Rethinking, Expanding, Equalizing: Centering Access and Equity in High Impact Practices

“Super HIPs” are the powerful intersections of practices like First Year Seminar, ePortfolio, experiential learning, and learning communities. “When those practices are intentionally combined, students have a transformative experience.”

Case Study

When Dr. Milena Cuéllar first arrived at LaGuardia Community College in 2012, she had never heard the term high impact practices. Within a year, however, she was immersed in the conversation, joining efforts to implement the First-Year Seminar (FYS) and participate in national initiatives on co-requisite reform. Over time, her understanding of HIPs deepened and expanded, shaped by her experiences with learning communities, experiential learning, global learning, and her work with the Carnegie Foundation.

“At first, I understood HIPs as practices that help students stay, persist, and graduate. But over time, it wasn’t just about impact. It was about who was being impacted. Who gets to have access to these powerful experiences?”

This question of access is central to Cuéllar’s current work, both in the classroom and through her leadership on LaGuardia’s Shared Equity Leadership Team. There, she is part of a group investigating how equity and access intersect with HIPs. They are analyzing how HIPs are implemented, who participates in them, and what equity gaps persist. As she explains, “It becomes like a lottery ticket. If you’re lucky, your advisor might place you in a class with a HIP. But there’s no system behind it.”

Cuéllar is particularly interested in what she calls “Super HIPs,” the intersections of practices like First-Year Seminar, ePortfolio, experiential learning, and learning communities. “When those practices are intentionally combined, students have a transformative experience,” she says. But she is quick to point out that not all students get that opportunity. “For some students, that happens once and never again. For others, it doesn’t happen at all.”

To Cuéllar, equity means ensuring more than just strong, isolated practices. It means creating structures to ensure that all students have meaningful access to these experiences. That requires institutional vision, collaboration, and support. “We need both top-down and bottom-up approaches. Faculty need to feel invested, but they also need support from chairs, advisors, and senior leadership.”

Advising, she argues, is a key area where equity gaps emerge. “The communication between faculty and advisors has broken down. Faculty don’t always know how students are being placed in classes. Advisors don’t always know what HIPs are happening in which sections. We need to build those bridges again.”

She also emphasizes the need for professional development that includes not just full-time faculty, but part-time faculty as well. “If we want HIPs to be widespread, we need to support the faculty doing the work. That means time, resources, and inclusion.”

Cuéllar’s work on the Shared Equity Leadership Team includes mapping access to HIPs across the college, disaggregating data by race, ethnicity, enrollment status, and other variables, and developing equity-centered recommendations. Her goal is to help the college develop a shared vision for how HIPs can be scaled sustainably and equitably.

“We need to define what equitable outcomes look like and make sure our practices support that. We can’t keep working in silos. We need to be in conversation across departments, roles, and initiatives.”

At the heart of Cuéllar’s case for HIPs is a recognition that impact is not only about retention metrics or graduation rates. It’s also about students feeling seen, heard, and included in the learning process. “That kind of impact matters too. And we need to figure out how to measure it, support it, and ensure that all students experience it.”

Her vision for LaGuardia is clear: “We need structures, support, and vision. We need to move beyond isolated practices and create an environment where high impact is possible for every student.”

As Cuéllar puts it, “Once you understand the power of this work, you want to spread the word. You want to evangelize. Because you’ve seen what it can do.”

Courses Targeting High Impact Practices

• First-Year Seminar (a HIP by design) was enhanced into a “Super HIP” through COIL (Diversity and Global Learning and Common Intellectual Experience), ePortfolios, and as a Writing-Intensive course.
• Elementary Statistics: In various semesters, I’ve integrated Learning Communities (Common Intellectual Experience), COIL (Diversity and Global Learning), Undergraduate Research, Collaborative Assignments and Projects, and Writing-Intensive components.
• Differential Equations: I’ve adapted this course to include Undergraduate Research, Collaborative Assignments and Projects, and Writing-Intensive work.

Other High Impact Practices Used

• Diversity and Global Learning
• Learning Communities
• Common Intellectual Experiences
• Writing-Intensive Courses
• ePortfolio
• Undergraduate Research
• Collaborative Assignments and Projects

About

Dr. Milena Cuéllar is a Professor of Mathematics at LaGuardia Community College, where she has taught since 2012. She holds a Ph.D. in Statistics from the London School of Economics and a degree in Physics from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. At LaGuardia, she teaches Statistics and Differential Equations and has served as a STEM Learning Communities liaison and a faculty mentor in the CTL seminar series since 2017. In 2023–2024, she also served as the Q-STEM liaison for the Computer Science Learning Community. 

Dr. Cuéllar plays a leading role in institutional equity and strategic initiatives. She served as Chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) pillar of LaGuardia’s 2024–2029 Strategic Plan, helping to shape the college’s vision for equity and belonging. She currently co-leads LaGuardia’s participation in the second cohort of the Shared Equity Leadership initiative, led by the Pullias Center, which aims to advance academic equity across the institution. She was also one of the founding members of Casa de las Américas at LaGuardia, a space dedicated to celebrating and supporting Latin American and Caribbean identities and communities on campus. 

As part of her commitment to faculty development, she facilitates LaGuardia’s DEI seminar for faculty and serves as a data coach for the EQUINOX NSF grant. In 2024, she was named a faculty fellow in the CUNY-wide Building Bridges of Knowledge (BBK) program, which supports students in the ethical, responsible, and effective use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools. 

Dr. Cuéllar has also held leadership and advisory roles beyond LaGuardia. She was recognized as a Carnegie National Faculty member in 2015 and received the Leadership Recognition Award from the Carnegie Foundation for her contributions to scaling the Carnegie Math Pathways. She served on the CUNY Math Innovation Team (2017–2019) and worked as a consultant for the University of Texas Dana Center (2018–2022), supporting equity-focused mathematics education. 

Internationally, she is committed to expanding STEM access in underserved communities. Since 2018, she has led efforts through Clubes de Ciencia Colombia, a flagship program of ScienteLab, a nonprofit organization of the Colombian scientific diaspora. She has served as President of ScienteLab since Fall 2024. 

Dr. Cuéllar’s work brings together research in dynamical systems, classroom equity, and inclusive pedagogies to drive innovation and transformation in STEM and higher education. She is a passionate advocate for data-informed, equity-driven practices and the responsible integration of technology in teaching and learning.  

Above all, she believes in the transformative power of education to open doors, challenge inequities, and uplift entire communities, one student, one classroom, and one conversation at a time. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling, knitting, and spending time with family and friends, finding joy in both quiet reflection and vibrant connections.