21st Century Scholar is the newest undertaking by the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis (CHEPA) at the University of Southern California to contribute to the conversation about the pressing issues facing education. CHEPA began 15 years ago, and we have focused on three broad issues – how to increase access to college for low-income youth; how to improve academic governance and decision-making; and what the implications of globalization are for education. Our website and our print publications have covered topics from the challenges homeless youth face in school to how governing boards of public colleges and universities might improve. Our bi-annual newsletter, The Navigator, focused on special topics such as the financial aid crisis and what schools need to do to improve college-going.
Our intent here is to broaden the dialogue about educational issues in a provocative and timely manner. We will still maintain the three foci of the Center, but we also will comment on hot topics of the day, such as privatization, and evolving interests of ours, such as entrepreneurialism and the changing meaning of the public good.
Randy Clemens, a graduate student in the Center whose interests focus on K-12 education, will help me moderate the discussion and be an active participant. We will have guest bloggers on a regular basis, and we encourage readers to post their own commentaries on what someone has written. We hope the blog is provocative, and we encourage lively, respectful critique of one another’s ideas.
Bill Tierney
