Learning Partners
The Raikes Foundation
Our Mission: The Raikes Foundation invests in youth-serving institutions and systems to make them more effective in supporting and empowering all young people, especially those who have been most marginalized.
Our Role in the SEP: As a funder and convener of the SEP, Raikes Foundation has supported by bringing together diverse perspectives from educators, learning and development experts, young people, and their communities to inform meaningful change.
College Transition Collaborative
Our mission: CTC bridges research and practice to help colleges create learning environments that foster equitable student engagement and success. Our work helps schools understand how their students experience moments of transition or difficulty, and how psychologically attuned practices – messages, policies, behaviors, and programs – can convey to all students they are valued, respected, and can excel.
Our role in the SEP: CTC is leading the development change recommendations for the SEP Project. Working with SEP college partners, CTC will identify the most impactful opportunities for change, support schools in developing change ideas, and synthesize the evidence about the SEP’s impact on student outcomes.
Education Counsel
Our mission: EducationCounsel (EdCounsel) is a mission-driven education consulting firm that works with leading nonprofit organizations, foundations, and policymakers to help significantly improve education opportunity and outcomes. We do this by leveraging policy, strategy, law, and advocacy to help transform education systems, from early learning to K–12 to higher education. We work with partners at the federal, state, and local levels to advance evidence-based innovations and systems change, with a central focus on equity.
Our role in the SEP: Working with SEP partners and institutions, EdCounsel is leading SEP storytelling efforts, engaging with decision-makers, and developing the SEP policy agenda to create equitable learning environments and increase student completion in higher education.
PERTS
Our mission: Our education system rarely affords students — particularly students from underserved groups — with learning experiences that foster healthy social, emotional, and academic development. PERTS equips America’s educators to create engaging and equitable learning experiences that enable all students to thrive. To do so, we empower educators to learn about the science of motivation; track and improve the motivational conditions in their educational contexts; and share best practices for fostering student success.
Our role in the SEP: PERTS will lead the development of a scalable measurement infrastructure and tools aligned to the SEP evidence based interventions. Working with SPE partners, PERTS will test and then disseminate tools that promote the adoption of evidence-based interventions and related research.
Shift
Our Mission: Shift is the collaborative improvement organization dedicated to accelerating and amplifying social change. We partner with a wide range of organizations with ambitious goals to improve lives, from increasing equity in education to making healthcare more patient-centered. Our advisors and team members have decades of experience in continuous improvement in networks as well as project management, coaching, facilitation, behavior change, and leadership development. We work with our partners to build alignment and momentum from the start, from clarifying ambitious aims to developing scalable, self-sustaining improvement networks.
Our role in the SEP: Shift leads the design of the SEP improvement network, building the structure for participating universities to use continuous improvement methods to test and adapt SEP interventions and research and learn from each other.
Coalition of Urban Serving Universities
Our Mission: The Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU) is a president‐led network of 39 public urban research universities working to drive transformational change throughout their institutions and the communities they serve. USU’s work centers on two reinforcing pillars: initiatives working to advance student success through innovation and initiatives aiming to achieve community transformation through partnerships. By collaborating across universities with shared challenges and functions, USU institutions can pilot, refine, and share the most effective practices to accelerate innovation across higher education.
Our Role in the SEP: USU and APLU are working with SEP partner universities and our broader network to build leadership, support campus change, and drive adoption of evidence-based practices that create equitable learning environments and increase degree completion in higher education.
Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities
Our Mission: APLU is a research, policy, and advocacy organization dedicated to strengthening and advancing the work of public universities. APLU’s agenda is built on the three pillars of increasing degree completion and academic success, advancing scientific research, and expanding engagement.
Our Role in the SEP: USU and APLU are working with SEP partner universities and our broader network to build leadership, support campus change, and drive adoption of evidence-based practices that create equitable learning environments and increase degree completion in higher education.
