eBooks Monthly @ West Library

How to Succeed in College and Beyond is an insightful, inspired guide to the undergraduate experience that helps students balance the joy of learning with the necessity of career preparation. Features a wealth of advice for getting the most from an undergraduate education, especially in the areas of arts and humanities, written by an experienced educator and mentor. Covers the entire undergraduate experience, from high school preparation, applications, financial aid, each undergraduate year from freshman to senior, junior year abroad course selection, and extra-curricular activities, to independent study, honors essays, graduate school, dissertations, and career searches. Discusses the benefits of pursuing an arts and humanities degree including how to write effectively, speak articulately, and think critically and discusses how to balance the joy and practicality of education in terms of getting vocationally-focused qualifications. Packed with information that is as helpful to students as it is to their parents, teachers, and advisors, this guide is an indispensable resource for prospective and present undergraduates.

Fifty years ago, students who were parents were a rarity in college classrooms, but by the beginning of the twenty-first century, over a quarter of all undergraduate students were parents. In Back in School, A. Fiona Pearson explores how these student parents navigate cultural norms and institutional resources, forging pathways as they journey to become better parents and successful students. Back in School examines how policy makers, professors, college administrators, counselors, and social workers provide or deny access to child care, tutoring, financial aid, or other campus- or community-based resources. Pearson further explores how social norms and governmental and organizational policies influence access to these resources and student parents' experiences on campus and at home.

The STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) attract many students with autism, ADD, affective disorders and related invisible disabilities who are highly intelligent and analytical, but who, upon entering higher education, may find that they struggle with independent living and a different way of learning. This is a preparation guide for students and their families that explains everything they need to know about the university experience including classroom behavior, study skills, self-reliance, accessing support services, and when parents should and shouldn't get involved. Offering practical advice and strategies, this is a useful handbook that students can refer to again and again throughout their college years guiding them on their paths to becoming the inventors, scientists, engineers, and computer entrepreneurs of the future.

Voices of Asian Americans in Higher Education: Unheard Voices is a unique and historical book. Asian Americans are often portrayed as "model minority", yet their personal and educational experiences are often unheard. In this book, 10 Asian American educators and scholars present realistic pictures of America's higher education using personal narratives. The contributors in this book come from different regions and teach in different colleges and universities; and coincidentally, they all endure the "outsider" category formerly as students and now as professors and leaders. This "outsider" status can be emotionally overwhelming and psychologically unnerving. This status hampers opportunities for Asian Americans to grow and maximize their fullest potential. Though they develop different strategies to address their "outsider" label, it does not make it comfortable. But, time and time again, they have proven that they can succeed In this technological age, we must value unending truths as we educate ourselves and others. We hope that this book will be an educational and informational resource for students, administrators, and faculty in higher education and also educational policy makers and stakeholders.

In Learning to Be Latino, sociologist Daisy Verduzco Reyes paints a vivid picture of Latino student life at a liberal arts college, a research university, and a regional public university, outlining students' interactions with one another, with non-Latino peers, and with faculty, administrators, and the outside community. Reyes identifies the normative institutional arrangements that shape the social relationships relevant to Latino students' lives, including school size, the demographic profile of the student body, residential arrangements, the relationship between students and administrators, and how well diversity programs integrate students through cultural centers and retention centers. Together these characteristics create an environment for Latino students that influences how they interact, identify, and come to understand their place on campus.   Drawing on extensive ethnographic observations, Reyes shows how college campuses shape much more than students' academic and occupational trajectories; they mold students' ideas about inequality and opportunity in America, their identities, and even how they intend to practice politics.

This work marks a radical shift away from the pervasive focus on the challenges that Black male students face and the deficit rhetoric that often limits perspectives about them. Instead, Derrick R. Brooms offers reflective counter-narratives of success. Being Black, Being Male on Campus uses in-depth interviews to investigate the collegiate experiences of Black male students at historically White institutions. Framed through Critical Race Theory and Blackmaleness, the study provides new analysis on the utility and importance of Black Male Initiatives (BMIs). This work explores Black men's perceptions, identity constructions, and ambitions, while it speaks meaningfully to how race and gender intersect as they influence students' experiences.

WINNER of 2017 AERA DIVISION J OUTSTANDING PUBLICATION AWARD CHOICE 2017 Outstanding Academic Title This is both a personal book that offers an account of the author's own trans* identity and a deeply engaged study of trans* collegians that reveals the complexities of trans* identities, and how these students navigate the trans* oppression present throughout society and their institutions, create community and resilience, and establish meaning and control in a world that assumes binary genders. This book is addressed as much to trans* students themselves - offering them a frame to understand the genders that mark them as different and to address the feelings brought on by the weight of that difference - as it is to faculty, student affairs professionals, and college administrators, opening up the implications for the classroom and the wider campus. This book not only remedies the paucity of literature on trans* college students, but does so from a perspective of resiliency and agency. Rather than situating trans* students as problems requiring accommodation, this book problematizes the college environment and frames trans* students as resilient individuals capable of participating in supportive communities and kinship networks, and of developing strategies to promote their own success. Z Nicolazzo provides the reader with a nuanced and illuminating review of the literature on gender and sexuality that sheds light on the multiplicity of potential expressions and outward representations of trans* identity as a prelude to the ethnography Z conducted with nine trans* collegians that richly documents their interactions with, and responses to, environments ranging from the unwittingly offensive to explicitly antagonistic. The book concludes by giving space to the study's participants to themselves share what they want college faculty, staff, and students to know about their lived experiences. Two appendices respectively provide a glossary of vocabulary and terms to address commonly asked questions, and a description of the study design, offered as guide for others considering working alongside marginalized population in a manner that foregrounds ethics, care, and reciprocity.

"The organizing principle for this anthology is the common Native American heritage of its authors; and yet that thread proves to be the most tenuous of all, as the experience of indigeneity differs radically for each of them. While many experience a centripetal pull toward a cohesive Indian experience, the indications throughout these essays lean toward a richer, more illustrative panorama of difference. What tends to bind them together are not cultural practices or spiritual attitudes per se, but rather circumstances that have no exclusive province in Indian country: that is, first and foremost, poverty, and its attendant symptoms of violence, substance abuse, and both physical and mental illness.... Education plays a critical role in such lives: many of the authors recall adoring school as young people, as it constituted a place of escape and a rare opportunity to thrive.... While many of the writers do return to their tribal communities after graduation, ideas about 'home' become more malleable and complicated."--from the IntroductionI Am Where I Come From presents the autobiographies of thirteen Native American undergraduates and graduates of Dartmouth College, ten of them current and recent students. Twenty years ago, Cornell University Press published First Person, First Peoples: Native American College Graduates Tell Their Life Stories, also about the experiences of Native American students at Dartmouth College. I Am Where I Come From addresses similar themes and experiences, but it is very much a new book for a new generation of college students.Three of the essays from the earlier book are gathered into a section titled "Continuing Education," each followed by a shorter reflection from the author on his or her experience since writing the original essay. All three have changed jobs multiple times, returned to school for advanced degrees, started and increased their families, and, along the way, continuously revised and refined what it means to be Indian.The autobiographies contained in I Am Where I Come From explore issues of native identity, adjustment to the college environment, cultural and familial influences, and academic and career aspirations. The memoirs are notable for their eloquence and bravery.

Sarah Willie asks: What's it like to be black on campus. For most Black students, attending predominantly white universities, it is a struggle. Do you try to blend in? Do you take a stand? Do you end up acting as the token representative for your whole race? And what about those students who attend predominantly black universities? How do their experiences differ? In Acting Black, Sarah Willie interviews 55 African American alumnae of two universities, comparable except that one is predominantly white, Northwestern, and one is predominantly black, Howard. What she discovers through their stories, mirrored in her own college experience , is that the college campus is in some cases the stage for an even more intense version of the racial issues played out beyond its walls. The interviewees talk about "acting white" in some situations and "acting black" in others. They treat race as many different things, including a set of behaviours that they can choose to act out. In Acting Black, Willie situates the personal stories of her own experience and those of her interviewees within a timeline of black education in America and a review of university policy, with suggestions for improvement for both black and white universities seeking to make their campuses truly multicultural. In the tradition of The Agony of Education (Routledge, 1996) , Willie captures the painful dilemmas and ugly realities African Americans must face on campus.

Though colleges and universities are arguably paying more attention to diversity and inclusion than ever before, to what extent do their efforts result in more socially just campuses? Intersectionality and Higher Education examines how race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, age, disability, nationality, and other identities connect to produce intersected campus experiences. Contributors look at both the individual and institutional perspectives on issues like campus climate, race, class, and gender disparities, LGBTQ student experiences, undergraduate versus graduate students, faculty and staff from varying socioeconomic backgrounds, students with disabilities, undocumented students, and the intersections of two or more of these topics. Taken together, this volume presents an evidence-backed vision of how the twenty-first century higher education landscape should evolve in order to meaningfully support all participants, reduce marginalization, and reach for equity and equality.

The demanding workload and fast pace of college often overwhelm students. Without access to the right resources, many of the three million U.S. college students with disabilities fail or drop out--at a much higher rate than their peers. This guide helps students, parents, counselors and psychologists find the appropriate resources and accommodations to help students with disabilities successfully transition to college. The author explains Americans with Disabilities Act laws and outlines steps for requesting and implementing college staff, classroom and testing accommodations. Student testimonies are included, advising on which assistive technologies and resources have worked to achieve academic success.

In every online class, some students are wildly successful, some earn average or slightly below-average grades, some barely pass, some fail, and some drop out. Whatever a student's age, situation, or lifestyle, everything needed for successfully completing an online class is right here in this book. Each chapter covers a specific element of online learning and provides the new online student with practical strategies and how-to information so that any student can go into an online classroom prepared to succeed. This book has strategies and tips that every online professor wants students to know before they sign up for an online class. Bowman has provided a reference tool for students to develop self-directed learning skills that will help them become secure and knowledgeable about technology, studying, communicating online, and getting work done on time.

Winner of the 2018 Association for the Study of Higher Education Outstanding Book Award Technology and Engagement is based on a four-year study of how first generation college students use social media, aimed at improving their transition to and engagement with their university. Through web technology, including social media sites, students were better able to maintain close ties with family and friends from home, as well as engage more with social and academic programs at their university. This 'ecology of transition' was important in keeping the students focused on why they were in college, and helped them become more integrated into the university setting. By showing the gains in campus capital these first-generation college students obtained through social media, the authors offer concrete suggestions for how other universities and college-retention programs can utilize the findings to increase their own retention of first-generation college students.  

Student success in mathematics is dependent on focusing in class, practice, and the ability to verbally express mathematical thoughts. Write On Math is a program that engages secondary school mathematics students in on-going writing projects that will strengthen their focus, their mathematics, and their oral and written communication skills. The program teaches technical writing strategies while demonstrating seven different levels of note taking and dozens of strategies to improve the sentence structure of students' mathematical explanations. Today's curricula and extensive testing policies require students to supply written explanations as part of their answers. Write On Math will systematically teach students how to take better notes in math class. There is no better way to ensure you know something well than to have to teach it to somebody else, and the Write On Math program requires students to do exactly that--that is why it improves their mathematics as well as teaches them valuable communication and writing techniques not taught in Humanities classes. For teachers using the program, Write On Math will improve they way you, as a teacher, present material to your students in class and on your handouts For students using the program, the strategies will apply to college classes and to other disciplines in addition to mathematics.

Adults can find the means to go back to school despite the pressures of work, family, and a mortgage with this guide to funding continued education. With expanded information on online and distance learning and part-time classes and new financial aid, loan, and scholarship opportunities, this updated resource teaches adult students how to find and win scholarships designed especially for them, obtain financial support from employers, get financial aid for distance learning, receive larger financial aid packages, take advantage of educational tax breaks, trade tuition costs for volunteer service, and cancel education debts with loan forgiveness programs. Twenty firsthand anecdotes inspire adult students with creative and unusual ways to pay for their education.

The bestselling How to Study has helped millions of students study smarter, not harder. For its twenty-fifth anniversary, it is undergoing the most extensive revision in a decade. How to Study reveals the study skills that all students need to know to be successful, whether the goal is landing a top scholarship, excelling in school, or preparing to return to school. This edition includes information on how to create an effective work environment, stand out in class, conduct research online, and much more. Fry also covers all the traditional elements of a winning study strategy, such as reading, writing, time management, memory, and test-taking skills. How to Study introduces a revolutionary study system along with examples that give students the edge in any learning environment. How to Study also: Prepares students of all ages to excel in their classes by developing effective study skills. Shows students, in a quick, easy-to-read style, the essential skills that can be applied outside the classroom and later in life. Includes study tips for teaching and studying with young children; advice for fighting mid-study fatigue and boredom; tips for in-class learning; and more.

Culture Shock for Asians in U.S. Academia: Breaking the Model Minority Myth discusses the unique cultural challenges that Asians face in U.S. academia. The issues facing Asians in academia are worthy of our attention for two major reasons: the numerical significance of Asians in U.S. academia and the fact that their problem has been largely eclipsed due to their visible success and status as model minority. Asian immigrants are often called the "model minority" because of their Confucianist work ethic and emphasis on "ye," or social order, as well as the high value placed on education. Additionally, Asians generally have often been stereotyped as excelling in academics. However, they face serious problems in adjusting to the U.S. academic system. These problems are due to cultural patterns and variables that are largely invisible, yet nonetheless have an undeniable impact on academics. The issues that affect students ranging from kindergarten through graduate school, and that also affect scholars in academic careers beyond the formative process, are reviewed systematically in this book. Analysis of issues is based on intercultural communication theories and suggestions for overcoming these challenges are suggested. Becoming aware of and addressing the roadblocks for Asians is important not only for Asian students and scholars, but also for educators, education administrators, and institutions. Additionally, helping Asians to overcome the challenges in academia not only helps academia to become a more inclusive place where all students can learn and all scholars can work in academia successfully, it also benefits society by producing a more literate, educated, and qualified workforce overall. By promoting understanding of this important topic in a systematic and theoretic fashion, valuable resources can be realized to their full potential.