As I sifted through my belongings that still sat packed in old boxes that I had moved from Bucknell University I came across a paper bag and a few folders. I have a habit of collecting random things that have some sort of memory attached to them. This particular collection of items was a special collection… these were my schedules, notes, and others’ impressions of me from the two years that I participated in a fall break student-led diversity retreat called Common Ground (CG).

One of the reasons I have kept “warm & fuzzy” notes from CG is obvious – they make me feel good, in a warm, fuzzy, and nostalgic way. The other is that I have thought of the program as an experience that I would like to bring to more students – perhaps at UNH.

Before I can adapt the idea for use in a new environment, I really wanted to reflect upon my own experiences as a participant and share them here for other practitioners in the field. This will have to be a series of posts and I hope to complete it no later than the end of March 2012.

Here’s what you can expect from this series:

1. All the details of the program that you may need to replicate the experience for your students. I will provide necessary planning documents where appropriate.
2. My reflections of my experiences in the program a) as a participant and b) as a facilitator.
3. Resources that you can use to help in planning for a similar program.

The program consists of a four-day retreat that, in our case, took place at a forest retreat center owned by Bucknell University. One nice thing about the retreat center – and a factor that was crucial to its success in my opinion – was the lack of good telecommunication signals. Cell phone use was strongly discouraged throughout the retreat. The three full days during the retreat are all assigned social just themes. We used the following:

1. Race and ethnicity
2. Sexual identities
3. Gender identities

The entire program is student-led. There were two directors who worked with staff to organize the retreat. In the first year these have to be visionary students with exceptional understanding and maturity, in subsequent years the facilitators from past years can apply to be directors. There are many facilitators, we had 12 facilitators who worked in pairs to supervise small discussion and activity groups of eight participants. The last order of reflection came in pairs of participants, four pairs in each group – we referred to these pairs as processing partners.

Each day we had some time to get warmed up with discussions within the small groups, some activities that took place in the small groups, others that involved the whole group (all participants and facilitators). We invited guest speakers and showed documentaries to provide a context for some of the discussions. Throughout the program an elevated level of dissonance was maintained. This meant that the facilitators were always proactively engaged in discussions with participants. Overflowing emotions were common and we treated such instances with respect and understanding while being realistic.

Promotion and Recruitment:

Because the very idea of the program is to discuss sensitive issues, it is essential that the concept of a safe space is very clear to all participants. This is communicated by facilitators who promote the program and recruit participants. Several information sessions are held in the weeks preceding fall break during the fall semester. Spring semester planning focuses on recruiting and training the staff of facilitators and directors.

The program does not allow participants to return as just participants – they must be selected to be facilitators or directors if they wish to return. This policy expands the reach of the program which is very small in size due to its intimate nature.

To be continued…

The participants gathered at the start of the day and completed a few of the suggested exercises in the book that warm up the right brain. In order to provide the reader a sense of the warm-up here’s a list of the activities we performed:

• Make a self-portrait in five lines (lifting the pen from the paper only five times).
• Identify a household object/problem that annoys us, say why, and propose a solution to the problem. If a solution is not obvious, just share the problem with the group.
• Choose a person who you would like to dedicate the experience of the day to.
• Write a fifty word (exactly) saga about your life.

When all of us had shared our responses to these prompts we split up to start thinking about our projects for the day. The instructions for what we had to do were intentionally abstract. We were encouraged, though, to think about issues that would somehow be related to the work we do and to try to stay away from electronics as much as possible to allow us to focus on the task at hand. We were to reconvene at 4 pm at a supervisor’s home.

I spend the remainder of the morning – about an hour and a half – at a downtown cafe jotting down thoughts and re-reading a paper about Marcia Baxter Magolda’s work on self-authorship. At lunch I joined three of the other participants for lunch and a quick check-in.

When we met again in the evening we spent about three hours discussing the day and sharing the fruits of our day-long research projects – if I may call them that. Each one of us spent the day thinking about very different ideas, some of us remained very abstract, while others focused on the specifics of certain problems that they had encountered in their work. Overall, the evening gave us all a good feeling of… satisfaction.

I was inspired the discussions to further explore my ideas and to share others with colleagues and in the public sphere – one of the best parts about the evening had been the feedback we received from other participants. This blog post itself is a result of this renewed inspiration to take time to think, write, discuss, and think some more!

While it is tempting to discuss my mini-sabbatical experience in further detail, I vowed not to make any task I undertake so daunting that I do not finish – so here’s the beginning of a journey that I hope will progress at a healthy rate, and one that I will try my best to document here.

While national leaders have joined the discussion more recently, scholars in the fields of education, psychology, and sociology, have been exploring the ways in which students’ socioeconomic background affects the outcomes they experience as a result of their education (Lareau, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, 2003). Furthermore, the role played by the education system in creating or diminishing socioeconomic disparity has also been studied in depth (Bourdieu, 1977; Boudon, 1977). However, the journeys of students from low-income families that begin their education at community colleges and continue it, through careful planning or chance, at elite four-year institutions, has not been the subject of much attention. This thesis explores these students’ perceptions of social mobility as they have been shaped by their experiences so far in life. This includes the exploration of changes in their perceptions as the contexts for their lives have been changed. Quantitative analysis of survey results and qualitative analysis of participant interviews serve as the data set for this study. The implications of the findings for student affairs practitioners are also explored.

As we weaved in and out of random questions, one of the international students brought up Chaser’s War on Everything: Americans. The Australian TV show mocks a group of Americans for their ignorance. Random people are asked questions about geography and shown mislabeled maps and asked to comment on current wars and possible future engagements. As the international student continued to tell the story of the show, I noticed one of my friends grow quiet. She then made a few sarcastic comments about the ongoing discussion.

As someone who tries hard to promote international understanding on Bucknell’s campus, I tried to engage the US students on the table in a conversation about how the level of ‘international awareness’ could be improved on campus and why many international students found it difficult to come to terms with the lack of the same withing the US.

What I heard from the international students (on this occasion as well as in the past) was:

1. US Americans are ill-informed about the world.
2. US foreign policies affect most of the world, but this is not known to US citizens.
3. As a ‘first-world’ and developed nation, the expectations of US citizens to know more about the world are justified.

What I heard from the US students (on this occasion, as well as in the past) was:

1. US Americans, especially students on campus, are made to feel guilty by the remarks of international students in such scenarios leading them to not ask questions.
2. International students do not appreciate the diversity within the US education system and are not aware of places in the US where knowledge about the world is not imparted in schools.
3. Propaganda like the one in the video clip mentioned above can be created about the citizens of any country. Ignorant people exist everywhere, they are not exclusive to the United States.

As you may be able to tell, both sides of the story have very valid arguments. A happy medium that can help us fight this ignorance without offending each other is needed urgently. Without such a medium the process of internationalization that is being witnessed in colleges and universities across the US will not be able to achieve its desired goals.

While the problem at hand is large and complex, I have been thinking about it for a while and have come up with some tips for students to have more fruitful conversations.

International students should be encouraged to ask questions about the lives and backgrounds of their US counterparts. Very often US students feel that they have nothing ‘cool’ to say when they are talking to someone who is from what they consider to be ‘an exotic place’. By asking questions that treat students as individuals and their hometowns and even neighborhoods as unique places, international students can initiate conversations that will not end in a summary ‘That’s cool.” remark. Secondly, international students need to remember the context within which US students have studied and grown up. Imagine growing up in a stable, large country wherein the basic needs and wants of a person are almost always guaranteed. Compare this to your own country. Compare your experience in your country to that of the not so privileged of your compatriots. How would the people you grew up around fare in a test of world knowledge? Remember: you do not control the environment you are born in or grow up in. It is not until much later in life that most individuals develop the ability to influence this environment.

US students should be encouraged to highlight what I consider to be the most beautiful part of US culture – its individualism. Talk about your background, share with international students the diversity within the US. From East to West and North to South. Point out the fact that government issues within the US are very different from those outside. Be curious, and maintain your desire to learn more. Maintain distinctions between various issues, the US is a large and complex country and so is its population. Reiterate your position as an individual and the inability of any individual (international students included) to represent a group.

While I hope that this post will be helpful to some, I also hope that more informed and involved individuals will think about this problem and suggest ways in which the gap between US and international students can be bridged so they feel comfortable learning from each other. Consider this post a formal Request For Comments!

Bucknell University is celebrating International Education Week 2010 with renewed vigor this year as well. The Office of International Education and International Student Services are collaborating with other departments to present the most complete picture possible of the importance of international education.

For me, the planning of this year’s IEW events at Bucknell has been an interesting journey to say the least. While there are many programs being presented to the relatively small campus community, it remains to be seen to what degree the students, faculty, and staff will participate in these. One strategy that the two offices have employed this year is to rely heavily on existing energies within student organizations and academic departments to drive the programming efforts. For example, the four International Movie Nights are each sponsored by a different student organization, and the International Education Week Photo Contest is being run in collaboration with the Peer International Educators group. Having these partnerships has allowed the organizing offices to use their limited resources more efficiently.

I am looking forward to being a part of this year’s IEW at Bucknell and cannot wait to report on the level of student engagement throughout the week. I hope that on November 20th, I will be able to say that the efforts to internationalize Bucknell, and US higher education institutions in general, are clearly justified.

Check out Bucknell University’s International Education Week page on facebook!

In her new book, Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times  (New York University Press), Margaret K. Nelson explores the roots of helicopter parenting, or “parenting out of control,” finding a strong correlation between parental involvement and social class.

An interesting interview with the author can be found on the Inside Higher Ed blog. I am also very curious to find out what advantages, if any, do first-generation students have in terms of learning and development because of the absence of helicopter parents. This is something I will try to explore to some extent in my study of the Community College Transfer Initiative at Bucknell University.

Students recruited by elite four-year institutions through this initiative are demonstrating their ability to succeed in the most competitive environments. They have awed their professors and colleagues with their dedication and hard work. And above all is the fact that the degree of success for these students seems to be proportional to the selectivity of the college that they attend!

Please read research reports released by the Foundation regarding the achievement gap and its connection to the socioeconomic status of students and their families. Jennifer Gonzales does a good job of summarizing the success of this initiative in her article in The Chronicle.

The findings further support the idea that community colleges are helping democratize education by expanding access to it for student from lower socioeconomic status and enabling them to achieve bachelor’s degrees at four-year institutions.

The study’s basic focus is to investigate the diversion effect, and it does not focus on the performance of community college transfer students at various institutions compared to students from a higher SES. The study analyzes data obtained from the National Education Longitudinal Study to support the claim that community colleges do not reduce the ability of students from comparable (lower) SES background to obtain a bachelor’s degree. There is not a significant difference between the performance of lower SES students who are transferring to four-year colleges from community colleges and those who are continuing their education at a four-year college.

Please tune back in as I will be posting information about other studies that build a strong case for creating bridge programs through which community college students can transfer to four-year colleges.

ABSTRACT

In a 2007 report by Jobs for the Future, it was concluded that the United States has a very long way to go to eliminate social disparities in degree production to meet the demand for higher skills and knowledge and remain competitive internationally. Closing the gaps between various historically disadvantaged groups would require that the bachelor‟s and associate‟s degree production be increased by nearly 37 percent. The achievement of this goal is not possible without catering for the special needs of first-generation students. These students represent the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups that are currently disadvantaged. The goals for the higher education system have been set, now it is time for significant efforts to be made in understanding and solving the problems that are faced by first-generation students (Handel & Montoya).

While some efforts are being made by a select group of highly selective four-year institutions, much more can be done. A coordinated effort from highly selective institutions has the potential to significantly increase the number of low-SES transfer students by reaching out to talented community college students, educating high school and community college students about financial aid, and actively working on their respective campuses to break down cultural barriers.

The failure to take the initiatives described above would mean that the existing cultures at elite four-year colleges would be preserved. This would neutralize the role of elite higher education institutions as vehicles for upward social mobility.

The lack of diversity in the socioeconomic backgrounds of students will also hurt the overall ability of institutions to truly diversify their student bodies and provide an education that nurtures the institution of critical thinking, promotes the understanding and acceptance of differences, and above all prepares students for success in the world that they will enter as graduates.