New project aims to improve programs for male students of color
A $300K grant from ECMC Foundation will support a study of best practices to improve college persistence and graduation rates for minority men
For several decades, men have been earning far fewer college degrees than women. Men are less likely to enroll in or graduate from college—and for men of color, this trend has been especially alarming. In the California State University system, for example, college graduation rates for men of color often fall below 40 percent.
A new research project at the Pullias Center for Higher Education seeks to help boost that number. Pullias Center Provost Postdoctoral Scholar Adrian Huerta and William G. Tierney, Pullias Center co-director and Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education at the USC Rossier School of Education, were recently awarded a $300,000 grant from ECMC Foundation to study best practices for recruiting and retaining men of color in colleges and universities.
“Men of color often feel disconnected from the colleges and universities they attend because of the racism and microaggressions they experience, in addition to feelings of isolation in their classrooms and limited social-emotional support from faculty and administration,” Huerta said. “And while many institutions have worked hard to develop programs to support this population, we don’t yet know which programs work, how and why they work, or how well.”
Huerta and Tierney will study programs at five different CSU campuses created to support men of color, measuring how effective these programs are in supporting these students to persist in their studies and graduate. In addition, the researchers will evaluate the cost-effectiveness and scalability of these programs.
“Our goal is to provide a strategic analysis of men of color programs that benefits not only the five CSU campuses we study but also many additional colleges and universities that want to provide effective services and resources to improve degree completion rates for men of color,” Tierney said.
The researchers plan to develop a toolkit of best practices and strategies to address the social and academic needs for men of color in retention programs in the CSU system. In addition, the researchers will host a webinar for other national colleges and universities without men of color programs to share information about the most effective programs and curricular structures to use to increase persistence and degree completion for men of color in higher education. The project will run through December 2020.
This latest grant builds upon Huerta’s and Tierney’s research on boys and men of color, college access and equity.
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