Relearning Self,Recentering Comunidad,and Reidentifying within Academia: A Culturally Relevant Approach to Summer Bridge Programs for Incoming Latinx Undergraduate Students

Abstract

They carry their communities on their shoulders. For many, it is their first time being away from home. They wave goodbye to their families with tears in their eyes. They are unfamiliar with this new landscape. Their culture and language are unexpected. These are the common experiences of incoming Latinx undergraduate students who enter the largely white, affluent, and individualistic contexts of higher education in the United States. The University of California, San Diego, is one of these universities in which Latinx students experience countless academic and social challenges. During the 2018-2019 academic year, Latinx students comprised 19.5 percent of the UC San Diego undergraduate student body (UC San Diego Institutional Research, n.d.). In contrast to this enrollment, data from the California Department of Education (2019) shows that Latinx students comprise 54.6 percent of the state’s K-12 public school enrollment. UC San Diego has sought to rectify these racial/ethnic disparities in college opportunity and enrollment through a series of Latinx-centered programs and initiatives, most notably its Summer Bridge Program, which has a high enrollment of Latinx students, many of whom are first-generation college students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. This paper explicitly focuses on UC San Diego’s Summer Bridge Program as an example of a best practice that effectively prepares Latinx students for the social and academic challenges of university life. This program is unique in that it centers a culturally relevant approach to teaching and learning, defined by critical race scholar Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) as a pedagogical practice that produces the three following student outcomes: (1) academic success, (2) cultural competence, and (3) critical consciousness. Examples of the culturally relevant practices implemented by UC San Diego’s Summer Bridge Program and their impact on the learning outcomes of Latinx students are discussed to provide higher education institutions, especially emerging Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), with recommendations to effectively, holistically, and responsibly serve Latinx students.

Summer Bridge Programs

Summer Bridge Programs have been implemented across various institutions of higher education to support the transition to college for incoming undergraduates who are first-generation, low-income, and/or students of color. These programs are framed by the US Department of Education (n.d.) as “developmental” and/or “remedial” efforts, which inherently draw on deficit frameworks that depict students as “not ready for college” and “at risk of dropping out” (p. 2). Terrell Strayhorn’s (2011) empirical study published in the American Behavioral Scientist journal demonstrates the positive associations between participation in Summer Bridge and academic performance for low-income, students of color. Yet, as Jenna Sablan (2014) indicated in their meta-analysis of scholarship on Summer Bridge, most research has largely drawn from quantitative analysis of survey data and student academic performance measures, with less scholarship qualitatively exploring student experiences within these programs.

UC San Diego’s Summer Bridge Program

This article discusses a 5-week Summer Bridge Program that is facilitated by the Office of Academic Support & Instructional Services (OASIS) at UC San Diego, which serves incoming undergraduates who are first-generation, low-income, and/or students of color. Students who participate in this program complete two university-level courses for academic credit, live in the residence halls with peers and staff, and attend various events and workshops that introduce them to campus resources and strategies to support their academic, social, and emotional well-being while attending UC San Diego.

Students who participate in this program complete two university-level courses for academic credit, live in the residence halls with peers and staff, and attend various events and workshops that introduce them to campus resources and strategies to support their academic, social, and emotional well-being while attending UC San Diego.

Latinx Student Voices and Experiences

This article is part of a larger qualitative study, Project ASPIRAR (Academic Success, Planning, Identity, Retention & Aspirations Realized), led by Dr. Frances Contreras, which aims to understand the college transition experiences of students of color who participated in UC San Diego’s Summer Bridge Program. This article draws on the collective voices and experiences of 24 Latinx students who participated in individual interviews and six Latinx students who participated in a focus group. Pseudonyms are used throughout this article to protect the identities of students.

Latinx-Centered Learning Outcomes

In this article, we demonstrate the knowledge and skills that Latinx students gained from participating in UC San Diego’s Summer Bridge Program. The three learning outcomes discussed below were shaped by the program’s vision and our analysis via a culturally relevant lens.

Reframing History and Relearning Self

All students were required to complete a course that discussed the roots of U.S. higher education in settler colonialism, slavery, and the historical exclusion of communities of color in academic spaces. For many students, this was their first time taking a course that discussed issues of racial and social justice. In addition, students explored their identities and histories through different program components, such as living in the residential halls with peers from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds. Marco, a Latino male student who participated in the Latinx focus group, reflected on the impact of Summer Bridge on his ethnic and cultural identity:

I also came from a high school that was 80 to 90 percent Latinx, and because of that, I was always surrounded by my culture.…My [residential] suite was half Latinos, so it still wasn’t that different [from home], but there were also different perspectives, so I felt that the Latinx culture kind of mattered more.…I was alongside all these other cultures and diversity; it gave me a reason to be more proud of my culture.

For many students, this was their first time taking a course that discussed issues of race and social justice.

Summer Bridge was the first time in which many of the Latinx students connected with people from different racial/ethnic identities and cultures because these students typically come from racially segregated communities. While attending Summer Bridge, Marco became “more proud” of being Latinx, holding onto the beauty and value of his culture and community and relearning what it means for him to be Latino within this new academic and institutional context. Importantly, students like Marco would be unable to fruitfully explore this reframing of history and relearning of self if the program staff had not integrated the racialized identities and realities of the students they serve into the curriculum and its other academic and social events.

Recentering Collectivity and Remembering Comunidad (Community)

An additional learning outcome that was gained by the Latinx students who participated in Summer Bridge was a deep understanding that navigating the university and overcoming its associated academic and social challenges is possible when doing things collectively and in community. Importantly, this lesson builds on the collectivism that already exists in most Latinx families and communities. The Summer Bridge Program strategically embedded practices of collectivism and community into its programmatic structure by expecting students to “build long-lasting relationships” and “network with peers, staff, and faculty.” The program subsequently carried out these expectations via closed courses and organized social events. This reinforcement of collectivity and community is elaborated by Sam, an undocumented Latina student, who shared the following in an interview:

[Summer Bridge] definitely did help with the culture shock that everybody talks about, coming into a big university… I don't see a lot of Latino students, especially in my classes, but I know that they're there, so it kind of helps me think that I do belong here, don't belittle yourself, and you're not the only one…

Sam knows that other Latinx students are present at the university because of her experiences in Summer Bridge that introduced her to an invaluable network of same-race peers, staff, and faculty that can support her along her academic journey. Despite the culture shock and social discomfort she initially experienced due to the mismatch between UC San Diego’s racial/ethnic demographics and her community’s largely Latinx demographics, she demonstrates a profound understanding that she is not alone nor the only Latinx student at the university. The strategic framing of Summer Bridge as a space where students can develop long-lasting relationships prepares students to actively seek each other as resources during the academic year to counter feelings of racial/ethnic isolation.

Reclaiming Space and Academic Reidentifying

Last, a central component of the Summer Bridge Program seeks to prepare Latinx students for the rigors of university-level coursework. The program is unique in that its pedagogical and curricular visions move beyond traditional notions of academic success, such as solely centering high academic skills, grade point averages, and retention rates. While these academic outcomes are fundamental, UC San Diego’s Summer Bridge Program staff and faculty are equally concerned about Latinx students’ academic sense of belonging. That is, they strive to instill academic confidence in Latinx students so that these students can better adjust to the highly competitive and research intensive climate of the university. Serenity, a Latina student, shared the following in an interview about her academic confidence and strengthened academic identity:

[Summer Bridge] made me feel more confident in my ability because the [Summer Bridge staff and faculty] did talk about how the school wasn’t built for underrepresented students, so being here [at UC San Diego], and noticing the slight advantage that those who are more privileged have.…I’m like, that’s how it’s always been.…I also feel a sense of pride of like, I am here, and I deserve to be here, and I earned it.

The program is unique in that its pedagogical and curricular visions move beyond traditional notions of academic success, such as solely centering high academic skills, grade point averages, and retention rates.

Serenity shares that the program made her feel more academically confident and reinforced the idea that she deserved to take up space on the university campus. She learned that her feelings of uncertainty and fear were situated within a historical and contemporary reality that were simultaneously valid and untrue. While students of color have been historically excluded from accessing academic spaces, the fact that she had managed to access the university despite experiencing high levels of hardship did not mean that her admission was a mistake or that she was not able to excel alongside her more privileged peers. This is an important academic teaching that is commonly overlooked when working with Latinx students.

Implementations and Recommendations

The learning outcomes discussed above have facilitated the transition to college for the Latinx students in our study. In the remaining portion of this article, we will share recommendations for how these practices can be modeled by other colleges and universities seeking to improve the educational experiences of Latinx students.

Toward an Intersection of Personal, Communal, and Institutional History

Summer Bridge Programs that serve Latinx students must actively interweave the intersecting histories that shape the experiences of Latinx students within higher education throughout their program culture and structure, including their own history, their community’s history, and their institution’s history. Programs must understand and address the institutional racism, racial campus climate, and racial microaggressions that Tara Yosso and her colleagues (2009) argue are experienced by Latinx students daily while attending institutions of higher education. To counter the racial/ethnic discrimination Latinx college students may experience, higher education institutions must center and embed the racial, cultural, and lived realities of students in their courses and events. Educational spaces that draw from culturally relevant pedagogy unapologetically center the racialized experiences and realities of students of color as they intersect with other forms of subordination. Centering the histories, realities, and challenges that Latinx students have historically faced can help Latinx students develop a critical understanding of the systems and structures that shape their lives and college transition experiences.

Toward Intergenerational Fem/Mentoring Relationships

Like the numerous family and community members that shaped Latinx students prior to their college experience, institutions must adopt a collectivist orientation to student learning and success. This can be achieved by promoting intergenerational fem/mentoring relationships that cut across varying levels of expertise, disciplines, and affiliations. Programs and initiatives within the university must intentionally bring students, staff, faculty, alumni, and community members together to network and share resources with one another. It is important that the university reconstructs its individualistic and competitive atmosphere that clashes with the cultures and upbringings of Latinx students. Instead, higher education institutions seeking to improve the educational experiences of Latinx students must strategically carve out physical and intellectual spaces where Latinx students can build a sense of family and community with members inside and outside their campus.

Toward a Community Cultural Wealth Model for Summer Bridge Programs

Programs must depart from viewing first-generation, low-income, and/or students of color as deficit and instead move toward an understanding of the historically accumulated impact of race and racism on the lives of students of color, particularly their limited educational access. In engaging in a critical interrogation of the historical impact of white supremacy in the educational opportunities of communities of color, or what Gloria Ladson-Billings (2006) refers to as the “education debt,” a Summer Bridge Program that aims to serve Latinx students must also acknowledge the assets that students bring with them to educational spaces. In her Community Cultural Wealth model, Tara Yosso (2005) argues that students of color possess various forms of capital that are rooted in their cultural and familial experiences that are unacknowledged in traditional educational settings. Summer Bridge Programs should cultivate a space of learning that supports Latinx students in drawing on their cultural strengths and knowledge to navigate the white dominant ideologies and norms that pervade higher education structures, practices, and discourses.

Conclusion

UC San Diego’s Summer Bridge Program strives to facilitate the social and academic success of Latinx students via a culturally relevant approach to teaching and learning. It is one of the many programs aligned with UC San Diego’s Latinx/Chicanx Academic Excellence Initiative that was launched in 2018 to help move the university from its emerging HSI status to its hopeful federal designation as an HSI. Importantly, HSI scholar Gina Garcia (2019) argued that Latinx-Serving Institutions must cultivate learning opportunities, programs, and initiatives that intentionally draw on the wealth of knowledge, skills, and practices of Latinx families and communities and embed these racial/ethnic ways of knowing and being into their desired student outcomes. The labor of love displayed by UC San Diego’s Summer Bridge staff is a novel approach to college transition that can be replicated by other higher education institutions seeking to improve their service to Latinx students. It is through an intersectional praxis of affirmation, collectivism, and empowerment that higher education institutions can effectively help their Latinx students learn, grow, and succeed at the university level and beyond.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Mayra Puente

References

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