tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/college-15813/articlesCollege – The Conversation2024-03-20T12:21:54Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2246012024-03-20T12:21:54Z2024-03-20T12:21:54ZWhat are microcredentials? And are they worth having?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582668/original/file-20240318-30-8cn088.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=41%2C41%2C6955%2C4616&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The payoff for microcredentials varies by profession. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/black-woman-working-from-home-office-royalty-free-image/1444291518?phrase=adult+laptop+at+home&adppopup=true">Drs Producoes via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/the-states-suffering-most-from-the-labor-shortage">private firms</a> and <a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/state-and-local-government-jobs-still-havent-recovered-pandemic">governments</a> struggle to fill jobs – and with the cost of college <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/college-prices-arent-skyrocketing-but-theyre-still-too-high-for-some/">too high</a> for many students – <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2023/02/23/employers-are-all-microcredentials-survey-shows">employers</a> and <a href="https://www.nga.org/projects/skills-driven-state-community-of-practice/">elected officials</a> are searching for alternative ways for people to get good jobs without having to earn a traditional college degree.</p>
<p>Microcredentials are one such alternative. But just what are microcredentials? And do they lead to better jobs and higher earnings?</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholars.org/scholar/daniel-douglas">sociologist</a> who has examined the <a href="https://smlr.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/Documents/Centers/EERC/Review%20of%20Noncredit%20Outcomes_EERC_1.4.24.pdf">research on microcredentials</a>, the best available answer right now is: It depends on what a person is studying.</p>
<h2>Defining the term</h2>
<p>While there is no official definition of a microcredential, there are some broadly accepted components. Like traditional degrees, microcredentials certify peoples’ skills and knowledge, ranging in scope from software skills like Microsoft Excel to broad abilities like project management.</p>
<p>Microcredentials typically indicate “<a href="https://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/745519.pdf">competencies</a>” – that is, things people can do. They are represented by <a href="https://cte.idaho.gov/programs-2/skillstack/">digital badges</a>, which are emblems that can be shared online. Just as a diploma verifies a degree-holder’s achievement, badges verify microcredentials. An employer can click on the digital badge to see who awarded it, when it was awarded and what it represents. </p>
<p>Microcredentials also allow people to verify what they already know, such as a person who is an experienced Python coder, or what they acquire through short-term learning and assessments. An experienced coder in the Python programming language could take an assessment and earn a microcredential, as could a novice after completing a programming course. Either way, microcredentials “<a href="https://www.nea.org/professional-excellence/professional-learning/micro-credentials">allow an individual to show mastery in a certain area</a>.”</p>
<p>What usually distinguishes microcredentials from other short-term learning, like <a href="https://online.wvu.edu/blog/education/online-learning/what-is-the-difference-between-a-certificate-and-a-micro-credential">nondegree certificates</a>, is duration. Certificates typically take longer. The other difference is location: Microcredentials are typically completed online.</p>
<p>Data from <a href="https://credentialengine.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Final-CountingCredentials_2022.pdf">Credential Engine</a>, a nonprofit organization that catalogs education and training credentials, and <a href="https://www.classcentral.com/microcredentials">Class Central</a>, a searchable index of online courses, indicate that business, IT and programming, and health care are popular focus areas for microcredentials.</p>
<h2>A growing trend</h2>
<p>Many colleges and universities, such as <a href="https://www.suny.edu/microcredentials/">SUNY</a>, <a href="https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/online-degrees/microcredentials/">Oregon State</a> and <a href="https://extension.harvard.edu/academics/microcertificates/">Harvard</a>,
offer microcredentials. But they are also offered through social media companies like <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/learning/">LinkedIn Learning</a> and private providers like <a href="https://campus.edx.org/">EdX</a> and <a href="https://www.coursera.org/">Coursera</a>. Professional organizations like the <a href="https://www.nea.org/professional-excellence/professional-learning/micro-credentials">National Education Association</a> also award microcredentials.</p>
<p>Some microcredentials directly prepare learners to become industry certified – like SkillStorm’s CompTIA A+ certification, <a href="https://stormsurge-catalog.skillstorm.com/courses/comptia-a">an eight-week online course</a> that prepares learners to work in IT support and help desk roles. Others focus on general employability skills – like Binghamton University’s <a href="https://www.credly.com/org/binghamton-university/badge/watson-career-development-essentials">course in career readiness</a>, which helps learners develop their resume, cover letter and LinkedIn profile. It also provides a mock interview opportunity. Some microcredentials are <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/blogs/beyond-transfer/2023/10/05/how-build-stackable-credentials">“stackable”</a> – meaning that they indicate related skills. Someone pursuing a health care career, for example, might earn stackable microcredentials in clinical medical assisting, phlebotomy and as a electrocardiogram – or EKG – technician. </p>
<p>Some microcredential programs are <a href="https://registrar.oregonstate.edu/microcredentials">credit-bearing</a> and may serve as entry points to degree or certificate programs. </p>
<p>Because of the short duration of microcredential programs, most are not regulated by Title IV of the <a href="https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/functional-area/Overview%20of%20Title%20IV">U.S. Higher Education Act</a> and are not typically eligible for federal financial aid, which only covers programs lasting 15 weeks or longer.</p>
<p>If Congress passes the <a href="https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/h.r._6585.pdf">Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act</a>, some microcredentials – those that last eight weeks or more – could become eligible for financial aid. But until there is a final bill, it is unclear whether and how legislation would impact learners pursuing microcredentials. The bill was set to be considered on Feb. 28, 2024, but that <a href="https://www.aamc.org/advocacy-policy/washington-highlights/house-postpones-vote-bipartisan-workforce-pell-act#">vote has been postponed</a>.</p>
<h2>Who seeks microcredentials?</h2>
<p>In 2021 and 2022, my colleagues and I surveyed <a href="https://smlr.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/Documents/Centers/EERC/Noncredit%20Students%20at%20Two%20Community%20Colleges%20Final%20-%20EERC%20-%20August%202023.pdf">more than 300 students pursuing noncredit programs</a> at two community colleges. The students are similar to microcredential seekers in that they’re doing short-term programs that are often hybrid or fully online.</p>
<p>Our survey showed that the vast majority – over 90% – were over 25 years old and that most – over 65% – had prior college experience, including many who had earned degrees or certificates.</p>
<p>The majority of surveyed students indicated that their programs were either free or employer-sponsored. About a fourth said they wanted to get out of low-wage jobs or advance in their current jobs. Between 35% and 50% said they wanted to explore a career change.</p>
<p>Many noncredit programs at community colleges are offered partially or fully in-person, while microcredentials are more typically earned online. While online programs may be convenient, they are also known for <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244015621777">high withdrawal rates</a>. Nondegree programs of study also have very <a href="https://smlr.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/Documents/Centers/EERC/Review%20of%20Noncredit%20Outcomes_EERC_1.4.24.pdf">low completion rates</a>.</p>
<h2>Which microcredentials pay off?</h2>
<p>Credentials in traditionally male-dominated fields, such as IT and construction specialties, yielded substantial benefits – lower unemployment rates and far higher wages. Credentials in female-dominated fields, such as education and administrative support, yielded little to no benefit in terms of either employment rates or earnings. These findings come from a 2019 <a href="https://go.stradaeducation.org/certified-value">survey of adults without degrees</a>.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that salaries can <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/paying-more-and-getting-less/">vary widely</a>. For instance, people in fields such as IT cloud computing may see a pay boost of US$20,000, whereas people in office administration and certain education-related jobs may not see any salary increase. Credentials in these fields are less likely to be employer-sponsored. </p>
<p>Should you get a microcredential? The answer certainly depends on your current employment situation – including your employer’s willingness to sponsor training – and your career goals. While <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2023/02/23/employers-are-all-microcredentials-survey-shows">95% of employers see benefits</a> in their employees earning a microcredential, 46% are “unsure of the quality of education” represented by microcredentials, and 33% are unsure of their alignment with industry standards.</p>
<p>Given the lack of systematic evidence at this point, I believe their concerns are warranted. Federal and state regulation could lead to better data collection and more quality control for microcredentials.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Douglas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The credentials can be earned online in a matter of weeks and may lead to higher salaries, but not always.Daniel Douglas, Lecturer in Sociology, Trinity CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2229522024-02-22T13:43:23Z2024-02-22T13:43:23ZColleges are using AI to prepare hospitality workers of the future<p><em>If you’re planning to go into the hospitality industry, the pathway is increasingly going to involve some sort of familiarity with AI. That’s one of the key messages in “<a href="https://he.kendallhunt.com/product/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-and-robot-applications-hospitality-businesses">Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Robot Applications in Hospitality Businesses</a>,” a new book by <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eNdWpmYAAAAJ&hl=en">hospitality professor Rachel J.C. Fu</a>. In the following Q&A, Fu discusses how the hospitality jobs of the future will rely more and more on technology to provide a pleasant guest experience.</em></p>
<h2>Will AI reduce the number of jobs in hospitality?</h2>
<p>AI could not only reduce the number of jobs, but it has already begun to <a href="https://newgenadv.com/2023/03/how-top-hotel-brands-utilizes-ai-to-their-advantage/">change the way existing jobs are done</a> by handling tasks such as guest check-ins, customer inquiries and the like.</p>
<p>For that reason, in the hospitality industry of the future, rather than people who interact with customers, the industry will need more data analysts, AI managers and people who can provide tech support. That’s because AI can perform routine and repetitive tasks, such as booking reservations and answering customer inquiries.</p>
<h2>How are hospitality programs using AI to teach in the classroom?</h2>
<p>Universities are using virtual reality to <a href="https://computing.mit.edu/news/generating-a-realistic-3d-world/">simulate real-world scenarios</a> for students to practice and hone their skills in a risk-free setting. </p>
<p>For instance, AI-powered simulations can mimic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/16/japans-robot-hotel-a-dinosaur-at-reception-a-machine-for-room-service">front desk operations</a>, <a href="https://directory.nationalrestaurantshow.com/8_0/sessions/session-details.cfm?scheduleid=400&">kitchen management</a> or even crisis situations. This provides students with hands-on experience and enables immediate feedback.</p>
<p>Using AI in hospitality education is essential because it helps create a more <a href="https://cyber.harvard.edu/story/2023-06/impacts-generative-ai-teaching-learning">personalized learning experience</a> that builds on what students are good at and helps them overcome challenges. For instance, AI can make it easier and quicker for students to get feedback on their work, helping them learn better. It can also suggest new teaching materials and methods to educators, improving how they teach.</p>
<h2>Will AI make the industry better?</h2>
<p>Research indicates that AI has the potential to significantly enhance the hospitality industry by <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/07/how-to-design-an-ai-marketing-strategy">improving efficiency</a>. It could also <a href="https://cyber.harvard.edu/story/2023-06/impacts-generative-ai-teaching-learning">personalize customer experiences</a>, anticipate needs and identify trends, and reduce operational costs.</p>
<p>AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants can offer 24/7 customer service. They can handle reservations and inquiries, and provide personalized recommendations. This enhances the guest experience and frees human staff to focus on more complex tasks, such as handling unexpected issues, complaints or emergencies. AI can assist in identifying problems, but human staff are needed to offer strategies for planning, professional development and risk management.</p>
<p>When the volume of job applicants becomes unmanageable, hospitality companies may consider adopting AI to streamline recruitment, employing algorithms to identify promising candidates based on skills and experience. They may consider ensuring that AI is programmed to avoid biases related to age, gender, ethnicity or background that have been <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/10/using-ai-to-eliminate-bias-from-hiring">found in hiring tools</a>.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://hospitalitytech.com/rethinking-ai-hospitality-enhancing-operations-customer-experience">hotel companies use AI</a> to manage <a href="https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/powering-the-magic-with-renewable-energy/">energy consumption</a>. This is done by employing smart sensors and algorithms to adjust lighting, heating and cooling based on occupancy and weather conditions – all with an eye toward reducing environmental impact.</p>
<p>It also respects guest comfort, since the settings can be manually overridden by guests. This example highlights the ethical application of AI in balancing operational efficiency with guest satisfaction and <a href="https://impact.disney.com/environment/environmental-sustainability/">environmental responsibility</a>.</p>
<h2>What’s your book’s boldest prediction?</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/07/1138412">technologies continue to evolve</a>, I boldly predict <a href="https://view.publitas.com/kendall-hunt-publishing/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-and-robot-applications-in-hospitality-businesses-overview/page/20-21">AI-driven solutions</a> will become integral to every aspect of <a href="https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/deploying-ai-artificial-intelligence-to-maximize-revenue">maximizing cash flow</a>. <a href="https://newgenadv.com/2023/03/how-top-hotel-brands-utilizes-ai-to-their-advantage/">Chatbots</a> that express humanlike emotions will become standard, providing instant, personalized engagement with guests during check-in or when the need arises. This could <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2023.101027">potentially improve satisfaction levels</a>.</p>
<p>An <a href="https://hbr.org/2024/02/find-the-ai-approach-that-fits-the-problem-youre-trying-to-solve">AI-driven system</a> should <a href="https://www.costar.com/article/527137634/ai-adoption-sparks-enthusiasm-in-hotel-industry-but-ethical-concerns-linger">prioritize guest consent</a>, allowing guests to <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/nvidia-ceo-huang-urges-faster-ai-development-to-make-it-safer.html">opt in or out of data collection</a> and use. It should also <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2021/fostering-ethical-thinking-computing-0302">clearly explain</a> how data enhances their travel experience. For example, guests at a luxury hotel chain can choose to share their dining preferences for customized restaurant recommendations but also ensure their information is used solely for enhancing their visit, not shared with third parties without explicit consent. </p>
<p>Robots might not be taking over the world of hospitality, but they’re certainly <a href="https://hoteltechreport.com/guest-experience/contactless-checkin">checking us in</a> to our hotels. Will AI be rated as the best concierge we’ve ever had, or will guests still desire a human touch? This will be one of the most crucial questions to explore as AI reshapes the hospitality industry and guest experience in the years to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222952/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel J.C. Fu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Will the hotels of the future involve fewer front desk clerks and more automated service? A hospitality expert who has written a new book on the subject weighs in.Rachel J.C. Fu, Chair & Professor of Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management | Director of the Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2234352024-02-20T21:06:52Z2024-02-20T21:06:52ZHow high school ‘university’ courses matter for all post-secondary access — more than the name implies<p>Many high school students are now choosing their courses for the coming year.</p>
<p>The choices students make in grades 10 and 11 will have a significant impact on their lives after graduation. But students, families — and even educators — have little information about the outcomes associated with different course types.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.yorku.ca/edu/jean-augustine-chair/publications/pse-access-report">Our research</a> drew on data from 10 cohorts of Toronto District School Board students to track their progress for five years from the start of Grade 9.</p>
<p>We found a strong association between students completing at least one Grade 12 “U” (university) course by the end of high school and applying for <em>any</em> post-secondary education (not only university, but also college). We also found differences across race and disability in terms of which students are taking “U” courses and which aren’t.</p>
<p>These findings are especially important for students, families and guidance counsellors at this time of year as youth are choosing courses.</p>
<h2>Post-secondary education matters</h2>
<p>Officially, in our K-12 education system, success is defined as simply having a high school diploma. </p>
<p>This limited definition is despite overwhelming evidence suggesting those who proceed to post-secondary education <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(23)00306-7/fulltext">live longer</a> and <a href="https://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/cphorsphc-respcacsp/2008/fr-rc/pdf/CPHO-Report-e.pdf">healthier</a> lives. </p>
<p>They also <a href="https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/as-sa/98-200-x/2016024/98-200-x2016024-eng.cfm">earn more</a>, are more <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2015001/article/14232-eng.htm">civically engaged</a> and are more likely to report that they are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904118770818">flourishing</a> — surely, outcomes we all care about.</p>
<p>But as our report details, the Ministry of Education characterizes students’ post-secondary goals as “personal” and their <a href="https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/policy/cps/creatingpathwayssuccess.pdf">post-secondary pathways as</a> individual choices.</p>
<p>This individualistic framing negates the significant group-based inequities in post-secondary education access among high school graduates.</p>
<h2>Group-based differences in access</h2>
<p>Our study, <a href="https://www.yorku.ca/edu/jean-augustine-chair/publications/pse-access-report/"><em>I Have All My Credits, Now What?</em></a> examined data from 156,580 students. The students started Grade 9 between 2006-15.</p>
<p>We found that the difference between the percentage of East Asian students going to post-secondary study (86 per cent) and the percentage of Latin American students going (50 per cent) was almost 36 per cent. This difference far exceeds the 19 per cent gap in graduation rates between the same groups. </p>
<p>Similarly, relatively few students who self-identify as Black or Mixed when asked about their race go on to post-secondary education (55 and 61 per cent, respectively). </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/ending-streaming-is-only-the-first-step-to-dismantling-systemic-racism-in-ontario-schools-142617">Ending ‘streaming’ is only the first step to dismantling systemic racism in Ontario schools</a>
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<p>Group-based differences are even greater for students with disabilities, measured by formal or informal identification through special education.</p>
<p>The patterns in this data needs to be understood not as merely reflecting individual “choices.” Instead, the focus on group-based differences in who accesses post-secondary should be understood as disparities in access. These access disparities raise questions about the system itself.</p>
<p>A key factor driving divergent post-secondary outcomes are the type of academic courses (English, math, science, geography, history, and so on) in which students enroll. </p>
<h2>Significance of Grade 12 ‘U’ courses</h2>
<p>In the next weeks, the vast majority of students will choose between either University (“U”) and College (“C”) courses in grades 11 and 12.</p>
<p>In theory, both types of courses leave the doors open for post-secondary access. </p>
<p>But most people are unaware of data showing that all university-bound students, and two-thirds of college-bound students, complete at least one Grade 12 “U” course by the end of high school. </p>
<p>Our study found that among the quarter of graduates with no Grade 12 “U” courses, 71 per cent did not apply to post-secondary education at all. Only 23 per cent made the transition to college.</p>
<p>We also showed that U-level English and math courses are particularly important “gatekeeping” courses. Students from groups who are less likely to go on to post-secondary education are less likely to take the “U” courses that expand opportunities.</p>
<h2>Preventable systemic discrimination</h2>
<p>These discrepancies point to preventable <a href="https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/iii-principles-and-concepts/2-what-discrimination">systemic discrimination</a> —especially because group-based differences in “U” course enrollment persist after we control for achievement.</p>
<p>Let’s take the example of disabled students: Among non-disabled students, virtually every student who got all As in their academic subjects in Grade 9 enrolled in Grade 12 U-level English (99.6 per cent). </p>
<p>But among the students with disability who had the same marks, only 80 per cent took the course that is so important for accessing post-secondary education.</p>
<p>For students with fairly high (they obtained one to three As in Grade 9) or medium achievement the differences are even greater. A large majority of non-disabled students who got all their credits but no As in Grade 9 enrolled in Grade 12 U-level English (83 per cent). Among disabled students with comparable marks, only 46 per cent took the gateway course.</p>
<h2>Key life decisions</h2>
<p>It is critical that students and families making key life decisions know about the very uneven long-term outcomes of choosing between these misleadingly labelled “U” and “C” upper-year courses: As our research showed, “U” courses are in fact not only critical for pathways to university, they are also associated with pathways to college. We need to see systemic change to disrupt these patterns.</p>
<p>Our research suggests that the premise underpinning the provincial government’s “many pathways to success” is flawed. </p>
<p>Even with the dearth of <a href="https://news.yorku.ca/files/Feasibility-Study-Unlocking-Student-Potential-through-Data-FINAL-REPORT-Feb-2017.pdf">public reporting</a> on post-secondary education and equity outcomes, there are clear — but poorly understood — disparities. </p>
<p>And these differences create pathways to lifetime inequalities in health, earnings and happiness for marginalized youth — and a less inclusive and prosperous society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelly Gallagher-Mackay receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, and the Chiefs of Ontario.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gillian Parekh receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carl E. James, Christine Corso, and Robert S. Brown do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>All students who apply to university need ‘U’ courses, but Toronto-area research reveals few students with zero Grade 12 ‘U’ courses apply for any post-secondary education at all.Kelly Gallagher-Mackay, Assistant Professor of Law and Society, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityCarl E. James, Professor, Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora, York University, CanadaChristine Corso, PhD Candidate in Educational Leadership and Policy, University of TorontoGillian Parekh, Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Inclusion, Disability and Education, York University, CanadaRobert S. Brown, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Education and in Critical Disability Studies, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2235312024-02-19T13:36:32Z2024-02-19T13:36:32ZFAFSA website meltdown: How to avoid additional frustration with financial aid applications<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576239/original/file-20240216-16-d8twal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5455%2C3628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some colleges are extending the traditional May 1 deadline for students to accept offers.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/woman-with-digital-tablet-having-problems-royalty-free-image/832996896?phrase=paying+for+college+stressed+out&adppopup=true">valentinrussanov via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Congress passed the <a href="https://studentaid.gov/help-center/answers/article/fafsa-simplification-act">FAFSA Simplification Act in 2020</a>, it was touted as making it easier for more families to access the government funding they need to send their children to college. But as recent events have shown, it actually <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/frustration-all-around-the-fafsas-rocky-rollout">made things more complicated, frustrating and confusing</a>.</p>
<p>While the new federal student aid form – known as the FAFSA – is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/fafsa-changes-what-you-need-to-know/#:%7E:text=The%20new%20FAFSA%20application%20requires,one%20has%20less%20than%2050.">much shorter and requires less manual entry</a> of tax information, there were glitches and delays in rolling it out, as with many new websites.</p>
<p>Initially, families could access the FAFSA only for a limited time during a “<a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/admissions/traditional-age/2024/01/03/fafsa-soft-launch-vexes-families-and-counselors">soft launch” period in December</a>.</p>
<p>Now the form is accessible to families for them to complete, but the data is not flowing out to schools and colleges. Applicants are also discovering another problem. Often, students and parents may need to consult other documents or each other as part of the application process, so they will pause their application to complete it later. However, after initially logging into the FAFSA website, many students and parents experienced difficulty when returning to finalize their submission. The simplified FAFSA application has been online since the end of December, but users are still <a href="https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/topics/fafsa-simplification-information/2024-25-fafsa-issue-alerts">experiencing some problems</a>.</p>
<p>The Department of Education’s student aid calculations have also been delayed as it incorporates a <a href="https://financialaidtoolkit.ed.gov/tk/announcement-detail.jsp?id=fafsa-changes-student-aid-index">new formula</a> intended to expand eligibility for financial aid. The department also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/12/01/fafsa-income-allowance-protection-calculation-error/">made an error</a> in the formula when adjusting for inflation. The calculations used for the determination of aid eligibility had been based on outdated consumer price index rules from 2020 but have since been corrected. All of this has delayed sending aid calculations to schools. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://drexel.edu/news/archive/2023/November/Dawn-Medley-to-join-Drexel-as-SVP-for-Enrollment-Management">longtime college administrator</a> who has developed programs to improve access to higher education, I see this situation as a well-intentioned but poorly executed effort. Ultimately, I believe the changes to FAFSA will help more students realize their dream of earning a degree, but this year I’m afraid it may cause many to abandon it.</p>
<p>To better understand the situation and what might come next, it helps to know how the government and schools work together to provide financial aid.</p>
<h2>Measuring ability to pay</h2>
<p>The Department of Education <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/senate-bill/1150">created the Free Application for Federal Student Aid in 1992</a> to determine how much the federal government believes a family can contribute for a child’s college education. To be eligible for <a href="https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/grants/pell">Pell Grants</a>, <a href="https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/work-study">federal work-study</a> or even <a href="https://studentaid.gov/help-center/answers/article/how-to-apply-for-federal-student-loan">student loans</a>, students and families must complete the FAFSA. </p>
<p>Submitting the FAFSA prompts the Department of Education to set the amount it will offer in loans and other federal funding. The department then sends that information to the schools to which a student has applied. From there, the schools determine what additional financial aid they can provide. The schools make a final offer of financial assistance, called an award notice or award letter, to prospective students. Typically, this process takes a couple of months, and students <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/financial-aid-award-letter/">can expect to receive their award letter</a> from schools by the end of March, depending on when they filled out the FAFSA.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lXY5GBumXcc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">What happens after submitting your FAFSA form?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On Feb. 13, 2024, the Department of Education announced <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/amid-fafsa-delays-education-dept-will-reduce-verification-requirements-for-aid-applicants">a temporary fix</a> intended to shorten the department’s application review process, which would enable schools to make their offers sooner.</p>
<h2>Extensions granted</h2>
<p>In the meantime, some institutions have taken steps to alleviate stress and provide more clarity to applicants. Many schools have chosen to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/02/14/dc-colleges-extend-admissions-deadline-fafsa-delay/">extend students’ time</a> to accept their offer, moving from the traditional deadline of May 1, which is known as <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/education/student-resources/college-decision-day/#:%7E:text=Each%20year%2C%20National%20Decision%20Day,might%20enforce%20different%20decision%20deadlines.">National Decision Day</a>, to May 15 or even June 1. </p>
<p>Some have created their own <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/business/fafsa-delays-financial-aid.html">mini FAFSA application</a> to shortcut the aid application process; others are using their own aid calculators. Drexel University, where I oversee financial aid, has decided to forgo the FAFSA process and make a final offer based on another profile on a platform called <a href="https://cssprofile.collegeboard.org/">College Scholarship Service</a> that applicants complete.</p>
<p>None of these solutions is perfect. My peers and I are concerned that the frustration and confusion will lead students, <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/fafsa-delays-raise-concerns-some-students-will-miss-out-on-college-aid/">particularly those who are the first in their families</a> to go to college, to walk away from higher education altogether.</p>
<p>Students and families should now expect schools to communicate regularly, provide clear and concise information, and encourage students to fill out both a College Scholarship Service profile and a FAFSA if they haven’t already. The financial aid process is complicated, but it’s the responsibility of schools to distill it into a set of simple steps for their applicants.</p>
<h2>Practical tips</h2>
<p>Here are a few tips for students and their families going though this process right now:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Families should communicate with schools to see whether they are able to receive official offers based on net price calculators, College Scholarship Service profiles or school-created solutions. Students can do this via the schools’ websites, texting, email or even phoning. </p></li>
<li><p>If families do not have a guaranteed award from a school, they should ask for a deposit deadline extension so they have the full information they need to make a decision.</p></li>
<li><p>Institutions want to assist and support students through this period of uncertainty, so don’t be afraid to ask questions and stay in touch with the experts who have the most updated information.</p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223531/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dawn Medley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A college administrator offers insights into the rocky rollout of the Department of Education’s supposedly ‘simplified’ financial aid form.Dawn Medley, Senior Vice President of Enrollment Management, Drexel UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2225682024-02-05T13:29:42Z2024-02-05T13:29:42ZAmid growing legalization, cannabis in culture and politics is the focus of this anthropology course<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572920/original/file-20240201-19-efs8pb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C25%2C3456%2C2214&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Laws that govern cannabis use are changing across the nation.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/marijuana-legalization-high-quality-stock-photo-royalty-free-image/1143280562?phrase=cannabis">Darren415 via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>Anthropology of Cannabis</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p>Whenever I taught my medical anthropology course, I noticed that students were most curious about the section of the course that deals with the uses of plants, fungi and other species for a range of medical purposes. Those purposes included healing, psychological well-being, ritual and spiritual awakening, to name a few.</p>
<p>Once Connecticut, the state where I work, legalized recreational cannabis, I decided it was timely to take the plant section from the original course and expand it to a 14-week course of its own. It was also an opportunity to introduce students to the discipline of anthropology through a topic I knew many of them found interesting. I decided to focus on cannabis instead of the entire panoply of plants and other species, since it was the one plant being legalized in the state at that time.</p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>Throughout the course, we focus on the different cultural and political significance of cannabis in other geographical contexts. We look at the representation of <a href="https://www.northernstandard.com/a-brief-history-of-cannabis-in-art/">cannabis in art</a>, <a href="https://electricliterature.com/7-lesser-known-stoner-novels-with-suggested-weed-pairings/">literature and pop culture</a>, as well as what the <a href="https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/cannabis-marijuana-and-cannabinoids-what-you-need-to-know#:%7E:text=The%20cannabis%20plant%20contains%20about,on%20a%20person's%20mental%20state">science of cannabis</a> tells us about its <a href="https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2020.22.3/mcrocq">impact on health and well-being</a>.</p>
<p>We also look at the way stigma and racism impact cannabis users and producers in the United States and elsewhere.</p>
<p>We end the course with students writing letters to themselves in which they imagine how the legal and social landscape for cannabis will be in five years, in the U.S. as well as globally. I plan to send them these letters in 2028.</p>
<h2>Why is this course relevant now?</h2>
<p>While cannabis has long been a part of human existence, the legal and political landscape of cannabis production is rapidly changing. Even if they are not cannabis consumers, students will at least become more aware about the role that cannabis plays in today’s society.</p>
<p>Students may want to know how they can participate in the business side of cannabis. Or they may be interested in doing research on the uses and abuses of the plant.</p>
<p>The course also offers students a way to think about the stigma and discrimination faced by cannabis users and how different cultural systems define and treat behaviors that are deemed deviant. </p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>My main objective is to have students develop an informed understanding of cannabis as a plant and as a cultural fact. I want them to approach the study of cannabis with an open mind and to walk away with a greater understanding of how harmful stigma can be to individuals in any society. I would hope everyone leaves informed and less inclined to stereotype others. </p>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<p>We read passages from <a href="https://facultyprofile.fairfield.edu/?uname=dcrawford">anthropologist David Crawford</a>’s “<a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498598187/Dealing-with-Privilege-Cannabis-Cocaine-and-the-Economic-Foundations-of-Suburban-Drug-Culture">Dealing with Privilege: Cannabis, Cocaine, and the Economic Foundations of Surburban Drug Culture</a>,” which challenges the stereotypes that many white people and politicians hold about drug dealing and also explores how drugs became raced and classed entities.</p>
<p>We also read “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/can.2022.0251">Understanding and Rebalancing: A Rapid Scoping Review of Cannabis Research Among Indigenous People</a>,” which gives students an opportunity to learn more about Indigenous peoples and cultures alongside learning more about the cannabis plant itself.</p>
<p>And we watch “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028346/">Reefer Madness</a>,” a 1936 film meant to be a cautionary tale about the presumed dangers of marijuana use.</p>
<h2>What will the course prepare students to do?</h2>
<p>Students leave the class better informed about cannabis as a plant and with a better appreciation for the complexity of “drugs” in society. I believe the class also helps students to become more informed citizens, since the laws that govern the use and research on cannabis and other related plants are as much a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0091450919827605">political issue as they are social</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222568/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hillary Jeanne Haldane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Students are invited to imagine how the social, political and legal landscape for cannabis will look in the future.Hillary Jeanne Haldane, Professor of Anthropology, Quinnipiac UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197052024-02-01T19:03:35Z2024-02-01T19:03:35ZKiley Reid invites us to judge her college girls, as money, status and desire lead them into murky ethical territory<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573657/original/file-20240206-29-56el8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C41%2C3967%2C2978&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Goddard/Bloomsbury</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the beginning of <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/come-and-get-it-9781526632555/">Come and Get It</a>, the second novel from the Booker longlisted author of <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/such-a-fun-age-9781526612151/">Such a Fun Age</a>, college student Tyler presses $20 on Millie, her resident assistant. Millie, whose job it is to look after the students in the dorm, has helped Tyler sort out an awkward interpersonal situation. </p>
<p>Tyler’s roommate, Kennedy, has filled her side of their dorm room with an immense amount of stuff. Tyler doesn’t know how to talk to her about it, so Millie deftly assists with a roommate switch.</p>
<p>Millie doesn’t exactly accept the money. Indeed, she tries to refuse it several times. But it ends up in her possession anyway. This becomes, in many ways, the beginning of an internal schism – between who she thinks she is and how she is read by the people around her. When taking this $20 bill comes back to haunt her, this schism will become eminently clear.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Come and Get It – Kiley Reid (Bloomsbury)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>On the surface, Come and Get It is a book about money. It has three perspective characters, each with a different, multilayered relationship to money. </p>
<p>Millie, the resident assistant who accepted the fateful $20, is one of the few Black students in her dorm at the University of Arkansas. She’s working as hard as possible (and at as many jobs as possible) to achieve her goal of home ownership, “after becoming mildly addicted to TV shows featuring tiny houses and youngish owners”.</p>
<p>Kennedy is one of Millie’s residents, a perpetually lonely undergraduate who uses trips to Target – a place which feels like “home” to her – as a way of coping with the lack of connection with her peers (hence the overstuffed dorm room). </p>
<p>Agatha is a visiting professor to the university who becomes fascinated with students’ relationships to money while conducting a research focus group about weddings with students in Millie’s dorm. She starts paying Millie – meaningfully, in $20 bills – to listen in to the dorm residents’ talk every Thursday night, which becomes the basis of several pieces she publishes (without telling Millie or any of the students she’s eavesdropping on) in Teen Vogue.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572064/original/file-20240130-27-scufj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C3955%2C3395&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Smiling Black woman in profile with black turtleneck and ponytail" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572064/original/file-20240130-27-scufj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C3955%2C3395&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572064/original/file-20240130-27-scufj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572064/original/file-20240130-27-scufj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572064/original/file-20240130-27-scufj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572064/original/file-20240130-27-scufj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572064/original/file-20240130-27-scufj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572064/original/file-20240130-27-scufj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On the surface, Kiley Reid’s Come and Get It is a book about money.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Goddard/Bloomsbury</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Questions of identity</h2>
<p>The Teen Vogue pieces are a neat illustration of some of the broader questions the book grapples with – questions about money, yes, but also questions about identity. </p>
<p>Agatha renders these pieces as if they were interviews; however, they are in fact caricatures, cobbled together from out-of-context, cherry-picked quotes from both the initial focus group Agatha conducted and from things she overheard while eavesdropping from Millie’s room. </p>
<p>Agatha is aware what she’s doing is wrong: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It did feel unfair to paint the young women with a two-dimensional sheen [… She] knew firsthand that Tyler, Casey, and Jenna were not composed solely of pull quotes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She even vaguely intends to correct it: “the <em>book</em> book, that was where she would right her current wrongs. That was where she’d interview college women the right way, under the umbrella of a signed release.”</p>
<p>But as the interviews become more and more popular, the lure of their success – and the accompanying social media followers and royalties bump for her older books – proves too great, and she starts to push the ethical boundaries even further.</p>
<p>Yet despite her actions, Agatha’s image of herself does not change. Even when she starts sleeping with Millie – an undergraduate student 14 years younger than her – she continues to justify it to herself, so as to maintain her self-image as an ethical scholar. </p>
<p>Yes, she’s sleeping with <em>a</em> student, but not <em>her</em> student. Yes, Millie is younger than her, but she’s not <em>that</em> young. Yes, there’s a power differential, but honestly, it’s not as bad as you think (which, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/kiley-reid-come-and-get-it-review-b2481591.html">as another reviewer has aptly noted</a>, is a common preoccupation of professors sleeping with students in campus novels, though those professors are usually men). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-oxbridge-and-yale-popular-stories-bring-universities-to-life-we-need-more-of-them-in-australia-168943">Beyond Oxbridge and Yale: popular stories bring universities to life — we need more of them in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Judging the characters</h2>
<p>“Show, don’t tell” is an incredibly common piece of storytelling advice (a blunt instrument, yes, but certainly one I’ve used in my creative writing classroom and will probably use again). Come and Get It digs into the gap between the two concepts. The novel is fascinated by versions of the self – the narrative of the self we tell to ourselves, versus the version of ourselves others read from what we show them through our actions.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572619/original/file-20240131-17-ziz769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572619/original/file-20240131-17-ziz769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572619/original/file-20240131-17-ziz769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572619/original/file-20240131-17-ziz769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572619/original/file-20240131-17-ziz769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572619/original/file-20240131-17-ziz769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572619/original/file-20240131-17-ziz769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572619/original/file-20240131-17-ziz769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>It would be tempting to read this slippage as an invitation to pass judgement on the characters. Indeed, at many points, it is impossible not to – we are, after all, readers, and these characters are there to be read. </p>
<p>For example, I, a female academic of approximately Agatha’s age who uses many similar research methods, had some extremely strong opinions about her ethics (and lack thereof). When she is confronted about her unethical behaviour towards the end of the book, I found it immensely satisfying. </p>
<p>Likewise, it is very difficult not to feel sympathy for Millie – to believe in the version of herself she has in her mind, rather than the image a dispassionate list of her actions would create. This is particularly true when the whiteness of the people around her is cast in sharp relief: there are facets to her identity that her white friends, however well-meaning, simply cannot parse.</p>
<p>And there is perhaps no greater invitation for the reader to pass judgement than with Kennedy. For the first half of the book, she is easily the least interesting of the three perspective characters – a lonely college student worried about making friends, unsure how to reach out to the three students Agatha is busy turning into caricatures in Teen Vogue.</p>
<p>At about the midpoint, though, the horrifying reason Kennedy transferred from her old university is made clear. Despite Kennedy’s mother emphatically telling her that she is “not a bad person”, we as readers are inevitably provoked to form our own opinion.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/girlhood-misery-bullying-and-beauty-combine-for-laura-elizabeth-woolletts-unlikeable-west-coast-girls-211427">Girlhood misery, bullying and beauty combine for Laura Elizabeth Woollett's 'unlikeable' west-coast girls</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>People are complicated</h2>
<p>But the point here is not deciding whether characters are good or bad, moral or immoral, their actions justified or unjustified. The point is – perversely – a simple one: <em>it’s complicated</em>.</p>
<p>One of the things Agatha notes about Millie is that she is gifted at impressions. For instance, when Agatha asks her what the students she’s eavesdropping on mean when they talk about “believers”, Millie does the following impression of “a cool, nature-y Christian person who is … probably white”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So, Agatha. Listen. Can I talk to you for a second? God’s really putting Hannah on my heart this week … The other day? […] And keep this between you and me – but the other day she did blah blah blah? And yeah, it just wasn’t the sweet Hannah that we know. And I need to figure out a way to hold her accountable while I do my best to shower her with grace. But I also want to start asking important questions, like, is this a godly friendship? Is she going through a rough season? And maybe she is! And that’s okay. But if that’s the case, is my birthday weekend at Hilton Head the best place for her to do that?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Millie’s ability to do comedic impersonations is one of the things Agatha finds most appealing about her – perhaps unsurprising, given she’s essentially in the business of comedic impersonations herself, with her Teen Vogue pieces. </p>
<p>But it’s also symptomatic of the broader theme running through the book: the tension between who people are (complex, three-dimensional) and who we interpret them to be (frequently stereotypes or caricatures, because we lack key pieces of context). </p>
<p>This is a book liberally peppered with similes and comparisons. “She looked like the kind of person who slept eight hours every night”, “she looked like any of the redheaded celebrities when their names were put into search engines with <em>grocery store</em> or <em>no makeup</em>”, “he had the complexion of a person who loves ‘being out on the lake’”. These approximations are a sentence-level demonstration of the impossibility of capturing the complexity of a whole human being. </p>
<p>Tellingly, the first time Agatha meets Millie, she interprets her as a caricature of her job: “she looked like an adult poking fun at campus life, someone dressing like an RA for Halloween”.</p>
<h2>Life under capitalism</h2>
<p>There is no denying Come and Get It is a book about money. The crisply folded $20 bill is hardly the only financial motif. However, in many ways, the characters’ relationships to money are some of their most legible attributes. </p>
<p>Millie is painstakingly saving it, in order to buy a house. Kennedy spends it in order to make herself feel better. Agatha is financially secure, but not so secure she cannot be capable of irritation at her ex-partner’s financial cavalierness, and profoundly tempted by the money Teen Vogue offers her.</p>
<p>This is interesting, but perhaps not particularly revelatory, especially when it comes to the murky ethical territory money leads the characters into. Life under capitalism is complicated. We know this.</p>
<p>The ways this book considers the gulf between the version of ourselves in our own minds and the one read by other people, though, are fascinating – making it a worthy follow-up to Such a Fun Age. </p>
<p>People are fundamentally, and perhaps ungraspably, complicated – something Reid does a substantially better job of capturing in this book than Agatha does in her Teen Vogue pieces.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219705/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jodi McAlister does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kiley Reid’s follow-up to her Booker longlisted debut is a novel about money. But it’s most interesting when it explores the gap between our imagined selves and what our actions reveal.Jodi McAlister, Senior Lecturer in Writing, Literature and Culture, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155732024-01-11T13:25:42Z2024-01-11T13:25:42Z7 strategies to help gifted autistic students succeed in college<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567746/original/file-20240103-510735-5j56ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C15%2C5119%2C3338&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Only 39% of autistic students who start college finish.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/students-studying-in-computer-lab-royalty-free-image/153337890?phrase=gifted+college+students&adppopup=true">Hill Street Studios / Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>About <a href="https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/44th-arc-for-idea.pdf">1 out of every 100</a> students in American public schools has autism. A subset of these students also have academic gifts and talents in a broad range of areas, including math, science, technology, the humanities and the arts. These students are often referred to as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05290-4">twice exceptional</a>.” </p>
<p>To learn more about this population, we <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1125904">conducted research with three groups</a>: twice-exceptional autistic college students, their parents and college staff who work with them. The students were all enrolled in or recent graduates of competitive and very competitive colleges, including Ivy League institutions. We identified several strategies that can help these students transition to and succeed in college.</p>
<h2>1. Identify both autism and giftedness</h2>
<p>Identifying twice-exceptional students can be difficult because their gifts may mask their disabilities. Conversely, their disabilities may mask their gifts.</p>
<p>One student stated, “My mother was told that I was too smart to have a disability, so I did not really believe that I had a disability.”</p>
<p>When these students are identified only as autistic, they may be placed in special education programs that focus on remediation of deficits, rather than encouraging students to develop and build upon their strengths. They might not be enrolled in challenging courses. On the other hand, when gifted autistic students are identified only as gifted, they might not receive the support needed to accommodate their disabilities.</p>
<p>The students in our research project discussed how important it was for both their academic success and self-confidence to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05290-4">appropriately identified</a>. One student stated: “I had an amazing teacher who gave me opportunities to participate in projects. One of my mentors was a science teacher, and she also gave me advanced opportunities. She gave me so many chances for advanced work. She let me apply science to the real world and to me; that was beautiful. She gave me the confidence to know that I could go beyond and do extra work.”</p>
<h2>2. Take challenging courses</h2>
<p>Nearly every student and parent stated that college attendance was an expectation from an early age. To prepare for this goal, students took challenging courses focused on their strengths.</p>
<p>For example, of the students we interviewed, nearly three-quarters were enrolled in Advanced Placement, honors or college credit-bearing courses while in high school.</p>
<h2>3. Pursue extracurricular activities</h2>
<p>Almost every student participated in at least one extracurricular activity, and some in multiple activities.</p>
<p>Many of the students assumed leadership roles. One parent discussed how her son tutored his peers in high school and was seen as a leader. “He was a role model there,” the parent told us. “He had a lot of friends, and people really looked up to him and respected him. … He built his self-esteem, which really made a big difference.”</p>
<p>Both the students and parents discussed the importance of these activities as ways to pursue areas of interest, gain leadership experiences and find peers with similar interests.</p>
<p>About half of the students participated in residential camp or program experiences while in high school. They described how these programs helped them prepare to live away from home during college. One student said such programs “really helped, as it helped my ability to communicate with others and helped me to understand how to explain what I need to explain to others.” </p>
<h2>4. Be aware of factors in choosing a college</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10354361/">students reported</a> that they were active participants in selecting their college. Finding a school with a program or major of interest was their biggest consideration.</p>
<p>Slightly less than half of the students interviewed started at a smaller school, or a smaller regional campus, before transferring to their final college or university. These smaller schools were often closer to home, enabling students to adjust to college life before they moved to their final competitive college or university. One parent told us that the family looked at schools that they could reach in two hours or so. “And that is because in case he had a meltdown, I wanted him to be in an area where I could drive and calm him down,” the parent said.</p>
<h2>5. Understand differences in laws and supports</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/helping-your-student-with-disabilities-prepare-for-the-future-79625">Different laws</a> exist at the high school and college level regarding disability supports. For example, special education services will not be provided in college. Students will not receive modified instruction or assessments and instead may be eligible for reasonable accommodations, such as extended test time. </p>
<p>Each of the groups we studied spoke about the importance of understanding these differences and what they mean for the student seeking supports in college. One college staff member stressed that high school students should receive accommodations, if needed, and not modifications. He also suggested students understand “what a college professor is going to expect from them and how … parents aren’t going to contact professors.”</p>
<p>Colleges may offer different amounts of support for disabled students. These can range from basic accommodations to specific programs that provide an individual professional to support students. Colleges cannot charge extra fees for accommodations, but they can charge students to participate in more extensive and individualized support programs. Therefore, the level of disability support that the college offered was also a common consideration.</p>
<h2>6. Find supportive professionals</h2>
<p>Having a go-to contact person – an adviser, counselor, teacher or faculty member – was essential, the parents and students told us. Such professionals may recognize the student’s talents, support their interests and nurture opportunities for their growth. </p>
<p>One student said: “There were so many people that believed in me and gave me advanced courses and advanced independent projects. They gave me time to write short stories. They let me explore my strengths and interests.”</p>
<h2>7. Teach students to take initiative</h2>
<p>It is important to teach students how to advocate for themselves while in high school. The students we spoke with learned how to take care of their emotional and physical health through diet, exercise, meditation, music or finding time alone to recharge and deal with stress. They were involved in a variety of clubs and extracurricular activities. They used these experiences to make friends with similar interests.</p>
<p>These students also learned how to request and use available campus supports and academic accommodations when needed. Many of the students stated that they wished they had more opportunities to develop these skills while in high school.</p>
<p>One college staff member summarized: “one of the key successful skill sets is self-advocacy and being able to recognize when things are not going well and being able to speak up and say, ‘I need help.’ And then taking that even a step further to say, ‘Not only do I need help, but here’s how I need help.’ So it’s that level of self-awareness and then being able to articulate those needs to the right people.” </p>
<p>Gifted autistic students have tremendous potential but too often do not have the opportunity to develop their talents. Nationwide, <a href="https://collegeautismnetwork.org/jcsd-article/#:%7E:text=However%2C%20national%20statistics%20confirm%20that,et%20al.%2C%202011">only 39% of autistic students who start college finish</a>, compared with <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40">64% of all students</a>. </p>
<p>With high expectations, support for talent development from teachers and careful transition planning that takes a strength-based approach, gifted students with autism can succeed in competitive colleges. </p>
<p>Links to our research, instructional videos and other resources are available for free on our <a href="https://giftedasd.project.uconn.edu/">project website</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215573/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Madaus receives funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Grant Program (Grant Number: S206A190023) and the Neag Foundation, Wyomissing, PA.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Gelbar receives funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Grant Program (Grant Number: S206A190023).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally Reis receives funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Grant Program (Grant Number: S206A190023).</span></em></p>Self-advocacy and taking initiative have proven critical for autistic students who are also gifted, new research shows.Joseph Madaus, Professor of Education, University of ConnecticutNicholas Gelbar, Associate Research Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, University of ConnecticutSally Reis, University Teaching Fellow, Educational Psychology, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1981352023-11-16T13:20:09Z2023-11-16T13:20:09ZFewer U.S. college students are studying a foreign language − and that spells trouble for national security<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559674/original/file-20231115-22-ptjw7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Between 2009 and 2021, nearly 30% fewer college students enrolled in a foreign language course.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/multi-racial-college-study-group-royalty-free-image/1006971096">FatCamera/E+ Collection/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, on Oct. 4, 1957, it did more than spark fears about America’s ability to compete technologically. It also raised concerns that the <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/11/26/90858114.html?pageNumber=32">U.S. had a shortage of Russian speakers</a> capable of monitoring Soviet scientific and military activities. </p>
<p>In 1958, the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Sputnik_Spurs_Passage_of_National_Defense_Education_Act.htm">National Defense Education Act</a> authorized funding to strengthen U.S. education in language instruction, in addition to math and science.</p>
<p>More than six decades later, a <a href="https://www.mla.org/Resources/Guidelines-and-Data/Reports-and-Professional-Guidelines/Enrollments-in-Languages-Other-Than-English-in-United-States-Institutions-of-Higher-Education">new Modern Language Association report</a> is raising concerns about America’s foreign language capabilities anew. The report shows that the study of languages other than English at the university level experienced an <a href="http://www.mla.org/Enrollment-Report">unprecedented drop of 16.6%</a> between 2016 and 2021. </p>
<p>The second-largest drop – of 12.6% – took place between 1970 and 1972.</p>
<p>This decline continues a trend that began in 2009. Even though we live in an increasingly globalized world, the number of college students taking languages is rapidly falling.</p>
<p>As a professor of Spanish and Portuguese who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&amp;user=Vxyy3zYAAAAJ&amp;view_op=list_works&amp;sortby=pubdate">researches trends in language education</a>, I know that having fewer U.S. college students who learn a foreign language <a href="https://www.cfr.org/event/link-between-foreign-languages-and-us-national-security">creates greater risks for national security</a>.</p>
<h2>Foreign language census</h2>
<p>Every few years since 1958, the MLA has conducted a census of enrollments in college-level language courses in the U.S. <a href="https://apps.mla.org/flsurvey_search">Their data</a> shows that enrollments in languages other than English spiked after the National Defense Education Act became law.</p>
<p>Between 1958 and 1970, these enrollments nearly tripled, from about 430,000 to almost 1.2 million. The bulk of students studied French, German or Spanish. However, enrollments in Russian doubled in the first three years alone – jumping from roughly 16,000 in 1958 to over 32,700 in 1961. Enrollments in less commonly taught languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Arabic also rose steeply.</p>
<p>After 1970, the enrollments in language study began to fall. Arabic was an exception. Although very few U.S. students studied Arabic to begin with – just 364 in 1958, increasing to 1,324 in 1970 – the <a href="https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/oil-shock-of-1973-74">1973 oil crisis</a> accelerated the trend, and enrollments passed 3,000 in 1977 before plateauing.</p>
<p><iframe id="PW8ny" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/PW8ny/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Role of geopolitics</h2>
<p>College enrollments in Russian and Arabic courses illustrate how language study can be directly affected by – and have implications for – political events.</p>
<p>Enrollments in Russian <a href="https://apps.mla.org/flsurvey_search">peaked at nearly 44,500</a> in 1990. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to an immediate loss of interest in learning Russian. Enrollments dropped below 25,000 by 1995 and have continued to fall since. The latest MLA survey shows that between 2016 and 2021 alone, enrollments fell from 20,353 to 17,598 – just over 1,500 more than in 1958. The low number of U.S. students learning Russian comes at a time when the current war between Russia and Ukraine, as well as Russia’s role as a <a href="https://www.cisa.gov/topics/cyber-threats-and-advisories/advanced-persistent-threats/russia">top cyberthreat</a>, makes knowledge of the language valuable to protecting national security.</p>
<p>Enrollments in Arabic, in turn, were low in 1998 – just 5,505 college students studied the language. Training and hiring speakers with professional-level Arabic proficiency <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/nyregion/on-education-after-sputnik-it-was-russian-after-9-11-should-it-be-arabic.html">was not a priority</a> for the federal government at that time. As a result, the FBI had few translators who were proficient in Arabic, which caused <a href="https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/index.htm">significant delays in translating surveillance information</a> in the run-up to the Sept. 11 attacks.</p>
<p>A year after 9/11, college-level enrollments in Arabic almost doubled to over 10,500, and they peaked in 2009 at just under 35,000. </p>
<h2>Expansion takes time</h2>
<p>Overcoming foreign language shortfalls is easier said than done. Gaps cannot be filled overnight, as languages <a href="https://exchanges.state.gov/cls">viewed as critical to national security</a> require hundreds to thousands of hours of study <a href="https://www.fsi-language-courses.org/blog/fsi-language-difficulty/">to reach professional proficiency</a>. And it also takes time for universities to expand their language offerings and staffing.</p>
<p>Therefore, shortfalls have continued. In 2016, nearly a quarter of the State Department’s overseas positions were held by people who <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-17-318">did not meet</a> the language proficiency requirements for their jobs. The numbers were even higher for positions requiring critical languages such as Arabic, Dari, Farsi and Urdu. These language gaps have <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-17-318">hindered officers’ ability</a> to protect embassies, manage emergency situations and more.</p>
<h2>Steep declines</h2>
<p>After peaking in 2009 at almost 1.7 million, college-level enrollments in languages other than English fell steeply. The new MLA report shows the decline has continued. By 2021, enrollments had fallen to under 1.2 million – a drop of nearly 30%.</p>
<p>Enrollments in almost all of the most commonly taught languages dropped significantly during this window. Arabic fell by almost 35%, Chinese/Mandarin by almost 25%, French by 37%, German by 44%, Japanese by 9% and Spanish by 32%. The only exceptions to this decline are enrollments in American Sign Language, which increased 17%, and Korean, which increased 128%. Korean in particular stands out, as its enrollments have increased steadily since 1974 and have been boosted recently by a global fascination with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/04/korea-culture-k-pop-music-film-tv-hallyu-v-and-a">Korean pop culture</a>.</p>
<p>Overall, enrollments for 2021 are on par with those of 1998. And they are only slightly higher than those of 1970 – even though more than <a href="http://www.mla.org/Enrollment-Report">twice as many students</a> now attend college.</p>
<p>In addition to the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/great-recession/">Great Recession</a>, other factors have <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/colleges-lose-a-stunning-651-foreign-language-programs-in-3-years">contributed to the downturn</a> in college language enrollments. As of 2017, only about <a href="https://www.americancouncils.org/language-research-fle-state-language-us">20% of K-12 students</a> study a foreign language, and only <a href="https://www.americancouncils.org/language-research-fle-state-language-us">11 states</a> have foreign language requirements for high school graduation. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, according to the Pew Research Center, just <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2016/10/06/the-state-of-american-jobs/">36% of Americans</a> believe that knowing a foreign language is very important for workers to be successful. In contrast, 85% believe that the ability to work with people from different backgrounds, training in writing and communication, and understanding how to use computers are each very important.</p>
<h2>National security initiatives</h2>
<p>In 2006, President George W. Bush launched the <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2006/58733.htm">National Security Language Initiative</a> to increase the number of speakers and teachers of critical languages.</p>
<p>Since then, government agencies have developed additional language programs. The National Security Agency’s <a href="https://www.startalk.info/">STARTALK</a>, for example, organizes summer programs to teach critical languages to students in kindergarten through college and provides resources and opportunities for teachers. The program served almost <a href="https://nflc.umd.edu/projects/startalk">70,000 students and 15,000 teachers</a> between 2007 and 2021.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nsliforyouth.org/">National Security Language Initiative for Youth</a>, in turn, is run by the State Department and offers summer and academic-year programs for high school students. Over <a href="https://live-nsli.pantheonsite.io/nsli-y/history/">8,000 students</a> have participated since 2006.</p>
<p>Despite the important role these programs play, the MLA report observes that college-level language enrollments continue to decline – even at a time of growing need for knowledge of languages other than English <a href="https://www.industryweek.com/talent/article/21119730/are-manufacturers-losing-out-on-business-due-to-lack-of-language-skills">in many industries</a>. As history has shown us, these declines will likely have negative effects on national security, diplomacy and U.S. strategic interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198135/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deborah Cohn has received grants from the American Philosophical Society (a Franklin Grant) and the Rockefeller Archive Center to conduct archival research related to the history of language study in the US. She is also a member of the Modern Language Association (MLA), a professional association for scholars of language and literature.</span></em></p>A new report from the Modern Language Association shows an unprecedented drop in the study of foreign languages among college students.Deborah Cohn, Provost Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2165202023-11-06T20:03:07Z2023-11-06T20:03:07ZHow the pandemic permanently altered college towns<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-the-pandemic-permanently-altered-college-towns" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Universities are more than just halls of learning; they are vibrant ecosystems and often the beating heart of the towns they reside in. Their reach goes beyond academia and plays a significant role in shaping the local economies of <a href="https://downloads.esri.com/esri_content_doc/dbl/us/tapestry/segment66.pdf">North American college towns</a>. </p>
<p>However, the COVID-19 pandemic <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/21319997/coronavirus-college-reopening-small-businesses">affected college towns profoundly</a>. In doing so, the pandemic highlighted the complex relationship between universities and their host communities.</p>
<p>College towns <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30033889">can be classified into two distinct types</a> in North America. The first category includes towns with a strong academic ethos. In these cities, universities are the lifeblood flowing through their communities. Examples of this group include <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-ithaca-new-york-is-the-best-college-town-in-america-2013-11">Ithaca, N.Y.</a>; <a href="https://livability.com/best-places/10-best-college-towns/manhattan-ks/">Manhattan, Kan.</a>; and <a href="https://www.thewhig.com/2013/11/21/kingston-in-bbcs-top-5-university-towns">Kingston, Ont.</a>.</p>
<p>The second category features academic powerhouses nestled within capitals or major cities. These universities are essential components of the broader social, cultural and economic landscape, rather than being the defining feature. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/america-s-biggest-college-towns">Boston</a>; <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universities/best-universities-los-angeles">Los Angeles</a>; <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universities/best-universities-toronto">Toronto</a>; and <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universities/best-universities-montreal">Montréal</a> are examples of this group. These cities combine vibrant academic atmospheres with big-city life, and they <a href="https://www.topuniversities.com/city-rankings/2023">consistently rank among the top choices for students to live</a>.</p>
<h2>Pre-pandemic college towns</h2>
<p>Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the constant influx of students, faculty, families and alumni in college towns created a consistent economic rhythm. Local businesses, ranging from cozy cafés to quaint bookstores to major retailers, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chipotle-college-towns-are-key-to-success-2022-8">thrived on the foot traffic from college students</a>.</p>
<p>But the pandemic changed all this. <a href="https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/993099/">Our recent study</a> conducted an analysis of foot traffic data from universities situated in 38 small and midsize cities in the U.S., along with 157 Walmart and Target stores in these towns, from 2018 to 2020. </p>
<p>Our findings indicate a positive correlation between university foot traffic and store visits. Stores that were closer to universities benefited more from this relationship. In addition, stores in college towns that offered a wider range of commuting options, especially eco-friendly ones like public transit and biking, saw even greater advantages from their proximity to universities.</p>
<p>These findings emphasize the importance of improving accessibility for retailers looking to make the most of university foot traffic. Such measures not only bolster local business, but also highlight the wider environmental and communal benefits of adopting sustainable practices.</p>
<h2>Post-pandemic college towns</h2>
<p>The pandemic had an <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/26/how-coronavirus-changed-college-for-over-14-million-students.html">immediate and devastating impact on college towns</a>. <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/06_16_2021.asp">Universities closed campuses, shifted to remote learning and cancelled in-person events</a>, causing these lively communities to become shadows of their former selves. </p>
<p>The economic repercussions were severe. Without a steady stream of visitors, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-21/what-the-pandemic-is-doing-to-college-towns">local businesses experienced a sharp decline in revenue</a>. Those located farther from the university faced even greater challenges, as the increased distance resulted in less in-store visits. </p>
<p>However, our research revealed that a broad range of commuting options continued to have a positive effect on the connection between university visits and store visits. In fact, this effect actually intensified.</p>
<p>Businesses, despite being hit hard by the disruptions, <a href="https://business.fiu.edu/academics/graduate/insights/posts/why-retailers-will-bounce-back-to-a-new-reality-after-the-pandemic.html">refused to succumb without a fight and began to adapt and innovate</a>. They embraced online sales, hosted virtual events and provided contactless deliveries.</p>
<p>Universities also showcased remarkable resilience and innovation. They transitioned to remote and hybrid teaching and virtual tours and events. They also supported students and local businesses through external partnerships, <a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/robot-food-delivery-launches-at-the-university-of-notre-dame/">as evidenced by initiatives like campus robot food delivery programs</a>.</p>
<p>These adaptations did more than just address immediate challenges — they also revealed untapped innovation potential, redefined the relationship between education and local businesses, and fundamentally transformed the nature of connectivity and interactivity in college towns. </p>
<h2>Thriving, not surviving</h2>
<p>The pandemic, despite its chaos, shed light on the importance of university visits in driving local economies. It also underscored the need for local businesses to tailor consumer experiences to the post-pandemic landscape by integrating physical and digital experiences. This encompasses everything from <a href="https://universitybusiness.com/the-future-of-campus-retail/">self-service technology</a> to <a href="https://news.utexas.edu/2023/01/24/ut-austin-campus-named-as-newest-h-e-b-delivery-hub/%22%22">express delivery services</a>.</p>
<p>Local governments and universities must play a crucial role in post-pandemic economic recovery by improving <a href="https://www.excal.on.ca/news/2023/09/29/york-university-awarded-the-first-best-university-for-commuters-in-canada/">public transit systems and bike-sharing programs</a>. A deeper collaboration between these entities is vital for boosting student enrolments and reinvigorating local economic activity. This should go beyond improving marketing and campus amenities and work on <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2019/08/government-of-canada-making-post-secondary-education-more-accessible-and-affordable.html">making higher education more accessible and affordable</a>.</p>
<p>These initiatives are not just about recovery; they are a commitment to a more resilient future. The economic vitality of college towns is tied to the ebb and flow of university life. While the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of this relationship, it also revealed a path forward characterized by adaptability, innovation and an unyielding sense of community. </p>
<p>By embracing a future that blends the physical with the digital, and tradition with innovation, college towns are not just surviving; they are redefining what it means to thrive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The COVID-19 pandemic affected college towns profoundly and highlighted the complex relationship between universities and their host communities.Xiaodan Pan, Associate Professor, John Molson School of Business, Concordia UniversityIsaac Elking, Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management, University of Houston-DowntownJohn-Patrick Paraskevas, Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2158892023-10-26T12:31:10Z2023-10-26T12:31:10ZTo better understand addiction, students in this course take a close look at liquor in literature<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555246/original/file-20231023-15-kxsfnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C31%2C5152%2C3383&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Characters in books can teach lessons about addiction.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/open-book-and-glass-of-white-wine-in-sunlight-royalty-free-image/1219727594?phrase=wine+literature&adppopup=true">Nataliia Shcherbyna via iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>Alcohol in American Literature</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p>I got the idea for the course when I was writing a chapter on the temperance movement in American literature for my doctoral dissertation. I ended up reading a lot of fiction and poetry about alcohol and the anti-alcohol movement. I thought it would be fun to teach a class that <a href="https://www.academia.edu/12903259/_Temperance_Novels_and_Moral_Reform_in_Oxford_History_of_the_Novel_in_English_Oxford_UP_2014_">surveyed American literature through a booze-themed lens</a>. </p>
<p>Since alcohol affects and disables people regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or class, it is easy to find literature about the impact of alcohol from many points of view. </p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>I pair my course with a medical doctor who teaches a course on the <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/addiction-4157312">biology of addiction</a>. In the biology course, students learn about the <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/addiction-overview-4581803">biological and physiological effects</a> of diseases of addiction, <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/substance-use-vs-substance-use-disorder-whats-the-difference-6385961">substance use and abuse</a>, dependency and recovery.</p>
<p>The core curriculum at John Carroll University requires students to take paired courses from different departments that are linked together. A colleague who teaches biology courses approached me about linking my alcohol class to her addiction class. Students must take both of our courses during the same semester. The combined courses give students both a scientific and literary view of addiction. </p>
<p>Students read fiction, poetry and drama about many aspects of alcohol and other addictive substances: celebrating them, struggling with them, even prohibiting and regulating them. Students compare the literary representations of substance and alcohol abuse with medical descriptions and impacts. For example, when my class reads Kristen Roupenian’s viral short story “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person">Cat Person,</a>” we talk about the role of alcohol in reducing inhibition when casually dating.</p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>My goal is for students to come to a better understanding of how alcohol influences literature. They learn how some writers portray the way alcoholism further marginalizes minorities. For example, characters in <a href="https://fallsapart.com/">Sherman Alexie</a>’s “<a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-lone-ranger-and-tonto-fistfight-in-heaven-20th-anniversary-edition-sherman-alexie/12459512?ean=9780802121998">The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven</a>” are enrolled members of the Spokane Tribe of Indians. They live on the reservation and have great difficulty finding or keeping a job. Many characters suffer from intergenerational trauma, poverty and a pervasive addiction to alcohol. </p>
<p>For their final project, students must pitch a movie that offers a compelling plot with relatable characters. The storyline must be backed up by a deep understanding of the science of disease and addiction. </p>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<p>• “<a href="https://tinhouse.com/book/night-of-the-living-rez/">Night of the Living Rez</a>,” by Morgan Talty, explores addiction and poverty among the Penobscot Nation.</p>
<p>• “<a href="https://www.hemingwayhome.com/store/p/the-sun-also-rises-softcover">The Sun Also Rises</a>,” by Ernest Hemingway, is a classic novel set in 1920s Paris about a set of heavy-drinking American ex-pats dealing with the trauma of World War I.</p>
<p>• We visit <a href="https://karamuhouse.org/">Karamu House</a>, the U.S.’s oldest continuing African American theater, to watch a performance of “<a href="https://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=6301">Clyde’s</a>,” a popular play by Lynn Nottage that is set in a truck stop sandwich shop that employs the recently incarcerated.</p>
<h2>What will the course prepare students to do?</h2>
<p>Students can be better advocates for their own personal health, and the health of others, if they understand how addictive substances affect their minds and bodies. Pre-health students in particular get a general introduction to medical issues related to addiction and how American authors have long portrayed booze. </p>
<p>For example, Frances Watkins Harper’s “<a href="https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/full-texts-of-classic-works/the-two-offers-by-frances-watkins-harper/">The Two Offers</a>,” written in the 1850s, is believed to be the first short story ever published by an African American woman. It is a temperance story that encourages young women not to marry a drunkard, highlighting the antebellum Black community’s concerns about sobriety and domestic well-being, in addition to freedom.</p>
<p>The course hones students’ critical reading and writing skills while challenging them to think about the role of alcohol, substance abuse, sobriety and recovery in their lives and in American culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215889/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Debra J. Rosenthal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This course beckons students to examine how alcoholic beverages are portrayed in books by American authors.Debra J. Rosenthal, Professor of English, John Carroll UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2046642023-10-19T12:29:21Z2023-10-19T12:29:21ZDual enrollment can save college students time and money − but there’s one risk to avoid<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553509/original/file-20231012-29-k05y0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">About a third of U.S. high school students are taking college courses. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teenage-school-students-walking-in-hallway-royalty-free-image/1465474376">Solskin/DigitalVision Collection/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a recent talk about <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/secretary-cardona-delivers-keynote-reimagining-college-admissions-summit-equal-opportunity-higher-education">new ways to do college admissions</a>, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona spoke about his own experience taking a college course while still in high school. He was referring to dual enrollment – <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019176.pdf">an increasingly common practice</a> in which <a href="https://nscresearchcenter.org/stay-informed/">high school students take college courses</a>, simultaneously earning high school and college credit.</p>
<p><a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019176.pdf">A 2019 report</a> showed that approximately 88% of U.S. high schools offered dual enrollment and approximately 34% of high school students in the U.S. are taking college courses. That represents an increase from 2010, when <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013001.pdf">82% of high schools offered dual enrollment</a> and <a href="https://www.nacep.org/resource-center/nacep-fast-facts/">approximately 10%</a> of high school students took college courses. </p>
<p>At the state level, there is evidence of dramatic growth. In Indiana, for example, <a href="https://cherp.utah.edu/_resources/documents/publications/research_priorities_for_advancing_equitable_dual_enrollment_policy_and_practice.pdf">60% of high school students</a> graduated with college credit in 2018, up from 39% in 2012. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pI7szcYAAAAJ&hl=en">higher education administrator</a> who has been involved with dual enrollment in Boston’s public schools, I know there is strong evidence that dual enrollment programs <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/EvidenceSnapshot/671">make it more likely</a> that students graduate from high school and earn a college degree. </p>
<h2>How dual enrollment works</h2>
<p>Dual enrollment programs may be known by different names, such as early college, concurrent enrollment, joint enrollment or dual credit programs. One study found the use of <a href="https://download.hlcommission.org/DualCreditinUSHigherEd_2013_INF.pdf">97 different terms</a> nationwide.</p>
<p>The courses are different from Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses. While <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019430.pdf">AP and IB courses cover college-level material</a>, dual enrollment courses are college courses. </p>
<p>Students usually take these courses at their high schools, but they can also take them on a college campus, online or at another nearby high school. Some programs provide transportation to college campuses. The courses are offered in partnership with a college or university and taught by faculty from that college. Ideally, courses are offered during the standard high school day. </p>
<h2>Academic and financial benefits</h2>
<p>The North Carolina Career and College Promise dual enrollment program found that students in the program were <a href="https://www.dpi.nc.gov/cte-pathway/download?attachment">2% more likely to graduate</a> from high school and 9% more likely to enroll in college compared with similar students who did not take dual enrollment courses. </p>
<p>Dual enrollment programs also provide a practical way for students and their families to save time and money. Students are able to take college courses for free or at a discounted rate while still in high school instead of paying tuition for the classes during college. The programs often include books, materials and transportation. During the 2017-18 school year, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2020/2020125.pdf">78% of dual enrollment programs at public schools</a> received full or partial funding from the school, district or state. Additional funding came from families, students or some other entity such as foundations and donors. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://impactinged.pitt.edu/ojs/ImpactingEd/article/view/251/314">equity gaps exist</a> within dual enrollment programs. Recruitment efforts that do not target equity, a lack of qualified faculty, and certain <a href="https://www.sreb.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/dual_enrollmentcommonissues2021.pdf?1641412140">eligibility requirements</a> – such as minimum GPAs and standardized test scores – create barriers for some students. Even when dual enrollment programs are available at their high school, Black and Hispanic students <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019176.pdf">participate at lower rates</a> than their white and Asian classmates. In addition, students whose parents had earned at least a bachelor’s degree were much more likely to take these courses than students whose parents had not earned a high school diploma.</p>
<h2>Recruitment tool for colleges</h2>
<p>Many colleges have <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/admissions/traditional-age/2023/05/24/leveling-bottom">experienced declining enrollments as of late</a>, and some experts predict a looming <a href="https://wcet.wiche.edu/frontiers/2023/07/14/college-enrollment-cliffs-shifts-and-lifts/">“enrollment cliff”</a> that some schools won’t survive. Dual enrollment programs can benefit colleges by drawing more students to their campuses, where they often re-enroll after high school. </p>
<p>A recent study found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2023.2182059">60% of 18- and 19-year-old</a> college students took dual enrollment courses at their college while in high school. </p>
<p>For community colleges, high school students in dual enrollment programs now make up <a href="https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/easyblog/what-happened-to-community-college-enrollment-depends-students-age.html">close to 20%</a> of their enrollments. </p>
<p>The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers found in 2016 that 75% of colleges offering dual enrollment programs viewed them as an <a href="https://www.luminafoundation.org/files/resources/dual-enrollment-in-the-context-of-strategic-enrollment-management.pdf">important form of recruitment</a>. </p>
<p>However, the increased likelihood that a student will enroll in the college where they took dual enrollment courses in high school has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-021-09643-x">raised concerns about “undermatching</a>.” Undermatching is a phenomenon in which high school students don’t apply to a more selective college or university even though they have the ability. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-021-09643-x">One study</a> found that when dual enrollment students stay at a two-year college where they are undermatched – instead of transferring to a more selective school – they are 33% less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree.</p>
<p>Still, dual enrollment programs have proven to be both successful and popular in states across the country. If current trends continue, and states <a href="https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/sen-markey-rep-espaillat-announce-legislation-to-expand-dual-enrollment-early-college-programs">such as Massachusetts</a> continue to push for increased funding for dual enrollment, programs will continue to grow in high schools, on college campuses and online.</p>
<p>The hope is that growth in dual enrollment will lead to more students graduating from college and being able to get better jobs and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/accounting-for-the-widening-mortality-gap-between-american-adults-with-and-without-a-ba/">live longer, healthier lives</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204664/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary L. Churchill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>More high school students are taking college courses while still in high school. But equity gaps exist, with Black and Hispanic students participating at lower rates.Mary L. Churchill, Associate Dean of Strategic Partnerships and Community Engagement, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2084342023-10-13T12:31:53Z2023-10-13T12:31:53ZThis engineering course has students use their brainwaves to create performing art<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>“Arts and Geometry”</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p>After a serious injury in 2016, I started drawing and painting during my recovery as a form of self-taught art therapy. I found the experience transformative. During my recovery, I rediscovered Pablo Picasso’s artwork and the geometry of his cubism, which inspired my early paintings.</p>
<p>As making art became part of my life, a desire grew to share this transformative experience with my engineering students. I wanted them to learn how to see science and engineering from a broader perspective – as an artist.</p>
<p>This led to the idea for, and development of, a course on arts and geometry in collaboration with professional artists of the Atlanta community. The play “<a href="https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/2865/picasso-at-the-lapin-agile">Picasso at the Lapin Agile</a>,” where comedian Steve Martin imagined a conversation in a Parisian cafe between Picasso and Albert Einstein, helped inspire the course. So did a book by history and philosophy of science professor Arthur Miller, “<a href="https://www.arthurimiller.com/books/einstein-picasso/">Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty That Causes Havoc</a>.” </p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>The course introduces engineering students to the geometry of manifolds – that is, cylinders, spheres or hyperboloids, and more complex surfaces, like a crumpled piece of paper or a rippled kale leaf. It then looks at how these concepts influenced modern arts and sciences: Picasso’s cubism and Einstein’s relativity. Cubism combines many angles to create a new way of seeing things, whereas Einstein’s theory changes how we think about time, which isn’t separate from the space around us – they are intertwined. </p>
<p>The course is integrated with weekly art labs taught over the years by Atlanta professional artists <a href="https://www.createdbyemily.com">Emily Vickers</a>, <a href="https://www.rachelgrantstudio.com/">Rachel Grant</a>, <a href="https://research.gatech.edu/anna-doll">Anna Doll</a> and <a href="https://jerushiagraham.wixsite.com/jerushiagraham">Jerushia Graham</a>, and with the support of music technologist <a href="https://mikewinters.io/">Mike Winters</a>. The artists teach students the fundamentals of several art mediums: <a href="https://issuu.com/ceebuzz/docs/like_picasso_and_einstein_book_fina">pencil and charcoal drawing</a>, printmaking, <a href="https://issuu.com/ceebuzz/docs/forms_and_expression_book_2019_fedele_grant">oil painting</a> and sculptures. </p>
<p>We also teach students how to create performing art using their brainwaves. Brainwaves are produced when we are engaged in any activity. They can be measured by electroencephalography – or EEG – headsets.</p>
<p>Students learn to create auditory or dynamic visual representations of our mind activity when we think, reason, create, dance or relax doing nothing. For example, brainwaves produced by a dancer can be transformed into musical sounds, an auditory representation of the dancer’s movements. Similarly, the brainwaves of an artist making a painting, or those of a mathematician deriving an equation, can be transformed into music that mirrors the act of creating art or math.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Mind melody performance: The brainwaves of artist Rachel Grant making a painting, engineer Francesco Fedele developing equations and choreographer Bella Dorado dancing are transformed into musical sounds designed by student Dennis Frank.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The same brainwaves can power on or off a set of pumps that produce water jets in a tank, a system designed by professor <a href="https://lai-etal-lab.github.io/author/chris-ck-lai/">Chris Lai</a> and students Muhammad Mustafa and Alexander Zimmer. These jets interact among themselves to produce a disordered turbulent flow in the water tank. The shape and motion of vortexes generated by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFLOn6fzMKY&ab_channel=73gabbiano">turbulence</a> are a dynamic visualization of the human mind’s activity.</p>
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<img alt="A student dances on stage while another paints in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540377/original/file-20230801-17-2r0ssq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540377/original/file-20230801-17-2r0ssq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540377/original/file-20230801-17-2r0ssq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540377/original/file-20230801-17-2r0ssq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540377/original/file-20230801-17-2r0ssq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540377/original/file-20230801-17-2r0ssq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540377/original/file-20230801-17-2r0ssq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Choreographer Bella Dorado dances to sounds produced by the brainwaves of student Tanisha Chanda while she paints a waterscape.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Francesco Fedele</span></span>
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<h2>Why is this course relevant now?</h2>
<p>Civil engineering can be explained and taught using the physics and mathematics of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, from the 17th century: the concepts of derivatives and force being proportional to acceleration.</p>
<p>In our fast-changing world, there are exciting discoveries happening in science and technology, like in the understanding of the universe, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.</p>
<p>To prepare for the challenges posed by these recent discoveries, engineering students should be familiar with special mathematical tools developed by 20th-century geniuses such as Elie Cartan and Einstein. Such tools empower students to gain insights such as uncovering hidden geometric structures of complex physical systems or of large amounts of data. Normally, engineering classes don’t teach these topics.</p>
<p>The course also involves the participation of Colombian university students interested in arts for <a href="https://www.100kstrongamericas.org/roboarts-initiative/">the RobotArts Initiative</a>. Such an international exchange seeks to increase the number of Latino engineering students with skills in the arts, engineering and robotics. Besides taking my course, the students from Colombia also take a course on robotics. </p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>Students realize the <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2008.156497">mental health benefits</a> of practicing arts. They feel more self-confident and have more <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/329834">self-esteem</a> because they have created something.</p>
<p>Performing art live empowers students’ self-expression. By not relying on memorization, these performances stimulate spontaneous creativity, improvisation and free thinking.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Students dance on stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540378/original/file-20230801-20-t0wcs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540378/original/file-20230801-20-t0wcs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540378/original/file-20230801-20-t0wcs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540378/original/file-20230801-20-t0wcs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540378/original/file-20230801-20-t0wcs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540378/original/file-20230801-20-t0wcs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540378/original/file-20230801-20-t0wcs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students Dennis Frank, Muhammad Mustafa and Alexander Zimmer performing brain art. In the background, software converts student performers’ brainwaves into music and water turbulence in a tank designed by professor Chris Lai.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Francesco Fedele</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<p>• “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1112495919">Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity,</a>” by Sean M. Carroll, Cambridge University Press, 2019 – a textbook that covers the foundations of the general relativity and mathematical formalism.</p>
<p>• “<a href="https://www.arthurimiller.com/books/einstein-picasso/">Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty That Causes Havoc_</a> by Arthur J. Miller, Perseus Books Group, 2001 – a biography of Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso.</p>
<p>• EEG headsets to acquire brainwaves and <a href="https://supercollider.github.io/">SuperCollider</a> software to synthesize them into music. </p>
<h2>What will the course prepare students to do?</h2>
<p>The course will prepare students to think like an artist, using abstraction, imagination and fluid thinking. They will tackle with confidence the new engineering quests and challenges of the 21st century. The challenges encompass sustainable urban and ocean infrastructure design for extreme weather, global warming mitigation, clean water and energy, quantum computing, cybersecurity and <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-69978-9_4">ethical use of AI</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Francesco Fedele does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Art and science combine in this engineering course to let students turn their brainwaves into creative works.Francesco Fedele, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2123342023-10-11T12:28:28Z2023-10-11T12:28:28ZStudents understand calculus better when the lessons are active<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548688/original/file-20230917-23-1jd7a8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C312%2C5123%2C2983&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A new study found that college students better understand complex calculus concepts in active learning classes. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/photo/professor-talking-to-students-in-college-classroom-royalty-free-image/643999291">Hill Street Studios/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>College students learn more calculus in an active learning course in which students solve problems during class than in a traditional lecture-based course. That’s according to a <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.ade9803">peer-reviewed study</a> my colleagues and I published in Science. We also found that college students better understood complex calculus concepts and earned better grades in the active learning course. </p>
<p>The findings held across racial and ethnic groups, genders and college majors, and for both first-time college and transfer students – thus, promoting success for all students. Students in the active learning course had an associated 11% higher pass rate. </p>
<p>If you apply that rate to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0020739X.2013.798874">the current 300,000</a> students taking calculus each year in the U.S., it could mean an additional 33,000 pass their class.</p>
<p>Our experimental trial ran over three semesters – fall 2018 through fall 2019 – and involved 811 undergraduate students at a public university that has been designated as a <a href="https://sites.ed.gov/hispanic-initiative/hispanic-serving-institutions-hsis/">Hispanic-serving institution</a>. The study evaluated the impact of an engagement-focused active learning calculus teaching method by randomly placing students into either a traditional lecture-based class or the active learning calculus class. </p>
<p>The active learning intervention promoted development of calculus understanding during class, with students working through exercises designed to build calculus knowledge and with faculty monitoring and guiding the process. </p>
<p>This differs from the lecture setting where students passively listen to the instructor and develop their understanding outside of class, often on their own.</p>
<p>An active learning approach allows students to work together to solve problems and explain ideas to each other. Active learning is about understanding the “why” behind a subject versus merely trying to memorize it.</p>
<p>Along the way, students experiment with their ideas, learn from their mistakes and ultimately make sense of calculus. In this way, they replicate the practices of mathematicians, including making and testing educated guesses, sense-making and explaining their reasoning to colleagues. Faculty are a critical part of the process. They guide the process through probing questions, demonstrating mathematical strategies, monitoring group progress and adapting pace and activities to foster student learning.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l7ch0Kf4NvM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Florida International University made a short video to accompany a research paper on how active learning improves outcomes for calculus students.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Calculus is a foundational discipline for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as it provides the skills for designing systems as well as for studying and predicting change.</p>
<p>But historically it’s been a barrier that has ended the opportunity for many students to achieve their goal of a STEM career. Only <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast-engage-to-excel-final_2-25-12.pdf">40% of undergraduate students</a> intending to earn a STEM degree complete their degree, and calculus plays a role in that loss. The reasons vary depending on the student. Failing calculus can be a final straw for some.</p>
<p>And it is particularly concerning for historically underrepresented groups. The odds of female students leaving a STEM major after calculus is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0157447">1.5 times higher than it is for men</a>. And Hispanic and Black students have a <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-25304-2">50% higher failure rate than white students in calculus</a>. These losses deprive the individual students of STEM aspirations, career dreams and financial security. And it deprives society of their potentially innovative contributions to solving challenging problems, such as climate resilience, energy independence, infrastructure and more.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>A vexing challenge in calculus instruction – and across the STEM disciplines – is broad adoption of active learning strategies that work. We started this research to provide compelling evidence to show that this model works and to drive further change. The next step is addressing the barriers, including lack of time, questions about effectiveness and institutional policies that don’t provide an incentive for faculty to bring active learning to their classrooms. </p>
<p>A crucial next step is improving the evidence-based instructional change strategies that will promote adoption of active learning instruction in the classroom.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>Our latest results are motivating our team to further delve into the underlying instructional strategies that drive student understanding in calculus. We’re also looking for opportunities to replicate the experiment at a variety of institutions, including high schools, which will provide more insight into how to expand adoption across the nation. </p>
<p>We hope that this paper increases the rate of change of all faculty adopting active learning in their classrooms.</p>
<p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take on interesting academic work.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212334/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laird Kramer receives funding from the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>Collaborative work benefits calculus students, new research shows.Laird Kramer, Professor of Physics, Florida International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138462023-10-02T17:47:09Z2023-10-02T17:47:09ZRiskier times on campuses mean we need a tool for prevention and intervention of sexual assaults<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550721/original/file-20230927-29-n78pww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=54%2C0%2C6048%2C3965&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How post-secondary institutions react after a sexual assault incident can impact campus safety.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/riskier-times-on-campuses-mean-we-need-a-tool-for-prevention-and-intervention-of-sexual-assaults" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The excitement of entering a new academic year for university and college students can be palpable and filled with hope. But the start of the school year in post-secondary settings also has a shadow side, known as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380221134293">red zone</a>. </p>
<p>The red zone is one of the riskier times for gender-based and sexualized violence to occur — about <a href="https://doi.org/10.3200/JACH.57.3.331-338">50 per cent of sexual assaults on campus</a> happen during this period. The impact on victims can be tremendous and devastating. </p>
<p>Others on campus are left to worry about their personal safety, while families and friends become concerned about their loved ones being on campus grounds or attending campus events. </p>
<p>After an incident of violence occurs, universities and colleges start thinking about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838018756121">reputational harm</a> and what impact this might have on enrolment in the long-term.</p>
<h2>Institutional betrayal</h2>
<p>The post-secondary environment is a unique community focused on teaching and learning. Education should be at the heart of these learning environments, but this is affected after on-campus incidents of assault. </p>
<p>Victims have expressed feelings that an assault forces them to the margins of these communities. They experience institutional betrayal when their university or college failed to have policies or measures that would ensure their safety and failed to do what was reasonably expected to prevent further violence. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-sexual-assault-victims-speak-out-their-institutions-often-betray-them-87050">When sexual assault victims speak out, their institutions often betray them</a>
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<p>Post-secondary institutions and their communities should be resolutely driven to maintain a <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED537696.pdf">strong, safe and quality-focused place of learning</a>. </p>
<p>Universities and colleges also need to focus on prevention and intervention in their campus community, in addition to <a href="https://www.couragetoact.ca/events/responding-to-critical-incidents-of-sexual-violence-at-post-secondary-institutions">effectively responding to victims and the individuals who caused harm</a>. Ensuring campus safety and reducing reputational harm to the institution means assessing every incidence of gender-based and sexualized violence.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550722/original/file-20230927-19-l3yvos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a crowd of people wearing yellow T-shirts" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550722/original/file-20230927-19-l3yvos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550722/original/file-20230927-19-l3yvos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550722/original/file-20230927-19-l3yvos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550722/original/file-20230927-19-l3yvos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550722/original/file-20230927-19-l3yvos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550722/original/file-20230927-19-l3yvos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550722/original/file-20230927-19-l3yvos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The start of the school year in post-secondary settings is when 50 per cent of campus sexual assaults can happen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Identifying areas of risk</h2>
<p>It is important to not only assess the risk presented by perpetrators, but to also proactively identify areas within the institution that may enable future gender-based and sexualized violence to occur on campus. This analysis should be the sole responsibility of the institution — using a risk assessment tool can help meet such objectives. </p>
<p>It can be used to identify those areas that are in need of intervention or areas where prevention work can happen.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/addressing-campus-sexual-violence-new-risk-assessment-tool-can-help-administrators-make-difficult-decisions-199714">Addressing campus sexual violence: New risk assessment tool can help administrators make difficult decisions</a>
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<p>In light of the enormous scientific research in the field of risk assessment, it is surprising there has been no tool developed for use in universities and colleges. To address this gap, the <a href="https://www.couragetoact.ca/knowledgecentre">Gender-Based and Sexualized Violence Community Risk Assessment Tool</a> was launched in September.</p>
<p>We developed the tool to help prevent gender-based and sexualized violence on campus. We reviewed existing risk assessment tools for sexual and intimate partner violence and comprehensively reviewed research literature on campus sexual violence and gender-based violence risk factors. </p>
<p>We also conducted an environmental scan of risk assessment tools in use to ensure there weren’t tools that were unpublished but being used by practitioners. Our research helped us identify over 20 risk factors.</p>
<p>We then convened two advisory groups to help us determine which factors would be included in a final tool. Each group was comprised of sexual violence co-ordinators, student conduct officers, academic administrators, violence risk experts and, most importantly, students. These post-secondary stakeholders were drawn from across the country, from a variety of institutions and represented a number of viewpoints from across the post-secondary community. </p>
<p>The resulting tool includes 16 risk factors clustered into four groups related to the victim, campus community, violence incidence and the person who caused harm. A few of these 16 risk factors included institutional student life culture, sexual preoccupation and participation in hypermasculine culture.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2r71PzhUpwk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CBC reports on a student who says she experienced assault by a perpetrator who remains on campus.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Risk assessment and decision-making</h2>
<p>When an incident of sexualized and gender-based violence on a campus is reported, an important part of the investigation includes a risk assessment of the person who caused harm. This helps inform decisions and <a href="https://safersocietypress.org/rnr-principles-in-practice/">ensures the level of intervention matches the level of risk</a> to ensure safety.</p>
<p>The current tool goes further by focusing on factors related to the campus community and the victim. These factors provide information that could help identify areas the university or college needs to work on in order to improve safety and better respond to all instances of violence in their campus community.</p>
<p>Campus community risk for sexualized and gender-based violence should be assessed at various stages of a reported incident from initial accusation to investigation, and even after decisions are made about the individual who caused harm. This allows the institution to identify relevant areas where intervention could lower risk, make decisions about the individual who caused harm, and develop programs that would better prevent further incidents.</p>
<h2>Evidence-based decision-making</h2>
<p>Using the Community Risk Assessment Tool allows universities and colleges to make evidence-based decisions about their policies and procedures, <a href="https://www.couragetoact.ca/elp">learning environments</a> and supports for marginalized students. It also helps address a culture of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X211064321">hypermasculine beliefs</a> among campus groups and changing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/088626001016008004">problematic sexual expectations</a> and <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0030624">oppressive attitudes</a> on campus.</p>
<p>These decisions can positively influence the entire campus community. More broadly, the use of a risk assessment tool can progressively improve reputational risk by mandating a risk assessment for each incident. This ensures that an institutional audit of campus safety is a fixed and usual course of action. </p>
<p>This ensures a consistent process across all reported incidents may instill some confidence for victims that the university or college’s decisions are reasonably formed based on an objective tool.</p>
<p>Following an incidence of violence, the use of an evidence-based risk assessment tool can only help to promote safety and a sense of accountability by universities and colleges after the fact.</p>
<p>Without such a tool, campuses will be left reacting to incidents of gender-based and sexualized violence as they arise, rather than building a safe and effective learning community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213846/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandy Jung receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She also provides consultation to Possibility Seeds.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jesmen Mendoza provides consultation to Possibility Seeds. </span></em></p>A new community risk assessment tool allows post-secondary institutions to make evidence-based decisions about their policies and procedures.Sandy Jung, Professor, Department of Psychology, MacEwan UniversityJesmen Mendoza, Psychologist and Faculty Member, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2116402023-09-25T12:20:11Z2023-09-25T12:20:11ZHow to create a college internship where students actually learn − and don’t want to quit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548209/original/file-20230914-21-6a4us2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Interns benefit from structured tasks, hands-on supervision and open communication.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/two-businesswomen-working-on-computer-in-office-royalty-free-image/637152194">Monkey Business Images/iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Angelica landed a prestigious internship with a major corporation just outside of Houston, she was ecstatic about the opportunity to launch her career in finance. </p>
<p>Such optimism was warranted, as research shows that students with internships are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1521025120947357">almost twice as likely to graduate college</a>, have a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2021.102141">12.6% higher likelihood</a> of being invited to job interviews, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.57.4.0418-9460R2">earn 6% higher wages</a> than noninterns once they graduate.</p>
<p>But even with a decent paycheck and scholarships to cover her rent, Angelica considered leaving the internship within weeks. What went wrong? </p>
<p>As part of the three-year College Internship Study at the <a href="https://ccwt.wisc.edu/">Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions</a> at the <a href="https://www.wisc.edu/">University of Wisconsin-Madison</a>, we found that interns can have a tough time adapting to the culture of a new city, organization and work environment.</p>
<p>In Angelica’s case, the shock was partly about geography. She was the only intern in a group of 17 from out of town, and she felt “alone and in a big city where I didn’t know anybody.”</p>
<p>But more alienating was the fact that she knew of only one other Hispanic woman in her intern group, and the company itself, she said, was mostly white. Ultimately, she believed that “none of these people really have anything in common with me.” She felt excluded and started to believe it would be impossible to work full time at the company. </p>
<p>Angelica’s story demonstrates that not all student interns have positive and productive experiences. In fact, research shows that internships can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080903290454">reinforce gender inequalities</a> in the workplace, create <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2018.1473559">unrealistic expectations</a> for career advancement and even <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.6551/AS.0101.04">exploit student labor</a>. </p>
<h2>Common internship pitfalls</h2>
<p>Interns are <a href="https://nsuworks.nova.edu/elthe/vol4/iss2/17/">learners as much as they are workers</a> earning a paycheck. Unfortunately, the educational aspect of internships frequently gets overshadowed, with interns assigned <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888413504098">mundane or repetitive tasks</a> unrelated to their academic or professional interests. This can hinder their career development, for example by <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/want-to-motivate-students-give-them-a-meaningful-taste-of-the-working-world/2023/02">diminishing their motivation to pursue a career</a> in that field.</p>
<p>Another problem, which our own research revealed, is that too often supervisors <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2023.2241330">adopt a hands-off strategy</a>. They expect interns to define and complete tasks independently. </p>
<p>While <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/12/dealing-with-a-hands-off-boss">this may work for long-term or mature employees</a>, it is unsuitable for most interns who are new to professional life. Interns typically have a shorter tenure, <a href="https://nsuworks.nova.edu/elthe/vol4/iss2/17/">limited authority and less access</a> to resources. This makes it difficult to complete complex tasks with little supervision. The lack of structure and guidance can also cause significant stress that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.20331">weakens their learning and job performance</a>.</p>
<p>And, finally, unstructured internships can alienate students who are already marginalized – particularly those who are <a href="https://education.wisc.edu/news/new-study-finds-successful-student-internships-require-careful-design-equitable-access/">first-generation, low-income or students of color</a>. That’s because the lack of structure or supervision can make students feel overwhelmed, pushing them to <a href="https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/21/05/rethinking-summer-internship">seek guidance from family or friends</a>. These students may not have family connections in prestigious or professional occupations and therefore <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2019.1654990">lack support systems</a> to deal with their challenging workplace situations.</p>
<p>Based on our research, we offer four strategies for designing effective and welcoming internships for college students.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549569/original/file-20230921-19-8n9z1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Group of young professionals walking with laptops in an office" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549569/original/file-20230921-19-8n9z1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549569/original/file-20230921-19-8n9z1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549569/original/file-20230921-19-8n9z1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549569/original/file-20230921-19-8n9z1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549569/original/file-20230921-19-8n9z1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549569/original/file-20230921-19-8n9z1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549569/original/file-20230921-19-8n9z1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Peer mentors and organized social events can help college interns feel like they belong at a company.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/inspired-ladies-and-gentleman-on-their-way-to-the-royalty-free-image/1367511479">Creative Credit/iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span>
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<h2>1. Set clear learning goals</h2>
<p>In order to ensure interns acquire new knowledge and skills, supervisors can establish both long-term and short-term <a href="https://www.cas.edu/learningoutcomes">learning goals</a>. This is required in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2018.1450846">countries like France</a>, where internships with companies are fully included in college curricula, <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2019.10172abstract">but not in the U.S.</a>.</p>
<p>Learning goals can include specific tasks the intern will be expected to perform, technical knowledge they will gain and transferable skills like communication or teamwork that they should develop through the internship. </p>
<p>Ideally, they are developed in collaboration with faculty advisers, students and employers. We especially emphasize the importance of engaging students in these conversations. Different interns will <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/822747510">likely have unique objectives</a> for their own internship experience. </p>
<p>Documenting these goals using forms like <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KQjwkU2FOTzLgQWwK1Bap-ZSxPdPhcgu/view">this one</a> from the University of Minnesota can help students discern where to concentrate and hone their skills during the internship.</p>
<h2>2. Structure assignments from easy to hard</h2>
<p>A well-known theory in educational psychology shows that people learn best when they are <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/zone-of-proximal-development.html">gradually introduced to new tasks</a> or subject matters. In our own study, we found that interns also benefit from starting their jobs with easier tasks and gradually transitioning to tasks that require less oversight.</p>
<p>When internship tasks are structured progressively from easier to harder, it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520701263368">gradually increases students’ understanding</a> over time. Our research also shows that interns benefit from assignments that have clear expectations and deadlines and pose minimal consequences if performed incorrectly.</p>
<h2>3. Keep communication open</h2>
<p>Research confirms the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2016.1181729">importance of clear, regular and open lines of communication</a> between interns and their supervisors. This became especially important <a href="https://ccwt.wisc.edu/publications/?sr=online+internships+pandemic#main">during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic</a>, when online internships suffered from infrequent and virtual communications. Many interns were left feeling unsatisfied and neglected. </p>
<p>Whether the internship is in-person or online, an effective communications strategy involves regular meetings to review progress, discuss new tasks and ideas and provide students with an opportunity to voice their concerns. Open communication can be especially important for interns who are new to a job, company or city. </p>
<h2>4. Connect interns with appropriate mentors</h2>
<p>Employees in general <a href="https://www.educause.edu/ecar/research-publications/mentoring-in-higher-education-it/2019/characteristics-of-mentoring-relationships-engaging-with-differences-and-similarities#a926cb803023487388b0fc02e3113ce5">benefit professionally and psychologically</a> from having workplace mentors with similar backgrounds and identities to their own. Yet, workers from marginalized groups – <a href="https://www.educause.edu/ecar/research-publications/mentoring-in-higher-education-it/2019/characteristics-of-mentoring-relationships-engaging-with-differences-and-similarities#a926cb803023487388b0fc02e3113ce5">especially women</a> – often have a harder time finding supportive and relatable mentors. </p>
<p>However, simply pairing mentors and interns based on characteristics like race or gender <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/small-world-worlds-apart-pros-cons-demographically-matching-petrela/">may not be the best approach</a>. Different interns – and supervisors – have varying needs, experiences and capabilities. Companies can first survey interns on their <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6205751/">values and preferences</a> regarding mentoring and supervision, and then match them in accordance with their mentorship needs and preferences. </p>
<p>Additional strategies to enhance interns’ sense of belonging include peer mentoring and frequent social events – methods that have been proven to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1538192717702949">help newcomers adapt to new environments</a>. </p>
<p>We believe internships must be seen as more than a part-time job where students simply need to be hired, onboarded and shown a desk. Internships are learning opportunities and, as such, require careful design. Done right, internships can help interns gradually get more acquainted with the culture where they work and the jobs they will be expected to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211640/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The transition from college to the workforce can be challenging, but these four strategies can help young workers get valuable experience and feel welcome.Kyoungjin Jang-Tucci, Project Assistant, Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions, University of Wisconsin-MadisonHee Song, Project Assistant at the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions, University of Wisconsin-MadisonMatthew T. Hora, Assistant Professor of Adult and Higher Education, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2110112023-09-18T12:20:58Z2023-09-18T12:20:58ZWhat are the liberal arts? A literature scholar explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548349/original/file-20230914-29-irzrgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1540%2C1001&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cicero defined 'liberal arts' in a book he wrote about rhetoric in a republic. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/cicero-royalty-free-image/157165581?adppopup=true">ra-photos/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The term “liberal arts” is one of the most misunderstood terms in the public discourse on higher education today. A higher education expert <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/25/liberal-education-advocates-discuss-ways-reclaim-conversations-about-academe">once said</a> that putting the words “liberal” and “arts” together was a “<a href="https://www.gallup.com/education/231746/higher-education-drop-term-liberal-arts.aspx">branding disaster</a>” – one so toxic that it was undermining public support for higher education. To break down the meaning and origin of the term, The Conversation reached out to <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PAm7pfgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Blaine Greteman</a>, a professor of English, who looks at how the term emerged in ancient times.</em></p>
<h2>What does the term mean?</h2>
<p>Contrary to how it might sound, “liberal” in the phrase “liberal arts” has nothing to do with political liberalism. And the “arts” part is not really about the arts as most people understand them, such as painting, dancing and the like.</p>
<p>The “liberal” in “liberal arts” derives from the Latin “<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Dliberalis1">liberalis,</a>” meaning “free.” “Arts” comes from Latin “ars”, for “knowledge” or “skill.” The word “artifact” has the same root: something made by human skill or knowledge. “Liberal arts,” in this sense, is education that equips a person for life as a free citizen. </p>
<p>That was how the Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero meant it 2,000 years ago when he became the first on record to refer to a “liberal arts” education. Cicero did this in “<a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0683%3Abook%3D1%3Asection%3D35">De Inventione</a>,” an influential handbook on rhetoric written around 90 B.C. Cicero composed the book as a young man considering the role that public speaking served in the life of a republic.</p>
<p>In his later and more comprehensive work, “<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0120%3Abook%3D1%3Asection%3D17">De Oratore</a>,” Cicero explained that the full liberal arts education will equip students with a deep understanding of human emotion, skills in literary expression and a “comprehensive knowledge of things,” or “scientia comprehendenda rerum plurimarum.” This is the “education befitting a free person,” or “eruditio libero digna.”</p>
<p>It’s easy to get bogged down in what exactly that comprehensive or universal education entailed for Cicero or his followers in the Renaissance. But “liberal arts” for Cicero didn’t mean some subject, like “art” or “English,” so much as it meant a broad, general education.</p>
<p>Classically, meaning from the ancient Roman educational system up through the 1800s, when the Victorians began to reform education as practical training for the masses, students would pursue the “trivium” – grammar, logic and rhetoric – before continuing to the “quadrivium” – arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. But to get hung up on where painting, ballet or history fits into this scheme kind of misses the point.</p>
<p>“Liberal arts” really means education that is broad, and not strictly vocational, in that it gives you the ability to exercise free choice as a citizen and thinker. A course in philosophy or history will improve a student’s communication skills in ways that will ultimately help them find a job, but the core purpose of the class is to study deeper lessons of the self or the past. That’s very different from the way a course in electrical engineering might cultivate skills students will use in a career designing circuits.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Author, sociologist, historian and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois poses for a portrait in a study room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542666/original/file-20230814-25671-qtkqsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542666/original/file-20230814-25671-qtkqsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542666/original/file-20230814-25671-qtkqsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542666/original/file-20230814-25671-qtkqsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542666/original/file-20230814-25671-qtkqsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542666/original/file-20230814-25671-qtkqsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542666/original/file-20230814-25671-qtkqsa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Historian W.E.B. Du Bois advocated for the liberal arts in his 1903 book ‘The Souls of Black Folk.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/author-sociologist-historian-and-civil-rights-activist-w-e-news-photo/538843974?adppopup=true">David Attie/Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Why does studying the liberal arts matter?</h2>
<p>True freedom, as I see it, is the ability to choose wisely between arguments and theories about how the world works and understand how language can manipulate or elevate us. This is why 17th-century English poet and revolutionary John Milton focused his <a href="https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/areopagitica/text.html">foundational anti-censorship text, “Areopagitica,”</a> on the civic value of the liberal arts. “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties,” Milton wrote. </p>
<p>One of the greatest defenses of the liberal arts in America was written just 37 years after the Civil War by W.E.B. Du Bois. “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/408/408-h/408-h.htm">The Souls of Black Folk</a>” is probably best known today as a groundbreaking work of sociology.</p>
<p>Du Bois also insisted that without access to a complete and comprehensive liberal arts education, Black Americans can never truly be free. To the question, “Shall we teach them trades or train them in liberal arts?” Du Bois answered, “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/408/408-h/408-h.htm">Both</a>.” But he maintained that liberal arts must always be the foundation, because “to make men, we must have ideals, broad, pure, and inspiring ends of living, not sordid money-getting, not apples of gold.”</p>
<p>He was concerned that Booker T. Washington’s “unnecessarily narrow” emphasis on vocational education might come at the expense of this broader education in the arts of freedom. For his part, Washington <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1903/10/the-fruits-of-industrial-training/531030/">felt</a> that inspiration, ideals and “dead languages” were less important than learning “how to apply the knowledge of chemistry to the enrichment of the soil, or to cooking, or to dairying.”</p>
<h2>Are the liberal arts a luxury?</h2>
<p>A similar debate is playing out today in places like West Virginia University. The state’s government and university leadership <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/west-virginia-university-crisis-looms-gop-leaders-focus-102910130">announced in August 2023</a> plans to cut 32 programs, including its entire Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics.</p>
<p>Many faculty and students protest that this move sacrifices a broad civic education and equates a college education with job training.</p>
<p>The governor, university president and legislature have argued that the university’s offerings <a href="https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2023/09/11/gee-addresses-misrepresentations-of-wvu-transformation-work-during-faculty-senate-meeting">“must align majors with future careers.</a>”</p>
<p>Republican Eric Tarr, state Senate finance chair in West Virginia, <a href="https://wvrecord.com/stories/649159606-tarr-west-virginia-doesn-t-need-any-guidance-from-the-aft">explained in an opinion piece</a> written for the West Virginia Record that the goal of the budget decisions is to “provide degrees that lead to jobs.” In other words, to train workers to work, rather than educating citizens in what Du Bois and Cicero would have called “the knowledge of being free.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Blaine Greteman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When people hear the term ‘liberal arts,’ it may sound like a phrase with political overtones. A scholar of literature explains why that’s wrong and takes a closer look at its origin and meaning.Blaine Greteman, Professor and Chair of English, University of IowaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2122452023-09-06T12:23:07Z2023-09-06T12:23:07ZThe untold story of how Howard University came to be known as ‘The Mecca’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546503/original/file-20230905-29-n66c1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4772%2C3250&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Howard University students assemble for a graduation ceremony in 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Obama/6f638c11ec3448a7854719759a121bd3/photo?Query=howard%20university&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=27&currentItemNo=2&vs=true">Jose Luis Magana for the Associated Press</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you ask just about anyone at Howard University what’s the other name for their school, they will readily tell you: “The Mecca.”</p>
<p>The name has been extolled by former students, such as acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who wrote in his 2015 book “<a href="https://ta-nehisicoates.com/books/between-the-world-and-me/">Between the World and Me</a>” that his “only Mecca was, is, and shall always be Howard University.”</p>
<p>But ask anyone in the Howard community how and when the school came to be known as The Mecca – a question I’ve been researching for the past year – and blank stares are mostly the response.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A woman gestures as she speaks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Vice President Kamala Harris, then a U.S. senator, speaks at Howard University in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020Democrats/08266c06a61a4dcbac23af1c6bdacb42/photo?Query=howard%20university%20kamala%20harris&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=95&currentItemNo=1">Manuel Balce Ceneta for the Associated Press</a></span>
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<p>In a 2019 article, The New York Times tried to find the origins of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/arts/howard-university-homecoming.html">the use of the term</a> for Howard when U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, <a href="https://magazine.howard.edu/stories/raising-up-kamala">one of the school’s most well-known alumnae</a>, was still a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.</p>
<p>Greg Carr, an <a href="https://www.drgregcarr.com/about">associate professor of Africana Studies at Howard University</a>, told the newspaper that the term “emerged after the Civil Rights Movement.”</p>
<p>“In the wake of the death of Malcolm X and in the spirit of the Black Power movement, students began to informally refer to the campus as ‘The Mecca of black education,’” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/arts/howard-university-homecoming.html">wrote Bianca Ladipo</a>.</p>
<p>It seemed intriguing to me as a <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2013/08/18/dropouts-tell-no-tales/">longtime admirer of Malcolm X</a> – and also as one who made the pilgrimage to the original Mecca in Saudi Arabia, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1964/05/08/archives/malcolm-x-pleased-by-whites-attitude-on-trip-to-mecca.html">Malcolm famously did in 1964</a>. Still, as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=W8iRI5cAAAAJ&hl=en">veteran education writer</a> with an <a href="https://cmsi.gse.rutgers.edu/multimedia/media-coverage">extensive history</a> of covering <a href="https://www.diverseeducation.com/students/article/15101319/innovative-strategies-for-hbcus-proposed-at-cbc-conference">historically Black colleges and universities</a> – <a href="https://www.diverseeducation.com/news-roundup/article/15101322/comeys-speech-at-howard-prompts-protests">including Howard</a> – I decided to dig deeper. My efforts were not in vain. </p>
<h2>A new era</h2>
<p>Using Howard University’s <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/">digital archives</a>, I discovered that one of the earliest documented references to “The Mecca” is found in the Feb. 26, 1909, edition of the <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=huj_v6">Howard University Journal</a>, a student-run publication. This was – contrary to what The New York Times said about the term emerging after the death of Malcolm X in 1965 – nearly 15 years before he was even born. </p>
<p>My finding comes at a time when Howard, located in Washington, D.C., is entering a new era. Its new president, Ben Vinson III, a <a href="https://alumni.dartmouth.edu/content/give-rouse-ben-vinson-iii-%E2%80%9992">leading scholar on the history of the African diaspora</a>, took the helm at the <a href="https://wamu.org/story/17/03/03/as-howard-university-turns-150-students-find-inspiration-in-its-history/">storied university</a> on <a href="https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/howard-university-appoints-revered-historian-and-academic-leader-ben-vinson-iii-phd-18th-president">Sept. 1, 2023</a>. </p>
<p>Thanks to a <a href="https://www.diverseeducation.com/institutions/hbcus/article/15306096/howard-earns-90-million-dod-contract-a-first-for-an-hbcu">five-year, US$90 million Department of Defense contract</a>, the school recently became the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/howard-university-hbcu-partner-pentagon/story?id=96636121">first HBCU to partner with the Pentagon to conduct research in military technology</a>.</p>
<p>The university is also <a href="https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/howards-historic-90-million-contract-university-affiliated-research-center-spotlights-stem-and-r1">on a quest to attain R-1 status</a>. R-1 is a classification level reserved for universities that grant doctoral degrees and also have <a href="https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/carnegie-classification/classification-methodology/basic-classification/">“very high research activity.”</a> </p>
<h2>Going way back</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/november-20/">Named after one of its founders</a>, Union general and <a href="https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/2473">Civil War hero</a> Oliver Otis Howard, the school opened in 1867 and was <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/3-organized/howard-university.html">established through an act of Congress</a>. </p>
<p>Its founders <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/november-20/#:%7E:text=Howard%20University%20was%20incorporated%20on,four%20million%20recently%20emancipated%20slaves.">envisioned Howard</a> as a school for educating and training Black physicians, teachers and ministers from the nearly 4 million newly freed slaves.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/howard-chess-fundraise-competition-hbcu/">Malik Castro-DeVarona</a>, a political science major and a former president of the Howard University Chess Club, unwittingly helped me discover how the school came to be known as “The Mecca.” He suggested that I look in the <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/hilltop/">digital archive for The Hilltop</a>, the campus newspaper <a href="https://thehilltoponline.com/2023/01/23/the-nations-oldest-celebrating-99-years-of-the-hilltop/">co-founded in 1924</a> by novelist <a href="https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/zora-neale-hurston/">Zora Neale Hurston</a>. </p>
<p>In my online search, I discovered a different digital archive: <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/huarchives/">Digital Howard</a>. There, I did a simple search for the term “Mecca” and got <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/do/search/?q=mecca&start=0&context=4339039&facet=">more than 400 results</a>, including the one from 1909.</p>
<h2>The meaning of ‘The Mecca’</h2>
<p>Through my research, I discovered that over the years “The Mecca” has been used in different ways. It is most often meant to preserve Howard’s reputation as a beacon of Black thought. </p>
<p>That first reference from February 1909 came in an article written by J.A. Mitchell, a student who referred to Howard as a potential Mecca for young Black students. Specifically, Mitchell wrote: “Howard indeed bids well to become the Mecca, toward which the eyes of our youth will instinctively turn,” Mitchell wrote in the <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=huj_v6">Howard University Journal</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black-and-white image shows a large building with a clock tower." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 1900 image, the exterior of Founders Library is seen at Howard University in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photo-shows-an-exterior-view-of-founders-library-howard-news-photo/515351082?adppopup=true">Bettmann/GettyImages</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“In fact,” Mitchell continued, “it seems as if the present outlook already forecasts a new era in the history of our school and tells of a future Howard, situated on a hill overlooking the national capital, that is second to no institution of its kind.”</p>
<p>That statement was prophetic. In its 2022 rankings, U.S. News and World Report ranked Howard as <a href="https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/howard-university-1448">No. 2 among historically Black colleges and universities</a>, making Howard second only to Spelman College, an HBCU for women, located in Atlanta, according to the magazine.</p>
<p>Mitchell’s reference was not the only one. A few years later, in a <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=huj_v11">1913 edition of the Howard University Journal</a>, an article stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Howard is a strategic institution. She is "The Mecca” of higher education attended in main by Negro youths. … She commands the interest of multitudes of people throughout the land and gives impetus to the life of thousands of alumni and alumnae. Again, she nurtures fifteen hundred select youths of a race.“</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A different Mecca?</h2>
<p>Anyone familiar with the culture at Howard knows there’s a <a href="https://www.flofootball.com/articles/7960976-the-real-hu-behind-the-history-of-the-hampton-howard-rivalry">long-standing rivalry</a> between Howard University and Hampton University, located in Hampton, Virginia, over which school is ‶<a href="https://hbcubuzz.com/2021/02/who-is-the-real-hu/.">the real HU.</a>” My research shows there might have once been a debate over which school is “The Mecca” as well.</p>
<p>When Booker T. Washington <a href="https://virginiahistory.org/learn/civil-rights-movement-virginia/hampton-institute-and-booker-t-washington">arrived at Hampton in 1872</a> – five years after Howard University was <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/november-20/">founded in 1867</a> – Hampton, Virginia, was known as the “<a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=booker_manu">Mecca of the ambitious colored youth of the dismantled South</a>,” according to a 1910 Howard manuscript titled “A Ride with Booker T. Washington.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Scores of Black students are standing in rows for a school assembly." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students attend an assembly at Hampton Institute in January 1899.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/school-assembly-in-hampton-institute-hampton-va-between-news-photo/1425873980?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hampton isn’t the only U.S. city to be known as a Black Mecca.</p>
<p>As noted in a <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1925-07_30_3/page/146/mode/2up?q=mecca">1925 edition of “The Crisis”</a> – the NAACP magazine <a href="https://modjourn.org/journal/crisis/#:%7E:text=Du%20Bois%20founded%20The%20Crisis,social%20injustice%20in%20U.S.%20history.">founded in 1910</a> by <a href="https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/web-dubois">W.E.B. DuBois</a> – Washington, D.C., was “regarded as the Mecca of the American Negro, for here he is under the wing of the eagle and can’t be made the victim of hostile legislation or rules.”</p>
<p>Around the same time, <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/alain-locke">Alain Locke</a>, who taught English and philosophy at Howard in the early 1910s and started the school’s philosophy department, proclaimed Harlem as the “<a href="https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17368696">Mecca of the new Negro</a>.” Locke is also known as the <a href="https://www.doaks.org/resources/cultural-philanthropy/alain-locke-collection-of-african-art">“dean of the Harlem Renaissance.”</a> </p>
<p>The point is this idea of a Black Mecca was constantly shifting and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/14/black-migration-south/">continues to shift to this day</a>.</p>
<h2>The Mecca of the future</h2>
<p>Despite archival records that show Howard was called The Mecca as early as 1909, other details have yet to be discovered. Perhaps under the leadership of President Vinson, a <a href="https://www.acls.org/digital-commission-sustaining-diverse-scholarship/">champion of digital scholarship</a>, Howard students and scholars can continue to research how Howard came to be known as The Mecca.</p>
<p>Doing so would be a fitting tribute to one of Howard’s most illustrious deans, Carter G. Woodson. </p>
<p>Hailed as the “<a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/02/celebrating-black-history-months-founder/">father of Black history,</a>” Woodson launched <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/black-history-month-legal-resources/history-and-overview">Negro History Week</a> in 1926. That <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/history-of-black-history-month.html">paved the way</a> for what today is known as <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/civil-rights-leaders/carter-g-woodson">Black History Month</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamaal Abdul-Alim has served as a volunteer adviser for the Howard University Chess Club. In addition to his role as an adjunct at the University of Maryland, he currently serves as education editor at The Conversation.</span></em></p>While it’s widely believed that Howard University came to be known as “The Mecca” in the 1960s, new evidence shows the nickname is more than half a century older than that.Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Lecturer in Journalism, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2113832023-08-24T12:33:42Z2023-08-24T12:33:42ZCanines go to college in this class that seeks to give shelter dogs a fresh start<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543241/original/file-20230817-13257-7h3ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=400%2C32%2C2332%2C1449&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Shelter animals often display problematic behaviors. Can they be retrained?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shlomit Flaisher-Grinberg</span></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>“Canine Learning and Behavior”</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p>When I was growing up, my love for animals led me to volunteer at animal shelters. But it wasn’t until I started teaching psychology that I found another way to support the well-being of shelter animals. During my first year of teaching a psychology course about learning, I realized that the course’s content could be used to train shelter dogs. </p>
<p>Since some shelter dogs display problematic behaviors, such as fearfulness, destructiveness and disobedience, they are less likely to get adopted. I wanted my students to use their knowledge, passion and care to train shelter dogs and improve their chances of finding a permanent home.</p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>The course teaches students how to apply behavioral analysis and modification techniques toward the training of shelter dogs. Students work with dogs on learning to follow cues such as “sit,” “down,” “stay” and “come”; perform tricks such as “high-five,” and “roll over”; and complete agility courses made of tunnels, hoops and weaving poles.</p>
<p>The course also explores the emotional, psychological and physiological benefits of the human-animal bond, such as reduced stress, by integrating the dogs into educational and therapeutic environments. For instance, the students train the dogs to sit by them calmly for the entire duration of a lecture. This skill may be important for future adopters who work within an educational setting or need their dog to accompany them into the classroom.</p>
<p>The students also train the dogs to visit our clinical educational facility, the <a href="https://www.francis.edu/learningcommons#:%7E:text=Five%20state%2Dof%2Dthe%2D,%2Dway%20audio%2Dvideo%20conferencing.">Experiential Learning Commons</a>, which was built as a mock hospital. Within our simulated emergency room, intensive care room, patient room, maternity room and exam room, students train the dogs to walk next to simulated patients’ wheelchairs, sit by patients’ beds and provide them with affectionate and nurturing companionship.</p>
<p>Finally, the course instructs students on how to apply for grants for nonprofits, with the idea being to secure funding to support animal shelters.</p>
<h2>Why is this course relevant now?</h2>
<p>This course creates a collaborative and reciprocal partnership between a university and the community in which it is located. Focusing on the care for shelter dogs, it allows for faculty, students and a shelter’s staff and volunteers to exchange knowledge and resources. As such, it uses an instructional approach known as <a href="https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/elective-classifications/community-engagement/">community engagement</a>.</p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>Working alongside our animal shelter community partners, and under the direction of my co-instructor, talented dog trainer <a href="https://www.marigoldholisticpetcare.com/">Megan Mills</a>, students learn that they can make a true and visible impact on society, one dog at a time. </p>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<p>Michael Domjan’s “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/868352362">The Principles of Learning and Behavior</a>”</p>
<p>Cynthia K. Chandler’s “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Animal-Assisted-Therapy-in-Counseling/Chandler/p/book/9781138935914">Animal-Assisted Therapy in Counseling</a>”</p>
<p>“<a href="https://shop.elsevier.com/books/handbook-on-animal-assisted-therapy/fine/978-0-12-815395-6">Handbook on Animal-Assisted Therapy</a>,” edited by Aubrey H. Fine </p>
<h2>What will the course prepare students to do?</h2>
<p>Students will learn to use psychological learning principles to work effectively with shelter dogs – and this knowledge can later be translated to other domains of their lives. I believe that by training shelter dogs and learning to write nonprofit grant proposals, my students will develop into ethical and responsible citizens – both locally and globally.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shlomit Flaisher-Grinberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Shelter dogs get a new shot at life through a college course that teaches them how to be faithful companions once again.Shlomit Flaisher-Grinberg, Associate Professor of Psychology, Saint Francis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2107562023-08-11T12:37:58Z2023-08-11T12:37:58ZBuilding relationships is key for first-year college students – here are 5 easy ways to meet new friends and mentors<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540206/original/file-20230731-235681-npzrog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=188%2C107%2C5802%2C3880&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research shows that campus employment and relationships with peers help college students succeed. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/new-friends-walking-on-university-campus-royalty-free-image/874140162?phrase=college+students&adppopup=true">Ariel Skelley/DigitalVision via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What’s the best advice you can give to a new college student? Connections are everything. </p>
<p>Research <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/How+College+Affects+Students%3A+A+Third+Decade+of+Research%2C+Volume+2-p-9780787910440">for decades</a> has shown that the relationships students cultivate in college – with professors, staff and fellow students – are key to success. Simply put, human connections matter for learning and well-being in college – they also set students up for <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Good-Life/Robert-Waldinger/9781982166694">professional and personal fulfillment after they graduate</a>.</p>
<p>College students confirmed the importance of connections when we interviewed more than 250 students at three dozen colleges and universities throughout the U.S. for our new book, “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/oa_monograph/book/111986">Connections Are Everything: A College Student’s Guide to Relationship-Rich Education</a>.” The book is free to read online.</p>
<p>Although no two had the same story to tell, what they told was surprisingly similar – and reinforced the research on the power of relationships. What can college students do to harness this power to support their academic success and personal well-being? Here are five steps recommended by students and scholars:</p>
<h2>1. Talk to a professor</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2004.0061">quality and frequency of student-faculty interactions</a> play a major role in learning. Approaching a faculty member can feel intimidating. Still, it can be done in <a href="https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/books/connections-are-everything/resources/small-steps-to-connect-with-your-professor/">simple ways</a>.</p>
<p>Introduce yourself before or after class. Visit during your professor’s in-person or online <a href="https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/books/connections-are-everything/resources/office-hours-101/">office hours</a>, which is time set aside for students to meet with their instructor.</p>
<p>You don’t need to connect with every professor right away. Start with one in the first week of the term. You can seek help in or guidance about the class, or you can ask the professor about their professional background.</p>
<p>José Robles, a nursing student at Nevada State College, told us about being surprised at the connections he built with a professor in a required science course that he thought would be “as boring as rocks.” This professor’s teaching inspired him to love geology – and to get excited about learning in general. Jose’s experience is not unusual. A national poll of college graduates found that <a href="https://theconversation.com/mentors-play-critical-role-in-quality-of-college-experience-new-poll-suggests-101861">60% met their most influential faculty mentor</a> in college during their first year.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A student meets with their professor in a classroom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541047/original/file-20230803-29-los2z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541047/original/file-20230803-29-los2z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541047/original/file-20230803-29-los2z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541047/original/file-20230803-29-los2z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541047/original/file-20230803-29-los2z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541047/original/file-20230803-29-los2z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541047/original/file-20230803-29-los2z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Research shows that the quality of student-professor interactions can help learning.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teenager-student-studying-with-a-teacher-in-the-royalty-free-image/1356577362?phrase=meeting+with+a+professor++college&adppopup=true">FG Trade/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Make a friend in class</h2>
<p>First-year students often feel alone in big introductory courses and in online classes, but those can be <a href="https://theconversation.com/mentors-play-critical-role-in-quality-of-college-experience-new-poll-suggests-101861">opportunities</a> to connect with students who will help you succeed.</p>
<p>Chloe Inskeep, a <a href="https://firstgen.naspa.org/">first-generation student</a> at the University of Iowa, told us about her strategy for making connections even when classes had almost as many students as the population of her hometown: “Lots of students go to class and then they leave or log out as soon as it ends. For me, just staying after a little bit to chat with other people really helps me find people who I have something in common with.”</p>
<p>Research shows that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07468342.1992.11973486">students who study together</a> tend to do better academically than students who study alone. They also tend to be less stressed by their classes.</p>
<p>A guide from the Learning Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recommends that students <a href="https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/study-partners/#:%7E:text=Many%20students%20find%20it%20helpful,of%20a%20comprehensive%20study%20plan.">form small groups of committed individuals</a> who meet at least once weekly, whether online or on campus.</p>
<h2>3. Use the resources that are there for you</h2>
<p>Colleges have many programs and offices to support student learning, development and well-being. These range from writing and tutoring programs to student organizations, counseling centers, and resource hubs for students who identify as LGBTQ+, first-generation, students of color, or who have a disability.</p>
<p>Mirella Cisneros Perez met both welcoming peers and a critical mentor, Dean Sylvia Munoz, after a friend introduced her to the Latinx Student Union at Elon University.</p>
<p>“Whenever I would run into them, I knew they believed in me and wanted me to succeed,” Mirella told us. “The connections my peers guided me to helped me find my place at Elon and changed my whole experience in college for the positive.”</p>
<p>Like Mirella, many students we interviewed said a college staff member was their most important first connection on campus. Even one relationship like this can contribute to your success – a first step in building a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315669120">constellation of mentors</a>” that will help you in every dimension of your life.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541051/original/file-20230803-21-idai0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two students are using a microscope in a laboratory." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541051/original/file-20230803-21-idai0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541051/original/file-20230803-21-idai0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541051/original/file-20230803-21-idai0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541051/original/file-20230803-21-idai0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541051/original/file-20230803-21-idai0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541051/original/file-20230803-21-idai0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541051/original/file-20230803-21-idai0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Campus jobs and research opportunities can help students combine classroom learning with real-world experiences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teenage-student-using-the-microscope-in-the-royalty-free-image/1356638196?phrase=college+research&adppopup=true">FG Trade/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>4. Participate in a ‘relationship accelerator’</h2>
<p>“<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VQOLXICEuU&t=33s">Relationship accelerators</a>” is the term we use to describe campus experiences that help students integrate classroom learning with real-world experiences in <a href="https://www.aacu.org/trending-topics/high-impact">powerful ways</a>. These experiences include internships, undergraduate research, writing-intensive seminars, study abroad, and even campus employment. </p>
<p>For example, your <a href="https://studentlife.uiowa.edu/initiatives/iowa-grow">campus job supervisor</a> can help you learn valuable new skills and can challenge you to integrate your paid work with your academic learning.</p>
<p>Peta Gaye Dixon, a student at LaGuardia Community College in New York City, told us that her campus job supervisor “sees stuff in me that I don’t see in myself.”</p>
<h2>5. Connect with yourself</h2>
<p>New students often experience a bit of <a href="https://time.com/5312483/how-to-deal-with-impostor-syndrome/">imposter syndrome</a> – feeling like you might not be as smart or qualified as other students. That’s completely normal, and it’s also something that can be overcome. First, don’t lose sight of who you are and the many <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw_W5_NRivk&t=2s">strengths you bring with you</a> to college.</p>
<p>If a bump in the road has you feeling anxious – like if you don’t do as well as you hoped on that first quiz – talk to a professor, tutor or friend. We met Joshua Rodriguez, a student at Oakton Community College near Chicago who considered dropping his Calculus 2 class until his professor advised him to read up on imposter syndrome instead of doing the homework one night.</p>
<p>That opened Joshua’s eyes: “That interaction bolstered my confidence to realize that I’m not alone in this, that everyone has these feelings,” he said. “I went from contemplating dropping out to getting tutoring help – and then getting an ‘A’ in the course.”</p>
<p>Joshua ultimately earned a bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering from Purdue University. </p>
<p>Trusting yourself – and challenging yourself – is vital to your success in school and in life. We promise that if you pursue meaningful relationships, you’ll be setting yourself up well to thrive in college.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210756/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leo M. Lambert has previously received funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, and the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Isis Artze-Vega, Oscar Miranda Tapia, and Peter Felten do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Forming study groups and reaching out to professors can greatly improve a first-year student’s chances for success.Leo M. Lambert, President Emeritus and Professor of Education, Elon UniversityIsis Artze-Vega, College Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs, Valencia CollegeOscar Miranda Tapia, PhD Student, Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development, North Carolina State UniversityPeter Felten, Assistant Provost for Teaching and Learning and Executive Director, Center for Engaged Learning, Elon UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2052842023-07-07T12:28:53Z2023-07-07T12:28:53ZWhy putting off college math can be a good idea<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536324/original/file-20230707-17-tn5432.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C63%2C4944%2C3944&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research shows that at least 17% of the population experiences high levels of math anxiety.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/student-solving-math-problems-royalty-free-image/695513286?phrase=college+math&adppopup=true">Emilija Manevska/Moment via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em> </p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Putting off college math could improve the likelihood that students remain in college. But that may only be true as long as students don’t procrastinate more than one year. This is what colleagues and I found in a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1521025120973949">study published in 2023</a> of 1,119 students at a public university for whom no remedial coursework was required during their first year. </p>
<p>Enrolling in a math course during the first semester of college resulted in students being four times more likely to drop out. Although delayed enrollment in a math course had benefits in the first year, its advantages vanished by the end of the second year. In our study, almost 40% of students who postponed the course beyond a year did not attempt it at all and failed to obtain a degree within six years. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A student working on math equations with their calculator." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533575/original/file-20230622-21-rc9pbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533575/original/file-20230622-21-rc9pbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533575/original/file-20230622-21-rc9pbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533575/original/file-20230622-21-rc9pbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533575/original/file-20230622-21-rc9pbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533575/original/file-20230622-21-rc9pbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533575/original/file-20230622-21-rc9pbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Math anxiety and procrastination can affect students’ decisions on taking math during their first year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/person-solving-math-equations-on-paper-with-royalty-free-image/1434696653?phrase=math&adppopup=true">Alex Walker/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Nearly 1.7 million students who recently graduated from high school will <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cpa/immediate-college-enrollment-rate">immediately enroll in college</a>. Math is a requirement for most degrees, but students aren’t always ready to do college-level math. By putting off college math for a year, it gives students time to adjust to college and prepare for more challenging coursework. </p>
<p>Approximately <a href="https://doi.org/10.7916/D8MD0BD8">40% of four-year college students</a> must first take a remedial math course. This can <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/opepd/education-strategies.pdf">extend the time it takes to graduate</a> and increase the likelihood of dropping out. Our study did not apply to students who need remedial math. </p>
<p>For students who do not require remedial courses, some delay can be beneficial, but students’ past experiences in math can lead to avoidance of math courses. Many students experience <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-021-00537-2">math anxiety</a>. Procrastination can be an <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90357248/procrastination-is-an-emotional-problem">avoidance strategy</a> for managing fears about math. The fear of math for students may be a more significant barrier than their performance. </p>
<p>It is estimated that <a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/tackling-math-anxiety">at least 17%</a> of the population will likely experience high levels of math anxiety. Math anxiety can lead to a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282908330580">drop in math performance</a>. It can also lead to avoiding majors and career paths involving math. </p>
<p>Our study fills the void in research on the effects of how soon students take college-level math courses. It also supports prior evidence that students benefit from a <a href="https://sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/national_resource_center/publications/search/details.php?id=2408onnect.com">mix of coursework</a> that is challenging yet not overwhelming as they transition to college. </p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>We believe colleges need to better promote student confidence in math by examining how <a href="https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/why-take-a-first-year-seminar/">student success courses</a> can reduce math anxiety. Student success courses provide students with study skills, note-taking skills, goal setting, time management and stress management, as well as career and financial decision making to support the transition to college. Although student success courses are a <a href="https://www.aacu.org/trending-topics/high-impact">proven practice</a> that help students stick with college, rarely do these courses address students’ fear of math. </p>
<p>Students are at the greatest risk of <a href="https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/11883667">dropping out</a> of college during their first year. <a href="https://blog.ed.gov/2022/08/the-importance-of-academic-advising-in-higher-education/">Advisors</a> play a crucial role in providing students with resources for success. This includes recommendations on what courses to take and when to take them. More research is also needed about how advisors can effectively communicate the impact of when math is taken by students.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205284/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Forrest Lane has received funding from the Greater Texas Foundation. </span></em></p>College students can benefit from not taking math courses in their freshman year, new research shows.Forrest Lane, Associate Dean and Professor of Educational Research, Sam Houston State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2051122023-06-30T12:41:25Z2023-06-30T12:41:25ZMilitary academies can still consider race in admissions, but the rest of the nation’s colleges and universities cannot, court rules<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534925/original/file-20230629-25-jj8v31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=116%2C35%2C5820%2C3889&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A person protests outside of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 29, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXSupremeCourtAffirmativeAction/3df7c369e0494252b2d9e333d079c0bf/photo?Query=affirmative%20action&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=642&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In a 6-3 <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf">ruling</a> on Thursday, June 29, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/29/us/affirmative-action-supreme-court">struck down the use of race in college admissions</a> at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, outlawing the use of race in college admissions in general. The Conversation reached out to three legal scholars to explain what the decision means for students, colleges and universities, and ultimately the nation’s future.</em></p>
<h2>Kimberly Robinson, Professor of Law at the University of Virginia</h2>
<p>Writing for the majority in a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf">case that bans affirmative action in college admissions</a>, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that such programs “unavoidably employ race in a negative manner” that goes against the Constitution.</p>
<p>The research, however, shows that the ban could potentially harm many college students and ultimately the United States. The reason this can be said with certainty is because in states where affirmative action has been banned, such as California and Michigan, <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/race-conscious-admission-bans">many selective state colleges and universities have struggled</a> to maintain the student body diversity that existed before affirmative action was banned.</p>
<p>Robust research shows how students who engage with students from different racial backgrounds <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654309352495">experience</a> <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/258117/pdf?casa_token=q8qNOOU6_RsAAAAA:ypmjnl3Bwxzo1r-NxasqzKkCcgfN-x_ijZFd-SL3awMASAjcR0wn9EkMPIOAzjUp01XBx5XWSA">educational benefits</a>, such as cognitive growth and development and creating new ideas. For those reasons, a substantial decline in enrollment for underrepresented minority students carries many repercussions. </p>
<p>It means, for instance, that many students at selective colleges will have far fewer opportunities to learn from and interact with students from different racial backgrounds.</p>
<p>The nation’s elite colleges, such as Harvard and the University of North Carolina, educate a <a href="https://www.tulanelawreview.org/pub/volume96/issue1/affirmative-action-and-the-leadership-pipeline">disproportionately high share</a> of America’s leaders. Those who don’t attend these selective schools are dramatically <a href="https://www.tulanelawreview.org/pub/volume96/issue1/affirmative-action-and-the-leadership-pipeline">less likely</a> to complete a graduate or professional program. This is because these selective schools carry certain advantages. For instance, students who attend them are statistically more likely to graduate and be admitted to professional and graduate programs.</p>
<p>That means for students from underrepresented groups who don’t get into selective colleges, the chances of getting an advanced degree – which often paves the way to leadership positions – will be even lower.</p>
<p>The decision may also affect the workplace. Research shows that in states that eliminated affirmative action, <a href="https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/impact-eliminating-affirmative-action-minority-and-female-employment-natural-experiment-approach">meaningful drops in workplace diversity</a> took place. Asian and African American women and Hispanic men experienced the most significant declines.</p>
<p>These shifts in elite college enrollment, leadership and workplaces will weaken long-standing efforts to dismantle the nation’s <a href="https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=4420&context=nclr">segregationist past</a> and the privilege that this segregationist past affords to <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Black-Wealth--White-Wealth-A-New-Perspective-on-Racial-Inequality/Oliver-Shapiro/p/book/9780415951678">wealth</a> and <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/white-privilege">whiteness</a>.</p>
<p>To help mitigate these potential harms, selective colleges will have to devote their attention to limiting what I believe are the decision’s harmful impacts and reaffirming their commitment to diverse student bodies through all <a href="https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-130/fishers-cautionary-tale-and-the-urgent-need-for-equal-access-to-an-excellent-education/">lawful means</a>.</p>
<h2>Kristine Bowman, Professor of Law and Education Policy, Michigan State University</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534940/original/file-20230629-26-bekrzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Protestors holding posters saying, 'Black Lives Matter' and 'Defend Diversity.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534940/original/file-20230629-26-bekrzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534940/original/file-20230629-26-bekrzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534940/original/file-20230629-26-bekrzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534940/original/file-20230629-26-bekrzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534940/original/file-20230629-26-bekrzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534940/original/file-20230629-26-bekrzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534940/original/file-20230629-26-bekrzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">People protest outside of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 29, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SupremeCourtAffirmativeAction/de1a9f99d5854446b9283100babf7778/photo?Query=court%20affirmative%20action&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=328&currentItemNo=16">AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana</a></span>
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<p>In striking down race-conscious admissions practices, the Supreme Court overturns the court’s <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1979/76-811">1978 decision</a> that held that race-conscious admissions were constitutional.</p>
<p>This reversal was not unexpected, but it will have profound implications for building and maintaining diverse and inclusive colleges and universities, particularly among selective institutions. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373720904433">most effective way to enroll a diverse student body</a> – and achieve the educational and social benefits that come with it – is to consider race as a factor in admissions. In the 10 states that have had affirmative action bans in admissions, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373720904433">diversity in selective institutions has declined</a>.
This remained true even as alternative strategies were employed to achieve racial diversity, such as targeting recruitment efforts and focusing more on socioeconomic status diversity.</p>
<p>Although the court does not say outright that institutions cannot pursue diversity, it is not clear what diversity-related goals, if any, could constitutionally support race-conscious admissions. The court states that the benefits of diversity that Harvard and UNC articulate are not sufficiently “measurable,” “focused,” “concrete” or “coherent.” “How many fewer leaders Harvard would create without racial preferences, or how much poorer the education at Harvard would be, are inquiries no court could resolve,” the court wrote.</p>
<p>And yet, as Justice Sotomayor’s dissent highlights, the majority also says that race-conscious admissions with a “focus on numbers” or particular “numerical commitments” are also unconstitutional.</p>
<p>The opinion did not go as far as it could have in restricting the consideration of race. Institutions can still consider what a student’s comments about their racialized experiences reveal about their characteristics, such as “courage,” “determination” or “leadership.”</p>
<p>This provides a way for institutions to consider how race has impacted a student’s life. Although this unfairly places the burden on students of color to write about their racialized experience, it is arguably lighter than the burden that would have been borne if the court had attempted to prohibit consideration of such experiences. </p>
<p>Furthermore, efforts to pursue diversity through other means remain lawful. These alternative means include <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain/UH4YSS3QHRCBY2VJEKPT/full">increasing attention to socioeconomic status</a>, making campus communities more inclusive. It also involves checking whether students are passing classes and graduating at the same rate regardless of race. </p>
<p>Research <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373720904433">hasn’t shown</a> that these efforts will result in as much diversity at selective colleges as race-conscious college admissions. These efforts, however, now stand as a critical way forward to keep America’s elite colleges and universities diverse.</p>
<h2>Vinay Harpalani, Associate Professor of Law, University of New Mexico</h2>
<p>Although the court struck down the use of race in college admissions – as predicted by many experts and observers – the court left room for one narrow exception.</p>
<p>The majority opinion stated in a brief footnote that its ruling does not apply to race-conscious admissions at the nation’s military academies, such as West Point or the Naval Academy. </p>
<p>This issue had come up at oral arguments. When articulating the U.S. government’s position, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar raised the point that the military may have compelling interests beyond those that universities have. Specifically, the U.S. government argued that a racially diverse military officer corps was necessary for national security. In response, Chief Justice Roberts briefly noted the possibility of a military academy exception. This was not lost in his ruling.</p>
<p>The majority opinion stated that there could be “potentially distinct interests that the military academies may present.” Because the academies were not parties to these cases, the court did not directly address this issue and left it unsettled. </p>
<p>This was not the first time that the military influenced the court’s view of race-conscious admissions. Twenty years ago, national security interests played a significant role in the majority opinion in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/02-241">Grutter v. Bollinger</a>.</p>
<p>Citing the amicus brief of former military leaders, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s majority opinion in the Grutter case noted that diverse military leadership was “essential to the military’s ability to fulfill its principle mission to provide national security.” She found that “[i]t requires only a small step from this analysis to conclude that our country’s other most selective institutions must remain both diverse and selective.”</p>
<p>In its latest rulings, the court left alone O'Connor’s claim that diverse military leadership is essential to national security, but it soundly rejected her view that diversity can justify race-conscious admissions at the nation’s colleges and universities.</p>
<p>The military is not the only place where the court has noted that security interests can justify use of race. The court also cited a 2005 ruling, Johnson v. California, where the justices held that prison officials could temporarily segregate prisoners by race to prevent violence. </p>
<p>It seems that the court is willing to uphold use of race when government power is at stake – as with the military and law enforcement. But it will not do so for the education of America’s citizenry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205112/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Three legal experts weigh in on what the Supreme Court’s ban on race in college admissions means for students, colleges and universities, and the nation’s future.Kristine Bowman, Professor of Law and Education Policy, Michigan State UniversityKimberly Robinson, Professor of Law, Professor of Law, Education and Public Policy, University of VirginiaVinay Harpalani, Associate Professor of Law and Henry Weihofen Professor, University of New MexicoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2049912023-05-17T12:40:15Z2023-05-17T12:40:15ZAttacks on ‘segregated’ graduation ceremonies overlook the history of racism on campus<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526908/original/file-20230517-18592-a08agm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C46%2C5092%2C3366&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Affinity' graduations for certain groups take place on campuses throughout the U.S.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/students-throwing-caps-at-graduation-royalty-free-image/532031159?phrase=ethnic+graduation&adppopup=true">Jose Luis Pelaez Inc / Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For most college students, graduation is a one-time event. But for a growing number of students from various groups, such as students of color or LGTBQ students, there might be multiple graduation ceremonies to attend.</p>
<p>These special graduation ceremonies for certain groups are known as “affinity graduations.” These ceremonies are <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/diversity/2023/05/02/conservatives-rail-against-segregated-graduations">drawing the ire of conservatives</a>, who dismiss them as “<a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/equality-not-elitism/stop-segregating-students">segregated</a>” graduations.</p>
<p>As scholars who focus on issues of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YtZ5NBIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">equity</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EtuGDLAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">student development</a>, we have a different take. We see such celebrations as not only relevant but critical to fostering a <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-29432-001">sense of belonging</a> for students of color. This sense of belonging is particularly important among students from what we refer to in <a href="https://www.peterlang.com/document/1062327">our 2021 book</a> as “minoritized” groups – that is, groups that are not the dominant group and are seen as minorities even when numerically they are not.</p>
<p>Special programs to support students of color – both academically and socially – can also bring about a <a href="https://doi.org/10.7709/jnegroeducation.87.1.0059">better sense of self, persistence and ultimately success</a> in college.</p>
<h2>A history of exclusion</h2>
<p>As we state in our 2021 book, students of color formed their own fraternities and sororities <a href="https://www.peterlang.com/document/1062327">in response to larger societal oppression</a> and other forms of discrimination. More specifically, they formed these groups in response to <a href="https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&context=oracle">discriminatory practices within historically white sororities and fraternities</a>. These culturally based sororities and fraternities, <a href="https://www.kensingtonbooks.com/9781496728883/the-divine-nine/">some of which were founded in the early 1900s</a> during the era of Jim Crow, emerged to serve and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2020.0016">lift up minoritized communities</a>.</p>
<p>Affinity graduations – in our view – are an extension of these <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312042004605">efforts by students of color</a>. Much like different student organizations, such as as LGBTQ+ groups, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2668212?seq=4">Black Student Unions</a> or Mexican American Student Associations, they are not meant to segregate students. Rather, they are meant to <a href="https://sunypress.edu/Books/B/Black-Campus-Life2">create a supportive community on campus</a> for students of color and other marginalized groups. The organizations also serve as <a href="https://escholarship.org/content/qt5q34p1t0/qt5q34p1t0.pdf">ways for students from different groups to organize</a> and advocate for changes in the curriculum and higher education systems in general to better serve their interests.</p>
<p>These kinds of efforts create spaces where <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085902372003">students can feel seen and wholly affirmed for who they are</a>. They also provide a <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/735229">refuge from discrimination students may experience elsewhere on campus</a>. This discrimination can <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/23/racism-fuels-poor-mental-health-outcomes-black-students">adversely affect student mental health</a>. Further, these spaces serve as a venue for students to <a href="https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1170&context=gse_pubs">discover themselves and develop their identities</a>.</p>
<h2>Special graduations</h2>
<p>When students from historically disadvantaged backgrounds graduate, many want to celebrate the joy they feel after having done what it takes to get through college. Affinity graduations are meant to <a href="https://www.nobles.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/David_Roane.pdf">recognize and celebrate</a> the accomplishments of particular communities that have overcome <a href="https://www.equityinhighered.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Race-and-Ethnicity-in-Higher-Education.pdf">barriers</a> to graduate from college. These barriers may include <a href="https://www.insightintodiversity.com/one-in-five-black-college-students-report-discrimination/">racial discrimination</a> or <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/many-lgbtq-college-students-feel-the-weight-of-a-national-pile-up-of-negativity/">anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and legislation</a>.</p>
<p>Affinity graduations are optional ceremonies. They take place at colleges and universities throughout the country. For instance, in addition to its main graduation ceremony, <a href="https://studentaffairs.psu.edu/community-belonging/get-involved/affinity-graduations">Penn State</a> offers a Lavender Graduation for queer and transgender students. It also offers celebrations for Latinx, Black, Indigenous and Asian Pacific Islander Desi American students.</p>
<p><a href="https://edib.harvard.edu/affinity-graduations">Harvard</a> offers similar race- and ethnicity-based ceremonies. The school also offers a graduation ceremony for students with disabilities. So does <a href="https://csumb.edu/diversity/affinity-graduation-celebrations-2/">California State University, Monterey Bay</a>, which also has one for undocumented students.</p>
<h2>Criticism and attacks</h2>
<p>Affinity graduations <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/diversity/2023/05/02/conservatives-rail-against-segregated-graduations#">go back at least to the 1970s</a>. Their formation undoubtedly parallels broader social movements at the time led by minoritized groups in the United States.</p>
<p>As of late, affinity graduations have drawn attacks from conservative thinkers and news outlets. Some have gone so far as to say that affinity graduations serve only as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0951839032000142922">a form of self-segregation</a>.</p>
<p>Based on our research, we think the critics miss the fact that affinity graduations are <a href="https://www.nobles.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/David_Roane.pdf">not designed to segregate students</a>, but rather to bring them together in community with others who share similar identities and potentially similar experiences.</p>
<p>Too often, we believe, affinity graduations are the targets of people who are trying to reduce the complex histories of U.S. higher education into overly simplistic narratives. We also see the attacks on affinity graduations as <a href="https://reporting.fiscalnote.com/sharable/reports/K7o8K8wgy7Pizvx4L62yNW96X3ElPVGz4K0COwsxEGrzFZgLdVKgavUAkreOaF44VZsD3dx4a1CItTxdOUdAocm7DrWTpcn49aHpmI24CQbtJQgX401Wdw==--OVczj0f7bD+FxR1b--QzNYHNLdnub7rP2zaMzrHA==">part of a larger attack</a> on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts on college campuses.</p>
<p>Many conservatives argue that American schools <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/43-percent-republicans-dont-want-schools-teaching-history-racism-poll-2021-11">should not teach about the history of racism in the United States</a>. The creation of affinity graduations is rooted in a response to racism. Given that there are those who don’t even want students to learn about racism, it comes as little surprise that there are also those who would want these affinity graduations to go away.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204991/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘Affinity’ graduations have drawn the scorn of some conservatives, but research suggests they serve a vital function for students of color.Crystal Garcia, Assistant Professor of Educational Administration, University of Nebraska-LincolnAntonio Duran, Assistant Professor of Higher and Postsecondary Education, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2012862023-05-10T12:28:23Z2023-05-10T12:28:23ZBlack queer college students want to explore their identity – but feel excluded by both Black and LGBTQ student groups<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524947/original/file-20230508-15-n57mo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Befriending other Black queer students can build a sense of safety and connection. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/afro-latinx-young-women-sitting-on-the-grass-in-a-royalty-free-image/1415722219">Juanmonino/E+ Collection/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>For his new book “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479803910/black-and-queer-on-campus/">Black and Queer on Campus</a>,” American studies professor Michael Jeffries interviewed 65 Black LGBTQ college students across the U.S. – 40 from historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, and 25 from predominantly white schools.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked Jeffries to discuss what he learned about how queer Black students view LGBTQ student organizations, their general experiences on college campuses and their opinions about current events.</em></p>
<h2>What specific challenges do Black LGBTQ students face on college campuses?</h2>
<p>The Black LGBTQ students I interviewed understood that college is an opportunity to explore their identity. But many still struggled to move past the bigotry and difficult experiences they had growing up as young queer people.</p>
<p>Deron, a senior at a historically Black university who grew up in the suburbs of a large Southern city, explained, “When I was a teenager, [my mother] kind of kept me sheltered from the gay community. So it kind of made me develop a negative mindset toward the LGBT lifestyle. I mean, as far as participating in the community, she just shunned me away from it for a long time, and I had really negative thoughts about it up until this semester.”</p>
<p>Other major challenges were tied to the broader political environment. Students believed racist, homophobic and transphobic sentiments were being expressed with increased frequency, which made them angry, disappointed and fearful about the future of the United States. Several interviewees talked about the rising threat of white supremacy and the feeling that white supremacists on and around their campuses were emboldened during the Trump era. </p>
<p>Cat, a 19-year-old student at a large, predominantly white school, lamented that “seeing someone get up on a podium and spew hate and misinformation on a regular basis … and just the people making our decisions right now, it’s like, how did y'all get there? It’s like, you know how they got there, but then you’re losing faith in humanity by acknowledging that.”</p>
<p>Finally, students told me they didn’t feel a sense of belonging in either Black student organizations – which seemed to have little regard for queer Black folks – or LGTBQ spaces and student organizations, which were primarily white.</p>
<p>Candace, who attends a large, prestigious public university, told me that one of the problems that Black LGBTQ students face in white LGBTQ spaces is tokenism. She felt that queer Black folk are “there for the entertainment of white queers, and to be able to feel like they’re woke, or like they’re part of this group that really accepts people.” Albert, who also attends a large public university, described a serious blind spot within the primarily white LGBTQ organization on his campus, and the exclusion he experienced there.</p>
<p>“They would talk about like … dating in the gay community, or something like that. And I’m just like, they don’t really date Black people, so there’s that.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three young adults smile and pose together" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525164/original/file-20230509-21-9hrdjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525164/original/file-20230509-21-9hrdjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525164/original/file-20230509-21-9hrdjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525164/original/file-20230509-21-9hrdjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525164/original/file-20230509-21-9hrdjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525164/original/file-20230509-21-9hrdjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525164/original/file-20230509-21-9hrdjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Connecting with other Black LGBTQ students can help build a sense of safety and belonging.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/group-of-friends-laughing-and-having-fun-shot-royalty-free-image/1316648966">Justin Lambert/DigitalVision Collection/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How do they overcome those challenges?</h2>
<p>One of the most common and powerful ways that students said they overcome these challenges is by building community with one another.</p>
<p>“I know in meeting each other, [my queer friend and I] were both kind of like, ‘Wow, another one!’ And we’re always like, so excited,” said Parker, one of the few trans students I spoke with. “It’s like whenever Black queer people get around each other, I feel like we get strong in our personalities. … I know that there’s support around me. And it’s like these networks keep growing and growing.”</p>
<p>Abraham, a leader of the queer Black student organization at his historically Black university, explained the importance of his group as a collective that cultivated a sense of connection and safety.</p>
<p>“We started hanging out to where we spent all our time together,” he said. “Our organization became like a family. If we felt like someone in this family was being attacked by someone on this campus, we jumped in and said, ‘Yo, that’s not going to happen on our watch.’” </p>
<p>Abraham did not tell me that he or anyone he knows in the Black queer community had been physically attacked by people on campus. But he did say there were times he and his friends felt unsafe, in part because the campus was open enough that visitors could enter and exit freely.</p>
<h2>What stereotypes and threats to safety do Black queer students face today?</h2>
<p>Some students felt that common stereotypes about gay people still exert a powerful hold on the way queer folk are treated within Black communities.</p>
<p>Patricia, who attends a historically Black university, told me about her experience growing up in a small, predominantly Black town in the South.</p>
<p>“If you had ‘sugar in your tank,’ like they say, you got beat,” she said. “They’re in a generation in the ‘80s too where the AIDS epidemic broke out, and they also have that mentality like, 'Oh, if you’re gay, you’re going to have AIDS, or you’re going to get diseases.’”</p>
<p>Several students at predominantly white institutions told me they felt stereotyped and ignored. There was a sense that they were not taken seriously as students or did not deserve their positions at the college. </p>
<p>Ian, a student at a large public university in the Midwest, told me, “I think it’s only me and this other boy that is Black on my floor. Every time I walk down the hallway, or every time I just do regular things that they do, I get stares. … Like I was saying my name, what I’m majoring in and all, like everybody else was doing, but everyone was staring at me like I lost my mind. So that makes me feel uncomfortable.”</p>
<h2>Are students optimistic about the future?</h2>
<p>Though there were students who see progress with respect to LGBTQ issues, very few offered optimistic views of the future for Black people in America, including queer Black people. Some were extremely discouraged about the future, and they believe the U.S. is becoming a more hostile place for people like them.</p>
<p>Still, several students pointed to changes in American politics and culture, like the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/26/417717613/supreme-court-rules-all-states-must-allow-same-sex-marriages">legalization of same-sex marriage</a> in 2015 and the increasing <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-pop-culture/national-coming-day-15-celebrities-came-2022-far-rcna51467">visibility of LGBTQ celebrities</a>, that give them hope. As Ava, a junior at a private historically Black college, told me, “I don’t think that anything is indicative of the future. That’s why it’s the future – because it’s only made of possibility.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201286/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael P. Jeffries does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The new book “Black and Queer on Campus” explores the range of experiences that Black LGBTQ students face at colleges across the US.Michael P. Jeffries, Professor of American Studies, Wellesley CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2034662023-04-27T12:31:45Z2023-04-27T12:31:45ZWhy Kurt Vonnegut’s advice to college graduates still matters today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522654/original/file-20230424-2206-l2hfz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C23%2C3631%2C2469&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A generation told not to trust anyone over 30 nevertheless adored Vonnegut.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-author-kurt-vonnegut-poses-while-at-home-on-the-news-photo/81810832?adppopup=true">Ulf Andersen/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kurt Vonnegut didn’t deliver the famous “Wear Sunscreen” graduation speech published in the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/chi-schmich-sunscreen-column-column.html">Chicago Tribune</a> that was often mistakenly attributed to the celebrated author. But he could have. </p>
<p>Over his lifetime, he gave dozens of quirky commencement addresses. In those speeches, he made some preposterous claims. But they made people laugh and made them think. They were speeches the graduates remembered. </p>
<p>Having studied and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Critical_Companion_to_Kurt_Vonnegut.html?id=G9l0LaJlcZkC">written about</a> Vonnegut for years, I wish he had been my commencement speaker. I graduated from Austin College, a small school in North Texas. I don’t even remember who gave my class’s graduation speech, much less a single word the speaker said. I suspect many others have had – and will have – similar experiences.</p>
<p>Young people, college students especially, loved Vonnegut. During the early and mid-1960s, he commanded an avid and devoted following on campuses before he had produced any bestsellers. Why was a middle-aged writer born in 1922 adored by a counterculture <a href="https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/FreedomArchives.DontTrustAnyoneOver30.article.pdf">told not to trust anyone over 30</a>? Why did he continue to appeal to younger generations until his death? </p>
<h2>Their parents’ generation</h2>
<p>Vonnegut, who died just before commencement season in 2007, was nearly 50 years old when his groundbreaking anti-war novel, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/184345/slaughterhouse-five-by-kurt-vonnegut/">Slaughterhouse-Five</a>,” was published in 1969.</p>
<p>A cultural touchstone, the novel changed the way Americans think and write about war. It helped usher in <a href="https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.cofc.edu/dist/8/830/files/2017/02/Vonnegut-and-Postmodernism-15f9fyz.pdf">the postmodern style of literature</a> with its playful, fragmented form, its insistence that reality is not objective and that history is not monolithic, and its self-reflection on its own status as art. Like Andy Warhol’s soup cans, “Slaughterhouse-Five,” with its jokes, drawings, risqué limericks and flying saucers, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/kurt-vonnegut-and-the-american-novel-9781441130341/">blurs the line between high and low culture</a>.</p>
<p>Cited as one of the top novels of the 20th century, “Slaughterhouse-Five” has been transformed into film, theatrical plays, <a href="https://www.openculture.com/2020/02/the-graphic-novel-adaptation-of-kurt-vonneguts-slaughterhouse-five.html">a graphic novel</a> and visual art. It has inspired rock bands and musical interpretations. Vonnegut’s recurring refrain, “So it goes,” used 106 times in the novel, has entered the popular lexicon. The book has been <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/the-neverending-campaign-to-ban-slaughterhouse-five/243525/">banned, burned and censored</a>.</p>
<p>In many ways, though, Vonnegut had more in common with the parents of the college students he addressed than with the students themselves. Father to six children – three of his own and three nephews who joined the family after his sister Alice and her husband died – Vonnegut had studied biochemistry at Cornell and had worked in corporate public relations. He continued to believe all his life in the civic virtues he learned as a student at Shortridge High School in Indianapolis. </p>
<p>He had the credibility of a World War II veteran, a member of what journalist Tom Brokaw would later call the “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/18729/the-greatest-generation-by-tom-brokaw/">Greatest Generation</a>.” Captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge, <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/kurt-vonnegut-slaughterhouse-five">he was sent to Dresden as a prisoner of war</a>. There he was starved, beaten and put to work as a slave laborer. He survived the Allied firebombing of the city in February 1945 and was forced to help excavate hundreds of bodies of men, women and children who had been burned alive, suffocated and crushed to death.</p>
<h2>Fool or philosopher?</h2>
<p>If Vonnegut was, like the students’ fathers, a family man and a veteran, perhaps he also embodied the dad that students in 1969 dreamed their own fathers could be: funny, artistic, anti-establishment and anti-war.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Man in striped suit holding cigarette." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523036/original/file-20230426-402-ciipbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523036/original/file-20230426-402-ciipbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523036/original/file-20230426-402-ciipbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523036/original/file-20230426-402-ciipbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523036/original/file-20230426-402-ciipbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523036/original/file-20230426-402-ciipbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523036/original/file-20230426-402-ciipbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kurt Vonnegut at Bennington College in 1970.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://crossettlibrary.dspacedirect.org/bitstream/handle/11209/16874/1970June19Kurt_Vonnegut1.jpg?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">Bennington College Archive</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Vonnegut had the look – sad, kind eyes under that mop of uncontrollable hair, the full droopy mustache. <a href="https://crossettlibrary.dspacedirect.org/bitstream/handle/11209/16874/1970June19Kurt_Vonnegut1.jpg?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">A photo taken</a> just before he delivered a commencement address at Bennington College in 1970 shows him wearing a loud striped jacket, reading glasses tucked neatly in its pocket, with a cigarette dangling at his fingertips.</p>
<p>Looking like a cross between Albert Einstein and a carnival huckster, Vonnegut had his contradictions on full display. </p>
<p>Was he a clown or a wise man? A fool or a philosopher?</p>
<p>The literary establishment did not quite know what to make of Vonnegut, either. A writer frequently dismissed by critics for his flying saucers and space aliens, for the simplicity of his prose, for pandering to what <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1976/10/03/archives/slapstick-slapstick.html">one reviewer called</a> the “minimally intelligent young,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1969/03/31/books/vonnegut-slaughterhouse.html">he was also praised</a> for his inventiveness, for his lively and playful language, for the depth of feeling behind the zaniness, and for advocating decency and kindness in a chaotic world. </p>
<h2>A forceful defense of art</h2>
<p>As the U.S. was fighting what most college students believed was an unjust and imperialist war in Vietnam, Vonnegut’s message struck home. He used his own experience in World War II to destroy any notion of a good war. </p>
<p>“For all the sublimity of the cause for which we fought, we surely created a Belsen of our own,” <a href="https://www.npr.org/2008/06/03/89276309/excerpt-armageddon-in-retrospect">he lamented</a>, referencing the Nazi concentration camp.</p>
<p>The military-industrial complex, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/184353/wampeters-foma-and-granfalloons-by-kurt-vonnegut/">he told the graduates at Bennington</a>, treats people and their children and their cities like garbage. Instead, Americans should spend money on hospitals and housing and schools and Ferris wheels rather than on war machinery.</p>
<p>In the same speech, Vonnegut playfully urged young people to defy their professors and fancy educations by clinging to superstition and untruth, especially what he considered the most ridiculous lie of all – “that humanity is at the center of the universe, the fulfiller or the frustrater of the grandest dreams of God Almighty.” </p>
<p>Vonnegut conceded that the military was probably right about the “contemptibility of man in the vastness of the universe.” Still, he denied that contemptibility and begged students to deny it as well by creating art. Art puts human beings at the center of the universe, whether they belong there or not, allowing people to imagine and create a saner, kinder, more just world than the one we really live in.</p>
<p>The generations, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/240511/if-this-isnt-nice-what-is-even-more-expanded-third-edition-by-kurt-vonnegut-edited-and-introduced-by-dan-wakefield/">he told students at the State University of New York at Fredonia</a>, are not that far apart and do not want that much from each other. Older people want credit for having survived so long – and often imaginatively – under difficult conditions. Younger people want to be acknowledged and respected. He urged each group not to be so “intolerably stingy” about giving the other credit.</p>
<p>A strain of sorrow and pessimism underlies all of Vonnegut’s fiction, as well as his graduation speeches. He witnessed the worst that human beings could do to one another, and he made no secret about his fears for the future of a planet suffering from environmental degradation and a widening divide between the rich and the poor. </p>
<p>If Vonnegut were alive and giving commencement speeches today, he would be speaking to college students whose parents and even grandparents he may have addressed in the past. Today’s graduates have lived through <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2021/one-year-pandemic-stress-youth">the COVID-19 pandemic</a> and are drowning in social media. They face <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2022/08/17/money-and-millennials-the-cost-of-living-in-2022-vs-1972/">high housing costs and financial instability</a> and are more <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/student-union_gen-z-studies-show-higher-rates-depression/6174520.html">depressed</a> and <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/folio/2020/01/millennials-and-gen-z-are-more-anxious-than-previous-generations-heres-why.html">anxious</a> than previous generations.</p>
<p>I’m sure he would give these students the advice he gave so often over the years: to focus, in the midst of chaos, on what makes life worth living, to recognize the joyful moments – maybe by listening to music or drinking a glass of lemonade in the shade – and saying out loud, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/240511/if-this-isnt-nice-what-is-even-more-expanded-third-edition-by-kurt-vonnegut-edited-and-introduced-by-dan-wakefield/">as his Uncle Alex taught him</a>, “If this isn’t nice, what is?”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Kurt Vonnegut delivers a lecture at Case Western University in 2004, three years before his death.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Farrell is a founding member of the Kurt Vonnegut Society, which works to promote the scholarly study of Kurt Vonnegut, his life, and works.</span></em></p>A strain of sorrow and pessimism underlies all of Vonnegut’s fiction, as well as his graduation speeches. But he also insisted that young people cherish those fleeting moments of joy.Susan Farrell, Professor of English, College of CharlestonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2029072023-04-21T12:42:02Z2023-04-21T12:42:02ZBlack students in Washington state played key role in the Civil Rights Movement, new book states<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522174/original/file-20230420-29-ne9bdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C102%2C6692%2C4444&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protest led by the Black Student Union at the University of Washington at Seattle, 1968. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://depts.washington.edu/labpics/zenPhoto/uw_bsu/pitre/photo12.jpg">Emile Pitre Collection</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>When it comes to civil rights history, the focus is often on the marches, boycotts, sit-ins and other protests that took place in the South. In “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479810406/washington-state-rising/">Washington State Rising</a>,” Marc Arsell Robinson, assistant professor of African American history at California State University, San Bernardino, takes a look at the civil rights protests that occurred in a lesser-examined region of the United States: the Pacific Northwest. The following Q&A is about what Robinson found for his forthcoming book, which is set to be published in August 2023.</em></p>
<h2>Why write a book on Black student activism in the Pacific Northwest?</h2>
<p>As an African American born and raised in Seattle, I was curious to learn if and how my hometown was connected to the protests of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. I was pleased to learn the city, and region, was deeply connected to these larger movements. I felt a responsibility to share what I had learned. </p>
<p>Also, studies of Black protests from the 1960s tend to focus on the South. And even studies of civil rights events and groups outside the South position the Pacific Northwest as marginal. This pattern holds true of research on 1960s Black student activism, such as the studies of nationwide protest by <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/black-campus-movement-black-students-and-the-racial-reconstitution-of-higher-education-1965-1972/oclc/744287241">Ibram X. Kendi</a> and <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520282186/the-black-revolution-on-campus">Matha Biondi</a>. </p>
<p>My book shines light on Black Power’s reach beyond major cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. It shows Black Power’s impact on higher education, and it details how some Black student activists used community organizing and interracial alliances to create change.</p>
<h2>What was one of your most interesting discoveries?</h2>
<p>The Black Student Union, or BSU, at the University of Washington helped connect the Black Panther Party to Seattle. The group formed in fall 1967, and later several of its members helped co-found the Seattle Panthers in April 1968. This includes Aaron Dixon, who <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/421-my-people-are-rising">confirms in his memoir</a> that he was in the Black Student Union at UW before being appointed by Bobby Seale as Captain, or leader, of the Seattle Panthers.</p>
<p>Moreover, as detailed in “Washington State Rising,” Dixon and other Seattle activists were introduced to the Panthers through BSU activities, including a trip to Oakland and San Francisco in April 1968 for a Black political conference, and the BSU’s network of local campus chapters and allied groups.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A book cover featuring a black and white photo of two Black men and one Black woman sitting at a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘Washington State Rising’ tells the little-known story of the civil rights struggle in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nyupress.org/9781479810406/washington-state-rising/">Marc Arsell Robinson/NYU Press</a></span>
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<h2>What is the legacy of the Black Student Union in Washington state?</h2>
<p>Examples of the Black Student Union’s legacy are the Black studies courses and programs that were established in the 1960s. Prior to this, very few, if any, classes or assigned materials included the perspectives and experiences of Black people. Today, students and faculty continue to study Black history, even if names of programs or departments have changed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/california-vetoed-ethnic-studies-requirements-for-public-high-school-students-but-the-movement-grows-148486">ethnic studies and so forth</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, ongoing efforts to recruit and retain diverse students, faculty and staff are part of the Black Student Union’s legacy. The most prominent example is the <a href="https://www.washington.edu/omad/">Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity</a>, known as OMAD, at UW. This initiative was a direct outcome of the Black Student Union’s <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/BSU_beginnings.htm">1968 sit-in</a> of the UW president’s office and negotiations with campus officials. The BSU was protesting UW’s small population of nonwhite students and faculty, along with related concerns. Today, the OMAD continues to offer African American and other minority students academic advising, cultural support, tutoring, leadership development and more.</p>
<h2>What does Black student activism in Washington state look like today?</h2>
<p>Black Student Unions are active at numerous colleges and universities in Washington, including the two schools featured in my book, the University of Washington and <a href="https://dailyevergreen.com/tag/black-student-union/">Washington State University</a>.</p>
<p>Like their 1960s counterparts, progressive Black students today continue to push their institutions to create, maintain and expand initiatives to graduate Black students, hire Black faculty and fund Black studies and related curricula.</p>
<p>In recent years, Black students across the Pacific Northwest have <a href="https://www.dailyuw.com/news/keep-the-pressure-on-uw-blm-continues-to-protest-for-unmet-demands/article_d1e7828e-ba7f-11ea-a0e5-9735552dd63b.html">organized in support of Black Lives Matter</a> and against the killings of unarmed Black people, often using social media as a tool for communication and public education. Overall, today’s Black student politics and struggles for greater equity continue the legacy of the Black Student Unions of the 1960s.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Arsell Robinson received the 2022 Mellon Emerging Faculty Award. He was also previously a student and employee of the University of Washington and Washington State University.</span></em></p>Washington isn’t a state that typically comes to mind in discussions about student-led protests from the Civil Rights Movement. A Black history professor seeks to change that with a new book.Marc Arsell Robinson, Assistant Professor of History, California State University, San BernardinoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.