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Wishing you a Happy New Year from the Marxe School!
This January, Marxe Monthly highlights the exceptional work on our higher education administration faculty and students. Founded even before we became the School of Public Affairs in 1994, the Master of Science in Education in Higher Education Administration (MSEd-HEA) is a unique program that aspires to produce talented leaders and managers who will chart the future of higher education institutions across the U.S. and beyond.
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The work of our MSEd-HEA faculty, graduates, and alumni is more important than ever in the face of current national discourse on the value of higher education and the potential destabilization brought about by rapidly changing technology.
Please enjoy reading about the important work of our Marxe School MSEd-HEA community.
Warm regards,
Marxe Dean Sherry Ryan, PhD
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Marxe Students Present Research at
Regional Middle States Conference
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L to R: Provost Linda Essig, Asst. Prof Ashley Gaskew, Students: Mackenzie Wise, Fernanda Cardoso | |
Marxe Higher Education Administration students, Mackenzie Wise and Fernanda Cardoso presented at the 2023 annual Middle States Commission on Higher Education Conference (MSCHE). They presented alongside approximately 80 other students across 32 institutions, including Baruch College. The students connected theory with practice, demonstrating how to conduct critical research to empower faculty, staff, students, and institutional leaders to think about how to create a supportive and sustainable learning environment and community.
Mackenzie’s presentation was on the atypical experience first-generation students (defined as not having a parent who has completed a bachelor's degree) have in higher education. Research has shown that many of these students who attend American higher education institutions struggle to complete a four-year undergraduate program. Typically this is related to issues of academic support, financial hardship, and/or trouble adjusting to college culture. Higher education institutions, aware of the challenges first-generation students face, have made efforts to provide support, such as bridge and orientation programs. Research based on the theory of Community Cultural Wealth indicates that first-generation students possess skills and knowledge that can benefit them in the university setting, but that they go unrecognized. Through greater effort to integrate first-generation students' cultural wealth, American schools can help foster greater achievement and degree completion.
Fernanda’s presentation was about the ableism students with disabilities face in higher education. Research has shown that most institutions offer a bare-minimum approach to inclusion, despite legislation offering disabled students protections from discrimination. Approaches typically do not go far beyond addressing a student's immediate needs, focusing instead on legal compliance rather than access and success. Current issues involve: lack of adequate student services support; disparities in access to diagnoses; student communities' internalized ableism; insufficient efforts made by disabilities offices; and physical and technological inaccessibility. To address this, Fernanda proposes a series of recommendations for disabled student access, advocacy, and engagement to be made by disability services offices, including: community engagement events; review of medical requirements to characterize disabilities; more accessible communication, networking and work opportunities; advocacy for different class modalities; proper building accessibility; and campus diversity.
Learn more about the Middle States Commission on Higher Education Conference
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Higher Education Administration Master Students'
Capstone Showcase
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Onstage: Marxe Students and Associate Professor Ryan Coughlan (far right) | |
At the Higher Education Administration (HEA) Capstone Showcase, fifteen Marxe students presented resource manual literature created to address critical challenges affecting post-secondary institutions and their constituencies.
The event took place in the William and Anita Newman Conference Center in Baruch College's Library and Technology Building. The room was packed with alumni, current students, staff, faculty, and other members of the Marxe community. The students' professor, Ryan Coughlan, welcomed the audience and spoke about what his class had accomplished; Baruch’s Vice President for Enrollment Management and Strategic Academic Initiatives, Mary Gorman (Marxe '23), and Marxe's Director of Academic Advisement, Sandra Fajardo (Marxe '03) gave a toast to the Fall MSEd graduates; and Marxe Academic Advisement's Elaine Truong (Marxe '16) acted as master of ceremonies.
The students selected their own capstone topics and completed literature reviews ahead of developing their user-friendly resource manuals. Each student conducted research, interviewed an expert, and built a data visualization to include as part of their resource manual. They presented for 3 minutes apiece to provide a quick introduction to the resource they created, with an onscreen QR code serving as a means for the audience to jump into the full resources on their mobile device as the students spoke.
Some topics included: support services for undocumented students; study abroad resources with a cost comparison; childcare services for students with young ones; and a roadmap for developing post-secondary pathways for incarcerated people.
Go in-depth and learn more about each student's resource manual
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Associate Professor Ryan Coughlan Supports Plaintiffs in Legal Case on
Unconstitutional Segregation
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A 2017 report by the UCLA Civil Rights Project co-authored by Ryan Coughlan asserts, "School segregation in NJ is not only by race, but it is double segregation by race and poverty with black and Latino students in schools with far poorer classmates—conditions research shows to be linked to educational inequality. Because the commitment of the courts has been to create schools that are more equitable solely in terms of dollars and programs, segregation has gone unchecked. Without any statewide effort to integrate schools, segregation has surged as the racial transition of spaces across NJ continues."
To remedy the situation one of Coughlan's co-authored reports suggests, among other actions: a clear, definitive, and strong policy statement from the governor regarding strategies of school integration; a school integration commission with a broad but specific mandate and relatively short timeline; a re-established, highly visible, and well-staffed office to oversee integration in the state department of education; policies that increase the number of diverse school districts and support existing diverse school districts; the establishment of high-quality professional development programs to prepare educators to deliver a culturally responsive education to diverse groups of students; and the fostering and support of citizen coalitions that are working toward school integration.
In October 2023, the court issued a series of decisions in response to various motions for summary judgement, and professor Coughlan is engaged with the plaintiffs as they move forward in response to these decisions.
Read more about the current status of the case in light of the October 2023 ruling
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Alumna Denis L. Pease Appointed to Biden's Presidential Advisory Commission on Advancing Education, Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans | |
Congratulations to Master of Public Administration National Urban Fellows '83 alumna, Denise L. Pease, who has been named a member of Biden's Presidential Advisory Commission on Advancing Education Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans.
The Presidential Advisory Commission on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans aids in developing, implementing, and coordinating educational programs and initiatives for agencies such as the Department of Education. The Commission provides advice to the President through the Secretary of Education with a focus on: promoting career pathways for Black students through programs such as internships, apprenticeships and work-based learning initiatives; increasing public awareness of educational disparities and providing solutions to these problems; and establishing local and national relationships with public, private, philanthropic, and nonprofit stakeholders to advance the mission of equity, excellence, and economic opportunity.
Pease has committed her career in government to policy-making to improve lives -- especially of those in low-to-moderate income communities. Pease served under the Obama-Biden Administration as the Northeast and Caribbean Regional Administrator at the General Services Administration, and as New York State Deputy Superintendent of Banks, as well as New York City Assistant Comptroller for Commercial Banking. Pease is a disability advocate and works with organizations such as UN Women, the Disability Council of the DNC, the Greater Queens Chapter of the Links, Inc., and as a Life Member of the NAACP and Heritage Member of the Claude B. Govan Chapter of Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.
Learn more about Denise and the appointment to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Advancing Education Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans
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