Our Activities

Equity in Action
Grant Program

Investing Resources Back Into The System

The Network’s Equity in Action Grant (EIA) Program seeks to invest resources back into the system to identify, understand, and disrupt inequities, as well as focus on opportunities for students to learn, engage, progress, and complete courses on time. The intention of this program is to draw faculty, staff, students, and middle level administrators to support innovative thinking, research, and evidence-based practices that lead to institutional change and specifically address equity-related challenges. 

Our target applicants are middle leaders in the CSU. This program prioritizes projects that were characterized by an action-research orientation that focuses on measurable “on the ground” activities already in process or that are ready for action soon after funding. These grants are not designed to support purely research activities. 

Requests for Proposals for the EIA Grants are now closed! 

Read the Final Report on impacts from the 2021 EIA Grants.

RFPs are Closed

The goals of the Equity in Action Grant Program include:

  • Supporting current efforts at CSU campuses to close equity gaps in student outcomes in cases where the funding can expand or improve such efforts
  • Launching new efforts at CSU campuses to close equity gaps in student outcomes
  • Generating a knowledge base of supported equity actions across the CSU and to allow for determinations as to which of these efforts are most effective or impactful
  • Learning about challenges in implementing equity actions across the CSU campuses via progress reports and final reports from funded activities

Current Grant Recipients

Jennifer Sturtevant

Student-Parent Pathways and Support Initiative (SPPSI)

jsturtevant@csustan.edu

California State University, Stanislaus (Stan State) proposes to pilot the Student-Parent Pathways and Support Initiative (SPPSI), an initiative led by Jennifer Sturtevant, a coordinated, cross-divisional effort to strengthen institutional support for current student-parents while establishing a structured transfer pathway from four regional community colleges: Modesto Junior College, Merced College, Columbia College, and San Joaquin Delta College. SPPSI addresses addresses barriers these students face, such as childcare, transportation, and financial stability that impact persistence and completion. Through alignment of campus partners and proactive outreach to students identified through AB 2881, the initiative shifts from a reactive approach to a more integrated, student-centered model.

Kyla Walters

Seawolf 411 Transfer Success Communities

kyla.walters@sonoma.edu

To address the challenges of transfer enrollment and retention, the Seawolf 411 Transfer Success Communities (TSCs) project for first-time transfer (FTT) students, led by Kyla Walters, will offer a resource-efficient, scalable model during their first semester at Sonoma State that draws on the university’s current structures to deliver an equity-centered transition curriculum. TSCs carve out a pathway for transfer students to access campus resources, develop faculty ties, and establish relationships within their cohort. Creating this institutional pathway will boost FTT outcomes: increase first-semester academic performance and sense of belonging, while reducing equity gaps. Specifically, the pilot will target measurable improvements in GPA, persistence, and student engagement indicators for participating students.

Shayna Citrenbaum

The Guardian Scholars Program

ccorella@calpoly.edu

The Guardian Scholars Program at Cal Poly SLO, led by Shayna Citrenbaum, supports former foster youth as well as homeless and other independent youth. Our foster youth are generously funded by a state grant that supports all CSUs; however, the funding cannot be used for other Guardian Scholars—homeless, orphaned, and other independent youth who have not spent time in the foster care system but still require substantial support to be successful and afford the increasing costs of Cal Poly. This pilot program will test an equity-based scholarship allocation model for foster-adjacent students who fall outside existing state funding structures. Findings from this pilot will inform campus fundraising strategy and contribute to broader CSU conversations about supporting homeless and independent students who are not eligible for foster-designated funds.

Nina Abramzon

Equitable Paid Internship Pathways in Physics and Astronomy

nabramzon@cpp.edu

Project lead, Nina Abramzon, and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Cal Poly Pomona, propose to pilot an equity-centered, paid pre-internship pathway that expands access to experiential learning for students who face structural barriers to traditional internships.  Participation in internships remains limited—particularly in Physics, where pathways into industry are less structured than in fields such as engineering and where students are less likely to secure internships independently. As a result, many students—especially first-generation, low-income, and working students—graduate without access to the experiential learning, professional networks, and career preparation needed for successful transitions into the workforce or graduate study.

Ryan Khoo

Southern Region Learning Centers Online Student Success Consortium

rospencer@csudh.edu

The proposed Southern Region Learning Centers Online Student Success Consortium project, led by Ryan Khoo, seeks to address this challenge of institutional boundaries surrounding access to timely, high-quality academic support, such as tutoring, Supplemental Instruction, and academic coaching programs. By piloting a new collaborative model that expands equitable access to tutoring and academic coaching through cross-institutional partnership, this initiative will create a shared system that allows students to access academic support services across participating campuses through a centralized digital scheduling platform. Linking academic support programs across institutions will transform individual campus resources into a regional ecosystem of learning support, expanding both the range and availability of services accessible to students.

Yvette Zuniga

Dream Leaders Fellowship: AB540 Leadership Internship Program

yzuniga@csuchico.edu

AB540 students are among the most resilient and underrepresented leaders in higher education, yet they remain largely excluded from the institutional spaces where decisions that shape their success are made. The Dream Leaders Fellowship: AB540 Leadership Internship Program is designed to disrupt this inequity by creating structured, paid leadership pathways that immerse AB540 students in university governance and civic decision-making. The program equips students with the knowledge, networks, and confidence to move from observers of institutional systems to active contributors and leaders within said institutions.

Amber Gonzalez

Enhancing HSI Servingness Strategies

amber.gonzalez@csus.edu

This project, led by Amber Gonzalez, will provide funding to student research assistants, the project contributes to supporting the students involved in the project being able to afford their CSU education. By engaging in the audit of HSI servingness strategies, the project will center and build on successful strategies to “Advising and Pathways.” It aims to ensure that other academic and faculty advisors have access to the strategies that have been successful at their own institutions as well as sibling CSUs by auditing successful practices and sharing them with faculty from other disciplines and CSUs. Doing so will also enhance the resources available to middle leaders throughout the CSU and serve as a toolkit as they innovate and implement practices to enhance student success at each campus. The audit will highlight advising practices, teaching strategies, and fostering student skills and networks through an asset-based lens of equity and servingness.

Previous Grant Recipients

Kimberly N. White

Does the Use of an Interactive General Chemistry Textbook Improve Student Perceptions of and Use of the Textbook and Increase Equitable Outcomes?

kim.white@humboldt.edu