“If I Had Had My Posse With Me, I Would Never Have Dropped Out of College”: Changing the Social Context of Liberal Arts Learning School Transitions: Perceptions of School Sorting and Pathways to College AERA Annual Meeting, Chicago April 2003 Deborah Appleman, Nataly Barrera, Mokerah Bradley Carleton College Andrew Williams, Posse Chicago Shirley Collado, Posse Foundation, National Program Director

What Is Posse? Posses are groups, each made up of ten students from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds. Posses act as traveling support teams and help to ensure that Posse Scholars succeed and graduate from college. In addition, Posses work with their partner universities to change the cultural climates on campus, and to increase interaction between culturally diverse groups.

The focus of the program is two-fold: 1)To recruit students who have extraordinary leadership ability and academic potential that might be overlooked by the traditional university selection process, and 2)To devote the resources and support necessary to allow those students to achieve personal and academic excellence, reach graduation and effect positive changes on their college campus and in their community.

Why Posse Is Needed By the year 2025 the American population will be 54.6% non-Hispanic White, 18.7% Hispanic, 16.3% African American,11.1% Asian American and others. As a group, minorities are increasing faster than the non-minority population and currently account for 60% of the total population growth. Unfortunately, people of color are still drastically underrepresented in the country's top institutions of higher education—often because the standard measures used by admissions offices are culturally limited. However, with the new legal limitations related to affirmative action programs, admissions offices nationwide are faced with a conundrum. How can they continue to increase the pools of applicants from diverse backgrounds while maintaining their standards? Further, how can the campus experience be improved to prepare students for a culturally diverse workplace? Posse helps to answer these needs.

Posse Goals 1)Enhance the recruitment and selection strategies universities and colleges use to identify students for admission; 2) Improve the retention and completion rates of college students drawn from culturally and socially diverse backgrounds; and 3)Help build more integrated communities on college campuses. Posse has three goals designed to address some critical issues of importance to institutions of higher education in the United States today.

Partner Institutions Bowdoin Brandeis Bryn Mawr Carleton Colby Denison DePauw Dickinson Grinnell Hamilton Illinois Lafayette Middlebury Trinity U of Wisconsin Vanderbilt Wheaton

Challenges of The First Year at Carleton College Attrition Rates for All Students, 2001 Entering Enrollments Freshman-Year Attrition Rates African-American8.7% Hispanic/Latino7.1% Asian5.9% Native American0.0% All Students of Color6.6% White3.1%

Making it Through Carleton College Graduation Rates for All Students Class of 2001 Entering Enrollments Four-Year Graduation Rates, Class of 2001 African-American56.5% Hispanic/Latino85.7% Asian80.5% Native American66.7% All students of color74.7% White88.8%

The Role of the Mentor Provide support to individual scholars Facilitate the growth of the Posse as a group Serve as a liaison between Posse and the institution Mediate within the institution Believe unconditionally in the ability of the scholars to achieve academic and personal success

Nataly’s Story Nataly with Posse Scholars at Carleton

Mokerah’s Story Mokerah and Her Family

A Slice of Posse The Scholars’ Perspective A Slice of Posse The Scholars’ Perspective A Video Portrait

ConclusionConclusion Posse 2:Monee Sconyers, Sam Holmes, David Pintor, Marcey Abramovitz, Leslie Cofie, Sead Puskar, Nataly Barrera, Micah Bezold, Latrice Montgomery, Cara Weatherspoon