Promoting Equity in Higher Education

April 2023

"Equity in Graduate Education"

Guest Editor Julie Posselt, Associate Professor

Dear Colleagues:

Were you a voracious reader as a child? I was. Somewhere around 3rd grade, I declared to my parents a plan to read every book in the public library, and for years I replenished a pile of books every single week. Books in the Dewey Decimal 900’s captivated me: geography, biography, and history offered portals to other places and times, allowing me to see the world through new lenses. I savored then — as I do now — the stretching and growing that comes from sticking with the discomfort of a challenging book, chapter or topic.

In this issue of the Pullias newsletter, we are shining a light on the stretching and growing of our research-practice partnerships to transform their systems for selecting and serving graduate students. Our team has been creating new opportunities throughout this year for professionals to organize for equity and expand their skill sets.

The same good stretch that I once felt when reading books beyond my reading level comes about not just in the acquisition of knowledge, but in the flex and stretch of learning to do new things — mistakes, barriers and all. Leaning into tough questions, personal doubts, and other moments of discomfort are critical for deep, systemic change. They are especially important for those of us whose privilege may predispose us to turn away when things get hard. The measure of our engagement needs to include not just our enthusiasm when change is in air, but how we handle stiff political headwinds.

This newsletter includes lessons learned in expanding the foci and membership of the Equity in Graduate Education Consortium, and it offers highlights from AAAS's Dr. Shirley Malcom’s recent Pullias Lecture. You will also have a chance to get to know the newest member of the Pullias faculty, Dr. Steve Desir, who is distinctly talented in creating spaces for learning that lead to racial equity-minded change.

Enjoy!

Julie Posselt

Associate Professor of Education, USC Rossier School of Education and the Pullias Center for Higher Education

Associate Dean, USC Graduate School

Organizing for Equity in Graduate Education

“The Equity in Graduate Education Consortium is an invaluable community of thought and action partners who provide me with mutual mentoring opportunities having immediate and meaningful implications to my work within and beyond Cornell.”

—Sara Xayarath Hernandez,

Associate Dean for Inclusion and Student & Faculty Engagement, Cornell University Graduate School

The Equity in Graduate Education Consortium, headquartered in the Pullias Center, enables capacity building and systemic change for equity and inclusion in graduate education nationwide. It serves as a lab for community-inspired research on these issues, and it provides training on evidence-based, equity-minded admissions, recruitment, and mentoring practices; coaching for departments and other leaders in institutional change; and community and support as leaders develop infrastructure for faculty development.

Spotlight on Dr. Steve Desir

The Pullias Center welcomes our newest faculty member

This Spring, the Pullias Center is thrilled to have D r. Steve Desir join its faculty. Desir is an expert in racial equity issues in recruitment, admissions, and institutional change work. He has been working for the last 3.5 years with the Inclusive Graduate Education Network and, for the last two years, with the Equity in Graduate Education Consortium. Hailing from Brooklyn, Steve was trained in economics at Penn State before earning a master's degree at Harvard Graduate School of Education and his doctorate from USC. Among his many talents, Desir brings an extraordinary ability to create spaces for professionals to develop knowledge, motivation, and skills promoting racial equity in their everyday work, policies, and practices.

You are the Director for Professional Development and Organizational Learning in the Equity in Graduate Education Consortium. What does this role entail?

In my role, I get to combine my passion for equity-minded change work with my skills in teaching and learning. As a former higher education administrator, I always appreciated participating in and organizing training and development opportunities for staff.

AERA is next week! Join Pullias Center Researchers at AERA, April 13-16

Join Adrianna Kezar, Zoe Corwin, Julie Posselt, and other Pullias Center and Rossier researchers at this year's AERA conference in Chicago. Our faculty, post-doctoral scholars and PhD candidates will share their research and insights — all centered around Equity in Higher Education — in 20 different sessions, including:

Advancing Critical Understandings of Community College Students (Adrian H. Huerta)

Roundtable: Antiblackness and Postsecondary Learning (Royel M. Johnson)

Barriers and Burdens of Graduate Students in Higher Education (Julie Posselt, Kaylan Baxter, Gloria C. Anglon)

Check Out Our Complete Pre sentation Schedule Here

SPOTLIGHT

"There is No Research Without Equity," says Dr. Shirley Malcom at 44th Pullias Lecture

The 44th Pullias Lecture was held on March 21, and featured Dr. Shirley Malcom of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's SEA Change in conversation with Adrianna Kezar, Director of the Pullias Center.

Malcom and Kezar discussed Dr. Malcom's mission to increase awareness, access and advancement of women, especially women of color, in science. “We really need to work together on these issues of equity,” Kezar said in her opening remarks. “There is a real resistance movement to a lot of these issues.”

“It’s not about just fixing the numbers. It’s not about getting the people in,” Malcom said. “It’s about changing the way we think about the knowledge.”

Read M ore and Watch the Lecture Recording

Basic Needs Assistance and Community College Students: New Report

USC’s Pullias Center and Sol Price Center for Social Innovation report provides timely evidence that additional funds help students achieve academic goals.

A new report from USC’s Pullias Center and the Sol Price Center for Social Innovation suggests that when high-need community college students are provided with additional financial aid, they have stronger academic outcomes than their peers.

The “Supporting Achievement: Basic Needs Assistance Program at a Community College” project aimed to determine if discretionary monthly stipends provided to a cohort of Los Angeles College Promise Program (LACP) students enrolled at a Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) school would have an impact on their academic goals.

The result? A resounding yes.

Pullias/Rossier PhD Candidate Maritza E. Salazar Receives Prestigious Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship

Please join us in congratulating Maritza E. Salazar, USC Rossier PhD candidate, for receiving the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, awarded by the National Academies (NASEM).

The goals of the Ford Foundation fellowships are to increase the diversity of the nation's college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity, to maximize the educational benefits of diversity, and to increase the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.

Maritza's interests include bridging the K-12 and higher education pipeline and exploring the relationship between education and the criminal legal system. In particular, she is interested in college access and equity for justice-involved youth and for youth attending continuation high schools. She is advised by Pullias Center Assistant Professor Adrian H. Huerta.

Make Real, Sustainable Change at Your Institution with the Change Leadership Toolkit

This research-based model of change focuses on leader roles, moves (or actions), and competencies that are accessible and user-friendly.

The Change Leadership Toolkit provides a comprehensive set of tools that starts with leadership context, analysis of change levers, leadership roles and agency, building leadership team and capacity, and details on how to lead in ways that connect leaders to the entire process of change.

You can access our online Resource Librar y, download the Toolkit, and read our Case Studies from the institutions who have successfully utilized the Toolkit.

Delphi Award Applications Now Open

How has your institution supported non-tenure-track or contingent faculty?

The annual Delphi Award, now in its sixth year, presents a $15,000 cash award to two universitie s annually that support non-tenure-track, contingent and/or adjunct faculty in pursuing strategic priorities such as student learning and community engagement.

Learn more about the Delphi Award, presented by the USC Pullias Center and AAC&U. The Delphi Award is generously sponsored by TIAA Institute.

MORE NEWS

Jordan Harper and Adrianna Kezar have co-authored "Designing with, not for Students: Prioritizing Student Voice Using Liberatory Design Thinking" in About Campus.

Mariama Nagbe guest lectured for a doctoral course on organizational culture, leadership, and change in the Department of Educational Leadership at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Her lecture was entitled, "Controlling the Contract: On Black Intellectual Labor in the Academic Economy, An OrgCrit Analysis."

Julie Posselt gave a distinguished lecture for the International Association of Dental Research & AADOCR on March 15.

Julie Posselt and Steve Desir have co-authored a chapter in the book “Rethinking College Admissions: Research-based Practice and Po li c y” entitled “How Are Admissions Decisions Racialized?"

Elif Yucel was awarded the 2023 inaugural Outstanding Doctoral Student Award and the Research Grant Award from the The Council for the Study of Community Colleges.

More than 225 people attended the IGEN-NASEM webinar series “Beyond Broadening Participation in Graduate Education and STEMM Organizations” on March 28-29.

THE PULLIAS CENTER FOR

HIGHER EDUCATION

Promoting Equity in Higher Education

pullias.usc.edu

The World's Leading Research Center on Student Access and Success in Higher Education