Patricia McGuire is president of Trinity Washington University, a Catholic women’s institution in Washington, DC.  Over three decades of leadership, she has committed the university to the service of Black and working-class women in their home community; Trinity’s student body is now 90% women of color and 50% Pell-eligible.  Pat McGuire is also become a vibrant, influential voice for racial equity and economic equality in higher education.  Here we discuss Trinity’s social-justice mission, the public responsibilities of higher ed and higher ed leaders, and her own personal journey.  

Readings:

Patricia McGuire, “How Higher Education Can Atone For Its Long History of Racism” (Chronicle of Higher Education, July 26, 2019)

Patricia McGuire, “How Higher Education’s Data Obsession Leads Us Astray” (Chronicle of Higher Education, October 27, 2019)

Patricia McGuire, “Colleges Share the Blame for the Assault on Democracy” (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 8, 2021)

The Way Forward is a production of Bringing Theory to Practice; to learn more about our work, visit us at www.bttop.org.  Send us your thoughts—and suggestions for future episodes—at info@btop.org.  The podcast is produced by Jabari Butler, and Dan Rudin composed our music.

Michelle Fine is a distinguished social psychologist at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a leading practitioner of Critical Participatory Action Research (C-PAR), research that takes on issues of injustice and social power through partnerships with community members most directly affected by those issues.  She and her colleagues at CUNY’s Public Science Project have worked with incarcerated women, queer youth, New York City high-schoolers, and others.  The resulting research is more ethical, they argue, and it produces deeper knowledge.

This episode explores the values and practices that ground Michelle Fine’s belief in participatory, community-engaged research and teaching.  But it opens out to a larger question: what would it look like for the higher ed as a whole to be fully committed and accountable to communities in crisis?

You can learn more about the work of Fine and her colleagues on the website of CUNY’s Public Science Project, which also offers readings and resources on Critical Participatory Action Research

College Unbound, a small, newly accredited college in Providence, Rhode Island, has been garnering a lot of positive attention lately—with good reason.   It serves adult, working, parenting students, just the kind who are generally been ignored or underestimated by American higher education.  In contrast to the short-term job training that many leaders believe nontraditional students want and need, CU offers an undergraduate degree grounded in project-based learning, peer cohorts, and a culture of full-throated support.  Its graduation rate is around 80%.  Its cost is around $5000 a term. Its students passionately love the program.

In this episode, I speak with Provost Adam Bush about CU’s program and values, the college’s response to the pandemic, and the implications of its model of transformative education not only for adult learners, but for higher ed as a whole.

Along with visiting the College Unbound website, you can learn more by reading:

“Colleges Struggle to Serve Millions of Dropouts.  Have These Men Cracked the Code?” (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 16, 2020)

“College Unbound Helps Working Adults Earn Fast Affordable Degrees” (Forbes, April 22, 2019)

The Way Forward is a production of Bringing Theory to Practice; to learn more about our work, visit us at www.bttop.org.  Send us your thoughts—and suggestions for future episodes—at info@btop.org.  The podcast is produced by Jabari Butler, and Dan Rudin composed our music.