Current Center Projects
Building Pathways from Criminal Justice to College
The Center has formed a long term collaboration with the Reentry Education Network, College Initiative, and the Criminal Justice Initiative at Columbia University, to involved in providing post-secondary access and success for people with criminal justice designed to: (1) to document the collective impact of reentry education strategies on program participants and on the policies and practices of responsible criminal justice and educational institutions; (2) to systematically identify and analyze the mechanisms and strategies used to cultivate networks and social capital for the target populations, (3) to develop tools for assessing and building networks and relationships that increase access and success, (4) to share this information with a larger reentry education network in New York City and disseminate it nationally to stimulate increased attention to developing and researching effective postsecondary educational interventions., and (5) to increase the capacity of the member organizations and the Network to continue and expand their work.
Building the Architecture of Full Participation
Syracuse University (SU) and the Center for Institutional and Social Change have developed a long-term research collaboration to understand and facilitate the relationship between (1) engaged scholarship that addresses pressing public concerns, (2) the building of a diverse university that enables people from traditionally marginalized communities to participate and thrive, and (3) the cultivation of transformative leadership for social justice as part of an overall strategy of reducing inequality and advancing full participation, or what we term “institutional citizenship.” Through strategic inquiry and larger reflective sessions, this collaboration is designed to connect research, teaching and engagement projects together, to support the ongoing work of change agents at Syracuse University, to offer frameworks and cross-cutting strategies for advancing full participation, to develop an understanding of indicators that both drive and track collective impact, and to build the capacity of transformative leaders with similar goals elsewhere. As a way to advance and focus this work, the Center has begun to map constellations of transformative leadership working together to address public problems through the University’s Scholarship in Action (SIA) initiatives. How do SIA initiatives advance the full participation of faculty, staff, students, and community members, while also advancing research, teaching, and engagement that addresses significant issues affecting different communities? How does the building of institutional citizenship get incorporated into institutional policies and practices?
College Access Programs as Levers for Systems Change
The Center for Institutional and Social Change is working in partnership with Rutgers Future Scholars (“RFS”) and Rutgers University (“RU”) leadership to identify, describe, and develop RFS’ program model, strategies, and networks. The Center is helping to identify ways in which the program can build collective efficacy, and in turn, have impact on participating school districts and Rutgers University so that these institutions can create the conditions necessary for low income, first generation students in New Jersey to progress successfully through high school and to enter and thrive in postsecondary education. As part of this work, the Center is developing knowledge, tools, and strategies to be shared not only with RFS, but with scholars, practitioners, policymakers and students interested in educational access and success for underserved populations.
Culture and Community Initiative
In support of the CCI, the Center is conducting an inquiry and action research project regarding faculty experiences at HBS, which will serve as a window into the culture of HBS and how it operates. The project brings a multi-level systems framework to this inquiry, building on the framework of the Architecture of Inclusion developed by the Project Leader and the Center. The Center’s approach proceeds from the premise that any effort to analyze and undertake shifts towards the conditions of “full engagement” requires understanding system dynamics at multiple levels—individual, interpersonal, organizational, network, and extra-organizational.
Diversity and Innovation Seminar
Diversity and Innovation is a year-long trans-disciplinary seminar and research practicum, which develops innovative frameworks and strategies for addressing structural inequality and advancing new models of citizenship within social institutions.
Indicators of Institutional Transformation
The Center has developed a collaboration with the University of Michigan to produce indicators of institutional transformation and use these indicators to understand how University of Michigan is progressing toward institutionally embedded diversity in three programs aimed at advancing the participation of women and people of color in the academy. These programs include (1) Program review of graduate programs, (2) ADVANCE institutional Transformation, and (3) Masters-to-PhD Bridges programs aimed at increasing diversity. This collaborative inquiry explores how information can be mobilized to enable reflection and change, as well as how these programs can be developed so that they are integrated with each other and into their departments, and so that they become a catalyst and enabler of expanded participation of URM in graduate education and on faculties both at UM and in the larger disciplinary networks.
Lawyers as Boundary Spanning Intermediaries: Facilitating Higher Education Access for Undocumented Students
The Center’s project involves conducting field research and preparing a paper on the roles, strategies, and influences of legal counsel (or others in a position to give such counsel) in institutional behavior on issues of undocumented student access in higher education. This project seeks to understand lawyers as institutional actors operating at the boundaries of institutions and the outside legal and policy environment, in advancing the full participation of undocumented students in higher education. By gathering and collecting the narratives, strategies, and networks of general counsel and other lawyers, the project will produce a research paper that highlights and explains the role of general counsel as providing important organizational “boundary functions” that work to inform institutional leaders' decisions in an area of legal ambiguity and political polarization. The paper will build on work done by the Center, in collaboration with students in the Diversity and Innovation Seminar, on undocumented students as transformative leaders and on institutional strategies for increasing access to higher education for undocumented students.
Linking Diversity and Public Engagement
The Center for Institutional and Social Change has developed a research collaboration with Syracuse University (SU), the University of Southern California (USC), and Imagining America (IA) that proceeds from a shared vision: to build higher education institutions that enable people from all communities, backgrounds, and identities to participate fully, and in the process, to build collective knowledge and capacity needed to solve difficult public problems, a dual agenda we refer to as “institutional citizenship” (Sturm 2006). Consistent with this vision, the project uses collaborative inquiry to advance three linked goals: (1) increasing access, success and full participation in higher education for underrepresented groups and communities, (2) building higher education’s capacity to address urgent challenges facing these communities through public engagement, and (3) prompting the institutional re-imagination needed to facilitate the achievement of these goals.
Network Development
The Center uses network development as a key strategy for advancing our theory of change, as well as an indicator of full participation. These networks involve collaborations among multi-faceted transformative leaders to identify and address shared visions, challenges and commitments and to produce concrete impact in institutions and communities while generating significant learning and research that can be applied broadly.
Transformative Leadership Networks for Social Change
Several projects fall under the umbrella of transformative leadership aimed at building a more just society. They include: co-chairing, a working group on Transformative Leadership for Social Justice, with Nancy Cantor, collaborating with LADO on building a diversity and innovation collaborative linking liberal arts institutions and research universities, developing a network of law students and lawyers focused on cultivating knowledge, curricula, and collaborations facilitating transformative leadership, and producing a podcast series highlighting the work of innovative lawyers involved in social change.
