A May 2014 New York Times Magazine cover story, “Who Gets to Graduate?” examined UT Austin’s efforts to increase student success and graduation and prominently featured the work of David Yeager, a UT assistant professor of psychology who is emerging as one of the world’s leading experts on the psychology of education.
Yeager’s research and involvement with U.T. Mindset, an intervention that addresses students’ anxieties about ability and belonging, could improve the transition to college, especially for first-generation students. Due to the success of the pilot in 2012, it was introduced to 7,200 members of the incoming class of 2018. Thanks to a one-time intervention that took 45 minutes to complete, possibly hundreds of first-generation students will graduate from UT who otherwise would not have graduated on time, if ever.
In addition to highlighting the good work on the Forty Acres, the photo shoot for the story was led by Bill McCullough, a 1986 Plan II graduate and Austin native.