Last September, Dr. Yolanda Watson Spiva co-authored an Inside Higher Ed article with Dannette Howard titled, “Fighting Patterns of Inequality.” A must-read for anyone interested how the pandemic has affected—and continues to affect—higher education, especially, in relation to how Covid-19 has highlighted and exacerbated profound economic disparities. 

Higher education is already a minefield for students of color--and the issues that make it so have risen to the forefront as schools across the country each tackle the pandemic in their own ways. In their article, Dr Spiva and Dr. Howard propose ways in which colleges and universities are in a unique position to lead the charge on change in the post-pandemic landscape, in particular, in relation to the value and availability of educational opportunities beyond high school. 

Dr. Bruce Vandal is a nationally renowned consultant who works with colleges, universities, state agencies, legislative bodies, and governors’ offices across the country to implement student success initiatives and policies. In this episode, we discuss evidence-based reform, a concept that has become exponentially important over the past decade, as colleges, universities, and government bodies, grapple with unprecedented changes in higher education.  

Boise State’s First-Year Writing program is one of the country’s leading innovators when it comes to student placement in college composition. Whereas most colleges and universities still rely heavily on standardized test scores, many schools are starting to use other measures like High School GPA, but Boise State has arguably taken this farther than almost all schools by creating an online multiple measures course matching tool that uses information such as high school GPA, standardized test scores, reading/writing assessment, AND student projections based on careful consideration of course materials and external factors to match students with the appropriate first year writing course. Or, as you’ll hear in the interview, think of it as a dating app for students, designed to set students up with their ideal composition class.