (e.g., socially constructed values), interactions among organizational members (e.g., viewing teaching and service as more feminine), and gendered schemas about what it means to be a working man or woman professional in an organizational context (e.g., ideal worker is unencumbered by family responsibilities). Through Hart’s (2016) qualitative investigation, she identified institutional practices that either hindered or facilitated women’s careers. Specifically, women participants perceived their promotion and tenure requirements to differ from their male peers, noting such requirements were stricter for women. The women associate professors in Hart’s (2016) study felt their scholarly records were called into question, “despite a strong sense that men colleagues with similar records (in publication numbers and grant dollars) were not” (p. 619). Further, Hart’s (2016) research revealed pathways to leadership have been more nebulous for women given ambiguous and sometimes conflicting messages. Ideal worker norms were at play, as evidenced by the expectations institutions were setting that rested on their assumption that workers could devote unlimited numbers of hours to their academic and institutional work. This, in turn, highlights the need for institutions to break away from exclusionary practices, create more transparency surrounding advancement and leadership opportunities, and broaden the definition of leadership. Croom (2017) sought to “unpack” (p. 557) racism and sexism in the experiences of Black womyn professors (“womyn” is a spelling, rooted in feminist perspectives, that is chosen by some authors). Through her qualitative research, she examined the processes Black womyn faculty endure as they seek promotion to full professorship given the lack of womyn and faculty of color represented beyond the associate professor rank or in institutional administrative positions. Employing a critical race feminism framework, Croom (2017) highlighted the dominant narratives of full

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professorship, namely, the status and influence that accompanies that rank. Further, her research revealed the challenges her study participants experienced as they worked toward fulfilling their career aspirations of tenure and full professorship, such as the skepticism and discouragement Black womyn face from their colleagues in response to their interest in pursuing this career advancement. The participants in Croom’s (2017) study shared stories about the racialized and gendered microaggressions they experienced with regularity: “. . .racism and sexism manifested in the participants’ promotion processes in the contradictions and disparities between an observed dominant narrative about the full professorship and their actual promotion and career experiences” (Croom 2017, p. 575). Her work acknowledged the presence of sexism and racism in promotion practices and the need to make concerted efforts to remove barriers that impede the advancement of Black womyn and other faculty of color. Others have also acknowledged the need to provide dedicated programs and practices to support mid-career women and underrepresented minorities in the academy (Munro-Stasiuk et al. 2019). Roberson (2014), for example, presented outcomes associated with a mentoring program to support mid-career faculty at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Through an ADVANCE grant, the program includes a common development plan to support associate professors with self-assessments and goal-setting processes, one-on-one career and peer mentoring, and progress tracking to evaluate and seek feedback. In other work, Laursen and Austin (2014) developed the StratEGIC (Strategies for Effecting Gender Equity and Institutional Change) Toolkit. Their research examined approximately 25 universities, and their associated organizational change strategies implemented through ADVANCE, which aimed at creating more diversity and inclusion through mentoring support and career stage considerations. Continuing a focus on programs and institutional support, Bickel (2016) highlighted mid-career needs in academic medicine and offered action steps to manage associated career transitions and challenges: “Many women and minorities also experience an extra layer of challenge that remains invisible to many majority men; for instance, being held to higher standards of ‘likeability’ or for performing community service while often being paid less” (p. 1602). Bickel (2016) emphasized setting time aside for engaging in introspection and gleaning feedback from “trusted, qualified individuals” (p. 1603), which can thus serve to foster professional growth and close professional gaps, such as incongruences between the intention and impact of professionals’ behaviors. She also encouraged engagement in appreciative inquiry, an introspective approach that invites individuals “to think about instances when they really engaged, which prompts exploration of values and commitments” (p. 1603). Bickel suggests that one means for engaging in appreciative inquiry is by reflecting on what is and is not working well. In addition, she outlined action steps to “[translate] preferences into a workable career plan” (p. 1603) to be useful to all faculty members at mid-career, including both men and women, as well as to those in different institutional settings. However, Bickel (2016) also noted such individual and organizational efforts are critically important to meeting the specific needs of women and other underrepresented faculty.

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The dedicated efforts of scholars and practitioners to bring a greater awareness to the experiences and needs of women and other underrepresented faculty populations contributed greatly to the study of mid-career faculty during this decade (Croom 2017; Hart 2016; Ward and Wolf-Wendel 2012). However, while dedicated programs to support mid-career faculty were on the rise during this decade, those efforts still failed to mirror the quantity of programs and national initiatives aimed at and available to early career faculty members. In the following section, we discuss several interventions that were featured in research and practice during the 2010s.

Interventions for Faculty Support The third, and final theme from our review of literature from 2010s, focuses on interventions for faculty support. To combat the detrimental effect of stressors on mid-career faculty, institutions began implementing much-needed faculty development strategies like mentoring and coaching. In the 2010s, there was widespread implementation of different mentoring programs at institutions across the United States, with some mentoring programs targeted specifically to women and faculty of color, who have increased vulnerability for barriers in the field (Bass et al. 2019; Munro-Stasiuk et al. 2019; Rees and Shaw 2014; Roberson 2014). Reports during the 2010s highlighted the positive effects of mentoring, such as an alleviation of stress from high workloads, which results in an increase in job satisfaction (MunroStasiuk et al. 2019; Welch et al. 2019). As advocated by Baldwin and Chang’s Mid-Career Faculty Development Model (Baldwin and Chang 2006) and subsequent validation, goal setting has been a critical aspect of career development (Pastore 2013) and was a key element embedded into the mentoring strategies (Munro-Stasiuk et al. 2019). For example, mid-career mentoring and coaching programs at Kent State University established goals to help faculty evaluate “their progress toward their career goals,” “recognize barriers to achieving those goals,” and “identify strategies to achieve their vision and goals” (Munro-Stasiuk et al. 2019, p. 533). In a different mentoring program that was structured into peer communities, group members created goals ranging from ideal to necessary and faculty members met weekly to discuss goal progress (Rees and Shaw 2014). Members analyzed the feedback about the effectiveness of the mentor group and reported that goal setting allowed them to track progress as well as foster accountability from colleagues with them in the program (Rees and Shaw 2014). The literature explained that mentoring addressed other faculty development needs included in Baldwin and Chang’s Mid-Career Faculty Development Model (Baldwin and Chang 2006), such as increased collegial support in the form of connections with other faculty members. In the group mentoring model (Rees and Shaw 2014), participating faculty reported that mentoring helped ameliorate the feelings of isolation plaguing faculty during the mid-career stage. Not only did this particular mentoring model serve to foster social connection to fill that void among faculty, but it also served to bridge departments together to allow for increased

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connections between disciplines; reportedly, faculty had lacked opportunities to combat such professional isolation (Lamber et al. 1993; Olsen 1992). The literature in this decade established mentoring as a critical career and psychosocial support (Rees and Shaw 2014), with faculty across the academy reporting its benefits (Munro-Stasiuk et al. 2019). While the literature throughout this decade highlighted several interventions including workshops and sponsorship, mentoring at mid-career was the most prolific and pervasive source of support emphasized (Kruse and Albo 2018; Petter et al. 2018; Sherick 2018; Strage and Merdinger 2015; Welch et al. 2019).

Summary of 2010s Literature Literature in the 2010s highlighted the challenges and barriers mid-career faculty face as they seek advancement. This decade brought a shift in the nature of the scholarly outputs, as there was an emphasis on concrete strategies for fostering development that were not a focus of work in previous decades. In particular, the scholarship highlighted our most vulnerable faculty populations, women and underrepresented groups, who fall victim to biased policies, such as promotion processes that are reported to be more nebulous and stricter for women than for their male counterparts. The mid-career faculty literature throughout the 2010s also discussed new strategies and initiatives targeted toward facilitating development for mid-career faculty as well as the positive outcomes of such initiatives. Similar to the 2000s, methodology included in the 2010s focused on qualitative survey and interview-based research aimed at gleaning insight into the experiences of the individuals of interest: mid-career faculty. While the methodology is similar, the scholarship has arguably produced new ideas and practical suggestions in this decade that go beyond the theoretical perspectives offered in previous decades. Specifically, scholarship in the 2010s offered tangible, practical implications and recommendations based on the research, such as in the form of strategies and institutional programs. While the discussion of programs in the mid-career faculty development research conducted throughout the 2010s is insightful in suggesting ways to support faculty, quantitative evidence of the benefits of such programs is still needed. Continued research on institutional support for mid-career faculty ought to focus on the empirical, quantitative benefits of the programs to further corroborate their overall effectiveness.

Mid-Career Faculty: A Research and Practice Agenda Moving Forward In her article, From Associate to Full, Keisha Blain (2020) perhaps summed it up best, “Many fewer resources are available that offer clarity on the path toward becoming a full professor. . . That poses a distinct challenge for all midcareer scholars, but especially for black and Latinx scholars” (para 1, 2). During the

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2010s, edited volumes and special issues of scholarly journals were dedicated to mid-career research and practice (Baker, Lunsford, Neisler, Pifer, & Terosky, 2019; Kurtz and Proctor 2011). Through these volumes and the overall research stream, scholars and practitioners began to emphasize critical areas that ensured a committed, vital, and satisfied population of mid-career faculty by highlighting institutional, foundation, and government-funded initiatives that would benefit them and their institutions. Areas of focus included leadership development, the scholarship of teaching and learning, acknowledgement of and tips to manage increased service expectations, and how to manage and foster a scholarly agenda at mid-career. As we look ahead to the next phase of research and practice on mid-career faculty, the implications from scholarship that emerged during the 2010s must be discussed, given the intentional efforts of scholars and practitioners to identify the spaces in which faculty scholarly learning can and does occur (Baker et al. 2017b). We begin this section with a review of the implications for research and practice stemming from our 2010s theme discussion. After this discussion, we identify four needs that we offer as a call to action as scholars, practitioners, and faculty developers look ahead to what is needed to move the field forward while recognizing a diversifying professoriate. The four needs we highlight are (1) implement a national database of postsecondary faculty and instructional staff, (2) examine intersectional issues, (3) support nontenure track faculty at the mid-career stage, and (4) advance useful methodological approaches for the study of mid-career faculty. To guide our discussion of implications and needs, we rely on a question posed early in the 2010s by Austin and Sorcinelli (2013): “With higher education institutions and the faculty within them facing new challenges and opportunities, what is the future of faculty development?” (p. 85).

Intentionality Across Contexts and Relationships To better understand the needs and experiences of mid-career faculty members, scholars were much more intentional about incorporating and accounting for the role of context and culture, such as institution type and mission as well as interpersonal and community relationships during the 2010s, to support their examination of factors contributing to the challenges facing mid-career faculty (Baker et al. 2015; Guglielmo et al. 2011; Terosky and Gonzales 2016). By being intentional about examining the influence of and connections across contexts and relationships in regard to the careers and challenges experienced by mid-career faculty, researchers revealed a critical ingredient for faculty vitality, which is the interconnectedness of student and faculty learning (Baker et al. 2017b). Scholars urged future research and practice to focus on the interconnectedness of contexts and relationships, such as those between faculty and their students in the classroom (DeFelippo and Giles 2015). An implication of this line of inquiry was that faculty engagement in highimpact practices serve as a vehicle for enhancing faculty vitality and achieving institutional aims such as student learning. This finding highlighted the need for institutional leaders to invest in faculty development programming that would

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facilitate and support faculty as they seek to incorporate high-impact practices in their classrooms and as part of their scholarly efforts.

Leadership Development Research and practice during the 2010s also highlighted the need for more deliberate leadership development support for faculty members, particularly at the mid-career stage (Baker et al. 2019a; DeZure et al. 2014; Mathews 2018). For example, department chairs were identified as key supporters for mid-career faculty, and the department chair position was identified as an entry point for advanced leadership opportunities in the academy. The leadership and skill development that can, and should, accompany this role is critical to the professional growth for current and future department chairs and as a stepping stone to future leadership positions within the academy. However, study findings revealed the department chair position becomes the ultimate leadership aspiration for many mid-career faculty due to a lack of deliberate and position appropriate supports to develop department chairs effectively that permeate the academy (Baker et al. 2019). A lack of appropriate support at the department chair position appears to reduce interest in mid-career faculty aspiring to other leadership positions (Baker et al. 2019c). As DeZure et al. (2014) urged, “Encouraging promising faculty to move into leadership roles is not only essential for the future health of higher education – it can also open up productive new career paths” (p. 12). Campus administrators need to encourage and recruit a diversity of faculty members to leadership positions while also providing the necessary supports to help those faculty members be successful. Scholars and practitioners alike noted this critical next step as an area of need in faculty development at mid-career as we enter the 2020s and beyond.

Support to Help Mid-Career Faculty Manage the Evolving Nature of Higher Education During the 2010s, scholars and practitioners highlighted the changing university environment and various contexts in which the educational experience was realized (see, e.g., Mansbach and Austin 2018; Tangney and Flay-Petty 2019). One important change to educational delivery was greater reliance on online education and technology-based pedagogies. Scholars offered insights into the experiences of faculty at mid and late career stages in online learning environments and outlined the subsequent implications of their experiences for faculty development needs (Mansbach and Austin 2018). Their findings reveal both positive and negative aspects of teaching online, ranging from the convenience and flexibility that accompanies such an environment to the pressures of being responsive and engaged in an online setting with students given those expectations differ compared to those expected in a more typical face-to-face context. Such changes to educational contexts require faculty members to evolve as teachers and scholars and thus stress the inclusion of

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learning communities and communities of practice in faculty development. The focus on learning communities and peer support, which were often part of peer-topeer learning and professional development, was a central message in much of the research during the 2010s. Developing learning communities became almost a pseudo call to action (Mansbach and Austin 2018; Tangney and Flay-Petty 2019). During the time of writing this final chapter, we are deeply entrenched in the COVID-19 pandemic. As a faculty member and a graduating senior about to embark on her doctoral studies, we are impacted as learners and educators in differing ways. The rapid move to online educational delivery occurring across the globe is unprecedented, making the short- and long-term consequences of this shift in educational delivery unclear. What is clear, however, is that faculty members need support to manage their professional and personal responsibilities (Baker 2020). The present situation underscores the importance of preparing faculty to be adept at a diversity of pedagogical tools and mediums to fulfill professional roles. But faculty members also need personal supports as they homeschool their children, provide long-distance care for elderly relatives and neighbors, and find new ways to establish boundaries between work and home, since, with faculty working at home, the traditional boundaries of place and space are now nonexistent. Mid-career faculty, given their institutional positions, disciplinary and institutional knowledge and experiences, and remaining career runways are particularly poised to help their institutions and colleagues weather these challenges and advance their institutions in innovative ways.

Mid-Career Faculty: A Call to Action in 2020 and Beyond Mid-career faculty are crucial contributors to their institutions. They serve in formal and informal leadership roles, mentor early career colleagues, and add value to the functioning of their institutions. The themes presented throughout this chapter shed light on the evolution of mid-career faculty research and practice and a diversifying professoriate. While strides to elevate attention and associated supports in service of mid-career faculty have been made over the past four decades, challenges and obstacles still persist that require awareness, and unparalleled demands are rising. As we reflect on the themes and future directions for research and practice presented throughout this meta-synthesis, we set forth a call to action for the 2020s and beyond in the final section. We organize this discussion around key research questions about mid-career faculty in an ever-evolving academy.

Need 1: Implement a National Database of Postsecondary Faculty and Instructional Staff The studies, programs, and practices reviewed and featured throughout the chapter provide insights into faculty experiences on individual campuses and among consortiums of institutions. Relying on figures from the National Center for Education

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Statistics (NCES), we gained clarity about the number of faculty employed in US higher education including characteristics such as rank, gender, and race/ethnicity, as well as full-time and part-time status. What we are missing, however, is a modernday national profile of postsecondary faculty and instructional staff, which includes information about their professional backgrounds, responsibilities, workloads, compensation (including salary and benefits), job status, and overall job attitudes. In this section, we discuss two organizations focused on the study of the faculty experience: the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at the University of California in Los Angeles. We conclude by discussing the importance and status of the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF). COACHE The Harvard Graduate School of Education program COACHE has been engaged in research about the faculty experience since 2003. First conceived as the “Study of New Scholars,” founding members sought to examine why fewer women and faculty of color were obtaining tenure. By 2008, COACHE delivered its first diagnostic reports on faculty development and diversity. The work of COACHE team members is supported through what they characterize as a research-practice partnership facilitated through a network of peer institutions that seek improvements to faculty recruitment, development, and retention (COACHE web site; Mathews and Benson 2019). At present, more than 300 colleges, universities, and state systems are engaged with COACHE through the research-practice partnership. The primary research tool at COACHE is the Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey which was developed in collaboration with faculty, senior academic leaders, and relevant literature. Institutional reports can be customized and used to benchmark academic workplace results internally and nationally. Additionally, institutions can engage in comparisons with self-selected peer institutions and COACHE’s pool of national results. Themes addressed on the survey include Nature of Work, Research; Nature of Work, Teaching; Nature of Work, Service; Resources and Support; Interdisciplinary Work; Collaboration, and Mentoring; Tenure and Promotion; Institutional Leadership; Shared Governance; Department Engagement, Quality, and Collegiality; Appreciation and Recognition; and Retention and Negotiation (COACHE web site). The survey can also incorporate optional survey items, referred to as modules, directed toward full-time nontenure track and clinical faculty to learn more about their on-campus experiences and needs. Scholars and practitioners have published extensively using COACHE’s institutional-level data, covering topics such as work-family and work-life balance for women and faculty of color (Lisnic et al. 2019; Szelényi and Denson 2019), the influence of institutional and academic environments on satisfaction and well-being (Larson et al. 2019; Webber 2019), and faculty leadership (Mathews 2018; Norman 2019). Relevant to this chapter, scholars recently studied the process through which mid-career faculty advance toward promotion to full professorship, with attention to issues of equity in the advancement process along the academic pipeline (Kulp et al. 2019). Using cross-institutional data, Kulp et al. (2019) explored how clear faculty

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members were about the likelihood of being promoted to full professor. In addition, the authors also examined faculty members’ background characteristics, institutional characteristics, and satisfaction with various aspects of academic work as related to their perceptions of clarity around promotion expectations and processes. COACHE data have been instrumental in providing researchers with understanding of the faculty experience across the wide range of institutions that partner with COACHE. HERI Similar to COACHE, HERI focuses at the institutional level, which allows team members to provide tools and resources to institutional partners, train other institutional researchers to use the data for assessment purposes, and support and facilitate scholarly efforts in higher education with the goal of promoting institutional excellence (HERI website). HERI’s mission has been to “inform educational policy and promote institutional improvement through an increased understanding of higher education and its impact on college students” (HERI website). Team members of HERI have partnered with colleges and universities with the goal of producing and disseminating research. HERI is most known for administering the Cooperative Institutional Research Program surveys, the most comprehensive source of information on college students. In 1989, HERI began administering their Faculty Survey to provide a comprehensive, research-based picture of key aspects of the faculty experience (HERI website). Participating institutions administered the HERI Faculty Survey, which included questions in areas such as pedagogical practices; faculty goals and expectations for students; teaching, research, and service activities; sources of stress and satisfaction (professional and personal); and the connection between learning in the classroom and practices in the local and global community. Optional modules could be incorporated including campus climate, STEM, mentoring, and spirituality. Survey items also collected feedback from part-time faculty and those who engage with graduate students. Since administering the HERI Faculty Survey, 1100 2- and 4-year institutions have partnered with HERI to “connect faculty practices, values, and priorities to institutional success and drive improvement efforts” (HERI website). Several publications and reports using HERI Faculty Survey data have been made available. Those publications shed light on full-time undergraduate faculty from participating institutions. Research areas address issues of engagement in teaching, research, and professional development activities along with issues related to job satisfaction and stress. HERI data have greatly informed research and practice about faculty in US higher education. NSOPF Starting in the late 1980s, the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF) was created as a direct response to calls for a national data set that profiled postsecondary faculty and instructional staff. As noted on the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) website, “Faculty are the pivotal resource around which the process and outcomes of postsecondary education revolve. . . For these reasons, it is essential to understand who they are; what they do; and whether, how, and why

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they are changing.” At present, NSOPF, which consisted of both an institutional questionnaire and surveys of individual faculty, has been the most comprehensive national study of postsecondary faculty undertaken. The last accessible year on the NCES website for the NSOPF was 2004. The institution questionnaire collected data about faculty counts; hires and departures; promotion and tenure details and policies; and retirement and other benefits. The faculty questionnaire was more expansive, including demographic and sociodemographic characteristics; employment history and status; workload and time allocation across research, teaching, and service; compensation and benefits (including consultation fees and other forms of income); job attitudes and overall satisfaction; career advancement and associated plans; and student achievement. (https:// nces.ed.gov/surveys/nsopf). As recently as 2014, the American Educational Research Association, along with an array of individual researchers, began calling attention to the need for a revitalization of the NSOPF and urging the National Science Foundation, NCES, and other funders to find ways to reinstitute this survey. Such efforts have not yet reached fruition. We argue the need for a comprehensive, longitudinal data collection plan to help benchmark and monitor changes over time for postsecondary faculty and instructional staff. Given the rapid pace at which the academy is changing in terms of student and faculty demographics, faculty status and rank, educational delivery methods in general and as influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, and funding and resource allocation, we need a present-day perspective on faculty members in postsecondary education. Such a perspective would aid researchers, inform institutional decision-making, help leaders to identify and foster critical research-practice partnerships with a variety of key stakeholder groups within and outside of the academy, and inform the next phase of research and practice about faculty members. Without such a national effort, we lose a broader understanding of the faculty experience and the ways in which we can better support them.

Need 2: Examine Intersectional Issues We applaud the research and practice initiated during the 2010s that explored issues of intersectionality, specifically studies that sought to unpack the experiences of women and faculty of color as professors in the academy (Croom 2017; Hart 2016). Such work reveals the challenging environments, microaggressions, and outright racism and genderism that non-majority faculty populations experience that hinder their career advancement and overall well-being. Such understanding (and associated corrective actions) is paramount to ensuring an inclusive academy (Stewart and Valian 2018). With that in mind, our second identified need is continued research and practice efforts that employ an intersectionality lens and approach. Such knowledge will be in service to campus leaders, and other members of the academic community, as they seek to achieve their goal of diversifying their faculties. Our aim is to

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highlight research and practice that is leading the way on this front that both serves as a guide and informs such attempts moving forward. Research by Armstrong and Jovanovic (2015, 2017) is one such example of the important work being conducted in this space that employs intersectionality as a framework. Their research contributed to current theoretical models and research on advancing underrepresented minority women in STEM fields and how to frame current discussions and actions concerning intersectional approaches applied to institutional transformation initiatives. In particular, the use of an intersectional lens has the potential to “expand an organization’s paradigm for conceptualizing institutional change” (Armstrong and Jovanovic 2015, p. 149). Through research focused on NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grants, their findings revealed a lack of advancement for underrepresented minority women in STEM. Further, the authors argued that the additive approach employed by many institutional transformation efforts does not meet the needs of underrepresented minority women in STEM but rather results in a “blurring effect” in which the “particular concerns and systemically structured obstacles particular to URM women are obscured by the already considerable barriers generically faced by women from dominant groups. . .” (Armstrong and Jovanovic 2017, p. 226). The authors urged those in the field to employ an intersectional framework at multiple points throughout the career cycle, such as the recruitment of underrepresented STEM women. They also believed intersectional efforts should be aimed at all faculties to address institutional culture and climate issues. Laursen and Austin (in press) offer concrete strategies to support the improvement of institutional environments for academic women also situated in STEM fields. One of the many noteworthy contributions of their work includes an examination of how the featured strategies can be adapted (and adopted) in different work environments: “Thus, while gender equity in STEM fields is at the core of the research we carried out, we offer lessons that we believe are very portable to other disciplines and that offer adaptable models for improving equity for other groups of faculty whose needs are less well studied but whose lack of visibility and voice is also evident and harmful in the academy.” (Laursen and Austin in press)

Rooted in research on NSF Institutional Transformation initiatives, Laursen and Austin describe a dozen strategies for organizational change. The strategies are characterized as institutional responses and organized within four different aspects of gender inequity: biased evaluation processes, unwelcoming work climates, employment structures that do not accommodate personal lives, and inequitable opportunities for advancement. The strategies presented are employed by various institutions. This knowledge serves as a foundation for systemic change initiatives for a diversity of institutional contexts. This focus on intersectionality serves as an important foundation for research and practice at mid-career, one that acknowledges the varied identities, roles, and responsibilities that mid-career faculty members embrace and that contribute to

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their lived experiences. Research by Chambers and Freeman (2020) provides an example of the next, and needed, wave of this line of inquiry that employs intersectionality as a guiding framework. Their qualitative study of seven young Black faculties on their path to full professorship explored the role of age, race, and career stage during their career advancement journey. These realities situated within institutional and disciplinary environments are fundamental to understand by those who want to support mid-career faculty and their professional and personal pursuits in the academy.

Need 3: Support Nontenure Track Faculty at Mid-Career Stage An intersectionality framework also informs our third identified need: more research and practice about and in support of nontenure track faculty at mid-career. Reliance on part-time faculty is on the rise across all institution types in US higher education. According to Kezar (2014), part-time professors or adjuncts now make up over 49 percent of the faculty on university campuses and 70 percent of community college faculties. These individuals span all career stages. In our review of mid-career literature, we were only able to find one study that examined the impact of career stage on adjunct faculty (Feldman and Turnley 2001). Nearly 20 years ago, Feldman and Turnley (2001) sought to examine the role that career stage plays in determining how adjunct faculty react to their jobs. Guided by the assumption that motivations for accepting adjunct positions vary across the life cycle, the authors studied the ways in which employees in different stages of their careers responded to nontenure track positions. For the purposes of this chapter, we highlight the findings and implications noted at mid-career. Their findings revealed that “career stage did have a significant impact on the dependent variables” (Feldman and Turnley 2001, p. 9), resulting in positive and negative implications at mid-career. On the positive side, adjunct positions provided mid-career professionals with opportunities to be, perhaps, more creative and autonomous in their jobs than if they were in traditional tenure stream positions. However, adjunct positions resulted in widespread carryover of professional responsibilities into personal time, which created challenges related to planning for the future, responding to career demands of a partner or spouse, and overall disruptions due to the lack of a consistent schedule. Additionally, adjunct faculty at mid-career tended to be less satisfied compared to their early and late career colleagues. Scholars and practitioners need to focus research and practice energies on adjunct faculty using a career stage lens to guide that work. Very little is known about the experiences of adjunct faculty at mid-career, and if current higher education trends are any indication, the use of adjunct faculty does not appear to be slowing down. Lack of research and practice efforts directed to this population of faculty will continue to be underserved, which has implications at the individual, departmental, and institutional levels.

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Need 4: Methodological Approaches The methodological approaches employed to study the experiences of mid-career faculty have evolved over the past four decades. However, we see a need to further expand upon those methodologies and the contexts in which mid-career faculty members are employed. At present, the majority of research and practice focused on this population of faculty members is still situated in research universities. While this scholarship provides a useful framework and foundation from which to build, this near myopic institutional focus fails to acknowledge the importance of institutional context to the study of the faculty career and associated experiences. Not only do we need more research and practice situated in comprehensive and regional universities, liberal arts colleges, and community colleges, we also need to better understand midcareer faculty experiences in Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s), and tribal colleges and universities. Mission, institutional values, student demographics, and funding structures impact faculty. Therefore, accounting for those contextual nuances is important to advancing mid-career faculty research and practice. We also need to engage in scholarship and practice that accounts for disciplinary differences. A significant line of inquiry has focused on faculty experiences, particularly for women and faculty of color, in STEM fields. But we also need to understand the ways in which discipline contributes to mid-career faculty development in other fields. Much less is known about the experiences of mid-career faculty members in the fine and applied arts and humanities, for example. In addition, a focus on mid-career faculty experiences in professional fields such as nursing, business, and law would be useful. Therefore, we urge scholars and practitioners to consider expanding the disciplinary focus in which research and practice for midcareer faculty are situated. Lastly, there is a need for more research that focuses on specific faculty populations. We applaud the efforts of scholars over the past 15 years to account for and understand the experiences of women and, more recently, faculty of color. However, we need to continue this line of inquiry and also include LGBTQ faculty and Native American Faculty, for example. We believe the intersectionality lens noted under need two, discussed above, will support such inquiry. The absence of such efforts, we fear, will result in higher education institutions continuing to be challenged when seeking to diversify their faculties, both in terms of attracting and retaining diverse faculty populations.

Concluding Thoughts Mid-career faculty are the backbone of colleges and universities. They have a significant amount of career runway remaining and a wealth of institutional knowledge that can be used to benefit their peers and the institutions in which they are employed. We applaud research and practice efforts to date, yet we need to gain a better understanding of the needs of mid-career faculty and the ways in which they

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are expected and need to engage in the academy. Changing student demographics and increased reliance on contingent faculty, for example, place a great deal of pressure on mid-career faculty to shoulder the associated responsibilities for student advising and faculty governance as institutional leaders seek to create a more diverse and inclusive environment. Colleges and universities need to invest in their midcareer faculty to fulfill expected roles and responsibilities. Over the course of the past four decades of mid-career faculty literature, topics discussed by scholars have evolved, but one concept has remained steadfast throughout: the utmost importance of faculty development. Forty years of scholarly contributions on the professoriate point to mid-career faculty development as a means of cultivating vitality, fruitfulness, and overall well-being. As we confront the unknown higher education landscape during these unprecedented times, we know history informs the future and, thus, serves as encouragement to spend subsequent decades investing in institutional structures of faculty development, including mentorship and intervention strategies.

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Vicki L. Baker, MBA, MS, PhD is a Professor of Economics and Management at Albion College. She is the author of Charting Your Path to Full: A Guide for Women Associate Professors, lead editor of Success After Tenure: Supporting Mid-Career Faculty, and lead author of Faculty Development in Liberal Arts Colleges. Vicki has written over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, invited opinion pieces, case studies and blogs on the topics of faculty and leadership development. She is a Fulbright Specialist Alumna and was recognized as a “Top 100 Visionaries” in Education from the Global Forum for Education and Learning in 2020. Caroline E. N. Manning is a recent graduate from Albion College, summa cum laude, in which she earned her degree in Psychology with a minor in management. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and was awarded the Prentiss M. Brown Outstanding Honors Thesis Award and the Joseph C. Heston Award for Outstanding Senior Psychology Major for her academic and scholarly achievements. During her tenure at Albion, she also served as a research and teaching assistant. Currently, Caroline is a PhD student at Penn State University in Industrial/Organizational Psychology.

Four Decades of Performance Funding and Counting

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Amy Y. Li

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Definition and Prevalence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Main Features of Performance Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brief History of Performance Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theoretical Logic of Performance Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Public Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Resource Dependence Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Principal-Agent Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Neoliberalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ecology of Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Establishment of Performance Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adoption of Performance Funding Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Advocates of Performance Funding and Evidence Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Policy Implementation and Campus Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intended Institutional Responses in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unintended Institutional Responses in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Challenges to Implementation in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Policy Awareness and Campus Responses in Washington State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Campus Implementation in Ohio and Pennsylvania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Campus Responses to Equity Metrics in Ohio and Pennsylvania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Policy Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Policy Evaluation Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Four-Year College Completion Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Two-Year College Completion Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Meta-Analysis on Outcomes and Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Outcomes Specific to Minority Serving Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Access and Admissions Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Equity Metrics and Enrollment Outcomes at Four-Year Colleges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance Funding Impacts on Institutional Finances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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A. Y. Li (*) Department of Educational Policy Studies, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA e-mail: AmLi@fiu.edu © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7_8

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Summary of Literature on Performance Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Equity Considerations in Performance Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General Comments on Research Design of Performance Funding Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Evidence of Limited Impact on Degree Completion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . International Perspective on Performance Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Future of Performance Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance Funding During an Economic Recession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Areas of Future Research for Performance Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodological Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Performance funding policies for higher education tie a portion of state revenue to public colleges according to student outcomes. This chapter is a comprehensive literature review of research studies on performance funding, highlighting the conceptual frameworks employed by authors and focusing on three areas of the policy: development, adoption, and design; campus implementation and responses; and ultimate impacts on retention and completion, access, student enrollment demographics, and institutional finances. This chapter pays attention to equity considerations of performance funding and discusses the policy’s impacts on colleges with different levels of resource capacity, selectivity, and student characteristics. The chapter concludes with considerations for future research on the policy. Keywords

Performance funding · Performance-based funding · Outcomes-based funding · Policy implementation · Policy evaluation · Accountability · Equity metrics · Higher education finance

Introduction Definition and Prevalence The basic definition of performance funding (PF) is that it is a state-level funding formula that ties monies “directly and tightly to the performance of public campuses on individual indicators” or outcomes (Burke and Minassians 2003, p. 3). The policy differs from “traditional” forms of funding that rely more heavily on enrollment numbers to calculate state appropriations to higher education. PF is higher stakes than other possibilities, say performance reporting, which relies on outcome indicators as one consideration in determining state appropriations (Burke and Minassians 2004). Performance funding at its core is a simple concept. It follows the basic public policy tools of “carrots” and “sticks,” a system of incentives and potential punitive consequences (Li 2018). Essentially, if public institutions are paid in part based on

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graduation outcomes and other measures of student success deemed important, then public institutions should, intuitively, find ways in their internal practices to accomplish stated goals. However, colleges are complex organizations with many layers of operation, and the process to produce a graduate is not simplistic. One challenge is that the perennial definitions of success in higher education are varied, depending on student goals and dependent upon institutional mission. One way to consider the outcomes of higher education is to view a student’s degree as providing a return on investment, where the student earns a higher salary than had they not earned a degree. Taking a purely economic approach to return on investment, students who complete college tend to have higher salaries than those who have a high school education. Furthermore, the taxpayer monies provided to public higher education generates a higher return on investment for students who graduate, versus those who do not. This rationale was an impetus behind the growth of accountability in higher education. PF emerged from broader public concerns that too many students were entering college but not completing a degree. As of 2020, 62% of first-time, full-time students who entered 4-year colleges completed a bachelor’s degree in 6 years. At 2-year colleges, just 33% of first-time, full-time students completed an associate degree in 3 years (National Center for Education Statistics 2020b). These numbers exclude part-time students, who take even longer to complete a credential. Thus, college completion rates are a major reason why states have pursued PF as a public accountability tool.

Main Features of Performance Funding A report from 2020 documented that 30 states had some form of PF in which 2- or 4-year public colleges received some portion of their state funding based on student outcomes (active and currently funded) (Rosinger et al. 2020). Two additional states (Idaho and Missouri) had PF policies in place but did not allocate funds to colleges according to the funding formula. Pennsylvania, which has a long history of PF, had, at the time of the report, paused its PF system while in the process of redesigning. Among the 30 states with actively funded policies, the majority (21 states) operated PF for 2- and 4-year colleges. One state (New Jersey) only operated PF for 4-year colleges, while the remaining eight states operated PF only for 2-year colleges. PF policies across states universally incentivize graduation rates or degree completion (at the 2- and/or 4-year level). Other commonly used metrics include retention measures, such as first- to second-year retention or the completion of certain thresholds of credit hours (15 credits, 30 credits), transfer from 2- to 4-year colleges, and job placement or graduate wage outcomes. In addition, some states fund degree completion in STEM fields, which are considered to be a high demand area to fulfill state economic needs (Li 2018; Rosinger et al. 2020). In recent policies, states have also created equity metrics to incentivize the retention and graduation of students from historically underserved populations. These typically include low-income (e.g. Pell grant recipients) and students of

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color (most frequently defined as Black/African American and LatinX students, occasionally Native American students or Native Hawaiian students). As of FY 2020, more than two-thirds of PF states provide bonuses or have a separate metric for graduating low-income students, and half of the states explicitly recognize race as part of their funding formula (Rosinger et al. 2020). Less frequently, equity metrics offer extra funding for adult students aged 25 and older as well as first-generation students (Li 2018). One feature of PF is the proportion of total state appropriations that is tied to performance on student outcomes. One could view PF policies as a drug treatment, with the percentage of operating revenues for an institution as the dosage of the treatment. States vary substantially in the percentage of funds tied to performance. As of FY 2020, Arkansas allocated 3% of funding according to outcomes, Nevada allocated 20%, while Ohio allocated 100% based on outcomes (Rosinger et al. 2020). While some states such as Ohio and Tennessee are known for allocating virtually all state appropriations to colleges based on a PF formula, the majority of states with the policy hover around the 5–10% amount (Li 2018).

Brief History of Performance Funding In the United States, PF for higher education was first established in Tennessee (Banta et al. 1996). The state has gone through multiple revisions of the policy (Sanford and Hunter 2011), which has continued until today. Ohio also established one of the earliest versions of the policy in 1995 and 1997 (Dougherty and Reddy 2013) and, having gone through phases of revision, currently has a form of the policy. PF has gone through periods of popularity and discontinuation, whereby some states began the policy, discontinued it, and then re-established it, while other states have continued the policy across time. A number of states adopted PF in the 1990s yet abandoned their policies during the “dot com” recession in the early 2000s (Dougherty and Natow 2015). Earlier versions of the policy, sometimes dubbed PF 1.0, operate as bonus funding, on top of regular state appropriations for higher education, in an amount typically about 1–5% of state funding (Burke 2002; Dougherty and Reddy 2013). In other words, colleges were offered an additional incentive above their base appropriations, if certain student outcome goals were met. The second wave of policies (newly adopted or revised from previous iterations) was called PF 2.0. Rather than allocating performance-based funds as a bonus, PF 2.0 took existing base state funding and required institutions to earn back that funding by meeting certain performance goals. The portion of funding tended to be higher as well, upwards of 80–100%. The key feature of PF 2.0 is that colleges can actually lose funding from previous years if they do not meet outcome criteria designated by the funding formula, making base-funding PF policies a high-stakes accountability mechanism (Dougherty and Reddy 2013). Policies adopted in the 2000s and especially 2007 onward tended to be considered PF 2.0, as concerns over efficiency and accountability in higher education

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fueled the popularity of outcomes-based funding tools. Competition from other funding needs such as the increasing cost of healthcare, and K-12 appropriations, has also increased the desire of policymakers to use PF as a way to improve graduation outcomes at public colleges (Dougherty and Natow 2015). In conducting this literature review, I focus primarily on journal articles and books on PF. I recognize there are a number of studies published by research institutes and advocacy organizations, but I depend primarily on peer-reviewed articles and edited books. For an in-depth literature review of PF policies prior to 2013, see Dougherty and Reddy (2013). Reviewed in this chapter, Dougherty et al. (2016) offers detailed analyses of campus implementation of PF. Furthermore, see Jones et al. (2017) for discussions focused on equity and racial justice. For a summary of main components of PF, see the policy report by Li (2018). In this chapter, I provide more detailed literature reviews of the most recent studies on PF, particularly journal articles in the latter half of 2010s up to the most recent available at the time of writing this chapter.

Theoretical Logic of Performance Funding There are several commonly applied theoretical frameworks in studies of PF. These include new public management, resource dependence theory, principal-agent theory, neoliberalism, and less commonly, the ecology of games. In this section, I survey the fundamentals of each theoretical perspective and describe how scholars have applied these frameworks to PF.

New Public Management New public management, a theory that originated from applying business-like practices to public service organizations, assumes that market competition and contracting out government services will lower the cost of providing goods and services (Meier and O’Toole 2009). Transparency is also important in new public management, as performance data must be tracked and reported. New public management represents an effort to control public service professions by prioritizing the explicit measurement of output and outcomes and linking financial rewards to such outcomes (Frølich 2011). Previous studies have applied new public management ideas to the performance management goals of PF policies (Gándara and Rutherford 2018). As intuitive as PF should be in theory, the research from new public management shows that among public organizations, paying for outcomes is rife with challenges. Focusing on a set of measurable outcomes is difficult when the process of achieving an outcome (e.g., graduation) is shaped by factors outside of the institution’s control, such as student academic readiness (Bell et al. 2018). An ongoing challenge in designing the weighting of performance metrics is to try and ensure that the pursuit of degree completion does not exacerbate persistent educational participation and attainment gaps across students of differing socioeconomic advantages.

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Resource Dependence Theory Resource dependence theory (RDT), which emerged from organizational theory and strategic management, has been used in multiple writings on PF. Because public colleges are dependent on funds from the state, their dependency on this material incentive will catapult some type of internal behavioral change aimed at maximizing such resources (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978). In other words, within states that have a PF policy, colleges will act in ways aimed at improving performance because colleges are provided material incentives from the state (Dougherty and Hong 2006; Dougherty and Reddy 2013). Studies incorporating a resource dependency perspective typically suggest that colleges that rely more heavily on state appropriations (such as community colleges) will be more likely to engage in the desired behaviors of improving stated student outcomes (Hu 2019; Li and Ortagus 2019).

Principal-Agent Theory Another frequently cited conceptual framework behind PF is principal-agent theory (Li 2020; Tandberg and Hillman 2014). Using this theory, the state is considered the principal, and individual colleges are considered agents acting on the principal’s behalf to achieve a goal, in this case, college completion. The principal allocates funding according to a pre-determined formula, and expects the agent to deliver on goods, services, and/or goals aligned with the principal’s interests. However, oftentimes, the principal-agent problem emerges because principals and agents are presumed to have differing interests, and it is nearly impossible for the principal to strictly monitor all of the agent’s actions (Bohren 1998). In other words, colleges have more knowledge about their internal workings, such as faculty teaching practices, student advising, and mentorship, than states have the ability to oversee. This imperfect awareness of internal workings is called information asymmetry (Kivistö 2008). Colleges may be tempted to maximize their own utility (take actions towards forwarding their own goals, such as increasing research productivity and prestige) rather than the stated goals of a PF policy (such as increasing the graduation rate of Pell grant recipients). Information asymmetry can be detrimental due to agency loss – the loss of efficiency due to the principal’s goals being different from the agent’s own self-interested actions (Holmstrom 1979). Nearly all studies of PF incorporate some element of principal-agent theory to conceptualize the relationship between the state and its colleges. One complication that can emerge from this principal-agent relationship is colleges may “shirk” their responsibilities to the state (Holmstrom 1979; Lane 2007). That is, even though both colleges and states have the shared goal of improving degree completion, the process by which colleges achieve such goals may be nebulous. Instead, colleges may be tempted to use easier routes to confer more degrees, such as becoming more selective in admissions by accepting students who are more likely to graduate (Dougherty et al. 2016). Therefore, PF policy designers attempt to diminish “agency loss” by designing performance metrics collaboratively with colleges, to better align

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principal-agent goals, or by phasing in PF policies to provide more time for colleges to adapt (Mckeown-Moak 2013). Not only does principal-agent theory apply to the state and college relationship, but it also describes within-college relationships. High-level administrators at a college serve as agents when they interface with the external principal (the state) but also serve as principals when they direct the activities of mid-level administrators, faculty members, and support staff. For example, provosts must communicate PF goals to deans of individual colleges, and these deans must disseminate such information within their departments. Thus, the internal structure of the college also represents layers of the principal-agent relationship (Li 2017b).

Neoliberalism Neoliberalism is another concept that arises in discussions of PF, such as in writings by Dougherty et al. (2016), and focuses on making public organizations more effective and economically efficient. A key feature of neoliberalism is that the organizations benefit from private enterprise, and a competitive marketplace, and government operations are made more efficient by privatization. If organizations cannot be fully privatized, governments need creative fiscal incentives for agents to compete with one another more efficiently and to better achieve the goals that principals designate (Dougherty and Natow 2019). The desire for states to measure and calculate efficiency and to maximize quantifiable outputs represents the neoliberal components of PF for higher education (Letizia 2016). Neoliberal theories are used to frame a discussion in which institutions are more market responsive and better contributors to their state’s economic vitality. Neoliberalism shares commonalities with principal-agent theory. Principals such as states may be supporting neoliberal policies to forward their own agendas, yet institutional agents could also be proponents of neoliberal reform policies, although the motives of principals may differ from those of agents. Some studies show evidence that institutional actors supported PF as a way to better demonstrate to legislators and policymakers how much colleges were contributing to achieving state goals (Dougherty et al. 2011). In the establishment of PF policies, neoliberalism also helps to explain the power that private businesses had to influence government agencies, by promoting the positives of business-like incentives to make public colleges more efficient. Even if businesses were not directly involved in crafting PF, they did promote neoliberal ideas through ideological influence, such as in South Carolina, Washington, Florida, and Missouri (Dougherty and Natow 2015). Relatedly, businesses exerted power in the creation of PF because state policymakers were keener on policies that were attractive to businesses, even if businesses did not directly lobby for such policies (Dougherty and Natow 2015). For example, in Missouri, conservative businesses resisted additional public funding for higher education and contributed to an environment where PF seemed appealing to state policymakers.

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While neoliberalism does capture the financial incentive and principal-agent piece of PF policy adoption, neoliberal ideas do not fully capture the way PF has been implemented. Monetary incentives are primary in applying neoliberal ideas via PF, but there are additional policy instruments used during the implementation of PF. One such incentive was persuasive communication, when the principal communicates the importance of a certain policy goal to better cultivate the interests of the agent (Dougherty and Natow 2019). For instance, in Pennsylvania, policy designers collaborated with institutional actors to design metrics consistent with the broader goal of greater college completion and further provided flexibility for colleges to choose metrics aligned with their own institutional strategic plans (Cavanaugh and Garland 2012; Zumeta and Li 2016). A second implementation consideration that is not captured by neoliberal theories is the idea of capacity building, which entails providing or helping to facilitate the increase in resources that colleges need in order to be more successful at achieving stated PF goals (Dougherty and Natow 2019). Such resources could include greater analytical capacity, a technology system for using predictive analytics, “intrusive” advising, and resources to hire academic or student support staff. In the case of Ohio, institutions did invest in campus-level resources to be better positioned to achieve performance outcomes (Dougherty et al. 2016; Li and Zumeta 2016).

Ecology of Games In explaining why PF policies have limited impact on student outcomes, Nisar (2015) points to the ecology of games perspective whereby universities are players engaged in multiple games. Games consist of interactions between institutional actors based on a set of rules. Colleges operate within a larger ecosystem and play multiple roles within this ecosystem and engage in games involving calculable strategies and tactics that give colleges a sense of success or failure. For most colleges, the state funding game is perhaps not the primary game of interest. Rather, colleges may be interested in activities involving donors, in acquiring more prestige and influence, in seeking research and development funds, in moving up in the rankings, or in other engagements with higher payoffs and lower compliance costs. The relationship between the state and the colleges is not a linear cause and effect relationship that can be moderated using performance-based funds (Nisar 2015). Additionally, the behavior of colleges depends on multiple games played internally, such as related to departmental resource allocations, tenure policies, and student recruitment. These behaviors can be unpredictable. Furthermore, the actors within a college change over time, along with their techniques and strategies in seeking goals beyond student retention and completion. Therefore, the establishment of a PF policy represents only one small portion of the ecology of higher education and is arguably not influential enough to fundamentally change the behavior of colleges. Nisar (2015) recommends that PF systems not be rigid in terms of design and time horizon. Since colleges and environments are actively changing, PF systems may need to be adjusted over time.

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Establishment of Performance Funding PF has grown to affect the majority of states, and the establishment of the policy has been a topic of research. Government agencies within the United States have been fundamental in establishing PF in various states, including Tennessee, the original innovator of PF (Dougherty and Natow 2015). A few studies have explored the factors related to the policy adoption and diffusion of PF across states and influences within states that contributed to the policy’s rise in popularity. This section outlines literature analyzing the origins of the policy, influential advocates of the policy, and the use of research evidence in crafting policies.

Adoption of Performance Funding Policies Policy Innovation and Diffusion of Earlier PF Policies. One study examined the adoption of PF policies through a policy innovation and diffusion framework, from years 1979 to 2002. Similar to other diffusion studies examining how policies spread across contiguous states, this study excluded Alaska and Hawaii, because they have no neighbors, and similar to national studies of PF adoption and outcomes, this study excluded Nebraska because of the state’s non-partisan legislature (McLendon et al. 2006). Using event history analysis techniques, specifically a discrete-time logit model for nonrepeatable events, the authors determined which internal state characteristics, and neighboring influences, were associated with the adoption of PF policies as well as performance budgeting. While PF ties state appropriations to outcomes using a formula, performance budgeting differs in that it allows state officials “to consider campus achievement on performance indicators as one factor in determining allocations for public campuses” (Burke and Minassians 2003, p. 3). The literature recognizes performance budgeting as a lower-stakes strategy for accountability (Burke 2002). McLendon et al. (2006) showed that a higher percentage of Republican legislators in a state increased the probability that a state adopted PF. The authors theorized that Republicans in the state legislature may have viewed PF policies more favorably than Democrats because PF policies are a form of high-stakes accountability aimed at monitoring the public bureaucracy of higher education. McLendon et al. (2006) also found that states with a less centralized governance structure for higher education (a coordinating board or a planning board) were more likely to adopt PF, compared to states with more centralized governance structures (in the form of a consolidated governing board). The researchers theorized that consolidated governance boards may better represent the interests of higher education actors and serve to protect institutions from more rigid external accountability structures such as PF, whereas a less powerful board may not be able to (McLendon et al. 2006). Interestingly, the researchers found that other state characteristics examined did not predict the adoption of PF, specifically educational attainment, percent change in gross state product, legislative professionalism, governor’s powers, the party of the

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governor, percent changes in tuition, and percent changes in public enrollment (McLendon et al. 2006). Policy Learning and Diffusion of PF 2.0 Policies. Since PF policies have especially expanded in popularity in the last decade, a more recent study on state adoptions of PF examined the adoption patterns among the 47 states between 2000 and 2013, focusing on PF 2.0 (Li 2017a). Using a Cox proportional hazards model, the author found that contrary to policy theories predicting that states emulate one another in adopting policy innovations (Berry and Berry 1990), there was a reverse diffusion effect for PF 2.0. States that had more neighbors that operated PF 2.0 or were in the process of adopting PF 2.0 were less likely to adopt the policy in their own state, suggesting a policy learning effect where states delay their own adoption of PF 2.0 by perhaps waiting to see the effectiveness of the policy emerge in neighboring states (Li 2017a). Li (2017a) also found that states with a Republican-majority legislature were more likely to adopt PF 2.0, but the party of the governor was unrelated to adoption patterns. On the other hand, states with more liberal electorates, measured by citizen ideology, and states with more professionalized legislatures, characterized by greater staff resources, were more likely to adopt the policy. Other variables that increased the probability of adopting PF 2.0 included higher levels of state appropriations per student and more rapidly growing public enrollment numbers. On the other hand, states with higher educational attainment levels were less likely to adopt PF 2.0. Variables unrelated to PF 2.0 adoption included governor’s budget powers, the percent of enrollment at private colleges, the percent of 2-year enrollment, state grant aid per student, tuition rate changes, and outmigration (Li 2017a). This study showed that factors related to the adoption of higher-stakes PF 2.0 policies differed from those related to earlier policy adoptions in the PF 1.0 era. The Li (2017a) and McLendon et al. (2006) studies illustrated that factors including political conditions helped to explain the spread of PF across states.

Advocates of Performance Funding and Evidence Usage Political leaders, foundations, and advocacy organizations have been influential players in the establishment of PF. Some advocacy organizations, in the interest of garnering legislative support for PF, may be less likely to highlight empirical studies that run counter to a PF advocacy goal. Rather than evaluating the entire breadth of empirical literature, proponents of PF may focus on studies that offer more promising evidence about the effectiveness of PF (Bell et al. 2018). Gándara et al. (2017) explored the role of Complete College America (CCA) in influencing policy activity around college completion, including PF, in Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas. The researchers collected data in the form of interviews of policy actors, observations of policy events, and archival documents. Findings suggested that CCA utilized rewards to incentivize states into considering PF, in the form of financial support for implementation, such as a predictive analytics software program. Further, CCA employed punishments such as shaming

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institutions for low graduation rates. CCA portrayed PF as a best practice. In addition, national groups such as state intermediaries were also instrumental for legislators and staff to learn more about PF and understand what other states were doing. CCA also engaged in a practice of discrediting research that showed limited benefits from PF. Respondents of interviews also noted that CCA’s marketing tactics, such as focusing on the singular goal of college completion, and their easy to understand publications, were effective at advocating for PF policy adoption (Gándara et al. 2017). Miller and Morphew (2017) examined the policy publications and political rhetoric prominent in the adoption of PF in Florida, Massachusetts, and Montana and, in particular, the influence of agenda-setting organizations. Specifically, the authors considered documents published by the Gates Foundation and the Lumina foundation, along with three additional advocacy organizations: Complete College America, HCM Strategists, and Jobs for the Future. The agenda-setting organizations framed the need to adopt PF in order to address the problems of low persistence and graduation rates, and a lack of graduates in the STEM fields. Organizations framed PF as beneficial for students and for state systems, to prioritize important goals in higher education. Failures from previous PF policies were attributed to poor implementation, lack of data, poor design, or lack of political will. In short, advocacy organizations were influential in diagnosing a need for PF within enrollment-based funding formulas and promoting PF as a solution in creating greater accountability in higher education (Miller and Morphew 2017). Gándara (2019) explored how evidence was used in the formulation and implementation of PF policies in Colorado and Texas. She construed evidence as academic research, policy reports, data, stakeholder information, and best practices. During 2014 to 2015, the author conducted interviews with policy actors and campus administrators, observed legislative and state higher education agency meetings, and reviewed documents, primarily consisting of newspaper articles, meeting minutes, and email correspondence. Findings suggested that demanders of information included legislators and their staff members. The state higher education agency, as well as campus administrators, occupied both the role of demander and supplier of information. Sources of evidence utilized by participants in the Gándara (2019) study included within-state data, information from other states, guidance from intermediary organizations, anecdotal evidence, research evidence, common sense, legislative services, and public perceptions. The most common form of evidence use was conceptual – to enlighten the consumer of evidence and not necessarily address a specific problem. Information was also employed for political purposes, such as when campus representatives used internal modeling to advocate for funding formulas that benefited their own institutions. Less often, information was used for instrumental purposes – to inform future decisions or policy positions (Gándara 2019). Interestingly, Gándara (2019) found that in Colorado, a financial bonus for underrepresented minority students was abandoned even though evidence illustrated its utility. The legislators retained a low-income student premium but did not want to

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be involved with the politics of including a racial/ethnic minority premium (Gándara 2020). The author also found that institutions with higher levels of fiscal resources were more able to use evidence, and campus officials were more likely to use academic research. Legislators in particular preferred information that was definitive, relevant, and timely, related to the economy, and perceived as coming from a credible source. Utilizing data collected during the same time period, Gándara (2020) focused her analysis on the design process of Colorado’s PF funding model (adopted in 2014), posing questions about target populations, how these populations were portrayed, the political power and influence of policy actors, and which groups benefited or were burdened. Her findings revealed three types of institutions that were the primary policy targets. Access institutions were 2- and 4-year colleges with nonselective or minimally selective admissions criteria. They gained funding under the new model and were construed as deserving of extra funding. Research institutions were portrayed as not deserving of state funding but still wound up retaining their funding levels under the revised model. Research universities held more political power and greater resources and were most influential in the design process. Rural institutions had experienced declining enrollments, were less vocal during the design process, and ultimately lost funding under the new model (Gándara 2020). The Gándara (2019, 2020) studies offer an insightful look at the policy creation process of PF, with particular close analysis paid to the sources and usage of information, the actors involved in information usage, negotiation of specific funding model features, and the varying degrees of political power exercised by different types of institutions. The studies reviewed on the adoption and creation of PF policies help to improve the understanding of the ways these policies were developed and crafted.

Policy Implementation and Campus Responses After PF policies are adopted, there is another set of research questions regarding how policies are actually put into practice on campuses and how campuses respond to policies. In a large study, Dougherty et al. (2016) conducted interviews with state officials, state-level political actors, and administrators and faculty at nine 2year colleges and nine 4-year colleges in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee. Interviews were conducted between August 2012 and April 2014. State-level interviewees included higher education commission officials, gubernatorial and legislative advisors and staff, business leaders, researchers, and consultants. Institutional actors included senior administrators, academic and non-academic administrators, and department chairs. The research team also analyzed documents including public agency reports, newspapers, and academic studies (Dougherty et al. 2016). The next section describes the Dougherty et al. (2016) studies on campus responses, both intended and unintended, and challenges associated with campus implementation of PF.

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Intended Institutional Responses in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee Campus Awareness of Performance Funding. Dougherty et al. (2016) found that college personnel, from university leadership to faculty and mid-level administrators, were aware that student graduation outcomes impacted their institution’s bottom line. Participants recognized that PF was valuable in prioritizing the need to improve student outcomes. Extensive efforts by state policymakers were made in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee to disseminate information about PF to campus stakeholders. Evidence suggested that while broad awareness was high across campuses, faculty and midlevel administrators were less likely to receive direct communication about PF goals. State officials discussed building up campus organizational capacity to respond to PF but gave much latitude to campuses themselves to determine how to improve student retention and completion (Dougherty et al. 2016). Changes to Academic Programs and Curriculum. A number of positive impacts were described by interview participants in response to PF. However, note that PF was just one of several concurrent influences aimed at improving student outcomes. It was empirically impossible to determine that campus responses were catalyzed solely by PF. All in all, the authors suggested that the coincidence of PF with other initiatives produced synergy rather than competition between different initiatives (Dougherty et al. 2016). Dougherty et al. (2016) found that changes to developmental education commonly occurred in response to PF, especially at 2-year colleges but at 4-year universities as well. The PF policies in Ohio and Tennessee each had a performance indicator for developmental education, and developmental education reform was a part of other state-level initiatives in all three states. Changes in developmental education included allowing students to enroll the summer before their first fall term or to simultaneously enroll in developmental and college-credit bearing courses. At some colleges, instructional changes were also made to STEM courses, such as bringing new technology into the classroom. A second prevalent change was that campuses improved course articulation and transfer, especially between 2- and 4-year colleges (Dougherty et al. 2016). This made it easier for students to get credit at 4-year colleges for courses they took at 2-year colleges. Transfers were also a performance metric in Ohio and Tennessee. Additional changes to academic programs included the creation of cohort courses, in which the same students progressed through a set of courses together. Interestingly, Dougherty et al. (2016) wrote that Tennessee respondents noted the creation of shorter-term general education certificate programs, which produced substantial increases in such certificates, detected in later quantitative studies (Hillman et al. 2018; Li and Ortagus 2019). Some institutions reduced the number of credits needed for completing a program, standardizing bachelor’s degrees to require 120 credits, and associate degrees to require 60 credits. Finally, the researchers found that a few colleges increased online instruction, which added convenience for distance learning students (Dougherty et al. 2016).

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Changes to Student Services. Campuses also made changes in the area of student support services (Dougherty et al. 2016). Specifically, campuses added more academic advisors, created online advising systems, and involved faculty to a greater extent in advising responsibilities. Colleges also implemented early warning systems to notify advisors of students at risk of dropping out, known as intrusive advising. Advisors incorporated degree maps to keep students more apprised of their progress toward graduation. In addition, some colleges reported creating new tutoring centers or started an online tutoring program. Other colleges increased their programming for first-year students (Dougherty et al. 2016). There were also instances of colleges creating new scholarship programs and providing tuition discounts. Some colleges began charging students the same tuition amount for 12 or 15 credits, as an incentive to take more credits each term. Interviews revealed that some colleges streamlined registration and graduation procedures. These responses included the removal of a fee to apply for graduation and simplifying the application process. Additionally, colleges altered procedures such as reducing the number of times a student could withdraw from courses during their academic career, to encourage course completion. Dougherty et al. (2016) discovered that some institutions consolidated the departments involved with advising and enrollment, making it easier for students to get answers to registration questions at a central location. Additional campus responses were observed at a few colleges, including improving career services offerings, creating living-learning communities, starting mentoring programs, or enhancing student organizations (Dougherty et al. 2016).

Unintended Institutional Responses in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee Whether in direct pursuit of the ultimate outcomes of increased degree completion, PF policies have indirectly or directly led to impacts that were likely unintended by policy designers. The large-scale implementation studies conducted by Dougherty et al. (2016) have illustrated a number of potentially problematic responses to PF in the studied states of Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee. Increased Selectivity. Among interview participants in Dougherty et al. (2016), a 'commonly described response to PF was the restriction of admissions. Institutions faced pressure to improve their graduation outcomes and were less likely to offer acceptances to students who displayed lower academic preparation. Some colleges decided to require higher standardized test scores and GPAs for students to gain admissions or decreased the number of conditionally admitted students. Second, colleges strategically targeted recruitment at more academically prepared students, such as suburban, out-of-state, and international students. Colleges were also less likely to recruit from high schools in urban or poorer areas. Furthermore, colleges showed evidence of shifting institutional aid from need-based to meritbased, to attract students with better prior academic performance (Dougherty et al. 2016).

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Reduced Academic Rigor. Among some respondents in Dougherty et al.’s (2016) studies, the focus on improving course completion numbers resulted in faculty feeling pressured to inflate grades and pass students, who, in the past, would not have earned a passing grade. Additional concern was raised about the easing of grade forgiveness policies, and that students were more frequently being steered into “easier” courses. In addition, some colleges reduced the number of credits required to earn a degree or made it easier to substitute courses to better facilitate student graduation. While streamlining the college curriculum could be viewed as a positive response, the impetus to alter curricular requirements should not be driven solely by PF incentives to graduate more students. Compliance Costs. In interviews conducted by Dougherty et al. (2016), participants further described the extra work required to track students and report outcomes, which required staff expertise in institutional research. Yet, the resources needed to adhere to PF reporting standards were not provided to the colleges. Further, participants noted the added workload placed on faculty who were more frequently being asked to conduct assessment. Institutional Competition and Lower Morale. A final unintended consequence of PF found through Dougherty et al.’s (2016) interviews in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee was reduced cooperation among institutions in a state who were competing against one another to earn performance funds. The sharing of best practices across institutions became stunted. Furthermore, some faculty and staff experienced declining morale and expressed frustration that their efforts were underappreciated (Dougherty et al. 2016).

Challenges to Implementation in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee The Dougherty et al. (2016) studies of campus implementation in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee also found a number of challenges for campuses to respond to PF. The first was that open-access institutions enrolled students from marginalized academic, economic, and social backgrounds who faced barriers in persistence and graduation. The student composition at some colleges made it difficult to report good performance on PF metrics. At 2-year colleges, campus participants mentioned that some students who enrolled did not intend to ultimately graduate with an associate degree and were instead upgrading their knowledge or skill set by taking select courses. Some college respondents indicated it was unfair to be judged based on graduation outcomes when some entering students had no intention to earn a degree. Campus respondents also pointed to limited institutional capacity at their institutions, specifically understaffing in institutional research and data systems that were outdated or tedious. Dougherty et al. (2016) found variations across institutional responses depending on type and capacity (measured by per-student revenue, data analysis capabilities, and enrollment percentage of historically marginalized

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students). Lower-capacity colleges reported more challenges in meeting PF goals, especially due to enrolling a less privileged student population and having lesser developed data analytic ability. According to Dougherty et al. (2016), because PF focused on aggregate outcomes that often could not be traced back, for instance, to the actions of individual faculty in classrooms or academic support staff during advising sessions, the policy has limited enforcement power and could reduce the moral of the very actors the policy seeks to incentivize. Theoretically, agents (i.e., faculty, staff) may be tempted to shirk their duties, yet individuals who self-select into faculty and staff positions tend to be more intrinsically motivated (rather than extrinsically motivated by monetary rewards). Faculty and staff may view PF as punitive and unfair, decreasing their motivation to promote institutional goals (Dougherty et al. 2016).

Policy Awareness and Campus Responses in Washington State In a small-scale study, Li (2017b) interviewed faculty, administrators, and staff at a community college in Washington state to determine knowledge of, viewpoints toward, and responses to PF, complemented with document analysis. She found that the participants in the study were knowledgeable about the PF policy and were able to speak to the policy’s relevance to their individual departments, although support staff were less involved with goals related to the policy. The policy appeared to increase the visibility of student success goals, from developmental education, to retention and graduation, to transitions into the workforce. Based on Li’s (2017b) findings, the original rollout of the Washington PF policy created some confusion about the metrics. It took a few years before the participants established a better understanding of how the formula calculated student progress. Some participants criticized the formula, that the metrics, since they focused on math and English, did not capture all that students were gaining from attending college. Participants recommended adding a measure for science course completion. Similar to findings about institutional perspectives of PF in other studies, those interviewed in Washington state criticized the policy for not accounting for student characteristics outside of the college’s control nor external job market conditions. Furthermore, participants criticized the data system, which at the time of the study, was crosssectional and did not track the academic pathways of individual students. Faculty were somewhat skeptical of the policy in general and saw it as a critique of their existing teaching practices. Nevertheless, Li (2017b) found that positive campus responses to the policy included greater collaboration between faculty and administrators in assessing student learning. For example, an English department explored student learning objectives across courses, especially since English course completions were incentivized within the Washington PF formula. Additionally, the college set up a transitions team to explore ways to improve academic programs and student support services (Li 2017b).

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Campus Implementation in Ohio and Pennsylvania Li and Zumeta (2016) conducted interviews in September 2015 and January 2016 with policymakers and campus officials in Ohio and Pennsylvania, to better understand how PF policies were anticipated to impact student outcomes, whether state policymakers were responsive to institutional feedback, and how campus administrators, faculty, and support staff have responded to PF. The authors interviewed officials from the higher education agencies in each state, university administrators (both academic and non-academic), faculty members, and support staff (Li and Zumeta 2016; Zumeta and Li 2016). Within both state PF policies, there was an explicit emphasis on increasing STEM degree attainment. Li and Zumeta (2016) found that in Pennsylvania, the financial planning around PF was somewhat curtailed because allocation amounts were perceived as unpredictable. Nevertheless, institutional participants did appreciate the ability to propose metrics aligned with their strategic plans. Strong faculty unions in Pennsylvania limited the flexibility that administrators had in hiring faculty for academic programs based on shifting student interests. Findings also revealed that faculty were encouraged to experiment with high-impact teaching practices, especially in STEM fields (Li and Zumeta 2016). Li and Zumeta (2016) discovered that institutions in both Ohio and Pennsylvania responded to PF by improving software systems and using data analytics to track student progress and identify areas of intervention. Participants noted that especially for students of color, it was important to trace where students may be falling through the cracks. Participants also discussed peer mentoring and intrusive advising (Li and Zumeta 2016). While faculty showed varying levels of support for the idea of PF, they were generally supportive and offered no strong critiques (Zumeta and Li 2016). The studies also showed that focusing on the bottom financial line was a necessary reality for all institutions, especially in an era of declining state resources for higher education (Li and Zumeta 2016). Despite the existence of PF, institutions still derived the majority of their revenue from tuition and emphasized the importance of enrollment numbers. Zumeta and Li (2016) further found that high-resourced institutions in Ohio and Pennsylvania were more able to attract non-state appropriations resources by recruiting more academically prepared students. The same institutions relying less on state revenues were also those selective enough to successfully recruit out-of-state and full tuition payers. PF appeared to exacerbate the gaps between “have” and “have not” institutions. Higher resourced, selective colleges benefited from stronger student applicant pools. The authors expressed concern that PF may be penalizing “poorer-performing” colleges, which also tend to be the ones serving a higher proportion of students from historically marginalized identities. These same colleges have a challenging time improving their performance because they are left with fewer resources to serve a high-need population. The researchers recommended additional resources be provided to institutions with more limited capacity,

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especially those with historical access missions or those serving rural populations (Zumeta and Li 2016).

Campus Responses to Equity Metrics in Ohio and Pennsylvania In part to reduce the inclination of colleges to enroll fewer students from marginalized identities, policymakers have incorporated equity metrics, as noted earlier, that provide additional funding for course completions or degree completions by students considered underserved in the state. Li (2019) explored two states, Ohio and Pennsylvania, that incorporated equity metrics to serve students who were Pell grant recipients and underrepresented minority populations. The author interviewed policy actors at the higher education governing agencies in each state. She interviewed academic and non-academic administrators at five campuses which varied in their urbanicity, enrollment size, and primary mission in terms of teaching, access, or research. Li (2019) found that in both states, the PF equity metrics played a role in the crafting of new programs for targeted populations and drawing more resources to existing programs. Multiple campuses engaged in the following in direct response to state emphasis on underserved populations: mentorship program for Black male students, greater involvement of faculty in academic advising, and the creation of scholarships for racial minorities or lower-income students. At the same time, participants at one institution did indicate that the funding formula was a factor in instituting higher admissions criteria, to enroll students who had higher entering GPAs and ACT scores. All institutions, and especially the historically access- and teaching-focused institutions, experienced pressure to improve the academic profile of its entering class (Li 2019). While equity metrics did create positive institutional responses, Li (2019) also found that these metrics did not completely deter the inclination to become more selective. Again, it may be an anticipated response to become more selective, because it is the easiest way to secure better prepared and academically capable students. Findings from qualitative studies should offer caution that PF could cause further stratification among institutions – where more privileged students are concentrated at selective, higher-resourced institutions.

Policy Evaluation Much of the research on PF has focused on whether these policies move the needle on degree outcomes. While PF has sometimes been adopted for political reasons, ultimately, these policies seek the best “bang for your buck” on public investment in higher education, to improve educational attainment. Attainment can be measured by raw numbers of associate and bachelor’s degrees, degrees per 100 FTE student enrollment, or by graduation rates, such as the percentage of student enrollees who graduate within 150% of the typical time to degree completion. Relatedly to fulfill

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the ultimate goal of graduation, researchers have also examined first- to second-year retention. In examining how institutions have responded to PF policies, a segment of the literature on PF policy evaluation has focused on minority-serving institutions. A portion of the research has also explored whether the policies have changed admissions rates, incoming student characteristics, and student demographic characteristics. Connected to the demographic composition of colleges, some studies have also analyzed whether the inclusion of equity metrics in PF policies shows any impacts. A last group of studies have considered institutional finances, and resource allocations that occur with the advent of PF policies, since these policies may have the power to shift institutional financial priorities and tuition setting behavior. In the next section, I discuss elements of conducting PF policy evaluation that are relevant to all studies, describing methodological strategies and data analyses commonly employed. The literature review that follows is separated into the following sections: 4-year completion outcomes, 2-year completion outcomes, outcomes at minority serving institutions, access and admissions outcomes, equity metrics and related outcomes, and impacts on institutional finances. To offer some organization of the large number of studies, I list study features in Table 1. I display main findings from studies of 4-year completion and retention (Table 2), 2-year completion and retention (Table 3), access and student composition (Table 4), and institutional finances (Table 5). Studies on more than one set of outcomes are listed in multiple tables.

Policy Evaluation Considerations Isolating the Policy Impact. Perhaps the most difficult challenge in analyzing the impacts of PF policies is isolating such impacts from the influence of other college completion goals. First, higher education administrators, faculty, and staff would tend to agree that student retention and graduation is one of their first and foremost priorities. Thus, the degree outcomes supposedly incentivized by PF should already be a goal of individual actors on a campus, so researchers must try to tease out what additional graduation increase might be due to the PF policy itself. Second, a slew of other college retention and completion plans may be at play simultaneously. These plans could be at the institution level (e.g., mandatory academic advising before students can register for classes), at the system level (e.g., scholarships for financially needy students eligible for use at any college in the state’s system), at the state level (e.g., transfer articulation agreements to facilitate transfers between 2- and 4-year colleges), or at the national level (e.g., calls for college completion and affordability). Analytical Designs. Methodologically, researchers have attempted to use rigorous statistical methods, with difference-in-differences (DD) being a highly popular method, to conduct policy impact studies of PF (for more details on DD, see Furquim et al. 2020). Also commonly employed are robustness checks, such as using different control groups and different time periods. These control groups are, naturally,

2003

1986

National

National

National

Louisiana

Louisiana

Gándara and Rutherford (2020)

Li (2020)

Hagood (2019)

Hu (2019)

Hu and Villarreal (2019)

2005

2006

2001

1993

National

Favero and Rutherford (2020)

PF 1.0 (1998– 2006)

National

Author(s)

Begin year

Boland (2020)

State or national

End year

2013

2016

2014

2014

2014

2013

PF 2.0 (2007– 2014)

Institution

Institution

Institution

Institution

Institution

Institution

Institution

Level of analysis

IPEDS

NCES

IPEDS

IPEDS

IPEDS; College Scorecard

IPEDS

IPEDS

Primary institutional data source

2-year; 4-year

2-year

4-year

4-year

4-year

4-year

4-year HBCUs

Sector

Institutions in non-PF SREB states; Institutions in non-PF states nationally; Institutions with tuition-setting authority in non-PF states

Institutions in non-PF surrounding states; Institutions in non-PF SREB states

Institutions in non-PF states

Institutions not subject to STEM metric; Institutions under PF without STEM metric; Institutions not under PF

Institutions in non-PF states

Institutions in non-PF states

Public HBCUs in nonPF states; PWI’s in PF states; PWIs in non-PF states; Private HBCUs in PF states; Private HBCUs in non-PF states

Control group(s)

Table 1 Performance funding policy studies: study designs and features

Method

DD; Propensity score matching (for 2-year sample)

DD; DDD

DD; statespecific linear trend

DD

DD; event study

Monte Carlo simulations; DD

DD

Binary

Binary

Binary, only policies active between 1995 and 2014

Binary STEM metric; Binary interacted with duration of policy

Binary; Binary interacted with duration of policy

Binary PF 1.0; Binary PF 2.0

Binary interacted with individual post-treatment years

PF treatment variable

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, plus county controls

Yes

No

Yes

Institutional control variables

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

State control variables

No

No

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Institution fixed effects

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

No

State fixed effects

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Year fixed effects

504 A. Y. Li

2004

1990

Ohio, Tennessee

National

National

Texas, Washington

National

Hillman et al. (2018)

Hillman and Corral (2018)

Kelchen (2018)

Li, Gándara et al. (2018)

Li and Kennedy (2018)

2004

2005

2005

2001

Indiana

Birdsall (2018)

2001

Tennessee

Li and Ortagus (2019)

2013

2014

2014

2015

2014

2015

2014

Institution

Institution

Institution

Institution

Institution

Institution

Institution

IPEDS

IPEDS; State administrative datasets

IPEDS

IPEDS

IPEDS

IPEDS

IPEDS

2-year

2-year MSIs

4-year

4-year MSIs

2-year; 4-year

4-year

2-year

Institutions in non-PF states. Robustness checks: Institutions in coordinating/planning board non-PF states; Institutions in never-PF states; Year 1996 onwards; Regular sample excluding TN

Non-MSIs in TX and Washington

Institutions in non-PF states; Institutions in PF states without equity metrics

Institutions in non-PF states; MSIs in non-PF states; Non-MSIs in PF states

Institutions in non-PF MHEC states (for OH), Institutions in non-PF SREB states (for TN); Institutions in non-PF states nationally; Institutions in PF states nationally

Institutions in non-PF states nationally; Institutions in non-PF MHEC states

Institutions in non-PF SREB states; Institutions in non-PF bordering states; Institutions in non-PF states nationally

DD

Descriptive

DD

DD

DD; statespecific linear trend

DD; Event study

DD

Binary; Binary interacted with policy typology; Binary interacted with individual post-treatment years

NA

Binary; Binary indicating any equity metric versus not

Binary

Binary; Binary interacted with individual posttreatment years

Binary

Binary; Binary interacted with duration of policy

NA

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

NA

No

Yes

Yes, plus county controls

Yes

Yes, plus county controls

No

NA

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

NA

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Four Decades of Performance Funding and Counting (continued)

Yes

NA

No

No

No

No

No

10 505

Indiana

National

Washington

Pennsylvania

Kelchen and Stedrak (2016)

Hillman et al. (2015)

Hillman et al. (2014)

Author(s)

Umbricht et al. (2017)

State or national

Table 1 (continued)

1990

2002

2003

2003

Begin year

2010

2012

2012

2012

End year

Institution

Institution

Institution

Institution

Level of analysis

IPEDS

IPEDS

IPEDS

IPEDS

Primary institutional data source

4-year

2-year

2-year; 4-year

4-year

Sector

Master’s institutions in non-PF states: neighboring states; northeast region; all nationally; CEM full match; CEM first-year match

Institutions in non-PF WICHE states; Institutions in non-PF WICHE bordering states; Propensity score matched institutions in non-PF states nationally

Institutions in non-PF states

Institutions non-PF states with similar demographics; Private institutions in Indiana; Public institutions in surrounding non-PF states

Control group(s)

Method

DD

DD

Two-way fixed effects

DD

Binary

Binary; Binary interacted with individual posttreatment years

Binary

Binary

PF treatment variable

Yes

Yes, plus county controls

No

Yes

Institutional control variables

No

No

Yes

Yes

State control variables

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Institution fixed effects

No

No

No

No

State fixed effects

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Year fixed effects

506 A. Y. Li

National

National

Tandberg and Hillman (2014)

Tandberg et al. (2014)

1990

1990

1993 (2003– 2010 for retention rates)

2010

2010

2010 (1993– 2005 for 6yr graduation rates)

State

State

Institution

IPEDS

IPEDS

IPEDS

2-year

4-year

4-year

Non-PF states; Non-PF bordering states; NonPF states with coordinating/planning boards

Non-PF states; Non-PF bordering states; NonPF states with coordinating/planning boards

Institutions in non-PF states

DD

DD

Two-way fixed effects

Binary; Binary interacted with duration of policy; Binary for each state

Binary; Binary interacted with individual posttreatment years

Binary and binary interacted with duration of policy: Any PF; PF 1.0; PF 2.0

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Notes: IPEDS ¼ Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. NCES ¼ National Center for Education Statistics. HBCU ¼ Historically Black Colleges and Universities. PWI ¼ Predominantly White Institution. MSI ¼ Minority-Serving Institution. SREB ¼ Southern Regional Education Board. MHEC ¼ Midwestern Higher Education Compact. WICHE ¼ Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. DD ¼ Difference-in-Differences. DDD ¼ Triple Difference. CEM ¼ Coarsened Exact Matching. Comparison groups consist of public institutions, unless otherwise noted.

National

Rutherford and Rabovsky (2014)

10 Four Decades of Performance Funding and Counting 507

Decrease

Null for PF 1.0; Increase for PF 2.0; Null on variance for PF 1.0; Decrease in variance for PF 2.0

BA degrees per 100 FTE

Birdsall (2018)

Mixed, conditional on institution’s percent of revenue from state funding

Null for PF 1.0; Null for PF 2.0; Null on variance for PF 1.0; Increase in variance for PF 2.0

Six-year BA graduation rate of FT, FT students

Increase at bachelor’s granting institutions; Null at research and highly selective institutions

Increase in STEM degrees; Increase in STEM degrees as a proportion of all degrees

BA degrees Decrease at HBCUs among PF 1.0 policies in 9th year; Decrease among PF 2.0 policies in 2nd year

Hagood (2019)

Li (2020)

Favero and Rutherford (2020)

Author(s) Boland (2020)

Table 2 Studies on 4-year completion and retention outcomes

Null for PF 1.0; Null for PF 2.0; Null on variance for PF 1.0 and 2.0

Retention rate: Percentage of FT, FT students returning for 2nd year

Additional analyses were conducted on the sample split by state political party control and higher education governance structure (see Hagood 2019)

Impacts differ across institutions of varying selectivity, and on HBCU versus not. Details not included in this table (see chapter)

Notes Separate analysis for PF 1.0 period (2000–2006) and PF 2.0 period (2007– 2014)

508 A. Y. Li

Null on average; Null in all post-treatment years except increases in 7th, 8th, and 11th years

Null (3-year average)

Null

Null for any PF; Null for PF 1.0; Null for PF 2.0; Null for duration on all three policy scenarios

Notes: FT, FT = first-time, full-time. FTE = full-time equivalent.

Rutherford and Rabovsky (2014) Tandberg and Hillman (2014)

Hillman et al. (2018) Umbricht et al. (2017) Hillman et al. (2014) Null in four of five models, increase in average effects for one model; Increase in two of five comparison groups in 4-year lag models Null for any PF; Null for PF 1.0; Null for PF 2.0; Null for duration on all three policy scenarios Null for any PF; Null for PF 1.0; Null for PF 2.0; Null for duration on all three policy scenarios

10 Four Decades of Performance Funding and Counting 509

AA degrees Null

Null

Author(s) Hu (2019)

Li and Ortagus (2019)

Graduation rate within 150% time (3 years for AA; varies for certificates) Null or increase depending on model (graduation rate includes AA and certificate seekers) Increase

Short-term certificates (less than 1 year)

Table 3 Studies on 2-year completion and retention outcomes

Increase

Long-term certificates (1 year or more) Certificates (any length) Increase

Certificates per FTE Increase

Retention rate: Percentage of FT, FT students returning for 2nd year Null on part-time retention rates; Null on fulltime retention rates

Notes Additional analyses were conducted between minority-serving versus non-minority-serving institutions (per the author’s definition) and between low versus highincome serving institutions (see chapter) Three additional control groups were used to analyze student subpopulations of institutions under PF policies: Without any equity metrics; with equity metrics except for adult students; with equity metrics except for lowincome students (see Li and Ortagus 2019)

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Null

Tandberg et al. (2014)

Null on average; Increase for stronger policy types Null on total certificates awarded; Increase in per 100 FTE certificates Decrease in total certificates; Decrease in per 100 FTE certificates

Null on average; Generally null across policy types

Increase in Ohio compared to region, null otherwise; Increase in Tennessee for all comparison groups

Null on part-time retention rates; Null on full-time retention rates Parameters were generated for each treated PF state in the sample (see chapter for more details, and see Tandberg et al. 2014)

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Notes: FT, FT = first-time, full-time. FTE = full-time equivalent.

Generally null, increase in later years for AA degrees per 100 FTE

Decrease compared to PF states nationally; Null compared to non-PF states within region; Null compared to non-PF states nationally Null on average; Decrease for stronger policy types

Hillman et al. 2015

Li and Kennedy (2018)

Hillman et al. (2018)

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Author(s)

Li and Ortagus (2019)

Gándara and Rutherford (2020)

Decrease on average; Decrease on low selectivity, decrease on high selectivity; Null for 1.0, decrease for 2.0

Acceptance rate

Increase on average; Increase for low selectivity, null for high selectivity; Null for 1.0, increase for 2.0

25th percentile standardized test score

Access/admissions

Null on average; Increase for low selectivity, null for high selectivity; Null for 1.0, increase for 2.0

75th percentile standardized test score

Table 4 Studies on access and student composition

Decrease in Black students on average; Null for low selectivity, null for high selectivity; Decrease for 1.0, null for 2.0; Null on all models for Hispanic students

Student composition Percent of Number of minoritized minoritized students students (Hispanic, (Hispanic, Black) Black) Null on average; Null for low selectivity, null for high selectivity; Null for 1.0, increase for 2.0

Percent on Pell Grant (ever during UG career)

Increase in number and in percentage enrolled (of FT, FT degreeseeking students receiving federal grant aid)

Number of Pell Grant students Decrease on average; Null for low selectivity, increase for high selectivity; Decrease for 1.0, Decrease for 2.0

Percent first generation

Decrease in number and in percentage of adult students (age 25 and older)

Number of students by age Notes

Three additional control groups were used to analyze student subpopulations of institutions under PF policies: Without any equity metrics; with equity metrics except for adult students; with equity metrics except for low-income students (see Li and Ortagus 2019)

Sample was split into PF 1.0 and PF 2.0, and low versus high selectivity. Online tables show differences between PF policies with equity metrics and those without (see Gandara and Rutherford 2020)

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Increase

Increase

Decrease after 2-year lag (although minority race categories not defined)

Decrease

Umbricht et al. (2017)

Decrease using main comparison group; null in MHEC comparison group Generally across models, increase in AfricanAmerican enrollment among PF policies; Null for Hispanic students with any equity metric

Decrease

Kelchen (2018)

Birdsall (2018)

Increase in federal grant aid recipients among entering class (compared to private Indiana colleges); Null for other models

Generally, decrease under any PF policy, and decrease under PF systems with equity metrics as well; Decreases observed at more selective and less selective colleges Decrease in younger students (age 24 or younger) at less selective colleges under PF equity metrics compared to PF nonequity metrics

Directions noted in this table are general across multiple models; for more details on comparison groups, see Kelchen (2018)

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Kelchen and Stedrak (2016)

Li, Gándara et al. (2018)

Hu and Villarreal (2019) Hillman and Corral (2018)

Author(s) Hagood (2019)

Null at MSIs in PF states compared to all institutions in non-PF states; Decline compared to MSIs in non-PF states; Null compared to nonMSIs in PF states MSIs in Texas and Washington did not see disproportional declines in funding compared to nonMSIs in the respective states

State appropriations per student (or per FTE student) Increase at research institutions, highly selective institutions; Decrease at master’s, bachelor’s, less selective, non-selective, and rural institutions

Table 5 Studies on institutional finances

Increase

In-district tuition and fees for public 2-years

Increase

In-state tuition and fees for public 4-years

Null

Notes Additional analyses were conducted on the sample split by state political party control and higher education governance structure (see Hagood 2019)

Performance on specific formula indicators was compared between MSIs and non-MSIs in the two states, respectively Decrease in Pell Grant revenue A large number of outcomes at 2-year and 4-year colleges; were examined. Null results Increase in unfunded grants at not included in this table for 4-years; Decrease in auxiliary the sake of brevity (see enterprise funding at 2-years Kelchen and Stedrak 2016)

Out-of-state tuition and fees for public Revenues in specific 4-years categories per FTE student

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institutions, usually in other states that did not experience PF during the time period of study. These control groups often consist of institutions in neighboring states, states with similar higher education governance structures, states within the same higher education regional compact (e.g., Southern Regional Education Board), or institutions selected using matching techniques. The strategy is to find comparable institutions not subject to PF during the same time period, to serve as a counterfactual to model outcomes that would have been expected in the absence of PF. Moreover, all studies use a set of control variables, most commonly at the collegelevel (e.g., student enrollment characteristics) or the state-level (e.g., revenue from state appropriations per student) and occasionally at the county-level (e.g., unemployment rate). These variables are intended to capture features within a college, system, or state that may affect the outcomes. Further, researchers employ unit fixed effects (at either the college- or state-level) to account for unobservable features that are relatively constant across time (e.g., institutional prestige). Similarly, researchers use time fixed effects to account for trends within each year that affect all institutions in the dataset (e.g., a recession), to better control for factors impacting outcomes that are separate from a PF policy treatment. Policy Treatment Variable. A summary of key features of studies are noted in Table 1. As seen, in evaluating PF as a treatment, researchers all have used a binary/ dichotomous variable – designating an institution as being subject to PF in a specific year, or not. This coding format produces an estimate that captures the average treatment effect of PF on treated colleges, shown as an average policy impact across all posttreatment years. Second, in a few studies (e.g., Li and Ortagus 2019; Rutherford and Rabovsky 2014), researchers also interacted the binary PF treatment variable with duration of time of the policy (number of operating years), designating the treatment variable as “1” during the first year of the policy, and as “2” during the second year of the policy, and so forth. This coding format generates one parameter capturing the policy impact on a single year posttreatment, which assumes a linear trend of the policy – the outcome changes by the amount of this parameter during each year posttreatment. Third, in select studies, researchers (e.g., Hillman et al. 2018, 2015) have occasionally interacted the binary PF treatment variable with individual posttreatment years. This means that each year after the treatment produces its own parameter estimate, showing the policy impact during each year after the policy. This setup allows the treatment effect to vary during each year posttreatment. Although, caution is advised for interpreting such estimates, because oftentimes, policies have not been in place for more than 5 years and estimates for years that are further out are based on a smaller sample size of institutions. Researchers (e.g., Kelchen 2018; Li and Ortagus 2019) have also employed lags between the PF treatment year and year in which the outcome gets measured, assuming that the impact of PF on an outcome is not seen until the next academic year. I do not discuss lags in detail in the following literature review because using 1to 3-year lags are quite standard in policy evaluation studies.

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Four-Year College Completion Outcomes Earliest Studies. Earlier studies published in the mid to late 2000s decade found that PF policies were not associated with improvements on retention rates, degrees awarded, or graduation rates at public 4-year colleges (Sanford and Hunter 2011; Shin 2010; Shin and Milton 2004; Volkwein and Tandberg 2008). These studies have been discussed in earlier comprehensive literature summaries of PF, so I do not go into details here (see Dougherty and Reddy 2013, Table A2). The following studies mentioned are more recent (Table 2). Studies on 4-Year Outcomes Published in the Mid-2010s. One critique of earliest versions of PF was that the policies had not been in place for many years. Thus, public universities had not had enough time to respond to policies. Therefore, more recent studies capture a longer time frame that, in theory, gives adequate time for institutions to make changes that influence college completions. Using DD techniques on a national dataset from 1990 to 2010, Tandberg and Hillman (2014) found that institutions under PF did not show any significant change on the total number of bachelor’s degrees conferred, on average. After generating estimates for each year that the policy was in place, the authors found significant increases in bachelor’s degrees in the 7th, 8th, and 11th operating year of PF. However, the authors cautioned that a number of states studied under their time period did not continuously operate PF for 7 or more years (Tandberg and Hillman 2014). Using similar methods and the same time frame of 1990 to 2010, Hillman et al. (2014) examined all institutions within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, which at the time of the study, were exposed to one of the longest and most stable operating PF policies (Cavanaugh and Garland 2012). The authors examined the first iteration of Pennsylvania’s policy on bachelor’s degrees per 100 FTE enrollment using three control groups of geographically nearby institutions, and two control groups of institutions determined using Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM), which consisted of using covariates to create groups with similar features as the treated group. Hillman et al. (2014) found that when estimating an average treatment effect, one of the five control groups yielded a positive effect on degrees per 100 FTE, while the remaining four showed null effects. The models that used a 4-year lag demonstrated an increase in degrees per 100 FTE among two of the three geographical nearby control groups. However, null impacts were found when using the two control groups generated by CEM matches – which the authors identified as more rigorously selected and exhibiting more similar pre-treatment trends. The authors concluded that Pennsylvania’s PF policy did not produce changes in degree outcomes different than what would have occurred in the absence of the policy (Hillman et al. 2014). Rutherford and Rabovsky (2014) used a national sample to analyze three outcomes: bachelor’s degrees per 100 FTE students in years 1993 to 2010, 6-year bachelor’s graduation rates from years 1993 to 2005, and retention rates from 2003 to 2010. The smaller time period for retention rates was due to data availability from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), and the smaller time

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period for graduation rates was due to rates needing 6 years for reporting. The authors employed two-way fixed effects (fixed effects for each state and year) to analyze any PF policy, PF 1.0, PF 2.0, and the duration of these three policy scenarios. The authors described estimates that were significant in the absence of state fixed effects, which I note here, but I contend that the full models with both state and year fixed effects were more precise. Rutherford and Rabovsky (2014) found null impacts on average graduation rates for all of the treatment conditions. In fact, they found a negative impact on the duration of PF 1.0 on graduation rates, suggesting that institutions under PF 1.0 may have seen declines across time, although this estimate was significant in the model without state fixed effects, but insignificant after state fixed effects were added (Rutherford and Rabovsky 2014). On retention rates, Rutherford and Rabovsky (2014) found that no estimates were significant for any PF policy, PF 1.0, nor PF 2.0, nor for the duration of these three policy scenarios. Similarly, for bachelor’s degrees per 100 FTE, none of the policy scenarios were associated with changes in the outcome. The authors described negative effects of the policy on degree production, but these models were absent of state fixed effects and not as robust, so the overall impacts are basically null (Rutherford and Rabovsky 2014). Most Recent Studies on 4-Year Outcomes. Li (2020) conducted a study that differed from other studies of PF on 4-year degree outcomes by examining STEM degrees specifically. Using a dataset from 2003 to 2014, the author analyzed STEM degree completions at institutions in states with a special STEM incentive embedded within their PF policies (and when relevant, PF incentives for health and related clinical science). These policies funded STEM completions as a separate performance metric or gave higher weights to the conferral of STEM degrees, versus degrees in non-STEM fields. STEM degrees were considered to be high-need fields, since salaries as well as the likelihood of being employed are usually higher compared to non-STEM disciplines. With the exception of math, STEM courses usually have a higher instructional cost (due to labs and higher faculty salaries), which is more reason to provide added funding in PF formulas for the completion of such degrees. Li (2020) found that compared to institutions in states without PF STEM incentives (including those not under PF and those under general PF absent of STEM incentives), institutions under PF STEM incentives saw increases in total STEM bachelor’s degrees. This positive impact was found for the average treatment effect, as well as the operating years (duration of years) treatment variable, which assumes a linear increase in degrees during each posttreatment year. Compared to institutions under PF absent of STEM incentives, the treated group saw increases in STEM degrees. Furthermore, compared to institutions not under any PF system (general nor STEM), STEM bachelor’s degrees increased at treated institutions. In addition, STEM bachelor’s degrees as a proportion of all bachelor’s degrees increased significantly at institutions under state PF STEM incentives, on average, and as an operating years impact, compared to each of the three control groups noted above (Li 2020). These results were robust to alternative specifications and control

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groups. Interestingly, the number of non-STEM degrees did not decrease, suggesting that the increase in STEM degrees did not come at the expense of other fields. The biggest challenge in Li’s (2020) study was differentiating STEM degree completions due to PF incentives versus institutional and statewide initiatives to promote STEM. Li’s (2020) is the only study (of the ones reviewed) that consistently showed increases in bachelor’s degrees in response to PF, although the study was specific to STEM degrees. The study underscores the need to perhaps consider not just total numbers of degrees across all fields, but to consider the discipline in which degrees were awarded. Favero and Rutherford (2020) applied the idea of stacking the deck, when policymakers use policy structures (e.g., PF) to steer agency decisions, which winds up favoring some stakeholders over others. Policies become constructed in a way that benefits the organizations that are most prominent during the policymaking process or most visible to the general public. The authors applied a second conceptual viewpoint better known amongst PF researchers–stratification–in which the most advantaged students self-select into institutions that are already better resourced, feeding into the ability for such institutions to excel on performance metrics. Favero and Rutherford (2020) put forward a formal model to predict how institutions responded to PF, using a set of theoretical assumptions, empirical models on how performance at institutions in each year were determined, and Monte Carlo simulations. In their simulations, the authors assessed low-end, median, and top-end institutional performers, and altered two parameters: the extent to which previous year’s performance affected current year’s performance based on the proportion of state revenues received and the extent to which institutions positively altered behavior to respond to PF incentives. Favero and Rutherford (2020) explained that in theory, PF could have two expected outcomes on different types of institutions. First, the distance in performance between the best and the worst performers may widen. Second, the average performance across all institutions may increase. Both of these possibilities would likely improve the performance of already high-performing institutions. In analyses using DD on data from 1993 to 2013, Favero and Rutherford (2020) showed that PF 1.0 produced no changes to bachelor’s degrees per 100 FTE, but that PF 2.0 policies produced increases. Overall, neither PF 1.0 nor PF 2.0 produced changes to 6-year bachelor’s graduation rates of first-time, full-time students, nor any impacts on first- to second-year retention rates. When examining the effect of PF policies on variance across low-performing, median, and high-performing institutions, PF 1.0 was not associated with any changes (in standard deviation on the three outcomes, see Favero and Rutherford 2020 for more details). Yet, PF 2.0 increased the variance on graduation rates across these three levels of institutional performance but decreased the variance on degrees per 100 FTE. Null impacts were observed for retention rates. Favero and Rutherford (2020) also analyzed effects of PF moderated by Barron’s selectivity rating. PF 1.0 policies appeared to positively impact degrees per 100 FTE at non-selective schools, while showing null to negative impacts on more selective

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schools. Their study showed that PF 2.0 was not associated with any changes in degrees per 100 FTE across all selectivity categories. For graduation rates, PF 1.0 had positive effects on the least selective schools, yet negative effects on the most selective schools. PF 2.0 positively impacted the graduation rate for more selective schools. For retention rates, more selective (but not less selective) institutions saw a marginal improvement in the presence of both 1.0 policies and 2.0 policies (Favero and Rutherford 2020). Finally, Favero and Rutherford (2020) compared PF effects on HBCUs versus non-HBCUs, under the assumption that HBCUs may be considered lower performing due to serving more marginalized students. Their study demonstrated that PF 1.0 had no impact on degrees nor graduation rates for non-HBCUs. However, PF 1.0 positively impacted degrees at HBCUs. On the other hand, PF 2.0 positively impacted degrees for non-HBCUs, although no impacts on degrees were seen by HBCUs. PF 2.0 negatively impacted graduation rates for HBCUs, but not for nonHBCUs. Lastly, neither PF 1.0 nor PF 2.0 had any impacts on retention rates, whether at HBCUs or non-HBCUs. Favero and Rutherford (2020) concluded that the evidence of PF policies on highversus low-performing institutions was mixed, and not all results aligned with expectations. Specifically, their study found that PF 1.0 did not generally exacerbate gaps between high and low institutional performers. However, PF 2.0 policies had fewer positive effects on historically lower-performing institutions, compared to higher-performing counterparts. Favero and Rutherford (2020) presented novel ideas on PF’s potential to exacerbate existing stratification amongst institutions within states. The analysis on variance using standard deviations could be replicated by other researchers looking at different PF time periods. Extending the HBCU comparisons to other minorityserving institutions could also prove an interesting way to determine differential effects of PF on differently resourced institutions. On a practical matter, to make performance allocations more equitably distributed across institutions, the authors suggested making performance funds based on changes in year-to-year performance rather than absolute levels (Favero and Rutherford 2020). This would better recognize a lower-performing institution’s ability to improve upon prior year performance, rather than having to compete with other institutions who are already higher performers on raw metrics such as graduation rates.

Two-Year College Completion Outcomes Studies on 2-Year Outcomes Published in the Mid-2010s. Table 3 summarizes findings from studies of 2-year outcomes. Tandberg et al. (2014) conducted one of the earliest national studies of PF impacts on associate degrees conferred at 2-year colleges, although the number of associate degrees was aggregated at the state level, and not the institution level. The authors examined years 1990 to 2010, and incorporated a binary PF treatment variable, along with a duration policy variable

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indicating the number of active years of a PF policy. The authors incorporated three control groups of non-PF states, non-PF bordering states, and non-PF states with coordinating or planning board states, similar to the Tandberg and Hillman (2014) study on 4-year colleges. Tandberg et al. (2014) show results from DD, which suggested that PF policies were not associated with any changes in associate degree completions, on average, when compared to any of the three control groups. The authors also generated parameters for each of the 19 treated states in their sample. Within individual states after PF, four states experienced increases in associate degrees (MN, MO, NJ, WA), six states experienced declines (CO, ID, NM, SC, TX, VA), three states showed mixed or inconsistent estimates across models (AR, KS, OK), and the six remaining states showed null impacts (FL, IL, IN, KY, NC, OH) (Tandberg et al. 2014). Tandberg et al.’s (2014) study underscored the importance of analyzing differences in outcomes across states, since average treatment effects masked heterogeneity. The authors surmised that the lack of consistent and positive effects on associate degree completions may be due to limited institutional capacity (financial resources, full-time faculty) to respond to external accountability demands. Hillman et al. (2015) analyzed Washington state’s community and technical colleges, which were under a PF policy that awarded points for a number of outcomes that included first-year retention, and the completion of a degree, occupational certificate, or apprenticeship. The authors explored years 2002 to 2012 and used DD techniques. They found no differences in part-time retention rates nor fulltime retention rates, on average, for Washington colleges compared to each of the three control groups not subject to PF: community and technical colleges from states that were members of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE, a regional compact); colleges in WICHE that shared a border with Washington state; and a sample of colleges nationally with similar pre-treatment retention and completion outcomes generated using propensity score matching. When interacted with the number of treated years, increases were observed in some years but decreases observed in other years, for both part-time and for fulltime retention rates, suggesting no clear pattern (Hillman et al. 2015). For the total number of short-term certificates awarded (credentials requiring less than 1 year of study), Hillman et al. (2015) found no average effects after PF. For short-term certificates per 100 FTE, the authors’ study showed increases on average and increases for individual year estimates. By contrast, total numbers of long-term certificates (requiring more than 1 year of study) showed consistent declines on average, and during individual posttreatment years. Parameter estimates for longterm certificates per FTE also revealed some evidence of systematic declines. Lastly, Hillman et al. (2015) found that associate degrees awarded, on average, did not change after PF in Washington, although, during the 5th and 6th year of the policy, there were observable increases in degrees per 100 FTE in select models. In summary, Hillman et al. (2015) concluded that colleges may be influenced by Washington’s PF policy to graduate more students in short-term certificates. Interestingly, retention rates did not appear to increase, which warrants further study to determine if PF policies have influence on this pivotal time period in a student’s

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academic trajectory. Associate degrees did increase in later years after Washington’s policy, offering some encouraging evidence of possible longer-term PF impacts. Washington did later revise its funding formula to differentiate between short- and long-term certificates, and part of the initial increase in certificates could have been attributed to better data tracking. More Recent Studies on 2-Year Outcomes. Li and Kennedy (2018) conducted a national study examining PF impacts at 2-year colleges from 1990 to 2013 and employed a DD research design. The authors analyzed short-term certificate completions (less than 1 year of study), medium-term certificates (1–2 years of study), and associate degrees. In reviewing literature to emphasize the importance of analyzing short-term versus longer-term credentials, the authors noted that graduates of short-term certificates rarely experienced improvements in wages, on average. Long-term certificates were generally more likely to create wage gains for women compared to men. By contrast, associate degree completions produced consistent wage gains, on average, although variation existed depending on the field of study. A unique contribution of Li and Kennedy’s (2018) study was the use of a PF policy typology ranging from Type I to Type IV. Type I policies were defined as lower stakes, with only base funding tied to outcomes, lacking in mission differentiation, with less than 5% of state revenues tied to outcomes. Type IV was the most advanced, with 25% or more tied to outcomes, both 2- and 4-year sectors affected, mission differentiation, and importantly, sustained for two or more consecutive years (Snyder and Fox 2016). While imperfect, the typology system was used to distinguish between rudimentary versus advanced versions of PF across states. For more details on typology, see Li and Kennedy (2018); Li, Kennedy et al. (2018); and Snyder and Fox (2016). Li and Kennedy (2018) found that on average, colleges under PF did not observe any changes in total counts of short-term certificates, medium-term certificates, nor associate degrees, when compared to 2-year colleges nationally that were not subject to PF. When individual posttreatment years were incorporated, associate degrees showed declines in the 2nd and the 4th operating year of PF. No changes in short- nor medium-term certificates were observed up to the 5th operating year. When differentiated by policy typology, Type III and Type IV policies produced, on average, an increase in short-term certificates. No change was observed for medium-term certificates. On associate degree completions, declines were associated with Type IV policies, but not with Type I through III policies. The estimates for each operating year of PF tended to support the average effects (Li and Kennedy 2018). That is, the stronger policy typologies (III and IV) produced increases in short-term certificates in years following PF. Medium-term certificate changes were mixed and told an inconclusive story, though the authors surmised that medium-term certificates declined in later years, an effect that was accompanied by growth in short-term certificates. Associate degree completions declined in a couple select years among Type I and Type II policies, declined in three of the five operating years examined for Type III policies, and consistently decreased in all five operating years among Type IV policies (Li and Kennedy 2018).

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Using alternative control groups, Li and Kennedy (2018) conducted robustness checks and analyzed average policy impacts on the three credential outcomes. Results of the robustness checks showed null average policy impacts compared to each of the following alternative control groups: non-PF states with coordinating or planning boards; states that never adopted PF; the same sample using year 1996 onward to focus on PF 2.0 policies; and excluding Tennessee (which started PF before the study time period). In summary, the authors cautioned that PF policies, especially those that tied a higher proportion of state funding to outcomes, caused colleges to focus on short-term certificates and possibly displaced focus from associate degree completions. One shortcoming of Li and Kennedy’s (2018) study was that a number of states began or re-started their PF systems in 2011, 2012, or 2013, and thus the years analyzed may not have accurately portrayed how colleges would respond multiple years after PF. Li and Ortagus (2019) analyzed a major change in Tennessee’s PF policy, which increased the proportion of state funding to higher education from 5.45% to 85% and added a 40% funding premium for retention and completion by students considered adult or low-income. The authors used DD to compare outcomes at 2-year colleges in Tennessee to three control groups of institutions not under PF. For the enrollment of adult and low-income students, the authors used additional control groups of institutions under PF but without the relevant premium. Estimates suggested that the Tennessee PF policy change decreased the number of adult students, measured as the total fall enrollment of students aged 25 and older. This finding was consistent compared to control groups of institutions in non-PF states that were members of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), nonPF states that border Tennessee, and in the national sample of non-PF states. The number of adult students also declined compared to institutions under PF policies that excluded premiums. Moreover, when analyzed as the percent of adult students enrolled, this outcome was shown to significantly decrease after the policy change (Li and Ortagus 2019). The Tennessee policy change increased the number of low-income students, represented by first-time, full-time degree-seeking students receiving federal grant aid. This increase was observed when compared to all control groups explored, except for the sample of all non-PF states nationally. In addition, the percent of lowincome students in Tennessee 2-year colleges increased significantly, a finding robust to all control groups utilized. Parameter estimates on the student subpopulation outcomes were consistent using a 1-year lag of the policy and for estimates using the duration of the policy. Furthermore, Li and Ortagus (2019) found that the Tennessee PF policy revision produced no changes to the number of associate degrees awarded. On the other hand, there was an increase observed for short-term certificates requiring less than 1 year of study, as well as an increase in medium-term certificates requiring 1 year or more to complete. The findings on certificate completions were significant in the lagged model and when using the duration version of the policy variable. The results of the Li and Ortagus (2019) study was puzzling in the disparate findings regarding adult student enrollment versus low-income student enrollment,

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even though both populations were offered 40% premiums in the revised Tennessee PF model. It is promising that the funding formula perhaps incentivized community colleges to enroll additional low-income students. The decline in adult students was perplexing, and qualitative studies are needed to explore college recruitment and outreach strategies. It is possible that returning adult students responded differently to marketing techniques compared to their younger peers. Hillman, Fryar, and Crespin-Trujillo (2018) analyzed both Tennessee and Ohio, two states with high proportions of funding tied to outcomes. Using DD on data from 2005 to 2014, the authors found that Ohio 2-year colleges experienced a significant increase in the number of certificates awarded, compared to institutions located in non-PF states that were members of the Midwestern Higher Education Commission (MHEC). However, when compared to institutions nationally not under PF, and with institutions nationally under PF, the number of certificate completions in Ohio did not change. In Tennessee, certificate completions were significantly higher at 2-year colleges after PF, compared to each of the three control groups (Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states, non-PF states nationally, PF states nationally). Increases were also observed in all post-policy treatment years. For associate degree completions among 2-year colleges in Ohio, an average decrease was observed after PF, along with annual decreases, when compared to the control group of PF states nationally (Hillman et al. 2018). Similarly, in Tennessee, associate degree completions declined when compared to other PF states nationally and in each treatment year. The use of regional and non-PF national control groups showed no significant changes to associate degrees at treated colleges. Furthermore, Hillman et al. (2018) found that on average, bachelor’s degree completions did not change at 4-year colleges after Ohio started PF, for all three control groups. Similarly, in Tennessee, bachelor’s degree completions were no different after PF, compared to non-PF Southern Regional Education Board states, non-PF states nationally, nor PF states nationally. Hillman et al. (2018) concluded that as a whole, PF policies in Ohio and Tennessee produced increases in the lower-order goal of certificate completions. However, PF policies were ineffective at increasing higher-order goals, specifically the number of associate degrees and bachelor’s degrees. The decline in associate degrees in select models could signify that colleges prioritized certificate completions over associate degree completions. Hu (2019) examined PF in Louisiana and divided her dataset using the proportion of racially minoritized students at each institution. She designated each institution as a minority-serving institution (MSI) using a 25% enrollment cutoff of that particular group and a 50% enrollment threshold for all minorities combined. The author defined minorities as students who were Black/African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic. Further, Hu (2019) designated institutions that enrolled at least 50% of students who received federal financial aid as low-income-student-serving institutions. By creating this additional difference between institutions, she utilized a triple-difference strategy, where the first difference was pre- and post-PF, the second difference was between treated and non-treated colleges, and the third difference was between treated colleges that were

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high versus low on enrolling minoritized students or high versus low on enrolling lower-income students, respectively. Hu’s (2019) DD estimates suggested that due to PF, Louisiana 2-year colleges awarded more certificates compared to their neighboring and Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) counterparts. Similarly, Louisiana colleges awarded more certificates per FTE enrollment compared to surrounding states and to SREB states, although this positive effect wore off after 2 years post-PF implementation. Hu (2019) also analyzed associate degrees and found no changes to the number of degrees awarded after Louisiana implemented PF. Moreover, on graduation rates (which was pooled across associate degree seekers and certificate seekers), the models showed a significant increase in the same-year and 1-year lag models, although not for the 2-year lag models. Lastly, in all but one model, the PF policy did not produce any changes in full-time nor part-time retention rates (Hu 2019). Hu (2019) examined MSIs (as per the author’s definition) in Louisiana versus non-MSIs in non-PF states and found no significant differences for the number of certificates awarded, associate degrees awarded, graduation rates, part-time retention rates, nor full-time retention rates (in the majority of models). Generally, across most models in the study, Louisiana low-income-student-serving institutions did not exhibit differing outcomes compared to non-low-income-student-serving institutions in control group states. The exception was that low-income-studentserving institutions in Louisiana appeared to confer fewer associate degrees. The author cautioned that PF policy designers may wish to add metrics for lowincome students as to not disincentivize colleges from enrolling such students (Hu 2019). To summarize her findings, Hu (2019) concluded that Louisiana’s 2-year colleges increased certificate production but did not increase associate degree production nor retention rates, in response to PF. The increase in graduation rates detected was most likely attributable to certificate programs, rather than associate degree programs. Increases in Short-Term Certificates Consistent Across Studies. Across the several studies reviewed above, a common thread is that at 2-year colleges, certificate completions appeared to have increased with the advent of PF (Hillman et al. 2018, 2015; Hu 2019; Li and Kennedy 2018; Li and Ortagus 2019). While this is not necessarily a negative outcome, it is worrisome in the context of findings across studies that associate degrees did not seem to increase. The studies suggest that perhaps colleges are resorting to easier to accomplish alternative goals – increasing certificate production, since these programs are faster for students to complete. This finding consistently showed up for states such as Tennessee with higher proportions of funding tied to outcomes (Hillman et al. 2018; Li and Ortagus 2019). However, associate degree completions provide greater wage benefits for students. Thus, PF policy designers may wish to consider weighting certificates to a smaller degree and providing greater relative financial awards to associate degree completions. It is also possible that PF simply does not provide the capacity needed for open access colleges to steer their students through associate degree programs, more so than colleges are already seeking to do in the absence of PF.

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Meta-Analysis on Outcomes and Access Bell et al. (2018) conducted a meta-analysis of 11 studies of PF and separated the outcomes of interest into completion (degrees conferred, graduation rates, or retention rates), and access (percentage of low-income students, Pell grant recipients, Hispanic/LatinX or African American students). Using a random effects model, the authors found that without controlling for 2- and 4-year sector differences, the effect of PF on degree completion was indistinguishable from zero. When separated into 2- and 4-year sectors, the effect was still null for both sectors (Bell et al. 2018). Bell et al. (2018) additionally analyzed access measures across studies within the 11 that included an outcome variable on the admission of students of color and/or low-income students. They found that PF policies showed no impact on access. While the average effect on access for 4-year colleges trended negative (suggesting enrollment of fewer lower-income and Hispanic/Latinx and African American students), the authors concluded that estimates were essentially null. In looking across studies to determine which control variables were associated with PF, Bell et al. (2018) did recommend that researchers ought to control for the following characteristics: total levels (or per student levels) of state appropriations for higher education (as anticipated, since an institution’s dependence on state revenues could affect responses to PF, and because resources affect completion), the state unemployment rate, tuition, and importantly, the number of years that PF has been in place. In contrast, studies that controlled for political variables including citizen ideology and the centralization of the higher education governing board did not show strong associations with whether PF policy impact estimates were significant (Bell et al. 2018).

Outcomes Specific to Minority Serving Institutions Several publications have examined how PF may affect minority-serving institutions in particular. These institutions have a historic mission to serve students of color, a population that is also more likely to be first-generation or lower-income. Qualitative evidence suggests that institutional actors at HBCUs tend to be skeptical of PF given historical inequities in state funding for HBCUs compared to their predominantly white colleges (Jones 2016). Administrators interviewed by Jones (2016) voiced concerns about their institutions being held to unrealistic standards, since HBCUs enroll more low-income students and students of color. Jones et al. (2017) wrote that PF policies perpetuated existing funding inequities between MSIs and their predominantly White institution counterparts. Specifically, MSI institutions were more likely to experience declines in state revenues after PF. In addition, institutions with the highest per-student funding from state revenues also tended to have the largest endowments and non-state resources, which further illustrates the advantage that higher resourced institutions have. Another challenge faced by MSIs was lacking the authorization to offer degrees in higher-demand fields, which exacerbated existing inequities in funding provision, and limited the

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ability of MSIs to boost performance according to PF funding formulas. The authors pointed to the following issues: historic underfunding of MSIs, discrimination against people (and institutions of color), and the reality that PF policies were not designed to account for the special, historic mission of MSIs. In other words, MSIs tended to fare worse financially under PF regimes (Jones et al. 2017), and the inclusion of equity metrics is unlikely to completely counteract such inequities. Hillman and Corral (2018) examined MSIs (all types) across states with PF, using standard DD models as well as models with state-specific linear trends. Compared to all institutions in non-PF states, MSI institutions in PF states saw no changes in average state appropriations per FTE. However, MSIs in PF states did experience significantly lower appropriations per FTE compared to MSIs in non-PF states. Nevertheless, these treated colleges did not experience changes in state appropriations per FTE after PF compared to non-MSIs in the same PF states. The authors concluded that on average, PF did not lead to funding level declines in institutions overall but did reduce funding for MSIs specifically. With respect to models using state-specific estimates, Hillman and Corral (2018) found that MSIs lost significant appropriations per FTE in some states, gained in other states, and showed no difference in the remaining states. Interestingly, MSIs located in two states with higher-stakes PF, Tennessee and Ohio, disproportionally lost funding per FTE after PF, compared to MSIs in non-PF states, and compared to non-MSIs in the same state (Hillman and Corral 2018). The authors concluded that PF regimes would do well to equalize financial resources for MSIs, since MSIs serve a disproportionately greater number of students of color and low-income students. Future research, notes the authors, could examine differences in resources provided to MSIs in PF states with equity metrics versus states that do not include equity metrics. Boland (2020) analyzed PF impacts on bachelor’s degrees for his treatment group of public, 4-year HBCUs in states with PF. The author utilized five different control groups: public HBCUs in non-PF states; PWIs in PF states; PWIs in non-PF states; private 4-year HBCUs in PF states; and private 4-year HBCUs in non-PF states (which ultimately did not meet the parallel trends assumption for the outcome analyzed). The author used a binary indicator for PF treatment that interacted with the number of years of each state’s PF policy. The author sliced up his analysis to approximate the PF 1.0 period (1998 to 2006) and the PF 2.0 period (2007 to 2014). For the years 1998 to 2006, among the four control groups, DD estimates showed a negative impact of PF on HBCU bachelor’s degree completions in the 9th year of PF policies, with years prior trending negative although mostly statistically insignificant (Boland 2020). For the years 2007 to 2014, estimates showed a negative impact in the second year of PF on bachelor’s degrees completed at HBCUs. While estimates were consistently negative in all years analyzed, they were only significant in a few isolated years up to the 8th year of PF. The study’s results should warrant caution for policymakers using PF at HBCUs, as HBCUs can actually confer fewer degrees after the policy, compared to their PWI counterparts. Li, Gándara et al. (2018) explored Texas and Washington 2-year PF policies, both of which allocated state revenue based on student completion of developmental

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education courses (non-credit bearing), pre-college math, and pre-college English courses. These two state’s PF metrics also consisted of retention measures (i.e., when students completed 15 or 30 credit hours towards a degree, certificate, or apprenticeship). Li, Gándara et al. (2018) calculated median total state appropriations per FTE distributed to 2-year MSIs in Texas and in Washington and descriptively compared these to non-MSIs in the respective states. In Texas, in the decade before PF, MSIs received higher median amounts of state funding per FTE student compared to nonMSIs. After PF, MSIs earned less than non-MSIs, although the authors noted this change was likely not due to PF specifically but rather to large total enrollment increases at MSIs. In Washington, descriptive trends showed that MSIs were not disproportionately affected by PF in terms of overall state funding per FTE student. The study by Li, Gándara et al. (2018) found that MSIs in Texas earned slightly more performance points per student than non-MSIs on students completing their first credit-bearing math course, and on transfer to 4-year colleges. Non-MSIs earned more points for students completing their first 15 semester hours and for critical field degree completions (STEM). The metrics for developmental education and gateway courses seemed to earn the same points for Texas MSIs and non-MSIs both. In Washington, MSIs tended to earn more points per student on developmental education (basic literacy and math). Yet, non-MSIs earned more for pre-college math and English course sequences and for degree, certificate, and apprenticeship completion. The authors concluded that the “on-the-route” performance metrics helped to prevent disproportionate funding losses that MSIs sometimes incur under PF policies that focus primarily on graduation outcomes. This study, while descriptive, stresses the importance of analyzing MSIs on specific performance metrics and not just on overall completion or access metrics (Li, Gándara et al. 2018). Especially for state-specific studies, it would be interesting to compare how MSIs (and different types of MSIs) do on performance metrics focused on intermediary outcomes. The research on PF and MSIs is still growing and generally points to the need to carefully consider the design of PF metrics. MSIs can be at risk of losing funding under PF, especially if metrics are not judiciously designed to consider the characteristics of students served by MSIs. Progress metrics can be protective in recognizing the steps students take on their way to earning a degree. The few studies examining MSIs show that findings on degree outcomes are quite consistent with findings that do not differentiate between minority and non-minority serving institutions. That is, the lack of positive impacts of PF on degree outcomes seems to emerge at MSIs as well (Boland 2020; Hu 2019). McKinney and Hagedorn (2017) (not included in Table 1) analyzed student unit record data on a large community college district (consisting of multiple campuses) in Texas to determine the relationship between student demographic characteristics and performance-based funds earned. This study was unique and did not fit comfortably in any of the sections I created for PF evaluation studies. Thus, I include it here since it considers how colleges earn funds on individual performance metrics, similar to the Li, Gándara et al. (2018) study. McKinney and Hagedorn (2017) tracked a cohort of first-time students who enrolled during the fall 2007 semester

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until the summer 2013 semester. The authors explored two subsamples: collegeready students enrolled in academic programs or technical/workforce programs, and students who were required to take developmental math (non-credit bearing). McKinney and Hagedorn (2017) were interested in the cumulative amount of performance-based funds that each student earned for their college during their 6 years of enrollment, by meeting progression metrics. They conducted a regression analysis to predict the total PF funds each student earned, based on demographic and academic characteristics. Additionally, they conducted a logistic regression determining the likelihood that a student would earn no performance funds. McKinney and Hagedorn (2017) showed that on average, students who earned the most PF funds for their college held the following characteristics: Asian, aged 19 or younger, completed a high school diploma (versus GED), attended college fulltime, received Pell grants, and were assigned to developmental coursework one level below college level. Additionally, students with the following characteristics earned significantly less funds and were most likely to earn zero performance-based funds: African American, aged 20 or older, GED holder, enrolled part-time, and assigned to the lowest level of developmental math (McKinney and Hagedorn 2017). Interestingly, students that started out in developmental coursework earned more funds than college-ready students, likely because the Texas model rewarded developmental course completion (McKinney and Hagedorn 2017). The authors’ results suggested that the Texas PF funding model may disincentivize colleges from enrolling underserved students, specifically those least prepared for college-level coursework. One suggestion they offered was for Texas to include equity metrics for underserved students.

Access and Admissions Outcomes Umbricht et al. (2017) examined Indiana’s PF policy across years 2003 to 2012 using DD and three control groups: public 4-year institutions in non-PF states with similar demographic characteristics (KY, MO, WI); private 4-year institutions in Indiana; and public 4-year institutions in surrounding, non-PF states (IA, IL, KY, MO, MN, WI). The results of this study and others on access, admissions, and student composition outcomes are displayed in Table 4. Across all models generated by Umbricht et al. (2017), there were no significant changes in the 3-year rolling average of the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded. The number of racial/ethnic minority FTE students for the entering class declined in the 2-year lag models among PF institutions in Indiana, compared to in-state privates, and to geographically nearby public colleges. The authors did not define how minority students were determined in their dataset, so one might assume these are students reported in IPEDS as any race other than white. Compared to the private Indiana institutions control group, there was an increase in the number of entering students on a federal grant among public Indiana institutions, yet no change was detected when compared to the other two control groups. The authors noted that these results might be explained by the start of Indiana’s

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Twenty-First Century Scholars program aimed at providing tuition-free college for low-income students attending an in-state public college (Umbricht et al. 2017). Across all control groups and in different lagged models, Indiana public institutions observed an increase in the 25th percentile ACT score for the entering class, an increase in the 75th percentile ACT score, and a decline in the admissions rate. This is the most compelling take-away from the Umbricht et al. (2017) study. That is, institutions in Indiana appeared to engage in practices of increasing selectivity, which can be presumed as unintended by the designers of the PF policy. In another study on PF in Indiana, Birdsall (2018) analyzed data among all public, 4-year institutions in Indiana from years 2001 to 2015 using DD. The unique component of this study was that the author separated institutions based on the percentage of operating revenue each institution received from the state. The main model showed that PF had small positive impacts on six-year graduation rates among first-time, full-time entering students seeking a bachelor’s degree, for institutions receiving less than 34% of their revenue from state funding (e.g., Indiana University-Bloomington, Purdue University). Yet, institutions receiving over 34% of revenue from state funding observed null and potentially negative impacts on graduation rates. Additionally, PF produced a negative effect on total bachelor’s degrees conferred per 100 full-time equivalent students for institutions receiving 34% or more of operating revenue from the state, but not for institutions receiving less than 34% revenue from the state (Birdsall 2018). In other words, institutions more dependent on the state for funding experienced more negative degree completion outcomes. Further, Birdsall (2018) found that most Indiana institutions experienced a decline in acceptance rates after PF, compared to control institutions in other states not subject to PF, which is consistent with findings from Umbricht et al. (2017). Additionally, PF was associated with declines in the enrollment of minority students (defined by Birdsall as Hispanic and African American students), in the main models using a national control group. However, this finding did not hold in an event study analysis nor with the control group of institutions located in states that are members of the Midwestern Higher Education Commission. The decline in minority student enrollment was not associated with the institution’s level of dependence on state appropriations. In summary, Birdsall (2018) inferred that resource dependent institutions were less able to change their practices to respond to performance outcomes, compared to those institutions with more ability to utilize alternative revenue sources. The study showed that Indiana’s more selective research institutions were able to improve graduation outcomes under PF, probably because these are the types of institutions most able to strategically manage their student inputs. These selective institutions (with less reliance on state appropriations) also became more selective compared to other institutions that were more dependent on state revenue (Birdsall 2018). Birdsall’s (2018) finding suggests a stratification in higher education which gets intensified under PF. The more selective institutions have better capability to strategically manage enrollment under a PF policy and perhaps enroll fewer numbers of academically underprepared students, which may further limit the opportunity for

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such students to attend institutions with more robust resources that produce better graduation outcomes.

Equity Metrics and Enrollment Outcomes at Four-Year Colleges In addition to examining impacts of a general PF policy, a few studies have considered equity metrics embedded within policies. Kelchen (2018) explored 4-year institutions from years 2004 to 2014 and in addition to using a binary indicator for whether a state had PF, considered whether the formula had equity metrics to incentivize the enrollment of any of following underserved student groups: low-income, minoritized, and/or adult students. The author classified nonminoritized students as those who were White or Asian. Kelchen (2018) analyzed a series of undergraduate enrollment outcomes: minority students who were African American, Hispanic, Native American, and/or Multiracial; African American students; Hispanic students; adults aged 25 and older; and Pell grant recipients. Kelchen (2018) found that compared to colleges not under PF, colleges under any PF system showed no differences in any of the outcomes in total undergraduate enrollment. However, compared to colleges not under PF, colleges under PF systems with equity metrics experienced an increase in African American students, although no changes in other enrollment outcomes. Compared to PF without equity metrics, colleges under PF with equity metrics experienced a decline in students aged 24 and younger. No differences in total undergraduate enrollment outcomes were observed between PF policies without equity metrics and the absence of PF (Kelchen 2018). Examining first-time students, full-time FAFSA filers (and not all undergraduates) on federal grant aid, family incomes less than $30 K, and family incomes between $30 K and $75 K, Kelchen (2018) found no differences across all the control groups for PF policies. Among first-time, degree-seeking students, the enrollment of Hispanic students increased under PF policies versus no PF policies. The percent of African American students increased among policies with equity metrics versus no PF policies. In separate analyses, Kelchen (2018) used Barron’s Educational Series competitive ratings to determine selectivity, designating colleges shown as “very competitive” or above being in the selective category, compared to all other colleges determined as less selective. Compared to no PF policy, the number of Pell grant recipients (all undergraduates) declined at more selective colleges under any PF policy and under any PF policy without equity metrics. The number of non-Pell grant recipients declined at more selective colleges under PF systems with equity metrics compared to no PF and declined at less selective colleges under PF systems with equity metrics compared to non-equity metric PF systems (Kelchen 2018). Kelchen (2018) demonstrated that the enrollment of African American students increased at less selective colleges under any PF policy compared to no PF policy and at less selective colleges under equity metric PF systems compared to no PF policy. Lastly, the number of students aged 24 or younger amongst all

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undergraduates declined at less selective colleges under PF equity metrics compared to PF systems without equity metrics (Kelchen 2018). As a whole, Kelchen’s (2018) study showed an absence of systematic declines in Hispanic and African American students under PF policies, which may offer encouraging evidence that with the use of equity metrics, states can curtail colleges’ inclination to enroll fewer historically underserved students. The author inferred that PF policies with any type of equity metric produced increases in African American student enrollment in particular, especially for less selective institutions. More selective colleges under PF without equity metrics enrolled fewer Pell grant recipients, with colleges under equity metrics seemingly experiencing a smaller decline. Gándara and Rutherford (2020) conducted a study on years 2001 to 2014, focusing on 4-year public institutions subject to PF and used DD to analyze PF impacts on the following outcomes: admissions rates; the 25th percentile and 75th percentile of standardized SAT test scores, in which the verbal/English and math scores were combined for each test (ACT scores were converted to SAT scores); and enrollment of underrepresented students. This study examined a number of results, split the sample by selectivity, split the sample by PF 1.0 versus PF 2.0, and considered the impact of PF policies with an equity metric to enroll underserved students. After PF, institutions experienced a decline in the admissions rate, and the duration of policy time variables indicated that it would take 6–7 years for this negative relationship to normalize (Gándara and Rutherford 2020). Institutions under PF observed an increase in the 25th percentile SAT scores of first-time, fulltime students. This effect wore off over time when considering the duration variable. No changes in the 75th percentile of SAT scores was evident. Gándara and Rutherford (2020) also used a mean admissions rate of 70% to split their sample into two groups: institutions with low or with high selectivity. Among low-selectivity institutions, admissions rates declined after PF, and both the 25th and 75th percentile test scores were significantly higher. Among high selectivity institutions, the admissions rate also declined, although no changes were found for the 25th and 75th percentile test scores. Furthermore, the authors showed that the decline in admissions rates were driven by PF 2.0 policies, and not PF 1.0. Similarly, in analyses that split the treatment variable into PF 1.0 versus 2.0 policies revealed that the 25th and 75th percentile scores increased only under 2.0 policies (Gándara and Rutherford 2020). In analyzing the number of underserved students total (not just entering students), Gándara and Rutherford (2020) found, on average, a decline in Black students, perhaps a decline in Hispanic students (estimate did not reach statistical significance), yet an increase in Hispanic students when using the duration variable. Their findings also revealed no changes in the percentage of students who ever received a Pell grant and a decline in the percentage of first-generation students. When split by low and high selectivity, the impact of PF on student composition showed null impacts on average, with only the percentage of first-generation students at high selectivity institutions experiencing an increase after PF. The findings on

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underserved student enrollment were not consistent across models, so the authors advised caution in the interpretation of results. When separated by 1.0 versus 2.0, PF 1.0 appeared to decrease the number of Black students and the percentage of first-generation students (Gándara and Rutherford 2020). PF 2.0 increased the percentage of Pell grant recipients (which the authors noted could be because the share of undergraduates receiving Pell increased after the Great Recession, which overlapped with PF 2.0 adoption) and decreased the percentage of first-generation students. Institutions under PF policies that had an equity metric exhibited increases in the percentage of Pell grant recipients yet showed declines in the number of Black students and in the share of first-generation students. Institutions under PF policies without equity metrics experienced declines in both Black and Hispanic enrollment (Gándara and Rutherford 2020). From an array of interesting findings, Gándara and Rutherford (2020) concluded that PF, especially 2.0 versions, limited access for students because institutions became more selective, which is concerning because PF may increase the already existing racial gaps in standardized test score achievement. Students who are historically marginalized may be less able to enter institutions with higher selectivity that house the resources necessary to help facilitate retention and graduation. The authors also highlighted that declining enrollment of first-generation students after PF is consistent across models and emphasized that PF models rarely include firstgeneration as an equity metric (Gándara and Rutherford 2020). In general, the institutions that were less selective appeared more likely to respond to PF incentives, especially later 2.0 ones, perhaps because they were more dependent on state revenue (Gándara and Rutherford 2020). This is in line with Birdsall’s (2018) finding that institutions more dependent on state funding were more likely to respond, in positive or negative ways, to PF policies.

Performance Funding Impacts on Institutional Finances The following recent studies have explored how PF policies are associated with institution-level finances, such as tuition levels and revenue sources. Hu and Villarreal (2019) examined Louisiana, which is unique in that while the state legislature sets tuition levels for 2- and 4-year sectors, the PF policy (GRAD Act) allows institutions to increase their own tuition levels up to a cap of between 5% and 10%, if these institutions meet performance targets. The GRAD Act outlines target areas (degree outcomes, transfer, workforce, and economic development), although each institution gets to determine its own annual target levels (Hu and Villarreal 2019). Using DD on data from 2005 to 2013, Hu and Villarreal (2019) compared the tuition rates of 2- and 4-year institutions in Louisiana to three control groups: institutions in non-PF states nationally; institutions in non-PF states belonging to the Southern Regional Education Board; and institutions nationally in non-PF states that held tuition-setting authority. Results from the study showed that among 2-year colleges in Louisiana, tuition and fee levels increased significantly higher after PF,

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compared to institutions in each of the three control groups (Hu and Villarreal 2019). Propensity score matching confirmed the results that 2-year publics increased their tuition and fees at higher rates compared to counterfactual institutions not providing similar tuition increase mechanisms. Similarly, 4-year institutions in Louisiana experienced increasing in-state tuition and fees after PF, compared to each of the three control groups (Hu and Villarreal 2019). On the other hand, Louisiana 4-year institutions did not see out-of-state tuition and fee levels differ significantly than what would have been observed in the absence of PF. It would be interesting to explore whether enrollments shifted between 2- and 4year institutions due to rapidly increasing in-state tuition. That is, perhaps students who otherwise may have attended a 4-year college in Louisiana opted for a community college with a lower sticker price (and perceived lower out-of-pocket expenses, whether this perception is accurate or not). Noted by the authors, a curious question would be whether the composition of in-state versus out-of-state students changed among 4-year institutions in Louisiana – whether the recruiting and financial aid strategies used by institutions changed in response to PF (Hu and Villarreal 2019). Further, it would be interesting to track student progress within Louisiana institutions, to determine whether the annual increase in tuition and fees may have caused students to drop out from one year to the next. Kelchen and Stedrak (2016) examined the impact of PF on four groups of institutional financial components: per FTE student revenue categories (total, state/local appropriations, tuition and fees, auxiliary enterprises); per FTE expenditure categories (total, instruction, student services, institutional support, auxiliary enterprises); per FTE institutional grant aid categories (only for 4-years: funded grants, unfunded grants, and tuition discount rates); and institutional financial characteristics (listed tuition and fees, student loans per FTE, Pell grants per FTE, endowment per FTE (4 years only)). The authors conducted separate analyses across their 2-year college sample and their 4-year sample. Unlike many other policy evaluation studies, the authors used two-way fixed effects in the absence of a DD design setup. In the full models, PF at 4-year colleges was not associated with any changes in per FTE revenues nor per FTE expenditures, within each individual category nor as a whole (Kelchen and Stedrak 2016). However, PF was associated with an increase in unfunded grants for students, within the institutional grant aid category, which the authors noted was often merit-aid. Most interestingly, colleges under PF received less per FTE in Pell grant revenue compared to colleges in non-PF states, indicating a shift toward enrolling students from higher-income families. Among the full models for 2-year colleges, under PF, Kelchen and Stedrak (2016) found that colleges received less in revenue for auxiliary enterprises. Consistent with findings among 4-year colleges, 2-year colleges also received less per FTE in Pell grant dollars when operating under a PF policy, which the authors explained as colleges potentially enrolling fewer low-income students. Note that some results were reported even though estimates only meet the p < 0.10 threshold, which I excluded in this discussion.

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More research, likely in the qualitative vein, is needed to determine whether and how 2-year colleges targeted students with less need, because as open access institutions, 2-year colleges are less able to modify admissions criteria to favor less needy students. Colleges may have altered their Pell grant revenue intake by focusing marketing and recruitment in wealthier high school districts. However, it does seem to me that it would be complex for a 2-year college to strategically recruit fewer Pell grant recipients in a way that would significantly alter the composition of institutional revenues, the way that the Kelchen and Stedrak (2016) study suggests. Hagood (2019) examined the effects of PF on state appropriations per student (fall term enrollment, not FTE enrollment) at public, 4-year institutions across years 1986 to 2014. She included policies that operated between 1995 and 2014 and excluded any policies that operated before 1995. Using DD, the author analyzed subsections of her sample by splitting up her analyses into the following institutional types: all institutions; research universities; master’s comprehensive colleges; and bachelor’s granting colleges. In a second set of analyses, she split her full sample into highly selective; less selective; and nonselective colleges. Third, she split her sample between MSIs and non-MSIs and fourth, between rural and non-rural institutions. Hagood (2019) found that PF was associated with increased state funding per student (measured in dollars and as a percent increase) at research institutions (also robust to the addition of state-specific linear trends), as well as highly selective institutions, compared to these same peer groups in non-PF states. Master’s, bachelor’s, less selective, nonselective, and rural institutions experienced declines in state revenue per student after PF (and in percent decreases, in alternative specifications), compared to each peer group of control institutions in non-PF states. By contrast, MSIs in PF states versus non-PF states did not exhibit any significant differences in revenues per student (Hagood 2019). Hagood (2019) analyzed a more recent time period of PF policies, years 2004 to 2014, and found that the finding of significant increases in state funding per student did not hold for research institutions. By contrast, significant declines in funding per student after PF were observed at master’s colleges and at less selective colleges. Hagood (2019) conducted a number of robustness checks and found that within states with coordinating boards, increases in state funding per student were observed at research and highly selective institutions, while declines in funding occurred more often at non-research/non-highly selective institutions. In states with consolidated governing boards, negative PF treatment effects were observed for less selective institutions only. The author concluded that within states with coordinating boards, PF directly benefited highly resourced institutions and burdened lower resourced institutions – perhaps due to weaker ability for institutions with less lobbying power to advance their own interests and advocate for greater state funding (Hagood 2019). Further, research institutions and highly selective institutions both experienced increases in state funding per student in both Republican- and Democratic-controlled states (Hagood 2019). While other types of institutions were protected from funding losses in Democratic-controlled states, all groups of less selective institutions in

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Republican-controlled states experienced declines. Lastly, analyzing bachelor’s degrees per 100 students as an outcome, Hagood (2019) found that after PF, bachelor’s institutions (but not research nor highly selective institutions) observed increases in degrees granted, even though these institutions did not see funding increases after PF. Hagood (2019) assessed a number of outcomes and institutional types, and the main takeaways were that high-resourced institutions were more likely to benefit from PF policies in terms of state funding per student, whereby low-resourced institutions were more likely to see funding declines. The author concluded that PF policies redistributed funding to benefit high-resourced, politically connected institutions at the expense of lower resourced institutions that actually showed improvement in bachelor’s degree completion (Hagood 2019).

Summary of Literature on Performance Funding Equity Considerations in Performance Funding This section further highlights equity implications of PF policies. In more recent iterations, PF has certainly attempted to address racial inequality in higher education. As noted, states have different goals and strategies for designing policies that explicitly or implicitly address disparities in college participation and completion by race and/or ethnicity. A 2017 book found that 20 of 32 policies examined did address race disparities, although 6 of these 20 states made race metrics optional and not mandatory. States with racial metrics were more commonly located in the South (e.g., Arkansas, Florida, Virginia). Other states with optional racial-disparity metrics were Illinois, Kansas, and Massachusetts (Jones et al. 2017). The use of race-based metrics is likely necessary, given the evidence that PF appears to reduce access to colleges for historically underprivileged students. PF policies were often designed and steered by the wealthiest and most selective institutions in the state (those with more resources, abundant lobbying power, prestige, and highly academically prepared student bodies) (Gándara 2019; Jones et al. 2017). Therefore, the resulting PF policies that are implemented may benefit the institutions that are in least need of funding support. Indeed, institutions with the least resources tend to have little representation on committees tasked with designing PF policies, further perpetuating an ingrained system of funding allocation in which colleges serving more underprivileged students are provided lesser resources (Jones et al. 2017). Increased Selectivity. A number of studies examining the impact of PF on admissions to public institutions have found that institutions tend to admit fewer students from disadvantaged backgrounds, in order to report better graduation outcomes (Birdsall 2018; Dougherty et al. 2016; Gándara and Rutherford 2020; Jones et al. 2017; Li and Zumeta 2016; Umbricht et al. 2017). Colleges do so by reducing the percent of applicants who are admitted or by accepting students with higher standardized test scores. In the face of PF pressures, it may not be surprising that colleges

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respond by becoming more selective, since this is a logical strategy, to enroll the types of students with academic preparedness that would increase their likelihood of graduation. Colleges have also shifted recruitment strategies to target better academically prepared students or more socially advantaged students (e.g., from wealthier neighborhoods or school districts). Furthermore, colleges may have altered their distribution of need- and merit-based institutional aid to recruit students who are more academically prepared, such as focusing larger portions of their institutional scholarships on merit-based aid (Dougherty et al. 2016; Kelchen and Stedrak 2016). Due to the consistent findings of increasing selectivity, state policymakers should carefully monitor the admissions and recruitment practices of institutions. Since PF appears to reduce state revenue for less selective colleges (Hagood 2019), the policy does seem to exacerbate stratification in higher education, in terms of resources and distribution of students. Students who are less prepared academically wind up enrolling at less selective colleges (Li 2019), which makes it even harder for such colleges to improve their graduation outcomes. In short, evidence points to a risk that PF can exacerbate existing stratification in higher education. Equity Metrics in Drawing Attention Toward Underserved Student Enrollment. As discussed, one segment of the PF literature has focused on how to tweak PF policies in order to prevent or at least limit some of the temptation colleges face (especially given the constraints colleges deal with) to increase selectivity in order to boost performance. Equity metrics provide additional funds for retaining and graduating students from historically underprivileged groups, such as lowerincome, students of color, returning adult students, veterans, and first-generation students. To highlight a few studies, colleges, especially those with more selective criteria that operated under PF with equity metrics were more likely to enroll Black/African American students compared to colleges under PF systems without such metrics. However, the impact of equity metrics on Hispanic, low-income, and older students was more mixed (Kelchen 2018). By contrast, another study found that the enrollment of Black students decreased even when equity metrics were in place (Gándara and Rutherford 2020). Yet another study found that the inclusion of equity metrics led to increases in low-income students, yet decreases in adult students (Li and Ortagus 2019). Qualitative evidence does support that drawing attention to equity metrics can boost institutional programming to retain underprivileged students (Li 2019). Also encouraging is that using metrics for student progress (along with graduation outcomes) can help prevent colleges that serve higher proportions of students of color from being unduly “punished” under PF policies (Li, Gándara et al. 2018). More research is needed on equity provisions in particular, to build a more consistent body of literature on whether the inclusion of such measures reduces the inclination of colleges to enroll less advantaged students. This is especially critical as more states recognize the importance of including equity metrics.

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General Comments on Research Design of Performance Funding Studies The literature review shows that PF studies in the most recent years utilized more robustness checks. These included using event study techniques (Gándara and Rutherford 2020), propensity score matching (Hu 2019), and multiple sets of control groups to test for robustness across models (Kelchen 2018; Li and Ortagus 2019). As the literature base on PF continues to build, reviewers are clearly expecting more attention paid toward assumptions in DD models (such as parallel trends) and more explicit recognition of differences across policy designs. More recent studies were also more likely to stratify within their samples to examine institutions with different missions, such as lesser resourced institutions (Hagood 2019) or minority-serving institutions (Hu 2019). This stratification of the data is especially important because PF has been shown qualitatively to create strain for less selective and more resource-dependent institutions (Dougherty et al. 2016; Li 2019). Therefore, quantitative analyses should complement such qualitative evidence by differentiating between institutions that serve different student subpopulations. Relatedly, future national studies on 4-year institutions should, as some studies do, include control variables for institutional type (e.g., bachelor’s-granting, master’s comprehensive) (Hagood 2019) or selectivity (e.g. Barron’s, or admissions rates) (Gándara and Rutherford 2020; Kelchen 2018). Studies have evolved from earlier evaluations where all 4-year colleges were observed together, to more nuanced consideration of how PF impacts different institutions in disparate ways. In addition, some studies, especially the most recent ones, have differentiated between the PF 1.0 time period versus the PF 2.0 time period (Boland 2020; Favero and Rutherford 2020; Gándara and Rutherford 2020; Rutherford and Rabovsky 2014). This is an important methodological design choice, because PF policy designs from earlier years were indeed lower stakes. One study incorporated a variable capturing design variation explicitly (Li and Kennedy 2018), and future research should continue to pay attention to design differences between policies when conducting large-scale evaluation studies.

Evidence of Limited Impact on Degree Completion A prevailing theme across studies of 4-year colleges is worth nothing. An overall finding of null impacts of PF on bachelor’s degree completions was generally consistent across studies. With the exception of the Li (2018) study showing positive effects on STEM degrees, the general takeaway from most recent 4-year studies was that PF, in different forms and versions of the policy, has not improved bachelor’s degree completions (Birdsall 2018; Boland 2020; Favero and Rutherford 2020; Hillman et al. 2014; Rutherford and Rabovsky 2014; Tandberg and Hillman 2014; Umbricht et al. 2017). There are potential explanations for this finding. At research institutions, degree completion outcomes are already quite good. Increases in state funding from

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boosting graduation rates (especially relative to net tuition revenues) are not going to fundamentally change the way a university educates its students. In addition, many public 4-year colleges receive a majority of their funding from tuition and not the state, so state-instituted performance regimes may not steer institutions differently since the dependence on state revenues has decreased over time. Public higher education is increasingly privatized, and colleges must rely on an adequate number of full-paying tuition students. Thus, the money itself earned from a performance-based funding formula may not be enough as an incentive, or university leaders can make up this funding through fundraising without having to shift institutional goals (Bell et al. 2018). Furthermore, the studies that analyzed outcomes at community colleges similarly point to no changes in degree outcomes after the advent of PF. Generally, PF has not altered college practices enough to move the needle on associate degree completions in state and national studies of 2-year colleges (Hillman et al. 2018, 2015; Hu 2019; Li and Kennedy 2018; Li and Ortagus 2019; Tandberg et al. 2014). Perhaps we should not expect measurable improvements in degree outcomes in a pay for performance scheme. Student characteristics, motivations, preparedness, and life circumstances substantially affect their academic trajectories in earning a degree or not. Even if colleges and states have aligned goals to increase degree completion, much of what factors into persistence and graduation is outside of the college’s control. Relatedly, studies that examine retention rates at community colleges may be capturing student inputs and characteristics, and not the actual PF policy at play. Especially for part-time students, it is quite challenging to change the student experience to a level strong enough to increase overall retention rates. While the idea behind PF is intuitive and college completion is consistent with the purpose of higher education, it is possible that an external policy simply does not override the incoming student academic and motivational factors that influence completion. Data Availability for Part-Time Students. The research on PF policy evaluation focuses on first-time, full-time students. Part-time students and transfer students are ignored in the analyses of PF impacts, which leaves out an entire subpopulation of students. Among fall 2018 students at 4-year colleges, 75% enrolled full-time, while 37% of students at 2-year colleges enrolled full-time (National Center for Education Statistics 2020a). This is both a data availability issue and a practical issue. IPEDS data does not allow researchers to analyze part-time student retention and completion, which minimizes institutional and policymaker focus on this population.

International Perspective on Performance Funding Here, I briefly describe PF policies in countries outside of the United States, drawing primarily on Dougherty and Natow (2019). As of 2010, 19 European countries, Canada, and Australia have funded higher education systems in part based on output criteria including degrees earned, credits obtained, and especially research effort and productivity. According to Bell et al. (2018), at least 14 OECD countries have

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operated performance-based research funding where research performance is measured according to metrics: external research income, bibliometric citations, doctoral degree completion rates, and peer assessments of research quality. Similar to the United States, government officials outside of the United States have been instrumental in adopting PF policies (Dougherty and Natow 2019). The issue of gaming, or colleges behaving in ways that do not necessarily promote student success but that do help boost performance on outcomes, has been shown to be an issue internationally. Neoliberal theory, which focuses on agents shirking responsibility on purpose, would explain that “slippage” is to blame, a result that could be due to conflicting interpretations and not in purposeful gaming (Dougherty and Natow 2019). Therefore, any gaming could be caused not by malicious shirking (e.g., passing students who would otherwise fail gatekeeper courses) but by a lack of mutual understanding of PF workings between principal and agent. Studies in Europe show a lack of impact of PF on student degree completion, similar to findings in US studies. However, studies in Europe do show that PF has produced higher rates of faculty research productivity in Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong, although these studies were not as vigilant about controlling for other external factors related to research productivity outcomes (Dougherty and Natow 2019). In addition, studies in Europe and Australia, similarly to the United States, have shown that PF comes with substantial compliance costs in the form of management, administration, and reporting (Dougherty and Natow 2019). In addition, unintended consequences are also prevalent among countries subject to PF abroad. For instance, institutions may reduce their academic rigor to churn out more graduates. PF incentives for research productivity was associated with faculty trying to improve their publication statistics by slicing up publications into multiple articles with similar content or pursuing less challenging research questions. Further, in England, there exists evidence that PF for research has caused scholars to shift their research areas, abandoning some areas that may be less likely to secure performance funds (Dougherty and Natow 2019). Increased stratification among colleges is a problem abroad as it is in the United States. PF appears to increase stratification by concentrating more research funding in Oxford, Cambridge, and the Russell Group institutions and disadvantaging other institutions that also need research funding. This type of favoring of more prestigious institutions is similar to what occurred in the United States (Dougherty and Natow 2019).

The Future of Performance Funding With a four-decade-long time frame of operating in the American states and periods of popularity and discontinuation, PF certainly has an interesting history. It will be curious to see how policy designs change in the future. Despite evidence that shows a lack of a positive impact on bachelor’s and associate degree completions, the

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policy is here to stay. More attention has been paid recently on aligning equity metrics to the access and equity goals of each state, and future research will continue to examine the impacts of policy features on historically underrepresented populations, a direction which is certainly important. As seen from the literature review, there are a multitude of ways that colleges have responded to the policy in terms of intended and unintended campus responses. The culmination of published works on the policy illustrates scholars’ enduring interest in the implementation and impacts of PF.

Performance Funding During an Economic Recession Previous research points to the discontinuation of PF to be most likely during an economic recession (Dougherty et al. 2014). This makes intuitive sense – when state budgets are tight, and colleges are in need of resources, colleges would try to protect the existing base funding they have and advocate for the discontinuation of outcomes-based funding policies. When colleges are in need of funds and facing fiscal strain, they may require additional funding to keep operations afloat and funding to sustain student and academic support services. With the recession of 2020 caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, it will be interesting to see how states react to the decline in taxpayer revenue and how much states will fund higher education. On the one hand, advocates of PF may argue that policies have largely been institutionalized and become part of campus culture. Especially during tight budgetary time periods, it is necessary to place pressure on colleges to closely examine how they expend resources. Therefore, it is important to enforce accountability policies that demand greater attention to completion, even in lean times. A related consideration is that during recessions, taxpayers and policymakers may in fact demand greater transparency. Therefore, the recession of 2020 and the pandemic may result in greater scrutiny of colleges, especially public institutions. There is little evidence to suggest that the student experience of a college education has improved substantially in the last decade or so. Yet, the net tuition that students pay has increased disproportionately faster than incomes and inflation, and PF fits into an overall desire for accountability. Opponents may argue that PF policies fail to close attainment gaps in higher education by race/ethnicity, wealth, and income level. Specifically, PF appears to harm the institutions in most need of resources. Therefore, some opponents of the policy may lobby for a discontinuation of PF altogether, citing the economic recession as a good time to evaluate existing practices. The current economic conditions could cause “a reckoning” of higher education, as institutions must learn to cut “non-essential” workers and streamline processes to make sure organizations are as lean as possible. This may include cutting administration, support staff, faculty, or changing workload duties (e.g., higher teacher loads, greater expectation of external grant securement). Performance funding fits into this broader reckoning because it has required colleges to be more cognizant of capturing

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and reporting student outcomes data. In this vein, the goals of colleges (i.e., administrators tasked with making the organization leaner) and the goals of PF from the perspective of state policymakers may be quite aligned.

Areas of Future Research for Performance Funding Diversity of Policy Adopters. One ongoing challenge in higher education that might affect whether PF reflects equity and diversity goals are the diversity of the policy designers. Limited research on PF policy creation has focused on the demographics of policymakers and institutional leaders who design and legislate such policies. It would be interesting to explore whether the decision-makers involved with crafting PF hold demographic characteristics such as race, ethnicity, and gender that reflect the faculty and staff members at college campuses that PF aims to target. Future research may seek to examine whether the diversity of policy designers is related to the effectiveness of policy designs in addressing the needs of MSIs and of regional comprehensive institutions. Perhaps, if policy designers include alumni of HBCUs or more individuals of color, then these individuals may be able to advocate on behalf of equity metrics or a funding formula that lessens the fiscal pressure PF places on under-resourced colleges. Thus far, PF has been unable to close equity gaps and may exacerbate the inequitable funding allocations across institutions of varying lobbying power and prestige. Research should consider the diversity and backgrounds of decision-makers involved with PF policy designs and revisions. Inputs Drive Outputs. Evidence on the outcomes of PF highlight the reality that institutional-level outcomes are driven heavily by inputs. Student characteristics and academic preparedness levels are major factors for whether students persist, graduate, and find jobs. Thus, not accounting for different student demographics sells short the contribution institutions make with their existing student bodies. For example, graduates of predominantly Black institutions in the United States face racial discrimination in hiring practices that make it more challenging for colleges with these alumni to produce positive job placement figures (Jones et al. 2017). Future research on policies should look for ways to reward institutions that serve higher numbers of students of color, since it does not appear that equity metrics in and of themselves are enough to reduce unintended consequences such as increasing selectivity. Caution in Raising Dosage Amounts. Based on the literature, PF has been viewed with some skepticism by faculty and support staff who are responsible for teaching and advising. These individuals can play a role in whether a student chooses to persist or chooses to drop out. It does not appear, from the literature, that states with higher “doses” of funding tied to outcomes are actually experiencing increased degree attainment. Quite the contrary, states with high proportions of funding tied to outcomes may have a higher likelihood of unintended consequences such as diminishing access and increases in short-term certificates. I would caution policy designers and state officials who are considering adding greater stakes to an existing policy – because the research shows that more money tied to outcomes

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could create more undesirable policy impacts rather than providing actual policy solutions. Capacity for Campus Initiatives. As the research shows, colleges may be wellintended in improving student outcomes. However, lower-capacity institutions have limited capability to collect and analyze data that would help pinpoint areas of intervention along a student’s academic trajectory (Dougherty et al. 2016; Dougherty and Natow 2019). Regardless of best efforts, lower-capacity colleges may not have the staff nor data analytic capacity to take advantage of useful student engagement data on involvement in clubs and organizations, leadership programs, and tutoring. Even if colleges do find areas to buffer student support, such as providing mentors who are people of color, colleges may not have enough capacity to launch a largescale mentorship program that likely requires years of implementation before graduation outcomes are impacted. Thus, additional research may examine the ways states can help build greater capacity at institutions needing more support. Analyzing rural and less selective colleges may be a good place to start. The PF literature would benefit from a better understanding of state and local investments needed to implement campus support initiatives aimed at improving retention and completion. Goal Alignment. In some contexts, institutions may not behave in ways that support the outcomes incentivized in a PF policy but rather, behave in other ways that are more consistent with the institution’s own values. For instance, if an institution is located in a rural area and sees its mission at serving its local population, it may be less inclined to increase admissions standards to accept more academically qualified students and recruit from a broader geographic area. Correspondingly, researchers should consider the existing and perhaps shifting mission of institutions as they engage in strategic enrollment management.

Methodological Considerations Numerous studies mentioned in this chapter use difference-in-differences regression techniques to analyze the aggregate policy impact of PF on specified outcomes. There are certain areas of methodological consideration when undertaking future studies. Private Colleges as a Feasible Control Group. First, there are interesting ways to leverage the use of multiple differences in evaluation studies of PF. As described, the first difference is between outcomes before and after PF adoption, while the second difference is between colleges subject to PF versus similar colleges not subject to PF. Because PF affects only public institutions, it may be wise for more researchers to consider private colleges as a feasible control group, beyond the few studies that have (Boland 2020; Umbricht et al. 2017). Some considerations are warranted in determining control group section criteria. The underlying student population is critical, and researchers would want to match colleges with similar missions. The comparison would be that colleges within a resource-dependence perspective, that is, public colleges dependent upon state

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appropriations have a compelling reason to improve degree outcomes compared to private colleges, which depend more heavily on student tuition and fees. The challenge here would be justifying that public and private colleges are similar enough to serve as feasible control groups for one another. The budgeting procedures and timelines of private colleges are different and may affect their admissions and recruitment procedures. Performance Funding Impacts on Tuition Prices. The adoption of PF could cause institutions to raise tuition to make up for potential lost revenue. This also could lead to fewer students believing they can afford higher education, especially first-generation and disadvantaged students. Thus, PF could indirectly harm such students by disincentivizing them to enroll. Further, PF changes the allocation of state appropriations, or perhaps the allocation of appropriations changes the design of PF (e.g., open-access institutions believe they are unfairly funded under existing funding models and advocate for equity metrics in revisions of the policy). Thus, a number of different financial choices are being made with respect to the state allocating funding for colleges and colleges allocating funding within departments. Future research may be needed to examine how allocations within colleges change after PF, especially toward instructional expenses and student service expenditures, and compare across different types of colleges to analyze variation in resource allocation. Accounting for Student Inputs. One challenge in analyzing aggregate policy impacts is separating graduation outcomes and outputs from inputs – the characteristics of entering students. Research clearly demonstrates that student academic preparedness, race/ethnicity, first-generation status, and enrollment intensity are correlated with whether that student persists from year to year and whether that student ultimately graduates. Regardless of how much an institution invests in academic or student services, it is possible that certain students faced with serious socioeconomic disadvantages (such as attending a poorly funded high school) may be at risk of dropping out even with the availability of such resources. If higher education is about expanding access, then PF creates a challenging environment where it is difficult for middle-tier public colleges to succeed in fulfilling their mission to provide access for first-generation, low-income, and students of color. Future research should consider ways that PF policies may be punishing colleges that have high populations of underserved students and perhaps consider modifying policy goals for such colleges. Indeed, the literature on PF advises caution in applying a one-size-fits-all approach to funding colleges based on outcomes.

Conclusion The research on performance funding has been quite expansive, covering its adoption patterns and origins, to numerous studies on policy implementation and impacts, many concentrated in the last decade. These studies have applied a number of

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theoretical frameworks, from new public management, resource dependence theory, principal-agent theory, neoliberalism, and the ecology of games. Studies have examined the adoption and policy design phase of PF, considering the state characteristics and political influences that gave rise to the policy. A number of studies have explored campus responses to the policy, finding that PF has resulted in anticipated and unanticipated changes in terms of curriculum, advising, programming, and recruitment. Furthermore, a wide range of studies have analyzed the policy’s impacts on retention, degree outcomes, minority-serving institutions, access, student demographics, and institutional finances. This chapter has surveyed the different elements of research on PF and offered some suggestions for future examination of PF.

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Mckeown-Moak, M. P. (2013). The “new” performance funding in higher education. Educational Considerations, 40(2), 3–12. McKinney, L., & Hagedorn, L. S. (2017). Performance-based funding for community colleges: Are colleges disadvantaged by serving the most disadvantaged students? The Journal of Higher Education, 88(2), 159–182. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2016.1243948. McLendon, M. K., Hearn, J. C., & Deaton, R. (2006). Called to account: Analyzing the origins and spread of state performance-accountability policies for higher education. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 28(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737028001001. Meier, K. J., & O’Toole, L. J. (2009). The proverbs of new public management: Lessons from an evidence-based research agenda. The American Review of Public Administration, 39(1), 4–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074008326312. Miller, G. N. S., & Morphew, C. C. (2017). Merchants of optimism: Agenda-setting organizations and the framing of performance-based funding for higher education. The Journal of Higher Education, 88(5), 754–784. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2017.1313084. National Center for Education Statistics. (2020a). Characteristics of postsecondary students. Retrieved July 12, 2020, from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_csb.asp National Center for Education Statistics. (2020b). Undergraduate retention and graduation rates. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_ctr.asp Nisar, M. A. (2015). Higher education governance and performance based funding as an ecology of games. Higher Education, 69(2), 289–302. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9775-4. Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. R. (1978). The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective. New York: Harper & Row. Rosinger, K., Ortagus, J., Kelchen, R., Cassell, A., & Voorhees, N. (2020). The landscape of performance-based funding in 2020. Retrieved from https://informedstates.org Rutherford, A., & Rabovsky, T. M. (2014). Evaluating impacts of performance funding policies on student outcomes in higher education. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 655(1), 185–208. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716214541048. Sanford, T., & Hunter, J. (2011). Impact of performance-funding on retention and graduation rates. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 19(33), 1–30. Shin, J. C. (2010). Impacts of performance-based accountability on institutional performance in the U.S. Higher Education, 60(1), 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-009-9285-y. Shin, J. C., & Milton, S. (2004). The effects of performance budgeting and funding programs on graduation rate in public four-year colleges and universities. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 12(22), 1–26. Snyder, M., & Fox, B. (2016). Driving better outcomes: Fiscal year 2016 state status & typology update. Washington, DC: HCM Strategists. Retrieved from http://hcmstrategists.com/ drivingoutcomes/ Tandberg, D. A., & Hillman, N. W. (2014). State higher education performance funding: Data, outcomes, and policy implications. Journal of Education Finance, 39(1), 222–243. https://doi. org/10.1353/jef.2014.0007. Tandberg, D. A., Hillman, N. W., & Barakat, M. (2014). State higher education performance funding for community colleges: Diverse effects and policy implications. Teacher’s College Record, 116(120307), 1–31. Umbricht, M. R., Fernandez, F., & Ortagus, J. C. (2017). An examination of the (un)intended consequences of performance funding in higher education. Educational Policy, 31(5), 643–673. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904815614398. Volkwein, J. F., & Tandberg, D. A. (2008). Measuring up: Examining the connections among state structural characteristics, regulatory practices, and performance. Research in Higher Education, 49(2), 180–197. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-007-9066-3. Zumeta, W., & Li, A. Y. (2016). Assessing the underpinnings of performance funding 2.0: Will this dog hunt? New York: TIAA Institute. Retrieved from https://www.tiaainstitute.org/public/pdf/ ti_assessing_the_underpinnings_of_performance_funding_2.pdf

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Amy Li is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Florida International University. Her research focuses on higher education finance and public policy, specifically performance funding, promise programs, student loan debt, state appropriations, and policy adoption. She studies the impact of local and state policies on college access and completion and is particularly interested in outcomes for historically underrepresented populations.

US Higher Education Internationalization Through an Equity-Driven Lens

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An Analysis of Concepts, History, and Research Chrystal A. George Mwangi and Christina W. Yao

Contents Defining Internationalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Equity-Driven Internationalization Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Integrating Equity-Driven Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . De-/constructing Internationalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining the Sociohistorical Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Connecting to Contemporary Forces of Globalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sociohistorical and Contemporary Influences on Internationalization Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sociohistorical Context: US HE Internationalization as National Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contemporary Globalization Forces: US HE Internationalization as Institutional Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Understanding Internationalization Research Through an Equity-Driven Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Educating International Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . International Higher Education Partnerships and Research Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . US Involvement in Transnational Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Study Abroad as High-Impact Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Strategizing Internationalization at Home (IaH) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Moving Forward: Equity-Driven Internationalization Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . De-/constructing Internationalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sociohistorical Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contemporary Forces of Globalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research-Informed Equity-Driven Internationalization Practice and Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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C. A. George Mwangi (*) University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. W. Yao University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7_11

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Abstract

It is common for higher education institutions (HEIs) in the United States (USA) to pursue internationalization through multiple approaches, including developing a global curriculum, hosting international students and scholars, promoting study abroad programs, and establishing cross-border partnerships. The push toward internationalized HEIs can contribute to the reification of Western imperialism, academic colonization, and inequality. In this chapter, we use equity as a foundation to analyze research on the concept of internationalization, the historical progressions of internationalization practice in the USA, and the multiple forms of internationalization practices at US HEIs. We articulate the potential for research on US higher education internationalization to be equity driven and offer considerations for how researchers and practitioners can center power and equity as they engage in investigating or implementing internationalization processes. We recommend interrogating how, by whom, and for whom internationalization is defined; using a structural lens that bridges internationalization to its primary driver – globalization – and viewing internationalization as the amalgamation of multiple complex practices. Keywords

Cross-border · Curriculum · Equity · Geopolitics · Global engagement · International higher education partnerships · International students · Internationalization · Internationalization at home · Power · Research training · Strategic planning · Study abroad · Teaching and learning · Transnational education · US higher education

Twenty-first century higher education internationalization in the United States (USA) can no longer be defined by a small number of activities and programs managed by one or two isolated offices, as it was in earlier years (Childress 2009; Hudzik 2011; Knight and de Wit 1997). Instead, growing pressures and priorities to develop students as global citizens, attract international students to improve diversity and financial goals, and engage in global partnerships, research, and teaching to achieve a world-class reputation have triggered a major expansion in the international engagement of US higher education institutions (HEIs). Today, internationalization among US HEIs has developed into a major component of strategic planning, generating billions of dollars in revenue each year across institutions (Douglass and Edelstein 2009; Knight 2011; Scott 2006). In federal, state, and institutional policies, US higher education (HE) has established goals toward greater fairness in access and success for domestic students, as well as mutual benefit in its relationships with local communities. These goals have not been fully achieved; however, they create benchmarks for moving toward greater equity, which are often lacking in US HEIs’ global engagement strategies. In fact, while internationalization is increasingly a strategic priority within US HE, growing

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scholarship demonstrates that internationalization practices such as study abroad, international student recruitment, and cross-border partnerships can engender Western/US superiority and hegemony as well as inequality (George Mwangi 2017; Buckner and Stein 2019; Vavrus and Pekol 2015; Yao et al. 2019b). In this chapter, we argue that given the comprehensive integration of internationalization into US HE and the highly globalized society in which HE functions, equity cannot be achieved within the US HE context without a focus on internationalization. And yet, as de Wit and Jones (2018) articulated, “for internationalization to be inclusive and not elitist, it must address access and equity” (p. 18). It is essential that research addresses the challenges and inequities related to HE internationalization. While scholars have examined the many goals, processes, and outcomes of single HE internationalization practices and critiqued internationalization as a concept, few have drawn connections across this extensive body of literature to analyze how empirical inquiry on US HE internationalization reifies educational (in)equity (George Mwangi et al. 2018). In this chapter, we develop linkages across extant scholarship by articulating the potential for US HE internationalization to be equity-driven in research and theory. Our analysis of literature includes a review of multiple forms of HE internationalization scholarship including conceptual articles and empirical research on singular examples of internationalization, such as study abroad and research partnerships. We reviewed scholarship that either had an explicit focus on US HE or discussed US HE comparatively with other countries. US HE often dominates models for internationalization practice around the world and is the focus of a large proportion of HE scholarship on internationalization. Yet our focus on US HE in this chapter serves as a means of disrupting internationalization approaches and scholarship from the US context that can reify hegemony and inequity that, without interrogation, contributes to the reputation and dominance of US HE as a global leader. We begin by presenting how internationalization is traditionally defined in scholarship, followed by our presentation of a lens that centers equity in how internationalization is defined, investigated, and pursued. While the concept of equality focuses on equal treatment or distribution, equity centers on removing barriers, redistributing resources, and inclusion for those disadvantaged by unequal and hegemonic power structures (Ng 2003). An equity lens assumes that education institutions and their processes are not neutral and “makes explicit the political nature of education and how power operates to privilege, silence, and marginalize individuals who are differently located in the educational process” (Ng 2003, p. 214). We integrate Secada’s (1989) conception of equity into the educational context, which states: though our actions may be in accord with a set of rules, their results may be unjust. . .educational equity should be construed as a check on the justice of specific actions that are carried out within the educational arena and the arrangements that result from those actions. (pp. 68–69)

Through our use of an equity-driven lens, we view our subsequent analysis as a check on how scholars have constructed knowledge about US HE internationalization.

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After presenting our lens, we use it to (1) provide an equity-centered review of sociohistorical and contemporary forces of globalization impacting US HE internationalization, demonstrating how, over time, shifts in internationalization concepts, priorities, and practices are connected to shifts in the focus of internationalization scholarship, and (2) review, critique, and integrate research on major components of US HE internationalization in order to highlight what we know about US HE internationalization, as well as the equity-related benefits or consequences of how research on this topic has been conducted. We end with recommendations for an equity-oriented agenda for US HE internationalization research and implications of this agenda for practice and policy.

Defining Internationalization One of the predominant critiques of HE internationalization scholarship is the lack of a clear definition of the concept of internationalization (Knight 2011; Stier 2004; Zeleza 2016). While the use of the term internationalization began to emerge in HE publications in the 1980s, 40 years later there is still a lack of agreement among HE scholars about how internationalization should be defined, framed, and studied empirically (Knight 2012). Much of the scholarship on internationalization in the leading HE journals does not offer a definition of the concept and instead uses the term as if there is a universal definition (George Mwangi et al. 2018). One reason for this may reflect Brandenburg and de Wit’s (2011) argument that internationalization within HE has become the standard or norm, creating the illusion that everyone understands the meaning of the concept and views it in the same way. Even if a consensus among the HE research community is not possible, it is important for scholars to clearly define the term for themselves within their research. Internationalization of HE has long been considered a difficult subject to discuss largely due to the variety of terminology associated with the concept (Hudzik 2011). Terms such as globalization, internationalism, and internationalization are frequently used interchangeably despite differences in scope, purpose, and processes (Hudzik 2011). It is important to distinguish between these and other related concepts in research in order to present an accurate portrayal of how universities engage globally. While internationalization is a process that HEIs intentionally engage in to demonstrate a global presence, globalization refers to technological, economic, scientific, and social forces that increasingly create a more interdependent world unbounded by politics or physical geography (Rumbley et al. 2012). Internationalization is a response to the pushes and pulls of globalization (Knight 2012; Stromquist 2007). Researchers often discuss and critique contemporary globalization as a market-driven process that universalizes neoliberalism and capitalism while drawing connections to the concept of Westernization (Yang 2003). In the HE context, internationalization as a process engaging globalization is similarly critiqued as heavily commercialized and competitive (Pike 2012).

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Internationalism can be considered the opposite of nationalism in that instead of focusing on the well-being of citizens within a singular nation, the focus becomes the global community (Pike 2012). Internationalism invokes a communitarian emphasis on global cooperation, collaboration, and the common good (Pike 2012; Stromquist 2007). Similar to internationalization, internationalism is a response to globalization, but considers global interdependence requiring community instead of competition (Pike 2012). A number of scholars have debated whether the HE sector is pursuing internationalism or internationalization, as well as which process HE should pursue (Byram 2018; Pike 2012; Stromquist 2007). Given that most have concluded that internationalization is the clear direction of US HE, this chapter considers how equity has been conceived in HE internationalization research and how an equity lens can be more directly integrated into this scholarship into the future. Internationalization is typically viewed as a process as opposed to an end product (Knight and de Wit 1997; Qiang 2003). Thus, internationalization as a process is expected to lead to the achievement of end products like increased student diversity and intercultural competency, quality improvement, better international rankings, and responsiveness to a globalized environment (Qiang 2003). Activities that comprise the internationalization process are reinforced or weakened by organizational factors at an HEI, including HEI leadership, operations and support services, and institutional policies (Qiang 2003). Most definitions of internationalization highlight the incorporation of an international focus into the functions and purpose of HE and suggest that internationalization processes are ongoing. Knight (2012) argued that the twenty-first-century HE internationalization is more complex given the number of institutional and national stakeholders involved who may have different, and even competing, motives. HEIs take on internationalization efforts for various reasons and motivations including academic, social/cultural, political, and economic rationales (Knight and de Wit 1995). Contemporary rationales for internationalization have shifted from the academic and social/cultural of the medieval universities in Europe to an emphasis on political and economic rationales (de Wit 1999). For example, the rise of the USA as a world power has driven US universities to take on internationalization in order to maintain America’s global influence. From an economic perspective, internationalization not only prepares a global workforce and attracts international research and development (R&D) dollars but also increases revenue for HEIs due to the growing commodification of HE (de Wit 1999). While economic and political rationales for internationalization are not inherently in contrast to improving equity through HE, an equity-oriented approach provides intentionality in examining how internationalization rationales (as well as processes, practices, and outcomes) are inherently connected to power, privilege, oppression, and advantage. In attempting to define internationalization, scholars have discussed whether definitions should be broad enough to apply to any country context and HEI, or focused on specific activities and country contexts (Knight 2003; Qiang 2003). Knight (2003) stressed that internationalization encompasses all processes with an international dimension in HE and proposed a working definition that has become heavily adopted:

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Internationalization at the national, sector, and institutional levels is defined as the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of postsecondary education. (p. 2)

In subsequent scholarship, Knight (2012) explained that creating a definition with too much specificity would not be neutrally transferable across nations. Her perspective in 2012 reflected a preference for values neutrality in internationalization practice, rather than value-driven or culture-specific processes, which could demonstrate bias more reflective of a specific country, culture, region, or worldview (e.g., Westernization, Americanization).

An Equity-Driven Internationalization Lens While we concur with Knight (2003, 2012) that values and culture can be enacted through internationalization, we do not agree that they can be disconnected from internationalization, or that internationalization can be neutrally defined. Instead, we argue that investigating values, agendas, and ideologies should be at the forefront of internationalization research. This perspective is the foundation for our development of an equity-driven internationalization lens. This lens serves as a tool for centering equity in US HE internationalization research and engaging in scholarship that reimagines the purpose, processes, and outcomes of internationalization. The equity-driven lens we propose is comprised of four guiding principles: integrating equity-driven conceptual and theoretical perspectives, de-/constructing internationalization, defining the sociohistorical context, and connecting to contemporary forces of globalization. We use the term research “lens” rather than framework, because beyond shaping how researchers view or ground an issue, a lens is also able to magnify. In our case, our lens is meant to serve as a tool for magnifying (in)equity in HE internationalization. Our development of the lens was informed by our initial review of the literature, in which we foregrounded the broad concepts of equity and inequity as a way to examine how these concepts were present and missing in extant scholarship. In doing so, we identified the four guiding principles of our lens as the main ways in which scholars engaged (in)equity in their research or called for greater focus on (in)equity in US HE internationalization research. After identifying the four guiding principles, we used them to synthesize and organize the key themes we had developed in our analysis and critique of the body of scholarship on US HE internationalization.

Integrating Equity-Driven Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives Our equity-driven lens includes a guiding principle focused on how scholars theoretically and conceptually ground their studies. Conceptual and theoretical perspectives integrate ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions that

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ultimately frame research design and interpretations of phenomena (Jabareen 2009). Within our equity-driven lens, it is important to interpret how conceptual/theoretical frameworks in HE internationalization research acknowledge, reinforce, or challenge unbalanced power dynamics and global (in)equities. It is through privilege and power that social institutions, such as education systems, reproduce inequity (Bourdieu 1984). Without examination and scrutiny of internationalization in HE, there becomes a global social reproduction of inequity (de Wit and Jones 2018; Vavrus and Pekol 2015). In the case of HE internationalization in the USA, research traditionally mimics practice in that framing around power, hegemony, and equity in academic scholarship on internationalization is still emerging (George Mwangi et al. 2018; Shahjahan and Kezar 2013). Scholars have begun, particularly within the twenty-first century, to move away from the disciplinary perspectives of social psychology and intercultural communication that have undergirded international education and take a values-neutral approach to internationalization in order to engage in frameworks that critique and interrogate internationalization (Vavrus and Pekol 2015). Scholars have used critical theory, postcolonial theory, decolonial theory, and critical race theory to empirically unpack colonial and racist university processes, governed by oppressive structures of power (e.g., Andreotti 2006; Blanco Ramírez 2014; George Mwangi et al. 2018; Roshanravan 2012; Stein et al. 2016; Vavrus and Pekol 2015; Yao et al. 2019b). For example, drawing from decolonial scholarship, Stein et al. (2016) explained that most institutions of higher learning operate through a global dominant imaginary from which issues of racial hierarchies and economic inequalities in the field are maintained. Our equity-driven internationalization lens is also informed by a critical and transformative epistemology. Although critical theory encompasses a broad range of definitions and applications, we ascribe to Giroux’s (2003) assertion that critical theory is “both a ‘school of thought’ and a process of critique” (p. 27). By incorporating critical theory and perspectives to our lens, we pay attention to educational practices and ideas that “serve the interests of the dominant class while simultaneously silencing and dehumanizing ‘others’” (Brown 2004, p. 78) within international HE research and theory. While scholars do not have to utilize critical theory or paradigms to be equity-oriented, an equity-driven lens must be based in a foundation that unveils and interrogates how racial, colonial, political, and/or economic hierarchies inform current international research practices.

De-/constructing Internationalization In an equity-driven framework, internationalization is not just embedded in systems of power; rather, it is a tool used to wield power and therefore cannot be neutral. The process, concept, and construction of internationalization have power in defining which people, organizations, locations/environments, processes, outcomes, and (research) agendas are centered or silenced when HEIs engage globally. Therefore, our lens requires researchers to be clear in how they are defining internationalization

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and not depend on broad definitions without interrogating or deconstructing how the definition itself frames their work. In addition, we argue that data, especially when discussing people, must be disaggregated in order to nuance who participates in internationalization. In our development of the equity-driven internationalization lens, we used questions to deconstruct how internationalization was represented in literature such as: Who gets to define internationalization (and how does that shape the focus, design, and impact of research)? Who benefits from the ways in which internationalization is defined (or remains undefined) in extant scholarship and who does not? What are the theories, ideologies, perspectives, and values informing how we define internationalization and how can we make these explicit in our research? In addition to defining internationalization, researchers must have intentionality in the terminology and concepts they use to engage in inquiry regarding internationalization. For example, terminology such as “developing” or “least developed countries,” (LDCs) which is a concept coined by the United Nations, creates a negative connotation of particular countries or regions of the world as weaker and less valuable than countries like the USA. In this chapter, we replace those terms with Majority and Minority World. Majority World refers to areas in which most of the world’s population, natural resources, and landmass are located, but are often economically poorer (Alam 2008). The Majority World is typically referred to in HE scholarship as the Global South, Developing Countries, or Third World. Minority World refers to economically more privileged countries (Alam 2008). The Minority World is typically referred to in HE scholarship as Global North, Developed Countries, or First World, but rarely as White settler countries. We recognize that these terms are still inherently problematic as many countries do not fit neatly within this dichotomy. However, we argue that by replacing more traditional terminology with Minority World and Majority World, we encourage reflection on the unequal dynamics and power relations between two world areas, as well as highlight that there are resources and value present in regions that are typically defined by what they lack. Similarly, our equity-oriented lens asks researchers to deconstruct and then utilize concepts and terminologies in internationalization research that are assetoriented (rather than deficit-oriented), are inclusive, complicate the status quo, and interrogate dynamics of power and privilege.

Defining the Sociohistorical Context An equity-driven lens for internationalization recognizes that contemporary practices in US HE cannot be separated from the sociohistorical forces that form intricate relationships between coloniality, racial hierarchies, institutionalized racism, globalization, and capitalism, which structured the country’s first colleges and continue to manifest through HEIs today (Dancy et al. 2018; Wilder 2013). Internationalization of HE has always been a part of the fabric of the USA. The arrival of the first colonizers established that transnational flows of people, ideas, and motivations can irrevocably change the trajectory of a community, as demonstrated by how settler colonialism devastated the Indigenous communities in the Americas (Stein 2018;

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Wilder 2013). With the arrival of settlers, the economic and political benefits of internationalization and global flows continued to bolster US society, including the transatlantic slave trade, indentured servitude, and the cheap labor of Chinese immigrants for building the transcontinental railroad. As evidenced by these examples, the USA has always been a site of internationalization, globalization, colonization, and domination of people, land, and ideas. The “founding, financing, and development of higher education in the colonies were thoroughly intertwined with the economic and social forces” (Wilder 2013, p. 1) of the transatlantic slave trade and settler colonialism. The foundation of US HE is rooted in perspectives imported from Europe, most notably from the British residential model and then later from the German research model (Thelin 2011). US traditions of residential student learning, scientific research, and faculty governance are results of transnational flows of educational perspectives from other countries. In addition, HE in the USA was founded to educate White men from elite families, and colonial colleges were all based on Christian foundations (Thelin 2011). Although some attempts were made to educate the Indigenous youth, the efforts were rooted in White- and Christian-dominated perspectives that resulted in trauma and damage for the students, many of whom were resistant to participating (Wright 1988). Many graduates of elite colleges returned to the southern states as landowners who fully participated in the slave trade after being educated on the inferiority of Blackness and the supremacy of Whiteness (Wilder 2013). Contemporary internationalization practices by US HEIs continue imperialistic and colonial approaches, yet perhaps in more subtle ways. Internationalization in US HE is politically and economically driven, often used as a way to establish the dominance of HEIs. Through the commodification of international students, the emphasis on cutting-edge knowledge production, and establishment of English dominance at branch campuses, the US HE enterprise is at risk of maintaining inequitable approaches to education around the world. As stated by Stein (2018), the inequities and injustices of the present are not entirely novel, but rather are the legacy and continuation of a higher education system whose foundations have been deeply entangled with the logics, relations, and infrastructures of racial-colonial capitalism since its beginnings (p. 78). Because of the ties between sociohistorical and contemporary forces, internationalization affects all aspects of HE in all nation-states. The flows of internationalization efforts, including student mobility and research partnerships, cross both real and imagined borders, which necessitates foregrounding issues of power and hierarchies from both historical and current contexts. Pursuing an equitable approach to internationalization research interrogates the imperialism that has inherently been a part of US HE and has continued to permeate, in both subtle and overt ways, current approaches to internationalization. We offer the equity-driven internationalization lens as a tool for engaging in knowledge production or critique that has “a motivational connection to action itself” by linking “a radical decoding of history to a vision of the future” (Giroux 2003, p. 50) to disrupt current approaches to international higher education research and practice. Similarly, our lens asks researchers to

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acknowledge and engage with the past when conducting studies on contemporary internationalization issues.

Connecting to Contemporary Forces of Globalization Our equity-driven lens requires scholars to recognize the globalization-based pushes and pulls (e.g., economic, social, political, environmental, technological, scientific) that drive how US HEIs engage in internationalization processes. While globalization and internationalization are distinct concepts, they are intertwined. Internationalization reflects multiple practices interlocked with its structural driver – globalization. Yet globalization is an under-conceptualized factor in internationalization scholarship. If scholars do not acknowledge the forces of globalization as a starting point for internationalization-related research, it will wrongly appear as if internationalization occurs in a vacuum or that the motivations driving it are based solely on institutional/individual choice. However, we argue that internationalization is inextricably linked with the global structures and systems that often favor Minority World needs, a market orientation, and neoliberal ideologies (Pike 2012; Yang 2003). Despite the interconnectedness between internationalization and globalization, perception often centers on internationalization efforts being compartmentalized as domestic priorities that are distinct from international issues; that is, the local is separate from the national, which is also separate from the global. However, the realities of internationalization are rooted in continuous flows (Marginson and Sawir 2005) that extend between, around, and within the global, national, and local. A commonly used term is glonacal (Marginson and Rhoades 2002) which identifies the coexistence of the global, national, and local. In using a glonacal perspective, HE is “shaped in three dimensions simultaneously” (Marginson 2004, p. 177) through continual interaction. As a result, contemporary internationalization of HE signifies the interconnectedness and immediacy of how global pressures are very much present in local and regional priorities. Our equity-driven internationalization lens refutes the idea that the HE enterprise is distinct from the influence of global and local politics, markets, and dominance. Globalization and internationalization work in tandem through a dynamic interaction in which HE is an active participant. According to Cantwell and MaldonadoMaldonado (2009), the global “can be understood as structure, and the local as agency positioned within this structure” (p. 291). Yet power and dominance are inherent in global structures because at the core, “power is embedded in the way globalisation is conceived” (p. 291). Thus, understanding the role of power in US constructions of glonacal forces is critical in unveiling how the pressures of globalization, such as markets and prestige, contribute to US internationalization efforts and contribute to Majority and Minority World distinctions. Globalization has affected every aspect of higher education, leading to pushes for internationalization without much critical reflection. Our equity-driven internationalization lens requires

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scholars to conceptualize the term “internationalization” with an understanding of how globalization overlaps as a very real and influential force.

Sociohistorical and Contemporary Influences on Internationalization Research In alignment with our equity-driven lens, we next focus on the sociohistorical context and contemporary forces of globalization to demonstrate how globalization can act as a catalyst for the way in which internationalization is pursued in research and practice while also highlighting how internationalization research and practices can occur in response and reaction to the forces of globalization in any given era. Research content, frameworks, and methodology often mirror the major challenges and problems within society at any given time. This is particularly true in education research, given that one of its central purposes is to help improve and reform education policy and practice. This section demonstrates how research through the mid-twentieth century into the twenty-first century related to the internationalization of US HE reflects key sociohistorical and contemporary issues, priorities, and events. We focus on the early development-aid model approach to US HE and the (failed) push toward a national strategic plan for the internationalization of US HE, the influence of prestige and financial indicators on the growth of internationalization practices, and the movement toward comprehensive internationalization as a part of the US HE system.

Sociohistorical Context: US HE Internationalization as National Strategy HE internationalization gained prominence as a national strategic tool in the USA during and post-World War II into the Cold War period. In the twentieth century, US HEIs became more of a global force “for improving economic growth and social stability [emerging] as a major player in solving global development challenges” (George Mwangi 2017, p. 33). In the 1960s US HEIs’ internationalization strategies began to shift toward a development-aid focused model, known as “technical assistance and development cooperation” (de Wit 2001, p. 122). This donor-recipient or path-dependent model of internationalization remained dominant until the 1980s and, one could argue, is still in existence in some HEI practices (Heyneman and Lee 2016; Koehn and Obamba 2014). Through the donor-recipient model, knowledge transfer and capacity building became one-dimensional and unidirectional, with the flow of students from the Majority World into the USA and the flow of faculty, funds, and other resources from the USA into the Majority World (de Wit 2001). This approach to internationalization was in part due to the need for post-World War II reconstruction in Europe and for development of higher education infrastructure to support workforce development in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (de Wit 2001). This strategy began as a competition between the USA and Soviet Union into the Cold War period, but by the

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1980s, Western Europe, Canada, and Australia began funneling development funds into the Majority World as well (de Wit 2001). The rationales provided were mutual understanding and world peace, but also emphasized countries desiring the strongest position as a superpower and the creation of allies in other areas of the world (Bu 1999; Heyneman and Lee 2016). US HE internationalization strategies have historically been used to socialize students and scholars from abroad into Western thought, democratic ideals, and allyship with the USA (de Wit 1999). Particularly during the post-World War II period, the USA feared threats from the Soviet Union and engaged in public diplomacy using the US educational system (Bu 1999). For example, the Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961, which drives educational and cultural exchange between the USA and other nations, was created to “promote international cooperation for educational and cultural advancement, and thus to assist in the development of friendly, sympathetic, and peaceful relations between the United States and the other countries of the world” (McAllister-Grande 2008, p. 22). This program was supported and expanded during the Cold War period, and cultural exchange, through the vehicle of US HE, was treated as a national security interest (Bu 1999; de Wit 2001). Students, scholars, and technical trainees in both Europe and newly emerging politically independent countries throughout the world were targeted by US universities through recruitment strategies and scholarships to enroll, become educated and socialized within the US HE system (which also provided socialization toward US democratic ideals, politics, and values), and return to the home country where they could become leaders in instilling democracy and nation building (Bu 1999). US college students and scholars who traveled abroad were encouraged to act as ambassadors who could spread US beliefs and values around the world as well (McAllister-Grande 2008). Bu (1999) suggests, “In the competition with the Soviet propaganda, ‘educational exchange’ became an important instrument to project favorable images of the United States symbolized by its abundance of material wealth, consumer culture, technological know-how, individual freedom, and political democracy” (pp. 393–394). This use of soft power through cultural dominance and influence was important during the Cold War period and was a more feasible option than military domination, given nuclear threat. Many of the US HE internationalization practices reflected between the postWWII and Cold War period were focused on specific, individual activities like student exchange. Unlike many European countries around the world, the USA never fully developed a national strategy for internationalization in HE (de Wit 2002). The multiple integrated strategies and practices seen on many campuses today as comprehensive internationalization were not due to governmental influence, “given that most efforts at the federal, state, and institutional level have been piecemeal, usually without the interest or support of powerful lawmakers and, perhaps most importantly, a presidential administration or a farsighted governor” (Douglass and Edelstein 2009, p. 20). One of the closest moments to developing a national strategy occurred in the 1960s as part of the “Great Society” era under President Lyndon B. Johnson. This period saw the development of legislation for domestic HE concerns through the

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Higher Education Act of 1965. It was around this time that President Johnson also saw the need for policies guiding international engagement and practices by educational institutions and proposed the International Education Act (IEA) of 1966, “to strengthen our capacity for international educational cooperation, to stimulate exchange with the students and teachers of other lands, to assist the progress of education in developing nations, and to build new bridges of international understanding” (HR 14643 1966, p. 6). For HE, the IEA of 1966 focused on world affairs, internationalization of the curriculum, educational exchanges, and education for development. Although the IEA was passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, the need to fund the Vietnam War allowed it to die in the appropriations committee. The legislation was never funded (Smithee 2012; Vestal 1994). Parallels Between US Sociohistorical Context and Internationalization Research The lack of strong national support for HE internationalization paralleled research on HE internationalization during the Cold War period into the end of the twenty-first century. This research argued for needed support and prioritization of internationalization by the government and HEIs. Some of this research stemmed from international education associations that worked as advocates and were commissioned by “foundations, such as Carnegie, Ford, Sloan, Guggenheim and others . . . to sponsor research and data gathering” (Smithee 2012, p. 10). The associations, in turn, conducted research or sponsored academics to conduct research that sought to demonstrate the value of internationalization (e.g., Goodwin and Nacht 1983; Lee et al. 1981). This period also saw the creation of US-based international education academic journals (e.g., Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad in 1995, Journal of Studies in International Education in 1997, and Journal of Research in International Education in 2002) as well as practitioner-focused news media/magazines (e.g., World Education News and Reviews in 1988, International Educator in 1992, and IIE Networker in 2001). During this time into the early twenty-first century, the push to clearly define internationalization, debate its definition, and consider the drivers and outcomes of internationalization were also brought to the forefront. The focus on defining the internationalization of US HE led to the dominance of: A functionalist or instrumentalist approach to understanding the internationalization efforts of universities as a whole. That is, the studies focus attention on the specific inputs (activities), processes (arrangements), and outcomes (goals) of higher education internationalization rather than the broader context that shapes it. (Vavrus and Pekol 2015, p. 6)

Research aligned with the practice of growing standardization regarding the implementation and processes behind the internationalization of HE, often without acknowledgment of unequal systems and structures that internationalization might be reinforcing. For example, a major rationale for internationalization in the twentieth century focused on development and the spread of democracy (Bu 1999; de Wit 1999). This rationale uses internationalization as a form of soft power to reify US HE

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dominance and exceptionalism by assuming that democracy is an ideal system and that US HE can provide the solutions to the world’s challenges. Thus, while the research and research outlets developed in the late twentieth century reflected voice, clarity, and enthusiasm for internationalization practices and policies in US HE, there is danger in presenting internationalization through solely a positive lens, or as Brandenburg and de Wit (2011) critiqued as “a synonym of ‘doing good’” (p. 16).

Contemporary Globalization Forces: US HE Internationalization as Institutional Strategy The use of HE internationalization as a geopolitical tool would reflect what Knight (2004) refers to as a national-level rationale in which internationalization focuses on human resource development, strategic alliances, commercial trade, nation building, and social/cultural development. While political advocacy for an intentional national-level approach can be seen from the middle to the end of the twentieth century, new patterns emerged in the twenty-first century that shifted the focus to a more institutional-level rationale in which internationalization is used by individual HEIs to emphasize international branding and profile, income generation, student and staff development, strategic alliances, and knowledge production (Knight 2004). This shift reflects globalizing forces, national events, and political changes that led to greater focus on nationalism, protectionism, and border control in tandem with an increasingly corporatized and neoliberal US HE model. The 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 were a major catalyst for change in how the US federal government framed global engagement, particularly related to immigration. For US HE, this change was present in the added scrutiny and restriction placed on foreign nationals (especially those from predominantly Muslim countries) seeking entry into the USA as college students and visiting scholars. New procedures, policies, and security measures were developed between 2002 and 2003 (e.g., the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, and the US-VISIT program), designed to reduce the probability of terrorists entering the USA (Mueller 2009). In 2003, a Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) was created requiring HEIs to submit data on their foreign students to the US State Department or risk loss of accreditation (Mueller 2009). This new threshold for entry deterred foreign nationals from entering the USA after 9/ 11, particularly given that there were fewer restrictions for entry into countries such as Canada and Australia (Lee and Rice 2007). Mueller (2009) found that: The total number of students admitted from PMCs [predominantly Muslim countries] increased by 29.6% between 1999 and 2001, compared to an increase of 22.6% for all other countries. These numbers decreased between 2001 and 2004 by 8.1% for all other countries and by 44.5% for PMCs. (pp. 21–22)

While HEIs in the early 2010s seemed to be on an upswing in international student enrollment from losses in the previous years (Institute of International

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Education [IIE] 2018), there is another sociopolitical shift occurring in the USA and in other places around the world that supports closed borders, rejects greater diversity within national borders, and strives to be both among the most powerful in the world and, yet, more insular. Policies such as the 2017 travel ban of citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen into the USA (Almasy and Simon 2017), procedures making it challenging to pursue international collaborations (Brajkovic and Helms 2018), lack of federal funding for research abroad (Helms et al. 2017), travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic (Conway et al. 2020), and the 2020 proclamation suspending H-1B and J visas for international students by the Trump administration in 2020 (Proclamation 10014 2020) reflect this shift on US HE. Increased nationalism and xenophobia have scholars questioning the role of internationalization in the HE sector and whether US HE internationalization practices will be sustained into the future (Altbach and de Wit 2018; Harkavy et al. 2020). While HEIs often frame internationalization as a process that yields positive outcomes, particularly in improving the US economy and competitive global edge (Brandenburg and de Wit 2011; Stein et al. 2016), many of the ways in which the outcomes of HE internationalization are framed at a national policy level do not share the same discourse. The participation of international students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is one example. Currently, there are not enough US-born graduates obtaining college degrees in STEM to meet occupational demands (National Science Board 2018). This lack of STEM participation has led to the recruitment of foreign-born students and professionals to the USA to mitigate the gap in the STEM talent pipeline (National Science Board 2018). “At approximately 90 percent of U.S. universities, the majority of full-time graduate students (master’s and PhDs) in computer science and electrical engineering are international students” (National Foundation for American Policy 2017, p. 13). In 1992, the federal government created an optional training program for international students in STEM to obtain a US college degree and remain within the USA to participate in the STEM workforce. Today that program is consistently under threat (Merrick 2018). More stringent immigration and visa policies are signaling to potential international students that they are not welcome (Merrick 2018; West 2020). The federal government is not treating the participation of international students and workers as an asset in STEM or as a geopolitical resource, although without their participation in the STEM talent pool, the USA is less prepared to compete globally in that sector. Other key issues impacting internationalization, particularly at US public colleges and universities, are continued state divestment and decreased funding to HEIs. Internationalization is one way that universities create alternative revenue streams (Altbach and Knight 2007; George Mwangi 2013). Forces pushing for the internationalization of US HE are often rooted in economic foundations, with an emphasis on financial, human, and intellectual resources. US institutions have been found to commodify aspects of internationalization, including student mobility for academic dominance (Yao forthcoming) and international graduate students as labor sources in US HEIs (Cantwell et al. 2018). For example, research demonstrates that as state

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funding for public US HEIs decreases, the enrollment of international students increases, suggesting that public HEIs are induced by state disinvestment to recruit and enroll international students for whom tuition charges are many times higher than what state residents pay (George Mwangi 2013). As fewer federal and state funds are allocated toward US HE, HEIs are in tandem becoming more corporatized and commercialized (Kezar 2004), and internationalization is not immune to this process. Internationalization has become big business for study abroad agencies and international student recruiters, some of which market internationalization as a commodity that can be bought through students’ purchasing power as consumers (Stein et al. 2016). Much like other aspects of HE in the USA, internationalization is highly motivated by market forces, as exhibited by the valuing of global rankings (e.g., Amsler and Bolsmann 2012; Marginson and Van der Wende 2007; Shahjahan et al. 2017) and positional competition (e.g., Brown 2000; Brown et al. 2008; Kim 2016). Global rankings “cemented the notion of a world university competition or market” (Marginson and Van der Wende 2007, p. 308), and in recent years, rankings often serve as the gold star approach to increasing prestige and dominance within the global HE market. Global university rankings such as Times Higher Education World University Rankings and QS World University Rankings are used as comparative metrics for quality and prestige within the international competitive arena. Despite debates on the accuracy and validity of global rankings, many institutions promote internationalization as a way to climb the ranks of top-rated global institutions (Delgado-Márquez et al. 2013). Global university rankings have been criticized for their role in increasing stratification and imperialism among institutions and nation-states (Amsler and Bolsmann 2012; Shahjahan et al. 2017). Amsler and Bolsmann (2012) argued that rankings become a tool for exclusion that supports the neoliberal academy rather than serving to identify quality and value. Shahjahan et al. (2017) highlighted the colonial nature of global rankings, as they are rooted in Eurocentric and “historically conditioned uneven and competitive economies of prestige and historical processes affecting international relations” (p. S68). Global university rankings have benefited the USA, as US institutions lead the rankings. Despite the arbitrary measures and weights of the rankings process, the outcomes of global rankings benefit US HEIs as they pull students based on reputations for quality and prestige (Mazzarol and Soutar 2002). In addition, the privileging of institutional types is uneven as research universities dominate what is considered quality and prestigious in the USA (Altbach 2012; Marginson and Van der Wende 2007). As a result, global university rankings contribute to a privileged and hegemonic model of HE, particularly for Anglo-Saxon countries such as the USA (Ordorika and Lloyd 2015), that is “projected to the rest of the world as the ‘objective’ ideal to follow” (p. 386). Global rankings create and perpetuate stratification among and between the USA and the Majority World, particularly in the promotion of research institutions. Despite the privileging of research institutions in the USA, the prevalence of US HEIs in global university rankings still benefits the overall global reputation of US

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institutions as a whole. In doing so, the USA gains in positional competition when compared with other countries. Simply stated, positional competition is defined as “how one stands relative to others within an implicit or explicit hierarchy” (Brown 2000, p. 633), in which social groups utilize assets to maintain an advantage. Positional competition privileges the social elite as groups seek to outperform others in an attempt to maintain a position of dominance as a way to keep an advantage. When applied to HE, US HEIs seek to maintain academic dominance by pushing for high global rankings, seemingly outperforming HEIs in other countries. Based on a global market perspective, US HEIs maintain positional competition in the global academic market through three areas: membership, meritocratic competition, and market (Brown 2000). Membership is based on how an individual, or an institution, is positioned against others, typically through categories such as gender, class, and national origin. Meritocratic competition is found in effort toward achievement, often at the cost of neglecting structural and systemic inequality. Markets indicate a shift toward economic principles of supply and demand, and as a result, barriers to market competition are eliminated as a way to establish positional competition. As a result, global market forces exerted on the USA drive the impetus toward maintaining high positional competition within new global dynamics and the global knowledge economy (Brown 2000; Brown et al. 2008; Kim 2016), thus driving internationalization efforts. Without the presence of cohesive national or state agendas, US HE internationalization is influenced by the agendas of professional associations, private foundations, and individual HEIs (de Wit 2001; Smithee 2012), further reflecting a fragmented approach to internationalization comprised of individual institutional choices, agendas, and needs. Internationalization is a major strategic priority of a number of professional associations that work to support institutions in creating and enacting comprehensive internationalization efforts, including the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA), and NAFSA: the Association of International Educators. The American Council on Education (ACE), which defines internationalization as “a strategic, coordinated process that seeks to align and integrate international policies, programs, and initiatives; and positions colleges and universities as more globally oriented and internationally connected” (Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement 2012, p. 3), has worked with over 130 colleges and universities to provide “assistance to leadership teams as they engage in a comprehensive review of internationalization efforts on campus” (American Council on Education 2019, para. 1). There exist numerous leadership programs for administrators, campus consultants, written guides, and other tools to ensure that US HEIs can design, implement, and assess their internationalization strategies effectively. Parallels Between Contemporary Globalization Forces and Internationalization Research Education associations, along with other private organizations, play a major role in influencing how US HE internationalization strategies are developed (Smithee 2012). Yet, this influence has also led to critiques that HEIs are developing internationalization strategies that are not guided by their unique institutional context

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and mission, and instead reflect the goals, motivations, and priorities of external organizations and associations as well as institutional isomorphism and corporatization (George Mwangi et al. forthcoming; Wells and Henkin 2005). A number of studies and conceptual papers from international education professional associations and education advocacy organizations advocate for the infusion of internationalization practices into the core curricular and cocurricular activities of US HEIs (Smithee 2012). Some of the most highly cited include NAFSA’s report Comprehensive Internationalization: From Concept to Action (Hudzik 2011) and the American Council on Education’s national survey-based study of US HEIs leading to Mapping Internationalization on U.S. Campus, a report of the current state of US HE internationalization published every 5 years since 2003. These reports have guided hundreds of US HEIs’ internationalization strategies given their focus on applied research and a practitioner audience. Given their research, ACE has proposed a model for the implementation of comprehensive internationalization, which emphasizes the interconnectedness of six pillars: (1) articulated institutional commitment; (2) administrative leadership, structure, and staffing; (3) curriculum, co-curriculum, and learning outcomes; (4) faculty policies and practices; (5) student mobility; and (6) collaborations and partnerships (Helms et al. 2017). While these kinds of reports have been highly influential for HE practitioners, many have limitations in not being empirically based or relying solely on institutional data that is self-reported (Smithee 2012). The institutional-level focus on contemporary US HE internationalization (Knight 2004) is also reflected in scholarship that has emphasized institutionallevel case studies and analyses of the organizational structures, processes, and outcomes of campus internationalization strategies. There has been a mushrooming of internationalization strategies and activities to the point that almost all US HEIs pursue internationalization to some extent (Green and Shoenberg 2006). These forms of internationalization range from informal activities among various institutions to extensive curriculum changes and student exchanges (Vavrus and Pekol 2015). Childress’ (2009) study is one of the most comprehensive institutional analyses, including interviews with dozens of HEIs and the identification of three general types of internationalization plans (Institutional Strategic Plans (ISP), Distinct Documents (DD), and Unit Plans (UP)) that are often elected by HEIs based on factors such as the size of the institution, phases in the internationalization cycle, goals and purposes of internationalization, and campus stakeholders’ buy-in. Childress (2009), in tandem with other scholars such as Bartell (2003), suggests that a top-down approach to the internationalization process guided by campus leadership and university-wide strategic plans are most successful. Approaching from an organizational perspective, Bartell (2003) further argued that institutions that are responsive to external change are more likely to bring about a successful internationalization process than internally oriented institutions who often take on truncated and tokenizing international processes. Research demonstrates that because internationalization is a dynamic and globally engaged process,

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HEIs must acknowledge the multiple internal and external factors at play. Zhou (2016) argues that internationalization occurs at five levels, global, national, institutional, program, and personal, with each level consisting of its own purposes, programs, outcomes, approaches, and projects. Despite this complexity, research also shows that behind the intensification of internationalization, there are implicit assumptions (Knight 2011), economic and social imperatives (Vavrus and Pekol 2015), and a lack of scrutinization of the underpinnings of internationalization programs and ideologies (Stier 2004) within US HEIs. For example, although global HE may be seemingly neutral relational environments, power structures can be unevenly oppressive within the relationships and exchanges between the USA and other countries, which are commonly identified as First/Minority and Third/Majority World societies (Rhee and Sagaria 2004). With the pervasiveness of global rankings, prestige, and positional competition, US HEIs become imperial and colonial actors in contemporary HE. As a result, a form of academic imperialism comes into play when researching the effects of globalization and internationalization. Research on internationalization often centers the USA as the unit of comparison, thus contributing to academic imperialism. Higher education has become the new imperialism (Naidoo 2011), with US institutions dominating within the glonacal sphere of HE. The academic imperialism of the USA is “premised on both consensual and coercive interaction” (Rhee and Sagaria 2004, p. 81), in which global actors are complicit in accepting US globalization and internationalization efforts. The complicit and consensual relationship is evident in the large number of mobile students from sending nations, the acceptance of the English language as lingua franca, and US institutions continually ranked as being top academic destinations for knowledge (Marginson 2008). As a result, the danger of inequalities such as privileging of certain knowledges and priorities in global HE research continues to be a problem, especially as academic dependency on US HE continues to flourish (Altbach 1977; Yao forthcoming). The dependency establishes the US intellectual model as the dominant force on which dependent nation-states as peripheral members rely, thus maintaining the USA’s dominant position in educational research.

Understanding Internationalization Research Through an Equity-Driven Lens The sociohistorical context and contemporary forces of globalization surrounding HE internationalization demonstrate a number of broad parallels between internationalization policy/practice and research. Next, we use our equity-driven lens to synthesize what is known about specific US HE internationalization practices and how research investigates these practices. Knight (2012) suggests that internationalization is comprised of (1) internal or “at-home” practices that happen on campus and (2) abroad or “cross-border” internationalization, which refers to practices that involve movement across national boundaries. Similarly, we found that much of the

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scholarship on US internationalization focused on singular internationalization practices that could be categorized in one of these two ways. “At-home”-oriented scholarship focused on international students; curriculum, teaching, and learning; research, training, and scholarly activity; and internationalization at-home practices. Cross-border-oriented scholarship focused on study abroad; international higher education partnerships; and transnational education. While we aggregate types of individual practices in this section for clarity, we do not use the two pillars as an additional organizing tool because individual internationalization practices (or even the larger categories of at-home and cross-border practices) are not mutually exclusive and do not reflect neat and simple distinctions. Similarly, Knight (2012) explains, “that these two pillars [at home and cross border] are separate but closely linked and interdependent” (p. 34). Thus, we focus on five practices of US internationalization that are most relevant to contemporary higher education: educating international students, international higher education partnerships and research activities, US involvement in transnational education, study abroad as a high-impact practice, and strategizing internationalization at home. Each section that follows applies the guiding principles of the equity-driven lens to demonstrate whether and how extant research on five practices of US HE internationalization reflects an equity orientation.

Educating International Students International students are typically defined as foreign-born students who have entered the USA on a temporary student visa for the purpose of attending a US HEI. Research on the experiences of international students in the USA is one of the largest and most established bodies of literature on US HE internationalization practices. Sociohistorical Context One of the major developments of research on international students’ experiences in US HE stems from the 1960s and 1970s, when a number of annotated bibliographies and systematic literature reviews were conducted on student mobility to the USA (e.g., Cormack 1962; Cussler 1962; Spaulding et al. 1976; Walton 1967). These reviews were often sponsored by the US federal government and captured hundreds of articles that typically reflected education or other social science evaluation studies. For example, Spaulding et al.’s review in 1976 included 433 sources. These reviews focused on international students’ adjustment to US HE, how their sojourn to the USA impacted their values, factors impacting their academic achievement, and peer group composition and engagement. One critique of these reviews is that international student research portrays this student population in narrow ways, and this critique is not dissimilar to critiques of research on international students’ experiences in contemporary times (e.g., Abdullah et al. 2014; George Mwangi et al. 2019; Hanassab 2006; Heng 2019; Lee 2014; Malcolm and Mendoza 2014; Yao et al. 2019b).

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De-/constructing Internationalization International students came to the USA from over 200 countries in 2018 (Institute of International Education [IIE] 2019a), but researchers often “construct” international students’ experiences by generalizing research results to all international students as if they reflect a homogenous group (Yoon and Portman 2004). This limitation is particularly apparent in quantitative studies with large national data sets for two reasons: (1) these data sources may not capture much demographic data about these students beyond their foreign status and (2) when demographic data is collected, the small number of international students within a data set makes the ability to analyze within-group differences difficult due to producing a small n. Lack of attention to student diversity is also embedded in the ways that US HEIs are asked to report international student data by the US government: international students’ racial identity is not captured. In quantitative and qualitative studies, international students are often only disaggregated by national identity, which is problematic given that a dominant national group might be used to represent all other international students from a particular region. For example, in their systematic review of research on East Asian international students’ well-being, Li et al. (2014) found many studies making claims about all East Asian or Asian international students, when their samples only included Chinese international students. A sole focus on national identity also ignores students’ socioeconomic status, religious identity, ethnic/racial identity, linguistic background, sexuality, ability, and other identities (Shahjahan and Kezar 2013). Not acknowledging sociocultural factors and identities beyond national origin presents students as one-dimensional and wrongly suggests that there can be a “one-size-fits-all” approach to meeting their educational needs (Shahjahan and Kezar 2013; Yoon and Portman 2004). It should not be assumed that all international students share common characteristics or experience US HE beyond a shared student visa status. By removing this assumption, scholars can acknowledge that international students “experience multiple points of privilege and oppression given their intersecting identities (e.g. nativity, race/ethnicity, religion, gender, socioeconomic status) at different points in time” (Yao et al. 2019b, p. 45). Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives Research on international students’ experiences has historically been grounded in assimilationist and psychology frameworks focused on coping to understand international student adjustment to their new educational environment (Coates 2004; Khawaja and Stallman 2011; Li et al. 2014). Two of the most often cited frameworks are Obeng’s (1960) concept of culture shock (which defines the stages one experiences as a result of moving into a new cultural environment) and Berry’s (2006) definition of acculturative stress (the stressors one experiences in adapting to the values, beliefs, and practices of a new country context). Li et al. (2014) argue that “compared with culture shock, acculturative stress is considered a more positive concept because it not only includes psychological stressors in culture shock such as depression and anxiety but also provides four strategies on how people handle their acculturation experiences” (p. 303). Yet, seeking to understand international students solely using either framework

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foregrounds their behavior as maladaptive to adjustment challenges, which scholars using these frameworks have found include depression (Constantine et al. 2004; Volet and Jones 2012; Wei et al. 2007), culture shock (Bochner 2006; Cemalcilar and Falbo 2008; Wang and Mallinckrodt 2006), non-assimilation to dominant culture as a deficit (Li et al. 2013; Nilsson et al. 2008), and lacking agency in their own experiences. Assimilation-based theories also place the onus on international students to adapt to their environment instead of calling for HEIs to transform to better support and be inclusive of their international students (George Mwangi et al. 2018; Yoon and Portman 2004). Framing scholarship around what international students are lacking, rather on how they can be supported in their education environmental, is problematic within an equity-driven lens. As Yoon and Portman (2004) argue, international students “need to be viewed from a developmental perspective rather than from a pathological perspective” (p. 38). As an example of deficit framing, a number of studies have investigated the correlation between English language proficiency and international student well-being, finding that students with less English proficiency are often more homesick, anxious, and depressed during college (Lin and Scherz 2014; Poyrazli and Lopez 2007; Sue and Sue 2007; Yao 2016; Yeh and Inose 2003). An equity-driven approach might examine the relationship between international students’ well-being and the support US campuses are (and are not) providing for students’ English language skills development. This type of study would shed light on US HEIs’ processes and services for international students, instead of defining international students as deficient. International students have also been framed as sojourners, a group that Bochner (2006) defined as “individuals who travel abroad to attain a particular goal within a specified period of time” (p. 181). By defining students as temporary sojourners, HEIs, and US society more broadly, may not see value in investing time and resources into supporting these students. This is a false premise, given that between 2004 and 2016, at least 1.5 million foreign college graduates from US HEIs obtained authorization to remain and work in the USA (Ruiz and Budiman 2018). Even if students return to their home country, US HEIs should support their success as learners rather than as commodities. Student-centered research that better elucidates the needs, perspectives, and experiences of international students can be used to help ensure their success in US HE, rather than reify US hegemony in internationalization. A number of scholars are moving scholarship to a more equity-driven approach for understanding international students, their perspectives, and their educational experiences and outcomes. Some scholars are using sociological, ecological, and critical frameworks to consider and critique the role of systems, structures, and environments on international students’ experiences. For example, Yao, George Mwangi, and Malaney Brown (2019b) used critical race theory to analyze unequal social systems and structures in the USA that impact international students’ experiences such as systemic racism and nativism. Their article highlights that adopting a critical analytical lens allows for the inclusion of international students within the landscape of racial climate, diversity, equity, and inclusion discourse

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and practice, which has historically focused on domestic American students. Lee and Rice (2007) applied the concept of neo-racism, a form of racism grounded in culture, national origin, and nation-to-nation relationships, rather than solely phenotype or physical characteristics, to demonstrate the nuanced ways that international students experience discrimination in US HE. Growing scholarship considers student outcomes during (e.g., Choudaha and Schulmann 2014) and post-college. Emerging scholarship on students’ well-being and sense of belonging (e.g., Yao 2015) is grounded in care for students and not the benefits of these students to US HEIs. Contemporary Forces of Globalization The commodification of international students reflects a response to market-driven globalization that was present within the literature in three main ways. Each of these three rationales is foundationally true and connected the economic forces of globalization. Yet, using them to center the significance of studying student mobility to the US and international student experiences reinforces the image that these students’ value is in what they can provide to US HEIs, rather than how US HEIs can support their learning, development, and degree completion. First, researchers point to the billions of dollars that international students contribute to the US economy (Altbach and Knight 2007; IIE 2019a) to demonstrate the significance of understanding these students’ experiences. Researchers have both used and critiqued financially driven images of international students such as “state stimulus potential” for public state HE systems that are experiencing financial hardship (Owens et al. 2011) and as “cash cows” for the US economy (Abelmann and Kang 2014). Others have investigated how financial motivation may impact US HEIs’ commitment to international students, finding that US HEIs increase international student enrollment when state appropriations decrease (George Mwangi 2013). The economic strategy of international student enrollment connects to broader discourses on global competition and the STEM talent pipeline (Yao and Viggiano 2019). The second commodifying theme paints international graduate students as inexpensive labor provided to universities as research assistants and teaching assistants. While research on the demand side of international student mobility to the USA is still scarce, a demand-side focus stresses what international students can provide to US HEIs. Scholars have demonstrated the positive impact this labor can have on research innovation, with Chellaraj, Maskus, and Mattoo (2008) and Matloff (2013) examining patent creation by international graduate students. International students also have a major impact on teaching given that, “if not for international teaching assistants, many courses required by U.S. students would be in short supply, delaying their graduations” (Peterson et al. 1999, p. 68). A third commodifying rationale used or critiqued in the literature is the intercultural competence that American students can obtain by interacting with international students on US campuses (Bevis 2002; Chapdelaine and Alexitch 2004; Harrison 2002). This research highlights the developmental growth of

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domestic students (Andrade and Evans 2009; Urban and Palmer 2013), essentially portraying international students as a diversity resource for Americans (Yao and Viggiano 2019). A growing body of work examines how international students and student mobility are situated within larger systems of global domination and geopolitics, addressing the forces of globalization. For example, Kim (2010) uses Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory and cultural capital to highlight how Korean international graduate students’ motivations to attend US HE were influenced by both US hegemony (power of global cultural capital) and US political values (democracy and freedom). Kim asserts that Korean’s students’ aspirations were “reproducing the global hierarchy of higher education” (p. 123) in their attempt to improve their competitive positioning in the global workforce through a US degree. However, Kim (2010) also wrote, “Korean students see US higher education as a means of liberation that resolves or escapes from some of the inner contradictions of Korean higher education, such as gender discrimination, a degree caste system, and an authoritarian learning culture” (pp. 123–124). These dual motivations demonstrate the complex and multiple globalized political and economic forces impacting international students’ engagement with US HE. Other scholars have used the constructs of imperialism (Rhee and Sagaria 2004) and interest convergence (Yao and Viggiano 2019) to critique the commodification of international students for US HE diversity and political and economic gains. This literature highlights the institutional discourses that are used to portray international students ranging from international students as capital to geopolitical tool in foreign diplomacy. Whether from the student, HEI, or country (host/home) perspective, our equity-driven lens supports investigating how international students are situated within multiple geopolitical, sociohistorical, and globalized economic systems and contexts. This includes international students’ impact on home and host countries, the demand-side motivations for student mobility, and how student mobility works to transcend and/or reify global inequities.

International Higher Education Partnerships and Research Activities Generally, US HEIs are shifting their emphasis from cross-border mobility of individual students and faculty to capacity building and collaboration at the institutional level involving research, teaching/curriculum development, and the creation of programs and campuses (Knight 2012; Scott 2006). These institutional-level activities require partnerships with stakeholders abroad that are justified by scholars as being of strategic importance to HEIs for research production, educational opportunities for students, and financial gain (Chan 2004; Helms 2015; Maringe and de Wit 2016; Sakamoto and Chapman 2011, Sutton and Obst 2011). Much of the literature we describe in this section on international HE partnerships fell into at least one of the three categories: (1) defining how partnerships are structured and justified, (2) sharing best practices for sustainable and successful partnerships and/or the challenges of partnership implementation, and (3) assessing the outcomes of

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partnerships. Our equity-driven lens draws attention to how the positioning of HE partners within a global knowledge economy relates to (in)equitable partnership efforts and outcomes. Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives and De-/constructing Internationalization Literature on domestic HE partnerships is predominantly framed using strategic management and organization theories (e.g., Eddy 2010). These approaches are useful in understanding how partnerships function broadly as they have been used to investigate partnership length of time, motivations and goals, resources, funding and staffing structures, activities, and types of agreements developed (e.g., Gatewood and Sutton 2017; Godbey and Turlington 2002). Scholars of international HE have developed a number of typologies from this domestic partnership research for categorizing international partnership structures. For example, Maringe and Foskett (2010) describe international HE partnerships as existing on at least one of the three levels: (1) faculty-driven, which can involve faculty partners from multiple countries/HEIs; (2) university-sponsored that involve partner HEIs from multiple countries; and (3) organization-sponsored including foundations and associations. Similarly, de Wit (2002) suggests that international partnerships should be defined by the level of the partners involved (e.g., at the department, center, school, or institutional level) or the level of institutional engagement (e.g., individuals, academic department or school, institution, or system). Each level demonstrates the size of the partnership unit and structure, which often reflects complexity in management. Caution must be taken in applying domestic partnership scholarship or using broad international partnership typologies toward a construction of international HE partnerships that does not acknowledge sociohistorical, cultural, and geopolitical complexities that cross-border engagement entails. The American Council on Education drew similar conclusions in their analysis of the applicability in practice of existing international HE partnership (Helms 2015). Their analysis ultimately found dual importance in program administration/management and cultural/contextual issues, but also that “compared with management issues, these themes [cultural and contextual] are generally more complex; good practices are emerging, but there is greater variation among the standards in terms of how they are addressed, and more outstanding questions about practical applications” (Helms 2015, p. 5). The increasing growth of international HE partnerships has led to calls for greater understanding of the dynamics of power, culture, and respect for local context in these relationships to avoid homogenizing and hegemonic outcomes (Knight 2012; Sutton and Obst 2011). International HE partnership research grounded in domestic HE partnership literature and strategic management and organization theories has placed less of an emphasis on issues of (in)equity. However, an equity-driven lens is particularly important given that US HEIs participating in international HE partnerships are predominantly working with Majority World partners, which creates an unequal playing field of power (George Mwangi 2017; Hagenmeier 2015; Lanford 2019).

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Maringe and de Wit (2016) explain six justifications of international HE partnerships: 1. Obtaining global knowledge processes that are challenging to procure as a single institution 2. Using local and global perspectives to tackle a problem of common concern 3. Enhancing international capital 4. Sharing resources to create investments 5. Requirements by national rules and regulations to engage in partnerships 6. Narrowing knowledge gaps and other inequities, particularly between the Majority World and Minority World areas While these rationales are not mutually exclusive, scholars find that self-interest by US HEIs, such as reputation building and financial gain and neoliberal ideologies that prioritize competition and financial gain, can overshadow strategies for reciprocity and mutual benefit in their partnerships with the Majority World (Anthony and Nicola 2019; Chan 2004; Lanford 2019). A growing area of scholarship centers on equity by using frameworks that emphasize partnership dynamics of power and reciprocity. This scholarship deconstructs the concept of “partner(ship)” among stakeholders with differing resources and the global knowledge economy. Sutton and Obst’s (2011) transactional/transformational framing of international HE partnerships, which was adapted from service-learning models, presents one example. They discuss transactional partnerships emphasizing the exchange of resources, people, or ideas that do not require institutional buy-in or create institutional change, while transformational partnerships focus on relationship building between institutions, collaborative efforts, and the development of common goals. The authors explain how the development of transformational partnerships is made more difficult by asymmetric approaches to engagement in which the Majority World partner is expected to build capacity and learn from the Minority World partner, but not vice versa. Thus, knowledge transfer and capacity building become one-directional and dependent, rather than collaborative and reciprocal. Similarly, George Mwangi (2017) used the concept of mutuality to conduct a qualitative, multi-case study analysis of 60 US HEI partnerships for development projects with Majority World HEIs. These partnerships were funded by USAID to work on faculty and student training needs, conduct applied research, improve academic program offerings, and engage institutions in community outreach – all with the aim of improving the capacity of the Majority World partner’s HEI and to contribute to their local and national development goals. Mutuality is “a framework for approaching collaboration with sensitivity to the context of differing cultures and value systems” (Shivan and Hill 2011, p. 155) and is comprised of four structurally oriented goals of international engagement and development: equity, autonomy, solidarity, and participation (Galtung 1980). George Mwangi (2017) found that, while partners strove for mutual partnerships, they lacked formal processes or intentional communication strategies for mitigating the power differential that existed between US and Majority World partners. Although

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Majority World partners were knowledgeable of their institutional and country contexts more so than their US partners, they were not always included in partnership development planning, which did not use their knowledge and expertise in an effective way. There was often a disconnect in the partnership, defined as an ideological desire for mutuality among the partners, but a lack of mutuality in practice (George Mwangi 2017). Scholars have called for the development of international HE partnerships that emphasize transformational and reciprocal relationships (Knight 2012; Sutton and Obst 2011), but this approach requires empirical inquiry that can inform best practices for equitable partnership engagement. Much of the work on international HE partnerships emphasizes capacity building and sustainability (Helms 2015), but less is known about whether these outcomes occur through one-sided, external support or a two-way transfer of knowledge and mutual benefit. Scholars should continue to examine the purpose, motivations, and drivers of international HE partnerships. An equity-driven lens directly brings issues of power and domination to the forefront to assess their role in partnership engagement and success. Contemporary Forces of Globalization Our equity-driven lens can also be used by scholars to interrogate the global systems and structural pushes and pulls of globalization that lead US HEIs and Majority World HEIs to partner in ways that upend equitable engagement. In theory, international partnerships are a win-win for all involved, especially in light of how many common issues, such as nutrition challenges and health pandemics, affect people all over the world. Benefits of international partnerships for HEIs include global recognition, increased funding support, and academic prestige of their faculty and scholars. From a personal and professional standpoint, scholars have the opportunity to expand their knowledge and experiences and increase the global dimensions of their research when participating in internationalization initiatives (Jung et al. 2014). Research is a high-cost endeavor when considering expensive laboratories, human resources, and financial investments. Research universities in the Majority World may need to partner with well-resourced international universities, usually from the Minority World or with larger corporations (Altbach 2016), to compete in the global academic marketplace. Yet despite the push of HEIs to create cross-border research partnerships and engage in international scholarship, few scholars are prepared to engage in the international research and scholarly arenas (Yao and Vital 2016). Research ethics (Edejer 1999) and the possibilities of scientific colonialism (Trostle 1992) complicate the emphasis on international partnership research and scholarly activities. Much of the emphasis for research partnerships may not truly be equal collaboration, especially when considering the dynamics of the Majority World and the Minority World. A form of “scientific globalization” (Altbach 2016, p. 186) is established within the global research marketplace, with priorities and norms established by “the leaders of research, located in the major universities in the United States and other Western nations” (p. 186). International scholars, for

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whom English is not their primary language, may be co-authors on manuscripts that are disseminated through what would be considered “mainstream” journals that use English as their operating language (Canagarajah 1996; Lillis and Curry 2006). Majority World scholars may feel pressure to collaborate with Minority World scholars as a way to get published in mainstream journals, potentially leading to uneven research and writing partnerships. Even more troubling is Canagarajah’s (1996) assertion that unequal access to mainstream journals put international scholars at a disadvantage because it “enables center scholars to borrow the data of periphery scholars. . .to build their own arguments in mainstream books and journals” (p. 461). Thus, inequity can arise due to academic publishing’s contribution to “serving the Western hegemony of knowledge” (Canagarajah 2002, p. 6). Research and the production of knowledge are now responsive to the market-like nature of HE (Paasi 2005). Many university governance bodies around the world use peer-reviewed journal articles as the criteria to measure faculty productivity, with an emphasis on citation factors in what are considered top journal indexing sites. For example, faculty in Taiwan must establish their research performance through citations and publishing manuscripts indexed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), often considered the top-tier indexing sites (Chou et al. 2013). Several other Asian countries are also complicit in using indexing sites to demonstrate their high-quality research, with the assumption that indexing sites contribute to higher status and rankings in an academic global game coined the “SSCI Syndrome” (Chou 2014). The SSCI Syndrome indicates a very narrow focus on perceived quality and productivity that has been imposed by national and institutional policies in the quest for higher rankings in the global HE market. The dangers in ascribing to citation indexing sites again indicate the hegemonic structures of academia in the USA. Both SSCI and SCI are owned by Canada-based Thomson Reuters. According to Chou (2014), the indexing standards have “long been recognized by major English-speaking universities” (p. 24), with Australia, Canada, the USA, the UK, and New Zealand representing much of the Minority World. Because of the draw toward English-dominant research and publications, many US-based faculty establish research partnerships with institutions and scholars in the Majority World. Some current common models of partnerships include “postal research” (Costello and Zumla 2000, p. 827), in which Minority World researchers request colleagues in Majority World countries to send them samples or data. Another model includes “parachute research” (p. 827), which is likely the most common international research model. Parachute research describes researchers, most of whom are Minority World-based, traveling to other countries for short periods of time to bring back data to their home institutions. The time invested in the research sites is minimal, with either much of the work done by in-country partners or without true immersive practice. The dangers of such research are a lack of mutuality within partnerships as well as a lack of attention to local and Indigenous cultures and people. The pressure for international research partnerships may contribute to issues of scientific colonialism, in which Minority World researchers take, use, and publish data out of Majority World communities (Trostle 1992). As a

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counter to scientific colonialism and centering the needs of the Minority World, our equity-driven lens asks scholars to de-center US HEIs in international HE partnership research in which US HEIs are partners. This will allow for a clearer understanding of the impact of partnership work on Majority World partners as well as the positioning of these partners, which can better inform best (and equity-driven) partnership practices. Researchers can also better acknowledge, learn from, and engage in the localized context of Majority World partners, which includes their unique sociohistorical, political, cultural, and economic characteristics.

US Involvement in Transnational Education Transnational education broadly “refers to study programs where learners are located in a country other than the one in which the awarding institution is based” (Wilkins 2016, p. 3). The establishment of transnational education (TNE) is based on HEIs’ developing educational partnership with other institutions and government agencies around the world. TNE benefits both the sending and receiving countries; for example, receiving countries gain access to HE as a way to meet growing economic and educational demands, particularly in regions such as the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia (Altbach and Knight 2007). Sending institutions are typically based in Minority World regions such as the USA, the UK, and Australia. Benefits for these sending institutions include increased global prestige due to their presence and financial rewards from tuition revenue (Altbach and Knight 2007). With these shared interests and benefits, TNE has grown as a way for HE to move across borders in contemporary times. With the proliferation of TNE, the types of providers and policies vary across regions, institutions, and researchers who conduct studies on TNE, resulting in an abundance of terminology and operational definitions. Knight (2016) created a framework of TNE that categorized the multiple types and definitions used by sending and receiving countries. Two primary categories are used to organize the different types of TNE: collaborative TNE provisions and independent provisions. Collaborative programs are those that include collaboration between the local and foreign providers, including twinning programs, joint degree programs, co-founded universities, and local-supported distance education programs (Knight 2016). Independent programs are those in which the sending institutions do not have formalized collaborations with local institutions. These include international branch campuses, franchise universities, distance education, and foreign private institutions (Knight 2016). Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives Current research on the USA’s involvement in TNE tends to focus on branch campuses in single countries or regions, such as Qatar (Golkowska 2017; Walsh 2019), or broad-based systematic reviews of literature in an attempt to organize the many aspects of TNE (Johnson 2017; Naidoo 2009). Yet many of these studies are missing a critical conceptual/theoretical grounding or lacking a lens centered on equity. An exception would include

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Kosmützky and Putty (2016), who conducted a systematic review on the literature related to transnational, offshore, cross-border, and borderless HE. In that review, they found that the research can be divided into six themes: overview and trends, quality assurance and regulation, teaching and learning, institutional and management perspectives, governance and policy, and student choice and student mobility. The authors also critique their finding that TNE research tends to be “extremely ‘localized’” (Kosmützky and Putty 2016, p. 22) and seldom challenge the “ideological or normative underpinnings” (p. 22) of TNE, which may contribute to unequal and inequitable transnational efforts. Sociohistorical Context Although TNE may be considered a newer form of crossborder HE, the first transnational institutions were provided by US institutions in the mid-1950s as a way to educate US military or serve their own students in study abroad programs (Verbik and Merkley 2006). Although TNE is not a new phenomenon, the scope and scale of cross-border partnerships have grown extensively over the years (Naidoo 2009), with the USA taking the early lead in numbers of branch campuses (Verbik 2007). In the late 1900s, US institutions established several international branch campuses, to varying levels of success (Altbach 2016). For example, over a dozen US HEIs opened in Japan in the 1970s, yet were not well received due to economic and enrollment issues as well as difficulties with governmental officials in Japan. Other branch campuses include New York University’s Shanghai and Abu Dhabi campuses and Duke University’s campus in China, which are still in operation (Altbach 2016). Although branch campuses have surged and waned in recent years, as of 2016, the USA was the largest provider of international branch campuses, with a total of 78 campuses out of the total 249 reported worldwide (Crist 2017; Garrett et al. 2016). De-/constructing Internationalization Despite the seemingly neutral approach to cross-border education, many sending institutions, especially from the USA, have been criticized for taking an entrepreneurial and capitalistic approach through TNE. As stated by Altbach (2016), “American overseas expansion is in some cases becoming frankly entrepreneurial” (p. 127). For example, several US institutions, considered to be low-prestige that needed the financial benefits from overseas investments, partnered with the Israeli education sector. Most of those collaborative institutions have been shut down “in part because of concerns about low quality and the lack of adequate supervision from the sponsoring institution” (Altbach 2016, p. 127). Altbach (2010) highlighted several areas that may lead to, in his words, how “branch campuses may be unsustainable” (p. 2): difficulties relocating qualified and experienced faculty, replication of curriculum, quality of students, and shifting global priorities. As a result, the sustainability of branch campuses may be tenuous, especially as long-term implications are unclear.

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The difficulties in ensuring quality and regulation are that, in the global academic market, there really are no regulations for HE. Much of the specific policies are related to different governments, affecting both the sending and receiving institutions. Quality assurance “has different meaning and significance” (Kosmützky and Putty 2016, p. 18), which can be difficult to track and assess. In addition, US HEIs do not follow national standards of education; as a result, each institution participating in TNE determines their own criteria for quality (Kosmützky and Putty 2016). Yet the current research on US-related TNE seldom connects the interrelatedness of issues and topics of establishing and maintaining branch campuses, with most research compartmentalized by topics such as student and administrator’s lived experiences (e.g., Healey 2016; Wilkins et al. 2012), policies and organizational structures (e.g., Lane and Kinser 2013; Tierney and Lanford 2015), and definitions and typologies of the different types of TNE (e.g., Knight 2016; Verbik 2007). Much of the research emphasizes either very localized studies in specific regions or specific topics without much attention to the broader interconnectedness of transnational education. Contemporary Forces of Globalization Using an equity-driven lens necessitates an examination of how globalization affects the research and practice of TNE, particularly related to issues of power and dominance. For example, TNE contributes to English language dominance. Although teaching and learning processes vary across different institutions and regions, a common aspect of TNE is the use of the English language as institutions’ operating language (Altbach 2016). Many TNE use English as lingua franca, or English-mediated instruction (EMI), as a way to attract students. Yet this approach may be contributing to English language dominance in academia, especially at TNE around the world. The use of EMI increases institutional prestige while simultaneously assisting in the English language development of staff and students (Ferguson 2007). The use of EMI can marginalize non-native English speakers (Jenkins 2014) as they experience difficulties in navigating comprehension and communication in classwork (Bjorkman 2008). Students may find difficulty in understanding and communicating with their instructors, especially if the instructors are also non-native English speakers (Yao et al. 2019a). Despite the challenges with learning and EMI, research shows that students choose to attend TNE to advance their employability post-graduation (Wilkins and Huisman 2011; Yao and Garcia 2018; Yao and Tuliao 2019). Students may experience a new culture through an immersive format gain prestige from an international degree and, at the same time, improve their English language skills (Fang and Wang 2014; Wilkins and Huisman 2011; Yao and Garcia 2018). In a study by Wilkins, Balakrishnan, and Huisman (2012), students chose to enroll at US branch campuses in the United Arab Emirates because they were able to receive a degree that is rewarded by the sending campus by following the same curriculum, which contributed to the overall prestige of their foreign degree. The pull of TNE is strong given

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the interest in Western teaching methods and perceived improvement in communication (Fang and Wang 2014). The expansion of transnational education has contributed to academic colonization through the imposition of English as lingua franca, entrepreneurial student recruitment, and Minority World-based teaching and learning practices (Altbach 2016; Ferguson 2007; Jenkins 2014; Yao et al. 2019). Yet many host countries seek out these academic colonial practices as a way to participate in global HE. Scholars engaging in research related to transnational education must take into consideration the social, political, and economic conditions that may contribute to nation-states participating in these partnerships. For example, researchers should consider integrating the sociohistorical context of the host country for TNE while simultaneously questioning sending countries’ motivations for participating in TNE. Examining why HEIs in the USA participate in transnational educational partnerships will provide insights on the motivations and realities of the harmful impact of potential academic colonization. Asking the question of “who benefits from this partnership?” will illuminate how practices may affect those who are most vulnerable, including students who choose to attend transnational universities.

Study Abroad as High-Impact Practice Study abroad programs have often been lauded as high-impact practices for student success and persistence (Kuh 2008; Stebleton et al. 2013). According to NAFSA (2019) which is considered the leading international education association in the USA, study abroad is assumed to “help American students succeed in their careers, and collectively, these international experiences lead to a more innovative, secure, and prosperous United States” (NAFSA 2019). US HE uses study abroad programs for “preparing U.S. students to secure jobs after graduation in order to advance their careers, as well as preparing them to thrive in the multicultural global marketplace” (Institute of International Education 2017). The US federal government has also invested resources into promoting more US students to study abroad, as evidenced by former President Barack Obama’s 2009 “100,000 Strong Initiative” as a way to increase the number and diversity of US students who study in China (U.S.-China Strong 2019). Sociohistorical Context Study abroad became popularized in the USA with the passage of Higher Education Act of 1965 which permitted HEIs to use federal financial aid to support study abroad (Mukherjee 2012). Since that time, study abroad has “evolved from the periphery to the center of the global curriculum” (Mukherjee 2012, p. 81) as a way to promote intercultural communication and understanding. Study abroad was lauded for bringing benefits to the USA, especially related to peacemaking and global citizenship (Mukherjee 2012). Study abroad may also contribute to security and economic needs of the USA (NAFSA 2019). Using the equity-oriented lens, understanding the sociohistorical context of study abroad

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allows scholars to delve deeper into the foundations that inform current study abroad efforts. Study abroad programs span a variety of structures and practices, including duration of programs, role of faculty and/or staff, and logistical responsibilities (e. g., institutional vs. external organization). Variations exist on participation rates and popularity of regional destinations. Study abroad as an international educational enterprise is considered to be an important aspect of college students’ educational experience. Research on study abroad crosses many topical areas such as the influence of faculty-led programs (e.g., Goode 2008; Niehaus et al. 2018) and outcomes for specific majors (e.g., Niehaus and Inkelas 2016; Wainwright et al. 2009). Every November, the Institute of International Education (IIE) releases facts and figures related to international students in the USA and US students’ participation in study abroad. According to the most recent IIE report (2019b), the majority of students studying abroad participate in short-term programs that are in Europe, with growing interest in countries such as Greece and the Netherlands (IIE 2019a), all of which represent the Minority World. Broadly speaking, US students are currently following an upward trajectory in study abroad participation, which continues the growth over the past 25 years (IIE 2018). In addition, short-term programs, defined as summer programs or activities 8 weeks or less, have increased in popularity over time (IIE 2018). Short-term programs attract students because of the opportunity to efficiently engage in international experiences because of the shorter time commitment and potential lower cost (Brown et al. 2006). Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives Many HEIs in the USA have lauded study abroad as a tool for student learning, intercultural engagement, and global citizenship development (Altbach 2016), driving much of institutional emphases on study abroad as an impetus for student development. As a result, study abroad is often the top stated institutional priority in internationalization efforts in US HEIs (American Council on Education 2017). Conceptual and theoretical perspectives related to study abroad research tend to be used in qualitative studies that focus on student learning outcomes. Because of the prevalence of short-term programs, much of the research focuses on the student outcomes of shorter sojourns. A multi-site case study noted increased self-awareness and awareness of cultural and social issues from short-term study abroad (Jones et al. 2012). Students report “self-perceived impacts on students’ intellectual and personal lives” (Chieffo and Griffiths 2004), such as learning to view the USA differently and developing personal attributes such as adaptability and flexibility. Short-term study abroad may be a mechanism for providing intercultural experiences and personal development during the time in sojourn (Chieffo and Griffiths 2004; Mapp 2012). Longer-term programs may lead to more significant outcomes, as stated by Dwyer (2004) who compared correlations between long-term and short-term

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program outcomes. The attention given to post-trip programmatic interventions for meaning making may also contribute to student learning and development as founded by Rowan-Kenyon and Niehaus (2011) in a case study that followed up with students 1 year after they concluded a 1-week study abroad experience. Guided by Mezirow’s (1991, 1997, 2000) theory of transformative learning, the authors found that continued and purposeful engagement after the trip contributed to students finding continued meaning in their experiences. Students who did not integrate the experience in their daily lives shared that their “experience had faded into a distant memory” (Rowan-Kenyon and Niehaus 2011, p. 224). The convenience of short-term programs may provide both positive and limited outcomes for transformative student learning and development. Contemporary Forces of Globalization Using an equity-focused lens, scholars must go beyond reporting student learning outcomes. The short time in-country may lead to “issues of consumerism, postcolonial practices, cultural tourism, and commodification of experiences” (Kortegast and Kupo 2017, p. 151). The shortened nature of these programs has led to critiques of these trips serving as universitysponsored tourism that may be potentially damaging to the host country while simultaneously viewing the host country as the “other” (Lewin 2009; ZemachBersin 2007). The objectification of the local people often appears in social media, in which students take pictures of “cultural Others” as a way to show their exotic travel to friends and family back home (Kortegast and Kupo 2017). The shortened nature of these programs also can serve as vacation sites, especially due to promotion of “island programs,” in which students stay inwardly focused with their own travel companions (Lewin 2009). Short-term study abroad can lead to what Breen (2012) termed “privileged migration,” described as “a process whereby students relocate to places that become ‘home’ for a limited period of time, and thereby privilege a kind of temporary engagement with the foreign, before returning to the normalcy of home” (p. 84). As a result, students may gain artificial experiences (Ramírez 2013) while simultaneously creating harm to their personal cultural understandings and host country. De-/constructing Internationalization We suggest that researchers use an equitydriven lens to examine how study abroad may be more accessible for certain student populations. The majority of students who study abroad tend to be White (70% in 2017/2018; IIE 2019a). The other racial/ethnic student representations have stayed relatively flat over the past 3 years, currently listed as 10.6% Hispanic or Latino, 8.4% Asian or Pacific Islander, 6.1% Black or African American, 4.4% Multiracial, and 0.5% American Indian or Alaska Native (IIE 2019a). Although the numbers of students studying abroad have increased over the years, the representation of various racial/ethnic groups has not increased. Contemporary studies that focus on specific student populations, specifically students of Color, are becoming more common in study abroad research. Disaggregating student populations is important because of demonstrated outcomes

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of study abroad benefits for minoritized students (e.g., Day-Vines et al. 1998; Lee and Green 2016; Morgan et al. 2002; Neff 2001). For example, African American students who traveled to Ghana were able to examine US culture more critically, develop their racial, ethnic, and cultural identity, and connect with the emotional aspects of the slave trade history (Day-Vines et al. 1998). Students who participated in heritage study abroad programs, defined as sites that represent students’ ethnic identities, were able to gain a better understanding of their identity and shared bonds with the heritage site (Morgan et al. 2002; Neff 2001). In a qualitative case study, Lee and Green (2016) found that Black undergraduate participants in a South Africa study program experienced stronger sense of their academic interests and gained better understanding of their racial identity and greater knowledge on how to conduct research. Yet despite the many benefits of study abroad for racially and ethnically minoritized students, the majority of current research tends to aggregate findings for all students rather than examining outcomes for specific populations. Thus, using an equity-driven lens encourages researchers to disaggregate student participants. An equity-driven lens also requires attention to the structural barriers that contribute to differences across groups in participation in study abroad. Structural challenges include lack of information, financial constraints, and scheduling conflicts (Brown 2002; Brux and Fry 2010; Gaines 2012; Walker et al. 2011). Using survey data and focus groups, Brux and Fry (2010) found that faculty were an important factor for encouraging multicultural students to study abroad; the faculty who were most likely to encourage students to go abroad identified as multicultural faculty and/or had prior and current international experiences. The encouragement of faculty may mitigate some of the personal barriers toward study abroad that students of Color may feel, such as concerns related to racism, discrimination, and safety (Green 2017; Willis 2012, 2015). Black students in one focus group reported that study abroad was “for other students, but not for them” (Brux and Fry 2010, p. 519). The perception that study abroad is for White undergraduate students permeates contemporary discourse on who is encouraged to and chooses to study abroad (Brux and Fry 2010). Future research should also consider the motivations and experiences of graduate students and adult learners, especially those who may be from underrepresented backgrounds. Campus internationalization efforts often include pushing graduatelevel study abroad as a way to prepare future faculty and administrators for working and leading in a global world. Although there has been an increased emphasis on study abroad activity for graduate students, scant research exists on the experiences of graduate students studying abroad (Dirkx et al. 2014; Shallenberger 2009). Graduate students bring deeper nuances to the sojourning experience as they “tend to focus on the academic and professional development” (Dirkx et al. 2016, p. 531). They similarly bring previous professional experiences and academic backgrounds into their meaning making of their travels. In a qualitative study, Green (2017) found that for Black women, graduate students’ study abroad allowed for transnational movement to help them make meaning of Black womanhood as they returned “to their bodies as a site of knowledge” (p. 107). In doing so, graduate students may be

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able to gain a sense of global perspectives as a way to prepare themselves for a globalized world. Scholars should also continue to examine the benefits of study abroad to different student populations, including students of Color, first-generation students, and adult learners. Study abroad research tends to aggregate findings for all students, with few studies that attend to nuances of student demographics. Additional research should be conducted on differences in the benefits based on the duration of study abroad programs. Although research shows that longer duration programs are more beneficial for students, short-term programs attract the most students in the USA. Continued research is needed to understand the long-term effects of short-term study abroad programs. Disaggregating the experiences of various student populations would provide insights on how short-term programs may be more beneficial for certain student populations, especially because the focus is typically on immediate outcomes, or changes in behavior of returning students. Expanding beyond immediate student responses may contribute to expanded theory development and application for study abroad. The question of “who can participate?” is key in how study abroad programs are promoted to all college students. How can students participate if they are undocumented/DACAmented? What are the potential traumas that the idea of study abroad may elicit in students who are refugees or children of refugees? Study abroad as a high-impact practice must be analyzed from an equity-driven lens if we are to realize the full potential of study abroad for all students.

Strategizing Internationalization at Home (IaH) Internationalization at home (IaH) is a practice that was coined by Bengt Nilsson in the late 1990s as a way of encouraging on campus intercultural learning between domestic students and the growing immigrant/international student populations in Sweden (Agnew and Kahn 2014). While Nilsson focused on one Swedish HEI (Malmö University), the term has since been further conceptualized and applied to the US HE context given similar patterns in immigration and international student enrollment. Knight (2012) highlights that IaH “strategies can include the intercultural and international dimension in the teaching/learning process, research, extracurricular activities, relationships with local cultural and ethnic community groups, and integration of foreign students and scholars into campus life and activities” (p. 34). Civic engagement projects where students build relationships with local cultural and ethnic communities, participate in online group projects with students in other parts of the world, and are provided intentional opportunities for engagement between domestic and international students within a US HEI are all examples of IaH practices (Beelen and Jones 2015; Jones 2013; Watkins and Smith 2018). Sociohistorical Context Attention to IaH is important given the lack of exposure many students in the US have to cross-border internationalization efforts (Brown

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2002; Brux and Fry 2010; Gaines 2012; Walker et al. 2011). US HEIs experience challenges in sending large numbers of students abroad given the lack of state or federal support for study abroad that is found in other regions of the world (de Wit 2002). Governmental support (or lack thereof) acts as a globalizing force in how HEIs around the world structure education abroad opportunities, subsequently impacting student accessibility. Unlike Europe’s Erasmus program that provides financial support to all students to go abroad via an exchange program, students in the USA are often expected to pay for study abroad experiences independently or through institutional financial support if available (de Wit 2002). Thus, cross-border activities that can increase intercultural competence, such as study abroad, are prohibitive to many students. The use of an equity-oriented lens to support research that centers on whether and how IaH improves students’ equitable exposure to global learning is essential. Only 11% of students in US HEIs traveled abroad during their undergraduate career in 2018 (Institute of International Education 2019a), with the majority of these students coming from majority and/or privileged backgrounds (Dessoff 2006; Perna et al. 2014; Sánchez et al. 2006; Salisbury et al. 2011). A study by Soria and Troisi (2014) presents only one of the few empirical studies focusing on IaH’s potential as an equitable alternative to study abroad, finding that IaH activities can positively influence students’ development of intercultural competence as much, if not more than, study abroad. Although HEIs are focused on ways to “bring the world to the home campus and the home campus to the world” (Agnew and Kahn 2014, p. 32) through IaH, the actual process and priorities for internationalization vary across programs and people, leading to difficulties in cohesive planning and implementation. Schoorman (1999) conducted an embedded case study to examine how members of one university described their conceptualization of internationalization. Findings identified three pedagogical challenges to comprehensive internationalization as an institution: university members had diverse understandings and implementation practices of internationalization, perceptions were linked to the relevance of internationalization to their field of study, and international students were not heavily utilized as resources (Schoorman 1999). As a result of these differences in perspectives, the implementation of IaH may be difficult from an institutional perspective without a clear and strategic path forward. In a study by Childress (2009), internationalization plans were found to be helpful with IaH at 31 participating institutions. The internationalization plans contributed to providing a road map for implementing as well as promoting buy-in and collaboration. However, the plans in the study seemed to assume neutrality in internationalization efforts without much (if any) suggestions for promoting and ensuring equity. One aspect of IaH is internationalizing the curriculum, through the teaching, research, and service in a university (Knight 2008). In considering how HEIs may move toward a more international campus, the curriculum is often central to the way in which an institution operates. Broadly speaking, internationalizing the curriculum is a process “by which international elements are infused into course content,

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international resources are used in course readings and assignments, and instructional methodologies appropriate to a culturally diverse student population are implemented” (Schuerholz-Lehr et al. 2007, p. 70). As stated by Leask (2015), one of the foremost scholars on this topic, internationalizing the curriculum requires an understanding of the complexities related to three interactive components: the formal, informal, and hidden curriculum (Leask 2015). The formal curriculum refers to planned activities and processes that lead to degree completion, whereas the informal curriculum pertains to activities that supplement classwork. The hidden curriculum is the most nebulous, yet most pervasive aspect of curriculum planning that includes unintended and implicit messages. Thus, internationalizing the curriculum is complicated because it is “situated at the intersection of policy and practice in universities and the cause of fascination, frustration, confusion, and fulfillment” (Leask 2015, p. 3). When considering how to internationalize the curriculum, the move toward internationalization can be fraught with challenges, disagreements, and varying perspectives. Many academic institutions and programs seek the elusive goal of developing students’ global competence at home through shifting curricula, yet there is no common pathway or formula on how to achieve these lofty goals (Brustein 2007). Most research related to internationalizing the curriculum has been criticized for being disjointed and lacking coherence (Barnett and Coate 2005; Leask 2013), with few studies situated in the USA. US-based studies tend to emphasize specific disciplines such as psychology (Bikos et al. 2013), business (Manuel et al. 2001), and counseling psychology (Marsella and Pedersen 2004). Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives Using our equity-oriented lens, we found extant IaH research to be grounded in theories related to (1) individuals’ interactions such as Allport’s (1954) intergroup/intercultural contact theory, which outlines conditions for having positive intercultural relations, and (2) intercultural and global competency development such as Deardorff’s (2009) intercultural development theory that focuses on skills and knowledge that can be developed for improved intercultural competence. This was not surprising as IaH scholarship in the US context places emphasis on teaching, curriculum, co-curriculum, and global learning, which tend to be the foundation of US IaH practices and strategies (Knight 2008; Leask 2013; Landorf et al. 2018). Custer and Tuominen (2017) used Allport’s (1954) theory to ground their quantitative study on a virtual exchange program between a US community college and Japanese HEIs. The researchers investigated changes in the intercultural competency, intra-/interpersonal development, and cognitive development of students who participated in the program, finding that US students placed greater value on interacting with people from different cultures after their exchange experience. This example is demonstrative of how intergroup/intercultural contact and intercultural development frameworks lend themselves to inquiry that examines the outcomes of student learning and development through curricular or cocurricular activities. However, the participants in Custer and Tuominen’s (2017) study

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had self-reported high levels of intercultural competence prior to the exchange experience and predominantly came from highly educated families, despite community colleges often enrolling high numbers of first generation to college students. While researching their participants’ learning outcomes has utility, an equity-oriented lens might also emphasize the demographics and motivations of students who participated in the virtual exchange programs, the accessibility of IaH program for diverse students, and other structural or environmental factors that impact IaH opportunities for students’ global learning and development. De-/constructing Internationalization Unlike research on European HE, there is a dearth of literature specifically naming IaH within the US context as a strategy that brings together multiple internationalization practices, or research examining IaH as a strategy inclusive of multiple practices (van Liempd et al. 2013). Instead, researchers often focused on singular practices such as peer interactions with international students and internationalized curriculum and teaching practices. Our equity-oriented lens supports de-/constructing and researching IaH as a multipronged strategy, given the reality that HEIs tend to engage in more than one form of internationalization practice at a time. Understanding the engagement and interaction of multiple internationalization practices and strategies could better elucidate the impact of IaH on students, institutions, and other stakeholders. We found only one study that considered the organizational structures and processes supporting IaH. This study, by Choi and Khamalah (2017), inventoried and investigated the reach of IaH to students as well as assessed how well IaH practices aligned with institutional mission. Within their single-case qualitative study, they found that the HEI research site had misalignment between support for IaH in institutional rhetoric and institutional mission/support structures for IaH goals. Their findings lead us to question whether other HEIs have similar misalignment, which would jeopardize the effectiveness of IaH efforts overall. Scaling up the focus of Choi and Khamalah’s (2017) study to be multi-institutional – for example, engaging in document analysis of HEIs’ internationalization strategies (to determine goals for processes and outcomes) in tandem with surveys and interviews (to determine implementation of processes and actual outcomes) – is one recommendation for further inquiry into how IaH is constructed and realized on college campuses. Contemporary Forces of Globalization Through an equity-driven lens, researchers might further de-/construct IaH to understand what is acknowledged as IaH practice (and why), what practices should be acknowledged (and why they are not), and who the beneficiaries of IaH are or should be. For example, Soria and Troisi’s (2014) study solely focused on the learning and development of domestic students, thus excluding international students from the sample they selected from the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) survey data. While a study on the intercultural competency development of domestic students is not inherently problematic, the authors did not address this sampling decision, which can leave readers assuming that domestic students are the only ones who build intercultural

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competency from IaH practices. Further, it reifies the commodifying message that interacting with international students and forms of global engagement are meant to be consumed by US students and their universities for their own benefit. Another way that scholars can engage in equity-driven IaH scholarship is by examining the multiple forces of globalization that push and pull HEIs between student learning and development motivations along with fiscal and reputationdriving motivations of their IaH strategies. For example, research suggests that intercultural competence, as a student learning outcome of IaH, is perceived by US HEIs as making their students more competitive and employable on the job market (Bolen 2001; Miller et al. 2018; Teichler and Janson 2007) as well as more prepared to live in a global world (Deardorff 2006; Held and McGrew 2007). This scholarship highlights economic forces of globalization, which foregrounds IaH as a strategy for developing global leaders and competitive employees – outcomes which scholars have criticized reify a neoliberal agenda and marketdriven orientation (Cole 2016; Raimondi 2012). While this critique has value, given the high cost of college, HEIs are pressured to ensure student learning translate into tangible opportunities after degree completion. Researchers might investigate the complexities, tensions, and synergies associated with being student-/learning-centered in their IaH practices in tandem with facing the economic realities of a globalized world. Although not often used as a primary rationale for IaH in research, another increasingly important global force to consider is how IaH practices can be more environmentally sustainable than cross-border activities (Watkins and Smith 2018). Having faculty and students fly to other countries to engage in research and learning creates tremendous amounts of carbon emissions. IaH practices align with the increasing concern about HEIs reducing their carbon footprint (Shields 2019) by focusing on global learning within the domestic learning environment of a US HEI. While campuses have developed more environmentally sustainable internationalization practices, such as virtual study abroad, empirical research has not kept pace with these developments by investigating their impact on student outcomes, institutional outcomes, or environmental outcomes. Research on IaH can consider areas of inquiry beyond student learning and development, to include environmental and economic drivers of internationalization practices that can ultimately impact equityoriented issues like sustainability. Overall, the possibilities of how IaH may lead to increased inequities should be considered in future research, especially related to the possible damaging effects of globalization. Efforts for IaH and, more specifically, internationalizing the curriculum, may contribute to the promotion of academic imperialism through Minority World/US-based norms and practices. Stein (2017) offers the perspective that the use of a one-size-fits-all approach to internationalizing the curriculum would “reproduce the dangerous epistemic arrogance that characterizes any claim to universal relevance” (p. S39). The current Western approach to internationalizing the curriculum stems from “long standing patterns of curricular Euro-supremacy” (Stein 2017, p. S25), leading to further equity issues for those involved and affected by

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internationalization. Thus, at least three considerations should be made when beginning the attempt to internationalize the curriculum, and we extend these recommendations for equity-focused future IaH research: name and address the Westerncentric curriculum that pervades most Minority World institutions, delve into systemic analyses of dominance and difference, and engage the long-term process of deconstructing current dominant paradigms through “denaturalization; seeking practical solutions; addressing contradiction; facing complexity” (Stein 2017, p. S43). In doing so, higher education researchers can move toward a more equitable approach to researching and theorizing IaH.

Moving Forward: Equity-Driven Internationalization Research Our equity-driven internationalization lens foregrounds (in)equity in research on the motivations, strategies, implementation, and outcomes of HE internationalization. In this chapter, we applied the lens to analyze and critique how internationalization is defined in US HE scholarship; describe how sociohistorical and contemporary global forces connect US HE internationalization practice, policy, and research through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; and review how the multiple practices of US HE internationalization are empirically investigated in research. To move HE internationalization research forward, we conclude by offering ways that future researchers can apply the lens to their own work. Figure 1 illustrates how the equity-driven internationalization lens views the intricacies of internationalization “up close.” As we described throughout this chapter, we argue that applying an equitydriven lens to internationalization requires unpacking the underlying conceptual and theoretical perspectives, de-/constructing internationalization, identifying sociohistorical contexts, and probing contemporary forces of globalization. Figure 1 uses a piece of yarn as a metaphor for illustrating how these four guiding principles are tied together in studies of the internationalization of HE. Yarn is typically viewed as a singular thread – just as internationalization is typically viewed as a singular process. However, when look at closer, yarn is made up of multiple strands of tightly interlocked fibers. Internationalization also reflects the amalgamation of multiple complex processes, policies, practices, people, communities, and organizations. The singular piece of yarn, representing internationalization, is woven into the fabric of US HEIs. As such, it can become embedded within university values and practices as a guiding paradigm. The equity-driven internationalization lens acts as a “check” (Secada 1989) on this paradigm by magnifying (in)equitable historical and contemporary social, cultural, racial-ethnic, economic, environmental, and political factors that create the conditions for which internationalization is enacted – factors that we view as interlocked within the fibers of internationalization. In the next sections, we suggest how scholars can use the four guiding principles of the lens to examine and make visible in their own research the conditions, mechanisms, and processes by which HE internationalization occurs.

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Fig. 1 Equity-driven internationalization lens

Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives An equity-driven research orientation guides scholars away from grounding their work in ways that reinforce internationalization as a values-neutral or indiscriminately positive process. The literature we reviewed in this chapter demonstrates values neutrality permeating definitions of internationalization (such as Knight 2003, 2012) that are used to inform subsequent research. Similarly, an indiscriminately positive portrayal of internationalization in research leaves unchecked and unexamined inequity that occurs across individuals, institutions, and nations engaged in HE internationalization practices (Brandenburg and de Wit 2011). Study abroad research solely focused through the lens of intercultural development for US students can fail to acknowledge that not all students have the opportunity to study abroad, particularly those from minoritized backgrounds. Assimilation and acculturation theories often focus on the challenges international students experience, but place the onus on these students to navigate their new environment, rather than on HEIs to provide students the necessary support. One way to counteract values neutrality in research is through the use of conceptual and theoretical perspectives that enable researchers to critique and disrupt inequity, hegemony, and marginalization that occurs within HE internationalization, as well as to identify and engage in resistance of inequity and (re)imagining of internationalization (e.g., Shahjahan 2014; Shahjahan et al. 2017). Growing research in the US context on the internationalization of HE uses critical and transformative frameworks, but, in our review, we found it more common for scholars to call for the

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use of the frameworks as an implication for future research, rather than embed frameworks like post-/decolonial theory or critical theory in their own research. Still, although limited, extant literature can be a starting point. In our review, we saw frameworks such as mutuality and transformational partnerships centered in research on US HEI and Majority World HEI partnerships (e.g., George Mwangi 2017; Sutton and Obst 2011) as well as critical race theory, neo-racism, and academic capitalism used to understand international student experiences (e.g., Lee and Rice 2007; Paasi 2005; Yao et al. 2019b). Our equity-driven lens should not be used to replace the integration of critical epistemologies and theories in future research, although it is informed by those approaches. Researchers may find other paradigms or theories more relevant to the scope of their work. Our lens does ask that researchers grapple with not only what internationalization means but also how they frame research problems to combat inequity. As scholars make decisions in how they ground and frame their research, we suggest asking the following questions in that decision-making process. How does my theoretical/conceptual perspective: • Help me to foreground equity in who/what my research question(s) serve and center? • Guide me toward literature that resists values-neutral and hegemonic internationalization or supports my critique of literature that does? • Inform my methodological and methods to embed power and equity into choices such as research site and participant selection and how I collect, analyze, and present data? • Support my integration of the larger structures, systems, values, and histories that internationalization is embedded within?

De-/constructing Internationalization In the beginning of this chapter, we shared that an ongoing critique of HE internationalization scholarship is the lack of a clear definition of the concept of internationalization or its underlying assumptions (George Mwangi et al. 2018; Knight 2011; Stier 2004; Zeleza 2016). Throughout our review of literature, we found that other concepts often went undefined such as the term “partnership” in some international HE partnership research. We also found instances of internationalization practices presented one-dimensionally. These studies include studies of internationalization at home that only acknowledges beneficiaries of IaH as domestic students and studies of international students’ experiences that presented international students as a homogenous group. While these examples could be viewed as a general critique of individual research studies, given our review across internationalization research in this chapter, we view them as a larger issue directly connected to equity. The language used in internationalization research and the meaning ascribed to that language, whether explicitly stated or implicitly assumed, has power to shape how internationalization

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is understood and enacted in practice, policy, and future research. We encourage researchers to move beyond implicit assumptions of internationalization and engage greater nuance in how it is constructed in research toward the goal of equity-driven scholarship. For example, in this chapter, we used the terms Majority World and Minority World to disrupt the status deficit orientation around concepts applied to some regions of the world. Other disruptive terminologies1 that scholars may want to consider using or engaging in inquiry around include: • Glocalization as an alternative to internationalization (see Patel and Lynch 2013; Patel 2017). Patel (2017) defines glocalization “in a higher education context embraces equity, diversity, and inclusivity of local and global community perspectives and encourages glocal community building and partnerships” (p. 71). • International students of Color as a means of acknowledging the racialized identity of some international students (see Yao et al. 2019b). • Describing internationalization via its goals/drivers rather than individual practices (see Stein et al. 2016, for four articulations of internationalization: internationalization for the global knowledge economy, internationalization for the global public good, anti-oppressive internationalization, and relational translocalism). • Academic/cultural tourism as a critique of education abroad (see Breen 2012; Kortegast and Kupo 2017). We also recommend researchers use an equity orientation to interrogate why internationalization is defined in particular ways and what impact those definitions have on HE practice. For example, international/foreign students and domestic/American students are the only students discussed in the internationalization scholarship we reviewed, which creates a false binary around students’ global engagement and backgrounds. Through an equity-driven lens, a researcher might reflect on and implement: • Reflect: What does it mean to use constructs like domestic and international in equity-driven internationalization research? Given previous research, how might the use of this type of dichotomous language limit portrayals of international students in scholarship? – Implement: Develop ways to problematize these terms in research design and dissemination. • Reflect: How and why are domestic/American students with a transnational background (e.g., naturalized immigrants, children of immigrants, refugees) excluded from internationalization scholarship? – Implement: Engage in inquiry that examines how these students experience or impact HE internationalization to bring them into internationalization discourse.

1

Some of the disruptive terminology provided stem from literature on internationalization outside of the US context, which is why those works were not reviewed more extensively in our chapter.

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These are examples of how a scholar can take a research topic and deconstruct its commonly used terminology or reconstruct it by bringing excluded communities into the body of literature. The overarching idea is for scholars to question who gets to decide “what counts” and “who counts” as internationalization on an individual campus or even in HE internationalization research, rather than accept the status quo of what is included, excluded, or defined. In doing so, scholars can move toward a construction of internationalization in research that works to resist, rather than reify inequity in HE. Our equity-driven lens calls for a greater emphasis on questioning and unpacking HE internationalization through inquiry, which can be supported by the lenses that comprise it.

Sociohistorical Context We argue that current research, policies, and practices cannot be divorced from social and historical events and ideologies that continue to inform contemporary approaches to international research. Current practices related to internationalization are rooted in “the legacy and continuation of a higher education system” (Stein 2018, p. 78) that is based on imperialistic and colonial foundations. Scholars can pursue equitable approaches to internationalization research by considering sociohistorical contexts and how these contexts serve as foundations for current internationalization research and strategies. Based on our review of literature, we argue that internationalization practices, such as study abroad and internationalization at home (IaH), should not be viewed as independent of sociohistorical context, as evidenced by the woven yarn in the equity-driven lens. For example, study abroad research often focuses primarily on student learning outcomes (e.g., Chieffo and Griffiths 2004; Jones et al. 2012; Niehaus and Inkelas 2016; Wainwright et al. 2009) yet seldom discusses the contextual factors informing study abroad research and practice. Although the Higher Education Act of 1965 permitted financial aid to support study abroad (Mukherjee 2012), research demonstrates that cross-border sojourn is cost prohibitive to many students, with the majority of study abroad students coming from majority and/or privileged backgrounds (Dessoff 2006; Perna et al. 2014; Sánchez et al. 2006; Salisbury et al. 2011). Thus, scholars and practitioners may promote IaH as a cost-effective way to promote internationalization to all students. IaH also necessitates an examination of the sociohistorical foundations that have shaped the focus on IaH. For example, many institutions found difficulties in systematically planning and implementing internationalization programs and priorities, given the lack of common understanding and implementation practices across disciplines (Schoorman 1999). In addition, few studies exist that provide a critical and comprehensive examination of internationalizing the curriculum in the USA, which is often used as the primary mode of IaH. As stated by Stein (2017), the current approach to internationalizing the curriculum stems from “long standing patterns of curricular Euro-supremacy” (p. S25).

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In moving forward with internationalization research, we suggest using the sociohistorical context guiding principle as a tool for critical knowledge production that acknowledges and engages with the past. Some questions for scholars to ponder while conducting international HE research include: • In what larger structures, systems, values, and histories is the internationalization practice that is being examined embedded? • How do social, cultural, historical, racial, economic, and political factors as well as local and world events influence how internationalization is enacted? • How do sociohistorical events and contexts affect and inform the selected research approach? By engaging in such questions, scholars may approach internationalization research in a way that interrogates how prior actions and ideology of US HE permeate current approaches to research and scholarship.

Contemporary Forces of Globalization Our equity-driven lens reiterates the importance of considering globalization in internationalization research and practice. As the visual of our lens illustrates, internationalization practices and topics do not occur in values-neutral vacuums driven solely by institutional/individual choice. Internationalization is heavily driven by global structures and systems that privilege the needs of the Minority World, as evidenced by neoliberalism and a market orientation (Pike 2012; Yang 2003). Researchers must take into consideration how contemporary forces of globalization affect research and practices related to international higher education. One contemporary globalization force is the COVID-19 crisis, which upended higher education in the USA and other nations in spring 2020. At the time of writing this chapter, COVID-19 has disrupted day-to-day HE operations, and colleges and universities around the world are considering how HE moves forward in current and post-COVID-19 times. Several prominent international HE scholars have responded by calling for increased attention to the possibilities of transnational education (TNE) as a way to mitigate the challenges with student mobility during a pandemic (Mitchell 2020). Equity-driven scholars should interrogate why and how TNE may reify US complicity in academic colonization, especially as related to English language dominance and entrepreneurial approaches to student recruitment (Altbach 2016; Ferguson 2007; Jenkins 2014; Yao et al. 2019a). An equity-oriented lens should also be used to examine the concerns of international student mobility. Much current discourse focuses on how US HE will lose millions in revenue due to low international student enrollment in COVID-19 times (e.g., Fischer 2020; Redden 2020). Like previous research, this discourse views international students as financial resources for US HE (e.g., Altbach and Knight 2007; George Mwangi 2013; IIE 2019a; Yao and Viggiano 2019). Guided by our equity-driven lens, we argue that international students are situated within

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geopolitical and global economic systems; thus, scholars should engage in research that questions how international student mobility is a product of, contributes to, and responds to contemporary forces of globalization. With the goal of informing future policy and practice, scholars should consider these questions that help to interrogate the forces of globalization: • What are the social, cultural, historical, and racial implications of the research topic and approach? • How do local and world events impact how internationalization is discussed and researched? • What are the economic and political factors that must be examined in HE internationalization research? HE is heavily influenced by global and local politics, markets, and dominance. Like a piece of yarn, these facets of globalization are intertwined with internationalization research and practices, thus necessitating a critical examination of contemporary globalization forces affecting scholarship.

Research-Informed Equity-Driven Internationalization Practice and Policy As stated by Ness (2010), “The need to connect research with policy and practice remains one of the most commonly identified challenges for education researchers” (p. 1). While we recognize the continued challenge of enacting research-informed practice and policy, we argue that our equity-driven internationalization lens can help practitioners and policymakers to engage with internationalization from an equity-focused perspective. A consideration of how to enact an equity-driven approach to contemporary policies and practices is needed, especially in light of how internationalization may contribute to inequities and power differences (George Mwangi 2017; Buckner and Stein 2019; Vavrus and Pekol 2015; Yao et al. 2019b). Future research should consider how internationalization is enacted and implemented, addressing questions like: • Who has the power, authority, and resources to shape the direction of internationalization efforts? What does this mean for others impacted by internationalization efforts? • Who is included in campus conversations on how to internationalize the curriculum, teaching, and learning? • Who benefits from increased internationalization practices and policies? We recognize that HEIs have different missions and priorities. Missions and priorities are influenced by multiple factors, including internal and external

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constituents, economic factors, and institutional priorities. Because of the nuances and context of different HEIs, we avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to engaging in praxis. Instead, we argue that it is important to consider how research can be useful and in service to HEIs, if it is to create greater awareness of educational inequity and positive change. That utility can be achieved in many different ways. Partnerships can be created between practitioners and academics to pursue scholarly inquiry and/ or implementation of evidence-based findings. Practitioner knowledge and experiences can be used to understand, extend, and dispute theory. Researchers can work with practitioners and policymakers in disseminating research in accessible venues. These approaches may require scholars to cede some of the power within their own research agendas to talk with practitioners and policymakers about the real issues regarding internationalization that should be investigated. These suggestions could require collaboration between scholars and practitioners, nonacademics, policymakers, and research participants both in the USA and around the world to enact more equitable approaches to internationalization. Mutual partnership is relevant to an equity-driven approach to research as well as to the practice of internationalization, which is also often grounded in collaboration and relationships.

Conclusion In sum, we argue that, without reflective practice, HEIs can reify US-centric and imperialistic approaches to practice and policy. The foundations of US HE are rooted in issues of colonization, racism, and imperialism, and we do not assume that changes to these systems will occur at a fast pace. As a global society, we are continuing to face vast inequities that exist within education systems around the world stemming from xenophobia, racism, nativism, and other social and economic forces. As identified in this chapter, these inequities are reified by the ways in which internationalization efforts are pursued in US HEIs, such as in how individual US institutions often embody a dominant role in internationalization partnerships with Majority World countries. The use of an equity-driven internationalization lens allows HE researchers to engage in deliberate reflection and action in the pursuit of scholarship that will contribute to a more equitable and just global society. It is important to be intentional in ensuring that research can keep pace to address and challenge inequities in internationalization. Through scholarly inquiry, researchers can remain not only relevant but useful in developing research that is transformative and that works to inform equitable practices, policies, and processes of internationalization in higher education.

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Chrystal A. George Mwangi, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her scholarship centers on (1) structures of opportunity and inequity impacting trajectories of minoritized students into and through college; (2) higher education internationalization and the use of higher education as a tool for international mobility/ migration; and (3) African and African Diaspora populations in higher education, emphasizing the impact of race, racism, and coloniality. Dr. George Mwangi was a recipient of NAFSA’s Innovative Research in International Education award and is an associate editor for the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Christina W. Yao, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Higher Education at the University of South Carolina. She studies undergraduate and graduate student engagement and learning, operationalized through three connected areas: international and comparative education, teaching and learning, and graduate education. Current projects include the college transition process for international students of Color and graduate students’ international scholar-practitioner development. She serves on editorial boards for several journals, including the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, and Journal of International Students.

Understanding the Complexities of Experimental Analysis in the Context of Higher Education

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Contents Why Conduct Experiments? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Logic of Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining and Categorizing Experimental Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Important Issues in Experimental Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Units of Randomization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pretesting and Longitudinal Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multisite Trials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Treatment Arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preregistration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Mathematics of Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Random Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Blocking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Covariate Balance Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cluster Randomized Control Trials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Compliance to Treatment Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Attrition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Attrition Can Cause Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . When Should We Worry About Attrition? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How to Counter Attrition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dropping Observations Due to Missing Covariates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Examples in the Higher Education RCT Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Assessing Fidelity of Treatment Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SUTVA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SUTVA Violations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dealing with SUTVA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contamination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Statistical Power Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Minimum Detectable Effect Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Power in Cluster RCTs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Tools to Assist with Power Calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Examples of Power Discussions in the Higher Education RCT Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Limitations in Conducting RCTs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethical Concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Understanding Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Experimental Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The most reliable method for identifying the causal effect of a treatment on an outcome is to conduct an experiment in which the treatment is randomly assigned to a portion of the sample. The causal effect of the treatment is the difference in outcomes between units exposed to the treatment and those that were not. The apparent simplicity of randomized control trials (RCTs) belies the true complexity in designing, conducting, and analyzing them. This chapter provides an introduction to experimental analysis in higher education research that unpacks the multiple complexities inherent in RCTs. It presents both the basic logic and mathematics of experimental analysis before explaining more complex design elements such as blocking, clustering, and power analysis. The chapter also discusses issues that can undermine experiments such as attrition, treatment fidelity, and contamination and suggests methods of mitigating their negative effects. Concrete examples from experimental analyses in the higher education literature are provided throughout the chapter. Keywords

Experiment · Randomized control trial · Quantitative methods · Causal inference · Evaluation · Research design · Blocking · Attrition · SUTVA · Contamination · Spillover · Statistical power · Compliance · Average treatment effect · Intent to treat · Local average treatment effect · Balance check · Cluster design · Fidelity of treatment implementation

For one of the most clear and concise explanations of a randomized experiment, I highly recommend reading one of the original sources: Fisher’s seminal The Design of Experiments (1935). In what has become known as the lady tasting tea example, presented in Chap. 2, he asks a very simple question: How can we know whether the lady can discern if milk or tea was first placed in the cup? He answers this question with clear explanations of the notions underlying experimental design, hypothesis testing, precision, and power. The simple experiment involved making eight cups of tea, four with milk added to tea and four with tea added to milk, and presenting the eight cups to the subject in a randomly determined order. The lady knew only that there were four of each preparation and was asked to divide the eight cups into the two categories by tasting each in the random order provided. Fisher walks through how we can

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determine if the lady is able to taste the difference by explaining what we now refer to as the Fisher exact test. He calculates that there are 70 possible ways for the lady to choose 2 sets of 4, only one of which is completely correct. If she makes the correct choices, we can be highly confident that it was not a successful guess, which would only occur one time out of 70, and we can conclude that she can taste the difference. Fisher’s exposition is so easy to follow that it makes all experiments seem deceptively simple. Randomly assign some units to a treatment, assign the other units to a control condition, and then compare the outcomes using a t-test, a tool covered in any introductory statistics course. However, the beautiful simplicity of experimental design belies a host of complexities in designing, implementing, and analyzing an experiment, or what is more precisely referred to as a randomized control trial (RCT). Examples of such complexities include assessing power, balance of covariates, and fidelity of treatment implementation; dealing with attrition, noncompliance, and contamination; incorporating blocking; considering the ethical implications of randomly assigning treatment; and analyzing results when the unit of random assignment is not the unit of observation (clustering). The goal of this chapter is to provide an introduction to experimental analysis in higher education research by summarizing the most critical issues to consider when designing, implementing, and analyzing RCTs. The chapter seeks to make the reader aware of the complexities of conducting RCTs and provide guidance for addressing them. Building on Fisher’s basic analysis and the subsequent 85 years of scholarship on conducting experimental analyses in social science research, the chapter also directs the reader to a host of additional resources in the literature for a more extensive discourse of these issues. Although I utilize method papers from across numerous fields and disciplines, I provide applications for each of the covered topics in the higher education experimental literature to illustrate these issues in a familiar and interesting context. The chapter is fairly comprehensive but not exhaustive. There are elements of experimental design, implementation, and analysis that have been glossed over or neglected entirely, but it addresses what I think are the most important issues in conducting RCTs. The writing is intentionally not highly technical in order to be accessible to a wide audience, but the references enable a much deeper dive into the mathematics underlying many of the highlighted issues for the reader who is interested. The chapter is not intended to be a step-by-step guide, nor is it terribly prescriptive, although I do make strong suggestions for certain approaches in several instances. It is my hope that the contribution of this work provides an approachable entry point to the complexities of designing, conducting, and analyzing RCTs in higher education. Organizationally, I begin with an explanation of why we might want to conduct experiments and the logic that underlies them before discussing a number of preliminary topics that serve as a basis for the rest of the chapter. I then proceed to discuss mathematics of experimental analysis and consider in turn many complicating factors that are important for conducting high-quality RCTs.

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Why Conduct Experiments? Higher education researchers often want to identify a causal relationship between a treatment and an outcome. Perhaps they want to know how online or hybrid courses versus traditional in-person courses affect academic outcomes (e.g., Bowen et al. 2013), whether college guidance in high school improves postsecondary enrollment (e.g., Bettinger and Evans 2019), whether financial aid improves persistence (e.g., Goldrick-Rab et al. 2016), or whether a multiple measure remedial placement process leads to better student performance than the typical single placement test (e.g., Barnett et al. 2018). These questions are difficult to answer because of the endogeneity issue that plagues educational research: It is challenging to isolate the effect of interventions removed from the complexities of educational processes. Efforts to answer these questions can be broadly categorized into observational studies, quasi-experiments, and RCTs. Observational, nonexperimental studies can readily estimate correlations between variables but fall short of identifying causation because of the possibility of observing a spurious relationship due to omitted variables. Observational studies attempt to control for observable characteristics that can reduce spuriousness but are rarely convincing because of the likelihood of unobserved variables biasing the results. While observational studies can be useful for descriptive and predictive analyses, they are poor choices for answering causal questions like those posed above. Quasi-experimental analyses, as their name implies, attempt to emulate an experimental analysis without specifically randomly assigning units to treatment and control conditions. There are a variety of methods within this category such as regression discontinuity, instrumental variables, and difference in differences, all of which rely on different assumptions but often provide more credible estimates of a causal relationship than observational studies. Such designs generally rely on plausibly exogenous variation in treatment receipt which could be caused by the adoption of a program or policy in one institution or state but not others (difference in differences) or by receiving a treatment due to being above or below a certain threshold (regression discontinuity). Several texts provide discussion of quasi-experiment methods (e.g., Angrist and Pischke 2009; Morgan and Winship 2015; Murnane and Willett 2011; Shadish et al. 2002) including some specific to education (e.g., Gopalan et al. 2020) and higher education (e.g., Furquim et al. 2019). Randomized control trials achieve causal inference by specifically randomizing which units receive treatment and which do not. This random assignment process is what sets experiments apart from other research designs and enables the investigators to determine whether the treatment causes a change in the outcome without fear of bias arising from selection (as participants are assigned treatment or control instead of choosing treatment themselves) or unobserved variables (as all unobserved variables should be equally distributed, on average, between treatment and control participants). Because of the advantages of random assignment to treatment, randomized control trials are often referred to as the “gold standard” of conducting causal analysis (Gennetian et al. 2005; Rubin 2008; Whitehurst 2003).

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Logic of Experiments There are several related challenges when trying to estimate causal effects of a treatment on an outcome. One common concern in higher education is selection bias: Students choose whether or not to take up the treatment/program/intervention. Consider the offering of an academic tutoring program. It is likely that the most motivated students or those who most care about their performance or those with the most time available are the ones most likely to engage in the tutoring activity. Those same characteristics likely lead those students to have better performance even in the absence of the tutoring program. If we naively compared the academic performance of the students who selected into the tutoring program to those who did not, we might falsely conclude that the tutoring program is responsible for their higher performance even if the tutoring program actually had no effect. The perceived improved performance for those pursuing tutoring, relative to students who did not participate in tutoring, could simply be due to the increased motivation or time spent studying of the students who selected into the tutoring. This selection bias problem is a form of omitted variables bias. Any unobserved characteristic, such as motivation, that is related to both the treatment and the outcome causes bias and inhibits us from determining the true causal effect of the treatment on the outcome. In our tutoring example, unobserved motivation is positively related to tutoring participation and positively related to academic performance; hence our estimate of the relationship between tutoring and academic performance will be too high. This problem persists even when the student does not make the self-selection into tutoring but when it is recommended by a professor or adviser as there still remains some unobserved characteristics of the student related to the tutoring recommendation that also likely affect the academic outcomes. Random assignment to treatment resolves these issues by creating a disconnect between all individual characteristics and the treatment. When the treatment is solely determined by a random mechanism such as a coin flip, then nothing else can be correlated with treatment. Random assignment removes the possibility that any variable other than the random assignment variable is related to treatment. Other variables, both observed and unobserved, may still be related to the outcome, but they can no longer cause bias in the estimate of the treatment effect on the outcome because they are not correlated with treatment. Thus, random assignment to treatment solves the selection problem as well as any other potential omitted variable bias.

Defining and Categorizing Experimental Analyses When considering RCTs in this chapter, we will predominantly be thinking about an intentionally designed study in which the researchers are randomly assigning units to treatment. This type of experimental analysis is clearly different from what is often

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referred to as a natural experiment in which something outside of the researchers’ control determined exposure to a treatment. Natural experiments do not typically employ true random assignment, although they may approximate it in ideal scenarios. Natural experiments provide the opportunity to conduct observational or quasiexperimental studies to assess causal effects, but they are often not as compelling as intentionally designed RCTs. Natural experiments are especially useful in cases where random assignment is impossible due to logistics or ethical concerns. For example, we may want to know what the effect of attending a highly selective college is on subsequent earnings in the labor market, but randomly assigning students to highly selective colleges is not possible. There are examples in education research which are randomized experiments but in which the random assignment was not conducted by the researchers. Randomized lotteries that were conducted for the purpose of equitably distributing a scarce resource can be studied as an RCT even if the initial intent of the random assignment was not to estimate causal effects. Entrance lotteries for charter schools or early college high schools in secondary education provide examples. One such example is offered by Haxton and colleagues (2016) who exploited the entrance lotteries at 10 early college high schools to investigate whether being randomly admitted to an early college high school improved college enrollment. Another higher education example is the study of InsideTrack by Bettinger and Baker (2014). InsideTrack is a coaching service that provides supports such as assistance with scheduling and study skills to enrolled college students, and the program worked with participating universities to randomly assign coaches to students enabling the researchers to subsequently evaluate the program as an RCT. We can further divide randomized control trials into lab experiments and field experiments. Lab, short for laboratory, experiments are those that take place in a controlled environment in which the researchers can standardize the context and limit external influences. They provide advantages to isolating the effect of a treatment in the absence of external, environmental effects and also enable the consideration of controlled scenarios that are difficult to obtain in the complexities of the real world. One downside of lab experiments is that they are harder to generalize to broader settings outside of the lab. These types of studies are common in the disciplines of psychology and behavioral economics. Lab experiments in higher education tend to be used to elicit preferences. For example, Botelho and Pinto (2004) randomly assign Portuguese college students to different treatment conditions in a lab setting to determine whether they believe their own economic returns to college are different from the average economic returns. Ihme and colleagues (2016) use a lab experiment to assess students’ response to age diversity on college campuses when randomly assigning respondents to view mock college websites with different emphasis on age diversity. For an example of a lab experiment using college administrators instead of students, see Bastedo and Bowman (2017) who asked professional admission officers to make admission recommendations on fictional applicants while randomly varying the amount of information provided on the high school context of the applicants.

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Lab style experiments can take place in settings outside of a formal social science lab. For example, Oreopoulos and Dunn (2013) used an online survey and video intervention among high school students. They randomly provided students with information on financing and the financial returns to postsecondary education and measured changes in students’ expectations to enroll in and finance college on surveys taken a few weeks apart. Another example of a lab style experiment that did not physically take place in a lab is one of my RCTs that randomly altered the framing of a hypothetical financial aid offer for college to determine which framing respondents preferred on a survey (Evans et al. 2019). Although it took place in high school classrooms and via an emailed survey at community colleges and not in a social science laboratory, it falls closer to a lab style experiment rather than one with real-world outcomes. Field experiments are those that take place in a real-world setting and typically measure real-world outcomes. The major advantage of field experiments is generalizability because they allow better measurement of subjects’ behaviors amidst the complexities of other influences in the world. If you will forgive the pun, Field (2009) provides an example in her study of whether the framing of financial aid causes law students to alter their career choice. In contrast to my survey framing study mentioned directly above, she is able to observe real-world choices, which provide more convincing evidence than eliciting preferences in a lab. The complexities of field experiments necessitate substantial logistical planning to implement the treatment and observe outcomes, and they are susceptible to influence, and even major disruption, from real-world events. For example, the Louisiana Opening Doors demonstration, which was studying whether financial incentives affect performance in community colleges, was interrupted by Hurricane Katrina (Barrow et al. 2014).

Important Issues in Experimental Design Before proceeding further, providing a brief discussion about a few preliminary issues with designing RCTs is worthwhile. In this section, I discuss units of randomization, pretesting and longitudinal designs, multisite trials, treatment arms, and preregistration.

Units of Randomization In the higher education context, random assignment is most frequently applied to students, so I will often default to referring to students throughout this chapter. However, it is important to recognize that random assignment can apply to other individuals. Faculty or teaching assistants could be randomly assigned to teach different sections of a course, administrators could be randomly assigned professional development, or alumni could be randomly assigned to receive different fundraising requests.

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Random assignment can also apply to units that are not individuals. Higher education researchers have randomly assigned classrooms (e.g., Evans and Boatman 2019), high schools (e.g., Bettinger and Evans 2019; Dynarski et al. 2018), emails (Hanson 2017), and even individual days to different treatment conditions (e.g., Evans and Henry 2020). For a large-scale study, the units of randomization could be institutions of higher education, although I am unaware of any examples of this unit of random assignment in the literature.

Pretesting and Longitudinal Designs The most basic experimental design requires only two randomly assigned groups in which the treatment is given to one of the groups and an outcome is observed on both groups. This design does not require any observation of the two groups prior to collecting the outcome data except what is necessary to randomly assign and administer the treatment. No formal pretest, or indeed any data on the randomized units except for their treatment status and outcome, is required. The fact that we can draw causal inference with only outcome data is an amazing advantage of RCTs over observational and most quasi-experimental studies. That is not to say baseline data on the experimental units captured via administrative data, survey collection, or pretesting prior to random assignment is useless. On the contrary, such data can prove invaluable. These measures can be used to block the experimental sample prior to random assignment ensuring balance of these characteristics across treatment and control (see the section on “Blocking” below). Additionally, the inclusion of pretreatment variables gathered prior to treatment administration, such that they cannot be affected by the treatment, can enhance the precision of the treatment effect estimates as discussed below. The better these variables explain variation in the outcome, the more precision they will provide. Hence, a pretest, especially one that is similar to and highly predicts the outcome measure, can dramatically enhance the power, or ability to detect a treatment effect, by increasing precision of the estimates. See Schnabel and colleagues (2016) for a pretest posttest RCT design in higher education assessing whether feedback can affect cultural competencies. Baseline data can also assist in measuring whether individuals who leave the study in the treatment group are similar from those who leave the study in the control group during an analysis of attrition (Shadish et al. 2002), details of which I will discuss in the Attrition section below. Finally, longitudinal data collection can provide data on important measures at multiple time points before and/or after the treatment. Longitudinal pretreatment data collection can enhance precision of the treatment effect estimates. Longitudinal posttreatment measures on the outcomes are even more beneficial. First, they can help us understand how the treatment effect changes over time in the same outcome. The treatment may have an initial effect that either fades or grows over time. With only one posttreatment outcome measurement, it is impossible to draw inference about these changes. Because longitudinal data was available, Bettinger and Evans (2019) were able to observe an attenuation of the college enrollment treatment effect

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from a college advising treatment over time. Second, it can allow us to measure additional outcomes that only occur later in time. This feature is especially pertinent to higher education studies where we may want to know whether a treatment affects immediate academic performance and subsequent persistence and graduation. For example, Weiss and colleagues (2015) track community college students for 7 years after the treatment in order to assess the impact of treatment on graduation and labor market earnings.

Multisite Trials The random assignment of units to a treatment can be done across many different sites in what is called a multisite RCT. This is very common in K-12 education studies when students, teachers, or classrooms are randomly assigned to an intervention at many different schools or districts. This approach is less common in higher education, likely due to the cost of organizing and coordinating studies across colleges, but examples do exist. Bowen and colleagues (2013) randomly assigned students in statistics classes at six different institutions of higher education to receive either traditional face-to-face instruction or hybrid online and face-to-face instruction. One of the key advantages of multisite trials is that they allow for heterogeneity analysis of the treatment effect across the different sites. Because randomization occurs within each site, each functions as its own mini-RCT. The overall treatment effect can be estimated by pooling observations across all the sites, but a treatment effect for each individual site can also be estimated, and the variation of treatment effects across sites can be measured. Any variation in treatment effect across sites provides an opportunity to consider and investigate what site characteristics lead to differential treatment effects which can prove insightful for external validity and may reveal the mechanisms by which the treatment has an effect. Multisite trials will typically report the estimated treatment effect at each site and provide some analysis that may explain any difference. See Appendix Table A2 in the Bowen hybrid learning paper referenced above for an example of providing treatment effect estimates across institutions and outcomes. Because these designs are less common in higher education RCTs, I will not delve deeper into them here. I instead direct the reader to Raudenbush and Liu (2000) and Bloom et al. (2017) for further discussions of power and estimating treatment effect variance across sites in multisite trials.

Treatment Arms The different conditions, or states, that any individual unit can be assigned to in an experiment are broadly called treatment arms. Many RCTs only have two conditions, in which case it is common to refer to the treatment arms as treatment and control. Because it is a straightforward and common research design, I will primarily focus

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our discourse on experiments with two treatment arms and generally refer to them as treatment and control. The use of the term “control” can inappropriately suggest that nothing is happening to the units in that condition. I acknowledge that it may be more semantically accurate to use “treatment arm one” and “treatment arm two,” but that is less conventional. Occasionally the control condition is referred to as “business as usual” to indicate that the control condition is not exactly the absence of treatment but rather what would happen to the units in the experiment if the experiment were not taking place. To provide an example of a higher education experiment with more than two treatment arms, we can consider Pugatch and Wilson (2018). This study used postcards delivered to student mailboxes at Reed College to encourage attending the tutoring center for academic support. The study employed five treatment arms. One was a traditional control condition in which the student received no postcard. The other four treatment conditions varied the language used to encourage attendance with two offering financial incentives of differing amounts. Treatment effect comparisons can be made between all five of the treatment arms, and combinations of treatment arms can be tested collectively. For example, the study tests all four postcard treatments collectively against the control condition of no postcard. I will note some of the complexities of conducting and analyzing RCTs with more than two treatment arms at a few points throughout the chapter.

Preregistration Once the design of an RCT is complete but prior to conducting the experiment, it is advantageous to preregister the study publicly. This can be accomplished by submitting a registered report to a journal or database. While there are many available registries across fields and disciplines, the Registry of Efficacy and Effectiveness Studies is one designed specifically for education (https://sreereg.icpsr.umich.edu/ sreereg/index). Preregistration publishes the research questions, sample, treatment, study design, data source, variables, and analysis plan in advance of random assignment and the delivery of treatment. One of the primary advantages of preregistration is that it prevents posthoc decisions that can be made after data collection that result in the reporting of select findings (Gehlbach and Robinson 2018; Nosek et al. 2018). Because the analysis plan has been detailed prior to obtaining outcome data, it limits the ability of the researchers to make decisions based on data after the fact. This can sometimes improve the chances of publication as some journals allow for the submission of registered reports and then provide a conditional acceptance of the final paper based on it following the plan detailed in the registered report regardless of the findings. Additional analyses that were not proposed in the preregistration are allowed but should be considered exploratory. An underappreciated benefit of preregistration is that it forces the researchers to fully plan the study in advance instead of launching into an RCT without the proper preparation.

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With these definitions and conventions established, we can proceed with discussing the mathematics underlying why RCTs provide causal effect estimates.

The Mathematics of Experiments We now consider a more formal, mathematical treatment of how RCTs work to provide causal estimates using the potential outcomes frameworks. This formulation is also referred to as the Rubin causal model (Holland 1986). In its simplest form, the potential outcomes framework merely states that an individual i has outcome y1i in the treatment state (superscripted as 1) and outcome y0i under the control condition (corresponding to the 0 superscript). The individual treatment effect (ITE) is then defined as the difference between these two potential outcomes: ITEi ¼ y1i  y0i

ð1Þ

The treatment effect for this individual could be positive, negative, or zero depending on whether the potential outcome under the treatment is larger, smaller, or the same as the outcome under the control condition. If we want to assess the treatment effect over a group of individuals, we could average all the individual ITEs to determine an average treatment effect (ATE). The obvious problem with this formulation is that it is not possible to observe an individual outcome under both the treatment and control conditions. Any one individual either receives treatment or control but not both. Hence, every individual will only be observed to have either y1i if that individual had the treatment or y0i if that individual had the control. The outcome that is not observed is called the counterfactual, and the goal of causal analysis is to estimate this counterfactual. As a mostly philosophical aside, the inability to observe an individual’s outcome under different states gives rise to an alternate theoretical perspective about the uncertainty present when conducting inferential statistics that is succinctly summarized in Athey and Imbens (2017). In most educational research, we tend to think that uncertainty in quantitative empirical analysis is driven by sampling variability due to drawing a sample from an infinite super-population, which is why this is referred to as the super-population model. The common use of hypothesis testing and calculating standard errors is mostly based on this belief. With the potential outcomes framework, there is an opportunity for a different perspective. Instead of uncertainty arising from sampling variation, uncertainty arises from not knowing the outcomes in the conditions the unit did not experience. In this approach, there is no need to presume the sample is being drawn from a larger population. The sample is the complete population, which is why this is referred to as the finite-population model, but we still have uncertainty because we do not know and cannot observe the outcome for each individual under multiple treatment conditions. This distinction in models may not seem that important, and in practice it is typically ignored;

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however, the difference in approach can have implications for the estimation of treatment effects (Athey and Imbens 2017; Schochet 2013). Returning to the potential outcomes framework, we can never know the counterfactual for any one individual, but RCTs allow us to accurately estimate the counterfactual for groups so that we can determine the average treatment effect. With a large enough sample, the random assignment process ensures that individuals will be sorted into treatment and control groups that are, on average, equivalent. In our tutoring example, we were worried that students with high levels of motivation would be more likely to select into tutoring, but under random assignment the high motivation and low motivation students will be equally distributed between treatment and control groups. This is true of every student characteristic. On average, the two groups are equivalent; therefore, they function as good counterfactuals for each other. In other words, the control group will behave just like the treated group would have behaved in the absence of the treatment and vice versa. Once we have equivalent treated and control groups, the treated group can be exposed to the treatment, then outcomes for both groups can be measured. We can obtain outcomes for individuals in the treated group and average them for an average treatment group outcome, Y 1, and we can do the same for the control group, Y 0. The ATE is then the difference in the average treatment outcome and the average control outcome: ATE ¼ Y 1  Y 0

ð2Þ

Estimating the average treatment effect from an experiment is literally as simple as constructing two averages and subtracting. However, we typically want to know whether this difference is statistically significant, so we can conduct a t-test for a difference in group means between the treatment and control group to ascertain not only the difference but also a t-statistic and p-value for the ATE. Alternatively, we can compute the ATE and its standard error in a regression framework by regressing the outcome y on a binary treatment variable t coded as 1 for treated individuals and 0 for individuals in the control condition: yi ¼ β0 þ β1 ti þ ei

ð3Þ

The coefficient on the binary treatment variable, β1, will estimate the ATE. This coefficient will be the same as the result of the t-test and the difference in averages defined above in Eq. (2). Another way of thinking about random assignment is that it removes any correlation between the treatment and the error term, making β1 an unbiased estimate of the effect of t on y. For experiments with more than two treatment arms, adding indicator variables for each treatment arm and omitting one as the reference category will provide treatment effect estimates of the average difference in outcomes for individuals in each treatment relative to the omitted group. Equation (3) also provides the average outcome of the individuals in the control condition in β0.

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Equation (3) can be estimated using OLS, but noncontinuous outcomes are common in the higher education. A linear probability model or logit model can be used if the outcome is binary, and a multinomial logit or ordered logit can be used if the outcome is discrete with more than two values depending on whether it is unordered or ordered. See Appendix F of Rivas and colleagues (2020) for an example of estimating experimental results using several different models in the higher education literature. In addition to providing a standard error for the point estimate of the average treatment effect, this regression formulation has the added benefit of allowing for the inclusion of additional observed variables. Assume there is a vector of covariates, Xi, that includes several observed individual characteristics such as demographic characteristics. That vector can control for that set of observed characteristics via its addition in the regression: yi ¼ β0 þ β1 ti þ X i γ þ ei

ð4Þ

Although the inclusion of this vector in the regression will not reduce bias (random assignment has eliminated omitted variables bias on the coefficient for the treatment variable), it can increase precision of the estimate of the treatment effect by explaining variation in the outcome thereby reducing the standard error on β1. The coefficients on the covariates should not be interpreted causally. Those variables were not randomly assigned, so it is likely unobserved variables exist that relate to both the covariate and the outcome, thereby biasing the coefficient on the covariate. The goal of including the covariates is not to interpret the relationship of the covariates with the outcome but to improve the precision of the treatment effect coefficient. It is worth noting that there is some debate in the literature about the value of including covariates into the treatment estimation regression model. Freedman (2008) provides a critique of their inclusion noting problems with standard error calculations, small sample bias, and the assumption that it will increase precision. Lin (2013) provides a convincing rebuttal to these arguments that suggest the problems are not large. Gerber and Green (2012) provide what I think is a useful guideline: Include covariates as long as there are at least 20 more observations than covariates included in the model. Also note that when covariates are included in the regression, β0 no longer provides the average outcome in the control group. Instead it estimates the value of the outcome for control individuals that have zero values for the covariates included in the vector Xi. When reporting results from an RCT, it is more useful to provide the unadjusted control mean that can be determined through summary statistics instead of reporting β0. The control mean can be used to judge the relative size of the treatment effect as a percentage of change from the baseline control outcome mean. Randomizing individual units and observing their outcomes is the simplest form of experimental design, but more complex design elements are common. After discussing random assignment in more detail, I will turn to addressing several of these complexities in design.

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Random Assignment Although they both involve random selection, it is important to distinguish between random sampling and random assignment to treatment. Random sampling occurs when individuals from a population are randomly selected to participate in a study. This can occur in any social science study, not just an RCT. Random sampling ensures that the sample is representative of the population from which the random sample was drawn, thereby enabling the research to apply conclusions established from studying the sample to the broader population from which the sample was drawn. It primarily enhances the external validity, or generalizability, of a study. Random assignment to treatment occurs after the study sample has been established. It randomly sorts the study participants, which are often collectively referred to as the experimental sample, into treatment and control groups. For the reasons discussed above, random assignment to treatment is what gives RCTs high internal validity, or the ability to draw causal conclusions about the treatment affecting the outcome. Random assignment can occur with or without random sampling into the study. In the absence of random sampling into the study, the ATE estimate obtained using random assignment in an experiment will still provide an unbiased causal effect of the treatment on the outcome for the sample; however, that estimate may not be accurate for the broader population as the sample may not be representative of that population. The random assignment process can be conducted in a variety of ways. One example is the proverbial drawing names out of a hat, but random assignment is frequently accomplished using a random number generator from a computer program such as Excel, Stata, or R. Using a full list of individuals in the experimental sample, each could be assigned a random number between 0 and 1. That list could then be sorted from smallest to largest, and the first half could be assigned treatment, while the second half is assigned control. It is good practice to save this generative procedure so that the random assignment process could be replicated. Note that it is not necessary for the treatment and control groups to be equal in size. Often, the resources available preclude providing the treatment to half of the experimental sample. As will be discussed later, statistical power is greatest for a given sample size when the experimental sample is equally divided between treatment and control, but it is often still preferable to have more control observations than to reduce the overall sample size. For example, in an experiment I conducted in which college advisers were randomly assigned to high schools in Texas to provide additional college preparation and application support to high school students, we only had 36 advisers to distribute between 111 high schools in the experimental sample (Bettinger and Evans 2019). From a power perspective, it is preferable to have 75 control schools instead of reducing the number of control schools to 36 in order to have an equal number of treated and control schools. The ability of the random assignment process to produce equivalent, or what we refer to as balanced, treatment and control groups relies on having a large sample

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size.1 In the extreme small case of two randomized units in which one is assigned treatment and the other is assigned control, we cannot expect that the treatment and control will be good counterfactuals for the other. There is no one answer for the minimum sample size needed to ensure balanced groups. Obviously, we cannot conduct a trustworthy experiment with a sample size of two, but the chance that the treatment and control groups are equivalent increases with sample size.

Blocking There is a method for ensuring that the treatment and control are balanced on characteristics that are observable prior to random assignment. That method is called blocking, and it is analogous to the process of stratification when conducting random sampling.2 Blocking divides the experimental sample prior to random assignment into groups, or “blocks,” based on one or more observable characteristics. Random assignment to treatment is then conducted within each block. This ensures the treatment and control groups will be balanced on the blocking characteristics. We have already encountered this design feature when discussing multisite randomized trials. In that case, the blocks are the different sites or institutions, and random assignment of individual students to treatment and control occurs within each block such that each block has both treated and control students. In this case, the observable characteristic that defines the block is the institution the student attends, and the blocking ensures institutional balance across treatment and control. Other typical uses of blocking are to block on student demographic and background characteristics. One example might be to block based on first-generation college student status. The experimental sample would be divided into first-generation and non-first-generation students, and then random assignment would be conducted within each block such that half of the first-generation students would be assigned treatment and the other half control and half of the non-first-generation students would be assigned treatment and the other half control, thereby ensuring first-generation college student status is balanced across treatment and control. Blocks can be defined using multiple observable characteristics (e.g., first-generation status, race, and gender). An extreme example of blocking is a matched pair design wherein individuals similar on important characteristics are paired together and one of each pair is randomly assigned treatment. In addition to ensuring treatment and control balance of the blocking variables, another advantage of blocking is that it increases the chance of a successful subgroup 1

Somewhat confusingly, balance in an experimental context can also refer to the proportion of units assigned to treatment and control. A balanced experiment is one in which 50% of units are assigned treatment and 50% are assigned control. I will use the term in this chapter to mean that individual characteristics are, on average, equivalent across treatment arms, what is more specifically referred to as covariate balance. 2 Some sources use the term stratification instead of blocking, but I think it is wise to use separate terms in an effort to distinguish between random sampling and random assignment to treatment.

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analysis by the blocking variable (Gerber and Green 2012). If we want to conduct a subgroup analysis by first-generation college status (i.e., consider whether the treatment effect differs by first-generation status), blocking by this status will ensure an equal percentage of first-generation students are assigned treatment and control and increase the chance of being able to precisely estimate a treatment effect among the subpopulations of first-generation and non-first-generation students. Blocking is more useful for smaller sample sizes where the random assignment process has a lower probability of producing balanced treatment and control groups and when there is a large chance of poor representation across treatment and control of certain characteristics. In the Texas college advising experiment mentioned above, the 111 high schools in the experimental sample were located in 32 different regions of the state with at least two schools in each region. If we were to randomly choose 36 treatment schools from the list of 111 high schools without accounting for region, there is a very high probability that not all regions would be represented in the treatment group. To solve this issue, we blocked by region, essentially conducting a separate random assignment process for each of the 32 regions and ensuring that at least 1 treatment and 1 control school existed in each region. This reduces the possibility that unobserved regional variation explains the results and increases the external validity of the analysis as the treated and control schools were scattered across the entire state. When blocking is used, it is common to include the blocking variables as covariates in the regression analysis estimating treatment effects because it is likely that the blocking variables are correlated with the outcome such that their inclusion reduces the standard error on the treatment effect leading to more precise estimates. For something as simple as blocking on first-generation status, an indicator variable for first-generation status should be included in the regression. In the more complex regional blocking of the college advising experiment, the analysis could include a series of indicator variables, one for each block (omitting one of the blocks to avoid multicollinearity). This is essentially including fixed effects for blocks. Unfortunately, blocking can cause bias in the treatment effect estimate when there are different probabilities of treatment assignment across blocks combined with heterogeneity in the outcome across blocks. If the outcome happens to be higher in a block with a greater probability of treatment assignment, then the treatment estimate will be biased upward. Consider again the Texas college advising experiment example in which college enrollment was the primary outcome of interest. In a region with only two schools, there is a 50% chance of assignment to treatment, but in a region with three experimental schools, the probability is one-third. Assume for a moment the real treatment effect is actually zero. If the college going rate is simply higher in the region with one treated school and one control school than in the region with one treated and two control schools, then a naïve treatment effect estimate that ignores blocking will be positive even though the actual effect is zero. There are many proposed methods for accounting for the differences in treatment assignment probabilities across blocks (DeclareDesign 2018). One of the most straightforward is to estimate a within-block treatment effect for each block and then average those treatment effects while accounting for the different size of the

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blocks by weighting each within-block treatment effect by the size of the block (Gerber and Green 2012). Because the probability of assignment to treatment for each unit is the same within a block, this will provide the correct, unbiased estimate of the average treatment effect. This can be calculated using weighted regressions at the block level or can be similarly determined using inverse probability of treatment weighting at the individual unit level. In practice, many studies rely on the blocked fixed effect strategy, which we discussed above in the context of improving precision, to resolve the issue of different treatment probabilities across blocks. However, the fixed effect OLS estimator does not provide exactly what we typically want to estimate. The method does produce a weighted estimate of the average treatment effect across blocks, but it does not weight the blocks solely by size. It incorporates the variance of treatment into the weights making it difficult to interpret. Gibbons and colleagues (2018) provide more details of this issue, show that the fixed effect estimates are biased in many published studies, and propose two alternative estimation strategies to resolve it. Lin (2013) proposes a model in which the full set of covariates are interacted with the treatment variable, which is a straightforward method that can resolve this issue, although it requires a larger sample due to the added degrees of freedom necessary for all of the interaction terms. In sum, blocking is generally a good idea as it ensures balanced random assignment across important characteristics, can increase precision, and can assist with subgroup treatment effect estimation; however, care must be taken when estimating results when different probabilities of treatment assignment across blocks exists.

Covariate Balance Check Although blocking ensures random assignment appropriately distributes the blocking variables across treatment arms, blocking is rarely done on all observable characteristics and cannot be done using unobservable characteristics. The causal inference of RCTs therefore relies on the high probability that random assignment generates treatment and control groups that are, on average, similar across all observed and unobserved characteristics. There is, however, always the possibility that we experience an unlucky randomization that does not produce equivalent groups. The random assignment process in an RCT produces one random draw from the distribution of all possible random assignments. There is a small probability that the random assignment draw put too many of one type of individual into one of the groups such that treatment and control would not have the same outcome in the absence of treatment; the two groups no longer serve as good counterfactuals for each other. An unlucky randomization would undermine the experiment as any observable difference in the outcome between groups could be attributable to the pretreatment group differences. This is analogous to drawing an outlier in the sampling distribution when conducting random sampling such that the sample is not representative of the population.

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In order to assuage this concern, it is standard practice to examine and report the balance of observable, pretreatment covariates across treatment and control after random assignment has taken place. If the treatment and control groups appear similar on observable characteristics, it provides some evidence that the random assignment process produced equivalent groups. Unfortunately, it is rather weak evidence. It is still possible that the groups are not balanced on unobservable characteristics, and there is no way to determine whether they are. Several different methods are available that can be used to assess the balance across treatment and control for observable, pretreatment characteristics. The most straightforward is to conduct a t-test for the difference in means between treatment and control of each individual covariate. This can also be accomplished in a regression framework by simply regressing each covariate on the treatment indicator. The coefficient on the treatment variable will be the difference in means of that covariate between the treatment and control group and its p-value will help assess whether the difference is statistically significantly different. A series of large pvalues suggests balance was obtained through random assignment, although it is possible to obtain a few spuriously statistically significant results, and the chance of that occurring increases with the number of covariates. Note that if blocking was used, the blocking variables do not need to be assessed in this manner since they should be correctly distributed across treatment and control by design, but the blocking variables should be used as controls in the series of regressions assessing balance because random assignment is conditional on the blocks. Firpo and colleagues (2020) note that this becomes a fixed effect regression with the blocking indicators acting as fixed effects so that the balance provided by the coefficient of interest is a weighted average of the balance across blocks. Under this formulation it is possible that the weighted average difference of the covariate between treatment and control across blocks is zero, but it is not zero within each block as it is expected to be due to random assignment within each block. This can occur when the difference is one direction in one block and the opposite direction in a different block. They suggest resolving this issue by interacting the treatment indicator with the full set of block indicators in a fully saturated model, similar to the model suggested by Lin (2013) above. A balance check table in experimental papers should report the results of this assessment. It can be combined with a descriptive statistics table, and it is typical to include the mean of each covariate for the treatment group, the mean for the control group, the difference in those means, and the p-value of that difference obtained from the t-tests or regressions. One downside of this method is that there is no one answer to whether balance exists because you have a long list of p-values that are likely correlated with each other. Another disadvantage is that, for continuous covariates, a null result on difference in means between treatment and control group does not necessarily imply that the distributions of that covariate are similar between treatment and control (Ciolino et al. 2015). One proposed alternative is using an omnibus test that would provide a single p-value instead of testing each covariate individually. Gerber and Green (2012) propose regressing the binary treatment on the full set of covariates and calculating

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the F-statistic of the test that the set of coefficients on the covariates equal zero. They suggest calculating the p-value of that test through randomization inference, which is accomplished by simulating the random assignment many (perhaps thousands) of times and computing the test statistic in each case. This process develops the sampling distribution of the random assignment, and the observed F-statistic from the actual random assignment can be found in that sampling distribution to determine the percentage of test statistics in the sampling distribution that are at least as large as the observed statistic. That percentage is the p-value of the F-statistic. The main advantage of this randomization inference process is that it will work for any number of covariates and with any complex randomization design including blocking and clustering. A different omnibus test is to use logistic regression to regress the binary treatment indicator on the full set of observable, pretreatment covariates and then to conduct a second logistic regression regressing the treatment on a constant. A loglikelihood ratio test comparing these two logistic regressions provides a single pvalue assessing whether the covariates jointly predict treatment assignment (Hansen and Bowers 2008). In the presence of blocking, the blocking covariates should be included in both logistic regressions before employing the likelihood ratio test. If there are more than two treatment arms, the method required to assess balance becomes more complex as the outcome is no longer binary but rather a set of values corresponding to the number of treatment arms. A multinomial logit model can consider such a treatment variable as an unordered outcome, and a log-likelihood ratio test comparing the model with all covariates against a model with only a constant can achieve the desired test statistic and p-value (Gerber and Green 2012). The primary problem with the likelihood ratio test is that it provides dramatically incorrect rejection rates in small samples (Hansen and Bowers 2008). Hansen and Bowers (2008) propose an alternative omnibus test that they call combined baseline differences, and they provide code called xbalance in the statistical analysis program R to implement this test. That test proves slightly too conservative in simulations but generally achieves much more accurate rejection rates than the likelihood ratio test in small samples. For an example of two approaches to assessing balance including the use of the Hansen and Bowers method, see Castleman and colleagues’ (2014) study of reducing summer melt in postsecondary enrollment by randomly assigning summer college counseling. A reasonable question to ask is what should be done in the case of unlucky randomization revealed through one of these methods. In general, the imbalanced covariate can be controlled for in the analysis regression, which resolves the issue for that covariate. The problem is that the observed imbalance suggests there might be imbalance in other, unobserved variables that cannot be controlled for and which could cause bias in the treatment effect estimate. If the balance check is done prior to treatment implementation, it is possible to rerun the random assignment to achieve balanced treatment and control groups. Morgan and Rubin (2012) offer a guide to doing so, although Athey and Imbens (2017) point out that with a design that extensively employs blocking across the important pretreatment covariates, this should be unnecessary. If the imbalance is discovered after treatment

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implementation, an acknowledgment that any treatment effect estimates could be biased due to the treatment and control groups not serving as a valid counterfactual for each other must be made.

Cluster Randomized Control Trials As we discussed above in the Units of Randomization subsection, random assignment can be conducted at a level higher than the individual, for example, at the classroom or institution level. In these cases, it is common to continue to observe the outcome at the individual level even though individuals were not randomly assigned treatment and control. Whenever the unit of randomization occurs at a higher level than the unit of observation for the outcome, the research design is called a cluster randomized control trial. The clusters are the units that are randomly assigned such that the entire cluster receives the treatment or control condition. There are several benefits of clustered RCTs (Bloom 2005; Moerbeek 2005), of which I will highlight a few. First, clustering can resolve logistical challenges in the implementation of treatment. In an RCT I conducted assessing the impact of financial aid information on loan aversion, the treatment was a video administered during the school day to high school seniors (Evans and Boatman 2019). It was logistically much easier to randomly assign classrooms of seniors to treatment and control and show the entire treatment classroom the treatment video than to provide that video at the individual level to some students in each classroom under an individual random assignment strategy. Second, clustering reduces the likelihood of interference between units, of which contamination is a common form. One concern with the Texas college advising experiment was if random assignment were conducted at the individual level within schools, then some students who were randomly assigned to meet with the adviser would provide the information and assistance they received to friends who were assigned the control condition. When the treatment is at the school level, the probability of this spillover of treatment effect to control units is less likely. We will discuss these interference effects in more detail in subsequent sections. Third, individual-level data is not needed at the time of random assignment. This can accelerate the provision of the treatment allowing more time to gather individual data through administrative records or other means. The downside of clustering is primarily twofold. First, it reduces statistical power. Power is mainly driven by the number of clusters as opposed to the number of individuals within each cluster. I will discuss this issue in further detail in the section about power below. Second, it complicates the calculation of the treatment effect and its standard error. When estimating treatment effects within a cluster RCT, the clustering must be accounted for. Analysis of cluster RCTs will produced unbiased treatment effect estimates, but the standard error must be adjusted (Bloom 2005). The outcome is measured at the individual level, but due to clustering, individuals within a cluster are not independent (Murnane and Willett 2011). This violates the standard regression

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assumption of uncorrelated error terms. Some of the variation in the outcome is due to individual variation within cluster, but some of the variation in the outcome is due to variation between clusters. When the outcomes of individuals within a cluster are correlated, calculating standard errors that ignore this correlation will be incorrect. Ignoring this complication will result in the standard error on the treatment coefficient being too small and the estimates appearing more precise than they should be. There are several proposed methods of accounting for the clustering. One straightforward and commonly used strategy is to simply cluster standard errors at the cluster level (e.g., Bettinger and Evans 2019; Oreopoulos and Ford 2019). This clustering of standard errors can lead to over rejection of the null hypothesis in studies with a small number of clusters,3 but randomization inference (discussed above in the context of the balance check) can provide appropriate rejection rates (Duflo et al. 2008). In terms of estimating the treatment effect in a cluster RCT, Athey and Imbens (2017) note that there are two estimands that may be of interest: the overall population average treatment effect and the unweighted average of the within-cluster average effects. The latter approach enables an analysis at the cluster level only using standard simple RCT analytic methods but precludes the inclusion of individuallevel covariates. The population average treatment effect estimand accounts for the multilevel data structure explicitly. Murnane and Willett (2011) provide a nice discussion of employing a random intercept model to specifically account for the clustered nature of the data. They also propose a fixed effect model as an alternative when there is a level above the level of clustering. Such a situation would occur with student-level outcome data when classrooms are randomized across multiple schools. For an example of a random intercept model and a demonstration of how standard errors can change in practice between a multilevel model and clustering standard error, see Evans and Boatman (2019). For a discussion of several alternative estimation strategies of cluster RCTs, see Donner (1998) or Schochet (2013) for a more technical explanation of how different estimation strategies align with the finitepopulation or super-population models. Similar issues of accounting for clustering emerge when conducting the covariate balance check in cluster RCTs. If the balance check uses individual-level data, then clustering must be explicitly accounted for. The Hansen and Bowers (2008) method using xbalance in R discussed above is one method that accounts for the clustering while using an omnibus test for balance across multiple characteristics. Blocking can be implemented in clustered RCTs using characteristics of the cluster to ensure balance of pretreatment cluster variables across treatment and control conditions. The regional blocking already discussed for the Texas college advising experiment is an example. Accounting for the blocking strategy in the

3

There is debate in the literature around how many clusters are too few. Duflo et al. (2008) suggest fewer than 50 is problematic, while Hayes and Moulton (2017) suggest there need to be at least 15 clusters per treatment arm.

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analysis using one of the methods discussed above, such as employing fixed effects for region as in the Texas experiment example, remains necessary. Clustering is extremely common in K-12 educational experiments due to the nested nature of students in classrooms in schools in districts. It is far less common in the existing higher education experimental literature with most examples clustering high schools and observing student-level college enrollment, but it is not difficult, for example, to envision applications of the random assignment of classes to a treatment while measuring student-level outcomes.

Compliance to Treatment Assignment Up to this point, we have implicitly assumed that everyone assigned to a treatment condition in an RCT has actually received that treatment condition, i.e., all of the students assigned the treatment have received the treatment, and none of students assigned the control have received the treatment. In practice, this rarely holds true. We call this issue compliance to treatment assignment, or, more simply, compliance. Noncompliance arises anytime randomized units do not adhere to their randomly assigned treatment. Accounting for compliance in the experiment is good practice because it reveals information about the level of take-up of the offered treatment. When considering scaling up an intervention, knowing the proportion of people offered the intervention who will take it up is highly useful. Furthermore, if take-up is lower than expected, it might suggest changes to the intervention are necessary. As discussed below, accounting for compliance enables a better understanding of the impact of the treatment on the people who complied with their treatment assignment. It also resolves one possibility if the RCT estimates a treatment effect of zero. If you have not measured compliance to treatment assignment, you cannot distinguish between a true null effect of the treatment or the possibility that the randomized units did not comply with their treatment assignment. A low-level noncompliance is not the death knell for an experimental analysis, but it should be measured and accounted for in the analysis. Measurement of compliance is the first crucial step. Records should be kept of the randomized treatment assignment and the actual treatment condition received for each unit that is randomized. For cluster RCTs, collecting data on compliance at both the individual level and the cluster level is ideal, although not always possible in practice. At the very least, compliance should be assessed at the level of random assignment. The challenge in accomplishing this will vary by context. In the Texas college advising example, it was easy to assess whether each of the 111 schools in the experimental sample had an adviser present in the school, which served as our measure of compliance. In an RCT providing Australian university students the opportunity to take up supplementary instruction or peer tutoring, tracking whether the nearly 7000 individuals in the experimental sample received tutoring and the amount received was challenging but necessary (Paloyo et al. 2016).

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The consideration and measurement of compliance should be part of the research design, established well before random assignment and implementation of the treatment. In addition to ensuring the appropriate data collection requirements are in place, seriously considering the issue of compliance in the design phase can help to define the treatment. One example occurred when my colleagues and I studied an email nudge to induce students in online courses to schedule when to complete their asynchronous class work in the hopes of raising academic performance (Baker et al. 2019). We had to determine how to define receiving the treatment. Should it be merely being sent an email from the professor suggesting the scheduling, opening that email, or actually scheduling the work? We determined scheduling the work was the behavior in which we were most interested and proceeded accordingly. Once compliance has been accurately measured and recorded, it can be accounted for in the analysis of the treatment effects. In the presence of any noncompliance, the ATE estimated by Eq. (2) or the model in Eq. (3) is more accurately referred to as an intent to treat (ITT) effect estimate. An RCT intends for everyone assigned treatment to receive treatment and everyone assigned control to receive control, so the ITT estimate simply estimates the treatment effect based on assignment to treatment. The issue with the ITT estimate in the presence of noncompliance is that it will be attenuated relative to the ITT estimate in which there was perfect compliance. This should make logical sense. Assume the treatment has a real, positive effect that is homogenous across all individuals. Under perfect compliance, the ITT estimate will capture that true effect. With noncompliance, a subset of the treatment group does not receive the treatment so that their outcomes will be lower than those in the treatment group that received the treatment. A pooled treatment group of the recipients and non-recipients will have a lower overall average outcome than if everyone had received the treatment. A similar analysis holds if a subset of the control group received the treatment. In either case, noncompliance dilutes the treatment contrast therefore making the treatment effect estimate smaller in magnitude than it otherwise would be if everyone had perfectly complied. An incorrect conclusion to draw from this discussion is that the ITT is flawed and useless. In fact, the ITT estimate may be exactly what we want to know. If we are conducting an RCT with the goal of testing an intervention that could eventually be scaled up and widely applied, then it is extremely useful to have a treatment effect estimate that accurately reflects the fact that individuals may not comply with the treatment in its scaled up form. Often the ITT is a policy relevant estimate. Although the ITT is a useful estimate, we may also want to answer the question: What is the treatment effect for the people who complied with their treatment assignment? The answer to this question is provided by a different estimate that is called by a variety of names across the literature including the complier average causal effect (CACE), local average treatment effect (LATE), or treatment on the compliers (TOC). A plethora of papers and books explain the difference between the ITT and LATE and derive the estimate for the LATE provided below. I draw upon Angrist and colleagues (1996), Bloom (2008), Murnane and Willett (2011), and Schochet and Chiang (2011).

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This LATE estimate is logically derived from the above discussion explaining why the ITT estimate is attenuated. The LATE estimate upweights the ITT by the proportion of the experimental sample that complied with treatment assignment. Estimating the LATE in a two-treatment arm RCT can be accomplished with a Wald estimator that simply divides the ITT estimate by the difference in the proportion of the treatment received between the treatment-assigned and control-assigned groups:

LATE ¼

Y1  Y0 T1  T0

ð5Þ

In this estimator, T 1 is the proportion of the treatment-assigned group who received treatment, and T 0 is the proportion of the control assigned group who received treatment. This simple Wald estimator can be useful, but it neither provides a standard error on the LATE estimate, nor does it work for more complex designs that include more than two-treatment arms, blocking, and covariates for added precision. Additional complexity is added in a cluster RCT in which both the clusters and individual units within each cluster can comply or not; see Schochet and Chiang (2011) for a discussion of estimating the LATE (what they call CACE) in cluster designs. In practice, the LATE is commonly estimated using an instrumental variable strategy such as two-stage least squares which easily allows for the inclusion of covariates. Random assignment to treatment functions as the ideal instrument because, as long as noncompliance is not severe, it is highly correlated with receipt of the treatment and cannot affect the outcome through any other mechanism except through treatment receipt. Random assignment therefore satisfies the main assumptions of instrumental variables. Estimating the LATE using two-stage least squares is straightforward. The first stage regresses treatment received on the randomly determined treatment assignment and any blocking variables and other covariates that may be useful to include in the model for precision. This should provide a strong first stage F-statistic. If it does not, it implies noncompliance is so severe that treatment assignment is not highly correlated with treatment received which undermines the LATE estimate and also casts doubt on the validity of the experiment. The second stage regresses the outcome on the predicted values of treatment received constructed from the first stage including the same set of blocking variables and covariates. The coefficient on treatment received in this second stage is the LATE effect. Note that estimating the LATE also requires a monotonicity assumption, which is another way of saying there are no defiers. In general, the literature defines four types of individuals within an experiment: complier, defier, always taker, and never taker. We have discussed compliers above and how to measure the treatment effect for them with the LATE. A defier, which monotonicity assumes does not exist, is an individual who would receive the treatment if assigned control and would receive control if assigned treatment. In most contexts, it is typical to assume defiers do not exist and monotonicity is satisfied.

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A consideration of always takers and never takers allows for a third type of treatment effect estimate. Never takers are people who will never receive the treatment regardless of whether they are assigned the treatment. In the absence of defiers, which we have assumed do not exist, any noncompliance in the form of treatment-assigned individuals who do not receive the treatment is from never takers. Never takers are common in most experimental contexts because we typically do not force individuals who are assigned the treatment to receive the treatment. Always takers are people who always will take up the treatment regardless of their assigned treatment status. Their existence implies that there will be people in the control group who receive the treatment. In some contexts, we essentially eliminate always takers by preventing the control assigned units from receiving the treatment. In the online scheduling nudge discussed above, the control students were never provided with the survey to schedule when they would work on their online classes, thereby removing the possibility of one form of noncompliance: from the control into the treatment. In the absence of always takers, the LATE is not only the treatment effect for compilers but is also equal to the treatment effect for those that actually received treatment, which is referred to as the treatment on the treated (TOT). If there is concern that noncompliance could be sufficiently strong to undermine the experiment, special care should be taken to limit this problem. In some contexts, limiting access to the treatment can prevent the control group from obtaining it thereby reducing one side of the compliance issue. If there is concern that a large portion of the individuals assigned treatment will not take up the treatment, then researchers can offer additional incentives for treatment take-up such as financial incentives or academic incentives such as extra-credit. However, the use of incentives can create additional problems. It may be unethical to offer incentives to the treatment group but not the control group. Incentives may also affect the outcome in a pathway separate from the treatment. For example, imagine we offered a financial incentive to schedule their asynchronous coursework for their online course in the scheduling nudge experiment. The financial incentive may certainly have increased take-up of scheduling leading to better academic outcomes, but it is also possible some students would have used the money to hire tutors to assist with the coursework, thereby increasing their grade through another mechanism. The incentives then become part of the treatment, and it is difficult to disentangle the effect of the incentives from the effect of the scheduling intervention. Finally, incentives limit the external validity of the findings if the treatment is likely to be offered in other situations or scaled up to be offered more widely when incentives would not be available.

Attrition One commonly encountered problem with conducting and analyzing the results of RCTs is attrition. Attrition occurs when a randomly assigned unit’s outcome is not observed. It is essentially missing outcome data on individuals in the experiment. An

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individual who was randomized but for whom we do not have outcome data is called an attriter. Attrition typically occurs because individuals do not complete the study. This can happen for a variety of reasons, many of which are context specific. Frequently in higher education research, a study has a final assessment or survey that is used to construct the outcome. Students who fail to complete this assessment or survey would be attriters. Occasionally attrition may occur because informed consent is only obtained after random assignment, and some individuals do not wish to provide consent. This issue can be resolved by only randomly assigning individuals that have provided consent. Attrition can be divided into two types: overall and differential. Overall attrition is the total number or percent of units randomly assigned whose outcomes are not observed. Differential attrition is the difference in number or percent of attrition between the treatment and control groups. Consider a situation in which 8 percent of the outcomes are missing for the experimental sample with 5 percent of the treatment and 3 percent of the control group missing outcomes. The overall attrition rate would be 8 percent, and the differential attrition would be 2 percentage points.

Attrition Can Cause Problems We care about attrition because it can undermine both internal and external validity. The high internal validity of an RCT relies on random assignment of the experimental sample creating equivalent treatment and control groups such that they serve as good counterfactuals for each other. When attrition occurs, the analytic sample for whom we have outcome data is no longer the experimental sample that was randomly assigned treatment, so we can no longer be confident that the equivalence between treatment and control groups after random assignment is maintained in the analytic sample for whom we have outcome data. Consider our hypothetical tutoring experiment example. Recall that in the absence of random assignment, we would be concerned that motivation causes a subset of students to pursue tutoring, and those students would be likely to have higher academic performance even in the absence of tutoring. Random assignment resolved that issue by ensuring motivation was equally distributed between treatment and control. But what if all the unmotivated students in the treatment group drop out of the study? Now we are left with a treatment group only consisting of motivated students and a control group consisting of a mix of motivated and unmotivated students. We can now no longer be sure that any observed average difference in outcomes between the treatment and control group is due to tutoring because it might only be due to student motivation. Essentially, attrition has reintroduced selection bias into the experiment as individuals select out of the study. Attrition can also cause external validity issues as the results cannot be generalized to the people who attrited. By definition, we have no outcome measure for attriters, so we cannot assess the impact that the treatment has on attriters. This can be especially concerning if attrition is related to another student characteristic that is

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important to the study. For example, if low-income students drop out of the study, then we will be unable to apply the findings of the experiment to low-income students. Note that this external validity issue may exist even if internal validity is not threatened by attrition. For example, assume all low-income students drop out of the study. They would have been equally distributed between treatment and control so their attrition does not undermine internal validity, but the inability to observe outcomes for low-income students implies that we cannot draw causal inference about the treatment effect for that subpopulation.

When Should We Worry About Attrition? When attrition occurs completely at random, meaning attrition is unrelated to both observed and unobserved variables, then the missing outcome data will be equally distributed across all student characteristics across both the treatment and control groups. In this case, attrition does not pose a threat to either internal or external validity (Huber 2012). It is difficult to know whether attrition is completely at random, but a few assessments can provide evidence in support of it. First, both overall and differential attrition should be measured and reported. If the differential attrition is small, that indicates people are equally leaving the treatment and control groups, and that supports the contention that the treatment or control conditions are not causing individuals to leave the study. That conclusion lends credence to the possibility that outcomes are missing completely at random, but it does not prove it. Under a scenario with overall attrition but no differential attrition, it is still possible that attriters in the treatment and the control are systematically different. Duflo and colleagues (2008) offer an example in the case of randomizing distribution of a medication: Treatment attriters could leave the study because they feel healthier and no longer want to follow up with the experiment, while control attriters might leave the study due to death. A possible higher education example might be a student engagement intervention that leads treated students to become highly involved in the campus and not have time to complete a follow up survey, while untreated students might be more likely to drop out or transfer and therefore not complete the follow up survey. The attriters in this example are unlikely to be the same type of student between treatment and control thereby causing bias. The second assessment of whether attrition might be considered completely at random is a missingness analysis which can be conducted to observe whether missing outcome data is related to any observed covariates. If there is a relationship between missing outcome data and observed variables, then attrition is not completely at random. Because we cannot assess whether unobserved variables are related to attrition, we can never be fully confident attrition is completely at random. One large concern is that either assignment to treatment (or control) or the actual treatment (or control) condition causes people to leave the study. Perhaps the treatment obligates participants to engage in an objectional task, so some choose to stop participating in the study such that their outcomes cannot be observed.

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Alternatively, perhaps a subset of the control group leaves the study because they lost the opportunity for exposure to the treatment and are seeking it elsewhere. Again, this will be context specific, but either way, this will result in differential attrition in which a subset of the treatment (or control) has left the study because of treatment assignment. I such cases, attriters are not missing completely at random, as some unobserved characteristic is likely interacting with treatment assignment, so there is a potential for bias in the treatment effect estimate. The Institute of Education Sciences What Works Clearinghouse Standards Handbook (2020) provides guidelines for the levels of overall and differential attrition that are likely to result in biased treatment effect estimates. They base these levels on a theoretical model and a few reasonable assumptions concluding that there is a tradeoff in bias between differential and overall attrition. In other words, a lower level of overall attrition can help combat a higher level of differential attrition. The standards provide a key figure (II.2) that states which levels of overall and differential attrition produce acceptable or unacceptable levels of bias under both cautious and optimistic assumptions. Scrivener and colleagues (2018) provide an example of employing these guidelines to conclude there is likely a low level of bias in the presence of attrition in their RCT of CUNY Start, an intensive college transition program for students requiring developmental education. The What Works Clearinghouse guidelines are useful, but they do not definitively determine whether there is bias in the treatment effect estimate due to attrition. As Bell and colleagues show (2013), differential attrition does not always result in bias, and bias can exist in the presence of overall attrition even when differential attrition is zero. The only way to ensure there is no bias is to avoid attrition altogether.

How to Counter Attrition To limit the negative effects of attrition, care should be taken to capture outcome data on as many randomized units as possible. This often means tracking individuals by gathering extensive contact data on participants at the time of enrolling them in the study. This is especially important in longitudinal analyses. Incentives can also be provided to increase participation in outcome measures. Financial or academic incentives provided only at the completion of the study may convince students to continue to participate through the last stages of data collection, although these are susceptible to the same concerns outlined in the reliance on incentives to encourage compliance described above. Using a more complex experimental design can also assist with recovering the average treatment effect in the presence of attrition that may cause bias. If an additional treatment to reduce attrition is randomly assigned on top of the main treatment of interest, that attrition reducing treatment can serve as an instrument for observing the outcome. Such instruments could include randomly assigning intensive follow-ups to capture outcome data (Dinardo et al. 2006) or randomly offering financial incentives for providing outcome data (Huber 2012). Huber (2012) and Millan and Macours (2017) provide an estimation strategy combining these efforts

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with inverse probability weighting to estimate the average treatment effect in the presence of attrition related to unobservables. An analytic tool that can be used to deal with both missing outcome data and noncompliance is principal stratification. More generally, this technique can provide treatment effect estimates when groups are defined by posttreatment variables. I will not discuss the details of this strategy here but rather point the reader to several excellent references on principal stratification (see Barnard et al. 2003; Frangakis and Rubin 2002; and Page et al. 2015). For an example of this practice in a higher education context, see Scrivener and colleagues (2018) study of CUNY Start.

Dropping Observations Due to Missing Covariates Observations can be dropped from the analysis of an RCT even in the absence of attrition. It is possible to observe the outcome of interest, but not all the covariates that are intended to be included in the analysis to increase precision. If including covariates for the purposes of precision drops observations because those observations have missing values for those covariates, then there is a trade-off in precision between sample size and explaining more variation in the outcome. If the covariates explain a great deal of the variation in the outcome and only a few observations are dropped due to missingness, then this would likely reduce the standard error on the treatment effect coefficient, but if many observations are dropped and the covariates poorly explain variation in the outcome, precision might be reduced. If covariates are included in the analysis that results in dropping observations, it can lead to the same bias problem that exists due to attrition. If the dropped observations are missing completely at random, then there is no concern, but if not, then the missingness has the potential to cause bias. To fully consider this concern, it is advisable to produce and report the treatment effect estimate and its standard error on the full sample without covariates, the reduced sample due to missing covariates but without the covariate controls, and the reduced sample due to missing covariates with the covariate controls. Investigating the difference in these point estimates and their precision can demonstrate whether the missing observations are affecting the treatment effect estimate and whether the trade-off in covariate inclusion is worth the lost observations.

Examples in the Higher Education RCT Literature Several RCTs in the higher education literature address attrition. For a good example of acknowledging high levels of overall attrition despite low levels of differential attrition, see Goldrick-Rab and colleagues (2016). For a useful discussion of attrition in a three-treatment arm experiment on remediation strategies, see Logue and colleagues (2016). In addition to a table summarizing attrition levels for all three treatment arms, they provide an exceptionally clear flowchart of recruitment, random

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assignment, treatment uptake, and observation of outcomes that should be emulated widely.

Assessing Fidelity of Treatment Implementation In an RCT, it is also important to measure what is called the fidelity of treatment implementation. “Fidelity of implementation is traditionally defined as the determination of how well an intervention is implemented in comparison with the original program design during an efficacy and/or effectiveness study” (O’Donnell 2008, p. 33). We want our treatment effect estimate to reflect the impact of the treatment in its intended design, so we need to assess whether the provision of the treatment is working as intended. Measuring treatment implementation is especially important for multisite RCTs in which it is common for the treatment to be provided by different people in different contexts. The reason measuring fidelity of treatment implementation is important becomes obvious if we consider the situation in which our RCT results in a null finding, that is, the treatment effect estimate is not statistically significantly different from zero. A null result could occur for three reasons. First, the treatment might truly have no effect. Second, the treatment might be administered poorly such that it does not create a contrast with the control students. Under this scenario, if the treatment had been administered as intended, perhaps the treatment effect estimate would have been positive. Third, compliance to treatment assignment may have been poor such that an equal amount of the treatment and control group received the treatment. We have already discussed measuring compliance to treatment assignment, so we would be able to assess if that explained a null result. In the absence of measuring fidelity of treatment implementation, however, we would be unable to distinguish between the first two scenarios if we obtained a null result from our RCT. If we observe and measure implementation, then we can rule out that possible explanation for a null finding. Note how treatment fidelity is a different concept from compliance to treatment assignment. Fidelity of treatment implementation is not determined by individual units who are randomized in the study but rather by the people implementing the treatment which, in the context of higher education, would commonly be the researchers, administrators, or faculty at the institution or staff from an external program. Another advantage of assessing fidelity of treatment implementation is that it can reveal the mechanisms by which the treatment works (Nelson et al. 2012). In the absence of observing how the treatment is implemented, it is difficult to learn which components of the treatment may be most effective. Observing implementation can also help anticipate challenges in a potential future scaling up of the intervention. Treatment implementation can be divided into several different components. Much of the literature in this area is adapted from the healthcare sector and applied to education interventions, and there are several proposed categorizations of the components of treatment implementation. Derived from the public health literature,

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O’Donnell (2008) describes five criteria including whether all of the components of the treatment are being delivered, the duration of the treatment, the quality of treatment delivery, how well participants engage with the treatment, and how well the features of the treatment differentiate from business as usual. An alternative perspective to consider implementation is the chronological development of the study: study design, training, delivery, treatment receipt, and treatment enactment (Smith et al. 2007). Each stage requires planning for, collecting information on, and reporting on treatment implementation. The main point is that care must be taken during the design phase of the study to consider how to achieve a high level of fidelity of treatment implementation and how to observe and assess it once the study is underway. Nelson and colleagues (2012) suggest a five-step process to accomplish fidelity assessment. Their model is more theoretical in nature, providing helpful guidelines for considering how the researchers expect the treatment to change outcomes and then providing advice for developing and assessing indicators to measure the treatment and expected changes. Mowbray and colleagues (2003) offer similar advice on developing indicators for fidelity of implementation. They also describe common methods for gathering implementation data: observing the implementation through site visits, watching recordings of implementation, or gathering survey and interview data from participants. A concrete example of assessing fidelity of treatment implementation may prove insightful. Returning to the Texas college advising experiment, we were concerned that the structure of the intervention with a different adviser assigned to each treatment high school could create high variance of the provision of treatment. We used a multi-strategy approach to assess implementation to mitigate this concern. The program first attempted to ensure consistency of advising through extensive training of the advisers prior to placing them in the high schools. We also tracked the number, length, and content of interactions between the adviser and students at each high school. While we did not expect these measures to be completely consistent across schools given the differences in school size, tracking the interactions identified whether advisers were implementing the treatment as planned. Colleagues with expertise in qualitative methods made site visits to both treatment and control schools and conducted interviews with multiple constituencies to help us assess fidelity of implementation. Finally, we conducted surveys of school administrators at both treatment and control schools, which revealed that many of the control schools pursued and obtained alternative college advising support services after not being assigned a treatment adviser. This supplemental data collection effort enabled us to determine that some of the treatment effect attenuation we observed over time was likely due to a reduced treatment contrast as the control schools found alternative supports. Our example highlights not only the importance of gathering information on treatment implementation among the treated group but also the importance of monitoring what is happening with the control group. Assessing fidelity of treatment becomes even more critical with treatments involving multiple components. A good example is the RCT of CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), an intervention designed to improve student

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success and graduation rates at community colleges (Scrivener et al. 2015). ASAP involved a host of treatments including a requirement to attend full time; strong encouragement to take developmental courses early and graduate within 3 years; enhanced academic advising, career services, and tutoring; enrolling in a seminar for building study skills; and financial supports including tuition waivers, free transportation, and free textbooks. The research team combined field observations, administrative records, and surveys of treatment and control students in order to assess the implementation of the treatment and understand the treatment contrast between treated and control students. Unfortunately, most of the existing RCT literature in higher education does not address treatment fidelity. This is a problem some scholars are aware of. In their RCT testing a peer-led social support intervention to facilitate the transition to college, Mattanah and colleagues (2010) admit that fidelity to treatment was not systematically assessed, but they support future research in this direction stating, “Future social support interventions would be strengthened by including fidelity checks” (p. 106). This statement should be generalized to all investigations of higher education interventions.

SUTVA One of the assumptions underlying estimating the ATE under the potential outcomes framework is called the stable unit treatment value assumption (SUTVA). This assumption is not specific to experimental contexts, but it has relevance to RCTs. Rubin (1980, 1986) defines SUTVA as the potential outcome of an individual in the study is independent of the mechanism used to assign treatment and independent of the treatment assignment of any other unit in the study. Imagine that you are assigned to a treatment in an RCT. SUTVA essentially states that your potential outcome can neither be affected by the number of people assigned treatment nor whether any specific other individual is assigned treatment alongside of you. Economists tend to use different language to describe similar concerns; SUTVA precludes the existence of general equilibrium effects, externalities, and social interactions (Hallberg et al. 2013).

SUTVA Violations Morgan and Winship (2015) discuss two forms of violations of this assumption. In the broader literature, these violations are generally collectively referred to as interference, but it is insightful to consider them both in turn. One they call the dilution/concentration effect. This effect occurs if the treatment is diluted (or concentrated) because more (less) individuals are assigned treatment. In a higher education context, this could occur when an intervention is taken up by a large subset of the population. Consider our tutoring experiment example. If a small subset of students at a large research university were randomly assigned treatment, it is

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unlikely to alter the potential outcomes. But imagine if a high proportion of the student body at a small liberal arts college were randomly assigned tutoring. Professors might respond by curving grades resulting in different potential outcomes simply because of the number of people assigned to the treatment. The treatment effect estimate observed at the large research university would likely be different than the one observed at the small liberal arts college in large part because of the proportion of the population treated. In such a dilution or concentration case, Morgan and Winship suggest that the conclusions of the experiment should be scaled back to only apply to cases in which a similar level of treatment is provided. This essentially limits the external validity of the findings to similar contexts. In our tutoring example, it would limit the generalizability of results to situations in which roughly the same share of the student population received the tutoring intervention. The second form of violation is due to what Morgan and Winship call influence patterns. If individuals’ interactions within the experiment influence each other’s outcomes, then there is a threat of a SUTVA violation. If person A’s potential outcomes could be different depending on whether they are in the treatment with person B, then person A’s outcomes are no longer independent of person B’s treatment status. This situation can occur in a higher education context in the presence of peer effects. If you are assigned to the tutoring treatment and your roommate, who is an academic superstar, is also being randomized in the experiment, your outcome is likely to be affected by whether or not your roommate is also assigned treatment as you would presumably have the opportunity to attend tutoring together, and the treatment effect of the tutoring might be enhanced by the presence of your star roommate. This would directly violate the assumption that an individual’s outcomes are unaffected by the treatment assignment of other students in the experiment. Murnane and Willett (2011) offer a similar example in the K-12 literature in the context of peer effects when randomly assigning vouchers to attend a private school. If one student is randomly assigned a voucher and her friend and neighbor is also in the experiment, the outcome of attending a private school of the first student will likely be altered if her friend is randomly assigned treatment relative to being randomly assigned control because treatment would afford the friend access to the voucher such that they could attend private school together. Another violation of SUTVA is the presence of unaccounted for multiple versions of treatment. The central issue of this violation refers to the potential outcomes framework which requires a single potential outcome for each individual under each treatment condition. If the treatment has multiple versions, then it is likely there will be more than one potential outcome for an individual under the treatment, which is a violation of the assumption. Imagine if some of the treated students in our hypothetical tutoring experiment received tutoring from a graduate student TA and some received tutoring from the course professor. It is likely treated students would have a different outcome under one form of the treatment relative to the other. VanderWeele and Hernan (2013) provide a robust discussion of this issue, but in many cases, it can be easily resolved by considering each version of the treatment as a separate treatment arm. In that case, the study can estimate the effect of each treatment arms as discussed above when estimating the ATE. The tutoring example issue

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could be resolved by considering tutoring with a TA one treatment arm, tutoring with the professor a second treatment arm, and no tutoring a third treatment arm.

Dealing with SUTVA Because the multiple treatment version violation can often be easily resolved by redefining the treatment, I will focus the discussion of dealing with SUTVA on the more intractable interference violations. The literature offers several proposals to deal with the interference problem. One solution is to isolate all individuals in the experiment from each other such that interference is not possible (Rosenbaum 2007). While ideal in theory, this solution is impractical in most higher education contexts. In most cases, it is simply not possible to prevent students from interacting with each other in ways that may affect their outcomes. However, it may be possible to limit interactions through sample selection and experimental design. For example, drawing from a larger population across an entire college campus is likely to reduce interaction effects relative to conducting an RCT within a single major or social organization. A change in the design of the experiment can sometimes mitigate a SUTVA violation. If, for example, we are concerned about the influence effects of roommates, we could alter the design to not randomize individuals but instead randomize roommates. This would become a cluster RCT in which roommate groups are the clusters. The SUTVA violation becomes less likely because there is a smaller chance that the treatment assignment of separate groups of roommates would affect the potential outcomes of other sets of roommates relative to an individual assignment in which roommates affect each other. Clustering does not ensure SUTVA holds, but in many cases it can reasonably reduce interference between randomized units. In the Texas college advising experiment, it is much more reasonable to assume that a high school’s college going rate is independent of whether another high school in the experiment receives an adviser relative to an individual-level random assignment design in which one student’s college enrollment decision could easily be affected by whether a friend receives assistance from a college adviser. When interference is expected, it may be desirable to estimate the impact of the interference on the outcome. Hudgens and Halloran (2008) suggest adopting a twostage randomization process and define several estimands that provide a more complete picture of the effects of the treatment in the presence of interference. The first stage of randomization assigns groups of individuals to condition A or B. Within the condition A groups, individual-level random assignment assigns a high proportion, maybe two-thirds, of the individuals treatment and within the B condition groups, individuals are randomly assigned treatment such that a low proportion, maybe one-third, are assigned treatment. This more complex treatment assignment procedure is referred to as pseudo cluster randomization (Borm et al. 2005) and enables a comparison of the treatment effect in groups that have a high percentage of individuals receiving the treatment to groups that have a low percentage of individuals receiving the treatment. Hudgens and Halloran divide the treatment effect into a direct effect, an indirect effect, and a total effect. The total effect is the sum of the direct and indirect effect, and the indirect effect is zero in the absence of interference.

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I direct the reader to their paper for the specifics of the various estimands; however, it is important to note one limitation of this strategy. The variance estimation of these proposed effects requires the additional assumption, which they refer to as stratified interference, that the interference is only a function of how many individuals are assigned treatment, not which particular individuals are assigned treatment. In other words, this procedure and estimation strategy will resolve SUTVA when it is caused by dilution/concentration, but variance estimation is not unbiased if there are influence patterns violations. Further scholarship by Tchetgen Tchetgen and VanderWeele (2012) demonstrates that an upper bound of this variance can be obtained without making the strong stratified inference assumption and offer further details on causal inference in this situation making the two-stage randomization approach a viable strategy. Although I am unaware of any higher education studies that have undertaken this strategy, it is easy to envision an expansion of an existing study that would provide an example. In the evaluation of the CUNY Start program, the researchers assigned about 80% of the experimental sample across four campuses to the treatment (Scrivener et al. 2018). In a world in which additional resources were available, additional CUNY campuses could have participated in the experiment, and then campuses could have been randomly assigned to be high-proportion or low-proportion treatment campuses. The high-proportion treatment campuses could have proceeded as the study actually implemented random assignment with 80% of eligible students assigned to the program. The low-proportion treatment campuses could have randomly assigned a much smaller percentage of eligible students to the program. This would enable a test of whether a dilution/concentration of treatment affects the intervention’s treatment effect. When interference cannot be sufficiently mitigated by sample selection and experimental design, the estimation and interpretation of causal effects must be adjusted. Rosenbaum (2007) notes that Fisher’s permutation test for a randomized experiment can be conducted in the presence of interference to assess the null hypothesis of no effect without drawing conclusions about the size of the effect and also develops nonparametric tests that can provide causal estimates in certain circumstances. Although Aronow (2012) proposes a general test of measuring the existence of interference and indirect effects, whether SUTVA holds cannot be proven. The assumption must be argued based on the context of the specific experimental design and treatment being tested. SUTVA tends to simply be believed in most experimental studies, even when that belief is likely flawed. Rarely, if ever, is SUTVA considered and discussed in higher education experiments. As higher education researchers, we should do a better job of considering these issues and acknowledging the limitations of them much more readily than we currently do.

Contamination An additional concern that is related to both SUTVA and compliance is the issue of contamination, which is also referred to as spillover, leakage, or treatment diffusion (Rhoads 2011). Contamination is a form of interference and therefore a SUTVA

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violation (Tchetgen Tchetgen and VanderWeele 2012; VanderWeele et al. 2013), but it is often discussed separately in the literature (e.g., Hallberg et al. 2013; Murnane and Willett 2011). Contamination occurs when the treatment individuals provide some form of the treatment to individuals that were assigned the control condition. It is distinct from the problem of compliance mainly in that the provision of the treatment to the control is not from the intervention or program directly but rather the control individuals receive the treatment indirectly from the treated individuals. Contamination results in a reduction in the contrast between treatment and control units and therefore functions to attenuate the estimate of the treatment effect (Murnane and Willett 2011). In the absence of measuring and accounting for contamination, a null treatment effect estimate could be due either to an actual null effect of the treatment or due to the control students also receiving the treatment from the treated students. If contamination can be measured by observing the level of treatment received by the control students, then the techniques described above in the compliance section can be used to account for a proportion of the control students receiving the treatment. However, it can be difficult to track the treatment contamination to control units in many contexts. One commonly proposed solution to limit contamination is to employ a cluster randomized design (Bloom 2005; Bloom et al. 2007). The goal is to group individuals likely to interact with each other into clusters and randomly assign the entire cluster treatment or control so that the individual interactions within a cluster cannot spread the treatment. This design works well to limit contamination in situations where cross cluster interaction is unlikely and is common in educational settings. It is one of the advantages directly cited in existing cluster RCTs in higher education (e.g., Bettinger and Evans 2019; Dynarski et al. 2018). For example, in the HAIL scholarship study conducted by Dynarski and colleagues (2018) in Michigan, the study tests an information and financial aid intervention targeted toward academically qualified low-income students that encouraged treated high school seniors to apply to the University of Michigan and provided a full scholarship if admitted. Randomization was conducted at the high school level, making this a clustered RCT, such that all eligible students within each high school were either offered the encouragement and scholarship or not. This reduces the chance of a control student learning about the application process and scholarship opportunities at the University of Michigan from a treated student at the same high school. The downside of conducting cluster RCTs is the power loss associated with a large reduction in the number of randomized units. There is a trade-off between the reduced ability to detect a treatment effect from clustering or from the reduction in treatment contrast due to contamination in a non-clustered trial. Rhoads (2011) discusses this trade-off and provides useful guidelines when choosing between these two designs. He suggests employing individual-level random assignment blocked by cluster instead of a cluster RCT when there are fewer than 100 clusters and the expected effect size of treatment is less than half of a standard deviation. He argues under those conditions, the power of the randomized blocked design exceeds the cluster level design. Rhoads (2016) extends this design consideration to threelevel cluster designs. In the context of higher education, such a design might involve

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students within classrooms within institutions, and the decision to be made is whether to randomize units at the classroom or institution level. Frequently, researchers are interested in estimating contamination effects for policy purposes. This can be accomplished by following the two-stage randomization design and estimating the indirect effect in Hudgens and Halloran’s (2008) conceptualization discussed above. Examples of study designs and estimation using this strategy exist in economics (e.g., Baird et al. 2014) and political science (e.g., Sinclair et al. 2012). Additional approaches are offered by Benjamin-Chung and colleagues (2018) who discuss several parameters that can be estimated measuring different forms of spillover in public health studies and by Vazquez-Bare (2019) who offers an approach using nonparametric estimation strategies. Although not specific to education, the most approachable guide to designing studies to observe contamination effects and estimate their impact of which I am aware is Angelucci and Di Maro (2015). Although few extant higher education RCTs directly address the issue of contamination, a study on college counseling to reduce summer melt provides an illustration of the consideration of contamination (Castleman et al. 2012). The intervention was proactive outreach by college counselors during the summer between high school graduation and college enrollment among recent high school graduates at seven high schools. The study used individual-level random assignment and observed the contacts between each student in the experiment and the college counselors. By measuring whether treatment was received by both the treatment and control samples, they observed that 84% of students assigned treatment and 21% of students assigned control had contact with the counselors. The authors state that the 21% of control students having contact would be the expected level of contact outside of the experiment but acknowledge that some portion of control students could have been induced to seek counselor assistance as a spillover from treated students. Because the study utilized individual random assignment within schools, it seems likely that such interference is possible, although it may be mitigated by the treatment occurring over the summer as students within the same school were interacting less than during the school year. The authors further argue that counselors reported control group contact seemed to occur independent of influence from treated students, which is a good example of using the context of the study and talking with the providers of the intervention to assess the likelihood of contamination. If contamination occurred, it was small enough not to reduce the treatment contrast to an extent that we might worry about detecting treatment effects. This study serves as a good example of the trade-off described by Rhoads (2011). The study accepted the risk of contamination and the related reduction in treatment contrast due to that contamination instead of employing a cluster randomized control trial which would have assigned treatment at the school level. The cluster approach would have likely reduced the risk of contamination from treated to control students but at the cost of a severe reduction in power given that there were only seven participating schools. We turn now to discussing the issue of power in more detail.

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Statistical Power Analysis Determining the sample size required to detect expected treatment effects under various experimental designs is the domain of power analysis. Conducting power calculations is a step that must be undertaken early in the design phase of planning an RCT because there is little that can be done during the analysis phase of an RCT that can fix an underpowered experiment. Power calculations can predict how many sites and individuals need to be recruited for the study and whether some design choices, such as clustering, are viable. This consideration is critical because if an RCT is underpowered, then there is a substantial risk that it will not be able to detect a treatment effect even if an effect exists. There is a large literature on calculating power. I will provide a brief introduction along with resources to pursue for a deeper understanding of the complexities of power calculations. The basic definition of statistical power is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when the null hypothesis is false. In the context of an experimental analysis, when the null hypothesis is false, it means a nonzero treatment effect exists. If you are correctly rejecting the null hypothesis when the null hypothesis is false, then you are correctly observing a treatment effect. In other words, power tells you how likely you are to observe a treatment effect that really exists. When designing empirical studies, conventional practice is to set a power goal of 0.8. This level of power provides an 80% chance of detecting a treatment effect that exists and a 20% chance of not detecting a treatment effect that exists. If a 20% chance of failing to detect a real treatment effect seems too high, then a power goal of greater than 0.8 can be set. Power is greatly affected by experimental design. For an individual-level random assignment design, power is substantially determined by the sample size, significance level, and the size of treatment effect (Hedges and Rhoads 2010). The sample size is the simplest to understand as it is the number of randomized units in the experimental sample. The ability to detect a treatment effect, and therefore power, is increased as the sample size increases. A large sample size increases precision by driving down the standard error of the estimated treatment effect, thereby allowing the researchers to detect a statistically significant treatment effect at smaller values than would be possible for a smaller sample size. Frequently, the goal of conducting a power analysis in advance of undertaking an RCT is to determine the necessary sample size to achieve a power level of 0.8 or higher. The second factor determining power of an individual unit, single-level RCT is the significance level the experimenters choose to use to determine statistical significance of the treatment effect. Murnane and Willett (2011) provide a nice, nontechnical development of the idea of power built around hypothesis testing and making Type I and II errors. One of the takeaways from their exposition is that there is an important relationship between the significance level, α, and the power level, β. The lower the significance level (compare α ¼ 0.05 to α ¼ 0.01), the lower the power. This relationship should make intuitive sense. If you become more stringent in your willingness to reject the null hypothesis (lower α level), then it increases the chance you will fail to reject the null hypothesis even when a true treatment effect exists (lower power).

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The third factor is the size of the treatment effect. The larger the treatment effect, the easier it will be to detect the effect by rejecting the null hypothesis, so power is directly proportional to the treatment size. There are two complexities here. First, in order to generalize away from any specific outcome and its associated measurement scale, the power literature mostly functions using a standardized treatment effect size. This standardized effect size is Cohen’s d and is simply the estimated treatment effect divided by the standard deviation of the outcome for the experimental sample. This calculation rescales the treatment effect to be in standard deviation units such that you might have an estimated treatment effect of a 0.3 standard deviation increase in the outcome. As an aside, do not fall into the trap of using Cohen’s (1988) labels “large,” “medium,” and “small” for effect size levels of 0.8, 0.5, and 0.2 standard deviations, respectively. As Lipsey and colleagues (2012) point out, these benchmarks are not tailored for research in education and do not apply well to educational interventions, when an effect size of 0.2–0.3 might be quite large. Using these labels for educational research can therefore be misleading. The fault lies not with Cohen, who readily acknowledged these labels are relative and would not necessarily apply to various contexts, but rather with the education scholars who rely on them. Although they are developed using K-12 educational RCTs, Kraft (2020) offers more realistic benchmarks for interventions in the education suggesting effect sizes of 0.05 are small, 0.05–0.20 are medium, and greater than 0.20 are large. He also suggests several useful guidelines for interpreting effect sizes. The second complexity in using the size of the treatment effect to estimate an RCT’s power is that we do not know what the size of the treatment effect is a priori. If we did, we probably would not need to conduct the experiment. It may be possible to estimate the anticipated treatment effect from prior literature for similar interventions, in which case a power calculation could commence. It is important to point out that a few other factors affect power. The proportion of units assigned to treatment is one. Power may not be the only consideration when deciding the proportion of units to randomly assign across treatment arms as there are likely resource constraints and equity considerations incorporated into that decision. However, power is maximized when the experimental sample is equally divided between treatment and control (Bloom 1995; Duflo et al. 2008). Also, the addition of covariates that explain variance in the outcome can increase precision in the treatment effect estimate, thereby increasing power of the experiment and make it more likely to detect a statistically significant difference between the treatment and control group outcomes (Murnane and Willett 2011). This logic also applies to blocking. When the probability of treatment assignment is equal across blocks, the power will be at least as large as in an experiment in which blocking was not used in the random assignment process (Duflo et al. 2008).

Minimum Detectable Effect Size Rather than directly calculating power, an alternative approach is calculating the minimum detectable effect size (MDES). In light of the limitation mentioned above

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that we tend not to know the treatment effect size in advance of the study, we can reframe the question from “what is the power for the experiment I am designing?” to “what effect size do I want to be able to detect in my experiment?.” This reframing enables a calculation of the sample size required to detect a treatment effect at least as large as this predetermined MDES for a set level of power, usually 0.8 or higher. This approach is more practically useful and is the one outlined in most of the guides to power analysis (e.g., Bloom 1995, 2008; Duflo et al. 2008; Schochet 2008). As an example, researchers in the design phase of planning an RCT might decide they want a 90% chance of detecting a treatment effect size of 0.25 standard deviations using a simple random assignment design. They can then turn to one of the tools discussed below to calculate the required sample size to achieve this probability of detecting such an effect.

Power in Cluster RCTs Cluster RCTs are much more common in K-12 education research in which classrooms and schools are regularly randomly assigned while observing individual student outcomes than in higher education where students are typically the unit of random assignment. Therefore, I will not spend an excessive amount of space discussing power considerations in cluster RCTs. I will, however, mention two salient considerations in assessing power in cluster designs and provide additional resources for further reading. The first important point was mentioned above both in the section on cluster RCTs and in the section on contamination, but it is worth reiterating. The power of an RCT is primarily driven by the number of units of random assignment, so in a cluster RCT, increasing the number of clusters is more important than increasing the number of individuals within each cluster to improve power (Duflo et al. 2008). The reason for this is related to the second important point: Power depends on the extent of clustering. The amount of clustering is usually defined by a measure called the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). To understand the ICC, consider that the total variance in the outcome of interest can be separated into two parts: the variance of the outcome within clusters (e.g., the variance of individuals’ outcomes within institutions) and the variance of the outcome between clusters (e.g., the variance of the outcome across institutions). The total variance is simply the sum of the within and between variances. The ICC is the proportion of between cluster variance out of the total variance and describes how similar individuals are within clusters (Hedges and Rhoads 2010; Murnane and Willett 2011; Schochet 2008). An ICC value of 0 means there is no clustering; all of the variation is within clusters and power can be analyzed as if it were individual-level random assignment. An ICC value of 1 means every individual within the cluster is the same, so the only variation exists between clusters. In this situation power is exclusively driven by the number of clusters.

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The value of the ICC is incorporated into calculations of power and MDES for all multilevel cluster RCTs. In addition to the above references, see Konstantopoulos (2008) for power analyses for a three-level design with two levels of clustering.

Tools to Assist with Power Calculations Although the logic of power analysis is straightforward, the actual calculations can be complex. There are several tools available to assist with determining actual values of power, MDES, or sample size requirements. The first tool is using published tables that have precalculated values that can be looked up easily. These are commonly used for individual-level random assignment with ATE calculated using a t-test and therefore do not adjust for the added precision gained by blocking or covariate inclusion. For example, power tables in Cohen (1988) list the power of a study based on the effect size and sample size. Such tables can be extended to incorporate more complex estimation strategies such as using covariate adjusted regression by providing MDES as a function of the standard error of the treatment effect estimate (e.g., Bloom 1995; Schochet 2008). For cluster designs, Konstantopoulos (2009) extends the use of these power tables to provide calculations that account for clustering. Hedges and Rhoads (2010) also offer a way to use simple RCT design calculations for power by calculating what they call a design effect and multiplying the simple design calculations by this design effect to achieve the correct adjustment for clustering and the inclusion of covariates. For strategies on improving power in cluster RCTs, see Raudenbush and colleagues (2007). There are also many computer programs that can be used to assess power in RCTs of a variety of designs. These programs typically allow the user to choose the design and input parameters in order to calculate sample size, power, or MDES. Examples include G*Power (Faul et al. 2007; Faul et al. 2009), Optimal Design (Spybrook et al. 2011), and PowerUp! (Dong and Maynard 2013). The manuals and papers associated with these programs are useful resources for understanding the calculations that underlie the results. One of the challenges with the existence of these numerous tools is that the notation and language used are different across tools and resources. Spybrook and colleagues (2014) provide an explanation of the notation and language used and translation between two different power computer programs. The inputs required for these calculations, especially in more complex designs that employ clustering or covariate inclusion, often rely on design parameters that are unknown in advance, for example, the ICC. The power calculations require a best guess of those values in the context of the experiment. Examining these values from prior empirical studies is a good starting point for making a guess. Schochet (2008) provides a variety of ICC estimates from different published studies in K-12 education. Unfortunately, the different context in higher education may not make those values accurate for postsecondary RCTs. As a field, we should aim to publish

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values such as the ICC when conducting studies (not just RCTs) so that we can begin to build a knowledge base of reasonable, empirically determined values in the context of students in colleges and universities.

Examples of Power Discussions in the Higher Education RCT Literature Several papers in the higher education RCT literature provide some discussion of power analysis. Rosinger (2019) employs the PowerUp! software to estimate the MDES in two randomly assigned samples in her study of the effects of providing organized and succinct financial aid offers via the Shopping Sheet to admitted and enrolled college students. Pugatch and Wilson (2018) offer a frank discussion of the limits of their experiment’s statistical power when estimating the impact of encouragements to receive peer tutoring. They successfully identify effects of the encouragements on tutoring, but even by observing the entire undergraduate population of their college of almost 1300 students, they do not have the power to detect tutoring effects on academic performance. Weiss and colleagues (2015) provide an excellent discussion of the MDES of their study on the degree completion and economic returns of a randomly assigned learning community intervention at a community college. They further extend the literature to consider the size of economic returns to degree completion necessary for reasonably powered studies to detect effects, the results suggesting quite large, and in many cases improbable, returns are necessary for studies to detect them. Other papers in the field discuss the pooling of results from multisite trials (e.g., Castleman and Page 2015) or across different samples (e. g., Cheng and Peterson 2019) in order to increase statistical power.

Limitations in Conducting RCTs Ethical Concerns In addition to the complexities of research design and analysis discussed in the sections above, there are a few notable limitations to conducting experiments. The first involve the question of whether an experiment can be ethically conducted in certain situations. Experiments in higher education mostly involve human subject research, and many involve students, who can be considered vulnerable populations. Working closely with your Institutional Review Board as you design an experimental analysis is essential to ensuring it aligns with the ethical principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice (National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research 1979). As just one example of an ethical issue in higher education, there has been decades of work devoted to estimating whether the Pell Grant improves college enrollment outcomes for low-income students. We can easily devise an experiment to find a group of low-income high school students across the country, and instead of

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giving them all a Pell Grant, we randomly assign them to receive the Pell Grant or not. We measure their college enrollment outcomes and obtain an average treatment effect of the Pell Grant on college enrollment. In design, this is straightforward, but it would not be ethical to conduct this experiment. Pell Grants are entitlements; every student who is eligible receives the reward. The proposed experiment would have to deny access to a benefit that the participants would have otherwise had. In general, removing a service or benefit the participants would have otherwise had access to is ethically questionable. Shadish and colleagues (2002) discuss this problem (and other ethical issues in experimentation) and offer potential solutions to mitigate this dilemma. One potential solution in the case of our Pell Grant experiment example is a dose-response design that would randomly assign different levels of the treatment to participants such that no one is denied at least a portion of the treatment. Applied to the proposed Pell Grant experiment, this would suggest randomly assigning additional amounts of Pell Grant aid beyond the amount participants would have otherwise received. This solution has its own limitation: We might not expect additional money on top of the standard amount to have the same effect as moving from $0 to the award amount.

Understanding Mechanisms A second limitation of most experimental analyses is that, while they are excellent at identifying causal effects of a treatment, they are far less adept at understanding the mechanisms underlying why the treatment did (or did not) work. A notable example is the CUNY ASAP study mentioned above in the context of evaluating fidelity of treatment implementation (Scrivener et al. 2015). That program offered a wide array of services including numerous academic and financial supports. The treatment had a large positive effect on 3-year graduation rates, but the study cannot identify which component or combination of components of the treatment produce this benefit. Clever designs that incorporate multiple treatment arms that vary the treatment in ways to test plausible mechanisms are one way of overcoming this deficit; however, that approach often requires substantial sample size to have the power to detect treatment effect differences across treatment arms. Another solution is to incorporate qualitative data collection into the design of the study. Observing and interviewing participants before, during, and after treatment can reveal the mechanism at work and provide insight into the experimental results that would otherwise remain unknown. Employing mixed methods also provides the opportunity for collaboration with colleagues of different methodological backgrounds. Grissmer (2016) provides a guide for integrating different methodological approaches in RCTs. An example of using qualitative data to better understand the observed results of an experiment in the higher education literature comes from Darolia and Harper (2018) who used semi-structured interviews of a subsample of participants from an RCT. The experiment tested whether providing a debt letter informing college students of their annual and cumulative student loan borrowing with the goal of enabling students to make more informed borrowing decisions. The RCT found

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the intervention had no discernable effect on borrowing, but the authors used the qualitative component of the study to better understand students’ reactions to the letter. The interviews revealed that the letter did improve information and enabled the researchers to identify three reasons why the letter did not alter borrowing behaviors.

Experimental Effects Finally, there are a class of problems called experimental effects that can emerge specifically because participants are in an experiment. Murnane and Willett (2011) provide a brief synopsis of two types of effects. Hawthorne effects occur when people behave differently simply because they are being observed as part of the experiment. Presumably, people work harder when they are under observation, so Hawthorne effects would tend toward an upward bias in the treatment effect. John Henry effects are due to individuals in the control condition working harder to make up for having been assigned control and not being provided the treatment. John Henry effects work to reduce the treatment effect estimate since the control is overperforming relative to not being studied. The magnitude of these effects is hard to directly gauge, and designing studies to eliminate them entirely is difficult. In practice, we tend to accept that experimental effects may exist and present arguments why they are likely to be large or small in each context.

Conclusion This chapter has covered the theory and practice of designing, implementing, and analyzing randomized controlled trials in higher education research. My primary point has been that although experiments seem straightforward, there are numerous complexities that must be considered when conducting RCTs. Ignoring these complexities from the onset can result in poorly designed studies that are likely to fail even before the treatment has been delivered. I have summarized these complexities and provided applicable higher education examples whenever possible. Although my focus has been on the challenges of successfully implementing experiments, the advantages of RCTs should not be overlooked. The majority of quantitative studies in higher education are observational, yet many of them attempt to draw causal conclusions. I regularly write referee reports cautioning against the use of causal language outside of quasi-experimental and experimental studies. Experiments provide a huge advantage in estimating causal effects over observational studies, so they are worth pursuing despite the complexities outlined here. Yes, a poorly designed experiment can easily be worthless, but the results of one well designed experiment can have a greater positive impact on student outcomes than a hundred observational studies that fail to account for issues such as selection bias. I focus on the complexities of RCTs not to deter you from pursuing them but rather to make it easier for you to design and implement a high-quality one. By

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compiling the anticipated issues, discussing how to deal with them, and providing further resources for understanding them, I hope to raise the standards of experimental analysis in higher education research. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Amanda Addison and Robin Yeh for providing research assistance in tracking down many of the references across fields cited in this chapter. The chapter also benefited from many helpful suggestions from an anonymous reviewer and the guidance of the Associate Editor, Nick Hillman.

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Brent J. Evans is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Higher Education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. He conducts quantitative research on college access and student success and has conducted numerous RCTs to study interventions aimed at enhancing college access, reducing loan aversion, and improving academic performance in postsecondary education. He was an Institute of Education Sciences Fellow while he completed his Ph.D. at Stanford University in the Center for Education Policy Analysis and holds additional degrees from Harvard University and the University of Virginia.

Contents of Previous Five Volumes

Volume XXXV A First-Generation Scholar’s Camino de Conocimiento Laura Ignacia Rendón The History of Religion in American Higher Education Andrea L. Turpin An Interdisciplinary Return to Queer and Trans* Studies in Higher Education Antonio Duran, Reginald A. Blockett, and Z Nicolazzo Toward a More Critical Understanding of the Experiences of Division I College Athletes Eddie Comeaux Reimagining the Study of Campus Sexual Assault Jessica C. Harris, Krystle P. Cobian, and Nadeeka Karunaratne Institutional Barriers, Strategies, and Benefits to Increasing the Representation of Women and Men of Color in the Professoriate Kimberly A. Griffin The Ambivalence About Distance Learning in Higher Education Di Xu and Ying Xu Learning to Change and Changing to Learn Aimee La Pointe Terosky and Katie Conway Evaluation and Decision Making in Higher Education Julie Posselt, Theresa E. Hernandez, Cynthia D. Villarreal, Aireale J. Rodgers, and Lauren N. Irwin Trends and Perspectives on Finance Equity and the Promise of Community Colleges Alicia C. Dowd, Kelly Ochs Rosinger, and Marlon Fernandez Castro Privatization as the New Normal in Higher Education Kevin R. McClure, Sondra N. Barringer, and Joshua Travis Brown A Primer for Interpreting and Designing Difference-in-Differences Studies in Higher Education Research Fernando Furquim, Daniel Corral, and Nicholas Hillman Author and Subject Indexes 2020: 738 pages ISBN: 978-3-030-31364-7

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 36, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7

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Contents of Previous Five Volumes

Volume XXXIV Assessing the Impact of College on Students: A Four-Decade Quest to Get It Approximately Right Ernest T. Pascarella Critical Examination of the Role of STEM in Propagating and Maintaining Race and Gender Disparities Deborah Faye Carter, Juanita E. Razo Dueñas, and Rocío Mendoza A Review of Empirical Studies on Dual Enrollment: Assessing Educational Outcomes Brian P. An and Jason L. Taylor Visual Research Methods for the Study of Higher Education Organizations Amy Scott Metcalfe and Gerardo Luu Blanco From Access to Equity: Community Colleges and the Social Justice Imperative Lorenzo DuBois Baber, Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher, Tamara N. Stevenson, and Jeff Porter The Promise and Peril of the Public Intellectual Todd C. Ream, Christopher J. Devers, Jerry Pattengale, and Erin Drummy Places of Belonging: Person- and Place-Focused Interventions to Support Belonging in College Lisel Alice Murdock-Perriera, Kathryn L. Boucher, Evelyn R. Carter, and Mary C. Murphy Assessing a Moving Target: Research on For-Profit Higher Education in the United States Kevin Kinser and Sarah T. Zipf The Labor Market Value of Higher Education: Now and in the Future Clive R. Belfield and Thomas R. Bailey The Dual Commodification of College-Going: Individual and Institutional Influences on Access and Choice Rodney P. Hughes, Ezekiel W. Kimball, and Andrew Koricich The History of Philanthropy in Higher Education: A Distinctively Discontinuous Literature Andrea Walton Geographical, Statistical, and Qualitative Network Analysis: A Multifaceted Method-Bridging Tool to Reveal and Model Meaningful Structures in Education Research Manuel S. González Canché Author and Subject Indexes 2019: 663 pages ISBN: 978-3-030-03456-6 Volume XXXIII Intellectual Autobiography Sheila Slaughter Reclaiming Diversity: Advancing the Next Generation of Diversity Research Toward Racial Equity Uma M. Jayakumar, Liliana M. Garces, and Julie J. Park Inventorying the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Literature John M. Braxton, Clay H. Francis, Jenna W. Kramer, and Christopher R. Marsicano The History of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Issues in Higher Education Karen Graves Reassessing the Two-Year Sector’s Role in the Amelioration of a Persistent Socioeconomic Gap: A Proposed Analytical Framework for the Study of Community College Effects in the Big and Geocoded Data and QuasiExperimental Era Manuel S. González Canché

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The Professoriate in International Perspective Joseph C. Hermanowicz Categorical and Limited Dependent Variable Modeling in Higher Education Awilda Rodriguez, Fernando Furquim, and Stephen L. DesJardins Revisiting Economies of Scale and Scope in Higher Education Robert K. Toutkoushian and Jason C. Lee A Critical Exploration of Diversity Discourses in Higher Education: A Focus on Diversity in Student Affairs and Admissions Leah Hakkola and Rebecca Ropers-Huilman Developmental Education: The Evolution of Research and Reform Shanna Smith Jaggars and Susan Bickerstaff Reimagining Organizational Theory for the Critical Study of Higher Education Leslie D. Gonzales, Dana Kanhai, and Kayon Hall Author and Subject Indexes 2018: 595 pages ISBN: 978-3-319-72489-8 Volume XXXII The Privileged Journey of Scholarship and Practice Daryl G. Smith Do Diversity Courses Make a Difference? A Critical Examination of College Diversity Coursework and Student Outcomes Nida Denson and Nicholas A. Bowman The Impact of College Students’ Interactions with Faculty: A Review of General and Conditional Effects Young K. Kim and Linda J. Sax Finding Conceptual Coherence: Trends and Alignment in the Scholarship on Noncognitive Skills and Their Role in College Success and Career Readiness Heather T. Rowan-Kenyon, Mandy Savitz-Romer, Maya Weilundemo Ott, Amy K. Swan, and Pei Pei Liu Philanthropic Foundations’ Social Agendas and the Field of Higher Education Cassie L. Barnhardt Toward a Holistic Theoretical Model of Momentum for Community College Student Success Xueli Wang Conceptualizing State Policy Adoption and Diffusion James C. Hearn, Michael K. McLendon, and Kristen C. Linthicum Expanding Conceptualizations of Work/Life in Higher Education: Looking Outside the Academy to Develop a Better Understanding Within Margaret Sallee and Jaime Lester A Historiography of College Students 30 Years After Helen Horowitz’sCampus Life Michael S. Hevel Peer Review: From“Sacred Ideals” to “Profane Realities” David R. Johnson and Joseph C. Hermanowicz Geospatial Analysis in Higher Education Research Nicholas W. Hillman Towards a New Understanding of Labor Market Alignment Jennifer Lenahan Cleary, Monica Reid Kerrigan, and Michelle Van Noy Author and Subject Indexes 2017: 663 pages ISBN: 978-3-319-48982-7

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Volume XXXI Conceptualizing Innovation in Higher Education William G. Tierney, The University of Texas at Austin and Michael Lanford, University of Southern California English Learners and Their Transition to Postsecondary Education Anne-Marie Núñez, The University of Texas at San Antonio, Cecilia Rios-Aguilar, University of California Los Angeles, Yasuko Kanno, Temple University and Stella M. Flores, New York University Students with Disabilities in Higher Education: A Review of the Literature and an Agenda for Future Research Ezekiel W. Kimball, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Ryan S. Wells, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Benjamin J. Ostiguy, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Catherine A. Manly, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Alexandra A. Lauterbach, University of Massachusetts Amherst A Historiography of Academic Freedom for American Faculty, 1865–1941 Timothy Reese Cain, University of Georgia Community College Workforce Development in the Student Success Era Mark M. D’Amico, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte Organizational Learning in Higher Education Institutions: Theories, Frameworks, and a Potential Research Agenda Jay R. Dee, University of Massachusetts Boston and Liudvika Leišyt_e, Technical University Dortmund The Cost of Producing Higher Education: An Exploration of Theory, Evidence, and Institutional Policy John J. Cheslock, Pennsylvania State University, Justin C. Ortagus, University of Florida, Mark R. Umbricht, Pennsylvania State University and Josh Wymore, Spring Arbor University Universities as Anchor Institutions: Economic and Social Potential for Urban Development Michael Harris, Southern Methodist University and Karri Holley, The University of Alabama Examining Production Efficiency in Higher Education: The Utility of Stochastic Frontier Analysis Marvin A. Titus, University of Maryland and Kevin Eagan, UCLA Learning Through Group Work in the College Classroom: Evaluating the Evidence from an Instructional Goal Perspective Marilla D. Svinicki, The University of Texas at Austin and Diane L. Schallert, The University of Texas at Austin Understanding Grit in the Context of Higher Education Daniel J. Almeida, University of Southern California Author and Subject Indexes 2016: 657 pages ISBN: 978-3-319-26828-6

Index

A Academic learning definition, 327 studies of, 331 Academic professionalization, 435–436 Academic professional model, 430, 431 Academic programs assessment of academic learning, 371 course objectives and instructional approaches, 371 data on student learning, 364 impact of, 362 student support, 353 subject matter knowledge and skills, 330 Accountability, 487, 488, 493, 495, 520, 540 ACT for admissions, 57 college readiness, 52 in Midwest and South, 53 online preparation, 55 statewide, 54 Adult community college students’ outcomes, 243–259 Adult development theory, 435, 444 Adulthood definition, 222 subjective sense of, 222–223 Adult learners definition, 224 understanding of, 220 Adult students definition, 220 as diverse learners, 238 engagement, 240 learning characteristics, 258 multidimensional conceptualization of, 228–230

as nontraditional students, 224–230 participation in postsecondary education, 235–243 in undergraduate higher education, 219 ADVANCE program, 455, 458 Advising, 253 Age, students, 221 American Council on Education (ACE), 565 AntiBlackness, 106, 120 Asian Americans, 299 Assumptive world, 426 Attrition, 635 external validity issues, 636 internal validity, 636 reducing treatment, 638–639 types, 636 Average treatment effect (ATE), 621–623, 627, 631, 639

B Balance check, 627–630 Balance check table, in experimental papers, 628 Baldwin and Chang’s mid-career faculty development model, 461, 466 Belonging, 177 Bisexual identity, 170 Black college women, 108, 111, 123, 130, 133 Black feminist applications of, 147 approach, 135 concepts, 145 critical race and, 128 intellectual and activist tradition, 136 perspective, 146

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668 Black feminist (cont.) scholarship, 110 Black feminist theory (BFT), 110, 115 Black Feminist Thought (BFT), 127, 137 Black student(s) in 2017–2018, 130 attendance of, 123 changes in enrollment pattern, 123 characteristics and predictors, 131 college decision-making processes, 111 college entry and degree attainment, 106 Crown Act policies, 121 decision-making, 132 educational inequities, 109 educational opportunities for, 107 exclusion of, 129 high education aspirations, 131 higher education institutions, 129 long-term occupational and income implications, 132 oppression and identity shapes, 133 receipt of school infractions, 121 in schools, 130 Black womyn professors, 464 Blocking method, 625–627 Bootstrap multiple mediation, 203

C Campus activism, higher education research on, 278–279 Campus Pride, 183 Campus pride index (CPI), 175 Capitalism, 281 Career and technical (CTE) fields, 335 Career choice, 387 CTC (see Chaos theory of careers (CTC)) HLT (see Happenstance learning theory (HLT)) psychological perspectives of, 388–390 sociological perspectives, 390–392 Career stage model, 427, 434–435 Catalytic research continuous critical reflexivity, 289 reciprocity with communities, 289 transformative dissemination of knowledge, 289 Catalytic validity, 288 Causal inference, 627, 645 Chaos theory of careers (CTC), 397 chance, 398–399 change, 398

Index complexity, 397–398 construction, 399 doctoral student experience, 399–400 Cisheteronormativity, 190 Cluster randomized control trial, 630–632 power in, 650 Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM), 516 Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) program, 471–472 College access, 49, 55, 57 context of neoliberalism, 106 contradictions of, 106–107 and decision-making, 117 inequality in, 113, 114 institutionalized forms of oppression and, 107–110 issues of, 112 stratification in, 113 structural barriers in, 113 College and university administrators, 182, 183 College and university education federal policy, 372 performance assessment, 364 College choice Black Feminist Thought model, 127 Black women’s, 135 vs.college access, 112 limitations of, 112 process of, 133 racialization of, 135 theories of, 127 College placement test, 54, 56 College readiness academic, 49 assessments, 54 benchmarks, 58, 69 criteria, 54 CUNY Start, 95 early assessments of, 52 effectiveness of, 52 during high school years, 51 indicators of, 53 initiatives, 49 intervention, 82 lack of awareness of gaps in, 51 level of, 55 reforms, 94 reforms for academically, 50 signal of, 52, 59 testing, 66 types of, 52

Index Community college in adult undergraduate education, 236–238 programs and initiatives support, 260 support programs, 243 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE), 230 Competitive individualism, 282 Compliance, in experiment, 632–635 Compliance to treatment assignment, 640 Conceptual frameworks college impact model, 339, 343, 366 distance learning, 335 educational problems and literature reviews., 331 experiences in community colleges, 340 faculty-student interactions, 362 Conciliation of movements, 295 Confrontational tactics, 294, 304 Connecting classroom, 241 Consumerism, 282 Contamination, 630, 645–647 Controlling images, 109, 121, 135, 137–139, 142, 145, 146 Conventional tactics, 294 Co-optation, 295 Cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) campaign, 305 Council for Undergraduate Research (CUR), 443 Coursetaking in college, 52, 54, 70 first year, 60, 61, 68 high school, 51, 69, 73 postsecondary, 62 rates, 88 remedial, 60 Covariate balance check, 627–630 Critical agency, 289, 290 Critical social movements (CSM) studies, 295 defined, 276 effective social justice movement strategies and tactics, 288, 293–295 expanding and sustaining activity, 296–298 exposing university resistance, 305–307 foster/cultivate critical agency, 288–291 framework for, 287, 288 impact of social justice movements, 298–300 role of resources, complicating, 300–303 social justice movement resources, 288, 292–293 solidarity, importance of, 288, 291–292

669 student social justice movement strategies, 304–305 suppression of movements, 295 utilizing catalytic approach, 288–289 Critical theory, 281–283 Cross-border partnerships, 551, 568, 573, 575, 578, 584 CUNY Start program, 645 Curriculum changes and student exchanges, 566 college, 348 definition, 333 effectiveness of, 355 formal, 586 hidden, 586 informal, 586 and instructional development, 334 redesign efforts, 355 redesign process, 356 studies of, 364 Western-centric, 589

D Declining morality, 282 Deep approaches to learning (DAL), 336 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), 194 Department chairs, 442–443 Developmental education in college, 66 and college-level courses, 71 courses, 48, 53 courses upon college enrollment, 50 different levels of, 77 enroll in, 48 enrollment in, 70 impacts of, 48 reforming programs, 50 students enrolled in, 76 Diagnostic framing, 293 Differential attrition, 636–638 Digital activism, impact of, 303 Digital technologies, role and impact of, 303 Discipline-based education research (DBER), 325 Discursive fields, 294 Disproportionate value systems, 446 Distance learning, 251 Doctoral student socialization and professional development, career choice, see Career choice

670 E Early assessment, 49 impacts and implementation, 56–63 and underlying conceptual frameworks, 53–56 Early College High School, 49, 52 impacts and implementation, 86–93 and underlying conceptual frameworks, 82–85 Economic security, 385 Education inequities, 109 Enrollment in higher education, 236 patterns, 239 Equity metrics, 487, 488, 502, 503, 526, 528, 530–532, 536, 540, 541, 543 Equity-driven conceptual and theoretical perspectives, 554–555 Equity-driven internationalization lens, 554, 590 Equity-related benefits, 552 Erikson’s psychosocial development model, 426, 438 Evasion of movements, 295 Experimental design issues, 617 multisite RCT, 619 preregistration, 620–621 pretesting and longitudinal designs, 618–619 treatment arms, 619–620 units of randomization, 617–618 Experimental sample, 624 Experiments, 612 compliance to treatment assignment, 632–635 conducting, limitations, 652–654 logic of, 615 mathematics of, 621–623 see also Randomized control trials (RCTs)

F Faculty development, mid-career (see Mid-career faculty) role of, 401–402 Feminism Black, 127, 135 Chicana, 124 historical perspective on black, 135–136 Fidelity of treatment implementation, 640–642

Index Field experiments, 617 Finite population model, 621 First-time student, in postsecondary discourse, 218 Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI), 68 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), 174–175 Freedom’s Web, 279 Full-time faculty demographics, 422–423

G Gender-inclusive restrooms, 185–186 Geopolitics, 572 Gig economy, 385 Global engagement and backgrounds, 592 forms of, 588 strategies, 550 U.S. federal government, 562

H Happenstance learning theory (HLT), 393 curiosity, 393–394 doctoral student experience, 396–397 flexibility, 395 optimism, 395–396 persistence, 394–395 risk taking, 396 Hate and state-sanctioned violence, 194–195 Higher education Black undergraduate women in, 109 inquiries and political agendas, 106 to public service, 107 racial disparities in, 108 traditional modes of, 111 Higher education finance, 487, 488, 491, 493, 495, 496, 501–503, 515 Higher education research on campus activism, 278–279 CSM approach (see Critical social movement (CSM) studies) experimental analysis (see Experiments) Higher education researchers, 164, 199, 202 Higher Education Research Institute (HERI), 472 Higher education scholars, 276 Holland’s theory, 388–390 Homonormativity, 172 Housing, 185

Index I Ideal worker norms, 462 Identity solidarity, 291 Identity development normativity, 172–173 outness and identity disclosure, 171 queerphobia and transphobia, 172 student development theories, 170 Incentives, 635 Individual perspective, 433 Individual treatment effect (ITE), 621 Information technologies, in student social justice movements, 301 Informed consent protocol, 198 Input-environment-outcomes (I-E-O) model, 339 Institutionalization, 294, 305 Institutional perspective, 432 Instructor quality, 81 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), 56, 516 Intent to treat (ITT) effect estimate, 633, 634 Interaction analyses, 333 Interference, 642 International higher education partnerships, 568, 572–575 International students, 568 Asian, 569 Chinese, 569 commodification of, 557, 571, 572 in contemporary times, 568 de/constructing internationalization, 569 diversity and financial goals, 550 vs. domestic, 584 East Asian, 569 educating, 568–572 equity-driven approach, 570 financially-driven images of, 571 as financial resources, 594 H-1B and J visas for, 563 as homogenous group, 591 inclusion of, 570 participation of, 563 peer interactions with, 587 research on, 569 in scholarship, 592 sojourners, 570 STEM participation, 563 and student mobility, 572 training program for, 563 Intersectional coalitions, in student movements, 297

671 Intersectionality, 165 academic and legal discourse as, 136 application of, 127 concept of, 136 Intersectional solidarity, 291 Intimate partner violence, 196 Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), 650 Isolation tactic, 295 L Lab experiments, 616 Lab style experiments, 617 Leadership Education for Advancement and Promotion (LEAP) program, 455 Learning communities, 256 and themed housing, 189 Learning experiences academic, 354 collaborative, 351 dimensions of, 326 effects of, 345 impact of, 344 impact on students, 372 kinds of, 337 nature of, 367 and outcomes, 347 programs and practices, 365 social identities and life experiences, 347 students’ perceptions, 352 and students under examination, 363 Learning outcomes course content, 370 differences in, 346 disparities in students’ learning, 342 educational practices, 342 explanations, 344 identification of, 338 of interest, 342 intervention components and instructional processes, 334 learning processes and, 365 practices and, 345 programs, 342 researchers, 365 for students, 345 students’ academic, 331 transferrable, 371 Legislators, 163, 199, 202, 203 Local Average Treatment Effect (LATE) estimate, 634 Longitudinal posttreatment, 618 Longitudinal pretreatment data collection, 618

672 M Mentoring, 453–454 Mentorship, 404 Meta-synthesis, 425 description, 421 mid-career faculty (see Mid-career faculty) Mid-career faculty in 1980s, 427–438 in 1990s, 438–448 in 2000s, 449–458 in 2010s, 459–476 academic professionalization, 435–436 barriers to advancement, 459–462 career stage approach, 434–435 challenges of competing time commitment, 446 COACHE, 471–472 conceptual and theoretical models in, 426–427 department chairs, 442–443 description, 423–424 elements and benefits of institutional Strategies, 452–453 future research, 470–476 HERI, 472 institutional and individual perspective, 432–433 institutional and relational factors, 441–442 institutional examples and professional education, 436–437 institutional supports, 441 institution as source of strain, 439–441 intentionality, 468 intersectional issues, 473–475 intersection of individual and the institution, 439–443 interventions for faculty support, 466–467 isolation and lack of recognition, 447–448 lack of clarity, 460 lack of resources, 460–462 leadership development, 469 mentoring, 453–454 methodological approaches, 476 mid-career stage criteria, 450–452 NSOPF, 472–473 online education and technology-based pedagogies, 469 post-tenure review, 453 professional competence, 432 professional organization, 443 programs for renewal and development, 454–455 research and practice, 467–470

Index strategies and interventions, 452–455 support of non-tenure track faculty, 475 teacher-scholar to professional researcher, 428–429 tension between teacher and researcher, 428–431 value vs. reward, 429–431 vulnerable faculty populations, 462–466 well-being of person, 444–445 women faculty in the academy, 455–458 Minimum detectable effect size (MDES), 649 Minority stress theory, 191–192 Mixed-methods studies, 303 Motivational framing, 294 Movement ripple effects, 300 Multicontextual model for diverse learning environments (MMDLE), 176–177 Multidimensional Conceptualization of Adult Students (MCAS), 219, 220, 228, 229, 231 Multiple mentoring models, 457 Multisite trials, 619

N National Inventories of QT Resources, 183–184 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF), 472–473 Natural experiments, 616 Neoliberal ideologies, 307 elements of, 282 Neoliberalism, 281, 282, 285, 491–492 Neoliberal paradox, 304 News media, 301 Noncompliance, 632 Nondiscrimination, 192–194 policies, 184–185 Nontraditional students, 220, 224 accepted perspective, 227 assumptions, 225 behavioral framework, 227 definition, 225 embraced perspective, 227 highly, 225 minimally, 225 moderately, 225 post-traditional learner, 228 Normativity, 172–173

O Observational studies, 614 Older student, 220

Index Outcomes-based funding, 489, 540 Outness and identity disclosure, 171 Overall attrition, 636, 638

P Performance-based assessments of learning, 327 Performance-based funding, 538 Performance funding (PF) access and admissions outcomes, 528–530 campus implementation in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee, 499–500 campus implementation in Ohio and Pennsylvania, 501–502 campus responses to equity metrics, 502 capacity for campus initiatives, 542 definition and prevalence, 486–487 degree completion, limited impact on, 537–538 diversity of policy adopters, 541 ecology of game, 492 economic recession, 540–541 equity considerations, 535–536 equity metrics and enrollment outcomes, 530–532 establishment of, 493 evidence usage, 494–496 features of, 487–488 four-year college completion outcomes, 516–519 goal alignment, 542 history of, 488–489 inputs drive outputs, 541 institutional finances, impact on, 532–535 international perspective, 538–539 meta-analysis, 525 methodological considerations, 542–543 minority-serving institutions, 525–528 neoliberalism, 491–492 new public management, 489 policy awareness and campus responses in Washington State, 500 policy evaluation consideration, 503–515 policy implementation and campus responses, 496–498 policy innovation and diffusion, 493–494 policy learning and diffusion, 494 principal-agent theory, 490–491 research design, 537 resource dependency theory (RDT), 490 two-year college completion outcomes, 519–524

673 unintended institutional responses in Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee, 498–499 Planned happenstance theory, HLT, see Happenstance learning theory (HLT) Policy implementation, 496–498 Policy treatment variable, 515 Postsecondary education, 325 importance of, 219 Post-tenure review model, 453 Power, theoretical models of, 106 See also Statistical power analysis Precarity, 282 Preregistration, 620–621 Prior learning assessment (PLA), 247–249, 257 Professional competence, 432 Professoriate, 420 Program for Faculty Renewal at Stanford University, 436 Pseudo cluster randomization, 644

Q Quasi-experimental analyses, 614 Queer and trans (QT) student success, 163 academic spaces, 181–182 athletics, 189–190 belonging, 177 conceptual model of, 173–174 data collection, 186–187 faculty relationships, 178–179 FAFSA process, 174–175 federal policies, 193–194 finances, 173–175 fraternities and sorority life, 190–191 gender-inclusive restrooms, 185–186 hate and state-sanctioned violence, 194–195 HIV, 198–199 implications, 199–205 institutional policies, 184–188 intersectionality, 165 intimate partner violence and sexual violence, 196–197 learning communities and themed housing, 189 minority stress theory, 191–192 multicontextual model for diverse learning environments, 176–177 national inventories, 183–184 nondiscrimination, 192–193 pathologized identities, 197–198 peer relationships, 178 physical spaces and organizations, 179–182 policy and legislation, 203–204

674 Queer and trans (QT) student success (cont.) relationships and spaces, 176–182 resource centers and services, 180–181 single-gender institutions, 188–189 society, 191–197 student development theories, 170 student organizations and activism, 179–180 student records, 187–188 theoretical and conceptual frameworks, 168–169 Title IX interpretations, 192–193 transformational tapestry model (TTM), 183 Queerphobia and transphobia, 172 Queer theory, 166

R Race and gender in education, 113, 116, 136 Random assignment process, 624–625 Random assignment to treatment, 615 Randomized control trials (RCTs), 613, 614 attrition in, 635–639 cluster, 630–632 conducting, limitations, 652–654 dropped observations, 639 ethical issues, 652–653 experimental effects, 654 mathematical treatment, 621–623 Random sampling, 624 Rankin and Reason’s model, 183 RCTs in higher education literature, 639 contamination, 645–647 fidelity of treatment implementation, 640–642 statistical power analysis, 652 SUTVA, 642–645 Research agenda, 408 deeply integrated professional development, 410–411 enhanced advising approaches, 408–409 modified programmatic requirements, 409–410 Research strategies, 324 Resource dependency theory (RDT), 490 Rubin causal model, 621

S SAT for admissions, 57 College Board’s assessment, 53 for college readiness, 52

Index in grade 11 in Colorado, Illinois, 56 by grade 12, 55 in Maine, 62 National Center for Education Statistics, 55 participation rates, 58 preparation, 58 statewide, 54 Self-efficacy, 395 Socialization, 400, 413 assets-based (anti-deficit) approach, 402–403 faculty, role of, 401–402 and international students, 404–405 mentoring and advising, and long-term impact, 403 mentoring students, 403–404 minoritized students, experiences of, 400–401 modified framework for doctoral student socialization, 405–407 socialization theory, 390–392 Social justice movements, 277–278 Social justice movements, in higher education complicating analysis of, 285–287 history of, 283–285 Social media, 292 activism, 302 Social movements theory, 280, 287, 294 impact of movements, 280 movement life cycles, 280 movement strategies and tactics, 280 scholarship, 281 Spacing effect, 332 Spillover, see Contamination Spillover of treatment effect, 630 Stable Unit Treatment Value Assumption (SUTVA), 642–645 stratified interference, 645 Standardized treatment effect size, 649 Statistical power, 624, 630 Statistical power analysis, 648–652 tools in, 651, 652 STEM, 385, 401, 404, 409 Strategic framing, 293 StratEGIC Toolkit, 465 Structural equation modeling, 203 Student activism higher education scholarship on, 278 rate of, 276 (see also Campus activism) Student development theories, 170 Student health policies, 186 Student outcomes after high school, 88

Index intended improvements in, 79 limited follow-up time, 76 longer-term, 88 mechanisms, 54 negative effects on, 52 positive effects on, 69 postsecondary, 70 reforms on, 52 Student success, 163 courses, 254 Subject matter learning, 325, 326, 363 Summer bridge programs costs of, 80–81 evidence for, 52 impacts & implementation, 76–78 implementation of, 80 on longer-term postsecondary outcomes, 78–80 partnerships, 81 policy reforms, 49 support in short-duration program, 81 and underlying conceptual frameworks, 74–76 Super-population model, 621 Surveillance, 282 Syracuse’s institutional agenda, 446

T Tactical repertoires, 294 Theory of strategic action fields, 280 Trait and factor theory, 388 Transactional advising, 409 Transformational tapestry model (TTM), 183 Transition courses, 49 assignment to, 68 benefits of, 72 challenges of aligning, 74 college, 67 costs of, 72 effects of, 71 enrollment in, 68 in Florida, 68 implementation of, 65, 72 implications, 73 mechanism for, 66 opportunity costs of, 73 policy initiatives, 65 postsecondary outcomes, 66 and underlying conceptual frameworks, 63–66 Treatment arms, 619–620 Treatment attriters, 637

675 Treatment estimation regression model, 623 Treatment on the treated (TOT), 635

U U.S. higher education academic imperialism, 567 conceptual and theoretical perspectives, 569 contemporary forces of globalization, 571, 575 contemporary rationales, 553 domestic partnership scholarship, 573 domestic students, 550 equity-driven internationalization, 589–595 equity-driven internationalization lens, 554 equity-driven lens, 567–568 framing scholarship, 570 globalization-based pushes, 558 global university rankings, 564 higher education, 567 imperialism, 572 institutional isomorphism and corporatization, 566 institutional level focus, 566 internationalization at home (IaH), 584–589 international students, 568, 569 mutuality, 574 parachute research, 576 partnerships and research activities, 572–575 postal research, 576 predominant critiques, 552 research community, 552 research-informed equity-driven internationalization practice and policy, 595–596 scholarship, 566 scholars of, 573 scientific globalization, 575 sociohistorical context, 559–561 sociohistorical forces, 556 STEM workforce, 563 study abroad programs, 580–584 9/11 terrorist attacks, 562 transnational education, 577 Underprepared students academically, 49, 50 academic skill development for, 77 academic skills for, 75 college readiness reforms, 93 to enroll in college-level courses, 72 to fulfill college-readiness standards, 50 number of, 70

676

Index

Underprepared students (cont.) postsecondary education, 49 pre-matriculation program, 95

Weidman model, 403 World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), 197

V Vital faculty, 438

Y Younger students vs. older and, 238–243

W Wald estimator, 634

Z Zimmerman’s cyclical theory, 334