This chapter puts forth a model of student-success-focused policy development at small colleges that elucidates the role of the institutional research (IR) professional, highlighting how the breadth of roles and responsibilities that IR professionals serve at these institutions intersect with traditional training and background.

This chapter offers a critical lens for examining intervention efficacy. It highlights a conceptual framework particularly relevant for understanding the experiences of underrepresented students and illustrates how such framing can explicate the mechanisms that impede or enhance successful intervention outcomes in STEM fields.

This article focuses specifically on one type of undergraduate intervention and its contribution to facilitating success for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM): the living-learning program (LLP). LLPs are a type of learning community best described as curricular linkages designed to provide students with a deeper and…

Reviews many of the major programs seeking to increase college access among economically disadvantaged and at-risk students. Evaluates the potential of these programs while stressing four conditions that effective programs must meet. (Author/EV)

The vast amount of research conducted on student persistence over the past thirty years is indicative of the continuing and evolving interest in retention of students. Framed through multiple perspectives, this retention research is driven by the fact that more students leave institutions without graduating, year after year. Much more than an…