The Center for Socioeconomic Mobility through Education (CSME) works to accelerate socioeconomic mobility of individuals and communities. We believe everyone should have the opportunity to achieve a living wage and thrive in vibrant neighborhoods.
The Center prioritizes work in four ways to advance its purpose.
We conduct and synthesize research focused on southern Dallas County communities to better understand challenges in order to target solutions in partnership with community stakeholders.
Our focus is on generating actionable insights for new & existing programs and partners. Our research partners include UNT Dallas faculty and students as well as others seeking to serve the region.
We also seek to synthesize national research in key areas of socioeconomic mobility. The Social Mobility Hub, developed in partnership with the Child Poverty Action Lab, serves as a community resource that will be periodically updated.
We work to identify, test, and scale impactful & sustainable programs to accelerate socioeconomic mobility. Our approach is grounded in evaluating community need, designing for impact, and identifying opportunities for engaging additional stakeholders for lasting change.
We believe an integrated approach is essential, one that includes individuals, institutions, and communities. We seek to simultaneously:
We serve as an innovation partner for staff & faculty on mobility-focused priorities to enhance student outcomes. UNT Dallas has been recognized as one of the top institutions for economic mobility and we seek to continue to improve.
CSME partners with university stakeholders to support timely degree completion and learning of critical professional competencies to create a seamless transition to living wage jobs.
We support collective capacity-building and systematic learning of community partners and CSME. We have much learning to do. With humility, we work with southern Dallas County stakeholders to generate insights in order to advance mobility in the region.