By: Royel M. Johnson (Assistant Professor) and Ali Watts (PhD Candidate) Center for the Study of Higher Education Pennsylvania State University In early Feb 2019, the authors (Royel Johnson, PI, and Ali Watts, graduate assistant) along with co-PIs Uju Anya (Penn State) and Liliana Garces (University of Texas at Austin) and graduate assistant Evelyn Ambriz (University of Texas at Austin) convened a symposium titled Envisioning Racial Equity on College Campuses: Bridging Research-to-Practice Gaps for Institutional Transformation. The symposium was funded through ..read more

Paul Rubin, PhD Postdoctoral Research Associate Department of Educational Leadership and Policy University of Utah As academics, we train to become experts in our field by reading, writing, and engaging with a topic for years. Nevertheless, many lament the limited inclusion of empirical research in the policy process and question why researchers themselves are not more involved in policymaking. Academics have even described empirical research’s use in policy as “trees without fruit” (Keller, 1985) or “shipyards in the desert” (Weiner, 1986), suggesting its minimal impact. A contributing fact ..read more

By: Nicholas Hillman and Daniel Corral Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis University of Wisconsin, Madison                       State legislatures have increasingly turned to performance-based funding (PBF) as a way to align financial incentives with educational goals. Each state designs its model differently and in line with its own unique goals, but all tend to prioritize outputs like: degrees awarded; credit hours completed; retention rates; and even job placement ..read more

Hello Graduate Students,      We are looking for graduate students familiar with the New York area and attending the 2018 AERA Annual Meeting to serve as volunteers for a Local Liasion Project. Navigating Manhattan and the surrounding New York area may be daunting for those visiting the area for the first time. Local Liaisons will work alongside AERA Graduate Student Council members in the registration area and offer assistance as needed.  Summary Details:   April 12th-14th Local Liaisons will sit in the AERA volunteer booth for two-hour shifts and answer questio ..read more

By: Bach Mai Dolly Nguyen Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs Lewis and Clark College  Progressive change. Social change. Transformative change. These are a few of the labels of change that serve as the ending point found in the conclusions of many higher education manuscripts. But, what does that change look like? Feel like? How is it defined? And, how do we measure that it has been achieved? These are difficult questions because the parameters of change are boundless, existing in countless iterations within the imaginaries of all who care to ruminate on the pos ..read more

By: William Casey Boland, PhD Candidate Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions University of Pennsylvania The higher education research world is still coming to terms with the recent Equality of Opportunity Project’s paperon intergenerational income mobility and the role of higher education (Chetty, Friedman, Saez, Turner, & Yagan, 2017). The report notes the symbolic role of higher education in boosting social mobility. Yet it also illustrates that who graduates from colleges and universities doesn’t neatly align with the myth of the meritocracy of U.S. higher education. While it ..read more

Kimberley A. Reyes, PhD Candidate Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education University of Michigan  A few months ago, my Facebook newsfeed was full of references to a special section of the May issue of Social Problems entitled, “Essays on Voices from the Margins: Inequalities in the Sociological House.” I’m not a regular reader of this journal, but as someone who studies contention within academic disciplines, I was intrigued by all of the buzz. This special section is a collection of essays from six noted sociologists of color—Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, David Embrick, Jul ..read more

By: Cecile H. Sam, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership Rowan University  On April 27, 2017 Ann Coulter was scheduled to speak at the University of California, Berkeley. Due to different reasons (e.g., threats of violence, student protests, scheduling), she did not speak on that day or on the alternative date the university provided. This recent event (or lack thereof) has been just one in a series of conflicts happening on campuses across the country this academic year: the clash of ideologies between the far-right and left.  This post will not be about arguing the sp ..read more

By: Marybeth Gasman, PhD Professor of Higher Education Director, Center for Minority Serving Institutions University of Pennsylvania Academic freedom is an idea and right that I deeply cherish.  Full academic freedom – the kind that comes with tenure – is vitally important to the future of colleges and universities. And, I firmly believe that we must use our academic freedom to move the academy forward. Academic freedom is involved in many aspects of being a professor – from what we teach to what we research, and to what we say publicly and within our institutions.  As faculty, ac ..read more

By: Desiree D. Zerquera, PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Leadership Studies University of San Francisco For the majority of us who identify as higher education scholars, we are in this field because through our own educational or professional experiences we saw problems in the way higher education is shaped and shapes others. We were called to scholarship as a way to examine these problems, find solutions and contribute to a vision of a better system of higher education. Our individual work is situated within the broader mission of the university, which has a commitment to serving the ..read more