Editor's note: This article is the first in a multi-part series on academic advising and academic support services at postsecondary education institutions in America's urban community environments.

Introduction of Urban Campuses and Their Urban Communities

Urban colleges and universities are confronted with challenges that set them apart from their sister postsecondary institutions located away from America's urban environments. At the forefront of urban campus issues is the challenge of meeting the widely varying needs of enormously diverse student populations through academic advising and academic support services (which, for the purposes of this and future articles, comprise: student registration and academic records; student financial aid; student tutoring; career advising; student counseling; and other support programs that assist with student academic success).

Definition of “Urban”

An assortment of ideas and theories are associated with the word “urban.” The term “city” has been used in place of “urban” to designate a specific geographic area associated with a unit of government, such as Akron, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Erie, Hamilton, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Saint Catherine, Toronto, Youngstown, etc. In addition, some prefer to use the term “metropolitan” as a substitute for “urban” (Martin, 2004). As an example, Greer (1999) suggests that the center core and surrounding community neighborhoods are arbitrary ways of separating the urban component of the metropolitan area. Moreover, Greer (1999) commented that the metropolitan area may be seen as the city with a dense urban core surrounded by an endless spread of suburban sprawl and exurban edge communities.

The term “urban” is also used interchangeably with the term “inner city.” However, “inner city” and “central city” are also used interchangeably, and typically refer to densely populated low-income neighborhoods located in cities dominated by minority populations (Martin, 2004). This perspective recognizes urban areas as densely populated urban centers dominated by towering building structures and symbolizing wealth and prosperity of some urban dwellers, yet they stand in stark contrast and within direct physical proximity to inner-city communities often populated by the poorest of the poor (Martin, 2004). Both of these divergent communities converge in their shared economic relationship and socioeconomic interdependence with each other. It is from this cognitive dissonance that today's urban college student emerges, and a population of academic advisers and academic support specialists must be especially cognizant.

In contrast, population density is the main criterion used by the United States Census Bureau to classify urban areas. The 2000 census defined “urban” as all territories, population, and housing units located within an urbanized area or core (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002). For the purposes of this article, the term “urban” utilizes the population density attribute as described by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Urban Campus Student

Among the prominent misconceptions about urban campus students is the notion that nearly all of them are “non-traditional;” that is, adults returning to school who work, are enrolled part-time, and commute to class in the evening or on the weekends. While it is true that a large number of students fit this definition, it is also true that about half of all urban campuses nationally are in the traditional 18- to 22-year-old age group (Richardson and Bender, 1995).

Additional misconceptions include the notion that urban campuses serve only the economically deprived, who simply cannot afford to go away to school, and the academically under-prepared, whose high school grade-point averages and SAT scores are not high enough to gain them entry into “really good” postsecondary institutions to which they would prefer to go (Richardson and Bender, 1995). Inherent in these misconceptions are several inaccuracies:

  1. While true that urban postsecondary education institutions provide a front-line point of access for many students who rely heavily on federal and state student aid—including loans—or must work to help pay for their education, or a combination of both, a sizeable population of students (on average, between 20 and 30 percent) at many urban campuses receive no financial aid (Elliott, 1994).
  2. Moreover, while a substantial number of students are admitted to urban campuses provisionally, either because they are adults returning to school with academic skills dulled by years of non-use, or because they are traditional students who are under-prepared for postsecondary-level work, many students come to urban campuses with outstanding academic backgrounds (Elliott, 1994).
  3. Analysis of data collected by the Urban Student Affairs Data Exchange Network suggests that first-year students who enroll at urban campuses enter postsecondary education with academic performance measures indicating high levels of educational ability (Elliott, 1994).
  4. Most urban postsecondary education institutions offer merit-based scholarships to students who excel as evidenced by academic performance (Richardson and Bender, 1995).

The Urban Campus Challenge

Urban postsecondary education institutions have a different set of challenges as a result, not the least of which is the difficulty of interacting with students outside the classroom, as well as those who fail to enroll during a particular semester (also known as “stopping out”). For example, commuting students who attend at varying hours during weekdays, nights, and over weekends are less likely to interact within the urban institution in ways that promote institutional bonding that helps move them toward academic success. Academic advising and academic support services must be varied and accessible enough to attract the traditional 18- to 22-year-old as well as the older, non-traditional student (Elliott, 1994).

In urban communities, new and previously unknown forms of educational opportunities have emerged, from innovative advising and academic support service outreach arrangements with previously unaffiliated organizations to the targeting of postsecondary students who can be found in critical mass only in urban areas (Martin, 2004). In most urban communities, however, urban postsecondary education campuses continue to grapple with systemic methods and struggle to meet the advising, helping, teaching, learning, and academic support needs of urban campus students.

Academic Support Services for Resource-Abundant Urban Communities

For middle-class families from predominately white and racially integrated urban communities, the urban environment offers numerous postsecondary education opportunities for a wide variety of both general as well as highly specialized academic programs. Numerous postsecondary education providers have created outreach, academic advising, and academic support services in these areas and take advantage of the critical mass found within urban communities (Martin, 2004). These postsecondary education campuses are able to develop the diversity of interests, needs, abilities, and talents of this urban population by offering courses, academic programs, continuing education workshops, and urban institutes supported by intensive academic advising and academic support services. In these settings, urban postsecondary education campuses can target the needs and wants of urban communities. Therefore, urban students can find academic opportunities for just about any topic in demand within the urban environment.

As urban areas and urban campuses continue to perceive the economic advantage of stabilizing urban centers, and as people from diverse backgrounds congregate in common spaces such as postsecondary education institutions, students who grew up in segregated communities will be expected to interact respectfully with individuals from other races, ethnicities, and cultures (Martin, 2004). Therefore, the increased need for the development of high-quality advising and academic support services will be required to assist faculty as well as students from culturally diverse backgrounds to interact and to assist those from culturally diverse backgrounds in a multicultural cognitive manner. Multicultural diversity training for academic advisers and academic support professionals and administrators is especially important. Without such multicultural diversity training, the efforts of advisers and academic support service professionals when working in racially and ethnically diverse urban campus communities are likely to fail. This is of particular importance to academic advisers and academic support specialists, who will serve as role models and student mentors.

For example, Freeman, Brookhart, and Loadman (1999) studied the similarities and differences encountered by two groups of entry-level teachers from ten different teacher education schools: (1) those who began their careers in racially and ethnically diverse schools (with 25 percent or more minority students) and (2) those who taught in schools with lower levels of racial and ethnic diversity (with 10 percent or fewer minority students).

Although the two groups did not differ on most measures, beginning teachers in high-diversity schools self-reported the following:

  1. lower levels of job satisfaction
  2. greater difficulties in establishing meaningful relationships with students
  3. higher levels of complexity in the teaching and learning environment (Freeman, Brookhart, and Loadman, 1999)

As academic advising and academic support services are known as teaching and helping professions, and with increasing acknowledgement that academic advisers are educators, the implications are significant in working with students from diverse urban communities.

Academic Support Services for Resource-Deficient Urban Communities

For urban community residents who are without the income, prerequisite knowledge of academic subject matter, transportation, child care, or other assets required to access and participate in postsecondary education programs in the larger overall urban environment, urban campus education outreach programs have evolved into an effort funded primarily by third-party sources, including:

Some Federal programs, particularly the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, the 1997 Welfare-to-Work Program, and the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, included provisions that provided for funding of mostly remedial postsecondary education programs. These programs addressed the learning needs of urban community residents, many of whom were unemployed or underemployed and resided in inner-city environments (Hayes, 1999). Urban campus education outreach programs, often carried out by academic advisers and academic support specialists, are designed to meet the needs of these inner-city residents.

To better address and more effectively meet the teaching and learning needs of inner-city environments, and to assist the urban community in the larger global economy, educators—including faculty as well as academic advisers and academic support specialists—need to become more involved with decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources for the education of urban communities (Martin, 2004). Once these urban campus outreach programs are funded, advisers and academic support specialists should provide a safe space for advising, helping, and learning. Not only should the urban campus learning environment be free of physical violence, but urban postsecondary education institutions should also respect student differences while assisting them, through academic advising and academic support services, with new ways of viewing the world.

Faculty, academic advisers, and academic support specialists must be both informed as well as informative. They should be competent in their subject and content areas and maintain awareness, understanding, and knowledge of daily life and learning experiences of urban students. The academic curriculum and teaching methodologies utilized should integrate experiences of students with the instructional content that addresses the needs of urban students and the surrounding urban campus environments. Therefore, academic advisers and academic support specialists play an integral role in educating students on urban campuses (Martin, 2004).

Conclusion

The urban environment offers many challenges to urban postsecondary education institutions seeking to deliver academic programs to potential students. There is a significant need for urban campuses—including faculty, academic advisers, and academic support specialists—to take proactive efforts to deliver educational programs to urban communities. Advising, helping, and teaching in urban communities must ensure and provide student-oriented academic programs.