UC San Diego

After events in 2010, students at the University of California at San Diego staged a series of protests to address the social climate of the campus, and differences in retention rates between historically underrepresented students and other students on the campus. This study addresses the complexity of retention by comparing reality --students' perspectives on their experiences on campus-- to theoretical models--existing literature on capital, integration and resiliency models. I reflect on the value of understanding student agency as a way of understanding the ways in which students produce retention, and discuss needs for further research to explore this model