Recently Published Paper Offers Thoughts on Academic Integration and Issues Facing Underprepared UCSC Students

CSHE > News > Recently Published Paper Offers Thoughts on Academic Integration and Issues Facing Underprepared UCSC Students

12.27.07 -- The CSHE has recently published a paper by Holly Gritsch de Cordova and Charis Herzon, both of University of California Santa Cruz. This paper analyzes many of the different facets of student and faculty interactions with one another. While some may contend that these interactions could and should be independent of a student’s academic performance, the students that are most interested in interacting with faculty behave differently from those that choose not to.

While the positive effects generated by student-faculty interaction associated with multiple student outcomes are well-documented, little is known about how various student subgroups experience student-faculty interaction differently. Among studies that have investigated this issue, some demonstrate that the levels and effects of student-faculty interaction may differ by student gender, race, and major field. The current project improves our understanding of the conditional effects of student-faculty interaction by examining different patterns of student- faculty interaction for various student subgroups, as well as their implications for higher education theory and practice. Specifically, it seeks to answer several questions. How does the level of student-faculty interaction vary by student gender, race, SES, 1st generation status, and major field? How does the student satisfaction with faculty contact vary by these student characteristics? And how does the relationship between student-faculty interaction and student educational outcomes vary by these student characteristics?

Using the University of California Santa Cruz as a case study, this paper analyzes the apparent patterns of academic achievement among students from varied socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds in order to raise questions and concerns pertinent to issues of educational equity.

Data analysis also indicates that high school GPA emerges as the factor most predictive of retention and graduation, followed by standardized test scores. In a study that divided UCSC students into quintiles based on their high school GPA, UCSC students in the bottom quintile performed 8% better than predicted and student performance was 7% better in the quintile second from the bottom. These outcomes comparing UCSC students’ academic achievement, retention, and graduation patterns with other campuses resulted in this reflection made by a member of the UCSC Administration, “UCSC does quite well in educating and graduating its less well prepared students.”

It is the top 12.5% of high school students in California who are welcomed into the UC system per the California Master Plan for Higher Education. They are among the brightest and the best young people in our State. The Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) has thoughtfully and carefully constructed UC admissions criteria that guide each campus in its selection processes in order to yield an academically excellent, diverse student body. Now it is time to seriously explore whether or not we are inviting them to higher education institutions which guarantee educational equity. Educational equity does not exist if there is a persistence of unequal educational outcomes for ethnic minority, low-income students.

For access to the study, see: http://cshe.berkeley.edu/publications/publications.php?s=1

CONTACT:
Holly Gritsch de Cordova and Charis Herzon
hcordova@ucsc.edu

More information