Rural-Serving Institutions and Regional Colleges with Dr. Cecilia Orphan

In this episode of Mile Higher Ed, Dr. Cecilia Orphan joins Sarah and Caitlyn to talk about her work with ARRC, or the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges. ARRC recently released its work creating a designation for rural-serving institutions of higher education (RSIs). We discuss the role RSIs play in higher education, and why more research is needed to support this sector.

 

You can read more about this work on ARRC’s website, www.regionalcolleges.org.

 

About our guest: Dr. Cecilia M. Orphan is a working class, first-generation college graduate who received maximum Pell grants to attend college. As a child, she experienced homelessness and was a welfare recipient. She is personally familiar with the transformative nature of need based financial aid and colleges designed to expand access after attending Linn Benton Community College, a Rural-Serving Institution (RSI), and Portland State University, a Regional Public University (RPU). Simply put, attending these colleges changed her life. She has devoted my career to expanding understanding of and appreciation for RPUs and RSIs so that other students might enjoy the same opportunities she had, and so that higher education’s contributions to equity and democracy are strengthened.  Dr. Orphan is committed to bringing broader exposure and understanding to RPUs and RSIs and improve research, funding, policy, and media coverage of these sectors.

 

Mile Higher Ed is a production of the Higher Education Department at the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver.