Experiences from Black Alumnae at Predominantly White Institutions: Did They Thrive?
Dr. Bridget Kelly and current students Megan Segoshi, Lauren Adams and Alyscia Raines recently presented at the 2015 Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Conference in Denver, CO. The topic, Experiences from Black Alumnae at Predominantly White Institutions: Did They Thrive? focused on Black alumnae through a thriving framework to shed light on how students with multiple marginalized identities experience the PWI environment. Black females comprise 16.6% of female undergraduate students, and only 43.3% of those Black females at four year institutions graduate within six years. This graduation rate has not changed since first measured nationally in 2002, when it was 43% for Black females entering in the class of 1996 (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). Within the larger enrollment and high graduation rate success story of Black female college students, we ask the question, are they thriving? It is not only important that students, such as Black females, who have been historically underserved by PWIS, enroll and graduate, but also that they achieve the “kind of holistic development that is one of the major goals of a college education” (Schreiner, 2014, p. 11).