An equity imperative and a new book

Did you know that only 50% of American college students that begin a baccalaureate degree program finish within six years?  As stunning as this is, the numbers are even more alarming when you look at the completion rates for students of color, first-generation college students, and low-income students.  Colleges and universities have a huge opportunity to educate, empower, and graduate these marginalized student populations to the same degree as their privileged peers.  This gulf between the student success outcomes of students of color, first generation college students, and low-income students and their peers is now being called the opportunity gap. Within this framework is a call to action for higher education.
 
We must close this gap and, luckily, there are new resources available to help in this essential task.  One is an exciting new book, “Closing the Opportunity Gap: Identity-Conscious Strategies for Retention and Student Success,” from Stylus Publishing.  As the editor of this collection, I called upon a wide variety of student affairs educators who currently work in the trenches with higher-risk student communities and asked them to write clear, how-to chapters to help colleagues across the country launch critical programs and interventions for student success without having to reinvent the wheel.
 
Beyond showcasing a number of proven programs, this book captures a new, intersectional paradigm for curricula and pedagogy that blends the work of diversity and cultural centers with retention and graduation strategy to produce powerful levers to drive accelerated persistence and student outcomes.

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Stylus Publishing is offering a 20% discount with the code OPPGAP:

Thanks, and let's empower all of our students to graduate!

Vijay