Deondra Rose on the Ethical Obligation of Scholars to Preserve Democracy

Deondra Rose is an Associate Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy with secondary appointments in the Department of Political Science and the Department of History.  She is also the Director of Polis: Center for Politics and Co-director of the North Carolina Scholars Strategy Network (SSN).  Her research focuses on the effects of social and higher education policies on the American political landscape.

She is the author of “Citizens by Degree: Higher Education Policy and the Changing Gender Dynamics of American Citizenship” (Oxford University Press, 2018), which examines the development of landmark U.S. higher education policies--including the National Defense Education Act of 1958, the Higher Education Act of 1965, and Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments--and their impact on the progress that women have made since the mid-20th century. 

Q: You describe yourself in an interview, as a political scientist and political historian, particularly interested in higher education policies. How have you become what you are today?

Deondra Rose

Deondra Rose: If someone had told me that I would be a political scientist and a professor at one of the most prestigious institutions in the world, I would have been taken by surprise. I was going to be a lawyer, and I set foot on campus at the University of Georgia, already knowing from day one what I wanted to major in. So, I went through college very quickly and graduated in three years.

Being the first in my family to finish a four-year degree – I was unsure about what college would hold. On the other hand, being from a family that values education, I felt very confident in pursuing an academic pathway and I had a solid sense of self and confidence.  When I look back to my early 20s when I moved to Minnesota to work on a campaign for governor, or shortly thereafter moving to New York state for graduate school, I'm really grateful for the powerful wind in my sails that my family offered.

The pathway to graduate school was a serendipitous one.  When I was submitting law school applications and requesting letters of support, two of my professors in separate departments pulled me aside and told me that they would be happy to write me letters for Law School but that I should really consider getting a PhD. I was so flattered! The only people I knew who had gotten PhDs were people much later in their careers, perhaps they were in their 40s and 50s. So, these faculty members who were generous enough to share their experiences and their insight into an academic pathway really changed my life.

Q: How hard was it to succeed in the Academia and research arena as a woman of color and as a recipient of the Beauty Pageant Award?

Deondra Rose: One of the activities I was engaged in during college was participating in the Miss America scholarship organization. I was Miss University of Georgia in 2005. This was a preliminary to the Miss Georgia Pageant, a preliminary to the Miss America Scholarship program. Interestingly, another person I got to know during that time was Danica Tisdale, the first black woman to win Miss Georgia. She was a Ph.D. student at Emory University, and I got to know her through the pageant program. Again, this idea of pursuing a PhD at that point, immediately after my undergraduate studies, became a more realistic possibility.  I met many accomplished and inspiring friends through the pageant system, but people are often thunderstruck when they find out about that part of my biography.  I’m always amused by the cool points that this tidbit can win me.  But I was definitely a nerd from the beginning and not a beauty queen who decided to shift gears.

Q: The surprise from others comes because of their biases. Some of us expect that nerds need to be ugly and that beautiful women may not be as bright.

Deondra Rose: These are socially constructed and deeply ingrained stereotypes that are hard to shake. Oftentimes, we rely on stereotypes to help us grapple with the world’s complexity and the fact that we have so much information coming at us at all times; in some respects, we need these kinds of tools to make sense of things. But I have always been struck by how powerful other people’s assumptions, stereotypes, and small-mindedness can be in creating barriers that prevent people from doing daring things. Or just being comfortable in their skin.

Without a doubt, having a mother, grandmother, and aunt who convinced me early on that I could do anything and that other people’s biases weren’t my problem to solve opened so many doors for me. I’m convinced that knowledge and skills gained from atypical experiences can be superpowers: they can provide knowledge, skills, and lessons that provide an additional resource for approaching challenges. My work as a researcher, teacher, and team member has been directly shaped by the lessons I’ve taken from a diverse range of experiences—from politics to pageantry, to all the jobs I had before going to graduate school…

Q: Lessons that we cannot learn from books.

Deondra Rose: But they can help you write books! The value of having an outsider's perspective can be immense…

Q: I know that you study how policies in higher education impacted communities and minorities. How have higher education policies affected your life and career?

Deondra Rose: I think higher education policies are some of the most important programs that we have had, historically, particularly when it comes to supporting socio-economic mobility and democratic inclusion. I'm a proud product of excellent public schools starting in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and then in Georgia’s Gwinnett County. I had this robust foundational education as a young person that has yielded dividends over time.

When I made my way to college, it was a state-level education policy that made such a difference for me: the HOPE Scholarship in Georgia was a phenomenal program that provided the state’s high school graduates with full tuition and support to attend college in-state if they achieved a certain grade point average. This program made it possible for me to complete my college degree with no debt—something especially valuable coming from a background where I wasn't sure about how to pay for college. Now as a political scientist, I study federal higher education policies and their significance, not only for educational attainment but also for democracy. As society continues to seek effective approaches for creating a more just, equitable, and inclusive society, higher education—and education, more broadly—will be a critical component to achieving those goals.

“It's critical to recognize education as an important building block of democracy.”

Deondra Rose

Q: What does your research show so far?

Deondra Rose: My work shows that federal higher education programs that have expanded college access for students from historically excluded or otherwise underrepresented groups have also expanded access to knowledge, skills, and experiences that tend to promote higher levels of civic and political engagement. When we're talking about the value of higher education, it is easy to focus narrowly on the economic aspects – the investment in the future in terms of workforce development, which is, of course, a big part of why so many individuals and families make such significant investments in higher education.

Additionally, it's crucial that we recognize education as an important building block of democracy. Colleges and universities can play an important role in helping young people understand the political landscape and how they can make meaningful contributions to democratic governance. In the context of the many challenges to democracy that we face today, I think that higher education is more important than ever. My favorite example of this is the work that students, faculty members, and staff members are doing to have tough conversations and to incorporate data and evidence into discussions about complex topics. While many rightfully lament the impact that polarization is having on our ability to talk across differences, higher educational institutions can take the lead in promoting meaningful, generative, and potentially transformative discourse.

Q: How does your research contribute to the development of evidence-based policy? 

Deondra Rose: A few years ago, when my colleague Professor Nick Carnes and I were co-directors of the North Carolina Scholars Strategy Network, we met with lawmakers and gained a better sense of the barriers that make it difficult for them to connect with scholars and access the evidence that can inform policies.

Many of these barriers had to do with limits on resources like staff capacity and the differing paces of legislative and academic work. How we responded to these barriers led to the work I've been doing these last couple of years with students in my Political Analysis of Policy course. We have tried to find ways to help lawmakers connect with research faster.

Q: What researchers could do more to educate political actors so that they can base their decisions on research evidence?

Deondra Rose: There are things that we can do to make our research more accessible, such as summarizing research in a one-page memo that is jargon-free, helping to convey the results of your study to a general audience. Giving people the opportunity to become familiar with your work and what you're doing, with a memo, policy brief, or op-ed is valuable. The use of infographics and social media are also eye-catching, informative, and easily accessible mechanisms. The idea is to create a lot of invitations for people to engage with your research and to facilitate it by making it increasingly accessible and legible.

Q: Yes, and you mentioned that the Center for Politics is not only a place for having nice conversations on politics but also for translational research…

Deondra Rose: The Policy Lab, which is connected to Polis, started in the context of the discussions we had at SSN. After our meetings with policymakers, they began to send us questions that were not quite aligned with our research timelines. So, we thought that our undergraduates could do research, learn how to craft memos and produce information that could be useful to policymakers. Since 2019, our students have crafted memos that provide background information, best practices or key debates that lawmakers should be paying attention to.

If the question is “How do we retain teachers in North Carolina?”, students would look into what other states or other countries are doing and offer vignettes from cases that can be especially helpful for policymakers who are trying to get a sense of what the possibilities are. Students also add information about experts in the state on whatever the particular topic is. The students have done phenomenal work over the last few years, and they get better every semester.