High Impact Practices Through Experiential Student Philanthropy: A Case Study of the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project and Academic Success at Northern Kentucky University

Abstract

High impact educational practices are active learning strategies that benefit learning outcomes, increase student engagement, and support student retention. This study examines the retention and persistence impact of student philanthropy, an active learning approach that engages students with the community by incorporating a philanthropy component into college courses. Results from this study demonstrate that students who participated in one or more student philanthropy courses had a substantially higher four-year graduation rate in comparison to students overall. Participants also exhibited a greater number of completed credit hours compared to the general university population and a higher semester-to-semester retention rate. This affirms the value of student philanthropy as a High Impact Teaching Practice (HITP) that actively engages students inside and outside of the classroom, around the university campus, and in the community.

Framing the Effects of High-Impact Practices from a High-Impact Learning Perspective. A Review of Studies

“…They remarked that thanks to writing-intensive courses or common intellectual experiences, students have the opportunity to communicate and interact orally or in writing with peers, instructors or any other individual. In addition, participation in HIPs helps students to develop communication skills important for their future careers (Bampasidou et al, 2016;Weber & Myrick, 2018;Alston & Ericksen, 2019), provides the opportunity to build a network of peer support (Bonet & Walters, 2016), exposes students to diverse learning environments (Dinh & Zhang, 2020), builds teamwork skills (Farrow & Burt, 2018), allows students to learn from each other (Ferrari & Fine, 2016), promotes not only student-faculty interaction inside and outside the classroom, but also friendships (Priest & de Campos Paula, 2016;Dupont & Rodenborg, 2020;Miller et al, 2011), fosters interaction with peers inside and outside of the classroom (Perrotta, 2020; Wismath & Newberry, 2019;Larson et al, 2020), encourages students to create new knowledge (Murphrey et al, 2016), enhances active and collaborative learning (Price & Tovar, 2014;Rodriguez & Koubek, 2019); focuses on teamwork and students' integration of knowledge gained in other courses with their teammates (Armstrong-Mensah et al, 2019). According to Murray (2015), the purpose of HIPs is to make judgments about the value of information by discussing ideas or information obtained from different perspectives and various sources through classroom discussions with faculty members and others outside of class.…”

“…High-impact learning activities guide students on how to adapt to the reality where they live as a global citizen and also give them the ability to adapt quickly to a changing environment (Bampasidou et al, 2016), encourage students to connect in-class-materials with informal experiences (Murphrey et al, 2016;Armstrong-Mensah et al, 2019), bring what is planned in theory into practice (Priest & de Campos Paula, 2016;Zilvinskis & Dumford, 2018), expose students to diverse learning environments (Dinh & Zhang, 2020), provide transformational learning opportunities inside and outside of the classroom (Wu & Park, 2019;Henderson, 2017;Miller et al, 2018;Larson et al, 2020;Zilvinskis & McCormick, 2019), help students to integrate and synthesise what they have learned and apply it in various environments and allow them to apply their acquired knowledge and skills to the real world settings (Cotten & Thompson, 2017;Alston & Ericksen, 2019), provide informal academic environment which can foster student engagement in HIPs (Murray, 2015), allow students to connect learning experiences with specific experiences by applying them to different contexts (Farrow & Burt, 2018;Fassett et al, 2020). Also, while study abroad provides an effective experience for students to gain the necessary skills to be agents of social change (Ferrari & Fine, 2016), service-learning provides students an ideal real-world setting not only to put the lessons into practice but also to reevaluate their previous attitudes and overcome their fears (Knouse, 2018).…”

“…One of the reasons of that was stated in 11 studies as preparing students for their future careers with job-related knowledge and skills (Anderson et al, 2016;Bampasidou et al, 2016;Zilvinskis & McCormick, 2019;Rodriguez & Koubek, 2019;Armstrong-Mensah et al, 2019;Dinh & Zhang, 2020;Simons et al, 2020;Alston & Ericksen, 2019;Farrow & Burt, 2018;Fassett et al, 2020;Goulette & Denney, 2018). Also, the practices enhance the ability to work effectively with others (Anderson et al, 2016), prepare graduates for employment after graduation with real world experiences (Murphrey et al, 2016), enable students to experience the needs and realities of a global society (Ferrari & Fine, 2016;Larson et al, 2020), allow students to engage in meaningful interactions (Ribera et al, 2017), help to achieve student-set goals such as gaining insight into possible career choices and increasing marketability for future competitive opportunities (Dupont & Rodenborg, 2020). Trager (2020) announced that internships facilitate the transition from university to work life as they offer students the opportunity to gain experience in their work environment before completing their education.…”

“…It was observed in 48 studies that the Collaboration and coaching was associated with the positive effects of high-impact learning practices, which are collaboration, personal growth and social development, communication, enhanced learning, appreciation of diversity, student-faculty/peer/community interaction, critical thinking, leadership of one's own learning, motivation, academic success, retention and engagement.To illustrate, it was suggested that while HIPs allow group work, they enable students to work effectively with others(Anderson, Anson, Gonyea, & Paine, 2016;Einbinder, 2018;Wismath & Newberry, 2019). Additionally, HIPs develop interpersonal skills such as, teamwork(Bampasidou, Grogan, Clark, & Sandberg, 2016;McBroom, Bullard, Kulhavy, & Unger, 2015;Trager, 2020;Larson, Downing, Nolan, & Neikirk, 2020;Farrow & Burt, 2018).Anderson, Boyd, Marin & McNamara (…”

On teaching philanthropy

“…In recent years, experiential philanthropy has emerged as one such innovative pedagogy that allows students to learn about, engage in, and practice their own philanthropy (McDougle et al, 2017). Generally considered to be a high‐impact pedagogical practice (Larson et al, 2020), experiential philanthropy is intended to not only provide students with the resources to participate in philanthropic activities, but also with an opportunity to critically examine and reflect on what philanthropy means to them personally—in their lives, their communities, and in society more generally (McDougle et al, 2017). In doing so, a major goal of experiential philanthropy—in addition to awarding much‐needed funding to smaller, oftentimes more grassroots, nonprofits typically overlooked by foundations in the grantmaking process (Faulk et al, 2016)—is to encourage students to view themselves as philanthropists and to ultimately motivate them to get involved in their local communities (McDougle et al, 2017).…”