Digital Commons Network^™

An Honors Student Walks Into A Classroom: Inviting The Whole Student Into Our Classes, Brian Davenport

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This paper explores the risky proposition of encouraging students to question deeply held values and beliefs. After connecting honors pedagogy with transformative learning theory, the author encourages faculty who are willing to take this risk to consider involving the whole student and not simply their cognitive aspects. The author then explores whole student pedagogy and transformative learning, positing how these can be present in the honors classroom. Finally, the use of critical reflection as a tool that facilitates interaction with the whole student is discussed, with suggestions as to how it might most effectively be incorporated into the honors classroom.

Practicing What We Preach: Risk-Taking And Failure As A Joint Endeavor, Alicia Cunningham-Bryant

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Faculty and administrators often present risk-taking as something honors students must do, but rarely do they take risks themselves. In an ideal situation, communal risk-taking would subvert institutional power dynamics, free students from grade-associated anxiety, and enable them to build dynamic partnerships with faculty. This paper discusses how one honors college piloted self-grading in the second semester of its first-year seminar as a mechanism of liberatory learning for both faculty and students. While self-grading was originally intended to provide increased freedom for risk-taking, in truth it led to increased anxiety in students and high levels of frustration for faculty. This …

Disorienting Experiences: Guiding Faculty And Students Toward Cultural Responsiveness, Rebekah Dement, Angela Salas

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay examines the challenges of integrating culturally responsive teaching into an honors curriculum at a predominantly white institution. Through self-reflection resulting from three specific incidents, one author examines the trajectory of risk-taking as it pertains to assigning difficult or challenging texts. The second author provides a vital complement to self-reflection: the mentorship of a senior colleague.

Academic Risk And Intellectual Adventure: Evidence From U.S. Honors Students At The University Of Oxford, Elizabeth Baigent

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Many study abroad programs promise students self-knowledge through adventure. Those that involve intense study seem at first sight not to offer adventure nor to entail risky dislocation nor to offer new insights into self. However, evidence from study abroad students at the University of Oxford reveals that they describe intellectual endeavor as adventure, finding that their academic experiences pose risks, demand courage, and are the means through which they and their new surroundings accommodate one another. Oxford faculty encourage academic risk-taking by posing hard intellectual challenges, helping students find their own voice rather than summarizing the views of others, and …

Risk That Lasts: Prioritizing Propositional Risk In Honors Education, Eric Lee Welch

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The fear of missing the mark often shapes how honors students approach risk in the classroom and, consequently, how instructors build risk-taking exercises into their curriculums. This paper explores the concept of propositional risk in the context of honors pedagogy, wherein students are challenged to interrogate deeply held beliefs and tasked with exercises designed to call forth the full complexity of attendant issues surrounding any individual viewpoint. As distinct from strategic risk, which can be characterized as performative and externally motivated, propositional risk requires students to critically evaluate a spectrum of thought, value, and ideology in the context of singular, …

Purpose, Meaning, And Exploring Vocation In Honors Education, Erin Vanlaningham, Robert J. Pampel, Jonathan D. Kotinek, Dustin J. Kemp, Aron Reppmann, Anna Stewart

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This paper examines the importance of cultivating a sense of vocation in honors education. Through examples of coursework, program initiatives, and advising strategies, authors from across five institutions align the scholarship of vocation with best practices and principles in contemporary honors discourse, defining vocation in the context of higher education and describing how this concept works within honors curricula to enrich student experience and cultivate individual understandings of purpose. By focusing on critical reflection processes, Ignatian pedagogy, and theories of moral development and reasoning, the authors offer different models to advance the thesis that honors educators can and should address …

Embodied Risk-Taking: Embracing Discomfort Through Image Theatre, Leah White

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Taking risks does not come easily to many honors students. Often their success is based on carefully following directions and working hard to meet established expectations. Although the Minnesota State University, Mankato Honors Program’s competency-based model encourages students to focus on personal growth rather than course completion, our students still struggle with the openended nature of reflection-based learning. This essay explains how incorporating Augusto Boal’s Image Theatre techniques in an honors seminar, Performance for Social Change, helped encourage students to become more comfortable with taking academic and ideological risks. Boal’s methods depend heavily on embodied experience as a companion to …

The 4 Connections: Moving From Intuitive To Intentional Relationship-Building To Improve Success And Reduce Equity Gaps, Suzanne Ames, Sally Heilstedt

Instructional Leadership Abstracts

Equitable student success can be achieved through connections and a sense of belonging created among faculty members and students. Lake Washington Institute of Technology, one of the 34 community and technical colleges in Washington State, implemented the 4 Connections framework based on best practices identified and systemically implemented at Odessa College. Through quantitative and qualitative research, Dr. Don Wood (now Odessa’s VP of Institutional Effectiveness), discovered that all faculty with high in-class retention rates shared “a common thread of connectivity with their students” (Kistner & Henderson, 2014). From this common thread emerged four key practices: 1. Learn and use students’ …

Como La Mejora De La Educación Especial Depende De La Sociedad, Peyton Locke

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Utilizando la observación participante y no participante, este estudio examina los factores que contribuyen a una educación exhaustiva para los niños y adultos con necesidades especiales. El objetivo de este estudio es investigar los diferentes tipos de educación especial que se ofrecen en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires y, por último, descubrir cómo la educación especial puede ser mejor para garantizar un sistema de educación especial igual y fuerte. Después de pasar un mes observando cinco escuelas diferentes dentro de cada escalafón, además de hablar con diferentes directores y docentes de educación especial, los resultados de este estudio llegaron a …

October 2019, Randy Beutler

SWOSU President’s Newsletter

Student Debt

We often see and hear reports of the crisis related to student debt. For many college students, this is a very real and important issue. Fortunately for us, SWOSU is very competitive when it comes to students’ costs when comparing us with our peer institutions.

Swosu Fact Book Fall 2019, Joel Harrel Kendall, Diane Fitzsimmons, Kayleigh Brown

Fact Books

The 28th annual Southwestern Oklahoma State University Fact Book provides a ready source of information to answer frequently asked questions about the University and its operations. The Fact Book is compiled annually by the Office of Institutional Research to assist the university with strategic planning, academic program reviews, grant writing, accreditation, and institutional information to help guide decision-making. The report is designed to help faculty, staff, administrators, and external stakeholders better understand the student body and university trends. The data analyzed for this report was collected from 2010 to 2019.

Unless otherwise noted, the information in the Fact Book is …

External Funding Bulletin, July - December 2019, Uno Office Of Research And Creative Activity

Sponsored Programs Bulletins

This bulletin features recent award recipients.

Uni 2019-20 Climate Survey: Summary Of Findings, University Of Northern Iowa. Center For Social And Behavioral Research

Institutional Effectiveness & Planning Documents

An analysis of the organizational diversity survey and the student climate assessment survey results on diversity from the academic year 2019-2020.

Leading Organizational Change: A Qualitative Examination Of Experiences Of Traditional Public School Principals, Nikeshia Leatherwood

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

The Every Student Succeeds Act has set the course for new accountability measures for school and system leaders. How principals lead organizational change might be key to the success their schools experience and the achievement results of their students. This phenomenological study examined the professional experiences, leadership trainings, and strategic initiatives of traditional public school principals who led organizational change efforts that resulted in two academic rating increases within a three-year period. Five principals, representing elementary and high school, were interviewed to collect data on their experiences of leading successful organizational change. Using Moustakas’ (1994) phenomenological method, rigor was established …

Leader-Member Exchange Theory And The Use Of Reinforcements On Employee Performance, Pagecarol Woods

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

Every organization desires to improve performance. Understanding how the employees within the organization are motivated and operate is essential to improving their performance along with the organization’s performance. Relationships between leaders and the subordinates are vital to the subordinates’ performance, and these relationships may change the perception the subordinates have of their reinforcements. The purpose of the study was to assess and predict supervisor-subordinate relationships with the use of reinforcements on the subordinates’ performance. The methodology of the study was a quantitative, non-experimental, survey research design of a single organization in the janitorial industry. Forty-five participants responded to the survey, …

Exploring Students’ Agentic And Multidimensional Perceptions Of Oppressive Campus Environments: The Development Of A Transformational Impetus, Elvira J. Abrica, Deryl K. Hatch-Tocaimaza

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

The campus climate literature obscures the complexity of individuals’ perspectives in relation to multiple dimensions of the broader learning environment. Unexamined are the ways students from marginalized backgrounds may respond to oppressive dimensions of the campus climates in unique ways that moderate observed outcome differences. To fill this gap, we leverage survey data to reveal multiple latent facets of the campus climate perceptions and explore how they potentially relate to students’ development of a transformational impetus, proposed as an agentic measure of students’ responses to perceived oppression in the form of a desire to change the world in the …

Best Practices Of Team Cohesion In Small Schools, Patricia Jean Shaw

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

This study investigates the best practices of team cohesion in small schools. The conclusions from the study assist future educational leaders with using best practices to influence team cohesion within school settings that have small groups of staff. If faculty can achieve team cohesion, goals can be achieved and success can be attained. Research for large organizations and team cohesion is documented; however, this study fills a gap in research by focusing on small schools. The study’s conclusions help prove that small schools benefit from team cohesion and outline the best practices for reaching team cohesion. This study is a …

Effects Of Federal And State Bullying Laws On Religiously Affiliated Schools, Dawn W. Hiller

Theses and Dissertations

This is a qualitative multiple case study of two religious-affiliated, independent schools in Trippler, South Carolina. The topic of this study is Effects of Federal and State Bullying Laws on Religiously Affiliated Schools. The research was comprised of open-ended questions posed to individuals involved in the disciplinary actions of the students at the two schools.

This study shows that the religious-affiliated, independent schools consult many different entities to develop and formulate their policies. As both schools stated, their handbook of policies is a living document that can and will change as society changes, necessitating the evolution of their policies. They …

Examining The Experiences Of Retained Non-Rural Teachers Serving In High-Turnover Rural School Districts, Whitney Leigh Prowell

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to describe factors and conditions necessary to retain non-rural public school teachers in high-turnover rural districts in South Carolina. Research on retaining non-rural teachers in rural districts is scarce. This phenomenological interview study describes rural teaching experiences from the perspective of non-rural teachers and provides insight into factors that influence the decision-making of non-rural teachers regarding continued employment in their district.

Data was gathered from interviews with 11 participants. South Carolina was selected because it is a highly rural state with a severe teacher shortage. A phenomenological design helped to answer the study‘s overarching …

Getting To Graduation: The Journey Of Low-Income Black Females In The Community College, Rosline M. Sumpter

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to understand the journey to college completion for low-income Black females enrolled at the community college. Specifically, this phenomenological interview study sought to understand how low-income Black females define academic success and how the intersectionality of their racial/ethnic, gender, and social class identities promote or hinder their journey to college completion.

Data were gathered from interviews with 13 participants from three community colleges in South Carolina. A phenomenological design helped to answer three research questions: 1) How do low-income Black females in the community college describe and make sense of their journey to college …

Preparing Catholic Educators To Educate And Evangelize In 21st Century Schools, Action Research Of An Analysis Of Educator Preparation Program Requirements Including Professional And Pedagogical, Relational, Formational And Evangelistic Education For P-16 Students (Profess), Mary K. Mcvey Dr., Susan R. Poyo Dr.

Journal of Catholic Education

Abstract

The preparation of effective, knowledgeable and caring educators whose mission is to serve society through direct contact with and instruction of students, is the topic of this action research. We sought to determine how we as a teacher preparation program within a dynamic Catholic university could ensure that our Catholic identity was truly evident and nurtured in our teacher candidates as they prepare to engage in the extremely important job of offering what is a universal right to an education to PK-12 students, in a variety of learning environments. The analysis of this teacher preparation program included a review …

Secondary School Administrators' Preparation As An Lea Representative In South Carolina, Chastity B. Evans

Theses and Dissertations

Prior research has suggested that many principals are underprepared and that some lack any background from coursework and field experience which may be required to exert strong leadership in special education (DiPaola & Tschannen-Moran, 2003; DiPaola, Tschannen-Moran, & Walther-Thomas, 2004), but the number of students receiving special services is on the rise. The purpose of this research study is to determine how secondary school administrators are prepared to make legally and ethically defensible decisions as the authorized LEA representative.

If school administrators are expected to be effective in their role as the authorized LEA representative, it is vital that they …

Community College Presidents' Perspectives On Campus Safety, Chad Christopher Sartini

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

This study addressed the phenomenon of campus safety from the perspective of the community college president. The researcher employed a mixed methods design by surveying the community college presidents of one state community college system followed by in-depth interviews of three of the presidents of the same community college system. The quantitative inquiry used descriptive statistics to detail community college presidents’ knowledge and perceptions of campus safety. The qualitative inquiry employed case study analysis through in-depth interviews to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between community college presidents and the phenomenon of campus safety.

The results of the study …

Equity Issues In Dual Enrollment Programs: Exploring African American Community College Students’ Perceptions Of Dual Enrollment, Kristen Wagner Rarig

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Dual enrollment has been shown to increase post-secondary student success outcomes across a variety of measures such as retention, grade point average, and four-year attainment (Allen & Dadgar, 2012; Hoffman, 2012, Pretlow & Wathington, 2014). In Virginia, access to community colleges among students of color has increased from 32.3% in 2008 to 42.7% in 2018 (SCHEV, 2019-a). Despite these gains, far fewer African American students than White students participate in dual enrollment in Virginia, which has significant implications for their future success in post-secondary education. This study examined the experiences that influenced African American students’ choice to participate in dual …

A Delphi Study: Retention Of Women In Leadership Positions In Stem Disciplines, Kimberly T. Luthi

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

This Delphi study explores barriers and support systems that impact women’s professional advancement in STEM disciplines. There were 20 expert panelists who committed to participate in the study and 15 panelists completed the four rounds of the study after attrition. The panelists were selected based on specific criteria including educational background, diversity within STEM disciplines, experience as a former or current female administrator who served at two-year degree offering institutions, leadership and membership within women’s advocacy organizations in STEM and related workforce education fields, and depth of knowledge and understanding of the research questions. Through the four rounds of the …

The Business Of Choice: Why Students Select For-Profit Career Colleges In Northeast Florida And The Implications For Community College Leaders, Tameiko Allen Grant

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Over the past decade, for-profit career colleges have faced significant scrutiny and increased governmental regulation. Even with the skepticism of critics, for-profit enrollments surged and had one of the fastest enrollment growths among higher education sectors. For-profit career colleges are typically known for their predatory marketing practices and exorbitant costs. However, there is a significant concern surrounding why students would attend an institution with such a high cost and a socially perceived low-probability of return on investment (Cellini, 2012; Iloh & Tierney, 2013). This study employs a case study methodology to examine the decision-making process of students who selected for-profit …

Ua35 Updates From Provost, Wku Academic Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

Email from WKU Provost Cheryl Stevens to faculty & staff.

Quarterly Report - 1st Quarter, Period Ending September 30, 2019, Etsu Foundation, East Tennessee State University

ETSU Foundation Quarterly Reports

No abstract provided.

Cross-Cultural Considerations: Raising Language Teachers Awareness About The Importance Of Multiculturalism, Abir El Shaban

Journal of Research Initiatives

Abstract

With the worldwide use of English as a second language (ESL) and globalization, teachers are expected to understand, acknowledge and interact with culturally and linguistically diverse students and integrate their linguistic and multicultural backgrounds in classroom settings. Teachers need to be multicultural to be able to successfully impact their students to be multicultural. This paper provides English language teachers with valuable recommendations based on cross-cultural studies and my experience, as an ESL teacher, on how to be responsive to students from different cultures to empower and enhance their language proficiency skills.

2019 September 27 - General Education Renewal Coordinating Committee Minutes, General Education Renewal Coordinating Committee, East Tennessee State University

General Education Renewal Coordinating Committee

No abstract provided.