Final Project Report Improving African American Student Success at UIC
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Final Project Report Improving African American Student Success at UIC Project Sponsors: Nikos Varelas and Linda Deanna Project Team Leads: Jeff Brown, Director, African American Academic Network Aisha El-Amin, Associate Provost/ Chief of Staff Project Team Members: Mark Bennett, Director, First-Year Writing Program, English Department Kiely Fletcher, Executive Director, Financial Aid & Scholarships Aginah Muhammad, Executive Director, Council on Teacher Education Jane Rhodes, Department Head & Professor of African American Studies Gerald Smith, Director of Minority Affairs, College of Engineering Charu Thakral, Associate Vice Provost for Diversity Submitted: November 15, 2019 Executive Summary This report is reflective of a 22-month process of understanding the landscape of African American student success in higher education, starting from a national perspective then contextualized inside of the happenings of the University of Illinois at Chicago, historically and contemporarily. In this report we offer recommendations for ways of improving African American student success at UIC. These recommendations require a commitment of both will and resources to address the historical structural deficiencies that impede success for this population. These recommendations are not new; instead they amplify and expand the voices from the past, voices internal and external to the university and voices exhausted by the lack of action or clear communications regarding actions. In this report you will find that we have adopted a holistic approach for understanding success. This approach demands that we recommend ways of moving forward that consider the totality of the African American students’ experience, inclusive of the climate for African American faculty and staff. Summary of Recommendations We offer several recommendations throughout this report with specifics on how to address each recommendation. This is a summary of those recommendations: 1. Commit to increase funding for African American students 2. Offer more effective, focused, and centralized communication for African American students 3. Create an inclusive and affirming classroom environment for African American students 4. Reimagine measures for accommodating African American students who may be at a comparative disadvantage in gateway courses 5. Improve campus climate for African American students 6. Increase recruitment and retention of African American faculty While these offer a brief summary of recommendations, you can track all recommendations throughout this report as they are easily identifiable with bold red font. Summary of Hiring Recommendations for New Personnel Throughout this report, we make four recommendations for hiring new personnel. Here is a summary of all the hiring recommendations herein: 1. Hiring a Communication Liaison: The Liaison would be charged with gathering and promoting events from various units campus-wide to provide students with one succinct way to understand the various ways the campus supports African American students. The Liaison would also: - Create and maintain a website for African-American student-centered and faculty-centered activities. - On an annual basis, maintain and expand the African- American Resource guide created by the Chancellors Committee on the Status of Blacks. - Coordinate a university-wide calendar that is populated by all units and colleges that clearly outlines the happenings of the university on a daily basis. - At the campus level, work to improve and establish relationships with the Chicagoland area of African- American community members by keeping them informed and engaged in ways that directly impact our recruitment, retention, success, and campus climate. - Beyond the unit-by-unit approach, the Liaison would be responsible for a systemic campus-wide assessment of programming and engagement within UIC and the Chicagoland-area African American community. 2 - Convene meetings with stakeholders to plan and implement programs to best support the success of African American students. These meetings will take place monthly or at least twice each semester. - Convene an annual town hall meeting of both internal and external partners to discuss existing issues impeding the progress of African American students, along with sessions to discuss practical solutions and to develop action items. They will connect with scholars and various professionals who have demonstrated expertise in the area of African American student retention and success. 2. Hiring an external specialist in Underrepresented Minority (URM) academic affairs to consult with colleges, units, and Communication Liaison. This was a key recommendation from the 2016 SSI report, and though Provost Poser commissioned the office of the Vice Provost for Diversity to make this hire in Fall 2017, this fell by the wayside in the transition between Vice Provosts. This specialist would facilitate discussions at the college and department levels about academic and non-cognitive issues that URM students face. The Specialist could also assist with several other key areas including: - Syllabus design and pedagogical approaches in gateway courses - Targeted faculty mentoring and advising for African American students by faculty in departments with at-risk gateway courses - African-American upperclassman mentoring of freshman in the same major. - African American graduate and professional students mentoring African American undergraduates 3. Hiring a Financial Aid Point Person to assist with FAFSA application tracking for African American students; provide guidance and point of contact for verification tracking. This person would also assist with programming in the success centers regarding financial matters. 4. Hiring additional African American faculty across campus. There are many ways to tackle this and we are aware that there are ongoing conversations around the university grappling with how to address this concern. However, we push for metrics, accountability, and communication in this area. Who is responsible? What are the goal numbers per year for the next 5-10 years? What is the plan? How will this plan be communicated to the UIC community on a continuous basis? As one way of accomplishing this, we recommend creating a partnership with another university to bring underrepresented faculty into UIC as part of a faculty diversity pipeline. Purpose and Scope The goal of this SSI project was to identify and propose actions/programing/personnel that have the potential to significantly increase retention and graduation rates of African American students at UIC, and also have clear and measurable outcomes. The SSI team considered existing recommendations and data from multiple campus-wide stakeholders, relevant campus committees, focus group work, and best practices at other institutions as part of our comprehensive recommendations for action. The benchmarks to fulfill these objectives are as follows: 3 1. Create a repository of programs that seek to increase retention of African American students at UIC. 2. Determine high-impact practices at other institutions that contribute to African American student success. 3. Compare our current programs to the high-impact practices, identify successes, and consider areas for improvement. 4. Recommend new programs/practices/resources that will impact African American retention and graduation. 5. Implement an assessment mechanism to determine the impact of each program on African American student success. Expected Outcomes 1. UIC will have a clear understanding of high-impact practices at other institutions that contribute to African American student success. 2. UIC will be able to identify areas of success for the practice and programs currently in place. 3. UIC will be able to identify areas of improvement to consider for the success of the African American student body. UIC will have recommendations, based on feedback from various stakeholders, on programs/ practices to improve the success of African American students. 4. UIC will have a recommended assessment mechanism to determine the impact of each program/practice on the success out the African American student body. These expected outcomes are addressed in bold lettering throughout this report. Final Outcomes During the last 22 months, the SSI project team has diligently worked toward the expected outcomes outlined above. Throughout this report we offer recommendations organized under the four categories of Expected Outcomes, as outlined above. Our recommendations emerge from meetings with various stakeholders, a focus group, and multiple data points, as outlined below: Data Points: 1. Letter to Henley and Kaufman 2. Pathways Report 3. Non-returning student surveys (2014-17) 4. African American Task Force Report 5. Faculty & Staff Focus Group (August 2018) 6. Meetings with key stakeholders (March 2019-May 2019) 7. Peer institutions’ high-impact practices 4 8. Nikos Varelas’s report on DFW rates 9. Focus Group Notes 10. Summary of Chancellor’s Report and SSI Group 11. Academic Forgiveness Policy (February 2017) 12. AALC Goals and Objectives 13. Ida B. Wells Scholars Final Draft 14. CCSB African American Resource Guide 15. Explanation of iAdvise 16. Subcommittee Reports 17. Open-ended college-level data 18. Improving African American Student Success Report (2016) 19. PAP Annual Report 2017 20. UPPF Program Academic Year 2017 21. Education Program 22. African American Student Success Inquiry 23. UIC IBHE 2015 Narrative Report 24. “Men of Color on Your Campus” Webinar by