Delivering Promise

Equity-Driven Educational Change and Innovation in Community and Technical Colleges

Xueli Wang author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Harvard Educational Publishing Group

Published:30th Apr '24

Should be back in stock very soon

Delivering Promise cover

An invigorating take on how community and technical colleges can center equity in fostering institutional transformation.

In Delivering Promise, award-winning scholar of higher education Xueli Wang tells a story of educational change and innovation that has and continues to occur at countless campuses of community and technical colleges. Wang weaves together a careful account of how faculty, staff, administrators, institutional researchers, and college leaders rapidly adjusted to crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic, while grappling with a new or renewed commitment to centering equity in their work. Her rich analysis of their successes and struggles is based on interviews with more than a hundred college stakeholders across several states, site visits, and reviews of voluminous media sources and internal documents. 

In this inspiring and insightful work, Wang highlights compelling examples of equity-driven innovation in community and technical colleges across a wide range of areas, including classroom instruction, student supports, institutional research, external partnerships, leadership, and policymaking. She discusses ways to remove long-existing barriers to access so that these colleges may increase enrollment and better serve minoritized student populations. She also illustrates how to ground humanity in institutional practices, structures, and policies to serve the whole student and holistically support faculty and staff.  

Culminating with a path forward toward equity-driven innovation for community and technical college education, Xueli Wang brings to the forefront optimal strategies for change that center equity as both a process and outcome, both in times of dire need and into the far future. 

“This is an essential read for every community and technical college practitioner. Wang offers a unique, compelling, and inside look at what equity-inspired and equity-centered innovation looks like in our classrooms, student support functions, data-informed support systems, community-based partnerships, and institutional cultures. The reflective questions at the end of each chapter, and their answers, will help us chart forward a next generation of innovation that advances equitable student success across our sector and beyond.” - Karen Stout, president and CEO, Achieving the Dream

Delivering Promise illuminates how educators are enacting equity-driven student success reforms in response to extraordinary and enduring challenges in the wake of the pandemic. Wang, the preeminent community college scholar-storyteller, guides readers into a heartening journey of individual and institutional transformation, synthesizing findings into concluding imperatives that outline a path forward.” - John Fink, senior research associate and program lead, Community College Research Center, Teachers College–Columbia University

Delivering Promise challenges the assumption that equity is inherent, cautioning against well-intended efforts that may inadvertently impede progress. Addressing the race-centered nature of inequity and emphasizing institutional accountability, the book navigates change and innovation through an equity lens. With a central message of hope and possibilities, it highlights community and technical colleges as potent grounds for equity-driven innovation. Practical yet insightful, this book is a guide to transformative educational change.” - Kimberly Lowry, director of Leadership and Impact, Aspen Institute

ISBN: 9781682538890

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 272g

264 pages