News magazine The Washington Monthly listed 16 top innovators in higher education in its Sept./Oct. issue on newsstands now, and seven of them are partners of The Kresge Foundation.

Each of the innovators was recognized for work that advocates for “new and better ways of serving students” by “pushing against resistant leadership, indifferent or threatened colleagues and a general institutional inertia that makes progress painfully slow.”

“We’re so proud to see so many familiar faces on this list of innovators,” said William F.L. Moses, managing director of Kresge’s Education Program. “We’re not surprised at all, because we know through our own work with many of these individuals and institutions that they are indeed pursuing the kind of change that isn’t always easy or painless, but changes that are so desperately needed to get colleges more focused on student success.”

The list included:

• Tim Renick, Georgia State University, for his leadership on the School Success Collaborative that imbues predictive analytics through the university’s approaches.
• David Laude, University of Texas at Austin, for his role in finding the most at-risk students at the flagship university and using interventions early to keep them on track to graduate.
• Ben Castleman, University of Virginia, for his work with fellow Kresge partner uAspire to use text-messaging reminders to combat summer melt and make sure students land on college campuses in the fall.
• Candace Thille, Open Learning Initiative at Stanford University, for her contributions to making online learning more adaptive to individual learners.
• Amy Laitinen, New America, for her advocating to help the higher education community better address the needs of adult learners.
• Karen Stout, Achieving the Dream, for her efforts leading the network that helps community colleges institute reforms of all sizes to improve student success rates.
• Nicole Hurd, College Advising Corps, for her work addressing the gap in school counseling between low-income and higher-income school districts.
• Bridget Burns, University Innovation Alliance, for breaking down barriers between individual universities to improve the flow of information sharing and spread student success best practices from one campus to another.

The Kresge Foundation Education team offers its warm congratulations to each of the 16 individuals named on the list.

Washington Monthly will host a panel discussion on the list of innovators with co-host New America from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15 in Washington, D.C. The conversation will be shared on social media using #WaMoCollege Guide, if you’d like to follow along. Live streaming will also be available on the New America website.