The Culturally Engaging Campus Environments (CECE) Model: A New Theory of Success Among Racially Diverse College Student Populations

Abstract

In this chapter, the author makes the case for a new theory of college success among racially diverse student populations. He analyzes Tinto’s theory of student departure and delineates four major limitations of this model in explaining success among racially diverse populations. The author also provides an overview of alternative culturally relevant frameworks of success that have been generated from the voices of racially diverse communities and proposed to explain success among diverse student populations. In doing so, he highlights the contributions of these culturally relevant frameworks and discusses how they fall short of offering a comprehensive, easily quantifiable, and testable theoretical model that can provide the foundation for a new generation of research on success among racially diverse populations in college. Then, the author proposes a Culturally Engaging Campus Environments (CECE) model of success among racially diverse student populations that accounts for the major critiques of Tinto’s theory, is derived from research on diverse student bodies, and consists of a set of quantifiable constructs and testable propositions that can provide the foundation for a new line of inquiry into diverse college students’ success. The chapter ends with a set of conclusions and implications for research and practice in postsecondary education.