Photo: Adam Baker

Shirley Collado announced last week that she's leaving her job as president of Ithaca College to become the president and CEO at College Track, an organization that supports low-income and first-generation students from ninth grade through college graduation. The move aligns with her resume but is unorthodox for a college leader.

In this interview, Collado talks about her latest career move, what she learned while at Ithaca, and why she has made it her life's work to focus on issues of access, affordability, and equity. 

After nearly three semesters of the pandemic painting new, evolving pictures of college life and coursework, students have definite ideas about student success. Many reference hurdles to their success, including job loss, the loss of loved ones to COVID-19, food and housing insecurity, and mental health struggles. Others focus on what supports can help.

Their insight, captured as part of a "Student Voice" survey of 2,000 students, may help administrators and faculty members better understand what students need and want as COVID-19 and its effects linger into the fall semester and beyond.

The high-profile tenure battles that made headlines in recent weeks—Nikole Hannah-Jones‘s at the University of North Carolina, Cornel West‘s at Harvard University—have come alongside an apparent rise in professors of color sharing their own injustices publicly. Some have taken to the courts—suing their institutions for discrimination, for instance. More often, they’ve fought their tenure denials through the court of public opinion.

No matter the avenue they choose, some scholars say those who are denied tenure now have more agency to control their own narrative.