Background/Context: Low-income, racially minoritized, and first-generation college students (at-promise students) attending predominantly White, middle class institutions often face inequitable access to enriching educational opportunities, discrimination, and marginalization, creating barriers to their success. Institutions are increasingly…

Contingent, VITAL faculty make up the majority of faculty positions in the United States, and their role is primarily instruction. Yet they often face numerous barriers to participating in professional development and engaging in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), activities that can support their instructional effectiveness. This…

Over the past 50 years, student activists and community organizers on college campuses have advocated for divestment as a strategy to enact necessary change. These activists and organizers are often tasked to confront the higher education elite, such as trustees, with these demands. Higher education institutions will only continue to face immense…

Systemic inequalities in higher education have contributed to lower retention and completion rates among low-income, first generation, and racially/ethnically minoritized students, who we refer to as "at-promise" students. In response, educators have implemented comprehensive college transition programs that offer students holistic…

This report, the fifth in the "On Shared Equity Leadership series," explores ways to build capacity for the work of shared equity leadership (SEL) in higher education. SEL is a leadership approach that scales diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work and creates culture change by connecting individual and organizational transformation.…

This study examines the impact of a comprehensive college transition program, the Thompson Scholars Learning Communities (TSLC), on psychosocial outcomes using an experimental design. We estimate overall and heterogenous effects of program participation on students' sense of belonging to campus, feelings of mattering to campus, sense of academic…

The purpose of this article is to describe a new variation of communities of practice: communities of transformation. We define communities of transformation as communities that create and foster innovative spaces that envision a new future. This article is based on research examining four undergraduate STEM faculty communities of practice…

This study examines how involvement in four undergraduate faculty communities of practice is associated with faculty perceiving they improved in individual practices related to STEM reform. It is informed by the communities of practice and faculty change literature and utilizes data gathered through a survey of community members (n = 2503). The…

Emerging evidence demonstrates that integrated programs, which combine academic and socioemotional supports and bridge boundaries between academic and student affairs, can improve college success rates for low-income, first-generation college students. This article explores the organizational value of integrated transition programs across several…

The purpose of this article is to describe the strategies that four undergraduate faculty science, technology, engineering, and mathematics reform communities of practice use to sustain themselves to scale up reforms in higher education. The study was informed by literature on communities of practice and analyzed data gathered through document…

In this article we report on our examination of the challenges faced by four successful and long-standing national STEM reform communities. Drawing primarily on interview data from a large-scale, multi-year study informed by literature on "communities of practice" (CoPs) (Wenger et al. 2002), we describe five categories of challenges…

This study examines how involvement in four cross-institutional STEM faculty communities of practice is associated with local departmental and institutional change for faculty members belonging to these communities. It is informed by the communities of practice and change in higher education literature and utilizes data gathered through a survey…

Student success in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is a major concern in higher education. While overall 6-year graduation rates are around 60% nationally (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016), only about 40% of students who enter college intending to major in a STEM field complete a STEM degree within 6 years. Studies…

STEM undergraduate education reforms are more likely to be effective if undertaken not by individual faculty members but by faculty networks or "communities of transformation." The article describes four such communities that have persisted over many years and served large numbers of faculty through annual events, newsletters and…

A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it as they interact regularly. Higher education leaders are attracted to CoPs because they are a peer-based model of learning with colleagues, which works well for professionals such as faculty. These authors identified…