The Ascenders: A College Success Toolkit Inspired by Rural Black Men

Rural Black men arrive on campus with many strengths that position them for success inside and outside the classroom. In The Ascenders, Jarvis Marlow-McCowin leverages creative and accessible writing to highlight the various factors that helped rural Black men excel in higher education. This book is informed by interviews with rural Black men who successfully persisted to and through higher education. Readers gain insight into how rural Black men’s upbringing, their cultural and social wealth, and their sustained investments in relationships and identity create conditions for thriving and realizing what is possible for them.Adopting an anti-deficit approach and leveraging critical, asset-based frameworks, the narratives highlighted challenge dominant assumptions and reframe how we understand rural communities and success. The book is a blend of research and guiding practice, filled with actionable toolkits, strategies, and recommendations to help campus leaders, support networks, and institutions create policies and practices that foster success among rural Black men and other underserved students.Grounded in lived experience and informed by scholarship, Marlow-McCowin calls readers into deeper reflection about how campuses define merit, belonging, and support. This book invites institutions to rethink inherited assumptions and to build environments that affirm and learn from the assets students already carry with them. Written for those who shape policy, programs, and student experiences, The Ascenders offers a roadmap for aligning practice with possibility and for ensuring that rural Black men, and other historically overlooked students, are not simply included, but fully positioned to thrive. Read more