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Bill seeks to eliminate school takeovers by Mass. education department – The Boston Globe

“It’s always some of the poorest communities with the greatest number of students of color,” said Max Page, Massachusetts Teachers Association president.

Critics of the bill, though, say it would obliterate valuable leverage in ensuring the state’s most vulnerable students aren’t left to languish in struggling schools. BPS, for example, wouldn’t be reckoning with systemic changes to its transportation and special education systems had the district not been threatened with a takeover, they said.

“If you’re a parent of a BPS student and you have limited options, wouldn’t you want your superintendent or commissioner to take action to fix your son or daughter’s failing school?” said Ed Lambert, Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education executive director.

Mirror versions of the proposal, which also would end the use of MCAS scores in graduation requirements, have been filed in each legislative chamber.

Bills to scrap high stakes testing are not new to Beacon Hill, but the Thrive Act stands out from previous legislation for making state receiverships a target. With Governor Maura Healey now in office, bill supporters say they see an opening, since she signaled a willingness to rethink the system while on the campaign trail.

Thousands of bills are filed each session, a small percentage of which ultimately prevail. But supporters feel hopeful.

“I think with the new administration, it’s a little more accepting. This is the time when we can get it through,” said Rep. James Hawkins, an Attleboro Democrat and lead sponsor of the House bill.

Here’s what you need to know:

Local control goes back to the districts

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has had the power to take over local schools and districts since 2010.

Today, three districts remain under receivership: Lawrence, Holyoke, and Southbridge.

Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley served as the receiver for six years over Lawrence Public Schools. Lawrence initially was looked to as a national example for successful turnaround.

But state intervention has not led to sustained improvements in Lawrence or other districts, a 2022 Globe analysis found. Instead, for the districts it had taken over, the state failed to meet nearly all of its goals or make improvements on the MCAS, college attendance, or absenteeism.

The Thrive Act would require each district to resume local control within one year of the bill becoming law, but they would get state help in the transition.

Jonathan Guzman, a Lawrence School Committee member, was in high school when the state took over in 2011. He and his colleagues serve in an advisory role to a state receivership board, but the board may rebuff their guidance, Guzman said.

“It’s been 11 years and the city of Lawrence is under receivership still, and we’re still failing. Who is overseeing DESE on their failure?” he said.

Improvement matters as much as achievement

Moving forward, the state would have no power to take over districts writ-large, effectively eliminating the threat still looming over BPS.

That would give the district “breathing room” to focus on locally-driven school improvement strategies, such as community hub schools, said Boston Teachers Union President Jessica Tang.

The state would continue to identify its lowest performing schools (as required by federal law), but student growth would be given as much weight as achievement.

Any school showing “forward motion” could not be identified as low-performing, said Hawkins’ legislative director, Tara Major.

By eliminating receiverships, the Thrive Act also rids superintendents of the power to work outside teachers union contracts. For example, under current law, receivership allows a superintendent to change staffing, school hours, and compensation.

Union leaders argue the change would reduce turnover in high-needs schools and districts.

Lambert disagreed, saying there is “never a good time to take away tools that can benefit students.”

Coursework over MCAS scores

Under the Thrive Act, MCAS testing would continue, but scores would no longer be used as a graduation requirement. Instead, diplomas would be issued to any student who demonstrates skill “mastery” by “satisfactorily completing coursework.”

Supporters say the change would remove a barrier to economic opportunity faced by those who leave high school with a certificate of attendance, rather than a diploma — an outcome most often affecting students of color, from low-income households or with disabilities.

What mastery looks like would be left up to each of the state’s more than 300 school districts, according to the bill.

Mary Tamer, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, said such a move would “completely diminish” the value of a Massachusetts diploma.

New commission to study alternatives

The Thrive Act would create a new 24-member commission to study a “more authentic and accurate system for assessing students, schools, and school districts.”

Members of the commission would include legislative representatives, educator groups, and advocacy organizations. The group would be required to consider other measurements than standardized test scores, including projects and portfolios.

Families want to be involved in improving their children’s schools, but the current system is “arbitrary and unwelcoming,” especially for caregivers struggling to provide basic needs, said Vatsady Sivongxay, the executive director for the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance, one of the groups given a seat on the proposed commission.

Domingo Morel, author of the 2018 book, “Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy,” called the Thrive Act the most “comprehensive” and “inclusive” turnaround legislation he’s seen.

“To recognize the local community as a strength rather than a hindrance or an obstacle is a step in the right direction,” he said.

Mandy McLaren can be reached at mandy.mclaren@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @mandy_mclaren.

This content was originally published here.

February 14, 2023
Clemson University moving forward with creating state’s first veterinary school
CLEMSON — With events and meetings held across three days, the Clemson University Board of Trustees created new programs, received updates on university research and facilities, and allocated money for new buildings at its winter 2023 meeting.

Clemson University moving ahead with veterinary school

The board of trustees approved the $750,000 feasibility study for creation of South Carolina’s first school of veterinary medicine.

Clemson received $10 million in state funding last year to explore the possibility of creating the college. Site selection, near the T. Ed Garrison Arena and Expo Center in Pendleton, was completed in October.

Additional funds of over $45 million have been requested to move forward with hiring a construction manager at risk, engineering and hiring founding staff members, according to steering committee co-chair Boyd Parr.

Retired state veterinarian Boyd Parr is co-chair of the steering committee to create South Carolina’s first veterinary school at Clemson University. The timeline he presented to the Board of Trustees in February 2023 indicates the first degree could be awarded in 2030. Caitlin Herrington/Staff

Parr, who retired as state veterinarian and university director of livestock poultry health in July 2021, told the trustees there is a veterinarian shortage predicted to reach 15,000 — leaving as many as 75,000 pets without care — by 2030.

With the timeline presented to the trustees at the February meeting, Clemson University’s first veterinary school graduate could receive their degree that same year.

Clemson University hires diversity VP

Felicia Benton-Johnson was approved as the university’s vice president for diversity and inclusive excellence. Benton-Johnson comes to Clemson from Georgia Tech, where she served as assistant dean and director of the Engineering Education and Diversity.

Degree programs added, amended to address demand

After much discussion from the committee, the trustees approved an online pilot summer school program to assist students with catching up and getting on track with their degrees.

With $200,000 of dedicated funding, the classes will not be dropped because of low enrollment, Provost Bob Jones said. It will allow students and faculty both to make solidified summer plans.
- By Caitlin Herrington
  cherrington@postandcourier.com
Trustees decreased the number of required hours from 56 to 35 for the Master’s of Real Estate Development degree and added programs for a Masters of Music Education and bachelor degree in data science.

Jervey renovation, athletic wellness addition coming

The board approved $750,000 to establish the project design budget for renovation of 14,000 square feet of Jervey Athletic Center and construction of a 50,000-square-foot “performance and wellness center.”
- By Caitlin Herrington
  cherrington@postandcourier.com
The addition would house 400 of Clemson’s 550 athletes, including all of its Olympic sports. Rather than renovating Jervey – a 51-year-old building – athletics director Graham Neff told the trustees the best investment was a new building that will be south of Jervey and that will house sports medicine and other athletic programming.

Phase 2 of the project could come before the board as early as July, Neff said.

Clemson Athletics partnering with Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Harrah’s

The university will enter into an athletic sponsorship agreement with the Eastern Cherokee Band of Indians, which operates Harrah’s Casino Resort in Cherokee, N.C.
- By Caitlin Herrington
  cherrington@postandcourier.com
The $169,000 investment creates a branded scholarship program in the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Science, and increases brand awareness and summer internships.

Harrah’s logos will appear at football, softball, baseball and men’s and women’s basketball games, though no Clemson logos will be associated with any gaming at the casino.

The partnership ends in 2025. Its future investment amounts are unclear.

University breaks ground on new $50M alumni, visitors center

With the sunset reflecting off Lake Hartwell, the university held a ground-breaking ceremony Feb. 1 at the Madren Center for its $50 million alumni and visitors center.

To be built with views of the 18th hole on Walker Golf Course near the Madren Conference Center, the 100,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to be completed next fall.

Rendering of the new alumni center at Clemson University. Clemson University/Provided

It will serve as the first impression for future Clemson students and their families, President Jim Clements said at the ceremony, and the goal is for it to immediately feel like home.

It will house the Clemson Alumni Association, Class of 1944 Visitors Center, Board of Trustees office, Advancement, Clemson University Foundation, admissions and the Michelin Career Center.

This content was originally published here.
February 12, 2023
DeSantis Wants to Defund Florida Colleges That Have Programs on Diversity – Truthout

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Tuesday that he plans to ask the state legislature to revoke funds from public colleges in the state if they offer lessons on diversity, equity and inclusion.

The proposal would be part of a larger package that the state legislature plans to pass in the spring, The Associated Press reported.

DeSantis, who is viewed as a viable Republican candidate heading into the 2024 presidential election season, has staked his political future on attacking policies meant to benefit communities of color and LGBTQ people, most notably through attacks in the sphere of public education. Last March, DeSantis signed HB 7, a law commonly referred to as the “Stop WOKE Act,” which forbids educators from providing lessons on racism or LGBTQ issues if it offends parents in those districts.

The law has had chilling effects, forcing teachers and school librarians to ban books, and prompting many districts to reevaluate lessons that they believe could run afoul of its provisions.

In discussing his plans for college campuses, DeSantis disparaged educators who teach about the history of racism in the U.S.

“I think people want to see true academics and they want to get rid of some of the political window dressing that seems to accompany all this,” he said.

DeSantis’s plan would revoke funding from institutions of higher learning in the state if they offer classes on diversity, equity or inclusion — a broad definition that could have a vast impact on colleges’ academics.

DeSantis also said that he wants to see such programs “wither on the vine” from a lack of state funding.

DeSantis’s announcement comes weeks after the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) — working on guidelines he helped create — rejected an Advanced Placement (AP) course introduced by the College Board, a nonprofit that creates college-level classes for high schoolers throughout the country. The company had attempted to expand a course on African American history, introducing a curriculum that would examine contributions from Black Americans in “a variety of fields [including] literature, the arts and humanities, political science, geography, and science.”

FDOE rejected the course, stating that it ran “contrary to Florida law” (likely alluding to the Stop WOKE Act) and that it “significantly lacks educational value.”

On Wednesday, the College Board said that it would remove aspects of the curriculum, including lessons on intersectionality, in hopes that FDOE would accept it.

“I am now disappointed to learn that a major section on the end of this curriculum was removed from an earlier version,” David Blight, a professor of history and African American studies at Yale University, told NBC News.

Historian Barbara Ransby condemned DeSantis’s rejection of intersectional Black history lessons in an op-ed for Truthout that was published on Saturday.

“With a nod toward his homophobic base and illustrating his own ignorance, DeSantis asked the question, how could queer theory be relevant to African American studies?” Ransby wrote. “Perhaps if he had taken an African American studies class somewhere along the way he would know the names of world-renowned award-winning writers, artists and courageous activists whose long careers and eloquent words answer that question from myriad angles.”

Ransby added that the Florida governor could have benefited from such lessons when he was younger:

If he had taken an African American studies course in the 1980s and ’90s when he was in school, perhaps DeSantis would also know about the long and bloody history of racism in Florida, and the righteous freedom fighters who organized against it. These struggles were not just against ‘hate’ or prejudice; they were a response to systemwide discrimination, greed and domination.

DeSantis “is a part of an unabashedly ignorant political sect comprising people who are averse to evidence, research and empirical facts that don’t suit them,” Ransby continued.

She went on:

DeSantis’s dangerous actions are textbook proto-fascist measures. His militant opposition to any teaching of the Black freedom struggle is also reminiscent of the South African apartheid regime’s book banning and curricular and speaker censorship, which limited the circulation of ideas that could undermine the legitimacy of an unjust system.

Ransby’s piece pointed to young organizers in the state — including members of the Dream Defenders, the Florida Rights Restoration Project, Florida Rising and the Power U Center for Social Change — as “forces of the future” who are pushing back “against the bullish backwardness” of the governor.

“We have to support them as much as we oppose the racist and repressive agenda of the right,” she said.

This content was originally published here.

February 8, 2023
Bill Gates Funds a Startup to Stop Cows from Burping Methane to Combat Climate Change

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates believes one of the solutions to combat climate change is to stop cows from burping methane.

Gates invested in a startup company in Australia that is exploring dietary supplements for cows in an effort to contain ‘greenhouse gas emissions.’

“Australian climate technology company Rumin8 has closed Phase 2 of its seed funding round, led by Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) with participation from Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s agri-food business Harvest Road Group,” according to the company’s news release.

The funding will be used to accelerate the process of bringing Rumin8’s product to market.

“The Company conducted a Phase 2 seed round of funding, raising US$12 million to be spent on commercial trials in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and the USA, product brand development, and pilot manufacturing plant development as Rumin8 moves towards commercialization of its methane busting feed additives. Funds from both seed rounds totaled approximately A$25m,” the company said.

Rumin8 is an Australian climate technology company developing the next generation of feed supplements to reduce methane emissions from livestock.

According to Bloomberg, the feed supplement is made from synthetically-replicated bromoform, an active ingredient in red seaweed.

From the news release:

Rumin8’s most advanced product reproduces the bioactive contained in red seaweed (Asparagopsis) and has been shown to reduce methane production in livestock rumen by up to 95%, whether in liquid, solid or slow-release dose formats.

Rumin8 Managing Director David Messina said the laboratory results of Rumin8’s lead product replicated the methane reductions of red seaweed (Asparagopsis), but instead of harvesting from the marine ecosystem, the plant’s methane busting bioactive was manufactured and transformed into a stable feed supplement in our quality controlled laboratories.

“This breakthrough provides Rumin8 with the ability to develop a scaleable, consistent, cost-effective livestock supplements, which are inspired by nature, but have the potential to decarbonize the global livestock industry while providing productivity benefits,” Mr Messina said.

“The identification of Asparagopsis’s anti-methanogenic properties was a game changer in terms of reducing methane emissions from ruminants. Rumin8’s product will be able to be produced in a consistent, repeatable, manufacturing process which will be effective at reducing methane production and is expected to be significantly cheaper to produce and provide much more reliable dosing and outcomes.”

Livestock contribute ~6% of global greenhouse gas emissions through methane created during the food digestion process.

Trials of Rumin8’s first product at the University of Western Australia reduced methane production by more than 90% by Day 3, with almost total elimination by Day 5. The trials were also used to identify optimal dosing rates to achieve the required reductions in methane emissions.

“We acknowledge the diversity of farming systems used to grow animals does prove a challenge for methane reduction which has proven difficult to solve. We are developing a range of formulations which can be delivered to both feedlot and grazing animals,” Mr Messina said.

Last November, Rumin8 announced its methane-reducing feed additive will be introduced to the American market with a new location in San Francisco, Northern California.

“It’s an exciting time to be in the US with growing interest from the private sector to develop these technologies, as well as producers being open to trying new solutions that will help reduce livestock greenhouse gas emissions,” Rumin8 Chief Commercial Officer Kosta Stavreas said.

“The appetite for methane reducing solutions is astounding in the US market and participants in both dairy and beef have pushed open a door for us to enter the market,” he said.

Rumin8 has also begun two trials in New Zealand to test the efficacy and safety of its feed supplements in lowering methane production.

Two experiments, one with beef cattle and one with dairy cattle, will evaluate the efficacy of Rumin8’s product integration into New Zealand’s pasture-based systems.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that New Zealand is the first country to have farmers pay for gas emissions from livestock by 2025, the Ministry for Environment announced. The proposed plan also includes “incentives” for farmers who reduce these emissions through feed additives.

The new proposal will likely affect food prices including beef, mutton, and dairy.

From Livestock to Laughing Stock: New Zealand Plans to Tax Cow and Sheep Burps in an Effort to Stop Climate Change

The post Bill Gates Funds a Startup to Stop Cows from Burping Methane to Combat Climate Change appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

This content was originally published here.

February 8, 2023
College Basketball Star Says His ‘Balls Exploded’ Suddenly

A Clemson college basketball player shared some gruesome details regarding his recent unexpectant injury.

Clemson basketball player Brevin Galloway took to Instagram and shared that his ‘balls and nut sack exploded.’

According to Galloway, the injury occurred shortly after he took a nap.

“So this morning, I went to lift. I came back, I took a nap. I woke up from my nap, my balls and my nut sack were exploded,” Galloway said.

After the injury, Galloway immediately received surgery to reduce the size of his testicles.

“Now I go to the doctor, I have surgery 3 hours later, and my balls are reduced to the normal size,” he continued.

Galloway would go on to make light of the situation and stated, “I don’t know what happened to my balls… I guess they were trying to be like basketballs, but we made it.”

“Now I’m going to be spoiled for the next 48 hours. And I will be back in a youth form shortly. Go Tigers. I love Clemson,” he concluded.

Watch Galloway explain his injury here:

INJURY NEWS

Brevin Galloway – OUT

Diagnosis: Exploded balls. @roundballpod pic.twitter.com/Ca4RwW1oYl

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) January 27, 2023

Clemson University initially stated Galloway’s injury was just an abdominal issue.

Per the Post and Courier, Clemson University in 2021 “required proof of vaccination for students and staff who want to be exempt from wearing masks, weekly testing and mandatory quarantine that has been the resting state of campus life for a year now.”

Previously, rap star Nicki Minaj shared that her cousin in Trinidad won’t get the Covid-19 vaccine because his friend’s testicles became swollen after taking it.

LOOK:

My cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding. So just pray on it & make sure you’re comfortable with ur decision, not bullied

— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 13, 2021

Minaj’s tweet even caught the attention of the White House.

The Nicki Minaj-swollen testicles-vaccine saga continues — here’s what White House press sec Jen Psaki has to say pic.twitter.com/YEQ0ez2thY

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) September 18, 2021

The post College Basketball Star Says His ‘Balls Exploded’ Suddenly appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

This content was originally published here.

February 8, 2023
Where is the Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education Engagement with Investment Management Firms?

The question of how equitable the engagement of higher education institutions with private equity firms and other investment management groups is a difficult one to answer. The reason for this is that there is an incredible lack of transparency in identifying what money managers many higher education institutions are using to steward their endowments.

The Knight Foundation’s 2021 report that sought to examine the diversity of the asset managers for the wealthiest 50 public and private universities had 34 of the institutions decline to participate. These institutions have a combined $273 billion under management. The key question is, who is managing these assets?

The fact is that many higher education institutional endowments and pension plans more broadly have significant percentages of students and personnel of color that pay into these vehicles on a regular basis. Many of these institutions hand out these funds to investment firms across the country. These funds do not equitably go to Black and Hispanic owned firms. It seems that people of color are good enough to put their money into the system, but they aren’t perceived as being good enough to manage the assets. Dr. Marcus Bright

One result is that Black and Hispanic owned firms are frequently not able to raise funds that are as big as their counterparts. Thus, many are denied greater opportunities to increase their capacity to make meaningful investments in communities that they have direct connection to.

There is also the false narrative of having make a tradeoff between diversity and performance. Multiple reports have found that there is no evidence of being a reduced level of performance in utilizing diverse money managers. Diversity has been shown to be an enhancer of performance in many cases.

New pipelines of opportunity for diverse investment managers are needed to break into areas where little to no diversity has historically existed. The aforementioned report from the Knight Foundation cited some reasons for why asset manager rosters can be slow to change including “asset managers’ intentionally long-term investment objectives and processes, established relationships with current managers, low manager turnover and the need for extensive due diligence before hiring new managers.”

One recommendation that was put forth by the Diverse Asset Managers Initiative in a guide related to investing with diverse asset managers is to utilize the “Rooney Rule” that is used in the National Football League (NFL) for the hiring of head coaches and general managers. The rule requires that teams “conduct an in-person interview with at least one external minority candidate for any GM or head coaching interview” among other requirements. This could also be used for decisions regarding investment firm selections by colleges and universities for money management.

The guide also highlighted the fact that the state of Illinois already has the Rooney Rule language in its legislation. It reads: “if in any case an emerging investment manager meets the criteria established by a board for a specific search and meets the criteria established by a consultant for that search, then that emerging investment manager shall receive an invitation by the board of trustees, or an investment committee of the board of trustees, to present his or her firm for final consideration of a contract. In the case where multiple emerging investment managers meet the criteria of this section, the staff may choose the most qualified firm or firms to present to the board.”

There is also a need for greater efforts to build more diverse talent pipelines into the investment banking and private equity industry. A piece entitled “PE Firms Are Making Diversity Efforts, But It Will Likely Be a Long Road” by Hannah Zhang asserted that private equity has lagged behind other areas of the finance sector when it comes to diversity stating that “according to a recent Ernst & Young report, only 3 percent of employees in the PE industry are Black, compared with 12 percent at banks. Among the portfolio companies backed by the top 18 PE firms and venture capitalists, only 2 percent of board seats are held by Black and Latino directors.”

Just as higher education institutions should increase their level of transparency when it comes to who is managing their endowments, investment management firms should have transparency in their recruiting, hiring, promotion, and workforce diversity status.

One step forward would be for firms to better articulate what knowledge, skills, ability, competencies, credentials, and intangible factors are needed to attain roles at every level of the organization. This would provide some clearly defined targets for people to prepare, train, and shoot for. The bar does not have to be lowered for diversity to flourish, it just needs to be made clear and people of different backgrounds need to be given a fair chance to compete.

There are some entry-level roles at many firms that college and university graduates can move right into if they have been properly groomed through their coursework and potential internships, apprenticeships, or work experience. There is a need for an increased level of intentionality to be injected throughout the development and maintenance of career pathways in private equity and investment banking. This entails being deliberative and specific regarding the creation of opportunities for both preparation and advancement.

Support along the journey from initial exposure to the securing of upper echelon positions is critical to facilitating breakthroughs for people who historically have been denied the opportunity to ascend to certain career heights in sizable numbers. Putting qualified and capable people and firms on the radar of those who make both hiring decisions at firms and selections of investment managers for college and university endowments is an important step towards the creation of a more equitable landscape for higher education engagement with asset management groups.

Dr. Marcus Bright is a scholar and social impact facilitator.

February 7, 2023
How Vonda Bailey Went From Mountain View Student To District Judge — Dallas College Blog

Vonda Bailey didn’t need a long deliberation to issue her judgment about the negative stereotypes surrounding community colleges.

“I do not agree with the ‘stigma’ whatsoever,” she said. “And that’s why every time I speak about my college experience, I always start with, ‘I attended a community college first.’ People are like, ‘Wow, you did?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, and it was one of the best experiences of my life.’”

Dallas College agrees on the ruling and sentiment, waiving its right to appeal as Bailey becomes another success story who traces her educational roots to the school.

After graduating from Carter High School in Dallas, Bailey went to Dallas College’s Mountain View Campus, stacking up credit hours for two years and then earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Texas at Arlington. She went on to graduate with a law degree from Texas Southern’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law.

Now, after several years of running her own practice, she’s become “Judge Vonda Bailey.” Bailey was elected judge for the 255th Family District Court in Dallas County. Her new courtroom is the corner suite on the fourth floor of the George L. Allen, Sr. Courts Building in downtown Dallas.

“It’s a great honor to become a judge, especially since I was born and raised here,” Bailey said. “To see people like Dr. Parker (Jasmine Parker, Dallas College’s senior director of diversity, equity and inclusion), and different people in the community who were my teachers, my dentist … being able to serve them in this position is amazing.”

Inspiring Others

For Bailey, being a Black woman in a position of power is more of a responsibility than a sense of pride. As we kick off Black History Month, she welcomes the idea of becoming a source of inspiration for younger generations who could see themselves in her shoes one day, similar to those who influenced her journey.

“I’m happy for myself but, for me, what I’m doing is a testimony for someone else,” Bailey said. “It just so happened that it’s my story being written, but I do believe that what I’m doing is encouraging someone else.

“Along the way, we all get discouraged and might say, ‘Maybe I’m not worthy enough to go to law school.’ Well, I would want people to read my story and see, you know what, I can do this. I can get it done.”

At a young age, Bailey looked up to famed lawyer Johnnie Cochran as he defended O.J. Simpson during his murder trial in the mid-1990s. At Texas Southern, she loved attending a law school named after Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court Justice.

“Having ‘Thurgood Marshall’ on my diploma makes me feel like I have big shoes to fill,” Bailey said, smiling. “I’m spending every day trying to fulfill the things that he did, not necessarily on his level — he’s the man — but I want to do my part in giving back.”

Impacting Lives

So far, so good in her desire to give back on multiple levels.

As a judge, her role is serving and being a resource for the community.

“When people come to court, whether it’s a Child Protective Services (CPS) situation, a custody situation or a property issue where you have to divide the property in a divorce, you’re a resource,” she said. “Whatever that individual case needs, as the judge, you’re supposed to see what it is that you can help them do within your knowledge and the realm of the law.”

From a personal standpoint, Bailey is giving back to a number of causes close to her, including creating a scholarship for her law school. She and a fellow classmate formed the Bailey-Clarke Bar Scholarship to award current third-year students financial assistance with their Texas Bar related expenses. To date, they have awarded more than $50,000 in scholarships.

Bailey likes being in a position where she is able to make an impact on the trajectory of someone’s life.

“You can do things that change somebody’s life, positive or negative,” she said. “Especially in a position like this, you can get too focused on the law. This is what the law says. But what can we do in our discretion that could actually benefit or help these people? Maybe a child who is acting out at school or doesn’t feel like they have anyone they can trust or depend on, they meet me in a courtroom, and they see themselves 20 years from now in my chair. So, when I think about empowerment, it’s how you look to other people and how you assist other people.”

What’s next?

Bailey is just beginning her journey as a judge.

Is her dream to one day follow in the footsteps of Thurgood Marshall? Or go the TV route and become the next Judge Mathis? Hey, Bailey has a popular YouTube show with more than 400,000 subscribers called “Support Court with Judge Vonda B” that educates people about support laws in Texas.

“That’s an idea!” Bailey said, laughing at the TV suggestion. “I’ve always loved TV. Even as a little girl, I told my grandmother that I wanted to be on TV. I love Oprah. I could see myself doing something like that later on.”

For now, though, it’s about making the most during her term as a judge. As she described, she’s a millennial with the mindset that the “sky’s the limit.”

“I don’t know where this journey is going to take me, but I will tell you I’m very excited to see where it lands me,” she said. “I know wherever it lands me, it’s going to elevate me to be able to help people and give back on a greater scale. I’m really big about service.”

Join the Dallas College Alumni Network.

This content was originally published here.

February 7, 2023
Ex-prisoner fought for education behind bars

Sandra Brown walked gingerly down a walkway to the side door of Decatur Correctional Center.

She wore jeans and a hooded sweatshirt that said “The Reclamation Project,” and her hair was styled into a thick, high frohawk. Brown is tall, and moves with grace and elegance, so her hairstyle only added to her regal demeanor.

It had been 21 years since she first walked into an Illinois prison and five months since she walked out.

Correctional staff gathered at the security station to greet Brown as she and her group went through the slow, procedural process of checking into a prison. She was there with a film crew to lead a discussion with prisoners about the links between gender-based violence and incarceration. One by one, IDs were logged, and bags and audiovisual equipment examined.

As she waited on a wooden bench for the process to finish, a guard at the desk motioned quietly to Brown to come back over. She walked over and bent down to the small gap in the partition so she could hear the guard.

“Breathe,” Brown said the officer told her.

Brown, who had been cautioned about how unsettling a return to prison can be, sat back on the bench and raised her arm. Her hand held the slightest tremor.

“But I think it’s more from excitement,” she said with a smile, feeling relieved. “Not so much anxiety.”

While visiting Logan Correctional Facility on June 8, 2022, Sandra talks with Sherrin Fitzer, a prison employee who proctored Brown’s exams while she was incarcerated at the facility. Without Fitzer’s advocacy, Sandra said, she would not have been able to complete her studies. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Working with the Women’s Justice Institute, Sandra leads a discussion with incarcerated women at Decatur Correctional Center on June 8, 2022. Many of the women shared personal experiences with domestic violence after watching the documentary, “And So I Stayed,” a film about domestic abuse survivors who end up in the legal system. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Brown, against huge odds, earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree and started a Ph.D. program while she was locked up in the Illinois Department of Corrections. The staff, both high-ranking and front-line guards, knew her and were genuinely happy to see her.

Since her release from prison in January, Brown has become a full-time education advocate, joining a number of formerly incarcerated women working to reform conditions both inside and outside of prison. They are working in government and running housing nonprofits and partnering with probation departments to provide more effective social services.

Brown, a senior adviser at the Women’s Justice Institute, is doing her work at a critical time. Key federal funding that was stripped from prison education in 1994 will be restored next year. In October an 80-page task force report pointing out critical gaps in education in Illinois prisons was released.

The Tribune has followed Brown since her release, as she settled into life outside of prison, where she has also continued writing and performing poetry. She has moved to Los Angeles to live with her husband and travels regularly to Las Vegas to reconnect with her son, whom she left behind when he was just 8 years old.

Sandra leaves the Logan Correctional Center after talking with incarcerated women on June 8, 2022. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Tough on crime

Brown, now 50, entered prison in March 2001 after she was convicted of murder for shooting the mother of her brother’s child.

Brown disputes some facts of the case that are part of the court record. But she does not challenge that she bears responsibility.

“I am always going to be sorry this happened,” Brown said in 2021, before she was released. “I am always going to be sorry.”

Brown began her sentence at a time when the Illinois female prison population was at its highest and six years after Congress passed the 1994 crime bill, which has since been widely criticized for creating harsh sentencing penalties that contributed to mass incarceration. The bill also banned use of the federal Pell Grants for prison education programs, which experts and advocates say stripped educational access for tens of thousands of prisoners.

And there were other barriers for what programming remained. Technology was exploding outside prison, but inside it was — and remains — largely unavailable. Some prisons required those serving long sentences to wait the longest for programming spots, effectively barring people like Brown. Programming for the female population also lagged behind the much larger male population.

After being incarcerated for 22 years, Sandra waits for her husband’s arrival as she prepares to leave the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center in Aurora and start her new life on “the outside” on Jan. 13, 2022. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Sandra hugs her husband, Arnold Bass, who brought flowers for her, as she leaves Fox Valley Adult Transition Center on Jan. 13, 2022. Sandra met Arnold through a prisoner correspondence website. The two eventually fell in love through letters and married in 2018 while Sandra was still incarcerated. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Sandra tries on high-heeled shoes her husband brought her in celebration of her leaving the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

A more sweeping problem, experts told the Tribune, is that prisons function largely for punishment not rehabilitation.

“It’s a system (that) for 200 years has been more about punishment than it is about building opportunity,” said Rebecca Ginsburg, associate professor of education policy, organization and leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “It is built into the fiber.”

By the early 2000s, higher educational opportunities had all but disappeared, except for a few outliers, Ginsburg said.

“When you read articles it sounds like such an era of despair,” Ginsburg said. “Students will talk (about) what it was like for them when the programs just (got) sucked away. It was awful, the environment at that time … and the loss of hope.”

Brown has described, in her writings, about how that hopelessness washed over her as soon as she walked into prison and was handed tattered and ill-fitting clothes. She felt her identity strip away when she looked at her ID and saw the word “INMATE” in large type totally eclipse her name at the bottom, Sandra Brown.

Sandra shows her inmate identification card on April 22, 2021. She referred to it as “identicide” because it lists the word “inmate” first and her name second. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Brown, who had wanted to be a teacher, tried to make the best of it. She grabbed any available class. She once signed up to work as a teaching assistant for a class she couldn’t take, she recalled. She continued to serve as a TA in other classes, helping countless women, some of whom wrote to court on her behalf, describing her as a model to them.

Eventually, she decided that she’d have to look outside the prison if she was to get the education she had dreamed of. Brown researched college guidebooks in the library to find programs that offered correspondence options and wrote letters to find out whether they’d work with someone who could only hand write assignments.

Once she found programs willing to work with her, Brown tucked away cash from her work as a prison seamstress. She even volunteered to clean showers so she could collect used soap chips and save more money. Brown also scoured college guide books for scholarship opportunities.

Once enrolled, she found prison staff members and officials who were willing to help. She saved $263 and bought a typewriter she named “Bessie” in honor of her grandmother, who farmed in Mississippi and is a model of strength to her, to make her assignments easier.

Sandra displays her second “Bessie” typewriter in her dorm room at Fox Valley Adult Transition Center in Aurora on April 22, 2021. Sandra took one class at a time, handwriting or typing her papers and assignments on Bessie to earn a bachelor’s and a master’s degree. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Brown wants people to know this part of her story because, for one, it was critical to her success. And as someone who feels judged and defined by others, she wants to be sure that the efforts of prison employees to help are recognized.

“Once in a while we found people who genuinely cared about the work they do behind the walls,” Brown said. “I was one of the fortunate ones who did.”

It was these employees who proctored her exams and sought book donations for Brown and approved the mailings so her correspondence work could get out the door. When she had trouble ordering replacement typewriter ribbons, it was a prison official who made sure the order was filled so Brown would still be able to use Bessie to complete her coursework.

It would take 11 years, but Brown earned two degrees: a bachelor’s in specialized studies, with an emphasis in literature, from Ohio University in 2012 and a master’s of arts in humanities from California State University at Dominguez Hills.

Before leaving, she started a Ph.D. program at California Coast University.

Sandra returns to her dorm room to do homework for her Ph.D. program after Thanksgiving dinner at the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center in Aurora on Nov. 25, 2021. Those who watched Brown complete her education remember her as poised and driven, having “a hustle on a whole ‘nother level,” as one said. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Brown said this educational journey — with Shakespeare and Nikki Giovanni and Frederick Douglass along the way — helped her confront how she wound up in prison. But those years and studies also helped her examine what so many women in prison experience, histories of domestic abuse, sexual assault, depression and PTSD.

“It is the way outside of yourself,” Brown said of her studies. “The way to understand what happened to you in the broader context. … The humanities teaches a person who is really engaged in it who they are, who they want to be and why it matters.”

Early years, struggles

Brown grew up on the West Side in Austin, one of four siblings.

Brown worked as a bus aide in Chicago Public Schools and as a classroom aide at charter schools, according to her filing with the court. She finished her high school education. She married and had a son.

But her life was filled with struggle too, according to interviews with the Tribune as well as court filings on her behalf by friends and family members. This included suicide attempts, homelessness at a young age, abuse by domestic partners, her own substance abuse and financial struggles.

Sandra hugs Stephanie Bonds, center, and Mishunda Davis,right, as she visits the Logan Correctional Center, where she spent some of her 22-year sentence. Sandra visited the women at the facility, working with the Women’s Justice Institute, to show a film about domestic abuse, violence and incarceration. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

In 1990, when she was 18 and pregnant, Brown was the victim of a serial rapist, who dragged her into an abandoned building in Chicago and violently assaulted her. Her assailant was caught.

Brown now says the violence she suffered played a role what happened in January 2000, when she fought with and then fatally shot the mother of her brother’s child, in a store parking lot in a Chicago suburb.

Brown acknowledges she fought with the woman, Tiffany Washington, 20, in the parking lot over the care and visitation of the baby, whom Brown said she had helped care for and raise.

In court filings for clemency and public statements about the shooting since then, Brown has described acting in self-defense.

But in court documents Cook County prosecutors described Brown as the aggressor who was looking for Washington and confronted her, first striking Washington over the head with a handgun and then discharging the gun.

A Polaroid of Sandra, showing her around age 35 and taken while she was in the Logan Correctional Center, is kept on the fridge in her home in Los Angeles. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Brown said her prosecution was a tense, difficult process that involved threats on her family and, she claims, pressure on her to take a plea deal or risk a longer prison sentence.

Brown eventually entered a plea of guilty to first-degree murder, but she maintains she never got a chance to argue her side of the story, something she and advocates for incarcerated women say is common.

Brown also believes that what she did that day was connected to years of suffering and trauma, “grief I never even realized was grief until after I got inside and got a little healing here and there.”

Sandra recounts the altercation that left her brother’s girlfriend, Tiffany Washington, dead of a gunshot wound and Brown in the Illinois prison system for 22 years on April 27, 2022. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Reached by the Tribune, Washington’s aunt, Diane Lewis, said she she still carries trauma too, some 20 years later. She was there to help decide to take her niece off a breathing machine and then raised her great-niece.

Today, her great-niece lives downstate and is thriving, studying nursing and raising her own children, which gives Lewis great comfort. As for Brown, Lewis said hopes her rehabilitation is genuine.

“I am at place, I don’t have any animosity against her,” she said of Brown. “That is good if she is trying to help other women. (The murder) is the past. She has to live with that. I can’t judge. That is for God to do.”

Four months after her release, Brown sat in the lobby of a Hyde Park hotel.

Minutes earlier, inside her room, Brown’s Zoom link and Wi-Fi had failed.

With barely any time to spare, she relocated to the lobby to a desktop computer. Pop music piped overhead, guests’ luggage rattled over the hard floors, and a hotel maintenance worker mopped nearby as Brown turned on the computer, found her link and looked directly into the monitor’s camera.

“I’ve been having some technical difficulties,” she said in a steady, even voice to online attendees there to learn more about prison education. “But I am honored to be here.”

After a stressful day dealing with technology issues before her virtual presentation, Sandra finally connects with the Prison Neighborhood Arts Project using a computer in a hotel lobby in Chicago to share her thoughts on education in prison. “I’ve been having some technical difficulties,” she said in a steady, even voice to online attendees. “But I am honored to be here.” (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Her voice gained in both strength and volume as she continued, sharing her own struggles to get educated, not to mention policy recommendations she has researched for the Women’s Justice Institute, who hired her when she was still incarcerated in IDOC.

Restore accredited college programming in Illinois prisons. Stop making prisoners who are serving the longest sentences wait at the back of the line. Increase access to grants, work study and scholarships to offset any costs. Set up a formal way for incarcerated people to find out about what programming and financial aid information is available. Create a monthly stipend for enrolled students, like other states do.

There needs to be more dedicated space for study inside prisons, as well as access to technology, she continued. What about a housing unit set aside for those enrolled in education so students can support each other, she offered.

Brown then shared the story about the showers and how she had collected other people’s leftover soap as a way to save money for her own college tuition.

“No woman should have to make that kind of choice in environments designed allegedly to help her make better choices,” she said.

After Brown finished, she let out a deep breath.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “Inside, I feel like a total wreck.”

Sandra exhales after her virtual presentation is over for the Prison Neighborhood Arts Project on April 2, 2022, in Chicago. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Inside, I feel like a total wreck.” (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Those who watched Brown complete her education remember her as poised and driven, having “a hustle on a whole ‘nother level,” as one said.

Maggie Burke, who formerly served as coordinator of Women and Family Services for IDOC and is the official who stepped in to help secure typewriter ribbon, saw this as well, saying Brown never stopped advocating for herself.

“What I found remarkable about her was that even after spending so much time in prison and being told ‘no’ so many times on so many things, she continued to have this bright light, this passion, this desire to learn and keep going forward,” said Burke.

Somebody’s neighbor

Even though Brown is an outlier, she and others still wonder about how many others would have taken advantage of programming or support, if it was there.

Ginsburg, who served on the Illinois task force, estimates that fewer than 5% of Illinois prisoners have access to programming, including credited courses, vocational training or the kind of higher education degrees that Brown pursued.

Sandra hugs an attendee after performing at the Women’s Justice Institute Reclamation Center on June 12, 2022, in Chicago. After the performance, she sold and signed copies of her book of poetry called “Odyssey in Progress,” which she wrote while incarcerated. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

But the estimate of how many have access is likely an undercount, task force members said. It is based on incomplete data and a lack of detailed information from IDOC, which led to the No. 1 recommendation in the task force’s October report: Formalize a commission immediately to study higher education and find out where and why programming is lacking.

Research shows that access to education inside prison decreases the chances a person will commit more crimes once released and increases the chance they will find a job and get paid more, the task force pointed out.

Instead, while Brown was incarcerated, she watched women come and come back, picking up new convictions and facing further setbacks. Then she saw the daughters of other incarcerated women enter the system too, having suffered from the same problems as their mothers.

As she prepared for her own release, Brown reflected on this cycle to the Tribune, questioning why the system doesn’t want to interrupt it.

Sandra prepares to leave the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center, the final part of her 22-year incarceration on Jan. 13, 2022. Sandra said she watched other women leave and come back, picking up new convictions and facing further setbacks. As she prepared for her own release, she reflected on that cycle questioning why the system doesn’t want to interrupt it. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

“We do come back different but the question is how different, different in what way,” she said. “We either learn how to do something that will impact our lives for the better. (Or) we become passive and adopt this idea of fatalism and then we go back, costing taxpayers more money. … Or we leave out of here and learn how to be better criminals. And we’re going to be somebody’s neighbor.”

Brown now lives in Los Angeles with her husband in a small house with a bird of paradise in her yard and palm trees lining the nearby streets.

Above the mantle there is a framed diploma of Brown’s master’s of arts in humanities from California State University at Dominguez Hills.

Brown met her husband in a prison correspondence program, and opted to move to L.A. as soon as she was released. Doing that required permission from the Illinois probation services department, which agreed to transfer Brown’s case to an agent in California. Initially, Brown was put on a 10 p.m. curfew and wore an ankle monitor. She still can’t travel outside California without permission.

Sandra figures out how to use the self-checkout machine for the first time while at the grocery store with her husband on March 14, 2022, in Los Angeles. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Sandra takes her first bath after having her ankle monitor removed — only her second one after 22 years, at home in Los Angeles on March 14, 2022. “I love soaking … just soaking these last 22 years off of me,” she said. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Brown works mostly from her home office but has been granted permission to travel frequently to Chicago for work. She has become close to her husband’s family and gotten comfortable navigating large shopping malls and groceries and learned to drive.

One of her great joys has been visits to Las Vegas to see her son, Gregory Dobbs, who was 8, when she went to prison. Today he is married and is raising four girls.

In April, during her first visit there, the slow guitar groove and longing lyrics of “Tennessee Whiskey” filled the house one afternoon as Dobbs glided around his kitchen, tending to several dishes at once. Steak, ribs in sauce, salty savory greens cooked in broth and simmered in pork, cheesy gooey macaroni, barbecued salmon and corn.

Nearby, Brown sat at the dining room table, helping one of her granddaughters on her tablet.

Sandra Brown holds her granddaughter Azariah Dobbs, 2, as her son Gregory Dobbs, 31, cooks at his home in Las Vegas on April 26, 2022. After spending 22 years in the Illinois prison system, this was Brown’s first visit to Las Vegas and only the second time seeing her grandchildren outside prison walls. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Sandra Brown visits with her grandchildren Sapphire, 11, from left, Azariah, 2, and Kaniyah, 12, on April 27, 2022, at their home in Las Vegas. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

When her son was still in high school, he surprised Brown during one of their phone calls with news that he was leaving Chicago to live with his girlfriend’s family in Las Vegas. He needed to escape Chicago’s violence and stress, he told her.

Brown understood this. But she begged him to finish his high school education once he resettled.

Children of people who go to prison are at risk for all sorts of negative outcomes — from higher rates of chronic illness to not succeeding in school. The year Brown was arrested, in fact, Dobbs struggled in the third grade, she recalled.

And as it turns out, he never finished high school. Dobbs said he pursued his GED, however, and is working a security job at a hospital.

Sandra Brown walks on Fremont Street in Las Vegas with her son Gregory Dobbs on April 26, 2022. “I couldn’t be prouder of him. What a beautiful family and beautiful home. I’m such a cream puff. I’m trying really hard to keep it together,” she said of the visit. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

As Dobbs continued cooking, Brown and her granddaughters went upstairs so they could show her their bedrooms.

Once there, Kaniyah, who was in middle school, breathlessly detailed her sewing hobby and theater and math class.

She then told Brown that she had big plans for college too. UNLV or Harvard, she thinks — a safe bet and a dream school. If it happens, she will be the second person in Brown’s immediate family to go to college.

Brown was the first, she said.

This content was originally published here.

January 17, 2023
College students could start using their dining dollars for DoorDash meals thanks to this startup
Students who use Phood can check their balance via the startup’s app

Phood
- Phood allows students to order DoorDash using their university dining dollars.
- The startup already works with colleges including the University of Texas at Austin.
- Founder Alex Parmley turned Phood into a payments business after a stint focused on delivery.
College students often have hundreds or thousands of dining dollars to spend as part of their meal plans each school year. But where they can spend those dollars is limited to cafeterias or on-campus convenience stores.

Phood is trying to change that.

The startup works with university campuses to let students spend their dining dollars on off-campus food purchases such as delivery through DoorDash, founder Alex Parmley told Insider.

Phood works with five universities, including the University of Texas at Austin and The Ohio State University. It’s also planning a launch on the State University of New York campuses in the coming months.

Parmley said that he sees opportunities to open up college students’ dining dollars to lots of off-campus services and retailers.

“We’re connecting their campus card to every merchant in the world to make it acceptable,” he said.

Phood CEO and co-founder Alex Parmley

Phood

Phood started as a food-delivery company but pivoted to payments

Parmley founded Phood in 2018. At first, the New York-based startup provided food delivery itself, using a team of couriers to send dining-hall food to students’ dorm rooms and apartments.

But demand for on-campus food delivery dried up in 2020 as COVID spread, classes went online, and students left university campuses to go home, Parmley said.

On top of that, food delivery is a “capital-draining” business, he said. Phood filled a niche, but it was nowhere near the size of larger players. “I kept getting the question, ‘How do you beat DoorDash? How do you beat Uber Eats?’” Parmley told Insider.

Demand for food delivery to homes grew quickly during the pandemic, but even well-funded companies have struggled to make it profitable.

Eventually, Parmley found an answer: Work with other delivery services instead of trying to beat them.

The company now connects students’ dining accounts to the Discover Global Network, which allows them to use their dining dollars like a regular debit card outside of their university.

“I realized that the money was in the payments,” he added.

In October, Phood earned $1 million in funding from 43North, a Buffalo, New York-based startup accelerator, using its new approach.

Phood sees itself as ‘training wheels for financial literacy,’ Parmley said

Students at universities that work with Phood can get a digital card that they keep in a virtual wallet. They can then use that card to make purchases online or in-person.

Besides using dollars they get through their meal plans, students and their families can also top up their balance with cash. That means anyone who wants to give a student money can deposit it for use through their Phood card, Parmley said.

The system allows students to decide how they want to spend their food dollars, Parmley said.

Parmley pitches potential university partners by highlighting how much students spend on food off-campus. “We’re just like, ‘Do you want at least 2% of this? Because it’s better than the zero you’re getting right now,’” he said.

For the universities, Parmley said, a Phood account with parental dollars flowing in represents an opportunity to grow profit. The universities that Phood works with receive part of the profit generated from each purchase.

Phood costs nothing to university dining services and students that use it. Instead, the company generates income from the service providers it works with as well as Discover, Parmley said in a presentation for 43North.

Over the next year, Parmley said he wants to sign more partners to Phood. Despite the company’s name, Parmley said he doesn’t want to limit Phood to food delivery: non-food options like ride sharing services are on his list of potential partners, he told Insider.

“We see this as training wheels for financial literacy and spending and allocating that capital in the right places,” he said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
This content was originally published here.
January 14, 2023
Report finds faculty diversity isn’t meeting student needs

Faculty diversity is positively associated with student success across a variety of metrics. Black and Latino students are more likely to graduate when they see themselves represented in their instructors, for instance. But the benefits of faculty diversity aren’t just evident among historically underrepresented students: research suggests that engaging with diverse instructors, perspectives and ideas benefits all students—including in the development of empathy and problem-solving skills.

So how are institutions doing with respect to faculty diversity? Not great, says a new report from the Education Trust, a nonprofit organization that promotes high academic achievement for all students.

As part of the analysis, researchers examined faculty diversity relative to student diversity, as well as hiring equity, tenure equity and changes in faculty representation over time for Black and Latino faculty members at 543 public, four-year institutions. The colleges and universities were given a score of zero to 100 based on faculty diversity, hiring equity and tenure equity. Numerical ratings were then translated to letter grades, with 60 being the threshold for failing (F).

When researchers compared Black and Latino faculty representation against student enrollment in 2020, some 57 percent of institutions got F’s for Black faculty diversity. Nearly 80 percent failed on Latino faculty diversity. This part of the analysis worked as follows: if an institution had, say, a student population that was 10 percent Black and a faculty body that was 10 percent Black, the institution would be scored 100. The lower the score, the bigger the discrepancy between student and faculty representation.

The colleges and universities examined didn’t fare much better on the other metrics. On hiring equity—or the degree to which Black and Latino faculty members are disproportionately hired for contingent rather than tenure-track positions—researchers found these scholars were underrepresented among tenured and tenure-track professors. This is consistent with existing data on who gets the more secure, most fairly compensated faculty jobs.

For Black faculty hires, nearly a quarter of institutions received an F grade. At 35 institutions, all new Black faculty members were hired off the tenure track, and 50 institutions didn’t hire any new Black faculty at all. (For each racial group, Ed Trust divided the percentage of new tenure-track or tenured hires by the percentage of new faculty members not on the tenure track from 2016 to 2020.)

Similarly, a quarter of institutions earned an F for having too few new Latino faculty hires. Forty-eight institutions (9 percent of the sample) hired no new Latino faculty onto the tenure track in the period studied, and 76 institutions (15 percent) had zero new Latino faculty hires whatsoever.

Regarding tenure equity, or how many Black and Latino professors have tenure relative to the share of professors over all who have tenure within an institution, researchers gave 45 percent of the sample A grades and 16 percent F grades. Twenty-three institutions (4 percent) had no Black faculty at all and earned no grade.

Some 55 percent of institutions received an A grade for Latino faculty tenure equity; 14 percent got F’s. Four percent of the sample had no Latino faculty members and couldn’t be graded this way as a result.

When the researchers looked at faculty demographic changes over time, they found that little progress had been made on faculty diversity at public colleges and universities in the 15 years leading up to 2020. The greatest improvement in Black and Latino faculty diversity was at institutions that had zero Black or Latino faculty members in 2005, “so any increase amounted to a large percentage point increase,” the report says. Along these lines, another study from 2019 found faculty diversity increased very little nationwide from 2013 to 2017, with large research institutions showing the least progress of all.

Minority-serving institutions represented many of the institutions with the largest increases in Black and Latino faculty over the last 15 years. Five of the top 10 institutions with the highest change in the percentage of Black faculty were historically or predominantly Black. In a parallel finding, eight of the top 10 institutions with the highest change in the percentage of Latino faculty over time are designated Hispanic-serving institutions.

Recommendations

“If institutions are going to increase faculty diversity, they will need to examine their hiring and retention practices, improve campus racial climates, and make resources available to faculty members of color, so they can build and hone their skills and find community,” says Ed Trust’s report, called “Faculty Diversity and Student Success Go Hand-in-Hand, So Why Are University Faculties So White?”

Leaders, the report says, “should ensure that their actions align with their stated missions and strategic goals for faculty diversity. But that’s just for starters.”

Among other recommendations, the report suggests that campus decision-makers and advocates adopt clear goals to increase access, persistence and retention among students—and develop specific targets for increasing Black and Latino faculty members. Campus racial climate is another key issue, the report says.

State policy makers are advised to include faculty diversity in the strategic planning process by “prioritizing funding for faculty diversity initiatives, setting goals and benchmarks, collaborating with institutional leaders, and creating incentive programs.” Ed Trust also urges the rescission of nine states’ bans on affirmative action and more funding for minority-serving institutions.

At the federal level, Ed Trust recommends executive action to encourage diversity and inclusion efforts and targeted funding for institutions and efforts that support underrepresented students.

Asked why faculty diversity remains elusive despite its connection to student success, Gabriel Montague, an Ed Trust analyst and one of the report’s authors, said Thursday, “We believe the issue is less about the availability of qualified candidates and more about ensuring campus priorities are aligned with faculty diversity initiatives. If existing hiring and retention policies are not both aligned with the larger campus mission and consider ways to erase bias and racism in the hiring process, departmental leaders will continue to find increasing faculty diversity difficult.”

University leaders, Montague added, “need to consider quantity and quality when taking action to improve faculty diversity by increasing funding for research opportunities for graduate students and early-career faculty, focus on improving campus racial climates by creating a psychologically and culturally safe climate with a well-balanced workload.”

Carol A. Carman, an associate professor of health professions at the University of Texas Medical Branch, whose own work has identified a strong positive relationship between student success and faculty diversity at the community college level, said she liked Montague and his team’s methodology—especially how they measured faculty diversity relative to student diversity. Carman also said she was disappointed but not surprised by the overall findings.

“I would have preferred to have seen some overall improvement in faculty diversity in the measured areas since my last article in this field, but I’m not surprised that higher ed in general is slow to make measurable change in faculty representation,” Carman said. “I think in higher ed in general that the leaders have learned to talk the talk, but I’m not surprised to see evidence they are not yet all walking the walk. Change in higher ed also tends to move slowly, with new policies having to make their way through several committees, and probably also legal.”

Regardless, she said, “we should be doing so more swiftly than we currently are.”

John B. King Jr., president of the Ed Trust, said the new report “makes clear that the faculty diversity gap is an urgent national challenge and that there are concrete actions policymakers and higher education institutions can and should take. To advance faculty diversity, we can begin by investing in a diverse talent pipeline—including dedicating resources to research opportunities, mentorship and graduate school aid for students of color, making hiring, tenure and promotion practices more equitable, and ensuring inclusive campus climates.”

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January 3, 2023