Virginia Commonwealth University Professional Bulletin

Professional programs bulletin for Virginia Commonwealth University for the academic year 2018-2019. It includes information on academic regulations, degree requirements, course offerings, faculty, academic calendar, and tuition and expenses for graduate programs

Aligning Best Practices in Student Success and Career Preparedness: An Exploratory Study to Establish Pathways to STEM Careers for Undergraduate Minority Students

Undergraduate minority retention and graduation rates in STEM disciplines is a nationally recognized challenge for workforce growth and diversification. The Benjamin Banneker Scholars Program (BBSP) was a five-year undergraduate study developed to increase minority student retention and graduation rates at an HBCU. The program structure utilized a family model as a vehicle to orient students to the demands of college. Program activities integrated best K-12 practices and workforce skillsets to increase academic preparedness and career readiness. Findings revealed that a familial atmosphere improved academic performance, increased undergraduate research, and generated positive perceptions of faculty mentoring. Retention rates among BBSP participants averaged 88% compared to 39% among non-participant STEM peers. The BBSP graduation rate averaged 93% compared to 20% for non-participants. BBSP participants were more likely to gain employment in a STEM field or enter into a professional study. This paper furthers the body of research on STEM workforce diversity and presents a transferrable model for other institutions

Preparing Youth for College and Career: A Process Evaluation of Urban Alliance

Urban Alliance, headquartered in Washington, DC, serves at-risk youth through its high school internship program, which provides training, mentoring, and work experience to high school seniors from distressed communities in Washington, DC; Baltimore; Northern Virginia; and Chicago. The program serves youth before they become disconnected, helping them successfully transition to higher education or employment after graduation. Urban Alliance has commissioned the Urban Institute to conduct a six-year, randomized controlled trial impact and process evaluation of its high school internship program. This report provides a process analysis of the program; the analysis is informed by extensive evaluator observation and interviews with staff, stakeholders, and youth. It also presents baseline information about Urban Alliance and the youth participating in its high school internship program in Washington, DC, and Baltimore in the 2011–12 and 2012–13 program years. Subsequent reports as part of the impact study will describe the early-adulthood impacts of the Urban Alliance internship program on the youth it serves. Below is a summary of the findings in this first of three reports

Lessons Learned from Development of a Software Tool to Support Academic Advising

We detail some lessons learned while designing and testing a decision-theoretic advising support tool for undergraduates at a large state university. Between 2009 and 2011 we conducted two surveys of over 500 students in multiple majors and colleges. These surveys asked students detailed questions about their preferences concerning course selection, advising, and career paths. We present data from this study which may be helpful for faculty and staff who advise undergraduate students. We find that advising support software tools can augment the student-advisor relationship, particularly in terms of course planning, but cannot and should not replace in-person advising.Comment: 5 Figures, revised version including more figures and cross-referencin

Relationships, Rigor, and Readiness: Strategies for Improving High Schools

This report offers lessons from the last in a series of three high school reform conferences sponsored by MDRC, the Council of the Great City Schools, and the National High School Alliance. This conference in June 2007 brought together leaders from 22 midsize school districts to describe their reform initiatives and to discuss ways in which research and evaluation can inform and complement school change

Law School as a Consumer Product: Beat \u27em or Join \u27em

With rising costs, pressure on performance metrics, and competitive high-profile rankings, law schools are more than ever before being judged on a consumer satisfaction basis by both students and the public. While this perception has been growing over the past two decades, it has reached a crisis point in legal education.1 Courts have been more readily viewing the policies and practices of educational institutions as that of a customer-provider relationship and seeking ways to enforce solutions to the problems they see regarding the product sold.2 The growing trend of treating education as a consumer product that is sold to students has forced courts to consider contract claims by students and has shaped the policies of educational institutions nationwide.3 The connection between consumerism and higher education scrutiny has been explored for quite some time.4 Some have theorized that law schools are leading the way in being scrutinized from this perspective and that universities as a whole can learn from their experiences.5 When students have their choice of educational institutions, they may act like consumers and choose to spend their money based on metrics that satisfy them as buyers. This consumer mindset does not only impact admissions, but also can affect the retention of students.6 The loss of students who transfer out can take a serious toll on a law school, including potential detriments to bar passage, productive classrooms, the loss of future high performing alumni, and the cost of replacing tuition generation.7 Schools are thus currently pressured to address the consumer issue. Many of the conflicts that arise between students, as consumers, and their institutions are not necessarily based in the substance of rules. Instead, much of the complaints stem from the institutions’ transparency and communication about various aspects of the educational experience, from the classroom to students’ prospects on the job market. As such, institutions should consider the student perspective in formulating how they present their program of education and the various aspects within it. While others have questioned outright whether college students are consumers,8 this article will not debate whether law students treat their institutions with a consumer mindset. It presumes they do and instead seeks to solve the problem for institutions. Part II of this article will summarize how this mindset arose in education—specifically how it arose in legal education—and will examine previous conflicts between students and institutions as a result. Part III will examine different areas of law school operations where traditional academic mindsets and student-consumer mindsets may clash, and offers solutions and strategies as to where and how the consumer pressure should be embraced to make institutional change, and where it should be resisted to ensure the consumer pressure does not result in changes that are not in students’ best long-term interests. Part IV offers some conclusions on the approach

The Relationship between Financial Literacy, Financial Status, and Academic Success in College Students

As the cost of college continues to rise, an increasing number of students are relying on loans and credit cards to fund their postsecondary education. In an effort to curb student debt and increase retention and graduation rates, many universities have begun to offer financial literacy initiatives to stimulate financial knowledge and promote positive money management behaviors. This study examines the relationship between a for-credit personal financial literacy course and student academic success and economic status. Students who took a personal finance course during their first or second year of college are compared to a random sampling of students who did not take the course. Using archival data, this quantitative study measures retention and graduation rates, college GPA, and loan amounts for between and within group differences. Significant differences were found between the two groups on first- and second-year retention rates, four-year graduation rates, and final college GPA. Students who took the personal finance course were 11.7% more likely to return to the university after their first year of college as compared to those who did not take the course. Second-year retention rates also were higher for the finance course condition students (88%) as compared to non-finance course students (66%). Mean college GPA was significantly higher for finance course participants (3.24) at the end of their last semester of enrollmen