Higher Education Commons^™

Reimagining The Faculty Role In Community Engagement, Nadine Dolby

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

In this Forum commentary, I discuss my experience as a faculty member starting a community-based nonprofit organization, Animal Advocates of Greater Lafayette. Since founding the organization in 2019, I have moved between the roles of faculty and organization president, finding ways to create new pedagogical spaces that lead to community-based social change. I suggest that establishing nonprofit organizations are one avenue for faculty community engagement to address social injustices and inequities

Exploring The Impact Of Community-Engaged Programs On Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes Toward Intellectual Disability, Jennifer L. Jones, Kami L. Gallus, Amber Manning-Ouellette

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Positive outcomes for students have motivated educators to identify effective strategies for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in people with intellectual disability (ID), a minoritized population often excluded from DEI efforts. The current study investigated undergraduate student attitudes toward ID and compared changes in attitudes following participation in one of two community-engaged programs alongside adults with ID. Findings indicate both programs were effective in changing all three components of students’ attitudes: affect, cognition, and behaviors.

Learning With Maryland’S Immigrant Communities: Digital Storytelling As Community Engagement, Thania Muñoz Davaslioglu, Tania Lizarazo

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

In this article, we explore digital storytelling as a community-engaged pedagogy to create students’ immigration stories in Maryland as part of the project “Intercultural Tales: Learning with Maryland’s Immigrant Communities.” Stories highlight students’ lived experiences of immigration, language, and identity. By envisioning themselves and their classmates as community members, students and their stories challenge the assumption that the university is disconnected from local communities. In turn, this process of collaborative storytelling shapes teaching and learning as student-centered practices where it is possible to learn about immigration from inside and outside the classroom.

Institutionalizing Community Engagement: A Quantitative Approach To Identifying Patterns Of Engagement Based On Institutional Characteristics, Natasha Hutson, Travis York, Daesang Kim, Jamie L. Workman

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Community engagement is recognized as a high-impact practice in higher education. However, while best practices in engagement have been broadly accepted, standard metrics for engagement across institutions have not yet been established. The purpose of this research study was to explore the relationship between community engagement and a variety of institutional characteristics among higher education institutions in a Southeastern state. Findings indicated that a pattern of engagement existed among the 48 participating institutions.

Lessons Learned From Faculty Service-Learning Mentoring, Elizabeth A. Robinson, Debra A. Harkins

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Service-learning that targets issues of injustice within a community shares the goal with institutions of higher education of helping students become transformational citizens who deeply question and try to change unjust and ineffective social systems. Unfortunately, challenges to growing and sustaining service-learning pedagogy at institutions of higher education are many. This project discusses challenges and makes recommendations based on a pilot mentoring program at an urban, four-year university in the Northeast for faculty interested in integrating service- learning into their curriculum.

Pursuing Reciprocity In Engaged Scholarship Partnerships Using Community Sustainability Certification Programs, Elyzabeth W. Engle, Michele W. Halsell

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of sustainability certification programs at the local, state, and national level to highlight the use of policies, programs, and infrastructure to achieve sustainable development outcomes within communities. In this paper, we use examples from Penn State’s Sustainable Communities Collaborative to demonstrate how institutions with community-engaged scholarship programs can use these certification programs to enhance program operation and reciprocity by identifying projects, engaging new disciplines, and improving relevance.

University-Community Civic Collaboration: Reaching For Social Justice In University Partnership, Jessica T. Shiller

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

A community partnership between the Collins Academy, Jefferson, Texas, and the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture, Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas, developed a plan to manage the 38-acre Port Jefferson History and Nature Center, located on Big Cypress Bayou. Students used knowledge of the resources, GPS (global positioning systems), ArcGIS 10.4, presentations, and posters to complete the project. The reflection and feedback with the community partners continued throughout the project and as guidance for future work. This partnership instilled in participating students the value of incorporating service learning into development of professional relationships for continued cooperation …

Researcher-Practitioner Collaborations: Applying Developmental Science To Understand Sport Participation And Positive Youth Development, Andrea Vest Ettekal, Lily S. Konowitz, Jennifer P. Agans, Richard M. Lerner

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

We report data from the first year of a three-year collaboration between a sport-based youth development program, Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA), and a university-based research institute. The theory of change of PCA was tested with youth athletes, representing multiple sport types (e.g., individual/team) and seasons (e.g., fall/winter), who completed self-report surveys indexing a key facet of positive youth development—character. Noting assets and challenges of such researcher-practitioner collaborations, we discuss the results of the first year of data derived from this collaboration and differences in their use to the researchers and practitioners. Using this collaboration as a sample case, we discuss …

“I Know How Much He Cares For Our Learning”: Moral Life In University Elt Classrooms, Leila Tajik, Seyyed Abdolhamid Mirhosseini, Mahsa Kashkooli

The Qualitative Report

In Iran’s higher education English language teaching (ELT) context, we explored the moral nuances embedded in two conversation courses offered to undergraduate students majoring in English Literature at one of the branches of the Islamic Azad University (IAU) in Tehran. We collected data through classroom observations, field notes, and semi-structured individual and focus group interviews. Our content analysis revealed a range of moral values embedded in significant incidents, which we categorized into five themes: (a) relations, (b) rules and regulations, (c) assessment, (d) curricular substructure, and (I) culture. These themes were further subcategorized into more specific concepts that emerged from …

“I Thought I Knew”: Teaching Graduate Students New Ways Of Understanding Meanings Of Diverse Social Identities, Maria S. Johnson

Feminist Pedagogy

Instructors should not assume that graduate students understand meanings of terms for various social identities. In this article, I highlight a teaching activity I created titled, “What’s in a name?” that requires graduate students to research historical and contemporary uses of various racial, ethnic, gender, sexuality, and immigration terms. The assignment helps graduate students develop inclusive vocabulary and deepen their understanding of their positionality. It also supports braver classroom contexts for students and instructors. The assignment is best facilitated by instructors informed of diverse social identities, open to difficult conversations, and aware of the influence of their own social identities …

Critical Race Theory, Neoliberalism, And The Illiberal University, Rodney D. Coates

Journal of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

No abstract provided.

Editors' Introduction, Raj G. Chetty, Beverly Greene

Journal of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

No abstract provided.

“100%, I’M Not Trained For This:” Understanding How Professors Navigate Higher Education As Student Mental Health Declines, Clio F. Chazan-Gabbard

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Generational and cultural changes have led mental health to become an increasingly common concern among the general population, especially Generation Z. As a result, professors have become very aware of declining college student mental health, and some have become advisors for struggling students; in the process, they are learning to navigate boundaries in and out of the classroom (Lipson, 2021; Price et al., 2020). Using six qualitative interviews, this study seeks to ask: how do professors understand, navigate teaching, and one-on-one interactions as student mental health issues increase? This paper argues that as student mental health suffers and campus counseling …

Going To A Psychiatric Hospital Saved My Life And My Student Affairs Career, Jo Wilson

The Vermont Connection

The ongoing mental health crisis for college students has been a notable topic in recent years and while a necessary conversation, this often overlooks an underlying mental health crisis for higher education staff and the connection between both crises. As a former mentally ill graduate student and now (still) mentally ill student affairs practitioner, the connection is clear and a conversation now is critical. Using my personal narrative as a current practitioner, self authorship, and disability theory intersections, I am using this piece as a counternarrative and interruption to traditional student and staff development. Lastly, I seek to encourage a …

Examining Faculty’S Transition To 100% Online Learning During A Pandemic: A Narrative Inquiry, Christa Ann Banton, Jose Garza

The Qualitative Report

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) quickly emerged as an unprecedented pandemic that has impacted communities at every level. Although online teaching is not a new concept, many faculty entered new territory as they transitioned into the online learning environment at the onset of the pandemic. This qualitative, narrative inquiry sought to capture the unique experiences of on-ground faculty during the rapid transition into online learning. Through these twenty interviews, some emerging themes included the instability and usage of technology, changes in engagement and participation, and the need for additional student and faculty support. Emerging themes provide insight to future implications related …

University Foreign Language Teachers’ Perceptions Of Professor-Student Rapport: A Hybrid Qualitative Study, Maryam Roshanbin, Musa Nushi, Zahra Abolhassani

The Qualitative Report

Research has shown a consensus that positive professor-student relationship makes meaningful contributions to academic outcomes such as faculty effectiveness, increased motivation, enhanced learning, and excellent teaching. Employing a qualitative research design, the authors of this study examine the conceptualization of one specific aspect of faculty-student relationship; namely, rapport, which they believe is particularly salient in college classrooms characterized by effective teaching and a positive interpersonal climate. The data were collected through in-depth interviews with 26 Iranian foreign language professors who were selected through snowball sampling. A hybrid thematic analysis of the data revealed two core themes of rapport antecedents: (1) …

Building Resilient Higher Education Communities: Lessons Learned From Pandemic Teaching, Christian Williams, Carmen Veloria, Debra Harkins

Pedagogy and the Human Sciences

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many educators grappling with uncertainties about the future of higher education while feeling exhausted from the stress and pressure to deliver quality education in unprecedented ways. While learning to incorporate new technology into remote, hybrid, and flipped classrooms, educators also find themselves responding to the psychosocial needs of students more than ever before. Yet the lack of established promising practices coupled with limited training and support on how to support students’ emotional well-being creates confusion and self-doubt. This conceptual article explores teacher experiences of teaching during a pandemic, missed opportunities, and highlights the need to …

Women In Stem Fellowship: An Intersectional And Interdisciplinary Approach To Advancing Inclusion In The Sciences, Ina C. Seethaler, Gabriela Perez-Alvarado

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

At our university, women-identified individuals make up 23% of students in STEM fields; less than 15% of them graduate with a STEM degree. Nationally, more than 40% of women who enter a STEM job leave it within fewer than ten years. Gendered issues within STEM industries have been identified, yet we are far from equal opportunities for all genders. In 2018, we—the director of Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) with colleagues in Math, Computing Sciences, and Chemistry—received a $45,000 grant to create a “Women in STEM Fellowship.” The inclusion of WGS made the fellowship interdisciplinary, intersectional, and informed our decision-making …

Shapeshifting Power: Indigenous Teachings Of Trickster Consciousness And Relational Accountability For Building Communities Of Care, Ionah M. Elaine Scully

The Seneca Falls Dialogues Journal

Difficult dialogues are necessary work in order for communities to form coalitions, yet often these dialogues pose challenges for engaging in long-term work for social justice and systemic change. Power dynamics, microaggressions, and discomfort unlearning power and privilege can make long-term collaboration difficult. It is for this reason I discuss thinking of coalitions as communities of care and offer practical strategies for collaborating differently for sustainable action. Using Indigenous epistemology and methodology, Indigenous feminist and Indigequeer scholarship, as well as Indigenous land-based pedagogy and storytelling, I offer interventions using trickster teachings or trickster consciousness which I describe as comprised of …

Iranian Students’ Experience Of K-12 And Higher Education: Use Of Drawings To Convey The Difference Between Ideals And Reality, Iman Tohidian, Abbas Abbaspour, Ali Khorsandi Taskoh

The Qualitative Report

The focus of education during K-12 and Higher Education (HE) in Iran is on theoretical empowerment of students; therefore, our students get an illusion of knowing. In fact, what happens is not learning and understanding; rather, it is verbatim transfer of available information in the textbooks into the students’ minds. It might be because the students and teachers (as the main stakeholders of the education) are the least powerful parties within the pyramid of power amongst educational practitioners and policymakers. It means their voice, feedback, needs, and ideologies have no place in the educational decisions and policies. In alignment with …

A Qualitative Description Investigation Of U.S. Higher Education Quantitative Datasets, Mia Ocean, Karon T. Hicks

The Qualitative Report

Currently, the U.S. system of higher education is almost exclusively evaluated by quantitative data based on traditional student trajectories and university structured programs. This could be problematic for community colleges and post-traditional students, who are a growing population at all institutions. Therefore, we conducted a pilot, qualitative description analysis of three U.S. quantitative national datasets to assess their accuracy and identify factors that influence classifications. We interviewed individuals (n=13) who would qualitatively be considered success stories, specifically individuals who attended community colleges during their undergraduate studies and ultimately high ranking graduate programs, to gather information about their educational timelines. In …

Factors Affecting Successful Quality Assurance Implementation In Vietnamese Higher Education: A Qualitative Study, Loc Thi My Nguyen, Trung Tran, Thuan Van Pham, Tien-Trung Nguyen, Hien Thi Thu Le, Thao Thi Phuong Trinh, Thanh Thi Nghiem

The Qualitative Report

Quality assurance and accreditation was officially introduced into the higher education system in Vietnam over ten years ago. It is evident that quality assurance has resulted in positive impacts on university management, teaching, learning and research activities. This paper aims to explore factors that aid the successful implementation of higher education quality assurance and accreditation in Vietnam. Through semi-structured interviews with 32 participants, this study identified a number of factors that contributed to quality assurance processes, including awareness of the importance of quality assurance, better institutional manager leadership, support of university lecturers, staff, and students, and the vital responsibility of …

Move: We Don't Need To Convince You That Our Oppression Is Real, Dr Frederick V. Engram Jr

The Vermont Connection

This article will address the lived experiences of Black people (faculty, staff, students, student-athletes) who navigate academia in majority white spaces. Black people have known throughout time that the Black voice is not valued. We constantly find ourselves embattled in our personal lives, at work, and on social media. The constant and incessant need for whiteness to tell us how we should feel, respond, and react to acts of white supremacy, white manning, sexism, and misogynoir are triggering. The system of higher education is a constant reminder that academia exists comfortably in a bubble. A bubble that unless you are …

Transforming Higher Education: Responding To The Coronavirus And Other Looming Crises, Michael Mascolo

Pedagogy and the Human Sciences

Higher education is being deeply challenged by the coronavirus. The immediate threats of the coronavirus come at the heels of an existing panoply of problems that already threaten higher education as we know it. These include, of course, the looming enrollment crisis, the high cost of higher education, intractable student debt, the corporatization of education, limited learning on campus, and a general loss of faith in higher education among many sectors of the nation. How are colleges and universities to respond to these challenges? This paper calls upon colleges and universities to consider the need for structural transformation in order …

Behind Quality, There Is Equality: An Analysis Of Scientific Capital Accumulation In Social-Democratic Welfare Regimes, Olivier Bégin-Caouette

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

ABSTRACT

Trade-offs between quality and equality are at the forefront of multiple debates in higher education, and one conceptual tool to approach societies’ adjustment in resolving these trade-offs is the welfare regime typology. Relying on the theory of academic capitalism and using research production as a proxy for quality in higher education, this study analyses how social-democratic welfare regimes resolve the trade-off between comparatively high levels of academic research production, access to higher education and equal citizens’ living conditions. Interviews with 56 system actors suggest that equality is perceived to contribute to academic freedom, public investments in research and the …

Social Dimensions Of Student Debt: A Data Mining Analysis, Dirk Witteveen, Paul Attewell

Journal of Student Financial Aid

Media commentary on undergraduates' loan debt portrays a crisis in which many students are unable to pay back their loans, having borrowed large sums and lacking sufficient post-college income to repay. Several scholars have questioned the media accounts, noting that indebtedness is highest among students from high income families, while defaults predominate among low debt students. Using a data mining technique known as CART, we analyze national data on the indebtedness of recent baccalaureate graduates, to uncover combinations of social characteristics that are associated with loan pressure: the ratio of indebtedness to post-college earnings. We find that students from lower …

An Education In Sexuality & Sociality: Heteronormativity On Campus, Jason K. Wallace

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

In An Education in Sexuality & Sociality: Heteronormativity on Campus, Dr. Frank Karioris discusses the role of universities in creating sexed and gendered relationships and hierarchies within society. Through his ethnographic study, Dr. Karioris explores homosociality and challenges heteronormativity on college campuses. This book review provides an overview of this work along with critique and implication for higher education.

Non-Traditional Students At Public Regional Universities: A Case Study, Lizabeth Zack

Teacher-Scholar: The Journal of the State Comprehensive University

This paper investigates the topic of non-traditional students enrolled at four-year public regional universities and addresses questions about who they are, what makes them non-traditional and how they experience college life. The analysis is based on survey data collected from 187 undergraduates at one regional public college in the southeastern United States. The study found a higher portion of non-traditional students than expected and that the non-traditional students tended to break down into two types, a younger worker-student and an older adult student, rather than conforming to a single profile. While the findings highlight other similarities with the broader population …

Civic Engagement: Strategic And Implementation Perspectives Within A Higher Education Institution, Des Moore

The ITB Journal

This paper will give a brief overview of what Civic Engagement means in Higher Education in general with a particular focus on Knowledge Exchange, Service Learning, Community Based Research and Volunteering. Following this, emergent thinking on Civic Engagement in Ireland is presented. Given both the theoretical context and the strategic importance of ensuring Civic Engagement opportunities are offered in a Higher Education Institution some possible organisation arrangements regarding the structured development and implementation of Civic Engagement at strategic and implementation levels are proposed.

Color-Blind Contradictions And Black/White Binaries: White Academics Upholding Whiteness, Demerris R. Brooks-Immel Ed.D., Susan B. Murray Ph.D.

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

This qualitative study maps ‘locally situated’ (Twine and Gallagher 2008), contours of whiteness as cultural practice and institutional discourse by examining how white college faculty, staff, and administrators respond to multiracial educational environments and multicultural ideals. Drawing on depth interviews with thirty white administrators, faculty, and staff, this study finds that these white educators adhered to an intermittent form of color-blind racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2009) that enabled them to hold fast to the fiction that race has no meaning in their lives, yet remains the single-most defining dimension of the lives of people of color. This analysis identifies five contextually-embedded manifestations …