A new, three-year initiative by the American Council on Education (ACE) will provide a “data-informed foundation” to promote policies and practices that support students, faculty and staff of color in higher education.
ACE recently announced that its project, “Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education: A Status Report,” will examine gaps and progress in educational attainment for underrepresented students. The project will also evaluate diversity issues in the professoriate and postsecondary leadership pipeline.
“While communities of color have made tremendous educational progress over the last several decades, data show that persistent racial gaps remain, from preschool through postsecondary education, professional training, hiring, retention and promotion,” said ACE President Ted Mitchell in the organization’s announcement. “With this initiative, ACE aims to engage a broad community of stakeholders including campus leadership, policymakers, researchers and practitioners who study and carry out work that seeks to advance communities of color on our nation’s college and university campuses.”
The announcement for the initiative comes amid struggles by some in higher education to implement long-term and systemic solutions that address the widening racial achievement and opportunity gaps despite a changing and more diverse higher education landscape.
Plans for the initiative began when Lorelle Espinosa, assistant vice president at ACE’s Center for Policy Research and Strategy (CPRS) and principal investigator for the initiative, started thinking about how ACE could build on its previous work on race and ethnicity in higher education in a way that is updated with new data and new information, she said.
A “cornerstone” of the project will be the creation of a digital platform – a micro-site – that will serve as a “portfolio of work” and as a “launch-point” to larger conversations around access and support for underrepresented students in their higher education pursuits, Espinosa said. “We want it to serve as a hub for the information that people require to move diversity, equity and inclusion issues forward.”
CPRS, a center that “provides thought leadership at the intersection of public policy and institutional strategy,” will lead the initiative in collaboration with RTI International, a not-for-profit research institute with knowledge in data analysis and visualization. Financial support for the initiative comes from a $938,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
