What single factor makes for an excellent college education? As it turns out, it's pretty simple: human relationships. Decades of research demonstrate the transformative potential and the lasting legacies of a relationship-rich college experience. Critics suggest that to build connections with peers, faculty, staff, and other mentors is expensive…

This chapter chronicles the use of educational "testimonio" as one approach to critical pedagogy as mentoring in a college classroom. Written from the perspectives of an instructor and a student, it explores educational "testimonio" as one tool that has implications beyond the classroom, including retention in higher education…

A substantial body of research, conducted over more than 50 years, makes clear that faculty-student interaction is a key factor in promoting student success, particularly among those students who most need support, such as first-generation college students and students of color. This research is consistent, pervasive, and has informed the…

This article explores discursive languages through which leading women in the International Federation of University Women (IFUW) articulated their understandings of world citizenship and looks at what Caroline Spurgeon, the first President of the IFUW, called the "organised training of women to be citizens of the world." The central section…

In this study, I examine academic influences of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation Summer Research Opportunity Program's mentoring component. Interviews with African American undergraduate student participants of the faculty-student mentoring initiative suggest mentorship's influence upon the academic experiences of participants and…

Nearly 40 percent of the students entering 2- and 4-year postsecondary institutions indicated their intention to major in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in 2012. But the barriers to students realizing their ambitions are reflected in the fact that about half of those with the intention to earn a STEM bachelor's degree and…

This article examines the challenges facing non-traditional university students--and to a lesser extent their lecturers in "the stretched academy"--who are increasingly enrolling in university courses in Australia and elsewhere. The article looks at this issue from the perspective of non-traditional students at a regional campus in…

Community colleges across the country have created innovative, data-informed programs that are models for educating underprepared students, engaging traditionally underserved students, and helping students from all backgrounds succeed. However, because most of these programs have limited scope, the field now has pockets of success rather than…

The 2004 joint annual Conference of the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP) and the National Society of Hispanic Physicists (NSHP) was held in Washington, DC during the weekend of February 18th-21st, 2004. This conference, held jointly for the first time this year, provided the over 300 African-American and Hispanic-American physics…

Presents reasons for feeling hopeful about the position of African Americans in higher education that are headlined by the fact that black enrollment in higher education increased by 4.4% in 1992. Accompanying increases are seen for black enrollment in medical school and law school, as well as in black students who are planning for advanced…

To ensure reliable, accurate, and timely data, which are necessary to monitor the progress of education in the United States, Congress has mandated that the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) produce an annual report, "The Condition of Education." This year's report presents 59 indicators of important developments and trends…