Running Head: SERVING MIXED RACE STUDENTS ON CAMPUS

Serving Mixed Race Students on Campus

Benjamin R. Cardenas
September 2016

Introduction

Colleges and Universities are at an interesting crossroads in how to assist students within

minority groups. Some institutions of higher education take an approach to reach out to
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individual minority groups in order to help with retention efforts and program for the specific

needs of the minority group. Other institutions take a different approach where instead of having

a different race oriented student services, they have an umbrella office that programs for many

different racial groups. Both approaches to race oriented student services have merits and

downfalls, however, either service may have trouble reaching mixed race students. Mixed race

students are a growing population nationwide and our current forms of race oriented student

services may not be fully equipped to help.

Currently there is not enough research on the growing population of mixed race students.

Research is becoming more regular on the topics of minority student success and retention in

higher education, along with the slew of research present on college students that was founded

on white students, a massive gap has now formed with the lack of research on mixed race college

students. A goal of the study is to find ways for the current practices set up by colleges and

universities can be adjusted in order to better serve the population of mixed race college students

across the nation.

Taking a deeper look at what mixed race college student go through on a college campus

shows how this population may have difficulty developing their identity within peer groups

across campus. Some individuals may seek race oriented student services in order to find

camaraderie and resources to help with a students unique journey through higher education.

Students who do not find a sense of community or a peer group are at a higher chance to transfer

or even drop out of an institution of higher education. Creating an environment where students

are comfortable creating peer groups and communities is one of the ways that a college or

university can work to increase retention towards any student population. Colleges and

universities across the nation have come to the point where they are having trouble retaining
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students as whole, with an imbalance of students coming from the minority populations. In order

to combat the trend of a failing to retain minority and mixed race college students, we must look

to the research that is being done on assisting and retaining our students of color in the higher

education space.

In order to better service our students of color institutions need to take a look at the

services provided and evaluate how they can improve. How our current higher education system

stands there are two camps that can either choose to remain the same, or become creative and

take a solid stance to retain the students who may need it most. The two different camps that are

prominent in our nation is to either provide; different race oriented student service locations,

based on perceived student need, or to have a center charged with helping all demographics

within the umbrella of diversity and inclusion. Both ideas have great intentions, but help in

different ways and serve different populations. This study will serve as a way for colleges and

universities to further analyze their current method of helping retain minority and mixed race

college students, and find ways to improve their current practices.

Literature Review

One of the most unique ideas attached to the mixed race population is that it is only able

to grow due to its unique population. The idea of being more than one race can only be

expounded upon as anytime someone from this population has a child, the child will come from

at least two different races, as at least one of the parents are from two different demographics.

With this exponentially growing population, it is alarming that services have not been started to

assist the identity development of the population. According to data from the 2000 United

States Census; 2. 6 percent of respondents reported more than one race, this population also is

on the rise as the population that identifies as more than one race grows as you look at the
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younger populations (Jones, 2005). These populations are starting to enter the age of graduating

from primary education systems in our country, and are ready for the higher education sector.

In order to look at several perspectives on the topic of mixed race college students and

issues, research was focused on a few different areas for particular reasons. First, research was

analyzed on the population that identifies as mixed or more than one race on a demographic

level. Then research was analyzed regarding the identity development of students who fall into

the category of a mixed race college student, which has two different sectors to be fleashed out to

determine the needs of the student. Lastly, research was evaluated based on what current

institutions were doing in within the realm of race oriented student services to see what

applications can be used to service mixed race college students.

Mixed Race Student Social Identity Development and Retention

Starting in the 1960s colleges and universities started a new idea to help service and

represent their students of color, by starting race oriented student services (Literte, 2010). These

services aimed to provide some representation and voice to students who may not of had a

positive experience in the college setting in the past. Colleges and universities have put together

thousands of programs in order to encourage students to buy-in to the college or university

they are attending. From nationally recognized athletic programs, to world renowned and

historical educational programs, and concerts from the top artists in the world, a student that has

a social reason to stay at an institution is more likely to do so. Several of the programs that a

college or university uses are meant to connect students with others so they have a sense of home

within a college or university. Students that become involved within some of the high impact

practices implemented by institutions of higher education are more likely to persist through

graduation (Price and Tovar 2014).

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The mixed race college student population is just like any other student population when

it comes to environmental factors that impact identity development. Multicultural students also

have a tendency to rely on peer influences in order to develop themselves. Peer culture is a

critical aspect of multiracial students identity development (Renn, 2008). This peer culture

influence is a common experience for students from a multicultural background that could

expound past the category of race and ethnicity. Physical spaces can also have a large impact on

a student's identity development. The people and areas that a student surrounds themselves with

can be a large factor that a biracial or multiracial student uses when trying to connect to others

and develop their identity. Areas that serve to help multicultural students, such as race oriented

student student services can assist to provide students a sense of empowerment and social

mobility within their development as well. The physical space that is created among a peer

groups and race oriented can help contribute to how a student is able to develop a biracial

identity (Banks, 2008). The struggle that is attached to mixed race college students in terms of

identity is that there are limited resources as they may not identify with an individual

demographic.

Internal Identity development

The thought that a student is unsure how to balance their identity is not uncommon with

all of the intersectionalities that can be attributed to a persons identity. Now, imagine having an

intersectionality within one element of a persons identity. The intersectionality of race can bring

up different emotions from not only the individual involved, but the perception of others. Taking

a look at the interpretation of a mixed race individual is based on the idea of the one drop rule.

The one drop rule is the oppressive idea that anyone who has a drop of blood that is not white

cannot be considered white, and is attributed to the minority population, no matter the percent.
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The idea came from post civil war era with the abolishment of slavery in the United States

(Davis, 2001; Payson, 1996). The idea of the one drop rule is just one of the many issues that

a mixed race individual must overcome in the journey to self identify. Another unique factor that

mixed race individuals face steams from the mixed messages they can receive from their own

parents. Early research outlined a potential that mixed race students have a four potential ways

to come to terms with their own racial identity internally. The first is when an individual accepts

what is put forth by society as a racial identity. For example, if someone is mixed race and

appears to pass as a white individual and society labels them as white, they will see themselves

as white even if the majority of their blood is another demographic. The second option if for a

mixed race individual to identify with both or all racial groups that they fall into. This option

favors those who are biracial. The third option is for an individual to identify with one racial

group. What sets this option apart from the second group is that the self identification comes

regardless of societal pressures. Therefore, if someone is publicly recognized as white, and they

identify as hispanic they may choose to solely self identify as hispanic. The last option is to

maintain a fluid identity, possibly as identifying within a mixed or biracial space in some groups,

and identifying as a minority or majority population depending on the social space (Root, 1990).

Taking both the social and individual spaces into consideration, colleges and universities are now

being charged to come up with resources for these students.

Current Practices

With the national prominence of race oriented student services there are mainly two

different physical spaces that can help guide multicultural students. The first is to provide

smaller individual diverse spaces to fit multicultural students needs for predominant populations

on campus, such as hispanic/latino, black, or asian populations. These centers may encourage
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students from all backgrounds to utilize the spaces provided. The other idea is to provide a

center that has a purpose to serve any diverse student population. Each of these techniques will

be looked at further to weigh the perceived benefits and shortcomings.

When an institution chooses to implement race oriented student services that are

segmented into separate buildings by race, it can have a few different impacts on mixed race

students. One of the most salient ideas that can affect mixed race college students is that the

separate services may have an interesting impact on the peer group culture that a mixed race

student may have (Renn, 2008). As mentioned earlier there are different ways that a mixed race

college student may come to terms with their own identity if the student chooses to accept the

race that society places on them or chooses to only identify with one of the elements of their

racial identity, the student may be able to utilize the individual services. However if the student

embraces both sides of their identity they may feel pressured to avoid utilize the separate race

oriented student services.

With a combined program of race oriented student services that are all hosted under one

roof, students face a new set of opportunities and challenges. The idea of having multiple

services within the same complex can offer students who may not have the deepest

understanding of their racial identity an opportunity to seek out programs and information about

their own identities. One issue that may come up however, is that these centers may develop a

culture around specific programs that could be geared for a specific population. If that culture

develops students may feel that the resource is not available for them to use. This may cause

students to feel othered or left behind if they do not fit within that population, including mixed

race college students.

Methods
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Research Design:

To assess the satisfaction, utilization, and need, a number of interviews will be set up

with students from a wide span of student populations; such as race, gender and class standing.

Using interviews will allow the researcher to gain more insight in what fully impacts the students

that would most likely use race oriented student services. As this study will not focus on

qualitative research, and will utilize open ended question it is important that the interview

process takes at least 30 minutes per interview. Apart from the individual interview questions the

interviewer will reserve the opportunity to ask any follow up questions in order to gather further

information that may not have been conceptualized prior to an interview taking place. The

interviews will be recorded so the information collected can remain as close to what the

interviewee said. After the recording the information collected will be transcribed and coded

based on the themes that will be established once the interview process is complete.

Participants:

The population of participants will be collected based on a convenience sample from

several universities across the United States. The students will be contacted based on prior

involvement within a race oriented student service. These students could be those who expressed

interest within a center, or attended a program, or a student who could have been recommended

to get involved within a race oriented student service. The target number for the study is to have

at least ten (10) students from the main regions of the united states: being eastern United States,

Western United States, Southern United States, and Central United States. This will hopefully

give some insight on how the resources are being used nationwide.

Procedure:
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Two different methods will take place during the interview process as some will take

place over computer mediated communication. For students that will interview in person;

participants will first be given an informed consent form and it will be read out loud for the

recording in order to make sure the participant has several opportunities to be informed prior and

during the interview process. The interview will then begin with the voice recorder still

activated, the interviewer will still be taking notes in order to easily highlight the most important

information about the interview. The researcher will then code all of the information into a few

different categories such as resource utilization, resource satisfaction, overall experience at

institution, and recommendations for improvement. Once all of the information is coded, the

researcher will look for trends and themes within the information collected in order to find more

categories for further research. After all of the themes and trends are collected, they will be

analyzed and compiled to put forth formal recommendations for all colleges and universities that

are looking to adjust their race oriented student services. Once the recommendations are

finalized, a program will be attempted to be implemented in order to assist colleges and

universities through the process, as coming up with a list of recommendations and actually

implementing the recommendations are completely different entities altogether.

Ethical Implications:

During the start of the process of completing the student the racial climate within the

United States education system was optimistically positive. However, since the presidential

election results in November several students of color have noticed a change in racial climate for

the worse. From feelings of lack of support to students experiencing blatant forms of racism

even to the point of assault. Because of this recent change, it can cause a change to the ethical

implications of the study. Students of color may feel that they are not able to express their own
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racial identity out of fear. This may cause students to feel that they are not comfortable talking

about some of the issues that can come about when talking about their personal identity. Even

with the information remaining confidential, students may feel pressured to express some themes

more than others. This could cause some variations to the internal validity of the study from the

biases of the people that will be interviewed. Interviewers may also be distracted to help the

students that may be experiencing feelings of distress, which can cause more internal biases

which could again hurt the validity of the study.

In order to make all parties as comfortable as possible when taking part in the study, all

names and institutions will be hidden when reporting and recording all data from this study.

Students will be encouraged to talk to any of the researchers present to make them the most

eager to share their experiences when using race oriented student services. After all identifying

information has been hidden all information will remain within a private document which only

the head researcher will have access to in order to have the most security as possible.

Timeline

With this undertaking the entire project should take the entire course of two standard

academic semesters and some of the summer season. In order to get the most complete results

the study should take place during the spring semester. That way students would have had the

opportunity to complete some of the programs and experience an entire semesters worth of

content from a race oriented student services. The spring semester should also be chosen to not

limit the possible students that have participated in one of the race oriented student services. If

the study were to take place in the fall semester, it would be difficult to utilize first year students

to take part in the study as they would not have the same level of experience at the college as the

students who have been there an entire year.

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The researcher will have to start reaching out to colleagues and students who may be

interested in the study during the fall to make sure there are enough participants to keep it a

nationwide study as opposed to a more regionally focused one. The process to recruit

individuals to help should take the entire first semester, along with formulating all of the

question sets, trends and setting up spreadsheets for trends and other data that will be collected.

The first six weeks of the spring semester should be utilized in order to get as much of the

interviews completed as possible. Once the interviews are complete the rest of the semester

should be used to complete the findings, coding, analysis, and the reporting. After those steps

are complete the summer semester should be used to develop a program in order to have an

easier way for institutions to know how to implement the recommendations outlined in the

findings of the study.

References:

Banks, W. L., Jr. (2008). Biracial student voices: Experiences at predominantly white
institutions (Order No. 3405199). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I;
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (89262382). Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/89262382?accountid=12846

Davis, F. J. (2001). Who is black? One nations definition. University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press.

Jones, N. A., & Smith, A. S. (2001). The two or more races population: 2000. Census 2000 Brief.
Washington, DC: US Census Bureau

Literte, P. E.(2010). Revising Race: How Biracial Students are Changing and Challenging
Student Services. Journal of College Student Development 51(2), 115-134. The Johns
Hopkins University Press. Retrieved April 25, 2016, from Project MUSE database.

Payson, K. E. (1996). Check one box: Reconsidering directive no. 15 and the classification of
mixed-race people. California Law Review, 84,(4), 1233-1291.
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Renn, K. A. (2008). Research on biracial and multiracial identity development:

Overview and synthesis. New Directions for Student Services, 2008(123), 13-21.
doi:10.1002/ss.282

Renn, K. A.(2003). Understanding the Identities of Mixed-Race College Students

Through a Developmental Ecology Lens.Journal of College Student Development44(3),
383-403. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved April 25, 2016, from Project
MUSE database.

Renn, K. A.(2000). Patterns of Situational Identity Among Biracial and Multiracial

College Students. The Review of Higher Education 23(4), 399-420. The Johns Hopkins
University Press. Retrieved April 25, 2016, from Project MUSE database.