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

Section: Opinion

Changing the Culture: University, Faculty and Graduate Student Responsibility to Prioritize Student Mental Health

Mental health is important for success in higher education, yet many graduate students struggle with the maintenance of their well-being. An eye-opening 2018 study shows that graduate students are six times more likely to experience anxiety and depression than the general population.

November 5, 2018

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On Citizenship and Voting

Citizenship has never been a requirement for U.S. military service. Immigrants and non-citizens have fought in every U.S. military conflict since the Revolutionary War.

November 4, 2018

Governing HBCUs for the Future

More scrutiny has been placed on administrative practices, presidential turnover and board of trustees’ decision-making and presidential relations. Historically and contemporarily, this conversation has centered on the HBCU presidency. However, as we move into the HBCU community’s next great era, it is imperative that current ideas around leadership be broadened to include all parties that strategically plan and make decisions for HBCUs.

November 4, 2018

African-American

Birthright Citizenship is Under Attack…Again

Birthright citizenship unites people of color. The principle is under attack again. The two professors who wrote the book suggesting the Supreme Court was wrong to recognize the rule insist they are not motivated by race.

November 1, 2018

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Dear Educators/Administrators: EVERY Student is a Scholar

I am urging my fellow academicians from this day forth to address all learners in your classrooms, institutions, churches, non-profit organizations, mentor programs in Pre-K-12, undergraduate and graduate studies as “scholars”.

October 30, 2018

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The Hate We Give: Voting Against Violence

Lifting your voice can be subversive. This is a lesson learned by Starr Carter, the main character in Angie Thomas’s debut novel The Hate You Give. Thomas shattered that mold by crafting a complex narrative of the repeated messages that tell young people their lives have less meaning than others simply because of where they live, who they love and how they look. The book is an affirmation of the beauty of young people and their ability to challenge the boundaries of community both real and imagined: “Your voices matter, your dreams matter, your lives matter. Be the roses that grow in the concrete.” Let’s be roses. Together.”

October 29, 2018

Asian American Pacific Islander

At the Harvard Affirmative Action Trial, We’re About to Hear From the Less Than Perfect — Who Got In

With the news of pipe bombs and hot rhetoric, the trial in Boston over Harvard’s use of affirmative action has been anything but a racial hot-button for the president’s base. Maybe they need the Cliff Notes?

October 27, 2018

International Students Creating an American Legacy

Wednesday marks the third annual I Stand with Immigrants College and University Day of Action. This is especially profound as I reflect on the hallmark of American higher education: the unique combination of openness to all, promotion of new ideas and emphasis on critical thinking.

October 23, 2018

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Native Americans

Still Separate, Still Unequal: American Indians and Election 2018

To be sure, the legacy of conquest meant that American Indians and enslaved Africans were often forced to live in close proximity to each other. This proximity resulted in a number of blended families and children of mixed racial heritage who were discriminated against in distinct and overlapping ways based not on their self-identity, but on social identity.

October 20, 2018

Navigating Bias Incidents on Campus as an Administrator

During my tenure as an assistant dean of students, I was involved in a committee charged with responding to reported bias incidents on campus. When a member of the campus community experienced, witnessed or were aware of something that they believed to be bias, they could use an online form to report the incident anonymously. Once a week, this committee I was a part of would read over all the cases and decide how they should be handled.

October 18, 2018

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Who Are These Diversity Officers?

In 2011, I was arrested for civil disobedience in front of the U.S. Senate, fighting for immigrant rights. While I was being arrested, children of undocumented parents visited senators with heart-shaped cookies asking them to take action on keeping families together. Sound familiar?

October 18, 2018

African-American

It’s a Family Reunion: Thurgood Marshall College Fund Teacher Quality and Retention Program

This summer, I attended the best family reunion ever. But here’s the catch; none of us who attended the reunion were actually blood-related. In fact, most of us had never seen each other in our lives. However, the kinship was there from the start and we were definitely a family.

October 16, 2018

On Leaving Home

My mother consistently asks, “When are you coming home?” which is usually followed by, “Do you just not want to come home?” For my mother, earning a Ph.D. meant that I would have the ability to return home because why else leave to attend graduate school.

October 16, 2018

It is Necessary to Disseminate Multicultural Standards in Higher Education

Multiculturalism intensities the bond of connection that makes all one. Lack of understanding and not knowing the standards that one grew up under or may still be living under can lead to a false image of the individual or their whole culture. This can lead to prejudice, bias and hatred of not only of a person but also all who are of the same nationality.

October 15, 2018

The Perfect Victim and the Perfect Judge —The New Challenge to Affirmative Action

If it feels like we’ve been here before, we have. The use of race in college admissions is legal and has been tested and upheld by the high court time and again, most recently in the Fisher v. Texas case. But that’s not stopping conservative anti-affirmative activist Ed Blum.

October 15, 2018

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Prioritizing Diversity in Graduate Education

Issues in diversity and inclusion have swept the nation with many high-profile cases publicly playing out in colleges and universities across the country. While all agree that something must be done to enhance the diversity and equality of our nation’s schools, barriers persist when it comes to deciding on effective tactics and taking concrete actions — talk dominates while action stagnates.

October 12, 2018

Feminism, Womanism and Election 2018

As we stand a month away from the midterm elections, we do so as a record number of women of color are running for office. Congressional candidates like Rashida Tliab of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Jahana Hayes of Connecticut. New Mexico’s Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids of Kansas are poised to become the first American Indian women ever elected to Congress. Their entry would come over 190 years after Hiram Revels of the Lumbee tribe was elected as the first African -American and first American Indian to enter the legislature.

October 12, 2018

African-American

In Defense of Affirmative Action

The most recent battle in the war against affirmative action is being brought by Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard University. What is striking about the Harvard case is — unlike previous suits which involved White plaintiffs — this suit is being brought on behalf of its Asian American members who claim they were denied admission to Harvard due to their race. Will this be the battle that finally brings down affirmative action?

October 11, 2018