The Pullias Lecture, established in 1978 and dedicated to the memory of Earl V. Pullias, brings a nationally recognized scholar to the USC campus to participate in an ongoing academic dialogue on significant topics in higher and postsecondary education.
Save the Date for the 45th Pullias Lecture
Prestigious Lecture to be held on Thursday, March 28 at California Science Center in Los Angeles
Top diversity, equity and inclusion scholars in higher education will come together to discuss the current challenging environment in higher education and offer their historical and policy insights into this issue at the 45th Pullias Lecture, set for Thursday, March 28 at 11am. The event will be held at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
“Understanding and Navigating an Increasingly Hostile DEI Environment in Higher Education” is the focus of this year’s Lecture. Moderated by Rossier School of Education Dean Pedro Noguera, the panel features Eddie Cole, Associate Professor of Education and History, UCLA; Liliana Garces, Professor of Community College Leadership, University of Texas, Austin; and Royel Johnson, Associate Professor of Higher Education, USC Rossier School of Education and a member of the Pullias Center faculty.
The recent attacks from the judiciary with the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action and the legislative attacks through Critical Race Theory bans, restrictions on DEI training, and calls for dismantling DEI offices, have left DEI champions and advocates in a challenging situation. Campus leaders fear that funding will be cut and their actions to support equity will be penalized. Many are preemptively making changes to avoid scrutiny from legislators. How can and should campus leaders move forward in this constrained environment that has emerged? And most importantly, how can we turn the current tide so that DEI efforts are not vulnerable to elimination?
The Pullias Center, a research center focused on advancing equity in higher education, offers a number of resources practitioners and administrators can access to address these questions, including our Shared Equity Leadership library of reports, as well as this op-ed by Pullias Center Director Adrianna Kezar in a recent issue of Diverse Issues in Higher Education.
Registration for the Pullias Lecture, which is open to the public and includes lunch, will begin in early February, 2024.
2023 | 44th Pullias Lecture: Dr. Shirley M. Malcom
Dr. Shirley M. Malcom, Senior Advisor and Director of SEA Change at the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Watch the video here.
March 21, 2023 | 44th Pullias Lecture
Dr. Shirley Malcom was the keynote speaker for the 2023 Pullias Lecture, held in person at USC’s Town & Gown ballroom. She is Senior Advisor and Director of SEA Change at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general science organization. The title of her speech was “No Equity Without Systemic Change: My Personal Journey.”
Malcom received her B.S. at the University of Washington and M.A. at the University of California, Los Angeles both for zoology. In 1974, she would go on to receive her Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in ecology. Some previous positions include high school teacher, assistant professor of biology at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and program officer in science education at the National Science Foundation, before she joined AAAS.
Throughout her career, Dr. Malcom’s work has focused on the increasing access and advancement of women, especially women of color, in science. She is a leader in efforts to improve accessibility of education and careers in science and engineering for girls and women as well as Black, Indigenous and Hispanic communities. Her inspiring work has led to numerous honors such as Sigma Xi Gold Key Award, University of Washington’s Alumna Summa Laude Dignata Award, the UCLA Medal and the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
2022 | 43rd Pullias Lecture: Eloy Ortiz Oakley
Eloy Ortiz Oakley, Chancellor of the California Community Colleges
March 10, 2022 | 43rd Pullias Lecture
California Community Colleges’ (CCC) Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley was the keynote speaker for the 2022 Pullias Lecture, held in person at USC’s Town & Gown ballroom. The title of Mr. Oakley’s speech was “Equity in Higher Education in a Post-Pandemic World: The Way Forward Cannot Replicate the Past.”
Watch the video here.
The son of a U.S. citizen father who was schooled in Mexico and a mother who was a Mexican immigrant, Oakley grew up in the Florence-Firestone area of South Los Angeles in the mid-1970s and early 1980s. After serving four years in the Army, he enrolled at Golden West College and transferred to the University of California, Irvine, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in environmental analysis and design and a master’s degree in business administration.
His career in education includes serving as an adjunct faculty member teaching in and coordinating the Environmental Technology Certificate Program at Golden West College, manager of risk services at the Coast Community College District, vice president of college services at Oxnard College, and assistant superintendent/executive vice president of administrative services at the Long Beach Community College District. In 2021, Oakley took a 4-month sabbatical from his position at CCC to serve as the temporary , unpaid senior advisor to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on higher education issues, including college affordability.
Oakley in 2007 was appointed superintendent-president of the Long Beach Community College District, one of the most diverse community colleges in the nation, and he became increasingly well-known for providing statewide and national leadership on improving educational outcomes of historically underrepresented students. Partnering with the Long Beach Unified School District and Cal State Long Beach, Oakley helped form the nationally-recognized Long Beach College Promise, a program creating clear, structured pathways for students to move from high school to Long Beach Community College and onto Cal State Long Beach. The James Irvine Foundation recognized him with its Leadership Award in 2014, the same year former Gov. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. appointed Oakley to the University of California Board of Regents. In 2015, President Obama launched the America’s College Promise initiative that was modeled in part on the Long Beach Promise.
Oakley has served as chancellor for the California Community Colleges since December 2016. His trailblazing efforts at putting students first have been acknowledged through his appointments to the California Forward Leadership Council, the California Economic Summit, the Fair Shake Commission, the California Community College Commission on the Future and the American Association of Community Colleges 21st Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges.
2020 | 42nd Pullias Lecture: Tia Brown McNair & Kaiwipuni Lipe
Tia Brown McNair, Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success, Association of American Colleges and Universities
Kaiwipunikauikawēkiu Lipe, Native Hawaiian Affairs Specialist, University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa
Advancing Racial Equity through Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers
September 15, 2020 | 42nd Pullias Lecture
Dr. Tia Brown McNair is the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the TRHT Campus Centers at Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC. She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact educational practices, and student success, including AAC&U’s Network for Academic Renewal series of yearly working conferences. McNair also directs AAC&U’s Summer Institute on High-Impact Educational Practices and Student Success. McNair serves as the project director for several AAC&U initiatives: “Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation,” “Strengthening Guided Pathways and Career Success by Ensuring Students are Learning,” and “Purposeful Pathways: Faculty Planning and Curricular Coherence.” She is the lead author of the book Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016). McNair earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and English at James Madison University and holds an M.A. in English from Radford University and a doctorate in higher education administration from George Washington University.
Dr. Kaiwipunikauikawēkiu Lipe is a Native Hawaiian mother, daughter, wife, hula practitioner, and educator. In 2017 she was hired into the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Chancellor’s Office as the inaugural Native Hawaiian Affairs Program Officer where she implements findings from her research to advance UHM’s goal of becoming a Native Hawaiian place of learning. She is also the director of UHM’s Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Campus Center as well as an Obama Leader with the Obama Foundation’s Asia-Pacific Leaders Program. She holds a BA in Hawaiian Studies, an MS in Counseling Psychology, and a PhD in Education Administration.
2019 | 41st Pullias Lecture: William G. Tierney
William G. Tierney, Founding Director, USC Pullias Center for Higher Education
Higher Education for Democracy
March 26, 2019 | 41st Pullias Lecture
William G. Tierney is University Professor and Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education and co-director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California. A past president of both the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) and the American Educational Research Association (AERA), for which he has also served as vice president and is currently a fellow, Tierney is widely recognized as an influential figure in higher education research. He recently was awarded the Howard R. Bowen Distinguished Career Award from ASHE, and the Distinguished Research Award from Division J of AERA. Tierney is also an elected member of the National Academy of Education, a disciplinary society of 200 individuals recognized for their outstanding scholarship and contributions to education.
Tierney has written and edited more than 80 books and monographs on a wide range of topics concerning higher education. His recent books include Rethinking Education and Poverty, The Problem of College Readiness, The Impact of Culture on Organizational Decision Making, Trust and the Public Good: Examining the Cultural Conditions of Academic Work and New Players, Different Game: Understanding the Rise of For-Profit Colleges and Universities. His opinion pieces have been published in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Sacramento Bee and The Huffington Post, among other major newspapers and magazines. He has held Fulbright Scholarships to Central America, Australia and India, and has been Scholar-in-Residence in Universiti Sains Malaysia, and an interdisciplinary research fellow at the University of Hong Kong.
Tierney joined USC in 1994, and was appointed University Professor in 2006. At USC, Tierney has served as the president of the USC Academic Senate, chair of the PhD program for the USC Rossier School of Education, and chair of the University Committee on Academic Review. Prior to USC, Tierney was a professor and a senior scientist at the Pennsylvania State University, an academic dean at a Native American community college, and a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco. He earned a master’s from Harvard University and a PhD from Stanford University.
Tierney is committed to informing policies and practices related to educational equity. He has been involved in projects to expand college access and persistence for low-income youth through digital tools, as well as mentoring and writing programs. He is also working on projects pertaining to the problems of remediation to ensure that high school students are college-ready, and investigating how to improve strategic decision-making in higher education. He is currently at work on a book about innovation, and a second book about higher education for democracy.
2018 | 40th Pullias Lecture: Sarita E. Brown
Sarita E. Brown, President, Excelencia in Education
Pursuing Equity in Higher Education Using a Latino Lens
March 27, 2018 | 40th Pullias Lecture
Sarita E. Brown is founding President of Excelencia in Education (Excelencia), a national not for profit organization working to accelerate Latino success in higher education by linking research, policy, and practice to serve Latino students.
A recognized thought leader in higher education, Ms. Brown has spent more than two decades at prominent national educational institutions and at the highest levels of government working to implement effective strategies to raise academic achievement and opportunity for low-income and minority students. She started her career at the University of Texas at Austin by building a national model promoting minority success in graduate education. Coming to the nation’s capitol in 1993 to work for educational associations, Ms. Brown was appointed Executive Director of the White House Initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans under President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. Ms. Brown later applied her talents and experience to the not-for-profit sector and in 2004, co-founded Excelencia in Education.
Launched in 2004, Excelencia has filled a crucial information gap for policymakers, institutional leaders, and the Latino community. The organization has become a trusted source of data and information on the status of Latino higher educational achievement, a major resource for influencing policy at the state and national levels, and a widely recognized advocate for expanding promising practices to accelerate Latino student success in college. As President, Ms. Brown advances an asset-based perspective about the growth of the American Latino community and advises educators, grantmakers, and civic leaders. She consults with national educational organizations and currently serves on the Board of Directors for ACT Inc., Editorial Projects in Education, Catch the Next Board and Excelencia in Education.
An effective advocate for Latino success in higher education, Ms. Brown travels throughout the country speaking on the potential benefits to the country of increasing Latino student success in higher education. Her writing on the impact for Latino college going talent includes her chapter; “Making the Next Generation Our Greatest Resource” in Latinos in the Nation’s Future (2009) edited by Henry Cisneros and published by Arte Público Press.
Ms. Brown was honored with the Harold G. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education for her “innovative thinking, strong leadership and accomplishment by example”. She has been recognized with numerous awards including an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from North Carolina State University and Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in Behavior Sciences from Carlos Albizu University. She holds a bachelor’s of arts in ethnic studies, and a bachelor’s of science and master’s of arts in communication from The University of Texas at Austin.
2017 | 39th Pullias Lecture: Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, Professor of Economics and Philosophy
Professors and Their Masters: Challenges to Academic Freedom in the Contemporary World
March 9, 2017 | 39th Pullias Lecture
Professor Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, at Harvard University. He has held academic positions at Cambridge, Jadavpur University Calcutta, the Delhi School of Economics, the London School of Economics, and Oxford University. His research has ranged over social choice theory, economic theory, ethics and political philosophy, welfare economics, theory of measurement, decision theory, development economics, public health, and gender studies. Amartya Sen’s books have been translated into more than thirty languages. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998. Professor Sen was the Founding Chancellor of Nalanda University in India. The initial university was founded in the fifth century and lasted eight hundred years, with 2,000 teachers and 10,000 residential students. In 2007 Professor Sen became Founding Chancellor of a reenvisioned University as a place of higher learning with academic freedom at its core.
2016 | 38th Pullias Lecture: Freeman Hrabowski
Freeman Hrabowski, President of UMBC (The University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
Transforming American Higher Education: A 50-year Experiment and its Lessons for the Future
Feb. 4, 2016 | 38th Pullias Lecture
2015 | 37th Pullias Lecture Janet Napolitano
Janet Napolitano, President of the University of California
A Trifecta for the Future: Higher Education, California, and Innovation
February 18, 2015 | 37th Pullias Lecture
2014 | 36th Pullias Lecture: Daphne Koller
Daphne Koller, Professor in Computer Science at Stanford University
The Online Revolution: Education for Everyone
February 19, 2014 | 36th Pullias Lecture
2013 | 35th Pullias Lecture: Nancy L. Zimpher
Nancy L. Zimpher, Chancellor of the State University of New York
Universities as Engines of Economic Growth and Educational Success
February 4, 2013 | 35th Pullias Lecture
2012 | 34th Pullias Lecture: Clayton M. Christensen
Clayton M. Christensen, Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School
The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out
March 29, 2012 | 34th Pullias Lecture
2011 | 33rd Pullias Lecture: James Paul Gee
James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Division of Curriculum & Instruction
Arizona State University Mary Lou Fulton College of Education.
Games, Learning, and the Looming Crisis in Higher Education
April 4, 2011 | 33th Pullias Lecture
2010 | 32nd Pullias Lecture: Gene D. Block, Jean-Lou Chameau, Michael V. Drake, Steven B. Sample
Gene D. Block, Jean-Lou Chameau, Michael V. Drake, Steven B. Sample, Chancellor, University of California, Los Angeles| President, California Institute of Technology|Chancellor, University of California, Irvine| President, University of Southern California
The Future of Higher Education: A Southern California Perspective.
April 28, 2010 | 32nd Pullias Lecture
2009 | 31st Pullias Lecture: C.L. Max Nikias
C.L. Max Nikias, Ph.D., Executive Vice President and Provost Malcolm R. Currie Chair in Technology and the Humanities, University of Southern California
Beyond the Ivory Towers: On Tomorrow’s American Research University
January 22, 2009 | 31st Pullias Lecture
2008 | 30th Pullias Lecture: Amy Gutmann
Amy Gutmann, Ph.D., President, University of Pennsylvania.
Great Expectations for Higher Education in the 21st Century
January 2008 | 30th Pullias Lecture
2006 | 29th Pullias Lecture: George D. Kuh
George D. Kuh, Ph.D., Chancelor’s Professor of Higher Education and Director, Center for Postsecondary Research, Indiana
Student Success in College: Puzzle, Pipeline, or Pathway?
2006 | 29th Pullias Lecture
2005 | 28th Pullias Lecture: Sylvia Hurtado
Sylvia Hurtado, Ph.D., Professor and Director, University of California, Los Angeles
Higher Learning for Citizenship
2008 | 28th Pullias Lecture
2004 | 27th Pullias Lecture: Lloyd Armstrong, Jr, Douglas Becker
Lloyd Armstrong, Jr., Ph.D., Provost and Senior Vice President, University of Southern California
Douglas Becker, Chairman and CEO, Laureate Education, Inc.
Higher Education and the Global Marketplace: Entrepreneurial Activity in a Dynamic Environment
2004 | 24th Pullias Lecture
2004 | 26th Pullias Lecture: Vincent Tinto, Walter Allen, D. Bruce Johnstone
Vincent Tinto, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Higher Education, Syracuse University
Walter Allen, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Co-director of CHOICES, University of California, Los Angeles
D. Bruce Johnstone, Ph.D., Director, Center for Comparative and Global Studies in Education, State University of New York, Buffalo
2004 | 26th Pullias Lecture
2003 | 25th Pullias Lecture: Donald Kennedy
Donald Kennedy, Ph.D., President Emeritus, Stanford University
Governance and University Policy: Looking Before You Leap
2003 | 25th Pullias Lecture
Earlier Lectures
2002 | 24th Pullias Lecture: Steven B. Sample, Ph.D., Robert C. Packard President’s Chair President, University of Southern California.
2001 | 23rd Pullias Lecture: Karen Symms Gallagher, Ph.D., Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean USC Rossier School of Education.
2000 | 22nd Pullias Lecture: Arthur Levine, Ph.D., President, Teachers College.
1999 | 21st Pullias Lecture: Charles B. Reed, Ph.D., Chancellor, California State University System.
1998 | 20th Pullias Lecture: Thomas J. Nussbaum, J.D., Chancellor, California Community Colleges.
1997 | 19th Pullias Lecture: Richard C. Atkinson, Ph.D., President, University of California.
1996 | 18th Pullias Lecture: Yolanda T. Moses, Ph.D., President, The City College of New York.
1995 | 17th Pullias Lecture: K. Patricia Cross, Ph.D., Professor, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley.
1994 | 16th Pullias Lecture: Barry Munitz, Ph.D., Chancellor, California State University.
1993 | 15th Pullias Lecture: Steven B. Sample, Ph.D., Robert C. Packard President’s Chair President, University of Southern California.
1992 | 14th Pullias Lecture: John E. Roueche, Ph.D., Sid W. Richardson Regent’s Chair, University of Texas at Austin.
1991 | 13th Pullias Lecture: John Brooks Slaughter, Ph.D., President, Occidental College
1990 | 12th Pullias Lecture: Ernest L. Boyer, Ph.D., President, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
1989 | 11th Pullias Lecture: Terrel Bell, Ph.D., Former United States Secretary of Education.
1988 | 10th Pullias Lecture: David P. Gardener, Ph.D., President, University of California.
1987 | 9th Pullias Lecture: James H. Zumberge, Ph.D., President, University of Southern California.
1986 | 8th Pullias Lecture: Terry Sanford, Ph.D., President Emeritus, Duke University.
1985 | 7th Pullias Lecture: K. Patricia Cross, Ph.D., Graduate School of Education, Harvard University.
1984 | 6th Pullias Lecture: Clark Kerr, Ph.D., President Emeritus, University of California.
1983 | 5th Pullias Lecture: W. Ann Reynolds, Ph.D., Chancellor, California State University.
1982 | 4th Pullias Lecture: Dale Parnell, Ed.D., President, American Association of Community Colleges and Junior Colleges.
1981 | 3rd Pullias Lecture: Paul Hadley, Ph.D., Academic Vice President, University of Southern California.
1980 | 2nd Pullias Lecture: Ernest L. Boyer, Ph.D., President, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
1979 | 1st Pullias Lecture: Norman Topping, M.D., SC.D., L.L.D., L.H.D., Sid W. Richardson Regent’s Chair, University of Texas at Austin.