Chapter 8: Multicultual Student Retention

For more than 40 years, American colleges and universities have discussed, debated, and deliberated over how to best promote multicultural student retention. Throughout this time, ever-evolving theoretical models, research, and practices have emerged which has resulted in an impressive body of scholarship about how to retain multicultural students. This cumulative base of knowledge has informed the entire academic profession and provided a sophisticated understanding of multicultural student learning, development, and social climate needs (Seidman, 2005). However, despite this large body of literature about multicultural student learning and development, institutions of higher education today remain remarkably idiosyncratic as to which advising and direct student services they tend to embrace to promote and retain multicultural students through to graduation. Most important to this discussion is to understand why colleges and universities have either ignored or minimized this worthwhile body of knowledge and scholarship—often for the sake of expediency, immediacy, and institutional reputation. This chapter revisits these historical, instrumental methods of multicultural student retention and discusses their relevance for contemporary institutions and their retention efforts.