Guest Editor Tatiana Melguizo, Pullias Center Professor
Dear Colleagues,
In this month’s Pullias Center newsletter, we’ll be focusing on Equity for Community College Students, and our newly-published report on California’s AB705 bill. This ambitious bill mandates that the state’s 116 community colleges replace standardized tests with multiple measures of high school performance to determine college “readiness,” which results in most students being placed directly into transfer-level courses.
Over the past few years, the Pullias Center has worked closely with the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) to learn more about successes and challenges they’ve experienced with the implementation of the bill. In December 2021, we hosted a conference of more than 50 researchers, faculty, staff, and administrators to discuss key findings from the our mixed-methods study. You can watch the video from the conference here.
In this issue, you can also read the report from the study, which features nearly 500 respondents from the nine colleges of the LACCD. You can also learn more about the information presented at our December conference, exciting new work being done by my colleague Dr. Adrian Huerta with Long Beach Community College supporting gang-affected youth, as well as an exciting new evaluation project we’re doing with the Price Center for Social Innovation on providing universal basic income to a small cohort of marginalized LACCD students.
There is excellent work being done to support community college students by our colleagues across the country. I hope that you enjoy reading this issue that explores this important topic.
Warmly,
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Professor, USC Rossier School of Education and the Pullias Center for Higher Education
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AB705 Study and New Report Examines Implementation Progress to Date in Los Angeles Community College District |
The California Community Colleges (CCC) constitute the key entry point to college for the large majority of Black, Latina/o/x, and Indigenous populations as well as low-income students. As such, it is critical that they provide high-quality instruction along with a robust set of academic and wrap-around supports necessary for the students to fulfill their educational potential and goals. As has been documented nationally, a major roadblock for student success is placement in a long sequence of developmental education math and English courses.
After more than a decade of trying to tackle this problem through basic skills-related initiatives, task forces, and programs, California passed Assembly Bill 705 (AB705) in 2017, arguably one of the most ambitious higher education reforms in community colleges to date. Starting in Fall 2019, 116 colleges throughout the state replaced standardized tests with multiple measures of high school performance to determine college “readiness,” which resulted in most students being placed directly into transfer-level courses. Through these changes in placement, along with curricular and student support reforms, each college is expected to maximize the probability that entering students complete transfer-level English and math courses in one year’s time.
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2022 Delphi Award Applications Now Available
The Pullias Center and AAC&U are pleased to announce that the 2022 Delphi Award application is now open. The annual Delphi Award, now in its fifth year, presents a $15,000 cash award to two universities who support non-tenure-track, contingent and/or adjunct faculty in pursuing strategic priorities such as student learning and community engagement. If you, your organization, or university have worked to support non-tenure-track, contingent and/or adjunct faculty, apply today!
The Delphi Project's Delphi Award is funded by the TIAA Institute. The TIAA Institute helps advance the ways individuals and institutions plan for financial security and organizational effectiveness. The Institute conducts in-depth research, provides access to a network of thought leaders, and enables those it serves to anticipate trends, plan future strategies and maximize opportunities for success.
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Pullias' Tatiana Melguizo Partners with Price Center for Social Innovation for Universal Basic Income Evaluation in LACCD
The 18-month research evaluation will focus on a pilot program being conducted by the Leonetti/O’Connell Family Foundation (LOCFF) that is providing universal basic income (UBI) to 75 students enrolled at Los Angeles Southwest College who are part of the 2021 Los Angeles College Promise (LACP) cohort. Learn more here.
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Pullias and Dr. Adrian Huerta Join Forces with Long Beach Community College to Support Higher Education for Gang-Associated Youth
Long Beach City College (LBCC) and the University of Southern California (USC) Rossier School of Education’s Pullias Center for Higher Education will receive $990,000 over the next three years from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, U.S. Department of Education (DOE) to collaborate on a new program that will promote and support higher education efforts for gang-associated youth in the greater Long Beach area for the next three years.
The new program, dubbed the LBCC Phoenix Scholars, is the only recipient across the U.S. of the competitive DOE grant, whose purpose is to help gang-involved youth to pursue higher education opportunities.
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MORE NEWS
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Elizabeth Holcombe will moderate an ACE webinar on "Structures for Enacting Shared Equity Leadership" on March 2, at 1:00pm ET. The conversation will feature leading voices one equity and student success as they discuss ways to organize shared equity leadership on a variety of campuses. Register here.
- Royel Johnson has received the 2022 Outstanding Contribution to Multicultural Education and Research Award from the American College Personnel Association.
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Royel Johnson's new book, "Racial Equity on College Campuses" is now available.
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Tatiana Melguizo will participate in a panel during the Council for the Study of Community Colleges conference on March 31, speaking during the pre-conference session on "A French and U.S. Comparative Overview of the Critical Concerns of Community College Students and Leaders during the Global Pandemic."
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Dr. Hope K. McCoy's book proposal is one of the winners of the 2021 Emerging Scholars in Black Studies competition, and the prize is a publishing contract. The title of the book will be: “From Congo to GONGO: Higher Education, Critical Geopolitics, and the New Red Scare.” View the official announcement.
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Julie Posselt will give the keynote address "System Shocks and Systemic Change: What Graduate Education Leaders Can Do.” on February 18 at the annual meeting of the Southern Council of Graduate Schools. Register here.
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The Pullias Center for Higher Education's Statement on a Diverse and Equitable Admissions and Enrollment Process
With the Supreme Court’s decision to hear Harvard University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Admissions cases, over four decades of legal precedent reaffirming the individualized holistic and equitable review process of higher education applicants is at risk. Because institutions do not rely solely on testing and grade point averages to evaluate one's merit to joining their student population, the ability to form a group of diverse backgrounds and perspectives is prioritized when an applicant’s personal context of ethnicity and race can be viewed in addition to their educational context. Colleges and universities must commit to a diverse and equitable admissions and enrollment process.
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THE
PULLIAS CENTER
NEWSLETTER
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The World's Leading Research Center on Student Access and Success in Higher Education |
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