The Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA has been chosen to receive the 2016 Special Merit Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education. This award honors influential academic leaders or scholars outside the field of higher education who have offered a valuable perspective for studying and understanding colleges and universities.
HERI Director and UCLA associate professor Cecilia Rios-Aguilar says that this recognition by ASHE — received in the 50th year of the institute’s signature study, the American Freshman Survey — highlights the vital work of HERI.
“This concretely means that HERI’s survey data provide tremendous insight not only into how higher education has changed during the last 50 years, but also how society and public opinion have evolved over the past five decades. No other institute in the U.S. has this wealth of data,” she says. “We are very excited that the Association for the Study of Higher Education and our colleagues throughout the country recognize this important effort.
Rios-Aguilar commended the work of professor of education Alexander (Sandy) Astin, who created the American Freshman study and served as founding director of HERI, and professor Sylvia Hurtado. Former HERI director. Kevin Eagan, managing director of HERI and director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, also attended the presentation ceremony Nov. 11.
“It is because of their efforts that HERI receives this award,” says Rios-Aguilar, who has led HERI since 2015. “With this award we renew our mission: To inform educational policy and to promote institutional change through an increased understanding of higher education and its impact on ALL college students. We will continue to do our best in collecting data that can help better serve all college students, so get ready for more of HERI in the years to come as we expand our surveys and research into community colleges and into other countries who want to partner with us.”