Guest Editor Adrianna Kezar, Director of the Pullias Center

Dear Colleagues,

2023 has been a very challenging year for equity leaders in higher education. It is clear that the conservative movement against equity that has been gathering traction for years is now more directly targeting colleges and universities. These voices have dismantled journalism as an objective and evidence-based enterprise, strategically stacked the courts with conservative judges, and now they have their sights set on education. This year’s Supreme Court decision related to limiting affirmative action and states’ legislation to ban books, limit speech and defund diversity, equity and inclusion are all part of this systemic attack on equity. This assault will not go away and we need to brace ourselves — or our fate will be like the judiciary and journalism. 

At Pullias, we have been working to create resources to help in the face of this assault. Our faculty collectively wrote an op-ed after the Supreme Court decision helping to provide guidance within this new context. Julie Posselt has been a leader around how to continue to make decisions on admissions while keeping equity in mind. 



At this moment, we need collective action across various higher education stakeholders that have stood in support of affirmative action in the past. Working to align these various parts of the overall higher education system as well as its external stakeholders is a complex task which has not been synergistic in many instances. 

From 2014-2017, I studied a national effort to align various organizations in an effort to shift higher education institutions to improve teaching on campus. Lessons from this effort might be helpful now as groups work now to align efforts – including a compelling framing/narrative, leveraging networks, maximizing the expertise and influence of groups differently based on their expertise and strengths.

In this, our Fall kick-off newsletter, we’ll share more about how we are adding to this counter-movement conversation, with our library of work (with the American Council on Education) on the Shared Equity Leadership (SEL) model, and with our Change Leadership Toolkit, which can help campuses begin this work of culture change by helping administrative, faculty and staff leaders engage in change. You’ll also read exciting news about the just-announced winners of the 2023 Delphi Award, a new NSF grant, and more.

With appreciation,

Adrianna Kezar

Professor, USC Rossier School of Education

Director, Pullias Center for Higher Education

Julie Posselt and the Pullias Center Awarded NSF Grant to Study Rubrics in Admissions

‘Examining Rubrics in Graduate Education’ will examine the utility and feasibility of rubrics in graduate admissions.

USC Rossier Associate Professor Julie Posselt (and project Principal Investigator) and a team of Pullias Center and University of Minnesota researchers have received a $1.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that will examine evaluation rubrics and how they affect racial equity outcomes in graduate school admissions.

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Dr. Royel Johnson Named as Co-Editor of AERA's Educational Researcher Journal

Dr. Royel Johnson, USC Rossier School of Education Associate Professor and Pullias Center faculty member, has been named as a co-editor of Educational Researcher (ER), the journal of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). His appointment is for the 2024-2026 editorial team.



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Pullias Center Team Awards & Accolades

At our recent USC Rossier School of Education kickoff event for the new academic year, the Pullias Center team received prestigious and well-deserved awards.

Congratulations to Research Professor Zoë Corwin, on being selected for this year's "Excellence in Mentoring" Award. This award is presented to faculty for providing outstanding mentorship to the community of faculty colleagues, students, postdoctoral scholars, fellow or staff at the USC School of Education

And Congratulations to Assistant Professor Adrian H. Huerta, for receiving

the Rossier 'Excellence in Research" Award for providing outstanding research contributions based on the quality, originality and impact to the USC Rossier School of Education.

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NEW PUBLICATIONS

"Emotional Labor in Shared Equity Leadership Environments: Creating Emotionally Supportive Spaces," the sixth and final report in the Shared Equity Leadership series from the Pullias Center and ACE. Authors include Darsella Vigil, Elizabeth Holcombe, Natsumi Ueda and Adrianna Kezar.

Pullias Center alumnus Jarrett T. Gupton, one of the 2022 winners of the Pullias Center’s Alumni Equity Awards, recently published his award-winning report, The End of Racial Justice?

MORE NEWS

• The Pullias Center’s Beyond the Board study was cited in a Glam Magazine article outlining the health benefits of skateboarding.

• Zoë Corwin (Pullias) was interviewed by the online site The Score for their article, Skateboarding's next-gen girls are rapidly building on their pioneers' legacy. 

• Royel M. Johnson’s new co-edited book, “Creating New Possibilities for the Future of HBCUs” (Information Age Publishing) is now available.

• Royel M. Johnson was a keynote speaker for Penn State’s Academic Leadership Academy. His two talks were titled, “Sense of Belonging: An Equity Imperative for Student Success” and “Why We Need Racial Equity Literacy in Higher Education.”

• Adrianna Kezar was quoted in an Inside Higher Ed article called “Dissolving a DEI Office to Save DEI” where she condemned the dismantling of DEI offices and stands in solidarity with CDOs. 

• Adrianna Kezar was interviewed by Inside Higher Ed for their article “DEI as an Act of Resistance” in their June 13 issue. 

• Julie Posselt and Royel Johnson wrote an op-ed Confronting Racism after Affirmative Action: What faculty can and should do to help all of their future students in Inside Higher Ed, and co-signed by Pullias and Rossier Higher Education Faculty.

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