Estela Bensimon

University of Southern California

Estela Mara Bensimon
Professor and Director, Center for Urban Education
University of Southern California Rossier School of Education
Phillips Hall, Room 702
Los Angeles, CA 90089-4037

Phone: 213.740.5202
Fax: 213.740.3889
Bensimon@usc.org

Areas of Expertise:

Gender and racial equity, underepresented students

Biography:

Estela Mara Bensimon is a professor of higher education and the founding Director of the Center for Urban Education (CUE) at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education. Dr. Bensimon's current research is on issues of gender and racial equity in higher education from the perspective of organization, leadership, and critical feminist theories. She is particularly interested in the potential of practitioner-driven inquiry as a means of organizational learning and change in higher education. With the support of The James Irvine Foundation, Lumina Foundation for Education, The Ford Foundation, The Walter S. Johnson Foundation, and the Chancellor's Office for California Community Colleges, she and her colleagues in CUE have developed and field-tested an inquiry tool and process—The Equity Scorecard--to foster a culture of professional responsibility and institutional accountability for the educational success of underrepresented students in two-and four-year public and private colleges. Dr. Bensimon has written about the Equity Scorecard in several academic publications, among them Equality in Fact, Equality in Results: A matter of institutional accountability, Doing Research that Makes a Difference, Measuring the State of Equity in Public Higher Education, and Closing the Achievement Gap in Higher Education: An Organizational Learning Perspective. Previously Dr. Bensimon conducted research on leadership in higher education and is the author and co-author of several publications on college presidents, department chairs, and administrative teams. Dr. Bensimon has held the highest leadership positions in the Association for the Study of Higher Education (President, 2005-2006) and in the American Education Research Association-Division on Postsecondary Education (Vice-President 1992-1994). She has served on the boards of the American Association for Higher Education and the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Dr. Bensimon was Associate Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education from 1996-2000 and was a Fulbright Scholar to Mexico in 2002. She earned her doctorate in Higher Education from Teachers College,Columbia University.