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

Section: Opinion

It’s Time to Hack the Gates in College Admissions Systems

Research has found that admissions officers are more likely to recommend low-income students for admission when they have access to more student background and context information for holistic review processes.

September 11, 2019

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Effectively Mentoring Women of Color on the College Campus: A Holistic and Intersectional Ecology (HIE) Model

Many women of color (WOC) students have been silently suffering at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI’s) across the country. A deeper examination suggests these students are doing well academically, but struggling to maintain positive wellbeing in campus environments that may feel unwelcoming and at times hostile.

September 10, 2019

I Was Raised by Black Educators. We Think Biden Disappoints

At the intersection of race and inequality, I see unique and impressive strengths in several of the candidate’s education agendas and I find myself particularly excited about Senator Kamala Harris’ more ambitious goals of raising teacher pay by an average of 13.5k and investing over 60 billion in infrastructure, scholarship and curriculum funding at HBCUs.

September 9, 2019

Diversity, Thy Name is…Canada? And R.I.P. Adversity Scores—Was it Such a Bad Idea?

The SAT folks took the easy way out on the so called “Adversity Score” proposal. After announcing the plan to come up with a simple tool to help evaluate admissions candidates, the College Board caved to criticism and dropped the idea.

September 6, 2019

Bringing HBCUs to the (Round) Table

Repeatedly in the HBCU research literature and through anecdotal accounts, we have learned that school officials, specifically counselors but also teachers, are not aware of HBCUs and fail to present these schools as options for college-bound high school students.

September 5, 2019

Asian American Pacific Islander

American Minorities and Our Foreign Cousins

Racial nationalists, who equate ethnicity with belonging, can co-exist with each other. Their acceptance may be begrudging, but they can be sympathetic to one another’s sense of who should be where. They will avoid conflict if they stay in the appropriate place and don’t claim the same territory. It is those whose race and nationality do not correspond, or who are cosmopolitan, who threaten an order deemed natural

September 3, 2019

Guilt, Fear, and Anger: The Juxtaposition of Being a Mexican Immigrant Professor

As an assistant professor at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in Texas, I feel a moral obligation to foster a supportive and safe learning environment for all my students – especially the targeted and most vulnerable populations. I want them to know that in my classroom, they should expect to feel safe and validated regardless of what is happening in society. Yet, I have been advised by many mentors to never talk politics and to always remain neutral. But this is not about neutrality.

September 3, 2019

African-American

Blackness in the Academy: Who Owns the Truth?

Blackness, who owns it? Perhaps a better question to ponder is, can Blackness be owned? As I reflect on this complex question, I am very aware that my positionality as a Black male is always going to be an intersecting identity vector that I will never be able to erase.

August 30, 2019

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Athletics is Educational, Theory Says So

Many faculty and administrators in the academy view athletics as a distraction to the mission of higher education, and athletes as second-tier students. However, the majority of college athletes not only earn their college education in their lectures and labs, but also earn it on the field, in the pool or on the court.

August 29, 2019

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What I Remember About Orientation as a Low-Income, First-Generation Student

You are poor. You are lucky. You are going to struggle. Among all the important, relevant information I needed about life in college, those were the three lasting impressions I got from orientation. All the exciting and fun activities do not come to mind.

August 27, 2019

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Save the Climate and Yourself — Ban the Burger on Campus

If your campus is green energy-wise but you’re still buying all-beef hamburgers and the like in the school cafeteria, your school isn’t green enough.In the 60’s, they burned bras and draft cards. American schools should start burning burgers leading to an outright ban of beef on campus like they’re doing at Goldsmiths college of the University of London.

August 26, 2019

Smart While Black: How Systems of Bias Reproduce the Racial Status Quo

Measures of school outcomes show America’s educational system favors White and Asian children, often failing poor, Black, Latinx and Native American children long before college. Those efforts do not only result from a limited curriculum or lack of instructional rigor for children of color, particularly from poor and working-class communities, they result from concerted, targeted efforts to preserve the most coveted achievements for White children only – even when they do not deserve it.

August 23, 2019

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“Use Whatchu Got”: Advice for First-Gen Black Female Doctoral Students, Scholars

Drawing on literature and through storytelling, we seek to bring attention to Tara Yosso’s concept of community cultural wealth and share how we’ve used the model as a strategy to shape our personal and professional experiences as Black women, first-generation college graduates, first-generation doctoral students and now as first-generation entrants into the academy.

August 22, 2019

Dr. Janelle L. Williams

‘Go Back to Your Country’ A Direct Threat to US Higher Education

U.S. academic institutions need to fight messages of hate and bigotry, and engage in an open conversation across their communities about racism and xenophobia that seem to be escalating in certain circles of the American society.

August 20, 2019

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Words That Wound

Unfortunately, today, as seen in the past, hate speech is materializing into emotional and physical violence. I plan to speak, write and do language with the students I teach to combat words that wound and empower us all to act as catalysts of change on our campus. How do you plan to heal from monsoons of words that wound?

August 19, 2019

Academic Bullying: Higher Education’s Dirty Little Secret

When we think about workplace bullying, we often think of it in terms of the corporate world, not higher education. Yet, academic bullying – workplace bullying that takes place in institutions of higher education – can no longer remain a dirty little secret. It’s a persistent issue in higher education that must be addressed. Once the issue is out in the open, it is the responsibility of the individual institution to work to change their culture.

August 16, 2019

Three Key Groups Too Often Left Out of Diversity Assessments of Campus Climates

College leaders have begun to realize that assessing their campus climate and culture for diversity is paramount. A crappy climate does not enhance the likelihood that students from diverse backgrounds will enroll, achieve and graduate, and it can constrain the level of interactions that help all members of the campus to feel safe, productive and successful.

August 15, 2019

Is Your School a True Sanctuary?

When I drive through a campus district, or even a whole town or city where the university is a major institution, I always get that special feeling, that sense of comfort. They are sanctuaries, to some degree, at least to me. And if they aren’t for everyone, maybe you should ask your college administration.

August 14, 2019