Pullias Center Faculty Looks Forward to the 2021-2022 Academic Year

The start of a new academic year brings hope and promise that the pandemic and its challenges are decreasing. Teaching classes and doing research over Zoom was not the direction any of us suspected the previous academic year to go, and yet educators and students alike managed to persevere and move forward with their educational work. The University of Southern California’s decreased COVID-19 positivity rates and success with having in-person classes has inspired optimism for the remainder of the academic year for the university population, as well as the Pullias Center faculty, who share their thoughts for the 2021-2022 school year.

What are you looking forward to most in the coming academic year and why?

Zoe Corwin: Thanks to a USC Collaboration Fund grant, I’ll be convening faculty from across USC, along with community partners, to explore how we might embed mental health services in non-traditional spaces such as skate parks, parks, and shopping centers. The idea builds onto our skate study research and is inspired by a pilot program in Colombia that runs escuchaderos (listening centers) in public spaces. I deeply value collaboration, especially around innovative ideas – and am excited to embark on this new project.

Adrian Huerta:  Action. Over the last 18 months, we have seen unprecedented changes and harm to people, schools, and communities across the nation. The global pandemic and racial-justice movement brought much-needed attention to communities that have been ignored and mistreated for centuries. So, I hope that action and creativity can result in multiple public and private partnerships between schools, non-profits, businesses, and local and state governments to address and correct centuries of exclusion, state violence, and educational inequities.

Adrianna Kezar: Conferences and seeing colleagues in person! Interacting with students….Taking the opportunity of the new political administration to advance equitable policies in higher education. 

Tatiana Melguizo: I am really looking forward to seeing the return of our graduate students to campus. Their intellectual energy is going to be felt as well as their commitment to keep conducting research of consequence!

Julie Posselt: I’m looking forward to so many things about this year, but one thing that stands out is the chance to help shape agendas for equitable higher education through policy at different levels.

What do you believe is the biggest challenge facing higher education in the coming academic year and why?

Corwin: Ensuring that all postsecondary stakeholders — students, staff, administrators and faculty – are engaged, supported, and poised to thrive.

Huerta: The biggest challenge for higher education is the growing distrust and misinformation circulating throughout communities. An increasing number of citizens across the US distrust higher education and are influenced by misinformation or half-facts about what colleges produce or types of discourse on college campuses. Efforts to engage the public are essential to (re)establish mutual trust and gain public favor in higher education for the public good.

Kezar: Moving back to shared governance that has eroded even more. The financial scarcity issue is huge and impacts willingness to seek out advice from faculty, staff and students. 

Melguizo: The biggest challenge in particular for community colleges is to provide the conditions for students to want to return to their campuses. This means in-person instruction whenever it is possible, professional development for faculty both in terms of managing the challenges of online learning as well as culturally relevant pedagogy, and creating the academic, mental health and basic needs supports that minoritized students need to be able to return and successfully work toward a particular degree.

Posselt: A major challenge facing higher education is the risk of regression to the mean post-COVID. We know that system shocks like the pandemic are opportunities for positive change, but that it takes a lot more work to make, sustain, and refine those changes than to go back to how things used to be. People are tired, and many are understably nervous about re-engaging.

How do you believe higher education (as a community or identify specific groups) can rise to these challenges in the coming academic year?

Corwin: In order for this to happen, we must listen intently to the needs of our colleagues and students, especially those with historically marginalized identities, and then disrupt and dismantle policies and practices that create inequitable and/or alienating environments.

Huerta: Bold leadership is needed across higher education as we need to develop new methods to rethink community engagement. Again, how can colleges and universities continue building trust and serve our communities to improve the social, educational, and living conditions for all people? The ethos needs buy-in from senior leadership and faculty to be creative in determining the value of service to the local community. After so much change due to the pandemic and racial justice movement, how can higher education step up and be a leader and partner to stakeholders?

Kezar: Leaders who trust their colleagues to make decisions. I also think it will take leadership in national organizations and public outcry to persuade leaders to cede power they have amassed during the pandemic. 

Melguizo: The Biden administration is planning on investing substantially in higher education and in particular community colleges. Higher education scholars can work with community college leaders to help them identify, implement, evaluate, and eventually scale up the programs and interventions that have the greatest potential to support students.

Posselt: Shared leadership is going to be essential. We need to find new norms — together — and universities need to invest in the well-being of their staff, faculty, and students. Listening to and acting upon the needs of the most marginalized on our campuses is the only way to develop plans that work well for everyone.

As a researcher, what will be your focus in the coming academic year?

Corwin: A major focus for my research next year will be our large-scale mixed methods collaboration with the University of Nebraska and The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. We’ll be working with students, staff, administrators and faculty to better understand strategies in support of at-promise students. We have an incredible research team working on the project and will be employing a wide range of methods.

Huerta: I am pushing the boundaries of scholarship. I will continue my research on gang-involved populations and hope my new project will help change perspective on this population, their pathways to and out of gangs, and what schools can do better to improve their educational experiences.

Kezar: Building back our community post-pandemic! Individual projects include shared equity leadership, a new book on shared leadership coming out in October and many efforts to better support contingent faculty. 

Melguizo: I will be spending a sabbatical year abroad. The plan is to continue to work with our Pullias Center affiliate researcher team and practitioners from the Los Angeles Community College District on learning about AB705 implementation. I am also starting new collaborations with researchers in Europe to document and understand similarities and differences in college trajectories of students who enroll in community colleges.

Posselt: My research team and I are in an exciting phase of our work on STEM graduate education. We are applying higher education’s own research on equity and change management to scale up the California Consortium for Inclusive Higher Education. We’re onboarding a new group of universities in the U.S. to become a national consortium, and are collaborating to support a group of British universities that is replicating the consortium there. We also are in the process of publishing several manuscripts, and look forward to seeing them through to print this year!

As the Pullias Center continues into the school year, our researchers, faculty and staff welcome you to visit our Projects page, follow us on social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram), and sign up for our newsletter to keep track of the Pullias Center’s efforts to research college access and success.