Announcements
February 02, 2012
Century Foundation Taps Goldrick-Rab for Community College Task Force
WISCAPE
In his State of the Union address on Jan. 24, President Barack Obama called community colleges a critical part of restoring equal opportunity in America. The president’s prioritization of these institutions in the nation’s postsecondary education goals lends even greater significance to The Century Foundation’s recent announcement of a blue-ribbon Task Force on Preventing Community Colleges from Becoming Separate and Unequal.
In a recent blog post about the task force, Century Foundation Senior Fellow Richard Kahlenberg asserted that while these traditionally open access colleges are being asked to do even more, they also are facing budget cuts and dealing with the challenges of major demographic changes. As a result, the economic and racial divide between two- and four-year colleges is growing. The Century Foundation has asked its task force, supported by the Ford Foundation, to look for ways to address these and other issues, and WISCAPE Senior Scholar Sara Goldrick-Rab will join them in their efforts.
An associate professor of educational policy studies and sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Goldrick-Rab teaches courses on and conducts research related to community colleges, including student outcomes, access for underrepresented and low-income individuals, issues of transfer, and accountability. She will join community college and university presidents, professors, researchers, and policymakers at the first meeting of the task force later this month.
For further details about the task force, including additional context on the issues they will work to address and a full list of members, view The Century Foundation's press release.