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Category: Equity Framework

CCRI Statement on Racial Equity and Call to Action

We condemn the racism, discrimination, and fear that permeates communities across our nation. We stand in solidarity with protesters and activists who condemn the racial injustice that pervades America, and we commit ourselves to do our part in seeking immediate change toward racial justice. We understand that the racial inequity documented in decades of educational research has failed to democratize schools and colleges. We must do more.

While Coleman’s (1966) seminal report, “Equality of Educational Opportunity” exposed systematic disparities between white students and students of color over a half-century ago, deep-seated disparities continue to this day. Police violence against people of color must end. Injustices in healthcare, basic living and sustenance, and working conditions spotlighted by COVID-19 are unacceptable and must be addressed. We, therefore, call for educational researchers to join us in using an explicit racial equity lens in studying higher education in the United States, including community colleges and their students.

In his recent statement on police killings of Black people, American Educational Research Association (AERA) President Shaun Harper implored educational researchers to recognize that first and foremost, we are citizen-scholars who are obligated to conduct research that fuels transformative change. Our Community College Research Initiatives (CCRI) group at the University of Washington is inspired by Dr. Harper and Dr. Estela Bensimon at the University of Southern California who model how researchers should center equity-mindedness in their work. We embrace using an explicit racial lens to generate actionable knowledge that advances equity in community colleges, and all of education. This commitment reflects our core values and points us toward generating new knowledge necessary to dismantle structural racism and create a new future for education. Our commitment includes generating evidence to reform policy and practice into more socially just higher education in our state and across America.

Please join us in our journey to transform education to achieve racial equity. Policy and practice informed by actionable racial equity-conscious research is pivotal to achieving a more socially just education system.

Equity workshop in Oregon for guided pathways implementation

Debra D. Bragg. (2019, November 14). Approaching guided pathways with an equity and evaluative lens.  Workshop presented for the Oregon Student Success Center at the Oregon Guided Pathways Institute in Eugene, Oregon.

Debra Bragg presented a workshop on using an equity lens for guided pathways implementation in Oregon’s community colleges. This interactive session engages participants in examining how their colleges align their campus work on diversity, inclusion, equity and equity-mindedness with guided pathways. Participants identify action items to address systemic inequities that have been overlooked in guided pathways implementation.

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Keynote on the Equity Imperative at the NWCCU Annual Conference

Bragg, D. D. (2019, November 20). The equity imperative for higher education. Keynote presented at the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) annual conference, Seattle, WA. 

Debra Bragg presented a distinguished lecture for the NWCCU annual conference. The keynote focused on systemic inequities in higher education that detrimentally impact students of color. She spoke about the ways in which higher education perpetuates wealth inequality and disparities in funding and status negatively impact student transfer from community colleges to universities. Her presentation offered insights into equity-minded, data-driven processes that colleges and universities need to adopt to engage in on-the-ground improvement work. She closed her keynote with Eldridge Cleaver, American Writer, and Political Activist (1935-1998) famous quote,  “There is no more neutrality in the world. You either have to be part of the solution, or you’re going to be part of the problem” to emphasize the urgency with which higher education needs to address systemic racism to ensure upward mobility is a reality for underserved students.

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Upcoming conferences to hear from CCRI!

Competency-Based Education Network’s (C-BEN) CBExchange 2019 Conference, Palm Springs, CA, October 24, 2019. Learning and Leading Forward: Research-based Lessons to Enhance CBE 2.0 for Working Adults at Salt Lake Community College, Eric Heiser, Dean, Salt Lake Community College, Debra Bragg, President, Bragg & Associates, Inc.

This session presents evaluation results from a Department of Labor Trade Adjustment Act Community College and Career Training grant at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC). Drawing on the experiences of the SLCC leadership and the evaluation team, this session provides lessons learned on the conversion of over 20 programs to CBE. Implications for scaling CBE throughout SLCC are discussed, including highlighting how the CBEN Quality Framework is being as a blueprint for scaling CBE college-wide.

2019 Annual Applied Baccalaureate Conference at noon on Monday, November 4, Green River College. CCRI Director, Debra Bragg, will give a keynote titled Opening the Door to Baccalaureates: Results of a New National Study on Access, Equity, and Outcomes of Community College Baccalaureates.

ASHE – The 44th annual Association for the Study of Higher Education Conference, Portland, November 13-16, 2019. We’d love to see you at our sessions! View the program for presentation details.

Congratulations to Kandi Bauman, CCRI Graduate Research Assistant and UW PhD student!  Kandi was selected to attend the Graduate Student Policy Seminar at ASHE 2019. The seminar provides graduate students with opportunities to interact with researchers, policy-shapers, and policymakers who are knowledgeable about critical public policy issues related to higher education. The seminar also offers participants an opportunity to engage other advanced graduate students with similar interests and ambitions from universities across the nation.

Advancing Evidenced-Based Policy: Meta-Analysis Findings from TAACCCT. Fri, November 15, 3:45 to 5:00pm, Hilton Portland Downtown, Floor: Ballroom, Grand Ballroom Parlor A. Grant Blume, CCRI Affiliate Faculty; Elizabeth Apple Meza, CCRI Research Scientist; Ivy Love, New America Policy Analyst and Debra Bragg, CCRI Director will present a paper on the United States Department of Labor’s (DOL) TAACCCT program, which represented an unprecedented federal investment in community colleges. This study reports results of a meta-analysis on the extent to which federal grants increased the likelihood of positive educational and employment outcomes at the nation’s community colleges.

A Spectrum of Partnerships: Intentional Collaborations to Improve Transfer Outcomes. Saturday, November 16, 1:30–2:45 pm, Hilton Portland Downtown, 3rd Forum: Exploring University Partnerships & Collaborations. Theresa Ling Yeh, CCRI Research Scientist, and Lia Wetzstein, CCRI Associate Director will be discussing how community college and four-year university partnerships that focus on improving transfer outcomes are critical to advancing equity, as many underserved populations pursue baccalaureate degrees through community colleges. This paper examines qualitative data from a mixed-methods study and proposes a typological continuum of ways in which transfer partnerships can be enacted.

Career Pathway Programs: Building Connections Between College, Employment, and Careers. Sat, November 16, 10:15 to 11:30 am, Hilton Portland Downtown, Floor: Plaza, Broadway I. As the number of career pathway programs in community colleges has grown, research has examined the effects of pathway models on higher education program development and student outcomes. Debra Bragg, CCRI Director presents this paper as part of a panel summarizing the findings of recent research on career pathways, including two case studies of career pathways programs.

2019 Northwest Commission for Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) Annual Conference at noon on Wednesday, November 20, Hyatt Regency, Seattle, WA.  Debra Bragg, CCRI Director, to give a keynote focusing on The Equity Imperative for Higher Education.

CCRI goes to Florida!

CCRI Advances Coaching for Change (C4C) Efforts

As a national partner of Jobs for the Future (JFF), CCRI supports the Student Success Center Network (SSCN) Coaching Program with strategy development. Since 2017, CCRI has collaborated with Student Success Center (SSC) executive and assistant directors from around the country to advance statewide coaching initiatives. Building on lessons learned from the Coaching Pilot, CCRI is partnering on Jobs for the JFF’s (SSCN) Guided Pathways Coaching program to support SSCs in operationalizing and developing their state designed coaching plans for guided pathways implementation at scale and other reform efforts. Five SSCs from around the country received grants to participate in this two year program. 

These five SSCs convened for a half-day workshop to learn from and about each other’s coaching program and tools we created for them to advance their coaching work. The discussion we facilitated allowed SSCs to share and learn from one another on the following topics; strategic planning, college readiness for coaching, and advancing racial equity. Throughout the discussion, we introduced drafts of our tools and resources related to each of these topics that are grounded in organizational change, coaching principles, equity-mindedness, and Center for Urban Education’s Equity by Design principles.

Read about Coaching for Change

Designing Destiny: How to Engage in Equity and Inclusion

CCRI’s Dr. Lia Wetzstein and Katie Kovacich joined Oregon’s SSC Executive Director Elizabeth Cox Brand and New York’s Rockland Community College President Dr. Michael Baston in leading a working session at Jobs for the Future’s (JFF) Postsecondary State Network Bi-Annual Meeting in Fort Lauderdale. 

In our session, Designing Destiny: How to Engage in Equity and Inclusion, we used frameworks based on Reflective and Critical Reflective Practice and the Collaboration Continuum to give attendees the tools and strategies they need to navigate and facilitate the sometimes difficult conversations that people must have in order to truly engage in the critical work of improving diversity, equity, and inclusion. We highlighted practices at both the system and institutional levels, and offered examples from the coaching model being used in the Oregon Pathways cohorts and the engagement strategy that Rockland Community College uses to build campus-based support with and through stakeholders.