Keynotes

SUNY-wide keynote: Advancing equity through guided pathways

Michael Collins, Vice President, Jobs for the Future

Moderator: Jennifer Miller, Executive Director, NYS Student Success Center & Assistant Vice Chancellor for Community College Support, SUNY

recorded session

Session Description: The U.S. postsecondary education and workforce training systems play a critically important role in advancing economic mobility, and guided pathways are an especially promising approach to increasing credential attainment. But Black learners, along with their Latinx and Indigenous peers, experience greater barriers to access and success in higher education. Moreover, they are underrepresented in the programs of study that lead to high-wage jobs. To create equitable opportunity for economic opportunity and advancement, higher education institutions must reimagine the ways in which they encourage and support these learners to select and complete programs of study that are associated with high wage jobs and careers in industries that are projected to grow. In this session, JFF Vice President, Michael Collins, will draw on lessons from JFF's Racial Economic Equity Initiative that suggest an urgent need to augment guided pathways with a holistic approach that integrates solutions to the specific challenges that Black learners face in our education and workforce training systems and in our nation's labor market.

Day 1 keynote: Creating a culture of equity: Shared equity leadership on campus

Adrianna Kezar, PhD, Wilbur Kieffer Endowed Professor and Dean's Professor of Leadership, USC, Director of the Pullias Center (pullias.usc.edu) and Director of the Delphi Project

Moderator: Kimberley Collins, Associate Vice President, Academic Services, Monroe Community College

recorded session

Session Description: In this session, participants will learn about a research-based model of leadership that is able to scale culture change so that all students, staff, and faculty experience an environment of inclusion, belonging and equity. In addition to learning about the model, participants will learn about implementation and ways to make this real on their campus.

Day 2 keynote: How to achieve more equitable community college student outcomes (and build back enrollment post-COVID)

Dr. Davis Jenkins, Senior Research Scholar, Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University

Moderator: Renee Dimino, SUNY Guided Pathways Project Director and Associate Professor, Monroe Community College

recorded session

Session Description: Davis Jenkins, Senior Research Scholar at the Community College Research Center, will draw on lessons from six years of research he and his colleagues have conducted on efforts by colleges nationally to implement whole-college guided pathways reforms and suggest ways that SUNY community colleges can achieve more equitable student outcomes while building back enrollments in the wake of COVID. He will challenge participating colleges to consider how best to focus their resources and energies in the next year and beyond to maximize benefits for students while ensuring that their institutions continue to thrive in an extraordinarily challenging environment