Image: by Jewel Caruso Associate professor Greg Wolniak co-authored an article that appears online in Research in Higher Education. The article, "The Long-Term Role of Undergraduate Experiences: Predicting Intellectual and Civic Outcomes," was written in collaboration with Nicholas Bowman, Tricia Seifert, Kathleen Wise, and Charles Blaich. Along with Wolniak, they explored the connection between college experiences and post-college outcomes. Their sample pool consisted of 21,716 bachelor's degree recipients from 68 private institutions. Their findings "identified sizable relationships between several college experiences and post-college outcomes from private institutions." In other words, significant data points to the effect higher education has on students decades after graduation: "for the most part, the strength of the uncovered relationships is similar for recent graduates and for alumni who attended college decades earlier." Overall, their research shows direct evidence that institutions who provide good teaching, academic challenge, and diversity interactions "subsequently influence perceptions of learning, developments, and value beyond college." Thus, these experiences are "positively and significantly associated with alumni views of intellectual and civic growth." Institutions and society benefit from long-term outcomes from alumni who are broadly exposed to new ideas in their undergraduate years. The expected print publication date is this fall. Congratulations to Wolniak and his collaborators on their published research! The full article is viewable on Springer's Link website: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11162-022-09708-5 Type of News/Audience: General News Research
