Examining the impact of institutional integration and cultural integrity on sense of belonging to predict Intention to persist for Native American students at non-native colleges and universities

Higher education scholars have examined various factors affecting student retention, yet few scholars have focused on Native American student persistence. The purpose of this study is to examine the contributions of institutional integration and cultural integrity to Native American college students' sense of belonging within the campus community and their intention to persist. This quantitative multi-institutional research design used Tinto's (1987; 1993) theory of student departure and Hurtado and Carter's (1997) sense of belonging model as guiding frameworks to explore the issue of sense of belonging and intention to persist. The researcher utilized the North American Indigenous College Student Inventory (Marroquin & McCoach, 2014) to measure cultural integrity and the Institutional Integration Scale-Revised (French & Oakes, 2004) to measure institutional integration. Results of the regression analyses showed that institutional integration and cultural integrity contributed significantly to Native American students' sense of belonging. Furthermore, sense of belonging predicts, although not to a large extent, intention to persist for Native American college students. This study revealed that social support and peer-group interaction are the most significant factors contributing to sense of belonging for Native American college students. In addition, staff support and lack of social isolation were also significant contributors to sense of belonging. This study expands the body of knowledge regarding the Native American college student experience, specifically helping shed light on factors contributing to their success. In addition, the results of this study can be used to help influence culturally relevant policies and practices for institutions and higher education professionals providing services for Native American college students

Transforming Departmental Culture: Empowering a Department through Appreciative Inquiry

This article outlines an appreciative inquiry (AI) into a departmental professional development process and describes the resulting implementation of an appreciative peer evaluation meeting as one part of the new professional development process. Using AI, a departmental faculty development committee sought to re-envision the professional development process. Also, the authors discuss how using AI can result in positive impacts for culture change and how the model for peer evaluation can promote both individual and collective development of faculty