New Report Creates Groundbreaking Framework for Supporting Diverse Student Populations in Higher Education
A new report from USC Pullias Center for Higher Education and the American Council on Education (ACE) presents an innovative approach for higher education institutions to better support students from diverse backgrounds. “Creating a Diverse Student Success Infrastructure: The Key to Catalyzing Cultural Change for Today’s Student” discusses how colleges and universities can fulfill a student success agenda through the creation of a diverse infrastructure that enables the overall institution to effectively mobilize to serve diverse student populations.
“Many colleges and universities have embraced the importance of educational equity and inclusion and the need to support students from diverse backgrounds,” stated Adrianna Kezar, Dean’s Professor for Higher Education Leadership and director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California, Rossier School of Education, who authored the report. “However, leaders typically implement a patchwork of narrow and disconnected programs that have proven successful, to a degree, on a local level but do not move the needle for the overall institution in a lasting way.” This report provides campus leaders with a new holistic framework to work towards those goals through a potentially more effective use of resources. Kezar further notes that “it distills the lessons from my research over the last few decades to provide a systemic approach proven to generate progress towards improving diverse student success.”
The report defines and discusses the importance of creating a “diverse student success infrastructure” as a platform to drive and facilitate on-going change. It suggests that making deeply embedded changes in financial priorities, incentives and rewards, human resources, and policy will pave the way to lasting and impactful change. The report offers up a model with shared, equity-minded leadership and values as necessary preconditions to support change and takes a closer look at the success of University of Maryland, Baltimore County in undergoing transformational culture change.
“Student populations in higher education will continue to become more and more diverse,” notes Lorelle L. Espinosa, Vice President for Research at the American Council on Education, who wrote the forward for the report. “American colleges and universities are right to make systematic changes that create sustainable campus and learning environments in support of students from broad economic and racial and ethnic backgrounds. This report is an important step in that direction, outlining a transformative model for senior leaders and teams serious about student success efforts that place equity at the center.”
The game changing report is now available for download from the Pullias Center website, along with additional resources on supporting student access and success in higher education.
About USC Pullias Center for Higher Education
The world’s leading research center on student access and success in higher education, the Pullias Center for Higher Education is part of the USC Rossier School of Education and advances innovative, scalable solutions to improve college outcomes for underserved students and to enhance the performance of postsecondary institutions.
About American Council on Education
ACE is a membership organization that mobilizes the higher education community to shape effective public policy and foster innovative, high-quality practice. As the major coordinating body for the nation’s colleges and universities, ACE’s strength lies in its diverse membership of more than 1,700 colleges and universities, related associations, and other organizations in America and abroad. ACE is the only major higher education association to represent all types of U.S. accredited, degree-granting institutions: two-year and four-year, public and private.