CMSI Hosts Book Launch Event with the Authors and Editors of Educational Challenges at Minority Serving Institutions

Philadelphia, Pa., April 18, 2018—This Thursday, the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions (CMSI) will be hosting an event celebrating the release of the book, Educational Challenges at Minority Serving Institutions.
 
The event will take place at 4 PM at the Penn Bookstore and will feature a panel of the authors—alumni of the Higher Education program at the University of Pennsylvania—along with the book's editors. The panel will be followed by an opportunity to meet with the authors and editors at an informal reception.
 
The book published by Routledge Press examines some of the challenges that Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) across the country tend to face and provides practical solutions to address those challenges. Each chapter was written by a graduate student in a seminar on MSIs, taught by Marybeth Gasman, the Judy & Howard Berkowitz Professor of Education and Director of the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions.
 
“MSIs educate nearly 40 percent of the nation’s students of color, yet many of them face distinctive challenges that are often not discussed within the larger landscape of higher education,” shares Marybeth Gasman.
 
Some of the book’s topics include the preservation of tribal identity at tribal colleges, examining performance-based funding at HBCUs, how HSIs are supporting Afro-Latinos, articulation practices and policies for transfer students, as well as the ways in which institutions are supporting undocumented students. 
 
“By addressing challenges faced by institutions that tend to serve large populations of students of color, this book aims to assist in policy-making at both the institutional and federal level as we move towards a more equitable society,” shared Casey Boland, one of the editors of the book and a research associate at the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions.
 
Educational Challenges at Minority Serving Institutions is now available for purchase here.
 
About the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions
The Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions (CMSI) brings together researchers and practitioners from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, and Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander Serving Institutions. CMSI’s goals include: elevating the educational contributions of MSIs; ensuring that they are a part of national conversations; bringing awareness to the vital role MSIs play in the nation’s economic development; increasing the rigorous scholarship of MSIs; connecting MSIs’ academic and administrative leadership to promote reform initiatives; and strengthening efforts to close educational achievement gaps among disadvantaged communities. The Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions is part of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. For further information about CMSI, please visit www.gse.upenn.edu/cmsi