Digest No. 02 – March 2017 – CIC Digest of Recent Research

Digest No. 02 - March 2017

Campus Leadership and the Entrepreneurial University: A Dynamic Capabilities Perspective

In this article, Sohvi Leih and David Teece focus on the role of university presidents in positioning their universities for success through evolutionary fitness. Evolutionary fitness entails making necessary changes to give a college or university a competitive advantage and enhance its long-term performance. The authors contend that evolutionary fitness requires campus leaders to recognize opportunities, set priorities, execute wisely, and transform quickly. Put differently, evolutionary fitness requires dynamic capabilities that move institutions of higher education beyond excessive attention to political and social pressures, financial stability, efficiency, and accountability.

Family Friendly Policies in STEM Departments: Awareness and Determinants

Xuhong Su and Barry Bozeman evaluate family-friendly policies as mechanisms for equity and inclusion among faculty members. Family-friendly policies work to “level the playing field” in the recruitment and retention of women and minority faculty members. A level playing field is particularly important for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments where women and minorities are underrepresented among the faculty ranks.

Investigating Grit as a Non-Cognitive Predictor of College Success

In this article, Patrick Akos and Jen Kretchmar center their attention on whether grit, a non-cognitive factor, can improve the predictability of first-year grade point average beyond the influence of high school grades and standardized test scores. These authors point out that admissions officers typically use measures of cognitive ability (standardized test scores) and academic achievement (high school grades) to determine which applicants are most likely to succeed.

Are There Cognitive Consequences of Binge Drinking During College?

Teniell L. Trolian, Brian P. An, and Ernest T. Pascarella found that the influence of binge drinking during college depends on the students’ entry level of critical thinking. More specifically, those students who entered college with lower levels of critical thinking ability experienced the negative effects of binge drinking during college. The authors put this finding into sharp perspective by stating “binge drinking during college functioned to exacerbate further the cognitive deficit of students who started college with the least well-developed critical thinking skills” (p. 1021).

Life Happens Outside of College: Non-College Life-Events and Students’ Likelihood of Graduation

Bradley E. Cox, Robert D. Reason, and Samantha Nix contend that life events that occur outside of college may have implications for educational outcomes such as graduation from college. For this reason, Cox et al. assert, “college and university administrators have an inherent interest in understanding the effects of students’ life events outside of college” (p. 824). To shed light on the possible effects of non-college life events on student educational outcomes, the authors test the hypothesis that specific stressful non-college life events that occur while students are attending college detrimentally affect the likelihood of their graduation. The authors test this hypothesis using data collected from students at 28 selective colleges and universities that participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen. Liberal arts colleges are included in the group of 28 colleges and universities. This six-year study sample includes 3,914 students.

Homesickness at College: Its Impact on Academic Performance and Retention

Jie Sun, Linda Serra Hagedorn, and Yi Zhang ask the question: Does severe or intense homesickness of first-year college students negatively affect their academic performance and first-year persistence in college? The authors situate the problem of homesickness within the context of all the adjustments to college that students make during their first year. They note that students encounter many challenges such as living independently from their parents and making new friends. Sun et al. recognize that most first-year students experience some homesickness. Their concern, however, focuses on severe or intense homesickness that they contend negatively affects students socially and intellectually.

Cooling Out Undergraduates with Health Impairments: The Freshman Experience

Jamie M. Carroll, Chandra Muller, and Evangeleen Pattison ask the question: Are first-year college students with health impairments more likely to receive negative signals regarding their degree progress, academic fit, and educational expectations than students without health impairments? The authors consider two categories of health impairments—physical and mental. Physical impairments were defined as any noncognitive impairment to include sensory, orthopedic, or health issue, whereas mental impairments were defined as any cognitive impairment including learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder (ADD), depression, or emotional disturbances.