MONTHLY SPOTLIGHT — DR. RONG CHEN
Dr. Rong Chen, associate professor and director of the Graduate Programs of Higher Education, has been working at the University for eight years. Chen earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Michigan, and previously served as a faculty member at Beijing International Study University in China.
Chen’s research focuses on a variety of policies and practices at the government and institutional levels, and how they impact student success in higher education. Most of her studies involve the use of largescale national datasets to develop reliable models and estimate policy effects in order to further understand what government and institutions can do to promote student success in higher
education and beyond.
Dr. Chen recently finished a one-semester sabbatical. During the sabbatical, she finalized a few research papers based on her prior projects funded by AERA and the Spencer Foundation, and also started some new projects with colleagues and students. For example, in one study, Dr. Chen examined how federal financial aid may affect first-year low-income students’ persistence in four-year institutions, and in a second project she worked with a colleague at the University of Michigan, Dr. Peter Bahr, exploring the impact of undergraduate educational debt on students’ decisions to apply to and enroll in graduate school. Her additional work also involves a collaboration with Dr. Sattin-Bajaj investigating the relationship among students’ educational expectations, college preparatory actions, and college applications. During her sabbatical, Dr. Chen was also able to continue mentoring student dissertations. As a result of their diligent work, four mentees have recently successfully defended, including Lucien Costley, Nadege Dady, Aretha Watson, and Stephen Deutsch.
In addition to research and advising, Dr. Chen continued her service as a consulting editor for the journal of Research in Higher Education. “I feel that I returned to campus with a refreshed mind and renewed energy,” Dr. Chen shared with the HEGSA Stewards.