VOICES FROM THE PIPELINE: AN INTERPRETIVE, CRITICAL RACE THEORY STUDY OF THRIVING AMONG UNDERREPRESENTED COLLEGE STUDENT ALUMNI OF A TARGETED PRE-COLLEGE PREPARATION PROGRAM A dissertation submitted to the Kent State University College of Education, Health, and Human Services In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Holly B. Hippensteel August 2016 A dissertation written by Holly B., La Roche College, 1994 M., Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 1996 Ph., Kent State University, 2016 Approved by _________________________, Director, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Susan Iverson _________________________, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Mark A. Kretovics _________________________, Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Janice Kroeger Accepted by _________________________, Director, School of Foundations, Leadership Kimberly S. Schimmel and Administration _________________________, Interim Dean, College of Education, Health and Human Mark A.
Kretovics Services ii ABSTRACT HIPPENSTEEL, HOLLY B., August 2016 Higher Education Administration VOICES FROM THE PIPELINE: AN INTERPRETIVE, CRITICAL RACE THEORY STUDY OF THRIVING AMONG UNDERREPRESENTED COLLEGE STUDENT ALUMNI OF A TARGETED PRE-COLLEGE PREPARATION PROGRAM (178 pp.) Director of Dissertation: Susan V. The purpose of this qualitative, Critical Race Theory (CRT) study was to better understand the lived experiences of underrepresented minority college students. Specifically, this study sought to identify themes across the students’ experiences that contributed to their academic, interpersonal and intrapersonal success from a non-deficit, equity minded perspective. I employed a basic interpretive design with a CRT lens to amplify the voices of non-majority students by conducting semi structured interviews with 8 participants who had each attended the same pre-college program and enrolled at the same highly selective, research university.
In so doing, I listened for counter narratives that challenged existing assumptions about the needs and experiences of underrepresented minority students. Four themes emerged from across the student experiences including: (a) tone setting dynamics; (b) sense of belonging; (c) sense of self; and (d) defining success as growth. The experiences highlighted in these themes illustrate the ways that the participants in this study challenge the dominant discourse description of them as at risk or high risk. The study findings call for a significant shift in thinking in order to better serve all students.
First, they call out the ways that institutions perpetuate the minoritization of students of color. Second, the findings highlight the need to attend to the accessibility of our campus communities. Finally, they acknowledge that our current success conversation actually focuses on students surviving rather than thriving. Specific implications for educators, as well as suggestions for additional areas of inquiry are also addressed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I want to give thanks to God. I would not have persevered and finished this project without the humility, grace, and insight that came directly from Him. Secondly I must acknowledge the generosity and openness of my participants. These eight students chose to spend hours meeting and talking with me, in addition to time that they spent reading and reviewing our interview transcripts, during a very busy time of their academic year.
I am eternally grateful for their candor, kindness, and the eagerness with which they participated in my research. I am humbled by your willingness to trust me with your experiences and I thank you for your help as I sought to understand and share them with others. I am grateful for the advice and guidance of my entire committee – Dr. Kretovics, and Dr.
Kroeger - whose feedback strengthened my study as well as this document. I am especially thankful for my chair, Dr. Susan Iverson, who continued to believe in my ability to complete this process even when I had stopped believing myself. I would like to thank Dr.
Amy Burkert, Vice Provost for Education at Carnegie Mellon. I literally would not have been able to conduct this research without her willingness to serve as my institutional sponsor. I am also grateful for the many classmates and peers whose successes have served to inspire me when I have needed it most and whose advice and encouragement proved truly invaluable. This project would have been impossible without the unfaltering support of my colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University.
Richard Tucker encouraged me to iii persist and never stopped asking about my progress. A good dissertation is indeed a done dissertation Dr. Tucker and thank you for your sustaining belief in me. Thank you Ty Walton for graciously forwarding my invitation email with your endorsement.
I know that your support built trust with the students and gave validity to my research in ways that I would not have been able to accomplish on my own. Thank you to my current supervisors, Gina Casalegno and Dr. Michael Murphy, who made accommodations and gave me permission to prioritize my academic pursuits throughout the decade long process of my doctoral studies. The many colleagues who have picked up the slack for me along the way are too many to enumerate but notably Shernell Smith, Renee Camerlengo, Joanna Dickert, and Jamie Edwards have carried the biggest burden of my shifting attention and priorities and created the space necessary for me to complete my degree and this study.
Thank you ladies, I am proud to work with such amazing women. Finally and with a full heart, I thank God for my dear family who have been my continuous source of strength on this crazy, rollercoaster ride. To my beautiful children, I hope that you will understand someday why this was important for me to do, both for myself but also for you. I love you with all my heart.
Thank you to my mom who is the epitome of strength and determination and the one who taught me the value of hard work by her own example. Finally and most importantly, thank you to the love of my life, Ronette. Thank you for showing me what genuine love and support feels like. I know that I would not have been able to push through to the finish without you by my side.
You are the answer to my prayers and I look forward to all of our newly found free time! iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .4 Understanding the Current Conversation.7 Barriers, Obstacles, and Deficiencies .9 Applying Cognitive Frames .10 Equity Minded Frame .12 Critical Race Theory .19 Diversity and Access.20 Deficits and Barriers .22 Equity through Interventions .26 Critical Race Theory Literature .28 CRT in Education .35 College Student Success .42 Pathways to Thriving .46 Thriving in Transitions .54 Critical Race Methodology .65 Data Organization and Immersion .66 Generating Categories and Coding .68 Analytic Memos and Interpretation .71 Positioning the Researcher .80 Description of Themes .80 Tone Setting Dynamics .81 Like-minded and diverse cohort .86 Aspirations and expectations .93 Sense of Belonging .94 You can do it .99 Sense of Self .101 Independence and risk taking.102 I can’t do everything on my own .104 Burden of representation .109 Defining Success as Growth .114 Not just about me .116 Academic passion and pride. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS .124 Minoritized Not Minority .125 Accessibility Not Access .129 Survival Not Success .137 vi Implications for Practice .138 Recognizing Privilege and Bias .139 Increasing Accessibility by Identifying Racism .141 Emphasizing Student Growth and Learning .143 Limitations and Future Research. INTERVIEW PROTOCOL: FIRST INTERVIEW. INTERVIEW PROTOCOL: SECOND INTERVIEW.
BASIC DEMOGRAPHIC SURVEY. PARTICIPANT RESPONSES TO DEMOGRAPHIC SURVEY .166 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION There is broad acknowledgement from across the United States of a need to increase college enrollment and completion rates among racial and ethnic minority students. From President Obama to university presidents there is resounding awareness of and commitment to the need for increasing access to higher education and narrowing achievement gaps for students whose racial and ethnic minority status are underrepresented in our college and university populations. Yet the problems of access and success persist.
At first glance the access problem for minority students seems to be improving. For example, Anthony Carneval and Jeff Strohl’s (2013) analysis of IPEDS enrollment data conducted for Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce found that the absolute numbers of African American and Hispanic students entering higher education have increased markedly over the past two decades. However, their report entitled Separate and Unequal: How Higher Education Reinforces the Intergenerational Reproduction of White Racial Privilege (Carneval and Strohl, 2013) goes on to examine these enrollment trends in depth. In so doing Carnevale and Strohl (2013) reveal a number of alarming findings that illuminate the racial divide in higher education.
Carnevale and Strohl’s (2013) in depth analysis first illustrates that, despite an increase in overall enrollment, there is a notable racial divide between the types of institutions that students are entering. Specifically, they state that 1 2 “between 1995 and 2009, more than eight in ten of net new white students have gone to the 468 most selective colleges and more than seven in ten net new African American and Hispanic students have gone to the 3250 open access, two and four year colleges. Carnevale and Strohl (2013) further explain that institution type matters in enrollment because it makes a difference in degree completion. “The completion rate for the 468 most selective four year colleges is 82 percent, compared with 49 percent for open access, two and four year colleges.
These findings shine a bright light on the impact of environment on student success and reinforce the need to further interrogate the ways that race and white privilege impact students’ enrollment decisions, their college experiences and ultimately their success. The higher education community has broadly accepted the notion that the answer to increasing minority student enrollment lies in the development of a pipeline. However, as William Bowen and Derek Bok (1998), in their preface to The Shape of the River: Long Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions, remind us the pipeline imagery that dominates descriptions of increasing access to higher education fails to account for the actual experiences of the students attempting to traverse this journey. We often hear of the importance of keeping young people moving through the pipeline from elementary school to high school to college, on through graduate and professional schools, and into jobs, family responsibilities, and civic life.
But this image is misleading, with its connotation of a 3 smooth, well-defined, and well-understood passage. It is more helpful to think of the nurturing of talent as a process akin to moving down a winding river, with rock-strewn rapids and slow channels, muddy at times and clear at others. (Bowen & Bok, 1998, pp. xlix) While imagining a smooth pipeline that creates a direct and expedient route for students is more pleasant than that of a winding river, we must concede, as Bowen and Bok (1998) suggest, that the journey for our students is not always smooth or well defined.
We are then left to ponder the rock strewn rapids, slow channels, and muddy places. In Can we talk about race? Beverly Tatum (2007) asserts that: The negative educational impact of attending high poverty schools is well documented. Whether a student comes from a poor or middle income family, academic achievement is likely to decline if the student attends a high poverty school. Tatum (2007) further adds that despite these documented differences in student achievement, students in poor districts, typically non-white districts, have no other option but to continue to receive little or no resources despite the obligation to provide a basic level of education guaranteed to every student.
Given the inequities at the secondary level, how are low income students, who are often also first generation, and typically African American or Hispanic, expected to make the leap to elite higher education institutions? College readiness is an important dynamic but enrollment and graduation differences exist even among students who seem to be the most academically prepared. 4 For example, only 57 percent of African American and Hispanic students who scored in the top quartile of the SAT and ACT completed either a certificate, Associates or Bachelor’s degree compared to 77 percent of white students (Carnevale & Strohl, 2013).