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

Keyontae Johnson’s Collapse on the Basketball Court Highlights Economic Injustice for College Athletes

When Keyontae Johnson, a 21 year old basketball player, agreed to play NCAA basketball at the University of Florida, he had no idea about the trauma that he would experience. Keyontae contracted COVID-19 in August and after passing physical screenings, he collapsed while playing basketball. He was then diagnosed with a rare heart disease that would impact him for the rest of his life. He was also placed in a medically induced coma as doctors fought to save his life. Luckily for Keyontae, he was able to recover and is back on the sidelines at the University of Florida while managing his heart condition. Many suspected that the heart condition was linked to COVID-19 and had concerns about NCAA athletes contracting the virus while playing sports.

January 13, 2021

DeskTop Outlook Picture

The Role of Experimentation and Medical Mistrust in COVID-19 Vaccine Skepticism

For many people in the United States, the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines symbolize hope for the end of a virus that has plagued this country and the world. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reported 373,167 COVID-19-related deaths across the United States as of January 11, with Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) being disproportionately impacted.

January 12, 2021

Some Advice from a Rural Community College President to President-Elect Biden

What happened on January 6 is what one thinks happens only in unstable democracies, in places where poverty forces people to do things that reflect how little they have to lose. An angry, violent mob storming the capital city at the request of the sitting president who is watching as it all unfolds is not what one expects in the United States of America. Yet, that is exactly what happened. Why is that?

January 11, 2021

An Executive Order, an Outcry and an Opening

With everything that has happened since September 22, it would not be a surprise if you missed the hubbub around President Trump’s executive order on “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping.” If you’re just catching up, the executive order “roil[ed] corporate America” and caused colleges and universities to “cancel diversity, equity, and inclusion programs” and to accuse the Trump administration of censorship . It also prompted Justice Department employees to ask Congress to investigate the “illegal and abusive government directives” in the executive order.

January 8, 2021

BO’C head shot – 2017

Recruitment & Retention

What Will You Do to Embrace Who America Truly is in 2021?

The year 2021 promises to be one of the biggest efforts to recruit diverse talent in history. America’s top companies, nonprofits and schools have the opportunity to not only uproot systemic barriers to advancement, but also leverage diverse perspectives and experiences as a means to innovate, problem solve and provide better products and services.

January 7, 2021

Cristen-Moore (1)

Community Colleges

Flat is the New Up: How the Year of Covid-19 Continues to Reinvent Higher Ed

Along with its persisting global presence and its surging number of victims, COVID-19 has conjured numerous challenges due to its unprecedented nature. Whether we see the vast changes around us as positive or not, we need to adapt to stay in the performance race. Higher education is facing some critical demands, and it might be useful to summarize some gripping ones, along with the ways we’re collectively addressing them.

January 5, 2021

Joan-Marquez_Fac-Pic-e1487351904981

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