Digital Commons Network^™

Overcoming Adversity With Resilience: A Phenomenological Examination Of African American Women Leaders Facing Microaggressions In Corporate Spaces, Dionne Trenise Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

African American women leaders in Fortune 500 companies experience persistent challenges of subtle yet pervasive systems of discrimination in the form of microaggressions that cause negative impacts to their psychological well-being, workplace performance, and career advancement. These women exhibit incredible resilience that enable them to thrive at work, mitigate mental health challenges, and navigate their careers successfully. However, unlike people who fall into either a racial minority group or a gender minority group, African American women experience compounded effects of microaggressions due to the intersection of their race and gender. As a result of microaggressions, these women experience impacts to …

A(N) (Re)Awakening: Preservice Teachers Connecting Their Culture To Science Teaching Along The Us–México Border, Angela M. Chapman, William Medina-Jerez, Janine M. Schall, Uma Ganesan, Ruby Lynch-Arroyo, Miriam Ortiz, Mourat Tschoshanov

Teaching and Learning Faculty Publications

Today’s diverse science learning environments have prompted educators to adopt more culturally responsive approaches. National initiatives such as the Framework for K–12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards emphasize the importance of engaging preservice teachers (PSTs) in culturally relevant curriculum design, particularly to support student populations that have been marginalized. Drawing from Testimonio scholarship, we align with scholars who elevate the value and pedagogical power of students’ voices and home experiences—stories often silenced or untold. This qualitative case study uses a three-phase approach—(1) Funds of Knowledge exploration, (2) theoretical grounding and lesson design, and (3) STEM lesson implementation …

Set Lists For Conversations On Necropolitics, Antiblackness, And Colonialism, Noah Morton

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

In lieu of a traditional syllabus, the following setlist uses the form of an academic syllabus to unsettle ideas around knowledge production and includes six sets with multimodal resources (films, songs, articles) to engage conversations on necropolitics, antiblackness, and colonialism. The setlists come from engaging in genealogies of resistance and liberation and are attentive to recognizing (re – again | cogn – to know | ize – to make) and acknowledging various technologies of domination while witnessing anachoreographies, or spirits of refusal. Each setlist flows from a check-in song, continues to the main set of readings/videos/podcasts, and ends with an …

Dissertatin' While Black, T. Gertrude Jenkins

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

Dissertatin’ While Black (DWB) is a racial affinity space that employs a community-engaged approach to completing dissertation elements. More than a writing retreat, DWB centers holistic care, creating a site for mentorship, celebration, and the exchange of ideas. Rooted in BlackCrit (Dumas & ross, 2016) and Black Liberatory Educational Subversion (Jenkins, 2024), DWB emphasizes that participation in Black institutional third spaces can counter the isolation often experienced by Black doctoral students, especially at predominantly white institutions. Ultimately, DWB operates as a “homeplace” where Black doctoral students can feel seen, valued, and supported in their research (hooks, 1994). We believe that …

Just A Dream, Makayla Miller

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This track is a poem about freedom dreaming. The poem embodies the author’s freedom dream about Black students and educators in schools. Asking what schools would look like if they were built on the dreams of Black communities, the author explores a reimagining of Black educational spaces. By reflecting on the state of Black education today, the author highlights the leftover harms of white supremacy while underscoring the beauty and endless potential of Black identity, particularly when students are allowed to exist as they are. This poetic reflection invites readers to think beyond traditional schooling and dream of a mode …

“Hip-Hop Permeates Everything I Do:” The Intersections Of Global Politics, Hip-Hop, And Education, Mecedes Lindsay

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This qualitative study examines how the absence of Critical Hip-Hop Pedagogy (CHHP) within academic institutions shapes students’ sense of belonging, motivation, and engagement by regulating which forms of cultural capital are deemed legitimate. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and focus groups with students, educators, scholars, and members of the hip-hop generation, this research adopts an interpretivist framework to center participants’ lived experiences within educational spaces. Informed by Freirean critical pedagogy and Yosso’s theory of community cultural wealth, the study situates schooling as a site where America’s soft power operates through curriculum design, disciplinary norms, and definitions of deviance. Findings reveal that …

Alive During Loneliness, Shabrena Barnard

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

Longing for male protection, I’ve built unseen vessels for myself to hide in. Collages have kept me alive during loneliness, abusive relationships, quarantine… Collages have also exalted my life when things are going pretty darn good. These two collages are an example of such. Two of my most recent creations, I felt very inclined to put images of Black American women. Then it dawned on me, I’s a Black woman! When I was able to print out a photo of me (from my cubicle at the Department of Children and Family Services) and she fit exactly in the ancient cat …

Purposefully Black Interactional Systems: Disrupting Punitive School Discipline Models Through Banter, The Funk, And The Black Aesthetic, S. M. Wilson

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This empirical study seeks to understand the narratives of four Black men teachers and two Black women teachers about how they implement school discipline and classroom management in their K–12 contexts. This track draws on interdisciplinary perspectives from education, linguistic anthropology, and African American studies to understand how banter and ritual insults function as alternatives to traditional discipline. Phenomenology and thematic analysis of six semistructured interviews demonstrated Black teachers’ beliefs that outdated and punitive orientations should be challenged. These teachers enacted discipline through talk—particularly banter, ritual insults, and what I call “purposefully Black interactional systems,” which embed discipline within them, …

Remixing The Academy Through Backyard Spaces: The Making Of Black Educology, The Mixtape, Dre Carter, Eghosa Obaizamomwan-Hamilton

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

As Black academics, researchers, and educators, we navigate the twin topographies of the academy and the open territories of possibility. Connecting these realms, we construct “backyard project” spaces—semi-enclosed areas linking academic spaces and liberated spaces. We use our creation of the backyard as a locality wherein we challenge oppressive, antiquated academic systems and anti-Blackness without waiting for reform. For example, our collective project, the Black Educology Mixtape “Journal,” exemplifies this concept. This track discusses the “backyard” as an extension of both third and fugitive spaces and, through material culture and fugitivity as method, highlights the backyard as a site for …

Uplifting Black Pedagogical Rituals Of Purpose Through Portraits Of Toni Morrison’S Humanistic Education, Darion A. Wallace, Natalie Hibdon, Gabriela Lopez

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

No abstract provided.

So Great A Cloud Of Witnesses: A Critical Race Counterstory On Teacher Preparation And Repair, La Mont Terry

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

Selective liberal arts colleges (SLACs) are traditionally undergraduate institutions that focus on providing a broad education in the arts, sciences, and humanities rather than the professional training for the workforce typically available at other institutions of higher education. Despite their comprehensive curriculum, many SLACs have a decades-long commitment to teacher preparation as recognition of the connected nature of K–12 schooling and higher education. This track examines the closure of one such teacher preparation program at an urban liberal arts college and its impact on the faculty who taught in it. Using the critical race theory method of counterstorytelling, I position …

We Buried The Curriculum And Called It Holy, Charles E. Becknell Jr., Johnna Rocker-Clinton

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This track develops the concept of apocalyptic pedagogy by situating it within Africana studies and classroom rituals, illustrating how curriculum itself can be examined, buried, and reimagined through practices rooted in Black educology. Drawing on ancestral knowledge and collective memory, the track envisions ritual as curriculum, where libation and remembrance become practices of mourning and reclamation. Rather than centering institutional reform, the track frames education as a ritual circle enacting pedagogy as remembrance, mourning, and rebirth, honoring Black life as sacred.

Kong Koch: An Autoethnography On Jieng Indigenous Wisdom And Ethos Of Leadership, Dau D. Jok

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

In this track, I argue that Jieng (Dinka) epistemology reshapes leadership by foregrounding restraint (achin te lui ye), emotional regulation (kong koch), and social harmony (wel tuc). These Indigenous approaches challenge dominant trait-based leadership models by exposing their limits in confronting social and contextual diversity. To illustrate these ideas, I draw on personal accounts and member checks with my grandmother (Aboba) to show how Jieng wisdom reframes concepts of leadership, disposition, and practice. Building on this, the track advances Afrocentric leadership literature by defining leadership as communal accountability. Furthermore, it stresses the urgent need for scholars and practitioners to engage …

From The Hood To The Pwi: A Self-Reflective Journey As Learner And Educator, Tatiana C. Height

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This track explores the concept of organic sustainability within the context of Black educational experiences, drawing from my personal journey as student, scholar, mother, and educator. Using action research and autoethnography, I examine how anti-Black schooling shaped my academic trajectory across K–12 schools, predominantly white institutions, graduate studies, and faculty life. The narrative highlights tensions between education as a promise of liberation and its simultaneous perpetuation of systemic oppression. Strategies of resilience and resistance—such as ungrading, culturally relevant pedagogy, Apocalyptic Education, and unschooling—are positioned as tools to reimagine liberatory education. The work underscores the necessity of rejecting white supremacist norms …

Harriet Tubman’S Underground Railroad As Ancestral Technology For Black Futures, Julia Lynch

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This track draws on BlackMothering to frame Harriet Tubman not only as a conductor of freedom but as an architect of ancestral technology, designing strategies of survival that continue to instruct contemporary struggles. Tubman’s praxis—relational, anticipatory, and collective—illuminates the enduring power of Black knowledge systems to chart pathways through systems of violence and oppression. In conversation with Tiffani Marie and Kenjus Watson’s theorization of Apocalyptic Education and what Django Paris and H. Samy Alim describe as culturally sustaining pedagogy, this track explores how Tubman’s Underground Railroad praxis offers a blueprint for Black sustainability using (a) health and survival, (b) spatial …

After The Bell: Black Sustainability As A Practice Of Remembering, Darius Phelps

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This track is an elegy and a blueprint—a poetic inquiry into what remains after the schoolhouse is buried. It builds alongside my published work on poetic inquiry, joy, and healing as pedagogical praxis. Drawing upon the frameworks of Tiffani Marie and Kenjus Watson’s Apocalyptic Education and the notion of Ruha Benjamin’s ancestral intelligence, this track reimagines sustainability not as environmental rhetoric but as spiritual and communal practice. Through verse, narrative reflection, and pedagogical testimony, I explore how Black educators and communities sustain life amid institutional decay—transforming grief into growth, resistance into restoration. Anchored in ancestral memory and the radical traditions …

Black Boys And The New Media Mixtape: Ownership, Aspiration, And Hustle In A Digital Age, Kareem Edouard, Taquan S. Stewart

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

In this track, we explore how “new media” platforms become modern “mixtape” tools for Black boys to remix identity and cultural narratives in the digital age. As Audre Lorde reminded us, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Still, we aim to interrogate whether these tools can be repurposed for empowerment. This framework unfolds in three parts: examining ownership and the gatekeeping of cultural narratives, exploring how new media platforms shape aspirations and identities for Black boys, and identifying the tools and pathways for Black boys to both see themselves as creators and access content that reflects them. …

Embodied Archives: The Body As Technology Of Black Sustainability, Felicia Rutledge

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This track develops the concept of embodied archives as technologies of Black sustainability in apocalyptic times. Building from Diana Taylor’s distinction between the archive and the repertoire, and in conversation with Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, Sami Schalk, Tiffani Marie and Kenjus Watson, and Ruha Benjamin, I argue that Black bodies function as living repositories of knowledge. Long before schools claimed authority over learning, communities preserved memory in movement, rhythm, oral and signed languages, tactile practices, and everyday rituals of care. Disabled Black bodyminds, through practices such as braille literacy and augmentative and alternative communication, further illustrate how assistive …

Dancing In The Wake | Like Moss Over Modernity, Simple Ant

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This offering is a meditation on existing and thriving in the wake of civilization. For centuries, we have educated one another to believe in, and glorify, the insatiable desires of our modern way of life. I begin with the premise that what we call “civilization” is a system predicated on death, violence, and exploitation, because it requires the endless extraction and consumption of the living Earth. Living in this way guts the Earth to feed our ideas of “progress” and “prosperity.” The effect now is that our civilization, our society, our way of life is rotting—bringing with it decay and …

The Cypher: Freedom Dreaming And Black Sustainability Beyond The Ruins, Tiffani Marie, Kenjus Watson, David Stovall, Dre Carter, Simple Ant, Eghosa Obaizamomwan-Hamilton

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

In confronting the structural collapse of modernity and the dehumanization inherent in public institutions, this cypher serves as a site of radical imagination and sonic medicine. By centering freedom dreaming and Black sustainability, we argue for the necessary pedagogical movements of Black Educology. Ultimately, we invite a collective reimagining of death, not as an end but as a communal transition toward life beyond the trap of modernity.

Remote Hr-Guided High-Intensity Interval Training With Weekly Health Monitoring In Breast Cancer Patients During Chemotherapy: A Moderation Analysis Of Physiological Predictors, Madara Ketlīna Štarka-Rantiņa, Rudolfs Ceseiko, Martins Campa, Maksims Zolovs, Greta Franceska Jermolenko, Kristaps Eglitis, Alicia Llorente, Aija Linē, Aija Klavina

Baltic Journal of Health and Physical Activity

Background: The study aimed to investigate the effects of a six-month remotely monitored heart rate – guided high-intensity interval training (HIIT) program on aerobic capacity, functional performance, and weekly self-reported health outcomes in women with stage II–III breast cancer undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Materials and methods: Fifty-six women (mean age 47 ± 8 years) were randomly assigned (1:1) to a HIIT group or a control group (CG). Thirty-five participants were included in analyses (HIIT group = 17; CG = 18). HIIT group performed 4 × 4-minute HIIT sessions at the intensity of 85–95% of the peak heart rate, two to three …

Effects Of Garden Exposure On Physician Assistant Students, Richard Gilbert Jr., Anne Schempp, Daniel Martin

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

Introduction: Stress and burnout within the physician assistant student population has been an evolving topic in physician assistant education. Greenspaces have been utilized for the reduction of stress and improvement of overall well-being.

Methods: Using a mixed methods survey methodology, participating physician assistant students were evaluated on their perceived stress levels both pre and post-exposure to a garden area. Both quantitative and thematic qualitative data was synthesized to evaluate the garden’s effect on the physician assistant student stress levels.

Results: A linear mixed effects model revealed that participants significantly improved stress outcomes from pre-test to post-test (ꞵ = 3.83, CI95% …

Nineteenth Century Deaf Education In The United States: A Survey Of The Schools, Styles Of Instruction, And The Events That Led To The Dark Ages Of Deaf Education, Christopher Arra

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

The present study reviewed 19th-century deaf education in the United States and investigated controversial curriculum changes that led to the Dark Ages of Deaf Education. Two pedological approaches to deaf education were discussed: oralism and manualism, and a brief review of the 19th-century deaf education schools in the United States was also conducted. Readers are also made aware of the specific events that led to the Dark Ages of Deaf Education, and implications for Instructors are also discussed.

Editor's Note

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

No abstract provided.

Full Text

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

No abstract provided.

Designing Visible Thinking: A Developmental Approach To Metacognitive Teaching Practices, Peggy-Sue Westphal

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This synthesis paper examines how metacognitive thinking develops through intentional, sequenced teaching practices that deepen students’ cognitive engagement. Drawing on research, personal inquiry, and instructional design, it demonstrates how early and sustained metacognitive instruction strengthens learners’ reasoning, self-regulation, and awareness of their own cognitive process. The analysis centers on Opportunities to Respond (OTR), a metacognitive strategy highlighted in the institute of Educational Sciences’ Teacher-Delivered Behavioral Interventions, and compares this model the Know, Want to Know, Learned (KWL) framework and the Habits of Mind behaviors. Together, these approaches illustrate a developmental progression in which learners first notice their thinking, then organize …

Tackling The Transfer Of Knowledge Problem In Intelligence Analysis Training, Pedro Sotomayor

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Intelligence analysis training faces a persistent challenge: analysts trained in critical and creative thinking strategies often struggle to apply those strategies in their demanding work environments. This synthesis paper examines the problem of knowledge transfer in intelligence analysis training, specifically, how to facilitate the application of analytic techniques from the classroom to the analysts' workplace. Drawing on educational psychology literature, including the Theory of Identical Elements, the Theory of Analogy and Abstraction, and research on near and far transfer, the paper argues that knowledge transfer cannot be achieved through curriculum design alone. Variables such as student motivation, the open nature …

Invisible Students, Visible Consequences: Leadership Under Fte Funding, Derek Bryant

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

The full-time equivalent (FTE) funding model used by the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) serves as a structural constraint that misaligns financial incentives with the missions of the 23 member institutions within it. This qualitative, descriptive phenomenological study, through interviews with system- and college-level leaders, found that this model underserves part-time, adult, and workforce students while simultaneously contributing to a resource instability that prioritizes enrollment over student success. The study concludes that any reform must require a redesigned funding model that first makes institutions whole, with a stable operational baseline of funding, by incorporating broader enrollment measures that better align …

Table Of Contents

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

No abstract provided.

Retraction: “Supporting English Language Learners In The Era Of Direct Enrollment”

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

No abstract provided.