Context

This is a memo I wrote as an intern at Public Profit. It summarizes insights from a qualitative project that evaluated a Foundation-funded initiative to better support rural male students, a demographic that often shows particularly poor academic success outcomes. The initiative included foundation funding for a cohort of new programs at 4 community colleges specifically designed to support rural male students.

The evaluation project’s goals were to better understand each program’s service model, including the strategies staff used to recruit and retain students, how each program was shaped by their unique institutional and community context, what worked well about the Foundation’s supports and what could be improved, and big-picture lessons the initiative could hold for the field. The memo’s intended audience was the Foundation’s grant-making team for this initiative and the program staff at each college.

Interviews were co-conducted by me and another Public Profit staff member. Analysis and writing were led by me, with feedback from other project staff members.

Foundation and college names have been redacted to maintain privary.

Memo Text:

This memo shares insights from Public Profit’s interviews with 4 [REDACTED] initiative direct service staff members, one from each of the participating colleges, in July 2024.

Key Takeaways

• Each program’s service model and staff approaches are tailored to their college’s specific institutional, community, and demographic contexts.
• All programs engaged in some experimentation to achieve the necessary customization for their program. This process took time and included a mix of some ideas that were successful, coupled with some that didn’t turn out as expected and were dropped.
• All staff center their work on building and maintaining relationships with the students they serve, high schools where they do outreach, and other campus programs.

Recruitment and Retention Strategies

Staff from all programs focus on building strong, trusting relationships

All staff members emphasized the importance of building trust and strong relationships with rural male students. Building trust over time is perhaps especially important when working with rural male community college students: several staff shared that it often takes time before students feel comfortable enough to share about more personal topics with program staff, who can then refer them to appropriate services. Staff cultivate relationships by introducing themselves to each student, maintaining an approachable presence, practicing active listening, and communicating that they are there to help students.

“I make a point of communicating that it’s about them being successful, not about me helping them. It’s finding those little pieces that make them know that I see them and care about them, I’m not just going through the motions.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

“My recommendation [to someone else setting up a similar program] would be to build the relationships as quickly as you can. Relationships in the high schools, and of course, with your students.” - Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

“I think building relationships starts with honesty, introducing yourself to the student and making sure that they understand you’re 100% here for them.” - Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

“Part of building trust is just listening. I think most students really need someone to listen.” - Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

Staff from all programs prioritize consistent communication and/or visibility

While staff vary in how assertive their communication is, all prioritize consistent check-ins with students and/or consistent visibility of their services on campus. Several staff put a lot of effort into reaching out persistently to students who are struggling to help them address the issues they are experiencing. Maintaining a consistent in-person presence in places students spend time was also important for several staff: one attends students’ classes to provide academic support, another establishes relationships with students through their role as a sports coach, and a third advertises their events by spending time in the common areas of campus where students hang out. One staff has formalized regular visibility of services by sending newsletters to students.

“I send out regular newsletters every couple of weeks to my mailing list. In the emails, I have a picture of myself under my signature, so that students can look at it and know ‘That’s [Name], he’s a human being’. I really focus on building rapport through consistent outreach.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

“I really try to stay visible: stay in the common areas when I can, and make lots of flyers. It’s important to physically be there because a lot of students don’t respond to emails, and because in-person interactions feel really special for this generation who are used to communicating virtually so much.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

Colleges vary on which programming format works best

Most staff (3 out of 4) said that 1:1 advising sessions were more successful at soliciting student interest than group activities. However, one staff had the opposite experience: students seemed more interested in small group activities or events than in 1:1 sessions. This staff member speculated that students at their college may be less interested in 1:1 support because they already have mentors they can look to for help, and/or because they don’t see the college as a place to get resources. Because this college is substantially smaller than the others, students also may not need as much support navigating bureaucracy to accomplish necessary tasks (for example, register for classes) as at the other schools.

“Creating group activities tailored to small group interests has worked well for me. I think this is partly because at my college there are a lot of students who don’t drive, so they hang out on campus all day. A group activity gives them something to do and a place to hang out.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

“Students at my college shy away from being social in a big group.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

Institutional and Community Context

The most common institutional challenges included staffing changes, staffing gaps, and lack of coordination across campus programs

Almost all of the staff (3 out of 4) mentioned staffing changes within their program had happened during the grant period. Often, these changes were at least a bit challenging to adapt to, although in one instance the change was positive when the staff moved to a new department and supervisor that were a better fit. One staff member also mentioned staffing gaps within other college programs (e.g., only one staff assigned to financial aid, lack of student services at satellite campus) which were a challenge.

I’m glad that my supervisor left at a time where I didn’t need a lot of help getting things done. But still, the transition was a bit challenging.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

All staff named coordinating with other campus programs as a challenge. Coordination challenges can lead to inefficiencies, where multiple programs are duplicating each other’s work. Issues stemmed not only from challenges with communicating between programs, but also lack of written records, and in some cases from institutional decisions higher up in the college. For example, one staff shared that their college had applied for several grants with very similar goals, which resulted in staff across several programs doing very similar things. In some cases, coordination and organization difficulties caused staff to forego some activities, such as high school outreach.

“Therea are lots of cooks in the kitchen, but no recipe book: we don’t have a database, and nobody knows who’s talking to who.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

“Our biggest challenge is aligning what we’re doing, who’s doing it, and when across our different programs, to make sure we’re not overwhelming students.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

Support from the institution is very important for staff experience and program success

Staff described varying levels of support from their institution across all levels, from the highest echelons of leadership to the faculty to other program staff. Support (or lack thereof) played a big role in staff experience, leading to frustration and added friction when it was not provided while increasing staff positivity about their work when it was provided. Support could look like the college president communicating that they care about rural male students’ experiences, faculty being open to working with staff to better support students or advertise the program, supervisors providing support or valuing staff feedback, and co-workers within the program or other campus programs working together.

“The college is very open to new ideas and suggestions I have, which I appreciate.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

“My first supervisor didn’t communicate very frequently with me, and wasn’t very responsive to my requests.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

Staff collaborate with campus partners by tag-teaming and making referrals to resources

Program staff are embedded within an ecosystem of student support services on campus. They collaborate with other programs by referring students to on-campus support services, participating in events put on by other programs, and sometimes by tag-teaming to see which staff member might have more success connecting with a particular student. Effective collaborations are facilitated by strong relationships with other staff and physical proximity to the other program’s offices. Specific campus partners mentioned by staff included TRIO, summer bridge programs, major/professional program advisors, high school recruitment teams, faculty, student government, career counseling, and student support services (financial aid, basic needs, mental health, and physical health).

“[A student support service staff] and I also tag team. So if I’m not getting traction with a student, I’ll have her jump in to see if she can make any progress, and vice versa.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

“Collaboration is convenient, because my desk is right next to the staff from other programs. So if they have a new student come in, they can introduce me to them, and I can tell them about the services I offer.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

“With the high school recruitment teams and college fairs, we piggyback on each other’s events.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

Some programs leverage community partnerships to provide resources that aren’t present on campus, but partnerships can be challenging to create

Staff varied in how much they engaged with community organizations. Several staff leveraged community partnerships to provide important resources that weren’t present on campus (for example, LGBTQ-focused spaces, career exploration). However, some staff discussed challenges with establishing or maintaining partnerships, which centered around partners being too burdened or busy to take on new collaborations and challenges with scheduling campus events where several partners would participate.

“I reached out to a bunch of identity-based organizations. I was successful in connecting with one of them, but the others either I never heard back, or they canceled the meeting we had set up.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

“Community partnerships are very important to our program, because they facilitate student career exploration and connections to the workforce that they can leverage when they graduate.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

[REDACTED] Foundation Supports

Grantee Gatherings were universally well-loved, particularly student panels, though some staff would appreciate more time for connection and reflection

All staff had very positive opinions about the Grantee Gatherings. Staff appreciated the opportunity to connect with other people doing this work, learn from their experiences, and deepen their knowledge of specific topics. Several staff mentioned that the Gatherings packed a lot of material in, which they understood, but they wondered what could be gained from having a slower pace with more time for reflection.

“It always felt like we had a 5-pound sack and 10 pounds of stuff to get done. I wonder what we might have missed out on by not having a slower pace or time for reflection.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

One staff requested a confidential channel for direct service staff to communicate with the [REDACTED] Foundation, starting from the beginning of the grant

In cases where the relationship between a direct staff and their supervisor is fraught, having direct and confidential communication channels with the [REDACTED] Foundation would allow for more accurate insights into how the work is going and what support might be needed. With the current systems, most communication is either mediated through direct staff’s supervisor, or is done with their supervisor being looped in.

Several staff requested a 3-year grant extension to allow enough time to see results

If they could “wave a magic wand” and get whatever they wanted from the [REDACTED] Foundation, several staff mentioned that they would want a 3-year extension to the grant. Because experimenting to find what works and establishing relationships takes time, staff believed that the full impact of their program would take more time to be realized.

Lessons For the Field and Future

Structures should be put in place to facilitate smooth and efficient coordination between campus programs

Because coordination with other campus programs was a common and frustrating challenge, it is important to establish strategies to improve efficiency and ease of communication. Several staff mentioned strategies that have been helpful: one college set up a planning committee focused on improving coordination among staff doing high school outreach across programs, and other staff mentioned that having desks in close physical proximity to their most common collaborators facilitated easy and convenient communication.

“We’ve got all these people in the schools, and we don’t know when each person is going, so we’re duplicating efforts. But now we’ve started this big planning meeting that’s really focused on figuring out how we can coordinate to have thorough and efficient representation.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

Direct service staff onboarding should include training on the campus’ resource ecosystem and historical context of relationships with community partners

Several staff mentioned that they appreciated training they received when onboarding to their role on the resource ecosystem of their college, and the importance of knowing about the historical context of relationships with community partners (particularly high schools) when engaging with them.

“Knowing the ins and outs of who everyone is in the different departments and who you can ask questions to is really important. Because if you don’t have the answer for a student, you need to be able to find someone who does in order to help them.” – Staff at [REDACTED] Community College

Staff training around rural male student mental health concerns and trauma-informed strategies for supporting students could be helpful

Several staff mentioned that they observed rural male students often encountered challenges surrounding mental health and substance use. Some of these challenges are related to traumas or adversities (for example, poverty, abuse). One staff brought up that additional training on trauma-informed strategies for supporting rural male student mental health concerns would be helpful.