“STUDENT AFFAIRS” CONNECTIONS, REACTIONS, RESPONSES DALLIN GEORGE YOUNG, DISCUSSANT Assistant Director for Research, Grants, and Assessment, National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition -OR- CONNECTION: MEANS AND MEANING

A Tintonian View on Students Tinto’s (1975) theoretical model on student departure “Systems” (Interpersonal) Social Integration/Sense of Belonging Academic Integration/Engagement “Commitments” (Intrapersonal) Goal Commitment Institutional Commitment

Tinto (1975) Means Meaning Results

Means of Connecting SSAO Using Social Media Staff and Faculty working together to provide student academic support Implies interaction with students to (a) refer them to support and (b) interact with them once they arrive to receive support Student support environment Type of environment matters Integrated approach Intentionally targeting students who need certain kinds of support and opportunities

Meaning of Connection Why does it matter that higher education professionals connect with students? Why does it matter that faculty and staff connect with each other? Why does it matter that transfer students feel connected academically and socially? Connection is the building block for: Sense of Belonging Academic Self-Efficacy Sense of Commitment Sense of Confidence in Others (Trust) Perspective taking Collaborative work And others

Effects Results of these things working in concert Persistence/Retention Success as student Success beyond college Effectiveness/Efficiency

Tinto (1975) Means Meaning Results

Working in Background Cultural Capital (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1979) Knowing things about a culture – an insider’s view Social Capital (Coleman, 1988) Having a social network of connections – Knowing someone All 3 papers touch on how this capital is(n’t) developed (Seifert, Burrow, Peregrina-Kretz, & Moore) or mobilized (Ahlquist & Deters).

Community Cultural Wealth Yosso (2005) – Community Cultural Wealth Students moving between cultures, e.g. home, community, campus(es) Important Cultural “brokers” in these studies include: Student Affairs and Services Staff, Faculty, Senior Student Affairs Officers, Students, (implicitly) Students’ Peers

Tinto (1975) Means Meaning Results Systems for College Community Cultural Wealth

Community Cultural Wealth Yosso (2005) – Community Cultural Wealth Students moving between cultures, e.g. home, community, campus How can we create systems and structures on campus that facilitate the acquisition and mobilization of community cultural wealth on campus that will lead to increased sense of belonging and academic engagement?

Seifert, Burrow, Peregrina-Kretz, & Moore Contribution to Literature: Provides insights into the culture around partnerships Ownership of programs – Silos Presents an implicit model for understanding organizational behavior where collaborations and barriers to it are structural in nature Strengths Development of the survey instrument – “Sequential mixed methodological approach” and “cognitive interviewing” The background and literature review are logical and easy to follow and set the stage conceptually for the study. Suggested Improvements This study seems to hang on the notion of awareness of programs across institutional boundaries. Clarify that this is about awareness of programs as a proxy for the awareness of others. Provide information about where the “programs to support student success” live. Are these the responsibility of faculty or student affairs? Some attention should be paid to the relative number of faculty to the number of student affairs professionals on campus. If there are more faculty on campuses, and

Ahlquist Contribution to Literature The ways in which Senior Student Affairs Officers are maximizing efficiency and effectiveness using new technologies Provides a road map for decision-making for digital neophytes Strengths Excellent writing Models are accessible and deep and supported by the findings Suggested Improvements Tell us more about your methodology. Why is this a case study? Why is that appropriate and why are you using it? Positionality. There may be one or two studies here. Paper 1 – Digital Decision-Making Model Paper 2 – Social Media Leadership Framework in Student Affairs OR, synthesize the two models. Is there a way to integrate the two? Consolidate and streamline findings section.

Deters Contribution to Literature Furthers the conversation around pathways to success for transfer students If conclusion holds, has real implications for design of transfer student success programs as well as native student programs Can be used as a tool to identify opportunities for early intervention with transfer students. Strengths Straightforward design, clear criteria for defining the two groups. Use of the PPS rather than waiting to gather persistence data. Suggested Improvements Clarify your scales. What do the numerical anchors represent? Is 1 = strongly agree or is 5 = always? This will help reader understand your results. All your overall means are Psychometrics. Reliability scores very low. This requires some explanation for why you went forward. What to do with missing data. Explain why you chose “listwise deletion” rather than other approaches such as Propensity Score Matching or Full Information Maximum Likelihood. What went wrong with those items? Does this potentially undermine your whole study? Opportunities Real opportunity to connect this conversation to equity issues: See Wawrsynski & Sedlacek, 2003 (JCSD), Cuseo or Townsend (Just Google their names +Transfer) Transfer student capital (Lanaan)