Michelson 20MM
in the News
A Conversation with Dr. Barbara Illowsky on College Affordability and Developing the First Open Textbook
Dr. Barbara Illowsky is a retired mathematics and statistics professor at De Anza College and former Chief Academic Affairs Officer for the California Community Colleges Online Education Initiative. She is also co-author of Collaborative Statistics (later renamed Introductory Statistics), the first free and open textbook published by OpenStax College, as well as Introductory Business Statistics. A pioneer in the open educational resources movement, Dr. Illowsky continues to advocate for greater open educational resources (OER) adoption in order to make the cost of attending college more affordable. Since 2018 Dr. Illowsky has served as the Michelson 20MM Foundation’s OER Fellow.
Zero-Textbook Cost (ZTC) Degrees Included in Governor Newsom’s Budget
On January 10th Governor Newsom released his budget proposal. In it was a $10 million allocation for the Zero-Textbook Cost Degree program. The program was created in 2016-17 to reduce the overall cost of education for students and decrease the time it takes students to complete degree programs offered by community colleges.
David Helene on the Future of Emergency Student Aid
David Helene is Co-Founder and CEO of Edquity, a technology-powered platform that streamlines emergency funds disbursement to college students in need. The startup recently announced the completion of a $2.4 million seed round backed by several funds and foundations including Michelson 20MM.
Angela DeBarger of the Hewlett Foundation on OER
Angela Haydel DeBarger is a program officer in education at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Her portfolio focuses on the Open Educational Resources (OER) Strategy. She is particularly interested in the intersection of OER and deeper learning, with the aim of creating inclusive, purposeful and coherent learning experiences for students and teachers.
Final Phase 2 Spark Grant Awarded to RAND Corporation
We have awarded our final Phase 2 Grant to the RAND Corporation. The grant funding will be used to develop and publish an educational guidebook for correctional professionals
that outlines best practices and considerations for implementing high quality college in prison
programs.
Wiki Education Awarded Spark Grant to Update Dashboard
Wiki Education has been awarded a Spark Grant for their Wikipedia Student Program. This program supports Wikipedia writing assignments in higher education, giving students the rare and powerful opportunity to write for a real audience as part of their course work.