Search | The EDU Ledger

Welcome to The EDU Ledger.com! We’ve moved from Diverse.

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

Section: Opinion

African-American

Why I Plan to Take the COVID Vaccine and You Should Too

I plan to get vaccinated because I want to live! I want to live because I still have a lot of life left in me. I want to live because I still have people to mentor, causes to advocate, places to see, and memories to make. I want to live because I need more time to transfer my knowledge, expertise, and passion to younger generations who can create the change to which I have devoted my life.

January 4, 2021

Asian American Pacific Islander

Recalling an Affirmative Gesture

The college radio station is where I learned to be me. Maybe that’s because the radio audience doesn’t really see me. I was just a voice. Just like on the page or screen, the words are my voice through you. So you don’t instantly reject them. They could be your thoughts. But listening to me is like me actually getting inside your ear. It’s more passively invasive. And then it all works on your imagination.

January 4, 2021

Emil_Photo–again_edited

Reflecting Back to Move Equity in Education Forward

As we embark upon a new year, it is important for education leaders to reflect on 2020 in order to assess what we got right, determine what went wrong, and then set a course for a more equitable education for all students in 2021.

December 31, 2020

Dean Lynn 6[131718]

African-American

It Makes Me Wanna Holler: The Need for Self-Care for Black Soldiers on the Frontlines

For “Black soldiers on the frontlines” of the liberation struggle, if we were to be honest with ourselves, 2020 has been a year that has “made us want to holler.”

December 22, 2020

When We Understand Microaggressions in the Broader Context of Systemic Racism, We’ll Make Some Progress

Many people have heard the word “microaggression,” but how many understand what it really means, or looks like?

December 21, 2020

Dedman Psychology Faculty and Staff Portraits

A Former Students’ Perspective on Secretary of Education Finalist, Dr. Leslie T. Fenwick

Dr. Leslie T. Fenwick, dean emeritus and professor of educational leadership and policy has emerged as one of the finalists under consideration to be President-elect Joe Biden’s secretary of education. During my matriculation through the doctoral program at Howard University, I had the honor of learning under the tutelage of Dr. Fenwick.

December 18, 2020

Leadership & Policy

The Rich Get Richer in the Midst of a Pandemic

In order to stay above water, institutions are making drastic decisions – implementing hiring freezes and pay cuts, trimming personnel via furloughs and layoffs, and leaving several employees without cost-of-living adjustments for the foreseeable future. Yet, in the midst of these decisions, I can’t help but notice how certain individuals seem to avoid economic losses – or take only minimal losses to save face.

December 17, 2020

Community Colleges

Community Colleges Must Move Beyond Opportunity, Focus on Success

While we know that hard work and persistence are essential to success, we also know that opportunity and access are the true keys to student persistence and achievement. The modern community college was established in all states following passage of the GI Bill, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of vets entering American higher education […]

December 16, 2020

Doubling the Pell Grant to Promote Access to Opportunity, Higher Ed

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ victory signals a crucial moment for enhanced access to higher education that could, given their commitment to “Doubling the Pell Grant,” promote a success model as well. One of the points to be emphasized is that the goal of college access has force and plausibility as an aim of social policy only insofar as colleges and universities function as effective means for delivering what they promise to deliver. And, while education has a number of legitimate goals, among the most central are promoting cognitive and socio-emotional development, allowing students to attain general knowledge and skills, and helping students become desirable from the perspective of employers. For the latter, they must graduate. What follows from these considerations, then, is that whatever form access strategies assume, college campuses need to adopt corresponding strategies that meet the needs of the students they choose to enroll.

December 15, 2020

Asian American Pacific Islander

Diversity’s Day of Infamy

The recent revelation that Johns Hopkins, once thought to be a “good guy”, owned four slaves himself is one of those backward looks in time that brings about a major shame. However awkward, exposing the truth is always important.

December 15, 2020

Emil_Photo–again_edited

Academia’s Role in Fighting Mental Illness Stigma

Though we are in an era of growing anti-intellectualism, colleges and universities still retain a large amount of influence in educating vast sectors of society and shaping public discourse, and can play a large role in destigmatizing mental illness. Stigma is one of the primary barriers to diagnosis and treatment, and given the prevalence of mental illness across demographic groups, fighting it should be a cause that everyone can get behind.

December 11, 2020

Focusing on First-Generation Students in College Admissions

To my fellow selective college admissions deans, I am asking for a mindset shift. We must stop being receivers of applications. We started in this work as admissions counselors, taught to counsel students to find the right path. Somewhere along the way to our seats at the top, we got complacent. We got comfortable. It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened. We stopped counseling and started receiving.

December 9, 2020

I Have Two Last Names – Here is Why They Both Matter

“I have two last names,” that is the very first thing I say, since I moved to the States, every time someone asks for my surname. I grew up in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the Caribbean, with a unique mix of cultural antecedents and the use of two surnames as the tradition dictates. Therefore, for me, my “two last names” were one of the most common things in the world, until I got to graduate school.

December 7, 2020

Davila-Montero (1)

African-American

Georgia’s Black Voters Can Make History Again

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris made a brilliant choice in opening her remarks at the Democratic presidential ticket’s victory celebration with a quote from civil rights icon and former Georgia congressman John Lewis, who wrote before he died, “Democracy is not a state. It is an act.”

December 3, 2020

Gen Z is Using Their Voice and Their Vote for Change, But Are We Listening?

On November 5th, the country saw the highest voter turnout in over a century, leading to the election of the first Black women Vice President in the history of the United States, who is also a HBCU graduate. Additionally, another historic unspoken milestone was reached, according to a recent Tufts University study. Fifty-three percent of young people showed up to the polls, which was the largest youth voter turnout in decades. Some may ask, why?

December 2, 2020

HSI by Choice or By Circumstance: Examining R1 Hispanic Serving Institutions

Representing 18% of the U.S. population, the growth of the Latinx population continues to grow and disperse throughout the nation. According to the Pew Research Center, the growth of the Latinx population accounts for more than half of the total U.S. population growth since 2010, with Texas, California, and Florida experiencing the largest share of the Latinx population growth. Similarly, higher education institutions throughout the nation, and within these specific states, have seen significant increases in Latinx student enrollment.

December 1, 2020

Martinez_Headshot

Leadership & Policy

National Leadership and the Significance of the Breadth and Depth of American Identity

As President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris assemble the people, resources and programs that they will bring to the White House in January, they will create tremendous possibilities and opportunities for all Americans. This is true even for those who did not vote for them.

December 1, 2020

ElizabethMeade_official

Faculty & Staff

Extend the Tenure Clock to Save Careers of Rising Academic Women

The halls of higher education already had a leaky pipeline for women in science and academia, but the coronavirus pandemic has taken an ax to the problem and busted it wide open.

November 30, 2020

Karen Bjorkman portrait – women’s calendar