CUE Symposium: Community College Practitioners & Policymakers Share Thoughts on Student Success
(L-R: Dr. Estela Mara Bensimon, co-director of the USC Center for Urban Education and professor of higher education at the USC Rossier School of Education; Dr. David Morse, secretary for the Academic Senate and member of the Task Force on Student Success for Calfornia Community Colleges; Dr. Barry Russell, vice chancellor of academic affairs for California Community Colleges; Suzanne Reed, chief of staff for State Sen. Carol Liu)
Select faculty, staff and administrators from eleven California community colleges and key policy stakeholders shared strategies on student success at the Center for Urban Education (CUE) Equity and Student Success Symposium last Friday in downtown Los Angeles. With over forty practitioners and policymakers in attendance, the symposium bridged diverse dialogue about what constitutes student success and ways in which postsecondary education reform, despite limited resources, should incorporate indicators of equity.
A morning panel of leaders from Santa Ana College and Los Medanos College described how CUE's
benchmarking workshops and
BESST™ tool has provided a concrete language with which they can raise important, though contentious, issues of equity. Members of the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office
Task Force on Student Success led a discussion during the latter half of the program, putting forth a variety of metrics and practices that will be incorporated into a statewide plan to improve student retention and completion.
CUE Changes University of Wisconsin Transfer Policy
The University of Wisconsin System (UWS) Board of Regents' Education Committee approved a revised transfer policy last Friday that incorporated recommendations made by the Center for Urban Education (CUE) in its 2010
Wisconsin Transfer Equity Study. CUE's Wisconsin Transfer Equity Study brought leaders together from the UW System, its University of Wisconsin Colleges, the Wisconsin Technical College System, and partner campuses to review practices and policies that affect equity in outcomes between students of color and their white peers. Findings from the review addressed in the revised policy include increased accountability in transfer reporting by using transfer indicators and adopting equity benchmarks to achieve parity in transfer outcomes.
View presentation to the Board of Regents' Education Committee.
Dr. Brendesha Tynes will be joining the school as Associate Professor of Education Psychology on January 1, 2012. 
Dr. Joanna Smith, 
Dr. Larry Picus recently offered a presentation titled "Strategies for High Performing Schools in Times of Fiscal Constraint." The June 6th speech was at the invitation of the Arizona Business and Education Partnership in Phoenix.
Dr. Sumun Pendakur (EdD '10), recipient of the 2011 Rossier Dissertation of the Year Award, presented at the 24th Annual National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education on June 4.
Dr. Frank Harris III (Ed.D. '06) has been tenured and promoted to associate professor at San Diego State University. 
