Critical Policy Collective

The Critical Policy Collective (CPC) is an immersive, multi-school training and research endeavor based at USC, designed as a precursor to the future Critical Policy Institute. Led by faculty and students from the Rossier School of Education and the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, CPC envisions evolving into a nationally recognized hub for justice-oriented policy scholarship and student-driven impact across the P–20 educational landscape.

CPC seeks to bridge the gap between academic scholarship and real-world impact. Its inaugural session was launched in alignment with the 2024 Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference and was co-developed with Ph.D. students from the Rossier Black Student Collective and Dornsife Sociology. By centering student leadership in policy engagement, CPC established a collaborative, faculty-supported model rooted in community relevance and justice-driven inquiry.

Participants engaged in a series of training workshops and direct meetings with federal agencies, policy research organizations, and advocacy groups. These experiences provided meaningful opportunities to explore and contribute to urgent policy areas—including K–12 funding equity, higher education affordability, workforce development, digital equity, and the impacts of anti-DEI legislation. Rather than focusing solely on how systems function, CPC challenges participants to interrogate whom those systems serve, whom they exclude, and why. The structure of the collective is designed to cultivate practical policy knowledge, deepen understanding of institutional dynamics, and connect research to transformative change.

CPC also supports the development of public-facing products intended to inform and shape policy outcomes—ranging from academic manuscripts and research reports to policy briefs, infographics, and other forms of digital scholarship. These outputs reflect the collective’s broader mission: to prepare civic-minded scholars equipped to challenge and reshape inequitable policy landscapes through evidence-based, community-centered engagement.