Institute News

SIHEP Symposium:

Economic and Racial Diversity in American Higher Education: A Current and Future Perspective under Obama and the Supreme Court

The Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy hosted a symposium to address economic and racial diversity in American higher education on March 30, 2012. The panelists were scholars who contributed to the recently published, Diversity in American Higher Education: Toward a More Comprehensive Approach edited by Lisa M. Stulberg, associate professor of educational sociology, and Sharon Lawner Weinberg, professor of statistics and applied psychology, at NYU Steinhardt.

Ada Meloy, General Counsel for the American Council on Education, served a moderator for a discussion with Lia Epperson (American University Washington College of Law), Bridget Terry Long (Harvard Graduate School of Education), and Mitchell L. Stevens (Stanford University).  Panelists discussed the ways that colleges and universities can foster affordable and accessible education for all students, as well as how legal, financial, and sociological issues affect economic and racial diversity.

Photo (left to right):  Sharon Weinberg, Bridget Terry Long, Lia Epperson, Ada Meloy, Mitchell L. Stevens, Lisa Stulberg.

Publication by Robert Teranishi: 

Asians in the Ivory Tower: Dilemmas of Racial Inequality in American Higher Education

Steinhardt Institute researcher Robert Teranishi draws on his vast research to present this timely and compelling examination of the experience of Asian Americans in higher education. Asians in the Ivory Tower explores why and how Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) are important to our nation's higher education priorities and places the study of AAPI college participation within a broad set of conditions through which all students must navigate as they pursue higher education. Dr. Teranishi captures the intersections of individual agency, social conditions, and organizational structures as synergetic forces that result in a range of postsecondary outcomes for subpopulations within the larger body of AAPIs.

Transcending narrow generalizations about this understudied population, this seminal book:

• Debunks false stereotypes about AAPI students and their educational trajectories.
• Offers a unique empirical perspective on racial stratification in higher education through case studies that mix quantitative data with narratives of lived stories.
• Examines the educational experiences and routes to college for AAPIs, and examines broader issues around racial inequality and debates about affirmative action.
• Captures the nuances and complexity of race, offering theoretical perspectives that can be applied to other populations.

Dr. Teranishi is an associate professor of higher education in New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development as well as principal investigator of the National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander research in Education, also at New York University.