Sylvia Hurtado, a Distinguished Professor in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA, has been elected the 112th president of the American Educational Research Association. For more than a decade, she directed the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute. The San Antonio native, who earned degrees from Princeton and Harvard, also directed the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education for three of her 11 years on the University of Michigan faculty.
AERA is the world’s largest organization for scholars who study K–12 schools, postsecondary institutions, social and policymaking contexts that influence education, and other professions in which teaching and learning activities occur (for example, health care, national defense and nonprofit organizations). Hurtado will be the second Latina and the third higher education scholar to serve in the association’s top elected leadership role.
This will be Hurtado’s second presidency. She led the Association for the Study of Higher Education from 2004 to 2005. She was later inducted into the National Academy of Education, elected to AERA Council (the Association’s governing board) and selected as an AERA Fellow. She currently serves as editor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, one of AERA’s seven peer-reviewed academic journals.
In addition to her six books, Hurtado has published more than five dozen articles in top refereed journals, including the American Education Research Journal, Review of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education, Harvard Educational Review, American Journal of Education and Journal of College Student Development, to name a few. Even more impressive than the placements are the articles themselves.
I have read just about everything Hurtado has published. I am consistently in awe of the topical importance, substance, methodological rigor and theoretical complexity of her studies. Her work is always of the highest quality. Just about every School of Education course I have taught since 2003 has had multiple Hurtado readings on the syllabus. I also frequently reference her work in keynote speeches and other presentations to higher education professionals and leaders. Her scholarship has also influenced UC system, state (within and beyond California), and federal policies. It has been repeatedly cited in numerous amicus briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. She and her colleagues played an extraordinarily influential role in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases.
I was first introduced to Hurtado’s genius nearly three decades ago, when I was a graduate student. Her pioneering research on campus racial climates greatly inspired me—it became the foundation of my related scholarship on the topic. Hurtado gave other scholars and me an inspirational and aspirational model. Because her research is always so extraordinary and rigorous, I cite it in just about everything I publish. At this point, it is nearly impossible to write anything good or credible about campus climate, diversity and inclusion in higher education, sense of belonging in college, the success of students of color in STEM fields, or Hispanic-serving institutions without citing her studies.
Hurtado’s brilliance and intellectual leadership explain why she is one of America’s most cited higher education researchers. According to Google Scholar, her work has been cited in more than 46,000 published studies spanning a vast array of academic fields and disciplines. Additionally, Education Week annually publishes a list of the 200 most influential professors in our field, the top 1 percent—Hurtado has been on it every year since 2017.
When I was AERA president, Hurtado was the one and only scholar I chose to deliver the Distinguished Presidential Lecture for our 2021 annual meeting. The association presented her its prestigious 2018 Social Justice in Education Award and its 2015 Division J: Postsecondary Education Exemplary Research Award. She also has a pair of honorary doctorates from Northeastern University and Denison University.
After spending a year as president-elect, Hurtado will begin her AERA presidency next April at the conclusion of the association’s 2027 annual meeting in Toronto. I have no doubt that she will be fantastic in this important role, exactly the leader that the field needs at this enormously consequential moment in our democracy.
Shaun Harper is University Professor and Provost Professor of Education, Business and Public Policy at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership. His most recent book is titled Let’s Talk About DEI: Productive Disagreements About America’s Most Polarizing Topics.
