Building Student-Driven College & Career Access Programming Webinar

July 29, 2022 12pm PT/ 3pm ET

#EquityBasedCareerDevelopment Webinar Series

April 14, 2022 - June 9, 2022

"Although we know the various programming and interventions can successfully prepare students for postsecondary opportunities, we must ensure K-12 educators as well as faculty and staff at postsecondary institutions know how to work with students of color, first generation college students, and students from vulnerable populations to create access, opportunity, and sustained pathways to and out of postsecondary institutions. We must address the barriers and obstacles that hinder students from achieving the American dream of pursuing a postsecondary education, a good career, and a great quality of life. Some of these challenges include stereotyping and bias, anti-Black racism, lack of access to rigorous coursework (e.g., Honors, Advanced Placement courses), lack of college and career readiness, lack of cultural competence in understanding students who have been historically marginalized and discouraged from pursuing a postsecondary education, and lack of information about financial aid packages" (Hines, Mayes & Harris, 2022).

Research and best practices from an antiracist, culturally sustaining lens are needed to provide educators the solutions needed to ensure every student has an opportunity to receive a postsecondary education. The distinguished and esteemed panelists for the Equity Based Career Development and Postsecondary Readiness Webinar Series will provide cutting edge research with tips and tools needed to implement equity based career development and postsecondary readiness for students in the K-16 educational system.

Remixing College & Career Readiness: A Hip-Hop & School Counseling Think Tank

March 5, 2021

This Think Tank explored the theoretical and practical constructs of a Hip-Hop and school counseling framework designed to propel students academic, social/emotional, and career development. While a bevy of hip-hop education/ counseling research and interventions explore academic content acquisition, and small-group counseling, the potential of hip-hop to refine college and career readiness praxis is less understood. Therefore it was the purpose of this Think Tank for participants to co-define college and career readiness outcomes that hip-hop based practices are uniquely positioned to address, and then to plan the design, implementation, and evaluation of hip-hop and career and college readiness interventions.

Helping Students with College and Career Readiness During a Pandemic

February 25, 2021

Dr.'s Erik Hines, Duane Gregg and Laura Owen discuss the impact of COVID-19 on students' postsecondary decision process. After a decade of efforts to close postsecondary opportunity gaps, COVID-19 has wiped out most of the gains previously noted. The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on high minority and low income schools implores us to begin planning now for the recovery phase, one that must guide students to viable pathways leading to high wage, high demand jobs.

Utilizing Text Messaging to Address Summer and COVID Melt 1

February 10, 2021

The December 2020 High School Benchmarks report confirmed startling college enrollment declines. While high school graduation rates remained stable for the class of 2020, postsecondary enrollment decreased by 21.7 percent nationally and direct high school to college attendance for students from high poverty schools fell by 32.6 percent versus 16.4 percent for low poverty schools. Students attending high minority schools saw attendance decrease by 26.4 percent, while those enrolled in low minority schools witnessed an 18 percent decline. If that news were not alarming enough, early indicators predict a continued downward enrollment trajectory with even more discernible losses ahead. Common App recently shared college application rates are down by 8 percent for first time applicants and applications from students who are first in their family to attend college and those utilizing fee waivers decreased by 16 percent. What was previously referred to as summer melt, has now become the COVID flood.By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Examine current college enrollment trends and the subsequent catastrophic summer/Covid19 melt rates

2. Review student and advisor outcomes from a large national summer melt text messaging intervention

3. Identify tips to utilize text messaging to address student melt

4. Acknowledge the need to address a woefully under resourced postsecondary advising system

5. Recognize that a successful pandemic recovery plan centers on a school's ability to revise their comprehensive advising structures and policies so that all students receive responsive and informed guidance that is adaptable to the daily disruptions and competing challenges from this pandemic.