Don Fraser Transcript

8/9/2019 Don Fraser Transcript

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Don Fraser Transcript

[Don Fraser]: The way admissions works nowadays you get a lot of young folks who come right out of undergrad, go into admissions with

the hopes of I'll stay there and get my master's and then I'm out. I'll dotwo years and I'm gone from admissions. So, they are not reallyinvested in admissions, so to speak. With that, there's a whole lack of training that exists for these folks who are out there, havingconversations with students like mine and trying to get them to come. Itry and do that with the hopes that people will be able to look at thatinformation. He's got these graphs that look like this where he's goingback many years to look at trends and demographics. He's got degreeattainment by income quartile, and this is what I focus on because raceand ethnicity is one thing, but nowadays there's been a lot of shifttowards class issues and saying, "Hey, if you're an American and you

don't have money, you're at a severe disadvantage", bottom line. These graphs really demonstrate that. When you look at degreeattainment for everybody else except the top income quartile,essentially being really horrible. I will show this to my class and say,what does this tell you and look at the flat line for 30 plus years, this isunchanged.

[Don Fraser]: This sort of antiquated notion of you're an adult. You'renow 18. You should be able to fend for yourself in this very foreignenvironment is ridiculous.

[Don Fraser]: Through that program I've seen a lot also with thispopulation. I was talking to one of the students who just finished hisfirst year at the University of Pittsburgh. And I said, "What's next yearlooking like?" And he said, "Well, I think I'm gonna not go back toPittsburgh this coming fall because my mother is at home. Myyoungest sister is going off to college herself, and then my other sisteris going to live with another relative, so it leaves my mom at homewith my stepfather who I'm not really fond of, and it makes me worry.So, I'm going to come home. I already talked to people at Pitt, but I'mgoing to take some classes locally and take my gen eds, work, give mymother some money so she doesn't have to rely on him and then I'll re-

enroll at Pitt the next year". This is an issue that a lot of students...How do you know that this is actually happening for a student; thesekinds of issues, these family issues, these concerns that they have,very real concerns. He's worried. How is he going to be the beststudent he can be if he did go back to Pitt in the fall, knowing everyday, wondering about his mother, if she's OK? And then just trying tostay afloat in this place, big university and you're reluctant to reachout and say, "This is my situation". This kid was brave. He did and he

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said, "I need help to figure out if this is a good idea". So, they helpedhim, suggested classes for him to take when he is there. It's workingout, but more often than not; students aren't going to articulate thoseconcerns, because they don't feel a connection.

[Chris Finlay]: You talked a little bit about the resources or makingthe systems available for these students who might be able toadvocate for themselves. Do you have any thoughts about the wayinstitutions think of themselves and how that affects students?

[Don Fraser]: Yeah. Certainly that whole notion of adapt to us is, Ithink, the pervasive thought that's out there for higher ed. It's notabout you, the individual. It's about us, the institution, and you, theindividual, figuring out how to work within our system and learn ourlanguage, learn our culture. And I think that works fine for a certain

population, but given the demographics, given the change that we'reseeing and the type of student that is going on to college, I think that if you stick to that message you are really going to be putting andmarginalizing a number of your students, and that's many of ourstudents who don't feel a connection. I think the perfect story that Ihave around this is I work with a young man who has just completedhis second year at a local private university. His first year, he wasready to transfer. Midway through the first semester, "I can't stand ithere. My roommate, he came from very few means and his roommatewas a baseball player who had a flat screen TV in his dorm room andhad everything". He felt, "I just can't relate to these students at all, like

on a personal level. I just feel so isolated here. I don't see people wholook like me. I certainly know I don't share experiences with themajority of the kids on this campus and I'm not happy". At the end of the year he was absolutely ready to leave, so to his credit he talked toa couple of people because he had a very close relationship withsomebody in admissions, and they directed him to a particular personto call about this exiting. He turned out to get the dean of students onthe phone, which he didn't even know and had a two-hour phoneconversation with this guy. They hang up the phone, and this guy picksup the phone and says, "We have to keep this kid. Find a way to makethis work for this kid". He was making phone calls plus this student was

older. He was a freshman, and he was 20 because he had dropped outof high school twice at one point and then started up again. He madethese calls and got him back in there, but when I was talking to him, Ispent a couple of hours talking to him over the summer. I said,"Ultimately, you have to decide how much of your happiness you arewilling to sacrifice for your education". That's unfair that we have tohave that conversation, but that's the truth if you are going to staythere, which you've got a great financial aid package, which you can't




guarantee if you transfer. You can't guarantee your happiness in someother place if you transfer. How much are you willing to sacrificeknowing that if you are going to go to a predominantly white institutionthis is pretty much how it is going to be for you. For this kid, he really

had to think long and hard about that. How much am I willing tosacrifice? That's just an unfair thought for a lot of students to have todo that. That pains me when you see a kid who hates it every day.Loves his teachers. He liked his classes, but we know that class work isonly a portion of the college experience if you are living on campus.He's had to deal with the other pieces. You know, it turns out thatthings have worked out pretty well for him. When he was able tounderstand that and then find his way a little bit better and peoplehelped him out because he was able to articulate it, he has finished hissophomore year. He's not transferring. He even went to work there inthe summer where he wanted off campus like any chance he got. Now,

he's like: how can I work here in the summer and stay? But, he neededthat. If he didn't have that conversation, if he didn't talk with me, itwouldn't have happened. He would have up and left, for sure, andwould have ended up probably enrolling in the community college or Johnson and Wales. I would have found out about it, perhaps, when Iran into him somewhere. I think that's one of the things that collegeshave to be in tune to.

[Don Fraser]: Well, I think that this notion of college readiness is verypoignant for this population, but that's a function of the collegespointing backwards and saying, "You're not sending us prepared

students because they're dropping out". They leave campus becausethey weren't ready academically. My question is: is that actually whathappened because you admitted them. So, you must have thoughtwhen you admitted them that they could do it academically. What elseis happening that has changed for that student? Why all of a suddenare they not able to produce academically? Take this kid I just talkedabout. Is it because they are miserable and they have no connectionon campus? Like I said, what impacts the student's ability to be thebest student they can be, to live up to their academic potential? Is it just ability? No. We know that everybody, every institution you canpoint to, the most academically prepared student fell apart, and for

whatever reason undetermined the student just dropped out,disappeared, bombed out or whatever. But when you look at thispopulation, people want to just say it's a function of readiness, and Ithink that's a tremendous oversight given these examples of studentswho have these really impactful issues going on for them. But, we'veyet to really gauge how impactful those are and how much that takesaway from your ability to engage in your academics. I think that is thehuge missing piece right now for colleges that want to say, Yale wants




to say: They're dropping out. They're not staying. Hey, if you got into Yale, you've got to be a pretty good student, all right? And if they'renot staying there, then that's something going on with Yale, notsomething going on with that student's preparedness.

[Chris Finlay]: I just have a couple more questions. I'll give theseguys a chance, too. You talked about career selection. What aboutwhen it comes time to select a school? How do you help the studentsfind the school?

[Don Fraser]: That's a complex process from where we sit, and wetry and help students understand that it is a complex process becauseultimately what I find is that students are not good consumers. Theydon't know exactly what they are looking for, and why should they? They've never been before. This is a new experience, so we have to

help them understand what they should be looking for. Typically, youwill find we learned this from our own longitudinal study with ouralumni is that our students would use the traditional markers, so tospeak, of why you selected your school: location, major, cost, size.Maybe, throw those four out there. Things that they didn't consider butshould or they were low on their consideration scale: graduation rate,campus climate, and things of that nature that we know are importantfor you to get through. If they don't do a good job of graduatingstudents like you, then it might be problem. Maybe, it's something youshould be aware of. We want to help students utilize multiple tools indoing their research, and there's plenty of research out there that will

say diverse methods of gathering information will lead to a happiercollege experience. If you've toured the campus, maybe, spoke to anadmissions officer. You did your research on collegeboard.com orwhatever it might be, that you are more likely to have a happiercollege experience because you've done due diligence in yourresearch. I would say that, again, that falls short because it's not justabout gathering information from different resources. Take the kid whodrives past Rhode Island College every day or waits for the bus outsideRhode Island College every day. So, that's part of their experienceright now, just the vision and thought they have of what happensbeyond these walls. Then, I go and meet with an admissions rep who is

selling me the school. I see their view book, which are the best pictureson campus. So, these are diverse methods of gathering information. Igo on collegeboard.com. It doesn't tell me anything about thegraduation rate, but I've used another method to gather information.So, I would say that's fine to do that but ultimately, especially givenour population, you have to know what you're looking for with each of those pieces. If you know that the view book is going to give you thisgeneral picture and you know that the admissions counselor is going to




sell you on these high points, well maybe you should know thegraduation rates so you could ask them a question that says, "Well, Isee that I'm a black male. My population graduates at 20 percentagepoints less than the overall population. Why is that?" That's a great

question. If you did your research and know how to do your researchbeforehand, that kind of information gathering, diverse informationgathering will help you. But, just gathering information from all overthe place, if you can't use it and don't know how to use it, then it's justgoing to be information. That's what we try and help studentsunderstand going in. Why do you need to ask certain questions? Whatdo you need to look for when you go on this visit? What should you belistening for when you hear the information session from theadmissions counselor? If you do that, you help students, and I thinkwe've seen some positive results, I think, in the places that studentshave been applying to. I've seen change over the past couple of years.

We've been intensely focusing on this notion of being a betterconsumer and helping them find fit. So, that's how we go about doingit, and I think there's plenty of and this is highly critical of counselors,as a counselor-educator myself this notion of if I just give it to themthey'll be able to make sense of it. Well, it's a foreign language. If something is written in Russian, I'm not going to be able to make senseof it. It's a foreign language to me. You've given me stuff, and I don'tknow what the bursar’s office is and I don't know whatever it is means.I don't know how to use this, but you think because you gave me theinformation that's enough. No, that just doesn't fly.

[Don Fraser]: Post secondary. I think it would have to do with thebridge between secondary and post secondary that exists right now. You've got the summer hiatus, which is a celebration. You havecompleted this-who knows what happens-in the summer experience fordifferent kids, and looming on the horizon is this brand new,intimidating, exciting possibility and experience for you. Schools dodifferent things when it comes to that. Obviously, every school offersan orientation of some sort, but I believe that that's not enough. So Ithink what's happening is that you lose a huge chunk of time thatcould be used better in helping students with this transition fromsecondary to post secondary education. For example, if I know a kid is

going somewhere in May because they've deposited and the financialaid package, they received it, and it looks OK, so they are committed.I've got them for six, eight more weeks. How can I help that studentget connected to that college during that time? Why can't we dosomething that a student goes and visits or does an overnight, andthen I can help them debrief because I have the better relationship?So, I can work with them and help them make sense of that experienceso that they know what they're getting into. It's not just when they go




to September, when they've left us behind at that point because that'swhat happens with most high schools, not necessarily with us. But,when they've left their counselor or their confidant or whoever it isbehind and they are out there on their own to make sense of it all, you

don't know how that is going to happen. It may work fine, but I'm suremore often than not... I remember my orientation. It was a blur. You'regiving me critical information that I need for survival, and you areexpecting me to absorb it in like this two or three-day whirlwind whenI'm just like, oh my God, where am I? Who are these people? I thinkthat's a mistake. So, I think if I was going to change one thing when itcomes to post secondary, it would be rolling back this notion of how doyou engage them better so that when they get here they are feelinglike they've got connections. They know everything. It's not like you're just lying on campus in September, and everything just sort of happens. That's what I would change.


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Don Fraser Transcript