The First Ten Years At CUE
As the Center for Urban Education (CUE) marks its ten year anniversary, there is much to celebrate: the successful completion of landmark projects, development of research-validated theoretical models, practical tools, multiple methodologies to enhance outcome equity in underserved student populations, and most importantly - improved academic outcomes for students. There is also the recognition that there is much left to do.
In 1999, CUE was established by founder Dr. Estela Bensimon at the University of Southern California with a grant from the university’s nationally renowned urban initiative. CUE's research team set to work on the challenge that equal access did not mean equal outcomes for all in higher education. Dr. Bensimon explains the genesis of CUE: "Although intra-campus racial stratification in measures of student success is commonplace, this was not consistently acknowledged, openly discussed, or intentionally measured and monitored." Now, ten years later, a paradigm shift has taken place, Bensimon adds, “It’s so gratifying to hear equity being included in not only research and discourse within California, but in national initiatives and large scale research projects which hold significant promise to make a difference.”
Projects
The first decade at CUE has been a period of intensive research and development has occurred, with the support of major foundations, through the following major initiatives:
- The Diversity Scorecard (Irvine Foundation)
- Equity for All (Lumina Foundation and the Chancellor’s Office of the California Community Colleges)
- Missing 87: A Study of the “Transfer Gap” and “Choice Gap” (Hewlett Foundation)
- The California Benchmarking Project (Hewlett Foundation and Ford Foundation)
- The Study of Economic, Informational and Cultural Barriers to Community College Transfer Enrollment at Selective Institutions (Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, Lumina Foundation for Education, Nellie Mae Education Foundation)
- The Wisconsin Transfer Equity Study (Ford Foundation)
- Pathways to STEM Bachelor’s and Graduate Degrees for Hispanic Students and the Role of Hispanic Serving Institutions (National Science Foundation)
- CUE Equity Model Leadership Academy (Carnegie Corporation of New York)
Learning from Our Work - how our initial projects lead to expansion of ideas and tools in later projects.
CUE’s Equity Scorecard (formerly called the Diversity Scorecard) has helped practitioners at more than forty two-year and four-year campuses see for themselves inequities reflected in their own institutional data. The Equity Scorecard provides a comprehensive snapshot of institutional data, disaggregated by race and ethnicity, from four perspectives using different indicators and “vital signs” to uncover inequities.
Using the Equity Scorecard, community colleges involved in Equity for All discovered large gaps in transfer success by race and ethnicity. Once the Equity for All teams began to recognize the inequities that existed on their campuses, participants wanted tools to address the problems.
In response, CUE conducted the Missing 87 Study, which refers to the number of “missing” students who could have transferred but did not. This study developed the problem-solving phase of the CUE Equity Model. To further develop the use of inquiry for problem-solving, CUE, in collaboration with California community colleges, conducted the California Benchmarking Project. The Equity-Based Assessment Toolkit CUE developed through the Benchmarking Project includes protocols that enable participants to contextualize the problems of equity. CUE also developed three benchmarking strategies to create structured opportunities for learning, innovation, and change.
To address institutional commitment and capacity-building, CUE created the Benchmarking Equity and Student Success Tool (BESST), which provides institutions with enhanced ability to turn disaggregated data into actionable knowledge and equity-oriented interventions.
The Study of Economic, Informational and Cultural Barriers to Community College Transfer Enrollment at Selective Institutions led to the development of CUE’s Transfer Access Self-Assessment Inventory, a tool kit for motivating attention and problem-solving in the area of transfer. This is being greatly expanded through the Wisconsin Transfer Equity Study, which involves both system and institutional level inquiry teams identifying and remedying barriers to transfer for Wisconsin’s minority students.
Similarly, to address the lack of participation of Latina and Latino students in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields, CUE is currently conducting a study of the Pathways to STEM Bachelor’s and Graduate Degrees for Hispanic Students and the Role of Hispanic Serving Institutions.
As interest in CUE's methods continues to grow, CUE will need to significantly grow the number of people who have the expertise to facilitate the CUE Equity Model. The CUE Equity Model Leadership Academy, funded by the Carnegie Corporation, will include a leadership development and training program delivered through an institute for practitioners to learn to facilitate CUE’s Equity Model.
Another forward-looking project defining CUE’s future is their leadership role in the development of the Ford Foundation-funded Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Institutes on Equity and Critical Policy Analysis. These Institutes, inaugurated this summer, are examples of how CUE is expanding the field through the training and encouragement of equity-minded scholars and policy analysts.
Impact
While evaluation continues to be an ongoing priority for CUE's work, it is clear that the methods and priorities of the Equity Scorecard and the projects that it inspired have had a positive impact on the lives of faculty, staff and students. We see evidence in both the reflections of our institutional partners and in the recognition from the field.
In the words of our partners:
“Through the California Benchmarking Project, we have learned that data obtained using the CUE tools, inquiry processes and Equity Model provide an invaluable foundation for equity-based assessments that lead to decisions that are supporting a cultural change on our campus.”
-Dr. Barbara Jaffe, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, El Camino College
"I can honestly say that the results of interventions designed in collaboration with CUE are positively affecting the lives and learning of students on a daily basis. Our most recent data show significantly improved retention and success rates in almost all of our basic skills courses."
--Dr. Dan Walden, Dean of Academic Affairs, Los Angeles Southwest College
Additional recognition for the work of CUE and its partners has come in the form of the 2006 California Community College Chancellor’s Special Recognition Award for helping expand educational opportunities and enhancing student success. Dr. Bensimon earned this award for notable contributions that resulted in advancing equity or diversity in the California community colleges.
Also in 2006, The Teagle Foundation at Cornell University named the Diversity Scorecard one of the more promising diversity initiatives across the country.
CUE’s Future
Over the past ten years, CUE has changed the way staff and faculty on college campuses perceive the challenges of improving student outcomes for underserved populations. Founding Director Estela Mara Bensimon cites the growing interest in the CUE Equity Model as indicative of a significant movement towards the growing acceptance that student success, particularly for students of color is an urgent challenge and one that institutions can and must do more to ensure outcome equity. For CUE, closing achievement gaps is not just an economic imperative or implicit in President Obama’s aspiration to reclaim our status as a leader in higher education—it’s a moral imperative. Achieving excellence and equity is the CUE’s longstanding goal. CUE Co-director, Alicia C. Dowd, an associate professor of higher education at the USC Rossier School of Education, elaborates, “After an intensive period of research and development over the past decade, CUE is ready to share what we have learned about creating equitable outcomes in higher education with national partners who share our vision.”
With Gratitude
As CUE celebrates the work of their first ten years, we wish to thank all those who have partnered with us. We are deeply grateful to the funders who have invested in our work, for the colleges and universities who have signed on to our projects, and to the faculty and staff colleagues at USC and across the country whose collaboration has helped CUE achieve the insights and tools to help higher education institutions across the country become more accountable to students from underserved racial and ethnic communities.