Daily Lumina News 022221

Aya Hamza’s academic and extracurricular record at Coral Gables Senior High School near Miami should have made her path to college relatively effortless. Instead, she watched in tears as her more affluent friends got help from their parents with their college applications. Her guidance counselor—one of nine in her school, for 3,000 students—was busy dealing with the challenges of remote learning.
Hamza’s struggle is a microcosm of the many ways that the pandemic is worsening the college admissions challenges faced by applicants from families at the bottom of the income scale while heightening the advantages enjoyed by those from families at the top.

Following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police last summer and the increase in protests and discussions around racial justice, institutions began announcing plans to address racial inequity and systemic racism on campus.
As part of this effort, many colleges and universities across the country have focused on finding ways to incorporate principles of the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-racism into the curriculum.

No Zoom class can replicate the experience of studying forestry management or salmon habitats on 1,000 acres of woodland along the Puget Sound. That’s at least partly why Evergreen State College, a campus known for environmental studies, has declared its intent to resume in-person classes this fall.
Announcements like Evergreen’s are trickling out despite admitted uncertainty and with plenty of caveats. While COVID-19 rates are generally declining across the country, cases of the disease are still spiking in some regions. The rollout of vaccines has been slower than expected, and the emergence of COVID-19 variants continues to worry some experts.

An education program is immersing high school students from historically underserved communities in Ivy League classes, and the students’ success has raised questions about how elite university gatekeepers determine college prospects.
For decades, various programs have tried to connect promising students from underserved communities to elite higher education, with some success, but the effort by the National Education Equity Lab is less about matchmaking than challenging students academically, giving them confidence and preparing them for the rigors of competitive colleges.