Center for Equity in Learning at ACT Focused on Underserved and Working Learners

Earlier this week, STEMx interviewed Christina Gordon, Senior Director at ACT’s Center for Equity in Learning to learn more about the Center and the work we are doing. You can read the interview below.

With a goal of helping underserved and working learners achieve education and career success, ACT, the college-readiness testing organization, established its Center for Equity in Learning in June 2016. The center aims to examine and address barriers to opportunity for young people such as income, race, ethnicity and accessibility. To give us an overview of the organization’s first year of achievements and its plans for the future, we contacted the senior director of the center, Christina Gordon, in Washington, D.C.:

Q: Why did ACT establish the Center for Equity in Learning?  Did ACT already have a similar initiative?

A: ACT established the Center for Equity in Learning as a way to double down on our mission of helping people achieve education and workplace success, with a focus on the need to close gaps in opportunity and achievement. We have a long history at ACT of working to ensure that all people have what they need to be successful.

The Center combines the work of ACT’s former Office for the Advancement of Underserved Learners and the now-shuttered ACT Foundation and focuses on people who come from underserved backgrounds and underserved working learners.

We’re at a critical crossroads in our society, and we believe that ACT’s reputation, strong evidence base and relationships in education and workforce research uniquely position us to address matters of equity in learning.

Check out the rest of the interview here.

The full interview originally appeared in STEMx on 11/7/2017.