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

Section: Opinion

Graduate Diversity Officers Play Key Role in Helping STEM Departments Diversify

I’m honored to have contributed to a piece recently published in the 2012 summer edition of The Review of Higher Education. The article focuses on efforts to diversify graduate education at research-intensive universities across the country. While underrepresented minority students comprise about a quarter (and growing) of the nation’s undergraduate population, just 11 percent of […]

July 9, 2012

Commentary: Graduate Diversity Officers Play Key Role in Helping STEM Departments Diversify

Though there is much effort invested in and discussion about undergraduate recruitment and admissions, there is a lesser known group of individuals working to build a diverse student body of entering graduate students: Graduate Diversity Officers.

July 4, 2012

Lorelle Espinosa

Punitive Standardized Testing Produces Unstandardized Schools

Parents, teachers and administrators are screaming “enough is enough.” The revolt against standardized testing is growing as the funds federal and state officials allocate to develop new tests continues to grow. “More teaching, less testing.” “One, two, three, four…Kids are not a test score.” Hundreds of parents and children chanted these statements outside the New […]

July 1, 2012

Scholar Says Minority Health Has Much to Gain with Affordable Care Act

Health care expert and think tank scholar Brian D. Smedley contends that the Affordable Care Act means that people of color can expect to benefit from measures that seek reduction in health disparities.

July 1, 2012

Commentary: Mobile Journalism: A Model for the Future

An award-winning educator writes about taking the journalism classroom to the streets of Johannesburg to provide hope and opportunity to young people.

June 28, 2012

Allissa Richardson

Empowering Students of Color: The Role of Minority Serving Institutions

Editor’s Note: This post is co-authored with Thai-Huy Nguyen, a Ph.D. student at the University of Pennsylvania. Currently, Blacks receive roughly 6.1 percent of the degrees in math and statistics, 6.7 percent in physical sciences, and 5.2 percent in engineering. Likewise, Latinos receive roughly 6.8 percent of the degrees in computer science, 5.8 percent in […]

June 25, 2012

Manhattan Institute Segregation Report Flawed, Some Say

A recent report by the Manhattan Institute about the extent to which segregation may have declined in the last century has triggered a heated debate, with many scholars and social justice advocates rejecting its findings.

June 21, 2012

Roderick Harrison

Commentary: Punitive Standardized Testing Produces Unstandardized Schools

Students in vastly different schools are taking the same tests, which is and has always been incredibly unfair, writes University of Albany historian Ibram Rogers.

June 13, 2012

Dr. Ibram H. Rogers

Gorilla Taunts of a Professor as Jim Crow Flaps at UCLA

A few years ago, medical residents at UCLA performed mocking roasts of their professors during an annual event. It is probably a common yearly send-off at UCLA, as it is at most medical schools and academic hospitals to lighten the mood in the pressure-packed environment. It is one thing to mock in a playful fashion, […]

May 31, 2012

Black Studies – The Never-Ending (Beautiful) Struggle

Much has been written about a former (recently fired) Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) blogger’s racist, dismissive, and uninformed rant against the discipline of Black Studies—particularly a group of Northwestern University graduate students—but very little scrutiny has been afforded the article that inspired the toxic torrent in the first place. That would be “Black Studies: […]

May 14, 2012

The Power of Student Giving and Black College Fundraising Success

This post is co-authored by Nelson Bowman III, the Director of Development at Prairie View A&M University. Many elite universities, such as Penn, Chicago, and Princeton, have very successful student philanthropy programs. They spend ample time and effort educating students about philanthropic giving as well as the fundraising operation within colleges and universities. Why? Because […]

May 7, 2012

Congress – Bail Out the Indebted Students

We were told in 2008 that certain financial institutions, certain industries were too big to fail. As the Great Recession sent the global economic system into a tailspin, we were told that certain financial institutions and companies were so large and interconnected that their failure would be disastrous to our economy. We were then told […]

May 6, 2012

Commentary: Congress – Bail Out the Indebted Students

While Congress dished out trillions in the last decade to fund foreign wars and bailouts, student debt rose like the hand of an attentive student in a classroom, writes SUNY College-Oneonta historian Ibram Rogers.

May 2, 2012

Dr. Ibram H. Rogers

The Ongoing Saga of Racial and Gender Identity Politics Among the Millennials and Others

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about race and gender on American television. One thing can certainly be said, the conversation has not been dull. Internet blogs have been in overdrive, and the conversation has managed to find its way into the halls of academia. In my “Sexual Politics Since World War II” […]

May 1, 2012

Is George Zimmerman on Your Campus?

In the weeks leading up to the arrest of George Zimmerman, many people were shocked to find him on campus at Ohio State University. Of course, he wasn’t there in physical form, but his name and the phrase “Long live George Zimmerman” was written (presumably by a student) on the Frank W. Hale Black Cultural […]

April 29, 2012

Will I Ever Wear My Hoodie Again?

I didn’t ever think my hoodie would become a modern day fashion piece or a source of social unrest and discord. Well it appears that it has become both! Would you have given any thought to the idea that this piece of clothing attire would become a must-have item. I am an old school guy […]

April 26, 2012

Black and White: Making Cross-Race Mentoring Work and Work Well

Note: This post is co-authored with Ufuoma Abiola, a current graduate student in the Higher Education program at the University of Pennsylvania. Mentoring can be defined as a long-term relationship between a more experienced individual and a less experienced person that fosters the mentee’s professional, academic, or personal development. Mentoring can enrich the lives of […]

April 24, 2012

It’s About Time to Break the Glass Ceiling for Women in STEM

Earlier this month, The White House Council on Women and Girls released the report Keeping America’s Women Moving Forward: The Key to an Economy Built to Last — a release that coincided with the April 6 White House Forum on Women and the Economy. Among other policy issues, the report points to the underrepresentation of […]

April 22, 2012