Abstract
This research explored the role of a hub of innovation in spreading changes that support at-promise (low-income, first-generation, racially minoritized) students from smaller programs to the broader campus environment. The study has several important insights, including the ability of a hub to spread innovations, supportive mechanisms that can assist in knowledge transfer from the hub to the overall campus, and the ways these support mechanisms can overcome the isolation that typically plagues hubs and have long made them less successful models for innovation.
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Notes
We elected to use the term “at-promise” to shift focus away from deficit language like “at-risk” to emphasize the strengths, assets, and potential of these student groups (Harper, 2010).
One critique of this approach to serving low-income students is that creating enclaves can recuse the institution more broadly from engaging in changes to support them (McElroy & Armesto, 1998). In this regard, enclaves designed to support low-income students may experience the isolation and marginalization described by Levine (1980). Furthermore, the success of enclaves for low-income students may signal that an institution is doing the work necessary to support these individuals, which may lead to resistance or a slowness to change the larger campus culture, policies, and practices that create and sustain low-income students’ marginalization.
TRIO is a federally funded set of programs through grants to campuses that supports low-income students and involves mentoring, programing and advising.
GEAR-UP is a federally funded college access and success program that supports low-income students and involves partnerships between K-12 and higher education as well as mentoring, programing and advising.
Organizational learning is made up of multiple theories that rest under this umbrella (Kezar, 2005). However, there are some key concepts that cut across the various individual theories. For example, organizational learning theories have coalesced around the following definition of organizational learning: “if through its processing of information, the range of its potential behaviors is changed, and an organization learns if any of its units acquire knowledge that it recognizes as potentially useful to the organization” (Huber, 1991, p. 89). While there is some debate as to whether behavioral changes are necessary and whether new ways of thinking alone can constitute organizational learning, definitions of organizational learning usually include changes in mindsets that can lead to action (Kezar, 2005). Studies of organizational learning focus on issues such as acquiring information and ideas, knowledge transfer, interpreting data, turning information to knowledge, knowledge recall and memory, and ways to sustain learning by embedding it into organizational structures, often termed knowledge management (Argyis & Schön, 1996; Garvin, 1993; Huber, 1991).
Details of the quantitative study approach and findings are provided in numerous papers published from the project (see https://pass.pullias.usc.edu/ for more). Our quantitative data related to outcomes/impact consist of survey responses from low-income (all students have an expected family contribution of less than $10,000), primarily first-generation college students (69% report neither parent has a bachelor’s degree), many of whom are also racial minorities who participated in a comprehensive college transition program (CCTP; Hallett et al., 2020) at the three four-year universities in the University of Nebraska system. Specifically, we leverage an experimental design in which students were randomly assigned to (a) participate in the CCTP or (b) receive a scholarship (College Opportunity Scholars, COS) without the comprehensive support of the program. The evaluation of the CCTP followed two cohorts of students for four years, including their time in the CCTP and transition out of the formal programming.
We use the term Thompson Scholars Learning Community to refer to all three programs; however, at UNO the program is called the Thompson Learning Community (TLC) and at UNL the program is called William H. Thompson (WHT) Scholars Learning Community.
We found minor differences in their ability to serve as hubs of innovation based on campus environments, most prominently their missions. UNO has traditionally had a mission focused on supporting low income, first generation, and racially minoritized students. As a result, we found that UNO more quickly and easily developed the hub mechanisms and found spread of practices more quickly. UNL’s research status and mission resulted in some barriers to spread of innovations. However, the mechanisms we discuss in the paper made it possible for them to overcome these barriers. But UNL experienced more difficulty than UNK and UNO in terms of timing and ease. This can be seen in the difference in terms of numbers of innovations spread.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Interviewee Characteristics
# of People | # Interviews | Men | Women | Trans or Nonbinary | White | Racially Minoritized | Unsure | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
UNK | 24 | 32 | 15 | 9 | 0 | 20 | 4 | 0 |
UNL | 28 | 34 | 7 | 21 | 0 | 21 | 7 | 0 |
UNO | 30 | 35 | 14 | 15 | 1 | 19 | 10 | 1 |
NU System | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Total | 83 | 103 | 36 | 46 | 1 | 61 | 21 | 1 |
Appendix 2
TSLC Practices/Innovations that Successfully Spread and Supported Students
UNO | UNK | UNL |
|---|---|---|
TSLC classes | TSLC classes | TSLC classes |
Autobiographical reading and writing course (Autobio) | Success Sessions | Study Café |
Teaching students to avoid plagiarism | Peer mentoring | Different way of teaching lower division math |
English as a second language support – testing and requirements | PERSYST, using data to be proactive on at risk students | |
Peer mentoring | Cohorted experience | |
Peer academic support positions | ||
BRIDGE program | ||
Refugee student support |
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Kezar, A., Perez, R.J. & Swanson, E. The potential of and mechanisms for a hub of innovation on campus to support changes for low-income, first generation, and racially minoritized college students. Res High Educ 63, 1237–1260 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-022-09690-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-022-09690-y