Stories of Hope

February 10, 2022

Day 2: Socially Just Design in Postsecondary Education: A Call to Action

Isis Artze-Vega, Provost & Vice President, Academic Affairs, Valencia College

Carlos Ayala, President & CEO, Growing Inland Achievement
Supporting Equitable Student Success: A Regional Approach – Learn about Growing Inland Achievement’s work in the Inland Empire region to support equitable goals for student success.

Ed Ayers, President Emeritus and Director of New American History at the University of Richmond

Reggie Ellis, Interim Dean, School of Graduate Studies, and Research, Florida A & M University

John Gardner, Founder, and Executive Chair, John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education

Aryelle Jacobsen, Student, University of North Carolina Asheville

Andrew Koch, Chief Executive Officer, Gardner Institute

Colleges and universities in the twenty-first century are not designed to optimally advance social justice and equity goals. One need only examine both who gets to go to college and who ultimately completes a postsecondary credential to see that race/ethnicity and family income determine far too much about who does and does not become a “college graduate.” Changing this inequitable reality requires colleges, universities, and educators of all kinds to actively and intentionally embrace socially just design in postsecondary education and to operationalize socially just design in the various subsystems – academic advising, academic labor, courses and the curriculum, transfer, etc. – that make up the broader postsecondary education system.

Makayla Towns, Student, University of North Carolina Asheville