2018 Commencement Keynote Speaker
Thu, 1 March, 2018 at 9:23 am
Cañada
College is proud to announce the Keynote Speaker for its 50th
Commencement, Estela Mara Bensimon!
Estela
Mara Bensimon
Director
and Professor of Higher Education
Estela Mara
Bensimon is a professor of higher education at the USC Rossier School of
Education and Director of the Center for Urban Education, which she founded in
1999. With a singular focus on increasing racial equity in higher education
outcomes for students of color, she developed the Equity Scorecard—a process
for using inquiry to drive changes in institutional practice and culture. Since
its founding, CUE has worked with thousands of college professionals—from
presidents to faculty to academic counselors, helping them take steps in their
daily work to reverse the impact of the historical and structural disadvantages
that prevent many students of color from excelling in higher education. The
innovative Equity Scorecard process takes a strengths-based approach starting
from the premise that faculty and administrators are committed to doing “the
good.” CUE builds upon this premise by developing tools and processes that
empower these professionals as “researchers” into their own practices, with the
ultimate goal of not just marginal changes in policy or practice, but shifts on
those campuses towards cultures of inclusion and broad ownership over racial
equity.
Professor
Bensimon’s critical action research agenda has been supported by grants from
the Ford Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumina
Foundation, Teagle Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and
The James Irvine Foundation.
Dr. Bensimon has held the highest leadership positions in the
Association for the Study of Higher Education (President, 2005-2006) and in the
American Education Research Association, Division on Postsecondary Education
(Vice-President, 1992-1994). In 2017, she was elected to the National Academy
of Education and she was presented with the 2017 Social Justice in Education
Award by the American Education Research Association. Dr. Bensimon was
associate dean of the USC Rossier School of Education from 1996-2000 and was a
Fulbright Scholar to Mexico in 2002. She earned her doctorate in higher
education from Teachers College, Columbia University.