Academically Adrift

Academically Adrift Academically Adrift Limited Learning on College Campuses Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London Richard Arum is professor in the Department of Sociology with a joint appointment in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University. He is also director of the Education Research Program of the Social Science Research Council and the author of Judging School Discipline: The Crisis of Moral Authority in American Schools. Josipa Roksa is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2011 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2011 Printed in the United States of America 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-02855-2 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-02856-9 (paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-02855-0 (cloth) ISBN-10: 0-226-02856-9 (paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-02857-6 (electronic) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Arum, Richard. Academically adrift : limited learning on college campuses / Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-02855-2 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-02855-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-02856-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-02856-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Education, Higher —United States. 2. Learning —United States. 3. Critical thinking —Study and teaching (Higher) —United States. 4. Reasoning —Study and teaching (Higher) —United States. I. Roksa, Josipa. II. Title. LA227.4.A78 2001 378.19'8 —dc22 2010031799 Contents Acknowledgments 1 College Cultures and Student Learning 2 Origins and Trajectories 3 Pathways through Colleges Adrift 4 Channeling Students’ Energies toward Learning 5 A Mandate for Reform Methodological Appendix Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments The research project that led to this book was organized by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) as part of its collaborative partnership with the Pathways to College Network—an alliance of national organizations that advances college opportunity for underserved students by raising public awareness, supporting innovative research, and promoting evidence-based policies and practices across the K–12 and higher-education sectors. The initial conception and organizational impetus for this endeavor grew out of efforts led by former SSRC program director Sheri Ranis. Ann Coles, former director of the Pathways to College Network, provided critical assistance in gaining external support for this project. Other members of the Pathways to College Network leadership team, including Alma Peterson and Cheryl Blanco, also provided support for our efforts over the past several years. In addition, we are grateful to Michelle Cooper, Alisa Cunningham, and Lorelle Espinosa at the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), who have supported this project through their current leadership roles in the Pathways to College Network. This research project was made possible by generous support from the Lumina Foundation for Education, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Teagle Foundation, as well as a 2007–8 Fulbright New Century Scholar “Higher Education in the 21st Century: Access and Equity” award. The following foundation officers provided critical support and advice that has proven essential for the success of this project: Tina Gridiron Smith and Dewayne Matthews, as well as Jamie Merisotis and Susan Johnson (Lumina Foundation); Jorge Balan and Greg Andersen (Ford Foundation); Barbara Gombach (Carnegie Corporation of New York); and Donna Heiland and W. Robert Connor (Teagle Foundation). We are also profoundly grateful to Roger Benjamin, Alex Nemeth, Heather Kugelmass, Marc Chun, Esther Hong, James Padilla, and Stephen Klein at the Council for Aid to Education for technical collaboration in data collection that made this research possible. Moreover, we would like to express our deep gratitude to the administrators who coordinated site-based data collection and staff at the twenty-four institutions that supported the fieldwork required for this project, as well as to the students who volunteered and consented to participate in this research study. The researchers are also appreciative of input from the project’s advisory board: Pedro Reyes, professor and associate vice chancellor for academic planning and assessment, University of Texas; Myra Burnett, vice provost and associate professor of psychology, Spelman College; William (Bill) Trent, professor of educational policy studies, University of Illinois; and Meredith Phillips, associate professor of public policy and sociology, University of California at Los Angeles. The manuscript also benefited from insightful comments and suggestions received during presentations in diverse settings including the SSRC’s Learning in Higher Education conference, organized with the support of the National Association of State University and Land Grant Colleges (Chicago, November 2008); the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (San Diego, April 2009); the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (San Francisco, August 2009); the International Sociology Association’s Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobility (Florence, May 2008); New York University’s Applied Psychology Colloquium; the University of Virginia Curry School of Education’s Risk and Prevention Speaker Series; the Center for Research on Educational Opportunity, University of Notre Dame; the Department of Sociology at Memorial University, Canada; and the Collegiate Learning Assessment Spotlight Workshop. Critical comments and recommendations for the project were provided by some of our close colleagues including Joan Malczewski, Mitchell Stevens, and Jonathan Zimmerman, as well as by students in the fall 2009 New York University doctoral seminar “Educational Research in the United States: Problems and Possibilities.” We are grateful to our colleagues and students, as well as to the anonymous reviewers at the University of Chicago Press, for their constructive feedback. The Social Science Research Council program coordinators for this project were Kim Pereira and Jeannie Kim, who provided full-time management of the Collegiate Learning Assessment longitudinal project study from fall 2007 to summer 2008 and from fall 2008 to summer 2010 respectively. Without their professional competence, dedication, and commitment, this research would not have been possible. Additional assistance was provided at the SSRC by Maria Diaz, Carmin Galts, Sujung Kang, Julie Kellogg, Abby Larson, Katherine Long, Jaclyn Rosamilia, and Nicky Stephenson. Melissa Velez served as a primary research assistant for the statistical analysis, and is coauthor of chapters 2 and 3 as well as the methodological appendix. Velez’s statistical sophistication and sociological insights have been heavily drawn upon throughout this project. Research assistance was also provided by Daniel Potter, who coauthored chapters 2 and 4, and Jeannie Kim, who coauthored chapter 3. Potter and Kim made both technical and substantive contributions to the chapters they coauthored. Dedicated staff at the University of Chicago Press skillfully led this book through the final revisions and publication process. We are particularly indebted to Elizabeth Branch Dyson for her feedback and guidance; her enthusiasm and belief in the importance of this project propelled us through the final months of writing. We would also like to thank Anne Summers Goldberg for her technical assistance and Renaldo Migaldi for his meticulous editorial work. Finally, we would like to express our deepest personal gratitude to those who have lived with us and nourished us throughout this project. Shenandoah, best friend and confidant, provided much needed balance and a sense of humor along the way. Joan served as a personal and professional companion. Sydney, Eero, Luke, and Zora, through their dedication to their own schooling and their commitment to inhabit these colleges and universities in the future, served as inspirations. While this research would not have been possible without the contributions from the individuals and institutions identified above, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa are fully responsible for all findings presented, claims made, and opinions expressed in this book. 1 College Cultures and Student Learning “Colleges and universities, for all the benefits they bring, accomplish far less for their students than they should,” the former president of Harvard University, Derek Bok, recently lamented. Many students graduate college today, according to Bok, “without being able to write well enough to satisfy their employers … reason clearly or perform competently in analyzing complex, nontechnical problems.”1 While concern over undergraduate learning in this country has longstanding roots, in recent years increased attention has been focused on this issue not only by former Ivy League presidents, but also by policy makers, practitioners, and the public. Stakeholders in the higher education system have increasingly come to raise questions about the state of collegiate learning for a diverse set of reasons. Legislators—and privately, middle-class parents as well—increasingly have expressed worry over the value and returns to their investments in higher education. Business leaders have begun to ask whether graduates have acquired the necessary skills to ensure economic

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