The Best Chance For All: A Policy Roadmap for Post-Pandemic Panic

The Best Chance for All was developed in 2018 as a long-term policy vision for student equity in Australian tertiary education. We argue in this article that COVID-19 has exacerbated the issues that the policy vision sought to address and has increased demands on and of post-secondary education. Specifically, we argue that the magnitude of the social and economic challenges presented by COVID-19 warrants holistic policy responses that enable the transition to a connected tertiary education system; one designed to deliver choice and flexibility for lifelong learners. A roadmap for this transition exists in the form of The Best Chance For All. The vision can be actuated through demand driven funding arrangements across tertiary education that are coherently aligned to optimise the performance of both the higher and vocational education sectors and are underpinned by sustained investment in equity outreach and support.

“Shining a Light” on Mature-Aged Students In, and From, Regional and Remote Australia

This article shines a light on a little-known cohort of higher education participants, mature-aged students in, and from, regional and remote Australia – the focus of a National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education mixed-methods study. Notable patterns were found in the quantitative data; for instance, compared to their metropolitan counterparts, higher proportions of regional and remote students were older, female, from low socio-economic status areas, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and studied online and/or part-time. The presentation of four vignettes from the interviews uncovers the stories behind the numbers, revealing students’ diverse and complex circumstances; two of the students shared experiences of facing systemic obstacles, while the other two described receiving invaluable institutional support. The obstacles can be attributed to systems designed for “ideal”, “implied” and “traditional” students, and entrenched attitudes that privilege some “types” of students over others and limit the aim of full participation for all students.

“A Stepping Stone That Just Pushed Me Further Into Wanting to Go to University”: Student Perspectives on ‘What Works’ for Effective Outreach Strategies for Indigenous Students

In Australia, there are numerous outreach initiatives run by universities for Indigenous high school students that attempt to elevate aspirations of Indigenous students to go to university. The theoretical case for these initiatives is strong as much data exists surrounding the barriers Indigenous students face in entering university. However, the research and evidence base for these equity programs remains largely underdeveloped and limited (Bennett et al., 2015). Drawing on findings from interviews with Indigenous university students as part of a National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE) Equity Fellowship, this paper identifies what works and what areas to strengthen in Indigenous specific outreach programs. The paper concludes by discussing the development of strategies and resources to build the evidence base of effective outreach activities for Indigenous students.

Developing, Implementing, and Learning From a Student-Led Initiative to Support Minority Students in Communication Sciences and Disorders

Purpose The Student Equity & Inclusion Workgroup is a student-led initiative at The University of Kansas that aims to advance equity and inclusion. Within this structure, the workgroup is entirely student-led and independent of any institutional initiatives. It has developed three themes— recognizing minority student leadership, ensuring equitable access to opportunities, and meaningfully supporting students—and used those themes to develop comprehensive programming in research, institutional advocacy, mentorship, and fellowship. Research initiatives included creating research opportunities for minority students by developing independent research projects. Institutional advocacy initiatives focused on policy change and developing a uniquely situated network of allies at and beyond the university. Mentorship centered student-to-student transmission of knowledge, skills, and support. Fellowship entailed creating opportunities for community building and recognition of minority student excellence. Conclusions Student-led initiatives such as those of the workgroup may be an effective way of supporting minority students in communication sciences and disorders. Institutions endeavoring to advance equity and inclusion should consider empowering students through facilitation of self-directed development, using institutional supports to support minority students on their terms, and recognizing students as capable partners in rethinking equity and inclusion.

Improving Racial Equity in Community College: Developing a Plan, Implementing the Vision

California policymakers passed the Student Equity Policy, requiring all community colleges to develop a “student equity plan” that identified outcome disparities for select student groups, including racial/ethnic students. Through an instrumental case study, I examined Huerta College because their equity plan stood out for its focus on addressing Latinx transfer inequity. I spent two years interviewing implementers, observing equity meetings, and collecting documents that served as artifacts of implementation. Key to equity planning was a critical mass of Latinx practitioners able to see the policy as an opportunity to tackle one of the greatest inequities on their campus, Latinx transfer. They used the implementation process to propose new projects that would support Latinx students in their journey to transfer from Huerta.

For Latinx, by Latinx: Race-conscious leadership in policy implementation

Policy implementation research tends to document the failures of reform, describing the myriad ways implementers miss the mark in translating intent into impact; or in the words of Derrick Bell, policy scholars are left with examining the “unfilled hopes of racial reform” (2004, p. 185). In contrast, this article presents an intrinsic case study where campus leaders took a race-conscious approach to implementing a state-wide reform known as the Student Equity Policy. I constructed the TrenzaPolicy Implementation Framework to center the experience, knowledge, and assets of Latinx leaders in community college that oversee and implement policy reform. The framework highlights the raced-gendered perspectives of Latinx leaders in community college to understand their motivations to implement policy in race-conscious ways (Delgado Bernal, 2002). I conducted in-depth and sustained fieldwork to learn how implementers understood and responded to state-level reform in race-conscious ways and used the policy to target and address one of the most pressing issues in higher education, the inequitable rates of transfer for Latinx students. I share how the salience of racialized-gendered identity, cultural intuition, social context, and enacting agency allowed leaders to envision more race-conscious possibilities for policy reform and its implementation on campus.

Using an Ethos of Care to Bridge the Digital Divide: Exploring Faculty Narratives During a Global Pandemic

Prior to the COVID-19 emergency, some faculty resisted the move to digital learning formats due to concerns for student equity or that engagement would suffer. The purpose of this study was to understand how faculty adapted their courses during the rapid shift to remote and online learning in the spring of 2020, and to understand the role of equity in their experiences. Faculty narratives revealed that elements such as flexibility, reducing coursework to essential content, and personalization – all stemming from an ethos of care – were effective in mitigating the equity issues that surfaced during the emergency transition to universal remote learning. Our findings support the critical importance of extending culturally sustainable practices to all online learning environments in higher education as a way to mitigate equity issues related to the digital divide. These findings are in line with, and contribute to, the growing body of research on culturally sustaining pedagogy within the context of online learning.