Conversations on Promoting Pathways
and Access to Higher Education
The Center for Educational Outreach (CEO),
Projects Promoting Equity in Urban and Higher Education and the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) presents a series of lectures that will engage the U-M community in conversations on promoting pathways
and access to college.
To RSVP for any or all of the lectures, please visit: http://www.ceo.umich.edu/speakerseries.html
Helping Underserved Students Gain Access to College
Dr. Rick Dalton, CEO and President, College for Every Student
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Friday, Sept. 11, 11:30-1PM Location: School of Education – Tribute Rooom |
Rick Dalton, CFES founder, president, and CEO, oversees all CFES programs. Dalton has spent the last 24 years increasing opportunities for at-risk youth through school-college engagement. While serving as director of enrollment planning at Middlebury College, he created a partnership with a Bronx school that helped launch and strengthen more than 100 school-college partnerships. Dalton has written more than 120 articles and op-eds on college access and success for underserved students. He has served on numerous boards, including the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and the New England Board of Higher Education’s Task Force to Improve Minority Education.
Beyond Barriers: Black Male College Access, Adjustment, and Achievement
Dr. Shaun Harper, Assistant Professor of Higher Education, University of Pennsylvania
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Wednesday, Oct. 7, 1:30-3PM Location: Michigan Union – Pond Room |
Shaun Harper is on the faculty in the Higher Education Division at the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education. He also holds an appointment in the Center for Africana Studies at Penn. Harper maintains an active research agenda that examines racism and gender disparities in American higher education, Black male college access and achievement, and college student engagement.
Harper has published six books and more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and other academic publications. He has also presented more than 100 research papers, symposia, and workshops at national education conferences since 2001. His newest single-authored book, Exceeding Expectations: Black Male College Achievers and Insights into Success, is being published by Harvard University Press.
In September 2007, Harper was featured on the cover of Diverse Issues in Higher Education for his National Black Male College Achievement Study, the largest-ever empirical study of Black male undergraduates. He has been awarded over $900,000 in research grants from the Lumina Foundation for Education, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and other sources to fund his research. Harper received the 2005 Emerging Scholar Award and the 2006 Annuit Coeptis Award for early career achievement, both from the American College Personnel Association. In 2008, the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics presented him its Outstanding Contribution to Research Award. Also, he is recipient of the 2008 Association for the Study of Higher Education’s Early Career Award.
Harper earned his bachelor’s degree in Education from Albany State, a historically Black university in Georgia, and his Ph.D. in higher education administration from Indiana University.
Understanding the Roles of Academic Preparation, Financial Resources, and Information in the College Enrollment of Underrepresented Students
Dr. Laura Perna, Associate Professor of Higher Education, University of Pennsylvania
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Wednesday, Feb. 3, 1:30-3PM Location: Rackham Graduate School – Assembly Hall |
Dr. Perna joined the faculty as associate professor in 2005. Prior to her appointment at Penn GSE, she served on the faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park; as a research scientist and director of data analysis, as well as acting director, at the Frederick Patterson Research Institute of the United Negro College Fund; and as director of institutional research at the University of Dallas.
Her research has been supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Science, Lumina Foundation for Education, American Educational Research Association, and Association for Institutional Research. She serves as a member of the technical review group for the GEAR UP follow-up evaluation and the Upward Bound and Student Support Services Innovative Practices Study, the technical review panels for the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, the Beginning Postsecondary Student Survey, and the Baccalaureate and Beyond Study, the external advisory committee for the National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs, the research advisory board for the Thurgood Marshall Fund, the advisory board for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education GEAR UP Advisory Committee, the Board of Directors of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, and Lumina Foundation for Education’s Research Advisory Committee.
In addition, she serves or has served on the editorial boards of the American Education Research Journal, Journal of Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, Journal of Women in Higher Education, and Journal of the Professoriate, and is a consulting editor for Research in Higher Education. In 2003, the Association for the Study of Higher Education awarded her the Promising Scholar/Early Career Achievement Award. She has also served on the Board of Directors for the Association for the Study of Higher Education and the Division J Council of the American Educational Research Association. She has been elected to serve a three-year term as Vice President of Division J of the American Educational Research Association beginning April 2010.
Her scholarship uses an integrated theoretical approach and a variety of analytic techniques to understand the ways that public policies, social structures, and individual characteristics separately and together enable and restrict the ability of women, racial/ethnic minorities, and individuals of lower socioeconomic status to obtain the economic, social, and political opportunities that are associated with two aspects of higher education: access as a student and employment as a faculty member.
The Carolina Covenant: Promise and Platform for Student Success
Shirley Ort, Associate Provost and Director, Office Scholarships and Student Aid, UNC – Chapel Hill
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Friday, March 19, 12-1:30PM Location: School of Education – Tribute Room |
Shirley Ort administers a comprehensive program of $220 million in student aid to 15,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. She also advises campus administrators on matters related to tuition, student aid policy, student aid research, and national issues and trends related to the federal role in student aid and higher education funding. Prior to joining Chapel Hill in 1997, she served as deputy director for student financial aid at the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board for 18 years. Shirley is active in national student aid associations and currently serves as Chair of the College Scholarship Service of the College Board, and is a Trustee of the College Board.
A native of Michigan, she holds a Bachelor’s degree in history from Spring Arbor University, a M.A. in medieval history from Western Michigan University, and a J.D. from Seattle University School of Law. She remains an active member of the Washington State Bar Association.
From Farm Labor to Academic Labor
Dr. Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner, Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Arizona State University
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Friday, April 9, 2009, 12-1:30PM Location: School of Education - Tribute Room |
Dr. Turner is a Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Lincoln Professor of Ethics and Education, and Doctoral Program Director for Higher and Postsecondary Education at Arizona State University. Recognizing her exemplary scholarship, Turner is the 2009 Recipient of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Scholars of Color in Education Distinguished Career Contribution Award and the 2009 AERA Dr. Carlos J. Vallejo Memorial Award for Lifetime Scholarship, the 2008 Recipient of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Council on Ethnic ParticipationMildred Garcia Award for Exemplary Scholarship, and the recipient of the 2008 & 2009 Mary Lou Fulton College of Education Dean’s Faculty Excellence Award. She currently serves as the state site coordinator for the Arizona Education Policy Fellowship Program, as President of the College of Education Faculty Council, and as Past President of the Arizona State University Chicano/Latino Faculty and Staff Association. Her research and teaching interests include access, equity and leadership in higher education, faculty gender and racial/ethnic diversity, organizational change, and the use of qualitative methods for policy research. Her publications include a book entitled Diversifying the Faculty: A Guidebook for Search Committees, which is widely adopted selling over 15,000 copies nationally and internationally, a co-authored book entitled Faculty of Color in Academe: Bittersweet Success, and a co-edited book, Understanding Minority-Serving Institutions.
Dr. Turner has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, and presently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Hispanic Higher Education. She is one of the founding editorial advisory board members for the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. She was elected and served on the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Board of Directors. In 2001-2002, she was selected as an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow. Dr. Turner has also served as interim dean for research for the Arizona State University College of Education and as coordinator for faculty programs at the University of Minnesota where she co-founded a national symposium on the recruitment and retention of faculty of color entitled “Keeping Our Faculties.”
Professor Turner’s research includes a Spencer Foundation funded study of the faculty search committee process and hiring of faculty of color, a PEW Foundation funded study of Latino faculty in theological education, a Ford Foundation funded study of Diversity in Academe Post-Grutter, a Stanford University funded study of Pre – 16 reforms and the promise of a seamless educational system, and a study of women of color presidents in higher education. Recently, she was a Visiting Scholar with the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research (SIHER) and named a Distinguished Alumni Scholar by Stanford University. Turner received her undergraduate degree and master’s degree in Educational Psychology from the University of California, Davis and her doctorate in Administration and Policy Analysis from the Stanford University School of Education.
For updated information on the speaker series, please periodically visit this website or contact the Center for Educational Outreach, umceo@umich.edu, 734-647-1402.






