The best value that the reader will take from this book is the knowledge, skills, and wisdom offered by the editors and 26 chapter authors. The book offers many unique features on how to create a college environment that fosters student learning, growth, development, and supports student success. The book approaches the college environment issue from a philosophical foundation and shows the reader what has made student affairs work increasingly complex. By identifying some major shifts of student affairs work in history, the text demonstrates how student affairs service providers became student affairs educators who actively shape the environment instead of being shaped or reactionary. The book provides insights and implications on how the environmental theories might inform practice and also recommends how to study campus environments. Furthermore, the text clarifies what student access is, explores the primary frameworks used to boost student success, and suggest what student affairs educators should consider when implementing student success initiatives. Additionally, the book addresses the intersection of professional competency areas through campus environment cultivation with social justice and inclusion for diverse student populations. Particularly, the book provides useful and practical examples of how faculty can work with graduate students in training to conduct an assessment of student needs and success. This book is purposely written for those who are training to become student affairs educators and those who are newer in the profession. It not only provides the reader with a theoretical framework, but also some direction on how to create a college environment that is socially justice and inclusive.

Receiving a college education has perhaps never been more important than it is today. While its personal, societal, and overall economic benefits are well documented, too many college students fail to complete their postsecondary education. As colleges and universities are investing substantial resources into efforts to counter these attrition rates and increase retention, they are mostly unaware of the robust literature on student success that is often bounded in disciplinary silos. The purpose of this book is to bring together in a single volume the extensive knowledge on college student success. It includes seven chapters from authors who each synthesize the literature from their own field of study, or perspective. Each describes the theories, models, and concepts they use; summarizes the key findings from their research; and provides implications for practice, policy, and/or research. The disciplinary chapters offer perspectives from higher education, public policy, behavioral economics, social psychology, STEM, sociology, and critical and post-structural theory.

In this landmark work, Kenneth Feldman and Theodore Newcomb review and synthesize the findings of more than 1,500 studies conducted over four decades on the subject. Writing in 1991, Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini maintained that The Impact of College on Students not only provided the first comprehensive conceptual map of generally uncharted terrain, but also generated a number of major hypotheses about how college influences students. They also noted that Feldman and Newcombe helped to stimulate a torrent of studies on the characteristics of collegiate institutions and how students change and benefit during and after their college years from college attendance. The Impact of College on Students is now a standard text in graduate courses as well as a standard and frequently cited reference for scholars, students, and administrators of higher education. Much of what we understand about the developmental influence of college is based on this work.

College Students in the United States accounts for contemporary and anticipated student demographics and enrollment patterns, a wide variety of campus environments and a range of outcomes including learning, development, and achievement. Throughout the book, the differing experiences, needs, and outcome of students across the range of “traditional” (18-24 years old, full-time students) and non-traditional (for example, adult and returning learners, veterans, recent immigrants) are highlighted. The book is organized, for use as a stand-alone resource, around Alexander Astin’s Inputs-Environment-Outputs (I-E-O) framework.

Little is known about student success in online learning environments, especially how the predisposing characteristics that the learner brings to the learning environment may differentially affect student outcomes. This study explored the question of whether a student's "readiness" to be a self-directed learner is a predictor of student success in an online community college curriculum. The specific goal of this investigation was to determine whether there was a significant relationship between self-directed learning readiness-as measured by Guglielmino's (1977) Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale (SDLRS)- and student success-as measured by course completion, grade point average (GPA) and student satisfaction, the latter assessed by student responses to an opinion poll. The subjects of this study were community college students in the state of Washington, enrolled in one or more transfer-level online courses delivered via WashingtonONLINE (WAOL) during fall quarter 1999. Students who voluntarily chose to respond to two elective surveys comprised the study sample. A correlational research design was used to test the explanatory power of self-directed learning readiness and to describe the relationships between variables. Since this study was designed to test hypothesized relationships, the resulting correlation coefficients were interpreted in terms of their statistical significance. The expected outcome of this study was to confirm or disconfirm a statistically significant relationship between self-directed learning readiness and student success in an online community college curriculum. The findings of this study failed to achieve this outcome due to (1) the lack of statistical reliability of the SDLRS among the subject population; (2) the resulting lack of validity of the SDLRS among the study sample; (3) a nonresponse effect; and (4) a self-selection effect. The unanticipated outcome of this study was evidence that student perception of student/instructor interactions is a single variable predictor of student success among community college students in an online learning environment. Recommendations for further study include Web-specific research methodologies that address the potentially deleterious effects of nonresponse and self-selection in cyber-research environments and continued exploration of the multiple facets of student success in asynchronous learning domains.

Student retention continues to be a vexing problem for all colleges and universities. In spite of the money spent on creating programs and services to help retain students until they achieve their academic and personal goals, and graduate, the figures have not improved over time. This is particularly true for minority students, who have a greater attrition rate than majority students. Demographic information shows that the minority population in the United States is growing at a faster rate than the majority. It is imperative that educational institutions find ways to help improve retention rates for all students but particularly minority students. Retention rates should not differ appreciably among different racial/ethnic groups."The Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice" is the only scholarly, peer-reviewed journal devoted solely to college student retention. It has published many articles on minority student retention, and this topic continues to garner much attention. This book is a compilation of the very best of these articles, selected on the basis of reviews by a cadre of experts in the education field. The articles discuss African American, Latino/Latina, Asian and Asian Pacific, Native American, and biracial students, and institutional commitments to retaining a diverse student population. For those interested in this vital area, the collection will teach and inspire them to achieve greater heights and pay additional attention to retaining minority students in our colleges and universities.

Presenting new empirical evidence and employing fresh theoretical perspectives, this book sheds new light on the challenges that Black Students face from the time they apply to college through their lives on campus.The contributors make the case that the new generation of Black students differ in attitudes and backgrounds from earlier generations, and demonstrate the importance of understanding the diversity of Black identity.Successive chapters address the nature and importance of Black spirituality for reducing isolation and race-related stress, and as a source of meaning making; students’ college selection and decision process and the expectations it fosters; first-generation Black women’s motivations for attending college; the social-psychological determinants of academic achievement, and how resiliency can be developed and nurtured; institutional climate and the role of cultural centers; as well as identity development; and mentoring. The book includes a new research study of African American male undergraduates who identify as gay or bisexual; discusses the impact of student-to-student interactions in intellectual development and leadership building; describes the successful strategies used by historically Black institutions with at-risk men; considers the role of parents in Black male students’ lives, and the applicability of the “millennial” label to the new cohort of African American students.The book offers new insights and concrete recommendations for policies and practices to provide the social and academic support for African American students to persist and fully benefit from their collegiate experience. It will be of value to student affairs personnel and faculty; constitutes a textbook for courses on student populations and their development; and provides a springboard for future research.

This important book explores the intersection between mental health and Black college students, providing a crucial resource for higher education administrators and educators. Chapter authors provide invaluable insights into the experiences, joys, challenges, and the needs of Black male college students grappling with their mental health. Chapters cover the most timely topics such as understanding masculinity, providing meaningful career services, supporting Black male student athletes, confronting stigmas, and supporting Black trans men and transmasculine persons. Full of practical examples and strategies, this contributed volume discusses the ways faculty, administrators, and student affairs educators can support and help Black men to navigate problems stemming from mental health issues to help better facilitate and maximize their success in higher education.