College environment

The growing Haitian population in the United States is directly affecting all
institutions of higher education As institutions continue to diversify across the
country, HBCUs are also responding to this trend According to Ricard and
Brown (2008), HBCUs are changing in order to keep up with the growing demand
of institutional diversity, and they recognize that having a diversified student body
will make the institutions more competitive
Although their historic mission focuses on educating Black students, there
remains a gap in the literature on HBCUs on one of the largest Black groups in
the United States: the Haitian immigrant In the literature, the Haitian population
constitutes approximately 15% of the total US foreign-born population, and
15% of the total Black immigrant population in the US, behind Jamaicans at
18%, respectively Moreover, Haitians make up the fourth largest immigrant population from the Caribbean behind Cubans, Dominicans, and Jamaicans
(Anderson, 2015) However, these numbers do not include the hundreds of
thousands of Haitians who fled the Country after the devastating earthquake of
2010 nor the thousands of undocumented Haitian immigrants currently living in
the US
This qualitative phenomenological study sought to explore the college
choice process of ten Haitian students who chose to attend a highly selective
HBCU located in the Northeast region of the United States Moreover, this study
sought to explore how these ten Haitian students developed a sense of
belonging to the HBCU campus The primary methods for data collection
included semi-structured one-on-one interviews, a demographic questionnaire,
and artifact analysis Using the theoretical frameworks of Chapman’s (1981)
Model of College Choice and Sense of Belonging, this study discovered the
factors that influence Haitian students’ decision to attend a highly selective
HBCU centers around family Moreover, this study discovered that Haitian
students at a highly selective HBCU described their sense of belonging through
various forms of relationships

Growing out of the college retention research of Alexander Astin (1993) and Vincent Tinto (1975), this study examined differences in academic achievement and persistence of first-semester college freshmen who participated in Freshman Learning Communities (FLC), including a Living-Learning Community (LLC), and students who did not participate in a university-sponsored learning community. This study also explored variables that may moderate the relationship of learning community participation with academic achievement and persistence. Variables explored included: entry-level readiness for self-directed learning, gender, ethnicity, high school GPA, and SAT or equivalent ACT scores. Data was collected from 544 students at XYZ University using a pre/post university-developed instrument, the College Assessment of Readiness for Entering Students Intended (CARES-I), College Assessment of Readiness for Entering Students- Actual (CARES-A) and the Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale/Learning Preference Assessment. Demographic and academic data were collected through the institution's Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Analysis. There was a statistically significant difference in academic achievement for students enrolled in either a Freshman Learning Community or a Living Learning Community (df = 424, t = 2.32, p < .05) as compared to students not part of a freshman learning community. The learning community students had higher end-of-semester grades. Multiple regression analysis was used to explore the moderating variables that may influence the learning community effect on academic achievement. Only the pre-academic characteristic of students' entering high school GPA moderated the relationship of learning community participation and academic achievement (p < .05).