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SENIOR SCHOLARS
- C. Adolfo Bermeo, Ph.D.
Dr. C. Adolfo Bermeo is a Senior Scholar with the Pell Institute. Dr. Bermeo works with state, national, and international organizations committed to social justice and to increasing access to higher education for historically underrepresented, first generation, low income, and immigrant students. On the international level, he works closely with ECHO and the Dutch Ministry of Education in their efforts to increase access to higher education for immigrant populations in the Netherlands. Dr. Bermeo retired from UCLA, where he was Associate Vice Provost for Student Diversity and Community College Partnerships, Director of the Academic Advancement Program (AAP), and a faculty member in the Cesar Chavez Center for Chicano/a Studies, in late 2005.
While at UCLA, Dr. Bermeo moved AAP and its 6000 students from the margins to the center of UCLA academic life and made AAP a nationally recognized program through the development of his Pedagogy of Excellence. His commitment to transfer students led to the development of AAP's Center for Community College Partnerships, the Transfer Student Center, and the Transfer Summer Program and resulted in an 83% graduation rate for AAP transfer students. His development of AAP's Graduate Mentor Program and McNair Program led to a substantial increase in the number of AAP students going on to graduate and professional schools. The UCLA Academic Senate recognized Dr. Bermeo's contributions to a diverse academic environment at UCLA by awarding him the Chancellor's Fair and Open Academic Environment Award.
Dr. Bermeo is particularly interested in the impact of immigration on the cultural, political, social, educational, and economic experience of Latino immigrants to the United States. As an immigrant himself, he has been a strong advocate for Latino immigrants, and particularly for undocumented students. At UCLA, he was instrumental in establishing IDEAS, an immigrant student organization advocating for the rights of undocumented immigrants in higher education.
Prior to his work at UCLA, Dr. Bermeo was a faculty member and administrator at Compton Community College, where he was Director of Chicano/a-Latino/a Studies and the faculty sponsor of MEChA. While at Compton, Dr. Bermeo established and directed a number of programs, including the UCLA Transfer Consortium; the Tutorial Program; the Outreach and Recruitment Program; and the Transfer Center and Office of Relations with Schools. Throughout his more than forty year career, Dr. Bermeo has been an outspoken advocate for opening the doors to higher education for low income, first generation college, historically underrepresented, and immigrant students and for social justice for all those denied access to the fruits of United States society. In retirement he continues to advocate for the transformation of our society, for equity for immigrants both here and in Europe, and for a world marked by peace rather than war.
- Thomas G. Mortenson
Thomas G. Mortenson is a Senior Scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education in Washington, D.C. and an independent higher education policy analyst living in Oskaloosa, Iowa.
Tom's policy research focuses on opportunity for postsecondary education and training and the ways public policy fosters or impedes access to that opportunity. He has special concern for populations that are under-represented in higher education. His studies have addressed academic and financial preparation for college, access, choice, persistence, attainment, and labor force entry of college graduates. He is particularly interested in public and private finance of higher education opportunity and the enrollment consequences of the cost-shift from taxpayers to students that has been underway since 1980. He has been employed in policy research and budget analysis roles for the University of Minnesota, Illinois Board of Higher Education, Illinois State Scholarship Commission, and the American College Testing Program.
Currently Tom is editor and publisher of Postsecondary Education OPPORTUNITY, a monthly research letter devoted to analysis and reporting on the demographics, sociology, history, politics and economics of educational opportunity after high school. He provides consulting services on higher educational opportunity policy to state and national organizations, and makes presentations on opportunity throughout the country.
- Lana Muraskin, Ph.D.
Lana Muraskin is an education consultant focusing on evaluation and postsecondary access and retention. Her recent work identifies practices that may improve postsecondary access and outcomes for low income and first generation students. She was the principal investigator of the National Evaluation of Student Support Services and the evaluation’s follow up study of “best practices” in Student Support Services (under subcontract to Westat). She participated in the design and the case study portion of the National Evaluation of Talent Search (under subcontract to Mathematica), and played a major role in the first two years of the National Evaluation of GEAR UP (under subcontract to Westat).
In work with the Council for Opportunity in Education and its institutes, Dr. Muraskin has published Raising the Graduation Rates of Low-Income College Students (with John Lee — support from the Lumina Foundation), Upward Bound Math Science: STEM Enrichment Education that Works (support from the General Electric Foundation), Graduates of Denver Public Schools: College Access and Success (with Pam Buckley — support from Piton Foundation), and A Structured Freshman Year for At-Risk Students (COE monograph). In other recent work, Dr. Muraskin has just completed a design paper for new federal evaluations of the GEAR UP Program, focused on identifying best practices (under contract with RTI). She has also participated in the Achieving the Dream initiative of the Lumina Foundation, aimed at improve persistence and graduation rates in community colleges.
Dr. Muraskin has a Ph.D. in Education from the University of California, Berkeley. She has served as a federal education official, as the research and development director for a national education association, and as a senior staff member and a principal of contract research firms.
- Congressman Louis Stokes
Former United States Congressman Louis Stokes focuses his practice on legislative counseling in the domestic and international public and private sectors. He counsels clients on regulatory matters, specifically federal government and federal legislative issues, with an emphasis on legislative enactments and processes and effective legislative and administrative strategies. Internationally, he advises non-US government representatives and multilateral funding organizations on federal policies and procedures.
Prior to joining the firm, Louis served 15 consecutive terms in the US Congress, representing the Eleventh Congressional District of Ohio. He was the first African American elected to Congress from the state of Ohio. Louis served as a member of the House Appropriations Committee, chaired the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies, and served as the second-ranking Democrat of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. He is the former chair of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the House Intelligence Committee, and the House Ethics Committee and served as a member of the House Iran-Contra Panel.
In 2009, Louis received the inaugural Pillar of Justice Award from the Federal Bar Association, Northern District of Ohio Chapter. In 2010, Louis was honored by the American Bar Association Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession with a 2010 Spirit of Excellence Award for his dedication to expanding opportunity in the legal profession to all minorities, and in 2011 he was inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame.
- Vincent Tinto, Ph.D.
Professor Tinto is a Distinguished University Professor at Syracuse University and until recently Chair of the Higher Education Program. He has carried out research and has written extensively on higher education, particularly on student success and the impact of learning communities on student growth and attainment. His most recent book, Leaving College, published by the University of Chicago Press, lays out a theory and policy perspective on student success that is considered the benchmark by which work on these issues are judged.
He has consulted widely with Federal and State agencies, with independent research firms, foundations, and with two and four-year institutions of higher education on a broad range of higher educational issues, not the least of which concern the success students in higher education in particular those of low-income and underserved backgrounds. He serves on the editorial boards of several journals and with various organizations and professional associations concerned with higher education. He chaired the national panel responsible for awarding $5 million to establish the first national center for research on teaching and learning in higher education and served as Associate Director of the $6 million National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment funded by the U.S. Office of Education.
He works with the Council for Opportunity in Education, the Lumina Foundation for Education, the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, and the United Negro College Fund’s Institute for Capacity Building on issues pertaining to student success in higher education. He has consulted with the European Access Network and the Dutch Ministry of Education to develop programs to promote access to higher education for disadvantaged youth in Europe. His current research, funded by grants from the Lumina Foundation for Education and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, focuses on the impact of learning communities on the academic achievements of under-prepared college students in urban two and four-year colleges.
Dr. Tinto has received numerous recognitions and awards. Most recently he was awarded the Council of Independent Colleges 2008 Academic Leadership Award, the National Institute for Staff Development International 2008 Leadership Award and was named Distinguished Fellow in the Council of Learning Assistance and Developmental Education Associations.
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