January 28, 2025
Reflecting on ASHE and Looking Ahead to DREAM 2025
In November, our team had the privilege of presenting at the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) conference in Minneapolis, MN. The event offered a great opportunity to share our work, connect with fellow grantees from the Rural Learner Success (RLS) Initiative supported by Ascendium Education Group, and reflect on how to better communicate our research through storytelling.
Presenting Our Work and Connecting with Fellow Grantees
A key highlight of the conference was sharing the progress of our Mapping Effective Mentorship for Rural Community College Students project. We found that mentorship programs that incorporated at least one critical mentoring element in their website description varied in the degree to which their approaches reflected critical mentorship practices such as empowerment, cultural connection, and critical awareness of systemic barriers. Presenting our insights and receiving feedback from scholars helped refine our approach, leading to the development of our second RLS data note which focused on critical mentorship practices supporting student success in rural community colleges. The conference also provided a valuable opportunity for collaboration, where we learned from other grantees tackling similar challenges in different contexts. It was energizing to see the diverse approaches to disseminating research, which sparked new ideas for how we can share our own findings more effectively.
Incorporating Storytelling Insights into Our Work
The storytelling workshop, put together by Ascendium and the American Institutes for Research (AIR), equipped us with valuable strategic and pragmatic approaches for sharing our research. The workshop walked us through applying key techniques for effective storytelling that move research communications from simply presenting data to making them more actionable and meaningful for practitioners in the field. The following are key insights from the session and how we have incorporated them into our most recent data note:
- Shifting our audience: We further shifted from an academic lens for the purpose of this data note by centering: “Why does this matter to practitioners?” This helped us more closely focus on how mentorship can directly address the challenges faced by those working with rural community college students using a critical lens.
- Providing mentoring strategies for practice: We provided clear and actionable mentoring strategies that practitioners can implement right away.
- Streamlining for impact: We streamlined our content, focusing on key takeaways for easier application by practitioners using bullet points.
- Focusing on core themes: We narrowed our focus to two central themes, emphasizing the “so what” and “now what” of our research with the goal of driving change.
- Creating space for reflection: We included reflective questions to encourage readers to connect our findings with their own experiences.
Looking Ahead to DREAM 2025
We are excited to continue applying these insights at DREAM 2025, where we’ll be presenting our session titled “Exploring Critical Mentorship in Rural Community Colleges: A National Overview” in Philadelphia, PA. Our session will explore the current landscape of critical mentorship in rural community colleges, systemic influences on its implementation, and ongoing insights shared by mentors and mentees through our interviews. Our goal is not only to share our findings but also to foster a collaborative space where participants can reflect on their own mentoring experiences and learn from one another.
As we continue to refine and expand our work, we remain committed to grappling with the following questions:
- Who are the storytellers, and are there situations when we, as researchers, might not be the best ones to tell these stories?
- How can we create meaningful space and opportunities for students and practitioners to share their own stories, positioning them as co-creators of the narrative?
- In what ways are we making sure that the communities we serve are actively involved in shaping our research and its outcomes?
We look forward to continuing this work and deepening its impact on rural community college students.