Getting into the Pipeline: Summer Bridge as a Pathway to College Success

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONLeading thinkers and most everyone else agree that education beyond high school is a necessity for today's youth, which translates into a duty to ensure not only a passageway to college but one that leads to success upon arrival. As Hoffman, Vargas, and Santos (2008) asserted, If everyone needs an education through two years of college or the equivalent, then the nation has an obligation to provide a far more certain pathway for postsecondary success than it does now. While all postsecondary institutions should assume this charge, Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) face more specifically challenging circumstances. HBCUs face increasing challenges to one of their core missions of serving a population of students that includes a significant number who are underprepared-academically and otherwise-for the challenges of college life and academic success. Concomitant with the reality that an ever-changing society has dismantled what one university describes as the HBCU's monopoly on Black talent exists the realization that students will enter the university at various stages of preparedness. This same university suggests that the prevailing notion of academic under-preparedness as an obstacle to success should be re-focused as strategic interventions that will diminish impediments to academic achievement (Winston-Salem State University, 2010). The comprehensive summer bridge concept is one of those interventions.Transition programs in their various forms are nothing new to higher education and are recognized as one of the oldest forms of channeling at-risk, under-prepared, and under-represented students toward college success. Also referred to as pipeline summer bridge programs range in form from early intervention models to comprehensive summer programs designed to bridge the high school to college gap (Strayhorn, 2011). While strengthening academic success is nearly always a primary goal with bridge programs, especially programs offered the summer prior to the freshman year, comprehensive programs also focus heavily on affective factors and development of soft skills such as time management often associated with college success (Zhang & Smith, 2011). Whether such initiatives take the form of the brief pre-matriculation activity aimed at introducing students to the college environment or the comprehensive, residential program with college courses as the center, the summer bridge program is gaining much attention as a tool to address college readiness. As an illustration of this heightened focus, in its strategic plan through 2018, the University of North Carolina General Administration (UNCGA, 2013a) lists the expansion of summer bridge programs among its strategies to increase its percentage of college-educated citizens in the state. Specifically, the plan acknowledges the effectiveness of well-designed and implemented summer bridge programs as a retention strategy. Proposed additional program investments would increase annual participation from 300 to 1,600 participants with a projected 3,000 additional graduates over 10 years (UNCGA, 2013b).North Carolina's university system specifically points to the success of long-standing bridge programs, such as the one operated at Fayetteville State University, a University of North Carolina (UNC) constituent institution, for its track record of improving retention from 6 to 13 percentage points in the at-risk population it serves (UNCGA, 2013b). In 2008, UNCGA launched an initiative referred to as the UNC Academic Summer Bridge and Retention Program, with the summer of 2012 marking the fifth consecutive year of the program. The overall goal of Summer Bridge is to provide an intensive and rigorous summer residential program specifically designed for first-generation students and students requiring additional academic preparation in order to successfully transition from high school to the university setting. The program design and guidelines were established at the UNC system level. …