Toolkit Helps Institutions Build Sturdy Access and Diversity Policies
Five years ago, the College Board formed the Access & Diversity Collaborative (ADC) to help colleges and universities establish policies that promote access and diversity. Now ADC has — in collaboration with its content experts at EducationCounsel, a part of former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley’s law firm — created activities and materials to support college and university leaders as they pursue access- and diversity-related education goals within their institutions.
The first is a policy paper titled A 21st-Century Imperative: Promoting Access and Diversity in Higher Education — sponsored also by the American Council on Education — which reviews major trends in research, demographics, and federal and state legal developments that college and university leaders should be aware of as they shape their institutional policies. Valuable information is provided on how institutional diversity policies and initiatives yield educational, economic and civic benefits for all students and for the communities they serve. Other topics include an expanded definition of “diversity,” the issue of merit, demographic projections for the 21st century and managing local
ballot initiatives.
The corresponding Access & Diversity Toolkit: A Resource for Higher Education Professionals is a guide for those college and university officials who are responsible for framing and implementing student-related access and diversity policies. Institutional leaders and policymakers have asked for resources that can promote common understandings of the key issues in order to advance the development of coherent, evidence-based and consequential access and diversity policies. The Toolkit offers out-of-the-box materials to spark constructive campus-based dialogues and policy discussions that will, in turn, lead to access and diversity policies and programs that are educationally effective, cost-efficient and legally sustainable. Each of the 10 parts of the Toolkit includes extensive data, resources to support the material, action steps and a body of advice borne out of the experiences of people who are having success on their campuses.
The Toolkit will make its debut Thursday afternoon at the College Board’s Forum 2009 in New York, and it will be available soon after to everyone on the Web. The session at the Forum will feature remarks from Art Coleman, a partner in the EducationCounsel; Lorelle L. Espinosa, the director of policy and strategic initiatives at the Institute for Higher Education Policy; Jamie Merisotis, president and CEO of Lumina Foundation for Education; Jamie Lewis Keith, vice president and general counsel at the University of Florida; Jennifer Rippner, senior policy advisor at the EducationCounsel; and Robert A. Witzburg, associate dean and director of admissions at Boston University School of Medicine.
The ADC has planned three seminars on these resources — one at the Forum, one at the College Board Colloquium in January and one at a location to be named later.
Because the current economic situation has made it difficult for many people to travel to many face-to-face meetings, the presentation at the Forum will be videotaped and made available free of charge as a webinar for anyone who is not able to attend one of the live presentations. A microsite and blog that will allow people from different institutions to communicate about best practices, successes and failures have also been planned.
To download A 21st-Century Imperative: Promoting Access and Diversity in Higher Education and learn more about the work of the Access & Diversity Collaborative, please visit www.collegeboard.com/accessanddiversity. A copy of the Access & Diversity Toolkit: A Resource for Higher Education Professionals will be available at this site after Oct. 22.
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