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

Section: Opinion

Respecting Race-Based Research

I do research about race. When I was a graduate student, a professor warned me against doing this research, noting, “you’ll be ghettoized for studying Black colleges.” Although I ignored the comment, I knew what he was saying. Based on how faculty members who do research on race are often treated by their colleagues, he […]

December 14, 2010

Learning Assessment: A Paramount 21st Century Higher Education Issue

In early January, the Lumina Foundation for Education will be releasing its Degree Qualifications Profile—an effort months in the making and preceded by a draft profile earlier this year. As a complement to the foundation’s goal of increasing “the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by the year 2025,” their […]

December 8, 2010

Tiger’s Ongoing Saga

This most recent Thanksgiving holiday, while reading about the more serious news that has impacted our current society, I was also reminded about the supposedly ongoing “problems” of golfer Tiger Woods. Over the past week, from online bloggers, columnists, sports analysts, public relations executives and opinion makers and pundits, there has been no shortage of […]

December 8, 2010

Developing a Research Agenda

Young people pursuing graduate study often ask me how I developed my research agenda. They wonder how one carves out an area of research. For those of you who read this blog often, you know that the majority of my work focuses on historically Black colleges and universities and students of color. Recently, I was […]

November 28, 2010

Institutional Adaptation for STEM Completion

In recent weeks the University of Southern California’s Center for Urban Education received due press for its report, Tapping HSI-STEM Funds to Improve Latina and Latino Access to STEM Professions. The report looks at how Latina/o science, technology, engineering and mathematics majors are funding their undergraduate education and how Hispanic-Serving Institutions can best use federal […]

November 21, 2010

Guess Who’s Coming to Lunch?

Last week, I sat down to have what I thought would be a pleasant lunch with someone I had talked on the phone with quite a few times. I’d never met her but we had developed a good professional rapport. Our conversation was moving along fine — we both exchanged some of our personal background […]

November 17, 2010

The Personality of the K-12 Achievement Gap

I still remember my academic bliss in fourth grade. At a small private school in Jamaica, Queens, N.Y., in a relatively large class taught by Mrs. Miles, I received 100 on all of my final exams. It probably went to my head but a cocky 9-year-old is considered cute. Almost 20 years later, whenever I […]

November 14, 2010

Mississippi Goddam: Free the Scott Sisters

Nina Simone called it in 1964 with her civil rights anthem. Apparently, not much has changed since. Today, Jamie and Gladys Scott sit in a Mississippi prison, sentenced to double consecutive life sentences for a crime they have denied committing. Neither had a previous criminal record. And what was the alleged crime? Robbery. Was it a violent offense? No. […]

November 13, 2010

How it Feels to Take Math Praxis

This week, I did something that few academicians would do. I voluntarily sat for one hour and took a 40-question math test. How would you feel sitting down for such a test? No Chi squared analyses, T-tests or ANOVAs. I’m talking the basics: geometry, algebra, ratios, fractions, proportions and probability—the stuff high school math is […]

November 10, 2010

What Can HBCUs Teach all Colleges and Universities?

Note: This blog post is co-authored with Dorsey Spencer Jr., who serves as assistant director of campus activities and programs at Bucknell University. Harvard and Howard. Smith and Spelman. Wabash and Morehouse. Columbia Law and North Carolina Central Law. One could say that these institutions of higher education are not comparable. In these pairs, one […]

November 3, 2010

Divided We Fall

Last week, the Campaign for College Opportunity (CCO) — a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that has a mission is to ensure 1 million additional college graduates in California by 2025 — released a report by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy at California State University Sacramento examining four-year transfer rates for Californians who begin […]

November 2, 2010

Running In The Family

The old saying “like father, like son” may ring more true than many of us have been led to believe. Last month, a former student of mine came by my office to visit me. We talked about his new job, the economy, the weather, etc. He said he had been suffering from a mild degree […]

October 31, 2010

An Open Letter to HBCU Students and Alumni

In recent weeks, conservative thinkers and writers have been attacking HBCUs. What’s new you might ask? Attacking HBCUs is definitely not new, but, in the current oppressive racial climate of the United States, the stakes are getting higher. Those who see increases in minority populations and more people of color in leadership positions are not […]

October 27, 2010

Flawed Attacks on the HBCU Idea

Ralph Jones Jr., a 16-year-old academic prodigy from Atlanta, recently shocked some Americans when they learned that he choose to enroll at historically Black Florida A&M University instead of Harvard, Stanford, Cornell and more than 40 other elite traditionally White institutions. Critical questions and comments were ringing in public forums. Why would this African-American choose […]

October 17, 2010

An Initial Response to the National Academies Press Report

On Sept. 30, the National Academies Press released a much anticipated pre-publication copy of Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America’s Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads. The forthcoming report—with its detailed synthesis and recommended approaches—is the result of a 2006 request by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy and other policymakers who championed diversifying the nation’s […]

October 13, 2010

Protestors Nationwide Rally Against Assassination of Public Education

Should the federal government be spending trillions on the military abroad while cutting social services like education at home? Should education continue sprinting down the path of privatization? On Thursday, thousands of people, particularly college students and faculty across the nation, marched, rallied and held panel discussions to respond with a resounding negative to those […]

October 6, 2010

Innovative Curricula at HBCUs: Goats, Fish and Farmer’s Markets

One of my favorite parts of being a professor and doing research related to HBCUs is that I often get to visit these historic institutions. I am often amazed by some of the unique programs taking place on HBCU campuses. There are three programs, in particular, that are interesting and progressive in their approach that […]

October 4, 2010

Sex Scandals, Self-Righteousness and Sordid Revelations

Recently, Black America has been engulfed in a steady stream of riveting news. From Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s (D-Ill.) involvement in a scandal involving potential financial improprieties and a “social acquaintance,” to allegations of sexual misconduct levied against Atlanta megachurch pastor Bishop Eddie Long by several young men, the Black blogosphere has been in overdrive. […]

October 3, 2010