Toward Reflective Admission Work

Journal of College Admission, Winter 2006 by Hicks, Mark A, Shere, Carla

Number 178 Winter 2003

Number 179 Spring 2003

Part I: Making the case for a Transformative Approach to Admission Practice and Reflection in Action

"I never really analyzed what 'white privilege' is and how it influences not only my work, but my life... I would not want my power as an admission counselor to cloud this... process."

We cannot separate our thinking from the experiences that shape our lives. The quote above brings this point to bear, and reminds us that the admission process-inherently value-rich and subjective-has great potential for doing harm. What happens when these views are not held in check, when the assumptions that guide our admission practices are rarely questioned or critiqued? This research project explores that problem with a particular view toward underrepresented students whose life and profile often do not match the life and profile of admission officers who recruit and select them.

Almost two years ago, we approached the National Association of College Admission Counseling (NACAC) and the admission staff at Fordham University in New York City with an idea. What would happen if an admission staff spent one year seriously engaged in a dialogue about issues of difference, power and access and considered the possibility that as a result of that dialogue, new thinking about issues of diversity could be found? Both NACAC and Fordham embraced the idea fully; the research project was funded by NACAC's Fund for the Future, now the Imagine Research Fund. For 12 months, all members of the staff met monthly in two-hour seminars, as well as smaller "Reflection Groups," challenged each other, and sought to find ways to think about how their life experiences shape and influence their work.

Fordham's admission staff, deeply embedded in the rich diversity of New York City, has a long Jesuit-inspired history of inclusive practices. Still, each staffer wanted to do more. Far too many of Fordham's ethnic minority students, for example, are commuters who tend to not participate in campus life with the same vigor as non-commuters. And, like most universities, the university struggles to maintain a balance of students who represent the demographic exceptionalities of life, such as ethnicity and race, geographic orientation, spiritual traditions, sexual orientation, and socio-economic class. But, as we know, the struggle to recruit a "diverse class" is fraught with difficulties. Historians of minority recruitment quickly admit that while universities have made great strides over the past 30 years, most campuses fail to robustly represent the populations that surround their campus and/or region. Why is that so?

Many universities strive for a demographic threshold where ethnic/racial students represent 10 percent of the university. However, even achieving that benchmark rarely changes the culture of the campus. For, in essence, that 10 percent translates into one or two Latinos on a residence hall floor; or the gay student who feels isolated and threatened in a culture of open homophobia; or a lone black student who is embarrassed and infuriated by a history professor's misguided musings on American slavery; or the rural, working class student who feels oppressed by the elitist disposition of his/her peers. Indeed, as universities attempt to create more dynamic environments on their campuses, they tend to do so in traditional ways, never thinking about how their interpretation of "qualified" and "gifted" might keep underrepresented students away from their campuses in droves. After all, the personal interpretations of admission officers' views become the realities with which the university lives. This project, at its core, attempts to bring that error to light, and grapple with it openly.

In two separate but connected articles, we chart what happened when an admission office began a process of looking seriously at not only its rhetoric, but also how its value systems and understanding of self and the world influenced its work. This first paper explores the environment of the college admission staff, and how the culture of universities and standard admission practices makes recruiting and admitting a diverse student population difficult. It also reviews the Fordham admission staff's experience of talking about issues of diversity over 12 months of reflection and critical dialogue. Part II of this article leads to a synthesizing interpretation, showing how the staff's critical engagement of these issues led to new thinking and practices regarding the recruitment and admission of not only their underrepresented students, but candidates across their demographic spectrum.

The Admission Environment: Challenges and Possibilities

At first glance, one could easily argue that the primary purpose of the collegiate experience is to acquire an academic credential. Upon closer inspection, however, the purpose of the university is much broader, leading to confusion over the meaning and purpose of higher education (Lucas, 1994). For instance, institutions also serve social purposes, reproducing and transmitting ideological stances on topics such as religion, a range of perspectives on gender and gender roles, social capital, and economic status, to name a few (Bowles and Gintis, 1976; Bourdieu 1977; Holland and Eisenhart, 1990; MacLeod, 1995). Through their curriculum and social policies, universities also poise themselves to redress social ills that haunt our society (Giroux, 1988; Darder, 1991; Bowen and Bok, 1998). Even in the midst of these sometimes conflicting aims, institutions of higher learning forge ahead and envision their particular conception of the ideal graduate. Admission officers then act as agents of the university, discerning credentials in order to make decisions that are consistent with institutional values.