Improving Student Success & Equity with Diego Navarro

Listen to the Episode:

Learn how to improve academic success for disproportionately impacted students.

In this episode, I interview Diego Navarro, Professor Emeritus at Cabrillo College and Founder of the Academy for College Excellence.

(Scroll down to access the transcript.)

We cover the following topics:

12:04: Why we need to create "gravity" for students to stay on track and why it's critical to leverage disproportionately impacted student’s strengths in persistence and survival.

18:57: Unpacking practices that create a culture of dignity for students: psychological safety & embodied teaching.

28:40: A one-week immersion that transforms student success and equity

37:13: Two inspirational disproportionately impacted student success stories

48:26: The "ouch" process: helping faculty/staff learn to create an equity-minded culture

Click HERE for research and outcome studies mentioned in the podcast.

Select Diego Navarro episode quotes:

"Educators need to learn how to create 'gravity' because our students have life experience that is a centrifugal force that pulls them away from college. Create gravity to help students 'stick' to your program."

"Disproportionately impacted students have a strength in persistence and survival...They have essentially a PhD in Social Injustice!"

"Our key role is to help take these student's strengths in persistence and survival and help them apply it to college. It's not a reading issue. It's not a writing issue. It's not a math issue. It's an issue of how do you help them have sense of dignity."

"Creating a sense of belonging and psychology safety...in other words, a culture of dignity is key to improving disproportionately impacted student success."

"Students have a stress response system that gets triggered. And it gets triggered in an environment where they don't feel safe. Faculty don't even know they're doing something that's causing that stress response system to kick in. The real issue is that we don't understand learning and physiology."

"When triggered, human beings have a fight, flight freeze or appease pattern. Faculty need to build a relationship and a connection--what I call 'embodied teaching' to help students feel safe."

"We need to move from a culture of threat to a culture of dignity."

To learn more about Diego’s research, impact, and professional development opportunities visit:

http://www.my-ace.org/ |  http://www.diegojamesnavarro.com/

About Diego Navarro:
Diego "James" Navarro's commitment to social change grew, in part, from his work as a community organizer for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker humanitarian aid organization, while still in college. He went on to accrue over twenty years of experience in research and management positions in the computer industry with Hewlett Packard Labs, Apple Computer, and NCR Corporation, and two successful high-tech start-up companies.

Diego began his higher education at his local community college in Southern California, Pasadena City College. While earning his A.A. degree, he supported himself as a Computer Support Specialist at Bank of America. He holds a B.A. in Computer Systems and Business Administration from Antioch University, and a Masters Degree from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Business.

Diego began teaching at Cabrillo College when he founded ACE in 2002. He has also been consistently recognized with many awards honoring his innovative work with ACE. He currently lives in Santa Cruz, California, where he enjoys spending time with his family and playing jazz piano.

About Al Solano:
Al is Founder & Coach at the Continuous Learning Institute. A big believer in kindness, he helps institutions of higher education to plan and implement homegrown practices that get results for students by coaching them through a process based on what he calls the "Three Cs": Clarity, Coherence, Consensus. In addition, his bite-sized, practitioner-based articles on student success strategies, institutional planning & implementation, and educational leadership are implemented at institutions across the country. He has worked directly with over 50 colleges and universities and has trained well over 5,000 educators. He has coached colleges for over a decade, worked at two community colleges, and began his education career in K12. He earned a doctorate in education from UCLA, and is a proud community college student who transferred to Cornell University.

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