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Welcome to The EDU Ledger! We’ve moved from Diverse: Issues In Higher Education.

Section: Opinion

Community Colleges

Roueche Center Forum: Involving All Faculty in the Guided Pathways Work Is Key

Guided pathways is a reform movement that aims to help community college students graduate, transfer to four-year institutions and attain jobs with value in the labor market by reframing the entire student journey.

May 11, 2021

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Asian American Pacific Islander

AANHPIHM “Poster Boy” Is Accused Student Who Stands Up to Dartmouth

Sirey Zhang is the new higher ed poster boy for Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. He is blasting away at the negative stereotype of the AANHPIHM person who lacks the courage and good sense to speak up. Zhang’s showing some guts standing up to the bullying of Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine.

May 10, 2021

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African-American

Can HBCUs Capitalize on the Hemp Rush?

The landscape for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) is rapidly changing amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and new proposals on the horizon at the national level from the Biden administration. It will be incumbent on institutions to adapt their programming to meet the changing needs of the economic environment. They will need to be economic engines as well as learning institutions.

May 6, 2021

One Year After the Shutdown: Education Lessons from COVID-19

A year ago, K-12 classrooms and college campuses across the country shuttered; many still remain closed. As the panic of the pandemic spread, students and teachers stayed home and shifted to “emergency” mode – delivering curriculum in whatever ways they could. This was not online learning; this was emergency remote teaching.

May 5, 2021

Black Male Teachers Should be the Norm, Not the Exception

Our education system, as we know it, is systematically racist. How did we get here? We haven’t been thinking about what is best for kids. Kids perform better in school when they are with teachers of the same race or ethnicity. There are approximately 8 million (15%) Black students in America’s public schools, yet only 7% of teachers are Black. By not providing enough teachers of color for our students we are exacerbating a form of racism in the field; we don’t take that seriously enough.

April 30, 2021

Through Perseverance, North Carolina A&T Journalism Major Lands Coveted Internship at The Washington Post

Lauren Mitchell could become a case study for how to successfully navigate the demands of college life. She also could serve as a reminder, especially to her fellow HBCU colleagues, that it is important to take advantage of every learning opportunity your university offers while also learning to believe in yourself, although every once and a while you might need a little nudge from a friend.

April 29, 2021

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African-American

Why College-Educated Black Women Are Threats in 2021

College-educated Black women are a threat ─ to the white American supremacy and higher education as we know it. Threats are meant to intimidate ─ to threaten is to give signs or warnings, to announce with intent or possibility, to cause to feel insecure or anxious. Threats hang and hover over, invoking fear with purpose. Threats are an indication of something impending. The threat of powerful, college-educated Black women in 2021 is looming. Warning signs ahead!

April 27, 2021

Shaking Up the Athletic Lottery

Sports has long been a fixture in American life generally and in communities of color more specifically. One could argue that there is seemingly more at stake on average for Black athletes because of the economic condition of Black communities in the United States. The cultural embeddedness of the athletic route and the sports dream in the lives of young Black men is something that is taken for granted in many cases. For the small few who make it to play in college or the pros, a glimmer of hope for the masses is given.

April 27, 2021

Diverse Jury Saw George Floyd as Human and Delivered Justice

One aspect of the Derek Chauvin verdicts in the murder of George Floyd that people fail to see is how there’s justice in diversity—if you let diversity work.

April 26, 2021

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Community Colleges

Fostering Social Justice in Higher Education

As the pace of change continues to accelerate, higher education leaders are now under constant pressure to respond to social justice issues within their campuses and surrounding communities. To my generation, education is viewed as the “great equalizer,” but this promise of equality cannot be achieved when fundamental injustice exists.

April 26, 2021

Considering the Impact of COVID-19 on Teacher Education: What Really Matters

The COVID-19 pandemic shed a harsh light on the systemic inequities in schools and communities. If we believe schools are the epicenter to dismantle racism and inequities, then we must examine our role as teacher educators to address these issues of inequality. How can we use this inflection point to positively and substantively change educator preparation?

April 23, 2021

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African-American

Creating Equitable Classroom Environments

The decision to pivot to remote learning brought its own set of challenges for countless children and families across diverse communities. Foremost, were the ongoing efforts to create, establish, and maintain a caring and equitable classroom environment with actively engaged children and their families.

April 22, 2021

Imposter Syndrome: A Buzzword with Damaging Consequences

Like many racially minoritized faculty who engage in work for equity and social justice, we are no strangers to the daily manifestations of systems of oppression and oppressive behavior in academia. Recently during one of our conversations, the topic of imposter syndrome surfaced as we both processed some of our experiences.

April 21, 2021

Faculty & Staff

Questioning Our Questions About Faculty Diversity

I was recently contacted by a news outlet to share thoughts about the lack of faculty diversity within the UC (University of California) system. This is the kind of opportunity I especially welcome because it allows me to discuss both my scholarly expertise and insights through experiences. However, on this particular occasion my excitement was soon met with other sentiments.

April 20, 2021

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Breaking the Ice for Diverse Populations On Campus

Despite universities’ efforts to recruit diverse student bodies, members of different demographic groups remain susceptible to avoiding “the other.” That situation is particularly striking at this moment on college campuses in Israel, given the groundbreaking developments in the broader Middle East region, which represent the very opposite trend.

April 19, 2021

African-American

Black Colleges and Universities: Charting a Path to Transformational

Recent, so-called “transformational” gifts to HBCUs, most notably MacKenzie Scott’s multi-million dollar beneficence to twenty-two public and private HBCUs, present huge opportunities to reimagine and reposition some extraordinary institutions. No reasonable person can deny that these gifts with no strings attached represent a significant investment in these schools as well as an affirmation of their worth. They are not, ipso facto, transformational, however. These monies have the potential to be transformational only if meaningful conversations occur among institutional leadership, governing boards and stakeholders.

April 16, 2021

Dr. Alvin J. Schexnider

The Jalen Hurts Template on How to Handle Career Storms

There are lessons from college sports that can be transferred to other areas of life, even to higher educational administrative apparatuses. Personnel moves on the football field can mirror personnel moves in departments or schools. People are put in different positions and called upon to execute different roles and assignments.

April 16, 2021

Self-Help Recommendations on How Millennial Women of Color Survive College

During this self-isolation and social distancing period, I have come to the realization that I did not fully know myself as much as I thought, and that was a notion that was frightening yet ethereal.

April 15, 2021