Posselt Named USC Graduate School Associate Dean
Dr. Julie Posselt, Associate Professor of Higher Education in the USC Rossier School of Education and faculty member of the Pullias Center, has been named Associate Dean, USC Graduate School. The USC Graduate School’s mission is to promote an outstanding educational experience for USC graduate students, to celebrate graduate student achievements, and to provide leadership in the establishment and communication of policies, standards and processes related to graduate education at USC.
In this role, Posselt will be developing the University’s and Graduate School’s efforts around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)—most importantly by improving how the Graduate School and PhD programs recruit, admit, and support students. “This is no small task, but it is a natural extension of my work,” shared Posselt. “My focus as a scholar has been on using research to name how our current systems fall short of the values that many espouse, as well as working with graduate programs, graduate schools, and disciplinary society leaders across the county to reimagine practice and bring about real change.”
Additionally, Posselt will be involved in assisting initiatives to develop professional development for graduate students that supports diverse career paths. She will also have a role pursuing external funds for research into graduate and professional education.
“Every one of my sponsored projects for almost ten years has been aimed at developing more equity-minded faculty practice and organizational policies in graduate education, so this work in USC’s Graduate School is a natural next step that I am looking forward to,” states Posselt.
For the last three years, Posselt has helped build the California Consortium for Inclusive Doctoral Education as its first Director and Principal Investigator. This has been a highly successful pilot administered via the Pullias Center and carried out with support of the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Posselt is also working hard with Kaylan Baxter, Steve Desir, and Whitney Tang to develop a report for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation that distills a systematic literature review conducted of successful diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in STEM graduate education. Through this commissioned review, Posselt’s team identified three major patterns in the research literature and program evaluation reports about what works to enhance access to and success in graduate education. The Foundation will use this report, along with a complementary report by Higher Ed Insight into the current funding landscape for DEI efforts in graduate education, to inform a new systemic change focus for their investments in this area.
“It has been a joy working with Dr. Lorelle Espinosa and others at Sloan,” reflects Posselt. “With the research completed, we are now turning to discuss dissemination to the scholars and broader STEM and education communities.”
Learn more about Dr. Posselt’s work related to equity and inclusion on our website.