Pathways to College Success

Our research project, funded by the Lumina Foundation for Education, is proceeding nicely. Cathy, Cerri, Stacey, and Tehmekah, have carried out the first set of site visits to four of our five case study sites, specifically Cerritos College, DeAnza College, California State University at Hayward, and University of Texas-El Paso. This spring they are returning to those sites for a second visit and beginning their visits to our fifth case study site, LaGuardia Community College in New York (given our recent weather, one might observe that with the exception of LaGuardia Community College, the case study sites are all in warm weather locations). Early results from the case studies are very promising. Once more, we are hearing powerful stories of student experience that serve to confirm what we have learned from other studies of learning communities, namely that they can enrich and improve student learning.

The survey research portion of the study, involving nineteen two and four-year institutions, has also proceeded nicely. We have completed the administration of our survey to approximately seven thousand students and are in the process of coding and organizing the collected data. We anticipate first analysis of those data later this semester.

We are also pleased to report that the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has awarded the program a $120,000 grant to extend our research project to a wider set of community colleges in California. We are grateful for their assistance in this important project and hope that it is just the beginning of a long-term relationship with the Foundation and issues of access and equity in higher education in California.

This brings me to one final request. The research grants have provided us with up to four full-time doctoral research assistantships over the next several years. If you know of a talented person who would like to pursue a doctoral program in higher education and welcome the opportunity to be engaged in a national research study of some importance, please recommend them to us and urge them to contact us at hied@sued.syr.edu.

National Learning Communities Project Conference
Seattle, WA
May 20-22, 2004

Dr. Vince Tinto and Dr. Cathy McHugh Engstrom will be
presenting current findings of the project at this conference.

Pathways to College Success Project
Department of Higher Education
School of Education, Syracuse University