Watson, L. W., Terrell, M. C., Wright, D. J., Bonner, F. A., Cuyjet, M. J., Gold, J. A., et al. (2002). How Minority Students Experience College: Implications for Planning and Policy. Reviewed by Paul Ruiz, Arizona State University

Watson, L. W., Terrell, M. C., Wright, D. J., Bonner, F. A., Cuyjet, M. J., Gold, J. A., et al. (2002). How Minority Students Experience College: Implications for Planning and Policy. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing Pp. 160         ISBN 1579220495 Reviewed by Paul Ruiz Arizona State University March 7, 2009 Racial equality has long been a struggle for American minorities throughout the history of this country. Even as minority groups have overcome adversity and gained equal rights, they continue to be marginalized. The smaller numbers of minority populations along with historical impediments have caused minority populations to be less represented on college campuses across the country. This under-representation contributes to a lack of cultural awareness and the "tokenization" of those students. How Minorities Experience College: Implications for Planning and Policy focuses on identifying the similarities among predominately white institutions that retain a high number of minority students. Aiming to inform presidents, academic affairs professionals, student affair professionals, and other leaders in higher education, the authors attempt to increase awareness through a discussion of the atmosphere on small liberal arts colleges across America. The book is focused on identifying the strengths of multicultural college campuses. The volume begins with a strong introduction discussing the aims of the research. The questions posed by the researcher and definitions provided, of terms specific to the study, offer the reader a clear understanding of the scope of the research. The discussion regarding the motives of the researchers effectively conveys the necessity of identifying the practices of universities, which experience high retention rates of minority students. Employing a qualitative approach, researchers examined the responses of minority students attending seven small liberal arts colleges with a small number of minority students. The authors began their discussion with an assessment of the mission statements and demographic information of the participating institutions. Although the authors do provide a discussion of the universities and the size of the communities in which they are located, the valuable discussion of the atmosphere of those same communities is never introduced. The authors describe the design of the study including selection processes for universities and students, instrumentation, and data management and analysis strategies. The book begins well written as an academic publication, incorporating easy to understand language for any individual interested in understanding and achieving a more diverse student population at a university. Following the introduction and discussion of the research design, the engaged reader anticipates a discussion of the progressive policies and practices implemented at the seven participating universities, followed by an examination of the inadequate practices and policies implemented in other institutions, and perhaps a discussion of how to bridge the two. Unfortunately the authors do not participate in any of these discussions throughout the remainder of the book. Rather the authors devote the majority of the remaining chapters to the responses of the student participants. The student responses do provide insight into the true perceptions of the student participants. However, there is no mention of implications for future planning, the revision or development of new policy, or recommendations for more effective practices. Further the student narratives which consume the remaining chapters run contrary to expectations of the reader. Rather than comments by students reporting on the strengths of the practices in their respective universities and the comfort minority students enjoy as a result of the universities progressive approach, the student responses identify the overestimation of the university’s diverse atmosphere. The authors use the incongruence to discuss the need for improved planning and policies in every institution. The authors employ a conceptually clustered matrix as identified by Miles and Huberman (1994) to organize student responses to the six themes identified by researchers. The themes include an examination of: campus culture, the perception of the campus and its mission, the lack of diversity in professors, student coping and self beliefs, the campuses perception of students, and student involvement. The cluster provided to depict the data from the interviews, offers only one students comment for each of the themes from each college. In the subsequent chapters, the researchers do provide more of the student’s responses, however they offer very little additional relevant information. In an effort to insure anonymity, the authors do not report the ethnicity of the respondents nor do they provide a rationale for how they chose which responses were incorporated into the discussion. The identification of the cultures of the participants would provide the reader a greater understanding of issues specific to one minority group or common to all. The recognition of issues and perceptions among minority students provides colleges valuable information on the atmosphere within these populations. However, the researchers do not identify which issues are relevant specifically to minority students. The current study in an effort to identify perceptions and difficulties among minority students may perhaps include difficulties experienced by the entire student body. Identifying perceptions of the Anglo students on the various campuses would have allowed the researcher to remove difficulties common to all college students and more accurately distinguish issues specific to minorities, providing the reader with valuable information. Throughout the discussion and assessment of the study, the authors include no mention of the background information, previous college experience, if participants were first generation college students, analysis of data on the ethnicity of respondents, or general themes pertaining to participants' attitudes. Including statistical analyses of the data collected throughout the research would have added richness to the study. Identifying and providing the reader with the amount of congruent responses provided by the participants both in support and disagreement of common practices would serve to identify common themes among specific minority groups. Also, identifying the cultural background of the students would serve the reader well in understanding whether specific minority groups held similar views of the school atmosphere. This information would help to determine if colleges were successful at promoting a more comfortable environment among specific minority groups. The authors also made no mention of the analysis of specific policies in place or practices common to the universities promoting a more diverse environment. With a motivation to identify the successful practices of universities retaining a high number of minority students, one would expect a greater discussion of university policies than a brief examination of the mission statements. The authors replace statistical data on student responses to support claims regarding the climate on university campuses with terms such as “a number of students provided...,” “several categories cited…,” and “numerous respondents provided….” By incorporating a mixed method approach, the researchers could have provided the reader with a greater overview of the severity of the cultural diversity issues and subsequent student perceptions common to America’s university campuses. The title of the book leads the reader to believe that the authors have identified specific examples of similar policies and procedures implemented in colleges across America which require revision. Rather the reader is left with an understanding that minority students across the country do not feel comfortable in America’s colleges. With an intended purpose of increasing successful strategies implemented in some universities, the study better serves to identify the severe lack of accommodations, support, and cultural awareness common to college campuses across the country when dealing with minority college students. The authors could have done much to incorporate additional discussion to create a more informative argument and develop a greater picture of the severity of inadvertent discrimination and the need to adjust policy and implement programs to help make students comfortable in these institutions. Reference Miles, M. B., & Humberman, A. M., (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. About the Reviewer Paul Ruiz is a PhD student in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Arizona State University. His interests lie in the patters of enrollment among minority students within higher education and in identifying themes and strategies used by institutions of higher learning to recruit and facilitate the success of these students. He has worked as a professional in the educational field for over six years in a variety of positions ranging from teacher, mentor, and instructional specialist.