Equity and Leadership in Higher Education Certificate

Total Units Required: 12

A professor communicates with her online students through her laptop.

The self-support postbaccalaureate Certificate in Equity and Leadership in Higher Education is designed for professionals seeking to understand and dismantle systemic inequities within higher education institutions and to provide additional learning and skill development for work in higher education. This program equips students with the knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to critically analyze and strategically address barriers to equity, both historically and in contemporary contexts. This is a one-year online asynchronous certificate program, with some synchronous opportunities. 

Students participate in a cohort, completing four sequential 8-week courses over one year. The cohort model allows for increased academic support and development in addition to networking opportunities with other higher education professionals.

Students who complete this certificate will be able to

  1. Describe the historic and contemporary white supremacist structures of higher education.
  2. Analyze the policy levers that reinforce and remove barriers to higher education equity (national, state, institutional).
  3. Work strategically and collaboratively to transform higher education structures.
  4. Find, analyze, and apply data to drive institutional change.
  5. Produce a capstone project that identifies a higher education equity issue and applies research and theoretical frameworks to address it.

Overall, the certificate in equity and leadership in higher education equips professionals with the knowledge and skills needed to address complex issues of equity and inclusion within the higher education landscape, opening up a range of rewarding career paths dedicated to advancing social justice and educational equity.