Major changes and initiatives at CSHE since 2014

In 2017, John Douglass and Zach Bleemer initiated the UC ClioMetric History Project with funding from the Center for Studies in Higher Education and the UC Office of the President. The Project has digitized thousands of volumes of historical university records and catalogs and extracted millions of administrative records covering all 1890-1950 UC students as well as 1900-2012 Berkeley, UCLA, and Davis faculty. This massive data repository includes interactive displays visualizing 150 years of UC’s students, faculty, courses, and budgets, along with comparative data for private California universities; and both topic briefs and academic studies analyzing higher education in California. These records – most of which are publicly-available on the Project website – have been used to generate new statistics documenting the history of the University of California. The project has also collected hundreds of thousands of post-1950 student records as part of an internal database of privacy-protected student records that have been used to produce research on contemporary UC student outcomes, including prominent studies of UC admissions policies and longitudinal dashboards of lifetime employment outcomes.

The David P. Gardner Seminar Each year, CSHE sponsors the David P. Gardner Seminar for doctoral students who are conducting research related to higher education. Established in 2015, and named after UC President Emeritus David P. Gardner, the seminar was expanded in 2020 beyond UC Berkeley to engage students across the University of California system and has furthered collaboration among early career higher education researchers.

In 2019 Anne MacLachlan was asked to write an article on graduate women at Berkeley for 150 Years of Women at Berkeley by the project organizer, Chancellor Carol Christ. This effort grew into a large multi-faceted on-line collection of historical essays, biographies, departmental histories, illustrations, and research papers. Working with the two chairs of the history committee, MacLachlan took the leading role in the project, creating a table of contents,working with the California Digital Library, selecting the material for the final collection into the CDL and creating a new section, “Documents.” She is now the editor of the CDL collection, creating and adding new material as available.

Two leadership initiatives were launched in the early 2020’s.  First, the Executive Leadership Academy offered an inaugural international Academy in India and continues to explore expanded venues for its programs.  Second, George Blumenthal initiated an executive mentorship program entitled Breakfast with George. 

While the Center long had a robust in-person lecture program, the lecture series expanded its reach in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. CSHE transitioned to livestreaming engaging and informative panels that focused on the impacts of Covid-19 on higher education and drew hundreds of participants for each session. The virtual lecture series continues to grow national and international audiences by focusing on higher education policy issues of national and worldwide concern. Past lectures can be found at the CSHE YouTube Channel.

Established in 2024, The California College Data and Policy Project (CCDPP) is a collaboration between CSHE and the California Policy Lab that brings together University of California researchers and government partners to advance equity and improve California’s world class higher education system. CCDPP generates new insights and research on what works to better support California students and their families as they transition through the education system. See CCDPP publications here.