🚨New data alert! I published data from my working paper on university governing boards on the Harvard Dataverse. This is the 2023 wave of data, but I'm working with a team of RAs on many more years. Let me know if you use the data!
Data: doi.org/10.7910/DVN/...
Paper: edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1212
In a new Brookings piece, I wrote about how the US Department of Education has turned civil rights enforcement into a tool to promote segregation and discrimination.
www.brookings.edu/articles/how...
📢 #EdWorkingPapers: @taylorodle.bsky.social & @isabelmcmullen.bsky.social evaluate Advise TN’s expansion across 33 communities and find the program increased college enrollment by 6%.
đź“„ Read more: edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1371
Excellent explainer and even-toned reminder from @katharinemeyer.bsky.social about the potential harms to student borrowers that can arise from both policy AND runaway narratives that social media enables
www.brookings.edu/articles/def...
Helpful report for situating boards within broader inter/national trends of partisan control of higher ed. I increasingly think we need focus on reforms that fall between letting boards oversee themselves and those that rise to state constitutional amendment
www.americanprogress.org/article/how-...
Attending #2025APPAM? Check out IRP scholar @isabelmcmullen.bsky.social of the Dept of Poli Sci at the UW-Madison, presenting this paper: “Exploring the Mechanisms and Direct Impact of College Access Advising: The Case of AdviseTN.” Th 11/13, 3:30-5pm, Hyatt Regency Seattle, 5th Flr, Rm: 505
A new analysis by the Upjohn Institute finds that the Rx Kids program delivers measurable economic benefits to families and the broader local economy in Flint, Michigan. Read the full report
www.upjohn.org/research-hig...
🍎🦡 I'm recruiting a PhD student in Ed Policy (fall '26) at @uwmadison.bsky.social! Come work with me on college access, admissions, & fin aid in our top-ranked, fully-funded program. I’m especially excited for this student to immediately join our direct admissions RCT team.
Aerial view of Bascom Hall at sunrise, with campus buildings, Picnic Point, and Lake Mendota in the background.
Good morning, Badgers. Welcome to the Fall 2025 semester.
We wish you a successful start to your academic year.
Let’s begin.
An @afm-union.bsky.social and @sagaftra.org gal.
An NFLPA guy.
We love a union love story. Congrats Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce!
This piece pulls together a lot of recent examples of board-driven actions in higher ed, and rightfully points out that when boards become politicized, they are then subject to those politics at all levels of government: apnews.com/article/harv...
The job market for PhDs may be terrible, but the spectrum internet person that just helped me transfer my internet ended the call by telling me I'm gonna do great things with my degree, so there's that.
In our 2024 U.S. Post-Election Reflection via
@apsa.bsky.social, Rebecca Jacobsen and I preview some of our ongoing research on how partisanship and nationalization influence on-cycle local school board elections.
Screenshot of policy brief that reads: This delay (or outright refusal) to compile a robust COE weakens our nation’s ability to accurately assess the current condition of education and the progress we have made. Policy actors such as the Congressional Research Service use Digest tables. Scholars leverage the COE to explain in policy briefs the effects of K-12 class-size reduction policies or whether an “enrollment cliff” actually looms for higher education. The press also uses this data to help the public understand issues like the rise in total cost of attendance at colleges and universities or challenges in the teacher labor market in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Morning! I did a lil analysis and turns out that, when ED employees are illegally fired and contracts are canceled, ED is unable to fulfill its congressional mandate to publish national statistics on the condition of education.
Why does that matter? Well...
www.brookings.edu/articles/the...
This piece picks up on a lot of important threads of board dynamics, one of which is that for publics, while there isn't the same conspicuousness as with Harvard/Columbia, the same politics are playing out, just more quietly and with less opportunity to rally against
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/u...
Governing boards are at the center of every higher ed story these days. What do we know about board governance? What does board composition look like nationwide, and how is it shaped by partisan appointments? My new working paper introduces new data to these questions:
edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1212
You might as well just hold on to your convictions, since abandoning them all is clearly not a viable strategy against eroding higher ed governance
The Upjohn Institute is looking for a research analyst to support our research on employment issues. Please share with your networks. #econsky #hiring
www.upjohn.org/employment-o...
Weather is getting nice, what if 10 million people went outside at the same time
Board composition, transparency, and accountability to stakeholders matters to the future of higher ed. Inclusive boards of trustees have the intellectual dexterity and structural muscle to make insightful, valued-based decisions that serve missions in harmony with the needs of the stakeholders.
Playing this as my hype music before my dissertation proposal defense today
Thanks, Dominique!
With all of the targeting of higher ed, it's critical that we have a good understanding of who governs our institutions - I wrote this piece for Brookings to summarize what we know. I also show some new data on the politics and representativeness of public boards.
www.brookings.edu/articles/und...
My dad's sign for the #handsoff rally in my hometown of Kalamazoo where apparently a few thousand turned out!
Wisconsin is critical for any presidential candidate, and Wisconsin LOVES when a sharp, no-nonsense, hometown woman on the ballot. Just saying.
Calling results from November "overwhelming" means we need a new word to describe this massive 10 point win by Crawford. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Throwback