findings.

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Black student demand trends

4

Instiutional differences between public and private universities/colleges

1

Hypothesis on using language as a tactic

1. TRENDS

What are some of the overarching trends in the national Black student demands?

Through the word clouds, topic modeling tool, and stack chart, I idenitied ten overarching themes in the demands list. I used thematic coding to help facilate group pairings. Given the time restrictions, I was unable to do more iterations of the coding process, but these trends serve as a strong launchpad for understanding the demands made by the student groups.

Statements

Demand institution to make public statements against racial incidents, historical injustice, or take a clear anti-racist stance.

Changes in leadership

Demand institution to make changes in campus leadership (e.g., the removal of President, create a new VP for Diversity)

Curriculum

Demand institution to update or create a diversity requirement in general course requirements.

Support services

Demand more funding for Black student groups and services that support Black students.

Designated space

Demand a designated space or center on campus for Black students.

Bias training

Demand to increase, create, and/or require bias training for students, staff, and faculty.

Accountability

Demand a timeline for action and oversight structures for campus implementation. This includes calls for increasing transparency.

Increase Black presence

Demand for an increase in outreach, hiring, and admissions for Black students, staff, and/or faculty.

Strengthen Black Scholarship

Demand to establish or upgrade status of academic centers to academic departments for African American Studies departments.

Financial Aid

Demand for increased financial support and scholarship for Black students.

2. INSTITUTIONAL DISTINCTIONS

Are there institutional similarities or differences in the types of demands being presented?
If so, what are they?

Using Tableau Public, I used the coded data to create a bar chart to compare the demand type with their institutional status (i.e., public or private). For institutional type, there was about even split (private = 49, public = 51). At both public and private institutions, there was a push to increase Black presence and additional funding/resources as the top demands. Though many of the demand types had similar ratios, below there is review of several key differences.

**Click graph to see chart. Powered by Tableau Public.

Public institutions were less likely to demand additional funding/resources that private institutions. This could suggest students from public universities have more uneasiness in demanding funding as it is oftentimes less abundant at public universities.

Public institutions were more likely to demand space and/or a community center. Given is committment to the public/state and its larger size, this could suggest public unveristies have less space designated for its students.

Private institutions were more likely to demand greater accountability. This finding suggests that private institutions are possibly less transparent and have less oversight from students and other accountability structures.

Private institutions were more likely to demand leadership changes. Since this trend included firing and/or hiring a new person, it is hard to draw a conclusion. It could suggest private school students feel more agency to make decisions about campus leadership.

3. COMMUNICATION TACTICS

How did student activists communicate their demands (needs) to their their respective university administration?

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Stack chart of TopicModelling Data, powered by Tableau Public

Initial Topic Model, powered by the MALLET

Sentimental Analysis
In an effort to understand the nature of the demands, I completed a sentiment analysis, which assesses writer's attitude towards a particular topic (positive or negative). The overall mean was 1.13 and the standard deviation was 15.11. This shows that student demands only slightly leaned positive, and the demands were netrual or balcanced with both postive and negative attitudes.

Boxplot

Histrogram

KEY FINDING: This suggests that students sought to provide a balance approach in both critique of the institution, but also sought to provide aspirational and positive remarks on institutional change. This finding seems to contradict the preceived notion of demands.
More analysis is needed, but this is an interesting insight.

Contact Me:

Matt Griffith
mlgriffith8@gmail.com Twitter: @_mattgriffith

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