Breakthrough Strategies: Classroom-Based Practices to Support New Majority College Students - Softcover

Ross, Kathleen A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1612509975 ISBN 13: 9781612509976

Publisher: Harvard Education Press, 2016

Synopsis

Breakthrough Strategies identifies effective strategies that faculty have used to help New Majority students—those from minority, immigrant, or disadvantaged backgrounds—build the necessary skills to succeed in college. As the proportion of New Majority students rises, there is increased attention to helping them gain access to college. Once enrolled, however, these students often face significant challenges of adjustment, with few resources for support. Specifically, there is little attention to students’ experiences within their college classrooms and their relationships with professors. At the same time, faculty who work with these students have little guidance on how to help them adjust to new expectations and identities as they engage with college-level work.
 
Sister Kathleen A. Ross, a MacArthur fellow and president emerita of Heritage University, has devoted three decades to helping New Majority students get college degrees. Based on an action-research project undertaken at Heritage University and Yakima Valley Community College in Washington State, the book highlights eleven strategies to encourage student success, including: asking questions in class; navigating the syllabus; and developing an academic identity. Written in a warm, down-to-earth voice, Breakthrough Strategies is infused with the belief that faculty can become a powerful resource for students, and that classroom instruction can be an important vehicle for supporting these students’ development and success.
 

About this title

About the Author

Kathleen A. Ross is President Emerita and Professor of Cross-Cultural Communication at Heritage University, a four-year institution that she founded with two Yakama Indian women in 1982 and led for twenty-eight years. Located in Toppenish on the Yakama Nation Reservation in central Washington State, Heritage University started with 75 students and has grown into a fully accredited, independent university with 1,200 students and more than 8,000 four-year and master degree graduates. Today its undergraduates are approximately 10 percent Native American, 55–60 percent Latino/a, 85 percent first-generation, and more than 80 percent low-income. Dr. Ross has served on many boards including the Congressional Advisory Committee on Student Financial Aid, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), and the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (the regional accreditation body). Currently she serves as director of Heritage University’s Institute for Student Identity and Success, focused on increasing retention and graduation for first-generation students. She holds a masters degree from Georgetown University (history), and a doctorate from Claremont Graduate University (higher education and cross-cultural communication). Her work has received recognition in the form of numerous awards, including the Harold W. McGraw Education Prize (1989), a MacArthur Fellowship (1997), and fourteen honorary doctorates. In 2012 she celebrated her Golden Jubilee (fifty years) as a Sister of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary (SNJM). She currently lives in Toppenish, Washington, with two other Holy Names Sisters.

From the Back Cover

Sister Kathleen A. Ross has devoted three decades to helping New Majority students—those from minority, immigrant, or disadvantaged backgrounds—get college degrees. In this book she describes eleven effective strategies to encourage students to build the necessary skills to succeed in college. Written in a warm, down-to-earth voice, Breakthrough Strategies is infused with the belief that faculty can become a powerful resource for students, and that classroom instruction can be an important vehicle for supporting these students’ development and success.

“Kathleen Ross offers practical advice on how to create truly diverse, equitable, and inclusive experiences for all students. This book is a valuable primer for busy faculty and staff who care deeply about their students. There are lessons here for all of us.”
—Judith A. Ramaley, president emerita and distinguished professor of public service, Portland State University
 
“Sister Kathleen Ross provides a clear and relatable guide for teaching New Majority students whose backgrounds and perspectives are often different from those shared by classroom leaders and institutional decision makers. Informed by firsthand experience and research, the strategies provided in this book will enable others to become more empathetic and culturally competent educators who can unlock the unique strengths of today's students.”
—Scott Dalessandro, associate program officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
 
“Through her pioneering experience at Heritage College, Sister Kathleen teaches us how to harness the core power of diversity through the inclusion and engagement of students from the New Majority.  I recommend this book to anyone interested in leveraging the power of diversity to redefine college campuses around the world.”
—Scott L. Thomas, dean and professor, College of Education and Social Services, University of Vermont

Kathleen A. Ross is president emerita and professor of cross-cultural communication at Heritage University, a four-year institution that she founded in 1982 and led for twenty-eight years. Michelle Asha Cooper is president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy.
 

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard Education Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1612509975
• ISBN 13: 9781612509976
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240