The purpose of this study was to provide a historical overview of the development of the General Studies (GS) program at LSU Shreveport from its inception in 1967 until 2007. Sources of data were primary, secondary, and archival documents, student information accessed through the university mainframe, alumni information obtained from a university-sponsored directory, and an interview with the former vice-chancellor of academic affairs. All data were analyzed and placed in a chronological framework. The resulting framework consisted of dividing the 40 years of program existence into four ten-year periods. The study was limited in scope to the GS program at LSU Shreveport and did not seek to compare this program with other programs offered at the university or other GS programs in the state. The study results identified several key social, economic, and political factors that influenced the program’s development. Political factors included the change from a two-year to a four-year institution, the Statewide Review Committee recommendations of 1983, the dissolving of the College of General Studies in 1984, and the accountability movement of the 1990s. Key social factors discovered were the Civil Rights and Women’s Movements of the 1960s,and progressive, life adjustment, and humanistic educational philosophies. Economic factors revealed …

The Texas Hispanic population is projected to grow to 18.8 million, almost tripling its number within the state, in only 30 years. This rapid growth is a concern for Texas higher education because this group has traditionally been under-represented in colleges and universities. Also, according to national, state, and local data, Hispanic students are retained at a lower rate than are other ethnic groups. Because of lower retention rates for Hispanic students and because the majority of Hispanic college students are female, an increasing number of Hispanic women are heads of households. Studying the attrition rates of Hispanic females could provide a better understanding of how the state can improve both the participation and retention rates of this population. This study utilized descriptive statistics and regression analysis to identify the correlations between and among the dependent variable of attrition and independent variables derived from (1) pre-college survey responses measuring college expectations and (2) early-first semester survey responses measuring actual college experience. Institutional data were used to confirm enrollment status at the beginning of the second semester. The sample of the study was all female, full-time, first-time-in college student survey respondents attending a public 4-year institution in Texas. This number included …

In accordance with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Boards’ Closing the Gaps by 2015, this research study analyzed self-reported perceptions about college-going culture from students (n = 151) who attended four House Bill 400 schools serving Latino and African American communities in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. This study utilized exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with a maximum likelihood extraction technique to identify hidden perceptions (latent factors) that account for common variance among student perceptions about college-going culture. The study also tested the validity and inter-item reliability of the 15-item College-Going Culture Survey used in data collection. The parallel analysis, EFA, and Cronbach’s ? identified two latent factors of Verified College Potential (? = .70) and College Capital Awareness (? = .71) that, together, explained 40.1% of students’ perceptions. The two factors were non-significantly negatively correlated (r = -.495, p = .354). By utilizing the two latent constructs, a 10-item revised College-Going Culture Survey is recommended to improve the inter-item reliability coefficient from ? = .46 to ? = .77. Descriptive statistics revealed that Latino and African-American students affirmed aspects of the college-going culture at HB 400 schools. However, latent factors suggest the possibility that students who reportedly feel most encouraged to …