If we recognize that systems generate behaviors, we must acknowledge that systems do not move with actors and architects. This provocation explored the system of college admission post the George Floyd summer and with the looming SCOTUS decision on affirmative action. In a time of highly polarized education communities are looking for more than just words, they are looking for action and justice. This session discussed what it means in undergraduate admission to design for equity or perpetuate inequity.

Our scaled systems of care – K12, healthcare, mental health, and yes, higher education – have it backwards, using technology, efficiency, and productivity as drivers of scale, often seeking to minimize the centrality of human relationships to any transformational experience in any of those systems. As a result, we pay too much for dismal results. We need to flip the script, starting with relationships and holding them at the heart of the work, while scaling the heck out of everything else.

In 2018, Dr. Parnell wrote a thought piece (new window) to expand the discussion of how colleges should define student success. She suggested that in addition to retention, persistence, and graduation, college professionals and others should consider four key indicators of students’ progress. Higher education has experienced myriad changes and challenges over the past five years and in this provocation, Parnell proposed an updated set of descriptors of students’ most important milestones.

In 2020, institutions of higher education issued statements reaffirming their commitment to
diversity, equity, and inclusion on their campuses. Yet, evidence suggests that resistance to equity-minded change efforts – such as creating a culture of inclusion to support the recruitment
and retention of diverse students, faculty, and staff – continue to persist in higher education. This diversity science panel explored individual and organizational level factors driving diversity
resistance, and action-oriented approaches to manage resistance to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Kecia M. Thomas – Dean of the University of Birmingham College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychology

Roderick Lee – Associate Professor of Information Systems Harrisburg, Penn State Harrisburg

Levon Esters – Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate School, Penn State University

If equity work is ultimately situated in larger systems of inequality and marginalization, then what should real long-term transformation look like? Vanessa Andreotti, an education leader, talks about the difference between “soft” and “radical” reform. Soft reform, she says, asserts that “the system is basically fine, and we just need to fine tune it and bring more people into the tent.” Radical reform begins with the premise that “the system is basically rigged” and if we want “real transformation, we have to change the rules.” This interactive discussion and workshop begins with this distinction and asks what it might look to actually “change the rules”? What kinds of strategies could be enacted that would have the goal of moving institutions and their equity work toward more radical reform?

Randy Bass – Vice President for Strategic Education Initiatives, Georgetown University

Tim Eatman – Dean of the Honors Living-Learning Community, Rutgers University

Learning at Iowa is a campus-wide learning framework that is aimed at transforming the culture of learning on the University of Iowa campus by helping students learn how to learn, thereby reducing the effects of educational opportunity gaps. Learning at Iowa weaves throughout campus empirically supported learning methods from cognitive science, distilled around the “Three Ms”: mindset, metacognition, and memory. The project involves several campus partners (e.g., instructors, advisors, students) from a variety of contexts (e.g., classrooms, advising, residence halls). Across these contexts, the project seeks to provide consistent messaging and recommendations about learning for students. The presentation included examples of Learning at Iowa content and initial qualitative assessment.

Shaun Vecera – Psychology Professor, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences and Learning at Iowa, University of Iowa

Early college high schools are a test case about whether we can combine aspects of the postsecondary and secondary systems to expand access to college for more students. This workshop presented an overview of the early college model and included a description of implementation at a highly selective university. The session presented findings from rigorous impact studies that show that the model has positive impacts on students.

Julie Edmunds – Program Director at the SERVE Center at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro

Erin Horne – Assistant Dean for Professional Education and Accreditation in the College of Education at North Carolina State University

Drew Ware – Principal at Wake Stem Early College High School

This workshop presented the basics of assessment in the context of higher education student success. Amanda Brodish and April Belback defined and described student success assessment cycles and measures used by the University of Pittsburgh. You are able to identify outcome measures to map back to your own unit, program, or context.

Amanda Brodish – Associate Vice Provost for Data Analytics, University of Pittsburgh

April Belback – Director of Undergraduate Advising and Mentoring, University of Pittsburgh

In this panel, Dr. Lenore Rodicio and Dr. Harrison Keller talked about work to advance equity in states where the social and political climate makes explicit discussions of race and ethnicity complicated, with potential for policy, legal, and financial repercussions. Despite these challenges, both have found common ground with a broad range of stakeholders that have allowed them to advance student-focused and evidence-driven perspectives and make real gains toward educational equity goals. They explained how they navigate the complexity of their ecosystems to effect change at systems and state levels.

Harrison Keller – Commissioner of Higher Education and chief executive officer for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

Lenore Rodicio – Senior Fellow, College Excellence Program, The Aspen Institute

Colleges and universities are inherently siloed along many dimensions (disciplinary lines, between teaching and scholarly work), but the silos that isolate equity work are even greater. The causes of this are numerous – e.g., the perception of equity work as outside the core mission of institutions, the late insertion of equity offices and titles into existing structures – but regardless of the origins, the consequence is that the siloes serve to disempower equity work and equity allies. Learning how to de-silo equity work and to connect across silos when de-siloing isn’t possible is necessary to achieve our goals. In this workshop, participants stepped through a design framework that paired individual reflection with broader conversation to define the present-day “business as usual” state, imagined a future “alternative paradigm” where equity work is interconnected and integrated, and finally explored how to transition from the present to the future by planning for an impactful intervention.

April Belback – Director of Undergraduate Advising and Mentoring, University of Pittsburgh

Heidi Elmendorf – Director, Hub for Equity in Education; Associate Professor of Biology, Georgetown University

Randy Bass – Vice President for Strategic Education Initiatives, Georgetown University

In this session, participants were guided through the development of a culturally engaged, inclusive advising toolkit in order to highlight the opportunities and challenges that come with “leading from the middle.” As part of this workshop, participants engaged in discussions about how DEI campus projects can be successfully developed, implemented, and assessed. In this way, participants carefully examined what goes into designing and implementing a DEI initiative in a highly decentralized organizational ecosystem.

Javier Jimenez Westerman – Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Georgetown University

Stephon Hamill – Advising Dean, Georgetown University

Professional development – or “professional learning” – is a powerful tool for addressing equity and advancing success for all students. Professional learning has been called “essential equity infrastructure,” the key to engaging front-line educators in the action-oriented partnerships needed to implement equity-focused practices with quality and at scale. This workshop highlighted research demonstrating the impact of professional learning “done well,” and introduced an actionable design framework for high impact professional learning. Sharing resources and modeling co-constructed techniques, it invited participants to consider the assets of their home campus and to work with their team, designing ways to effectively integrate professional learning into their Equity Institute plans.

Lydia CdeBaca Cruz -Coordinator; Mexican American Studies, Adjunct Professor of Humanities and Composition and Literary Studies, Austin Community College; Achieving the Dream; University of Texas

Bret Eynon – Associate Provost (Ret), LaGuardia CC; Achieving the Dream

In this interactive session, two recent undergraduates and two faculty members invited participants to consider the key terms in the session title—mattering, equity, and student success—in relation to the problem, barrier, or goal teams brought to this institute. Each leader shared why they had shifted their focus from the widely embraced construct of belonging to the less-common construct of mattering, and offered definitions of mattering from the literature. Drawing on a research project that explored the experiences and perspectives of “new majority” students in several different institutional and programmatic contexts in higher education, they offered glimpses of what mattering feels like and enables for these students from historically underrepresented groups. Participants explored how mattering might catalyze rethinking and inform ongoing efforts, and everyone discussed as a whole group next steps in promoting mattering for equity and student success.

Alison Cook-Sather – Professor of Education and Director, Peace, Conflict and Social Justice concentration and Director, Teaching and Learnin, Bryn Mawr College

Kaylyn (Kayo) Piper Stewart – Recent Graduate of Sociology, Education and Africana Studies, Bryn Mawr College

Heidi Weston – Recent Graduate, Secondary Education Teaching, Elon University

Peter Felten – Executive Director of the Center for Engaged Learning, Elon University

Bias, shame, stereotyping and stigma are pervasive in healthcare, with detrimental effects on our learners as well as on the health of our patients and communities. This workshop helped educators better understand the importance of equity, diversity, and inclusion in curricula, recognize best practices to support inclusive teaching, and examine curricular items that can be reviewed by the Upstate Bias Checklist.

Susan Cheng – Senior Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion Deputy Title IX Coordinator, School of Medicine, Georgetown University School of Medicine

Ishani Joshi – Medical Student at Georgetown University School of Medicine, Georgetown University School of Medicine

Sarah Kureshi – Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine, Vice Chair for Education, Georgetown University

For many individuals working in the educational equity space, the cost of doing this work is high. The volume of work is ever-growing and becoming increasingly more difficult, yet still remains marginalized on many campuses. The pain of our students and our colleagues becomes our pain. The challenges of today are all too familiar to many of us who share identities with our students and who experienced – and are still experiencing – inequities in education and the workforce. So how do we take care of ourselves? What does it look like to “put on your own oxygen mask first” to ensure that you are not only practicing self-care but so that you can continue to be there for others who are important in your personal and professional lives? In this session, Dr. Jo Ellyn Walker, led a conversation to help participants explore the challenges and discuss pathways that can help us take the best possible care of ourselves and those around us.

Jo Ellyn Walker – Associate Director for Diversity Initiatives – CAPS, Georgetown University