Projects & Studies

Feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss my findings from these projects and studies!

Present: College and Family Engagement (CAFE) Lab (https://web.sas.upenn.edu/cafe-lab/)

The mission of the College and Family Engagement (CAFE) Lab is to advance knowledge and understanding of the dynamic relationship between families and American higher education institutions. Also, I take great pride in giving undergraduate and graduate students opportunities to engage in this research with me. So far, we have explored 1) how parental incarceration impacts college access and choice for college aspiring and bound students; and 2) the relationship between higher education institutions and the families and fictive kin of first-generation students.

(2023) What is the relationship between the parents of first-generation students and elite institutions?

Stemming from my study of the COVID-19 websites of highly-selective institutions, my dissertation study focused on the relationship between the parents of first-generation students and elite institutions.

(2021) How did highly selective universities use their COVID-19 websites to address first-generation student concerns?

I did a content analysis of the COVID-19 websites of 24 highly selective universities to see if they a) mention first-generation students; and/or b) addressed the concerns first-generation students had at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. I use the term generation blindness to describe how institutions may overlook the unique concerns of first-generation students by ignoring (or simply not ackowledging) generational identity. The findings show that highly selective universities almost never mentioned the term “first-generation students” on these websites and rarely addressed several critical issues that concerned first-generation students. These issues include: the challenge of navigating the complexities of the first-generation identity during the pandemic; the struggles that family members of these students faced (i.e. job loss); the students’ imperative to support their families (i.e. helping to watch younger siblings); and the difficulties students faced by having to use their homes as learning environments. I use the term “Generation Blindess” to reference how institutions forego tending to generation- identity or addressing the issues most pertinent to first-generation students on these websites.

(2020) How do state flagship universities address affordability for low-income students in their strategic plans?

I did a content analysis of the strategic plans of the state flagship universities to see how they addressed affordability for low-income students. Such analysis matters because, according to the Institute for Higher Education Policy, nearly all of the flagships are unaffordable for low-income students.

(2019) 4-year Institutional Selectivity of Community College Honors Student Transfers

Using a national dataset and quasi-experimental design, I examined whether completion of an honors program in community college predicts transfer to selective 4-year universities.

(2019) First Generation Student Choice of Community College

I studied the factors that influence first-generation students to choose community college as their first institution after high school. It is important to comprehensively understand why first-generation students choose community college after high school and not assume that it’s only because of the open access and lower tuition rates that community colleges provide. I do a preliminary look at the impact of early college programs on this choice.