In our continued commitment to educational equity, the Simmons School of Education and Human Development at SMU invites you to our second annual conference on race and equity: Paving the Way to Inclusion: Visualizing Equity in Education.
This year’s keynote speaker is Dr. William Tate, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Vice Provost for Graduate Education at Washington University in St. Louis. See agenda.
Education Policy and Leadership’s Assistant Professor Sondra Barringer assesses how trustees may influence different aspects of higher education institutions.
According to Barringer, there are few studies on the roles of trustees. “Despite the importance of trustees for higher education institutions, we still know very little about what they do. In this article we show trustees at elite institutions interacted with their universities in a variety of ways,” she says. “Some of these trustees significantly influence the behaviors, structures, and policies of the institutions they steward.”
She and co-author, Karly Riffe, published the research in Innovative Higher Education.
Assistant Professor Dominque Baker co-published Black Women College Students: A Guide to Student Success in Higher Education, as part of Routledge’s series, Key Issues on Diverse College Students.
She and her fellow authors, Felecia Commodore and Andrew T. Arroyo, look at systemic struggles Black female students face.
” I wrote this book, along with my colleagues,” she says, “to help add to the voices shedding light on the hurdles to collegiate success these students face and potential changes that can lessen some of the obstacles.”
Dominique Baker, assistant professor in Education Policy and Leadership, co-authored a new study in The Journal of Higher Education that looks at the gap of college graduation rates for Black and Hispanic students compared to white peers. Researchers Stella Flores (NYU), Toby Park (Florida State University) and SMU’s Baker say pre-college factors, such as attending segregated schools and poverty, contribute to as much as 61% of the variance in college graduation rates by race.
Their data analyzed a cohort of Texas students who graduated from high school in 2002. Read more.
Associate Dean Frank Hernandez provided his expertise on Latinos and school leadership for KERA radio’s story on Latino superintendents in Texas.
Eight of Texas’ largest cities have Latinos leading public schools. Hernandez believes the creation of superintendent leadership academies can lead to the development of more Latinos.
The story is part of a statewide public radio series on education.
Assistant Professor Denisa Gándara is a new member-at-large board representative for the Council for Public Policy in Higher Education. The council is part of the Association For The Study of Higher Education, and its purpose is “to promote research on, and to advance understanding of, the processes and impacts of public policy in U.S. higher education, as well as to help inform decision making in the public policy arena.”
Gándara joined the Department of Education Policy and Leadership in 2015.
Michael Harris, associate professor in Education Policy and Leadership, responds to the latest exit by a college president, Baylor’s Ken Starr, in an op-ed piece for the Texas Tribune. He and co-author Molly Ellis see trends in presidents’ departures. Their research shows one in 10 who leave office are forced out. Read more.
Alexandra Pavlakis, Assistant Professor in Education Policy and Leadership, is one of 11 SMU faculty members to receive a Sam Taylor Fellowship Award from the Sam Taylor Fellowship Fund of the Division of Higher Education, United Methodist General Board of Higher Education and Ministry. Pavlakis researches how wide-ranging policies and the actions of schools and communities shape the educational experiences of low-income, highly mobile and homeless students and their families.
The award will help her examine the increase in student homelessness and specifically will look at North Dallas High School, where a cross-section of organizations and people are responding to the issue.
In an essay for U.S. News and World Report, Simmons’ Dean David Chard and Elisa Villanueva Beard, CEO, Teach for America, offer ideas to make the teaching profession a viable option for younger generations. More needs to happen with compensation, professional support and flexibility. Read the article here.
Assistant Professor Meredith Richards in Education Policy and Leadership provides expertise on new maps that the U.S. Department of Education will release on school attendance boundaries.
In an Education Week article, Richards is quoted about how maps come into play. She conducts research on school inequities using geographic tools to look at gerrymandering and school attendance. Read article here.
