From select few to expanding access: Conversations on reinventing higher ed

"Thanks to the opportunities granted me to learn, I am not the person I was supposed to be. Rather, I am the person that I dreamed of becoming." 

This quote from Dr. Ruth J. Simmons' memoir Up Home: One Girl’s Journey resonated with me while reading the preview of her book last week. 

In her book, Simmons chronicles her rise from a sharecropping family of 12 children in Jim Crow Texas to become the first African American president of Smith College and then Brown University. She is one of four authors to be interviewed in the coming months in the online book conversation series, Academic Innovation for the Public Good (AI4PG), which I am helping to organize as a Stanford Digital Education graduate fellow. 

The reason the quote resonated with me is because I faced a dilemma when I got accepted into Stanford’s and Harvard’s graduate programs: how would I afford such a prestigious yet prohibitively expensive education? While I was able to arrange for financial support to attend my first choice, Stanford, I recognized my privilege in having this opportunity. It deepened my understanding of how many equally bright and motivated students are denied access to top-tier universities due to spiraling costs, difficulty in relocating, systemic and unconscious bias, inequities in academic preparedness, and their own sense that they do not belong.

Many institutions recognize these challenges, and AI4PG, spearheaded by Stanford Digital Education and Trinity College, was created to bring them together in the search for solutions. More than 20 leading colleges and universities are supporting the initiative as partners and co-sponsors. I see promoting this effort as a step toward building a movement that could strengthen higher education as an engine of equitable opportunity. 

On January 24, we will kick off the third season with a session on the book The Synthetic University: How Higher Education Can Benefit from Shared Solutions and Save Itself. It will feature author James Shulman, vice president of the American Council of Learned Societies, in conversation with Stanford Professor of Education Mitchell Stevens, who offered a quick preview of their conversation: “Universities have gotten very good at competing with each other — at great cost to the governments, families, and philanthropies who foot the bill — but what about cooperating? James Shulman makes a compelling case for reviving a legacy of collaboration in American higher education. Doing so promises to make teaching, learning, and scholarship better and more cost-effective — even more humane.”  

The conversation continues on March 20 with Simmons, whose book honors the teachers who nurtured her potential and the power of education to create social change. She will be interviewed by James Campbell, professor of history at Stanford, who was on the faculty at Brown when Simmons was president. 

The series finale on May 15 features Bryan Penprase and Noah Pickus, authors of The New Global Universities: Reinventing Education in the 21st Century, highlighting how visionary new institutions worldwide are reinventing higher education for the 21st century. The book describes the founding of eight new colleges and universities in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and North America. Penprase is a vice president at Soka University, which opened in Southern California in 2001. Pickus is associate provost at Duke University with responsibilities for global initiatives, among other things.  

The event series promises vital discourse on solving some of academia's most pressing issues — affordability, access, diversity, and engagement for the greater good, among others. The hour-long online discussions include opportunities for questions from audience members. All who care about advancing equitable access and opportunity should contribute to the discussion. There is no cost to attend, though advance registration is required. More details and registration information can be found at the  AI4PG website.

Khaulat Abdulhakeem is a Stanford Digital Education fellow and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in education data science at Stanford.