Chapter Summaries and Recommendations

Chapter Summaries

This ebook was co-created by David Peterson del Mar, who retired from PSU in 2025, after 26 years of teaching there, and Alejandra Vazquez, who received her undergraduate degree from PSU that year. Though coming at the project from very different places (age, ethnicity, status), we had both for several years listened to hundreds of New Majority students share their complaints, joys, and hopes about their PSU experiences. And we often wished that more people could hear them. So we did our best to capture nearly 100 of those voices, those sets of experiences.

If you only have five or ten minutes to spare, here are the high points of what our interviewees shared. Since the book relies so heavily on student testimony, we thought it would work best to preface each chapter summary with some key quotations from that chapter.

Chapter 1 Summary: “Edge Walkers”: New Majority Students Negotiate Two Worlds

Key Quotations from Chapter 1:

• “I was expected to know what I did not know.” Kashindi Heragi
• “It was a shock when I got here.” Jesus Jimenez
• “You’re always doing homework, you’re always gone, you’re always at school.” Taiye Timothy quoting her mother
• “Your whole life is filled with the idea to be able to support your parents.” Anonymous 29

Very few of our students believed that they were at PSU just for themselves. Most have a sense of obligation to their parents; going to college is a way to redeem the sacrifices their parents made to give them opportunities that they, the parents, never had. And many feel a tremendous pressure or responsibility to start making a good living as soon as possible so that their parents can stop working such hard jobs and enjoy some years of rest and comfort. Most of our students still lived at home, and most still had extensive responsibilities at home, commonly including child care, cleaning, cooking, driving, and interpreting. Many also must work to pay school expenses or to help support their families of origin. It all adds up to a lot of pressure, but it is also a source of tremendous motivation. College is seldom primarily about self-actualization and exploration. Rather, it is a way to express respect, love, and care to one’s family.

Such students wish faculty understood that the immense pressures they are under have both practical and emotional consequences. They seldom have family who can help them to understand college, so they need professors to be very clear about expectations and assignments. They wish that faculty would not assume that laziness or disinterest is why they miss a class or a deadline. And they wonder if faculty understand how failing a class or losing one’s financial aid could be interpreted not as a learning opportunity but a shameful betrayal of those who sacrificed for them.

Chapter 2 Summary: “I’m on My Own”: Belonging and Not Belonging at PSU

Key Quotations from Chapter 2:

• “I need to fit in. . . . I have to give them [faculty] what they need.” Brianna Crevier
• “Everyone was white.” Anonymous 18
• “I did not understand a thing he said.” Lily A.
• “It feels sometimes that classrooms aren’t really built for me.” Jo Do

Though our students tended to be extremely motivated, most of them had difficulty adjusting to PSU. Many of them struggled to understand the vocabulary that white professors and students used and noticed that they seldom learned about people like them. They often wondered if they were smart enough to be here, and their limited interactions with faculty often ended up deepening rather than easing that fear. Most hesitated to speak in class, and many remarked on a stark divide between a small group of talkative and confident students, usually white males, and themselves.

Many were also surprised that so many professors seemed disinterested in and unskilled at teaching. Feeling confused as well as out of place and unseen, some spent many hours a week searching for sources outside the class to prepare for their exams.

Chapter 3 Summary: “You’re Not Just a Teacher But a Home to Some of Us”: Connecting and Not Connecting with Faculty

Key Quotations from Chapter 3:

• “I’m going to speak, you guys take notes, and then I’ll leave.” Omar Mahfouz describing the attitude of one of his professors
• “A professor can at least know my name.” Stenar Narruhn
• “They kind of encapsulate themselves in this bubble of their expertise and don’t want to go beyond that.” Peter Nguyen on his professors
• “I think he just cared more about his students than his profession.” Kashindi Heragi, of Óscar Fernández
• “I’m going to learn more when I’m working with others.” Thierry Ndayisaba

Our students hungered for professors who saw them, who knew their name, who seemed excited not just about what they were teaching–though that was very important–but about the people in the room, about them. They appreciated faculty who made themselves known, too, who were vulnerable and humble as well as knowledgeable. New Majority students love discovering the ways in which their lives overlap or intersect with professors.

They also appreciated faculty who made sure that they had a chance to get to know each other. Coming from families and cultures that stressed collaboration, working with fellow students helped them both to learn and to feel much more at home in PSU classrooms.

Chapter 4 Summary: “My Idea of College Is That’s Where You Make Your Connections”: Connecting and Surviving

Key Quotations from Chapter 4:

• “I felt 100% myself, I could yell.” Liliane Kwizera on the Pan-African Commons
• “I know I belong at PSU because of GANAS. Other than that I feel I don’t belong.” Lily A.
• “Wealth is not the money in our pocket,” so “we’re always rooting for each other.” Davika Dige
• “We keep each other accountable,” so “we can all walk down the same stage.” Diego Argaez
• “I . . . held on to these people for as long as possible because they made me feel safe, understood, and heard.” Jennifer Lopez-Garrido on her FRINQ class

New Majority students very often feel safest and happiest in spaces designed for them, particularly the Diversity Scholarship Programs and the Cultural Resource Centers. Many students rely on friendships formed in these programs or even in high school and try to coordinate their class schedules with each other. Students in highly distinctive majors or programs often feature a strong sense of community that often cuts across ethnic or other social lines.

Many New Majority students create small groups from scratch, on their own initiative. These groups may exist for a single class but can also last for years and include extensive electronic communities. Students often remark that these groups are of more than practical use, that they provide friendship networks and community, as well.

Chapter 5 Summary: “I Get Tired Every Day, but I Choose to Do This”: Recommendations for Faculty

Key Quotations from Chapter 5:

• There was “absolutely nothing . . . on how to teach” in graduate school. Shuvasree Ray
• “I’ll walk up to them [students] and ask them, ‘tell me your story.’” Eric Sheagley
• “What was not working was me showing off my knowledge.” Óscar Fernández
• “Book an hour with me, because we’ll go down all sorts of rabbit holes.” Linda Liu
• Most white academics “are not part of networks, collectives, or experiences that they see as  larger than themselves and are not willing to take the risks or make the sacrifices that communities we come from need.” Patrick Roz Camangian

The eight faculty we interviewed were unanimous in saying that their graduate education included little or no training on how to teach. All eight, plus the four staff members we interviewed from UNST, GANAS, and TRIO, emphasize making warm personal connections with their students. There is no substitute for devoting a great deal of time to New Majority students.

The twelve faculty members praised at length by more than one of our interviewees were much more likely than the typical PSU faculty member to be people of color and non-tenure track. Most of the eight we interviewed expressed concern over the inverse relationship between being devoted to students and job security, and extensive research bears out this ironic and tragic relationship. Academic culture is a sort of distillation or intensified version of white, upper-middle-class culture in that expressing progressive points of view on topics such as inequality and racism is often more common and valued than working closely with people who have been marginalized.

Chapter 6 Summary: “Fighting Is All I Know”: Alejandra’s Story

Key Quotations from Chapter 6:

• “Being in higher education has always been a constant battle, one of both doubting and empowering yourself to move forward and defy the odds.”
• “Like most children of immigrants, we live daily with the pressures and sacrifices of our parents.”
• “Most of the time I would just rant about how alone I felt and my longing to be home in the comfort of my room, surrounded by my sisters and parents.
• “We are used as a business strategy to get other students to buy into the school, and in return, like always, we get the very bare minimum and do the best that we can.”
• “However, making due with the bare minimum and persisting against the systems creates a narrative of toxic resilience.”
• “I hope that this project gives you validation in your experiences and that you see that you are not alone, that many others before you have been in your position.”

As with so many of the students interviewed for this book, college loomed very large in Alejandra’s childhood because her parents sacrificed so much for it. So she struggles to make good on those sacrifices while emphasizing that her parents’ lack of education does not at all diminish them in her eyes.

Alejandra struggled throughout her years at PSU to reconcile the university’s public embrace of BIPOC students with its neglect of the programs and the people who sustain those students. Her community is resilient, but its resilience should not be used as an excuse for oppression. She reassures New Majority students that they are not alone and that they must rely on each other to succeed at and improve PSU.

Chapter 7 Summary: “Academia for Me had Always Been About Achieving Distinction”: David’s Story

Key Quotations from Chapter 7:

• “I could see that the university was set up to reward faculty and graduate students who focused on research rather than teaching.”
• “Teaching had become a sort of bothersome interruption from my research and committee work.”
• “Teaching takes not just heart, but the heart to be heartbroken.” Debra Tavares
• “Once I knew my students deeply, it became impossible to imagine not making them the most important part of my job.”

David’s career autobiography, spanning nearly half a century between his entry into graduate school and retirement, illustrates why faculty, especially white faculty at research universities, are much more focused on publishing than on teaching. His graduate training drove home the fact that getting and retaining a secure (tenured) position in academia required prioritizing research over teaching, a lesson that his experience in a tenure-stream job underscored.

For nearly 20 years after surrendering his tenured position, he taught a variety of courses at several universities while focusing most of his attention on writing more books and volunteering with various nonprofits, including one which involved visiting schools in Ghana and the Pacific Northwest. This led to spending time in a classroom of immigrants at a high school, where Debra Tavares showed him how to teach. At age 60 he started teaching FRINQ at PSU and, for the first time in his career, made students and teaching his priority.

Recommendations

For Faculty: Low-Hanging Fruit

• Start classes with a few minutes of ice-breakers, including questions that may not relate much to the class but that students may be excited to talk about. Mingle and listen to what they are sharing.
• Arrive early to class and spend a few minutes checking in with students, especially ones who do not speak in class.
• Stay after class as long as you can to answer questions. If no one has a question, check in with quieter students.
• Require students to fill out “exit tickets” that identify what most excited or confused them about class, something they are struggling with, or?
• Look for opportunities to share your story, especially of failures.
• Create opportunities for students to write or speak in their first languages.
• For large-class discussions, encourage wider class participation by inviting someone who has not spoken yet to say something, or calling on someone who has not spoken that you are pretty confident has something to say.
• Privately thank the students who are talking a lot in class and encourage them to find ways to draw others out. The Office of Academic Innovation (OAI) has many resources on how to broaden classroom participation.
• At least act like you are excited to be in class. Put some fun music on, especially something you know that at least some of the students listen to. Smile, make eye contact, check in with people.
• Learn as many names as you can, and use them.
• Incorporate breaks during class.
• Check in in person or, if that is not possible, by email with students who seem to be struggling or feeling out of place.
• Respond to emails within 24 hours on week-days
• Grade assignments within 7 days.
• Admit when you have made a mistake or do not know something.
• Look for ways to diversify the curriculum, to represent the cultures that are in the class, and do not assume that your culture is the norm. Speak at least a few phrases in languages other than English.
• Find opportunities to discuss the importance of mental health and to make students aware of resources for it.
• If you are concerned about a student’s conduct in class, speak to them privately and tactfully about it.
• Align the parts of the class. Identify your objectives for the class, then align the content and assessment behind it. This is not necessarily low-hanging fruit, but it is such a basic part of teaching, it seems reasonable that every professor should be able to create a class in which the purpose of the course is clear, and every major element of the course supports it.

For Faculty: More Ambitious

Note: Some of these are very hard or impossible to do with large classes.

• Establish a late policy that is sensitive to the lives of PSU students.
• Require weekly or bi-weekly reflections from students, and invite them to share their experiences in or questions about the class, as well as in their personal lives. Read them, and respond with as much detail as you can.
• Start the term with a brief autobiographical paper in which students share, to the extent that they feel comfortable, about the challenges they have faced as well as their hopes for their education. Read and respond to these.
• Meet with each student for at least 10 minutes at least once a term.
• Replace most of your lecture time with small-group work. Take courses from OAI and read about how to create effective group activities.
• Diversify your pedagogy to incorporate students’ varied learning styles. Again, OAI can help.
• If you are teaching a class largely composed of students majoring in the subject, educate yourself about how they can go about finding a job in the field, and share that knowledge with them.
• Shadow a strong high school, middle, elementary, or pre-school teacher for at least a few hours.
• Feed them.

For Departments, Colleges, and the University

• Make teaching faculty eligible for tenure, including UNST faculty.
• Give UNST the same level of self-governance that academic departments enjoy.
• If faculty and staff must be cut, do not assume that staff and non-tenure-stream faculty, especially those focused on teaching and otherwise supporting New Majority students, are less important to the university than tenure-stream faculty are.
• Look for chances to expand mentoring programs.
• Create much more rigorous and equitable teaching-evaluation instruments.
• Develop a list of minimal standards faculty must meet that covers such themes as respecting students’ accommodations, providing a clear syllabus, being accessible, responsive, and respectful to students, and attending class. Develop tools to determine if these minimum standards are being met and consequences for when they are not.
• Transition most tenure-stream faculty to focus on teaching more than research. This of course will require major changes in the criteria by which faculty are hired and promoted, as well as extensive and required annual training in pedagogy.
• Entire departments take OAI workshops on effective teaching together.
• Each department commits to ensuring that at least one of its faculty will be able to write a letter of reference or recommendation for each of its graduates.