Community College Summer Research Fellowship Program
Summer 2023
My name is Isabel Barnes, I am a junior transferring to the University of Michigan this fall. I plan to study computer science within The College of LSA. I am a part of the Community College Summer Fellowship Program (CCSFP) within UROP. I have always loved the field of STEM and I want to encourage others that they are capable of working within the STEM field, so that interested me to participate in the research of underrepresented students participating in MI-LSAMP.
Summer 2021
During the summer of 2021, Lindsey Marlin was a Community College Summer Research Fellow and conducted research with the Diversity Research and Policy Program (DRPP). She was born and raised in rural Illinois but moved to Michigan with her family in 2012. Lindsey graduated from Mid Michigan College this Spring with an Associate in Arts and plans to further her education by attaining a bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan. Throughout her college experience, Lindsey has been heavily involved with service and community. As an incoming junior this fall, Lindsey plans to study elementary education with a focus on Pre-K – 3rd grade. After graduation she hopes to teach English in South Korea for a year, coming back to later teach in rural and underserved areas.
Student Parents in Post Secondary Education: Relevant Policies and Practices
“Student parents are a growing percentage of the college student population (Roy et al., 2018). For this group of nontraditional students, resources such as on-campus childcare, lactation spaces, and family housing are pertinent to balancing the demands of parenthood and school. However, recent studies (e.g., Kensinger & Minnick, 2018) have alluded to student parent invisibility in institutional policy and practice. In this study I examined inclusion of student parents in official university statements (i.e., policy), and access to information about, and availability of, student parent resources (i.e., practice). The study addresses three research questions: 1. Do public four-year universities & colleges include student parents in their non-discrimination &/or diversity statements? 2. For students who are parents, how easy is it for prospective and new university students to identify relevant resources? 3. Is the number of relevant resources related to inclusion of student parents in non-discrimination &/or diversity statements? 15 Michigan public four-year universities were selected for website analysis to explore official policy along with resources allocated and accessible to student parents. I developed a measure of “ease of identification” by taking the ratio of identified student parent resources to the total number of resources appearing on the first page of the search results. From there, these percentages were converted to a five-point scale ranging from “very hard to find” – “very easy to find”. Six of the 15 universities (40%) included student parents in their official statements. Additionally, universities inclusive to student parents scored a 14.43% – 15.6% in accessibility, representing the “very hard to identify resources” category. However, universities that did not include student parents in their non-discrimination &/or diversity statements scored a 23.33% – 31.78% in accessibility, representing the “fairly hard” to find category. To explore the relationship between inclusion in policy and inclusion in practice, I measured the average number of resources allocated to student parents at each institution. Although colleges that mentioned student parents in their statements had fewer resources (M=4.76) than those that did not mention student parents, (M=5.78), a t-test revealed that the college types were not statistically different. To further explore possible relationships between the type of institution and the number of resources available, I categorized each of the 15 institutions into two categories (very high research vs less than very high research) using the Carnegie classification system. A t-test revealed that very high research institutions appear to have more resources (M=8.33) than institutions that are less research-intensive (M=4.58). These findings allude to an interesting conclusion. While the majority (60%) of universities did not include student parents in their non-discrimination &/or diversity statements, this seemingly had no bearing on the number of resources allocated, and their accessibility, to student parents. Yet, the inaccessibility of student parent resources, along with their exclusion in policy, was a prevailing problem. Future research should be done exploring the relationship between policy, practice, and a university’s research classification.”
J’anna Rivers is a student intern through the University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program for Summer 2021. She is a Michigan native and recently graduated with an Associates in Business Administration from Schoolcraft College. The U of M research opportunity has allowed her to gain the knowledge of university course expectations and helped prepare her to continue education for the obtainment of a Bachelors in Business Management this upcoming fall. With that degree she plans to become a entrepreneur and own multiple businesses in her hometown of Detroit, Michigan.
S.T.E.A.M. Education
Introduced in 2016, STEAM is a new pedagogical approach that has been on the rise in many different countries. STEAM is the abbreviation for science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. The integration of “Arts” within STEM has shown a significant increase in the motivation of children’s ability to be creative, problem solvers, and critical thinkers. Throughout the process of this literature review my goal was to answer the research question “How do STEAM, in contrast to STEM, approaches develop creativity, critical thinking, and agency among children?” To answer this question I reviewed 40 sources of qualitative and quantitative literature and of those, more than half provided strong support to the view that STEAM is very effective in developing 21st century skills such as creativity, critical thinking and problem solving. According to Hadinugrahaningsiha, “the term 21st-century skills is generally used to refer to certain core competencies such as collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving that advocates believe schools need to teach to help students thrive in globalisation world” (Hadinugrahaningsiha, 2017, p.1). STEAM effectiveness is measured by the behaviors of students after the curriculum is implemented. Studies indicate that even children at an early age demonstrated interest and academic growth (Awang, 2020). Considering this pedagogy is fairly new, there remains much ambiguity on the teaching styles, definition of “art”, and how the arts in STEAM will be implemented in lesson plans.
Summer 2020
Makayla Cager
Too Much to Deal With: A Literature Review on Black Women Faculty Coping Methods to Alleviate Stress
Existing research shows that women faculty experience different challenges in their career than their male colleagues. Based on societal gender roles, women are more likely to work while tending to their families. Balancing these dual roles have benefits and challenges. Moreover, women of color, particularly Black women, encounter bias due to their race and gender. In addition, balancing multiple roles and experiencing racial and gender bias daily can be stressful and they must find ways to cope. The purpose of this literature review is to discuss coping methods that Black women faculty use to deal with different stressors. The literature review addresses the following questions: a) do multiple roles lead to stress? b) what are the other stressors that Black women faculty encounter in their lives? c) what coping strategies do Black women faculty use to alleviate stress? And d) what are the health consequences of dealing with different stressors? After reviewing the literature, it is concluded that the role of emotion-focused coping, specifically spiritual coping, is prominent in many Black women faculty. The experiences of Black women faculty of encountering bias throughout their lives, especially in the workplace, suggest that there should be support services for faculty to help reduce the gender and racial biases in these institutions.
Cristian Garcia
A Review of the Current Literature Regarding Best Practices for Academic Coaches
While there has been an increase in coaching literature since the 1990s, the study of academic coaching is believed by many to be in its early stages. Understanding the processes within academic coaching is necessary to properly serve students of different backgrounds and abilities. Therefore a review of the literature was undertaken to examine the most frequently mentioned attributes associated with academic coaches’ effectiveness. Articles in the existing literature on academic coaching were collected to examine the relationship between these coaching attributes and student outcomes. The review process spanned across four databases where multiple search terms were used to create an initial screen of the results. Information on coaches’ attributes was extracted from the 28 articles that fit the inclusion criteria. Four pieces of information were considered for each attribute: the effect of the attribute on an academic coaching outcome, typically student outcomes, the direction of this effect, the frequency with which the attributes were mentioned across the reviewed articles, and lastly the importance the authors placed on the attribute. The most widely recognized attributes[1] identified by the coachee, the coach, or a neutral third party fell into three main categories: core coach competency, communication, and coaching relationship. This review suggests that students across many identities and abilities benefit from academic coaching and this may be largely influenced by particular coaching attributes. I conclude with suggestions regarding future studies to increase our understanding of how these categories of attributes facilitate the academic process.
Summer 2019
My name is Agatha Figueiredo, and I am a research assistant in the DRPP. I started to work in the DRPP as part of the Community College Summer Research Fellowship Program, from UROP. In this project, I wrote a literature review about the value of higher education as perceived by African American Students, and also coded some answers from the UMAY survey about the value of a UM degree. Now, I am part of the RWJF Health Policy Scholars program evaluation team.
I am currently attending Oakland Community College where I plan to attain an associate degree in Arts, and then transfer to the University of Michigan on fall/2020 to complete my education and graduate in 2022. My major is Political Science with a minor in Law, Justice and Social Change. My goals for the future are: study politics and work with politics. I want to go to graduate school, and get a PhD in Political Science and Public Policy. The University of Michigan has a very unique Phd program that allows students to conduct research in the political science field, while also doing internships and learning how to apply the knowledge acquired in academia outside the walls of the university. I love to be involved in politics and social movements, and I am currently working on the campaign of a local politician.
My name is Suhana Virdee, and I have recently graduated from Schoolcraft College and earned my Associate in Science degree. I am an undergraduate student at U of M and plan to purse a PhD in psychology with a minor in creative writing. At my previous institution I was a member of Phi Theta Kappa and did some volunteering, and I was also a tutor for multiple subjects. Currently, I am working with DRPP as a part of the Community College Summer Research Program on a project about non-traditional undergraduate students in higher education, as well as on a survey project about the value of a U of M degree for undergraduate students.
The Value of a Higher Education as Perceived by Non-Traditional International Undergraduate Students
International students make up an ever-increasing portion of students in higher education in the United States (McGill 2018). Although it is important to understand how all college-going students perceive the value of postsecondary education, it is not clear how the perceptions of international undergraduates might differ from domestic students. This review includes peer reviewed articles obtained through searches of three academic databases (Proquest ERIC, Web of Science, and PsychInfo). The articles included in the review indicate that the value of higher education, as perceived by international undergraduate students, can be separated into distinct categories. The first category, professional outcomes, is the most frequently cited motivator of international students to pursue higher education in the United States. Professional outcomes include results such as getting a quality education and learning the necessary skills to enter the workforce. The other category, personal outcomes, includes non-academic results such as connecting with peers, embracing new cultures, and sharing their own cultures. While international students experienced greater personal success than expected since they were able to connect with other students in similar situations, their success with professional outcomes were not as high as expected. This suggests that colleges and universities should become more aware of the struggles that international students face and provide more resources to address their needs. Future studies might focus on the contextual factors that hinder international undergraduate students’ professional outcomes, as well as the disconnect between international students and their domestic peers.
Summer 2018
Hello, my name is Simone Dominique Essix. I am 23 years old. After graduating from Stevenson High School, I attended Howard University, one of our nation’s top HBCU’s, in Washington D.C., to study Communications. I could only describe my time there as a beautiful struggle. Despite my personal experiences and my inability to graduate due to lack of financial support, it was there at Howard where I began to discover that I knew nothing about myself and my dreams, but I had the power to create those narratives myself! That is where the magic began.
The effects of extended family support and depression on the college transition of African American and Latinx students
According to National Center for Education Statistics (2016), Black and Latinx students college graduation rates lag behind their counterparts. Between 2012 and 2013, graduation rates for Black students declined from 21.4% to 20.6% and Latinx students remained stagnant at 30.5%. One approach to addressing this issue is to dedicate more attention to underrepresented students’ college transitions and improving their psychological well-being during college. This literature review examines effects of extended family support and depression during college on the college transition of African American and Latinx students. Ten peer-reviewed articles from ProQuest ERIC and psychINFO were examined. Previous literature demonstrates that African American and Latinx students’ college transition is affected by social support they receive from extended family networks. The extended networks that underrepresented students already possess and forge during their college transition are integral assets to improving their retention and graduation. It has been documented that experiences with depression among minority students negatively impacts their college transition. A better understanding of how to properly manage depression during the college transition may contribute to improved college graduation rates for this particular population. Findings indicate that extended family support networks should be regarded as strengths that many African American and Latinx students possess and bring to the collegiate environment thus contributing to their overall well-being. Conclusions provide implications for student affairs professionals, families, and students with insight on how literature may be strengthened and how these findings may contribute to improving college transitions and psychological well-being among this particular demographic.