"They've Been Good to Me": Transforming a Black Girl Transfer's Experience Through a Science Program

• In Event: Examining Black Girls' Educational Experiences Across Three Differing Contexts

Abstract

Successful integration into college life impacts retention and degree attainment (Townsend & Wilson, 2006; Wang, 2020). While this is the case for all students, approaches to increasing integration at four-year institutions are designed for students for whom it is their first time in any college neglecting transfers from two-year colleges (TYCs). Women of color of modest economic means and who are the children of parents who did not attend or graduate college face challenges requiring deliberately constructed supports (White, 2016). We examine how a residential Natural Science Scholars (NSS) program offers those supports for Jenny who transferred from a TYC through relational, material, and ideational (identity) resources (Nasir & Cooks, 2009).
Jenny is a Black woman who earned three associate’s degrees before completing two years at a large, predominately white, four-year university. Her past navigating chronic illness inspired her to double major in Human Biology and Sociology to eventually return home to practice medicine. Jenny’s case is part of a larger project studying self-efficacy, identity, and mindset for TYC transfer students. We adopted a single case study methodology to understand Jenny’s uptake of the identity resources available through the NSS program. Jenny’s is a telling case (Mitchell, 1984) pushing the limits of our understanding about the entanglement of identity and self-efficacy while helping us understand how institutional programming can improve both. Data across two years include two semi-structured interviews, journal entries, survey responses, observations, and audio reflections. Nasir and Cooks (2009) conceptualization of identity resources guides the analysis for understanding how the NSS transformed her integration into university life.
Our analysis revealed that the NSS adequately supported Jenny through identity resources. Jenny’s TYC sufficiently provided resources to build her professional identity and self-efficacy, but she needed support building identity and self-efficacy as a student and valued member of the university community. The NSS’s thoughtful approach both helped to shrink the university and provided a support system that mirrored the family and community connections from her TYC. Jenny found her “family” in the NSS program, describing it as a type of surrogate family speaking of the program’s Black co-directors as knowledgeable and supportive elders and her NSS peers as siblings. NSS provided Jenny a scholarship and a job as a program ambassador and peer mentor to relieve financial stress while also positively positioning in the community. The NSS program provided identity resources to support Jenny navigating the complex racial and socioeconomic terrain at the university and its space in the residence hall and the composition of NSS students fostered a sense of connection and de-escalated the racial tensions she felt pre-NSS. Jenny perceived that, while there are broader problems with racism present at the university, the NSS upheld the university’s creed regarding anti-Blackness and belongingness.
Transfer students who live at the intersection of race, gender, class, and ability have much to offer yet remain under-supported. Understanding how university programs like the NSS serves these students, which this study does, is crucial for both sustaining their presence on campus.

Authors

• Missy D. Cosby, Michigan State University

• Xandria Raemyn Quichocho, Michigan State University