The number of high school graduates will decline over the next decade. The pool of potential applicants will also become the most racially diverse group in the history of American postsecondary education. Historically, students from minoritized social groups have not persisted and graduated at the same rates as their counterparts from dominant social groups. These disparities do not exist because of some deficiency or problem with students. Rather, institutions have failed to dismantle their own hegemonic systems of power resulting in inequitable distribution of opportunities. The phrase opportunity gaps directs attention to institutions’ roles in maintaining and perpetuating inequity rather than blaming the students themselves. Colleges and universities must address opportunity gaps if they are to fulfill their moral obligations to the students whom they admit. Identity-conscious student success strategies have shown promising results in closing opportunity gaps. Historically, student success practitioners implement programs and educational interventions designed with dominant groups in mind. These programs and educational interventions are then administered to all students. Student affairs practitioners engaged in multicultural affairs and identity-development work create opportunities for students to learn about and develop their own identities in community with others. On most campuses, this work produces valuable outcomes, but it is rarely tied to specific, measurable educational outcomes like persistence and graduation rates. Identity-conscious student success strategies draw upon both areas calling for practitioners to identify specific groups of students harmed by the institution’s inequitable distribution of opportunities. The purpose of this study was to better understand how an institution adopted identity-conscious student success strategies. I examined Michigan State University (MSU) and specifically the Neighborhood Student Success Collaborative (NSSC) unit because of their explicit utilization of identity-conscious student success strategies. Employing the vertical and transversal axes of Bartlett and Vavrus’s (2017) comparative case study approach, I conducted qualitative interviews with nine participants and analyzed multiple documents, websites, and other media. I chose participants with direct, extensive knowledge of the NSSC. Using what I called a vertical and transversal case study (VTCS) approach, I examined the historic, political, economic, and cultural factors that influenced MSU’s adoption of identity-conscious student success strategies. Data analysis produced an historical narrative and three groups of findings important in understanding how MSU and the NSSC adopted identity-conscious student success strategies. First, piecing the data together, I created a narrative that traces the concept of identity-conscious student success strategies through space, time, culture, politics, and economics. MSU had to create an environment amenable to adopting identity-conscious student success strategies by changing the community’s attitudes and approaches to student success work. Key actors skillfully navigated the institutional context with their deep understanding of the organizational structure, deploying their own credibility, and building and activating networks. Also, campus leaders galvanized organizational change through shifting the culture around data and supporting the work of empowerment agents. This document concludes with a discussion of implications for organizations, student success practitioners, and higher education researchers.
Read
