Keeping the Promise: How a Remarkable Group of Universities are Driving Equity in America

​

Keeping the Promise tells the story of an extraordinary group of universities who doggedly pursue equity in a field defined by hierarchy and prestige. Nationally, low-income, first-generation (LIFG) students are about half as likely to graduate from college than their more privileged peers. But a small group of universities are quietly defying this trend: they admit large numbers of LIFG students and graduate them at rates that far exceed the national average. Keeping the Promise takes readers into the classrooms, financial aid offices, and leadership meetings of two distinct "Equity Engines"-- a small private liberal arts university and a large regional public. By combining rich ethnographic observation with cultural and organizational analysis, the book provides a systematic examination of the people and practices that power equity-driving universities and the external pressures that undermine their work. By centering the duality of these unique universities—as both powerful, agentic, local campuses, and precarious organizations under constraints—I offer critical new insights into student success, organizational creativity, and how to transform American higher education to promote a more democratic and equitable society.