Education Commons^™

Student And Faculty Perceptions Of The Impact Of Masks On Student Learning And Communication In The Classroom, Beau Shine, Kelly L. Brown, Christopher Felts, Trinnity Mitchell

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, facemask requirements while indoors were implemented in colleges and universities, both in the United States and beyond. Empirical evidence has shown that such mandates improved the health and safety of students, faculty, staff, and administrators. However, the impacts of such precautions on student learning and communication have to date gone largely unexplored. The current study surveyed students and faculty at one regional midwestern institution to assess their perceptions on the impact of masks on student learning and communication in the classroom. Findings are included, followed by a discussion of their implications.

Reconciling Self-Censorship: A Qualitative Study Of The Experiences Of University Staff And Administrators, Leigh C. Morales

Doctoral Dissertations

In addition to a global pandemic, the past three years have been marked by racial, social, and political unrest. These circumstances add meaningful context to examine and better understand factors that undermine free expression and contribute to self-censorship among university staff and administrators. To date, few studies have holistically explored the unique experiences of university staff and administrators with self-censorship and how this phenomenon affects their experience on college and university campuses. Understanding why staff and administrators choose to self-censor may allow for a deeper discussion about speech climate and the degree to which colleges and universities implement and uphold …

Request Strategies Used By English Language Learners: Student-Professor Email Communication, Padam Chauhan

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Recently, email communication between students and professors in the U.S. higher educational institutions where English is the medium of instruction has become increasingly popular. However, ESL students in these educational institutions encounter numerous challenges to write email to their professors because of their unfamiliarity with email etiquette in English, inadequate English language proficiency, and lack of understanding of socio-cultural norms and values. Also, writing emails to professors requires higher pragmatic competence and critical language awareness of how email correspondence takes place in academic setting. Email requests written by ESL students are often seen as inappropriate or informal by their professors, …

Calls For Change: Seeing Cancel Culture From A Multi-Level Perspective, Tomar Pierson-Brown

Articles

Transition Design offers a framework and employs an array of tools to engage with complexity. “Cancel culture” is a complex phenomenon that presents an opportunity for administrators in higher education to draw from the Transition Design approach in framing and responding to this trend. Faculty accused of or caught using racist, sexist, or homophobic speech are increasingly met with calls to lose their positions, titles, or other professional opportunities. Such calls for cancellation arise from discreet social networks organized around an identified lack of accountability for social transgressions carried out in the professional school environment. Much of the existing discourse …

Talking About Race In The College Classroom: An Analysis Of Facework, Katelyn Doherty

Media and Communication Studies Presentations

A review of research on talking about race in the college classroom revealed that scholars have focused on identifying students’ struggles and considering the impact of intense discussions have on students. Specifically, Miller and Harris (2005) found that White students struggled with feeling that their opinion on racial issues mattered and with learning to accept their privilege, and Sue et al. (2009) found that Black students struggled to feel understood and with the pressures they felt were placed on them by students and instructors. Because these discussions have been found to involve conflict, disagreement, and discomfort, this study seeks to …

Student-Instructor Negotiations Of Vulnerability In Higher Education, Kelli A. Halfman

Masters Theses

Brené Brown, author of Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead states, "Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional" (p. 2). The purpose of this study is to examine student-instructor negotiations of vulnerability via acts of self-disclosure both inside and outside of the classroom. For the traditional student, college is a transitional period that prove challenging, leaving one feeling vulnerable. This study offers a unique perspective of vulnerability and expands our limited knowledge on how vulnerable self-expression manifests within …

Tomkat!: Linking Theory And Practice In Communication Studies Course Through The Introduction And Application Of Social Exchange Theory, Rita L. Rahoi-Gilchrest

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

This article describes an activity suitable for either high-school or university-level communication courses. Combining outside online research, small group discussion, and class interaction, this exercise uses Social Exchange Theory, applied to examples of celebrity relationships generated by students and discussed in groups, to illustrate the process by which individuals decide whether or not to initiate and sustain interpersonal relationships. Although students should be reminded that the reasons relationships do or do not survive are difficult enough to understand when we are involved in them, let alone when we view them from an outside perspective, the activity proves intriguing and involving …

Re-Imagining The Digitalcommons Collections At The University Of Rhode Island: Innovative Approaches Using Technology To Advance The Student Experience, Joseph A. Santiago

Student Affairs Digital Community Development

Proposal Application for 2012 Innovative Approaches Using Technology to Advance the Student Experience. This proposal outlines a plan to utilize the DigitalCommons Collection as a unifying platform that can be the vehicle for community scholarship, creativity, and outreach. This article communicates a strategy to connect the URI community through multiple points of access and create a blended environment in which all people may share and learn from each other.

A rough draft of the proposal has been included demonstrating a slightly different interface and the beginnings of the writing process.

Labor Pains In The Academy, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This piece offers autoethnographic reflections on crossroads to which many academics come: whether to seek (or postpone or avoid) parenthood and when. The author deeply explores the personal (her own trajectories from daughter and sister to potential mother and from graduate student to full professor) in order to reflect on structural constraints associated with graduate education, the academic job market, and institutional policies and politics.