Equity Questions in Global Contexts

by Rebecca Ropers-Huilman, Professor and Chair of the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development in the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development

I begin writing this blog from a courtyard in Lund, Sweden, where I am attending a conference on gender equity in higher education. I traveled here from Vienna, where I am spending a semester learning about the ways in which gender equity policies are implemented and contested in Austrian universities. My conversations with European colleagues during the last several months as well as at this conference bring into greater clarity critical questions that are necessary for those of us around the world to engage in if we are interested in making real progress in equity.

Who is doing work toward gender equity and how is it valued?

I have learned that in Austria, the vast majority of people doing equity work are women. In fact, when I requested an interview with a senior university leader who had women’s advancement explicitly noted as one of his job responsibilities, I was referred by his (female) administrative assistant to one of his (female) colleagues. During the interview, it was clear that his colleague was the driving force for gender equity at the university. His name did not come up. Nor did anyone else refer me to any men when I asked for recommendations of people who could help me understand how gender equity policies were being implemented in Austrian universities. If gender equity is seen only as a “women’s problem,” I think our efforts will be stymied.

I have also learned that women often do work associated with gender equity without recognition or compensation. While there are exceptions to this lack of recognition, it is clear that equity work is not seen as an institutional good worth rewarding in tangible ways. I recall Ben Baez’s (2000) work exploring the benefits faculty of color experienced as they engaged in institutional service, though their capacity to do the research that the institution would value most highly was limited by time spent on service. Shelly Park’s (1996) work, which questioned “Why doesn’t women’s work count?”, also comes to mind. In both cases, these scholars urged that the institution take seriously service/leadership work by women and people of color given its importance to institutional functioning.

In Austria, even though policies are quite clear about what is expected in relation to gender equity, it strikes me that the question of who does the work and how is it rewarded is still an important one. The preponderance of women doing equity work is, of course, also true in the United States. In both contexts, I would ask why gender equity, if it is a priority, is not valued more explicitly within our reward structures and expected to be done by women and men.

How should educational leaders select and balance quantitative and qualitative measures of gender equity?

Many of the reports on gender equity around the world focus on numbers. For example, we know that women are the majority of undergraduates in most nations (UNESCO, 2012). We also know that the percentage of women decreases as the positional power increases, including at the levels of professor or rector/president. In the Nordic countries – arguably one of the best regions in the world in terms of gender equity – 87% of the research centers targeted for excellence funds are directed by men (Husu, 2014). These numbers are important, but they are enough to determine what our future strategies should be.

I suggest there are many qualitative questions that are also important if we want to make meaningful change toward equity. To what extent are academic staff and students free to pursue questions based on their expertise knowledge and experience of the world? How are scholars in both female-dominated and male-dominated disciplines valued and rewarded? What is the range of perspectives and epistemologies that are available to and incorporated by those at all levels of the academic hierarchy (from beginning student to most senior professor)? Do people across identity categories feel satisfied and supported in their work? Is fairness a principle that is widely understood to guide administrative and academic action? Are policies in place that acknowledge and respond to both differences and similarities of those throughout the university community? Who makes important decisions for the various levels of the university? Who is the university? Each of these questions deserves qualitative investigation.

What individual and institutional strategies are most effective, and in what ways?

In the Austrian context, a strong gender equity policy framework supports the work of scholars and leaders as they attempt to engage in work that changes both institutions and individual practices. Leaders and scholars point to quotas that require at least 40% of women and men in decision-making bodies. These quotas have led to women serving as approximately 50% of all Vice Rectors. They also point to the Working Group for Equal Opportunity, a group that exists in each university that has the power to stop hiring processes if they believe that inequitable practices have been used to come to a decision. While Austrian colleagues acknowledge problematic aspects of these policies, they assure me that they are the most effective tools that they have in moving from a strongly hierarchical and male-dominated system to one which is slightly less hierarchical and more equitable in gender representation across the institutions.

My United States-educated mind resists the idea of using a quota or any sort of numerical expectation to achieve equity. Yet, Austria (and other nations) have prioritized a type of fairness that insists on equity in specific ways over the hope that educating and trying very hard to be fair and kind will somehow yield equitable results. While their policies have not yet produced gender equity at the full professor levels, Austrian universities are experiencing substantial shifts in numerical representation. I am hopeful that both Austria and the United States will continue to examine policies, informal and formal practices, and gendered assumptions that make current inequities seem natural.

How will gender be understood and positioned in increasingly diverse societies? How/can/should intersectionality be institutionalized/advocated?

Gender equity in Austrian contexts seems primary and intentionally foregrounded. It is explicit in public documents and, arguably, institutionalized in significant ways. My observations of United States gender equity practices mirror those of Mary Ann Danowitz Sagaria and Lyndsay Agans (2007) when they suggest that gender equity is subsumed under a broader category of diversity. Our social institutions must move toward more intersectional approaches to understanding individual and collective experience and action. Equity achieved for “women” without taking into consideration the many different identities that inform their lives will be empty and will continue to replicate the hierarchical power structures we are attempting to deconstruct.

Yet, I am impressed with the ways in which gender equity remains on the radar in Austrian and European Union higher education in ways that seem to make it more explicit and, therefore, actionable. All of the students in my Austrian class had heard of the policy of gender mainstreaming and had some sense of what it was. I cannot think of any comparable policy framework that is as ubiquitous in the United States. How might we develop such a framework for action that is intersectional? How might we communicate it widely and develop buy-in across our communities or at least our institutions? We need to acknowledge that educational leaders and scholars who are multiply marginalized in our communities are necessary to inform our collective equity efforts.

Is equity a central measure of quality, or is it a secondary aspiration to be attempted once all other priorities (financial stability, internationalization, research prestige, global rankings, etc.) are achieved?

For me, this last question is critical to our choices and commitments to equity. Austria’s most recent University Act in 2002 outlines the principles of public universities in the country. Of a list of twelve principles, four relate to equity in a direct way. Number 3 insists on a “diversity of scientific and artistic theories, methods and doctrines.” Numbers 9 and 10 direct universities to be guided by “equality of the sexes” and “social opportunity.” And Number 12 articulates that universities should give “special attention to the needs of the handicapped.” The essential tasks of universities soon follow, with “gender equality, and the advancement of women” as number 9 of 11. Further direction in the document requires universities to have a plan for the advancement of women, to establish “an organizational unit responsible for the co-ordination of activities relating to equal opportunities, the advancement of women and gender research.” Performance contracts between universities and the Ministry include indicators related to gender equity.

There is some disagreement about whether or not the promise in each part of this Act is being fulfilled. However, I am impressed by the articulation of clear commitments and expectations. I am also impressed with the movement of Austria in the last decade. I am excited to see what comes, fully acknowledging that resistance, complexity, and redefinitions of equity and equity practice are sure to emerge.


References

Baez, Benjamin. (2000). Race-related service and faculty of color: Conceptualizing critical agency in academe. Higher Education, 39(3): pp. 363-391.

Danowitz Sagaria, Mary Ann, & Agans, Lyndsay (2007). Frames, changes, challenges, and strategies. In Mary Ann Danowitz Sagaria (ed.) Women, Universities and Change. Gender Equality in the European Union and the United States (pp. 215-222). New York: Palgrave.

Husu, Liisa. (May, 2014). Interrogating gender paradoxes in academia: Nordic and European perspectives. Conference on Gender Equity in Higher Education. Lund University.

Park, Shelley M. (1996). Research, teaching, and service: Why shouldn't women's work count? The Journal of Higher Education, 67(1): pp. 46-84.

UNESCO. (2012). World atlas of gender equality in education. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Paris, France.

The Benefits and Challenges of Conducting Higher Education Research in Other National Contexts

Part of the Division J Post-Conference Download series

by Laura Perna, past AERA Division J Vice President and Professor, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education

How have you translated, extended, or challenged local issues to the global in your research?  This was the guiding question posed to panelists participating in one of the Division J Vice Presidential sessions at the April 2014 AERA annual meeting.  Entitled, “Theories and Methods for Understanding Higher Education in a Globalizing World,” the session was convened by Jenny Lee and Amy Metcalfe. Other members of the panel were Vanessa Andreotti, Simon Marginson, and Kristen Renn.  Division J Vice President Adrianna Kezar moderated the session and Bryan Gopaul chaired.  

This session provided a wonderful opportunity to reflect with other session attendees about the benefits and challenges of conducting higher education research in other national contexts. In short – although not without difficulties – there are also numerous joys and benefits.  I have not only been privileged to travel to faraway lands, try new foods, meet new people, and learn about different traditions and cultures, I have also gained invaluable insights that enhance my understanding of fundamental issues facing higher education in the United States and around the world.

My engagement in international higher education research is relatively recent.  Through service as the co-instructor for an international higher education course that is required for students in Penn GSE’s Executive Doctorate management program, I have had the opportunity to learn about the relationship between public policy and higher education attainment in Ireland (summer 2012) and the nature of higher education access, finance, and governance in Hungary (summer 2013). Through a multi-year research project with partners at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan and colleagues at Penn GSE, I have also been learning about the internationalization of higher education generally and the role of government-sponsored student mobility programs in promoting a nation’s human capital in particular.

Engaging in higher education research in other nations requires considerable time and effort. Developing even a basic understanding of the educational, political, economic, historical, cultural, and many other dimensions of a nation is not simple or easy.  Acquiring these understandings is especially challenging when you do not speak or read the dominant language.  Even when speaking the same language, the words used may mean different things to a U.S. researcher than to those living and working in another nation.  And then, of course, there are the inevitable issues associated with gaining access to relevant, reliable, and consistent quantitative and qualitative data.

One strategy for overcoming these and other obstacles is to identify research collaborators. My research in Kazakhstan, for example, would not be nearly as rich or enjoyable, without partnering with “insiders” in the host nation (Nazarbayev University) or collaborating with colleagues in my home institution (including Matt Hartley, Kata Orosz, and others at Penn GSE).    

Through my recent activities, I have gained a priceless appreciation of how the national context in which we are embedded shapes the characteristics, structure, and outcomes of higher education.  The fundamental role of the national context was made visible to me only after I stepped outside of my very familiar U.S. context and struggled to make sense of a higher education system in a different nation. I believe that the process of learning about higher education in other nations is productively enhancing my understanding of how higher education in the United States and other nations is structured to limit and promote higher education opportunity. I encourage others to think about how to extend their understanding of key research questions and interests through work in other national contexts.

This post is part of our Post-Conference Download series. Over the weeks following the 2014 Annual Meeting, we will feature several reflections on the conference.

On Community

Part of the Division J Post-Conference Download series

by Margaret W. Sallee, Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University at Buffalo

“I’m so excited to be presenting in the same session as you,” the graduate student said, “I really admire your work.”

I turned around to make sure that she wasn’t talking to someone standing behind me.  No, as it turned out, she was talking to me.  Surely she must have me confused with another Margaret Sallee.  How did I become someone whose work is admired?  Aren’t I still new to the field?  As it turns out, I’m not so new anymore.  I no longer belong to the new generation of scholars in higher education, but I’m part of a generation that at least one new scholar admires.  That is a lot of pressure.

This notion of generations is one that I pondered throughout my time in Philadelphia.  This Annual Meeting was both similar and different from years past for me.  For one, it was a bit less chaotic than the meeting in San Francisco where I ran the show for the Inaugural Film Festival and schlepped films and promotional materials to and from the hotel on a daily basis.  (On a side note, here’s hoping that it was indeed the inaugural film festival and not the first and final festival…)  So, this year I was able to spend more time attending sessions.  I managed to attend the session with Francisco Marmolejo from The World Bank.  I also went to a session on MOOCs, which was surprisingly underattended for a topic that many are so passionate about.  What I love most about AERA is the opportunity to branch out beyond the disciplinary confines of higher education to attend sessions and make connections across divisions and SIGs.  It helps me think about my own scholarship in new ways.  But I digress.  Back to generations.

This year was particularly special for me because I had the opportunity to present a paper with my father, a retired math professor.  I (perhaps naively) imagined that we were the only father-child pair to write together until I saw father and son Hal Lawson and Michael Lawson win the Review of Research Award at the Awards Luncheon.  So, we were not the first.  Plus, now, a high bar had been set for interfamilial collaborations.  In any case, as a scholar who advocates bridging divides between work and family, being able to actually bridge work and family in my scholarship was an incredible experience.  While I value the paper that we produced, I value the memory of how happy my father and I were to share a stage together even more.

At this Annual Meeting, I had the opportunity to collaborate across generations within my own family. However, I also reflected on my place within the multiple generations of the higher education community.  It is through annual gatherings that I have had the opportunity to interact with senior scholars.  I have shared drinks with my contemporaries and those who have been around a bit longer.  I also have grabbed a cup of coffee with graduate students.  Through all of these meetings, I have both benefitted from and given advice; each interaction has helped to remind me that I am part of a larger community.  Many of my most fruitful collaborations have resulted from meeting someone at AERA or at ASHE.  Over a meal or even just a quick chat between sessions, I have gotten to know more than one person who has turned into a trusted collaborator and friend.

And so this is what the Annual Meeting means to me: a way to re-connect with colleagues from around the country and world who come from the many generations of the higher education community.  To share ideas and be inspired to think about new projects in new ways.  To be reminded of why we do what we do.  In a few more years, no doubt, another generation will enter the academy and that graduate student who approached me will have an admiring student of her own.

Margaret W. Sallee is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University at Buffalo.  Her research focuses on the intersections of individual identity and organizational culture, particularly related to issues of work and family.  Her latest book Faculty Fathers: Toward A New Ideal in the Research University is set to be published by SUNY Press later this year.  She can be reached by e-mail at mwsallee@buffalo.edu.

This post is part of our Post-Conference Download series. Over the weeks following the 2014 Annual Meeting, we will feature several reflections on the conference.

A Reflection on Drafting Justice

Part of the Division J Post-Conference Download series

by Michael A. Olivas, William B. Bates Distinguished Chair of Law and Director of the Institute of Higher Education Law & Governance at the University of Houston Law Center

USC’s Adrianna Kezar, as always generous, has asked me to blog about my recent AERA. While I am a great consumer of the blogging efforts of others, I do not produce any blogs, in my personal ecological effort to keep the blogosphere green and Olivas-free. But since she asked nicely, I have jotted down some notes and edited portions of my Award Lecture. I am trying to live within a carbon and byte footprint, so it is edited for brevity. I have edited the remarks I made at the AERA Awards Lecture, upon receiving the AERA Social Justice in Education Award for 2014, “Drafting Justice: Statutory Language, Public Policy, and Legislative Reform.” In the Lecture, I recounted the details and satisfactions of my involvement in several legislative reform efforts where I wrote statutory language myself or in collaboration with other co-conspirators, in the areas of state immigration DREAM Acts, college access, and the Texas Top 10 % Plan:

However, all of this is just prelude, and protesting, probably too much—that exquisite Shakespearean turn of phrase about suspect motives and false humility. The truth is, I concede I am drawn this way due to the congeries of personal attributes, and the unlimited latitude I have in my pursuit of suitable topics. Of all the dimensions of a full life as a professor—the opportunities and rewards of teaching, mentoring, scholarship, consulting, professional service, advising—I will say that one small piece of my life has been more deliberate and purposeful, and I rarely see this side of service and social justice acknowledged, so I have chosen as my topic "Statutory Language, Public Policy, and Legislative Reform," with the tongue in cheek corollary "Being in the Right Place at the Right Time with the Right People," a truism that likely accounts for my own involvement and satisfaction with this piece of my work, statutory drafting and legislative reform, including its kissing cousin, regulatory reform and administrative law. If there is an advocacy-gene in me, it is likely one nurtured by experience and my training, especially my legal training.  Just as it is always noteworthy how much children's willingness to learn turns on how much they like their teacher, a truly scary and life-affirming observation, but I am no different. . .

I end, as I began, grateful for this recognition, absolving all the nominators who so thoughtfully singled me out, and grateful for the many opportunities being a professor has afforded me. I am at the stage of my career where I am more delighted at my students’ achievements than I am at my own.  It isn’t even a close call. When they publish, get elected to judicial or legislative office, start a law firm, start a family, win an important case, I feel very fulfilled.  I delight in their returning to see me, their attending UHLC functions, their calls, their emails.  Don’t get me wrong: I’ve also had a half dozen students (that I know of) disbarred or admonished.  I cringe reading the Texas Law Journal disciplinary listings, the way my grandfather used to scan The Santa Fe New Mexican obituaries, to see how many primos or cuates he had lost.  But most have done extraordinarily well, and I celebrate them today with you.  Education is truly our society’s engine of upward mobility and stability.
                     
As satisfying as a recent book or article or testimony is—and there is almost nothing better than laboring at the keyboard and bringing forth a piece into print—I really believe that nurturing young professionals, especially young professors, is the highest calling, the most rewarding vocation.  Now I know why my parents honored teachers; in our home, we often had our grade school teachers over to our house on important occasions, and they would sit in my father’s chair—something I don’t even do to this day, years after his too-early passing.  Every year, he would accompany each of us to the first day of school, a ritual that to this day haunts me.  (I am the oldest of ten children.)  He would say to each new teacher:  “I’m Sabino Olivas, and his teachers say my son Michael is smart but can be lazy.  I would like homework assigned every night, or a note from you telling me there is no homework.  You can punish him if he deserves it, but you must inform me so I can also punish him.”  No litigation in my family. Needless to say, I always dreaded the first day of classes, and classmates at my 25th high school reunion remembered these humiliating “teaching moments.”  But they had their desired effect, and I guess I always understood I would be a teacher of one sort or another, if only to gain my father’s approval.  And it was hard to win this approval. Years later, I would return to my native New Mexico, and run into one of my Dad’s friends, only to discover that they knew all about what I was up to—writing a book or giving a lecture somewhere—because he’d been bragging about me. But never to my face.  Praise, like allowance, was carefully rationed in the Olivas household.
                   
Thus, in the spirit of this extraordinary Award, I thank all the colleagues who wrote letters for me, which were, fortunately, not subject to any Texas oath requirements for truthfulness (and believe me, they checked the statutes). I accept it for all the many teachers who shaped me.  But for the most part, notwithstanding these wonderful friends and colleagues, I accept it on behalf of my hundreds and hundreds of students, from Ohio State English composition classes, and Education and Law students from the various schools where I have visited, but especially my UH students, and especially those who have become professors.  Some of you are in this room, edging towards the doorways. You are truly my greatest gift, and I thank you all for this honor at the midpoint of my life as a professor.  I will try to be worthy of it.
                   
What other profession, perhaps save that other teaching vocation—the religious life—gives back so much to its practitioners?  To be good at it, we must contend with ideas, reconcile contradictions, grapple with evil, especially the evil of ignorance and hatred.  But, with practice, and on a good day, we have our breakthrough articles, our wonderful classes, our worthwhile service. We should guard this splendid privilege and not squander it on self-indulgence, passing politics, commerce, or mean spiritedness.  In this transcendent sense, I share this with all of you, my AERA colleagues.

I will say that the Lecture and the Awards Lunch made my recent AERA experience a very good one. And it reminded me once again what a lucky boy I am.

This post is part of our Post-Conference Download series. Over the weeks following the 2014 Annual Meeting, we will feature several reflections on the conference.

Reflections on AERA14

Part of the Division J Post-Conference Download series

by Sara Goldrick-Rab, Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

When I was a graduate student, I had one goal in mind: to make the world a fairer place. In my estimation, that had little to do with becoming an academic, and so I honestly had no interest or intention of becoming one.  I thought that my doctoral program in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania would help me gain the skills needed to dissect social problems and figure out how to address them; when finished, I planned to go out and do just that.

But funny things happen on the way to graduation, and despite my active consulting agenda and constant insistence that I only wanted to do applied research, friends and mentors (including my advisor Jerry Jacobs) convinced me to apply for a position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The job seemed to have “Sara” written all over it, they said, since it was for a sociologist studying higher education policy with strong networks and methodological skills.  I thought, “sure, but I’ll never get it” and applied anyway.  I hadn’t finished a single chapter of my dissertation at the time, but two months later the job in the wonderful Department of Educational Policy Studies was mine, and I spent the spring of 2004 frantically writing up my research in a West Philadelphia coffee shop. Getting that done meant ignoring practically everything else, including my new boyfriend who went on to become my husband just a year later.  Remarkably, people put up with me, cheered me on, and off I went to the Midwest.

Fast-forward ten years, and on April 5 2014, I found myself at AERA standing in front of more than 1,300 people, accepting the Early Career Award.  Me, a professor, honored by an enormous membership organization of talented people devoting their lives to research on important problems? Me—a professor?  I kept thinking, “what the heck happened?” But most of all, I thought “thank you, thank you, thank you.”

For I will never stop being grateful for this vote of confidence in the work I’ve done because this job that I do, I love completely.  I adore my work, I live and breathe and eat my work, and I wake up and go to sleep thinking of my work every single day. It gives me energy, it makes me laugh, it causes tears, and pain, and heartache, and I can’t imagine it ever ending. The luxury of spending my days chipping away at really hard problems, like how to make college affordable for the swarms of Americans who want to experience it, and the chance to dictate the terms of my life without an obvious boss, it’s beyond any blessing I’ve ever imagined receiving.

Standing at that podium made me as nervous as I’d ever been. I shook because I was overcome with how hard everyone had worked to get me here. The words poured out of me—I could hear my grandfather’s voice telling me to “go get ‘em” and my late grandma’s words “keep it short and simple, Sara.”  I could feel my family smiling at me through the camera that streamed the images into my living room at home, where my husband Liam, son Conor (age 7), and daughter Annie (age 4) sat watching.  They put up with me loving my job and love me anyway.  Nearby sat Nancy Kendall, my very best friend in the world who is never afraid to tell me what I least want to hear.  Often, that’s about the importance of ensuring that I fulfill my obligations at home and to myself, and that means turning to Patrice Coffin, who loves my kids and keeps them safe, and Alison Bowman, my associate director and right hand, who lifts burdens from me as often as possible, and turns my dreams into accomplishable tasks.

Then there are those who remind me that being a professor is about far more than sitting in an office waiting for students to arrive, or revising papers to send off to restricted-access journals.  I come to AERA for the people, the people who make me marvel at how big and good the world can be when caring translates into action.  Scott Thomas, Kate Shaw, Carola Suarez-Orozco, Rebecca Maynard, Tammy Kolbe, Adam Gamoran, Eli Lieber, Barbara Schneider, Ellen and Shawn Costello, Robert Kelchen, Lauren Schudde, Rich Shavelson, Minh Mai, and Chris Mazzeo, thanks for being there to celebrate with me.  You, and my students, and the world on Twitter, and most of all the everyday people who walked in and among and around me on the streets of Philadelphia during that trip—the Philadelphia where I turned my eyes towards academia and found myself—you’ve made all of the difference.  My “early” career may have been great, but I can hardly wait for the next part. 


This post is part of our Post-Conference Download series. Over the weeks following the 2014 Annual Meeting, we will feature several reflections on the conference.

Amen to all that

Part of the Division J Post-Conference Download series

by William G. Tierney, Wilbur Kieffer Professor of Higher Education, University Professor & Associate Dean for Research & Faculty Affairs, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California

A long time ago I served as Vice President of Division J.  I was also a member-at-large for the Council about a decade ago, and now I have concluded my 3 year presidential term.  One of the aspects of academic life I always have enjoyed is the ability to do different things rather than having to do the same thing over and over again.  AERA has enabled me to do a lot of different activities and learn a great deal about ideas and people.

AERA has changed a lot, but probably not changed enough.  It’s a conference, in some respects, that everyone loves to hate: It’s too crowded.  It’s too exhausting.  It’s too qualitative.   It’s too quantitative.  There are not enough sessions on (fill in the blank); there are too many sessions on (fill in the blank).  It’s also too expensive.  I could go on.  And on.

But people keep coming to the conference.  Last year we had 15,000 attendees; this year we had 14,000.  AERA works best when people are able to disagree with one another out in the public in sessions or in meetings or even in hallways.  We’re a ‘big tent’ organization and big tents should be able to hold lots of people with competing ideas.  At its best, AERA fosters conversations across disciplines and methods to help improve educational theory, policy, and practice.

However exhausted I am when I leave AERA I always head home with a sense of having learned something and made a new friend or two.  This year was a touch different because I’ve sort of come to the end of my AERA involvement.  I’ll still show up for the annual conference and publish an article here or there, but it’s time for me to look to other horizons and other adventures.  AERA helped foster that sense of intellectual adventure over the years, and I hope it does so for all of you.  Get involved.  Change the organization and move it in a direction that is responsive to the multiple needs we face.


This post is part of our Post-Conference Download series. Over the weeks following the 2014 Annual Meeting, we will feature several reflections on the conference.

AERA Hangover

Part of the Division J Post-Conference Download series

by Andre M. Perry, Founding Dean of Urban Education, Davenport University

I always leave the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) annual meeting with a hangover of renewal; the meeting generates in me energy to write 1,000 articles before the next. However, my arrival to my students and communities and the substantive problems they face quickly sobers me up. My return from AERA always represents what is effectually a vast gulf between the research of higher education and the political goals that should motivate it.

Having identified as a researcher then later on as an administrator in both K-12 and higher educational settings, I occasionally hallucinate during my colleagues’ paper presentations at AERA. I see a professor in regalia in an ivory tower meticulously describing the damage the oncoming wrecking ball will cause. In other words, the study of higher education needs fewer words, less data and more political action.

During my academic time at the University of New Orleans, Louisiana spent $1.4 billion for higher education in fiscal year 2007-08. However, in 2013 Gov. Bobby Jindal’s budget devolved to contain $284.5 million for colleges and universities. Many researchers meticulously situated the 80 percent reduction in state funding to a conservative agenda bent on political patronage. Following suit, university administrators managed their own downfalls by finding creative ways to cut budgets. While professors accurately described these phenomena, particular industrialists, lobbyists and non-governmental organizations in Louisiana mobilized constituents, aligned agendas and leveraged resources to redirect funding away from students and their postsecondary institutions.

Meanwhile at my former institution of UNO, leaders and researchers of higher education ostensibly did not have the skills to protect ourselves from a rival agenda or to defend the principles we stood upon. Many of us graduated from programs that taught us policy analysis, but didn’t teach us advocacy. We separated our research from political actors who could have found mutually beneficial ends. The field of higher education research seeks approval from peer reviewers (who are trained with the same deficiencies), rather than the positive impact our research can have on a community. I was warned by a higher education faculty and administration to not get too involved for it would hurt my chances of getting tenure (which I received) and my activities would stain the work. This was particularly surprising given our post-Katrina context. I couldn’t sip that Kool-Aid. What happened to improving my community?

If higher education research is to be taken seriously, researchers must see themselves as members of a political community bolstered by unappealable principles. Michelle Rhee and Diane Ravitch are rigid, often inconsistent and highly unreasonable. However, they defend their respective political communities and influence real outcomes. I can hear taunts from atop the ivory tower that say higher education doesn’t need another divisive character. However, higher education researchers do need principles, leadership and a true political agenda that advance those principles. Like it or not, researchers are influenced by multiple agendas. I would rather have my research promote my field’s political needs.

Our research must become more politically relevant. As a higher education scholar that worked in a post-Katrina environment, I can say my academic work helped erect effective schools, hire teachers committed to New Orleanians, increase college access and assist undocumented immigrant find postsecondary options. Research can stem from and give birth to outcomes that can be measured based on human capital gains. Research can produce political outcomes that don’t compromise the principles it stands upon.

Researchers talk of change that our political behaviors don’t reflect. One could easily argue that most higher education research defends the status quo because of its political detachment. Aloofness in higher education research conveniently serves the aforementioned conservative agenda. The language used in many of the sessions I attended on college access represented the same exclusivity the professors incoherently decried. I used to think that professors understood that discourse on “discourse” stays within the confines of privilege. Illuminating student outcomes using yet another design falls short of providing underserved students an education that results in employment. Waxing poetic about the travails of marginalized populations and evils of neoliberalism won’t pay students’ tuitions. An academic agenda for higher education should be measured based on its ability to deliver real human capital gains.

I actually entered the field in 1998 when President Bill Clinton pledged “to make the thirteenth and fourteenth years of education – at least two years of college – just as universal in America by the twenty-first century as a high school education is today.” I’m still waiting to see a readily accessible research agenda that is part of a movement toward that end. However, in the K-12 reform community, there’s an expectation that research contributes towards academic growth, school erection, improved teacher training, or some other tangible outcome. You don’t have to agree with what new-aged reformers stand for, but seeing a political agenda reflects their influence on delivering it.

If anyone outside of the AERA is to deem higher education research worthy, we must demonstrate its relevance. Education research can be and should be measured by its ability to add human capital to people who need it most. Enough with the affectations of word-making and “discourse shifting.” Enough replication of findings long since found. Enough of the poorly veiled polemics that are positioned as research based in discovery. As the urban research group N.W.A. once said, “Don’t get high off your own supply.”

It’s time higher education researchers made our politics explicit and our research matter. 

Dr. Andre Perry (@andreperryedu), founding dean of urban education at Davenport University in Grand Rapids, Mich., is the author of The Garden Path: The Miseducation of a City (2011).


This post is part of our Post-Conference Download series. Over the weeks following the 2014 Annual Meeting, we will feature several reflections on the conference.