USC has established a new interdisciplinary research center focusing on the admissions and enrollment practices of colleges and universities.

The Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice will focus on critical issues related to enrollment in higher education, including admissions access to underserved populations, financial aid and tuition effects, and selectivity and college-bound student assessment.

The center will share results with all educational institutions with a goal to achieve new benchmarks and standards for “best practice.”

Jerome A. Lucido, USC vice provost for enrollment policy and management and a nationally known figure in higher education admissions, is the founding executive director of the center, which already announced a call to scholars for research proposals.

“Today in America, a laser light is focused on the point of college access,” Lucido said. “Parents and students view the college admission process as a gateway to future prosperity, health, security and satisfaction.

“This new research center will look at critical questions, including: ‘Why is the admissions office door the focus of all these hopes and dreams?’ ‘What barriers exist within admissions processes that continue to separate many Americans from the opportunities and benefits of higher education?’ ‘What can be done through enrollment management to improve access and facilitate success of students?’ ”

Lucido is currently serving a term as a trustee of the College Board, which administers the SAT, PSAT and Advanced Placement program, and chairs its Task Force on Admission in the Twenty-First Century. He said the USC center will reach out to a variety of stakeholders in its activities, including business and policy leaders as well as admissions practitioners and higher education scholars.

USC President Steven B. Sample said: “We at the University of Southern California realized that there was a need for a central hub for the field of enrollment management. Our awareness of the need induced us to create a new center – unprecedented in its focus and scope – to inform, educate and explore issues in the field and to connect education leaders from around the nation and the world.”

USC Provost C. L. Max Nikias, who recruited Lucido in 2006 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, urged Lucido to create the research center.

“The mission of this center could not be more relevant or timely,” Nikias said. “A university campus is, in our day, far more than a collection of classrooms and laboratories held together by ivy and landscaping. Today, a university campus houses nothing less than the full range of our society’s ambitions and aspirations. Enrollment management policies and questions must be addressed vigorously and answered in meaningful ways, if colleges and universities of the United States are to serve our constituencies to the fullest of our ability.”

The center is organizing a national advisory board, which will convene regularly.

Former Trojan Morton O. Schapiro, now president and professor of economics at Williams College, hailed the establishment of the center: “With all the attention being paid to the current frenzy surrounding college admissions, it is important to be able to step back and analyze from a neutral perspective what is working and what isn’t,” Schapiro said. “Building on the insights from both scholars and practitioners, (the center) will be in a good position to suggest reforms that could address a range of critical topics – from reducing enrollment gaps by income and race, to focusing on college success as well as college access, to thinking through the often-neglected realities facing ‘over-served communities.’ ”

The new center already has issued its first call for proposals to researchers studying higher education enrollment management issues. The proposal deadline for the grants, which will range from $5,000 to $10,000, is Feb. 1. More information as well as message boards for scholars, practitioners and policymakers are located at the center’s Web site at http:www.usc.edu/cerpp