Education Commons^™

Targeting Transgenic Proteins To The Mitochondria In Plants, Susan Qudus, Jeffrey P. Mower

Honors Theses

Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) in plants can convert an individual into female through sterilization of the male reproductive parts, creating an inability to produce functional pollen. In nature, this is advantageous for genetic diversity and producing progeny with unique genes that may be beneficial in evolution. For agriculture, this method is preferential for selection of desirable traits in crops when cross breeding. CMS is typically caused by genes in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), such as novel open reading frames (ORFs) that form after imperfect repair of double-stranded breaks in the mtDNA. Specific CMS genes vary among various plant species. It …

Mental Health Advocacy For Kids: A Social Media Campaign, B Rangel

Honors Theses

Abstract

Mental health in children has important, life-long effects on the child (Ghandour et al., 2018; Underwood & Washington, 2016). Because it is not always easy for parents to access important mental health resources and information (CDC, 2022b), I wanted to investigate whether social media is a viable way for parents to learn more about their child’s mental health. I created and distributed ads aimed at parents on three common mental illnesses diagnosed in children: anxiety, depression, and ADHD. My ads had high levels of engagement, thus allowing the possibility that social media could be important avenue for reaching parents.

Research And Assessment Methods For Leadership Development In Practice, David M. Rosch, Lindsay J. Hastings

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

While the field of leadership education continues to grow in terms of number of programs, students, and associated professional educators, our rigorous understanding of the impact of these programs has continued to lag behind such growth. Many postsecondary leadership educators work on campuses and have graduated from masters-level preparatory programs that do not focus extensively on rigorous research/assessment methods and may, therefore, lack the background necessary for high-level work (Brachle et al., 2021; Rosch et al., 2017; Teig, 2018). As a result, researchers and program assessment staff often recognize the need to take their methodological development “into their own hands” …

The 2021 Nchc Founders Award: Samuel Schuman, Bernice Braid

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Samuel Schuman (Beginning in Honors) is the 2021 recipient of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s Founders Award, recognized for his outstanding contributions to both the NCHC and to the professional and scholarly practices of honors education.

Professional Transitions In Honors: Challenges, Opportunities, And Tips, Suketu P. Bhavsar, Jill Granger, Marlee Marsh, Matthew Means, John Zubizarreta

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Authors reflect on ways that honors practitioners have experienced various professional transitions and provide insights to help others successfully manage such changes.

Honors transitions are inevitable. Many of us in honors, for example, have relocated from other disciplines, moving from the prescribed boundaries of our academic areas to the diverse and challenging demands of honors, quickly learning new leadership skills and approaches to navigating challenges and prospects within and outside our institutions. Some of us have relocated to different institutions; some have negotiated growth from programs to colleges; some have advanced to positions in higher administration; some have witnessed changes …

Honors In Practice, Volume 18 (2022)

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Editorial Policy, Deadline, and Submission Guidelines

Dedication to P. Brent Register

Editor’s Introduction • Ada Long

2021 Conference Remarks

A Sense of Belonging (Presidential Address) • Suketu Bhavsar

The 2021 NCHC Founders Award: Samuel Schuman (Introductory Remarks) • Bernice Braid

Essays

Counterstories of Honors Students of Color • Michael Carlos Gutiérrez

Inclusive and Effective Holistic Admission Frameworks for Honors Programs: A Case Study Continued • Andrea Radasanu and Gregory Barker

Constitution Day: An Opportunity for Honors Colleges to Promote Civic Engagement • Richard J. Hardy, Paul A. Schlag, and Keith Boeckelman

Serving through Transcribing: Preserving History while …

Honors In Practice, Volume 18: Frontmatter Materials, National Collegiate Honors Council

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Cover

Indexing

Editorial Board

Contents

Editorial Policy, Deadline, and Submission Guidelines

Dedication to P. Brent Register

Editor’s Introduction • Ada Long

Counterstories Of Honors Students Of Color, Michael Carlos Gutiérrez

Honors in Practice Online Archive

This study explores the experience of high-achieving students of color in an honors program at a large research university. Qualitative methods involve surveying students (n = 39) and interviewing a select group (n = 5) in attempts to measure both the frequency and severity of racial microaggression as well as subjective experience relating to diversity and representation in honors. Using critical race theory, a discourse analysis of four broad questions pertaining to pre-entry, entry, continuation, and exit of honors programs suggests that more is needed to foster an honors community that better understands and meets the needs of students’ racial, …

Embracing New Opportunities In And Beyond First-Year Honors Composition, Teagan Decker, Scott Hicks

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Authors describe course-embedded research experiences at a diverse, rural, regional university. Emphasizing the capacity for conventional teaching and learning in first-year honors composition, these experiences provide relationshiprich education through faculty and peer mentorships. Positing that first-year honors composition is undervalued as a means for establishing programmatic foundations that resonate with students throughout their honors experience, the authors reinforce its importance as a place for disciplinary research and thus for opportunities in mentoring. By addressing an urgent need for mentoring underrepresented students, the authors consider how a research-based first-year honors composition course might help such students make meaningful disciplinary connections. A …

Creating Knowledge: The Literary Dictionary Assignment, Rebecca Cepek

Honors in Practice Online Archive

A literary dictionary assignment provides honors students with an understanding of the ways knowledge shifts and changes over time as well as an opportunity to create knowledge rather than just recall correct answers.

For honors students, reciting the correct definitions of key terms—regardless of discipline—is generally simple. Where they struggle is understanding the ways such definitions may shift over time, shedding or accruing meanings with changes in usage, context, and critical perspective. To allow students to engage with such changes and to continue a tradition of “teaching the conflicts,” I have students create a dictionary of literary terms over the …

Disorientations And Disruptions: Innovating First-Year Honors Education Through Collaborative Mapping Projects, Nathan W. Swanson

Honors in Practice Online Archive

A series of courses on the Evolution of Ideas introduces interdisciplinary study, develops collaborative discourse, and promotes a sense of community among first-year honors students. The curriculum encourages faculty to use a range of strategies to help students understand an idea and its history while also fostering awareness as to its social, political, economic, and broader contexts. Using the social history of maps as an example, the author demonstrates how disrupting students’ understanding of the map itself and, through creative group projects, disorienting emergent understanding of campus spaces, fosters a questioning atmosphere and makes room for growth. Through planned disorientation …

The Critically Reflective Practicum, Aaron Stoller

Honors in Practice Online Archive

A defining feature of honors education is meaningful engagement within and across disciplines, yet significant challenges for creating and sustaining meaningful transdisciplinary research remain. One such challenge involves a nuanced understanding of a discipline, or what educational researchers call “disciplinary literacy.” This article introduces critically reflective practicum (CRP) as a pedagogy for developing disciplinary literacy among honors students. CRP acknowledges forms of inquiry as design situations and seeks to simulate instructional scaffolding so that students both experience and reflect on their questioning. Through the practicum, students begin to understand, engage with, and critique the methods and sociocultural standards of one …

Disrupting The Way We Work: An Honors Summer Vacation, Lexi Rager, Mollie Hartup

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Authors describe how a summer respite introduces alternative ways and spaces in which to work, positing how collaborative discourse and dismantled hierarchies can affect positive change and productive outcomes for honors programs.

While some assume that the summer is our off-season, the team at the Sokolov Honors College at Youngstown State University knows that it is the time we have to be most “on,” tackling all that we don’t get to do in the semester and positioning us for a strong start to the upcoming fall. Summer 2021 seemed particularly daunting with a laundry list of items to catch up …

Research And Creative Activity, July 01, 2021-June 30, 2022: Major Sponsored Programs And Faculty Accomplishments In Research And Creative Activity, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Office Of Research And Economic Development, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln

Office of Research and Economic Development: Publications

Foreword by Bob Wilhelm, Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development:

This booklet highlights successes in research, scholarship and creative activity by University of Nebraska–Lincoln faculty during the fiscal year running July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022.

It lists investigators, project titles and funding sources on major grants and sponsored awards that were active during the year; fellowships and other recognitions and honors bestowed on our faculty; books, chapters and creative literature published by faculty; performances, exhibitions and other examples of creative activity; patents and licensing agreements; and conference presentations. In recognition of the important role faculty play in …

Integrating Tropical Research Into Biology Education Is Urgently Needed, Ann E. Russell, T. Mitchell Aide, Elizabeth Braker, Carissa N. Ganong, Rebecca D. Hardin, Karen D. Holl, Sara C. Hotchkiss, Jeffrey A. Klemens, Erin K. Kuprewicz, Deedra Mcclearn, George Middendorf, Rebecca Ostertag, Jennifer S. Powers, Sabrina E. Russo, Jennifer L. Stynoski, Ursula Valdez, Charles G. Willis

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Understanding tropical biology is important for solving complex problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and zoonotic pandemics, but biology curricula view research mostly via a temperatezone lens. Integrating tropical research into biology education is urgently needed to tackle these issues.

The tropics are engines of Earth systems that regulate global cycles of carbon and water, and are thus critical for management of greenhouse gases. Compared with higher-latitude areas, tropical regions contain a greater diversity of biomes, organisms, and complexity of biological interactions. The tropics house the majority of the world’s human population and provide important global commodities from species …

Competence And Challenge: Sorority And Fraternity Life Professionals’ Preparation To Advise Culturally Based Sfl Organizations, Crystal Eufemia Garcia, Hannah L. Reyes, Antonio Duran

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

This qualitative narrative inquiry examined the professional preparation of sorority and fraternity (SFL) professionals working with culturally-based sororities and fraternities. Using narratives drawn from 15 professionals and guided by our conceptual framework, we unpacked important findings in terms of ways participants referenced their limited educational experiences, how they navigated learning within the confines of their professional roles, and distinctions in the value that professional associations and networks offered them. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

A Path Forward: Critically Examining Practitioners' Role In Addressing Campus Racial Climate, Kaleb L. Briscoe, Crystal Eufemia Garcia, Ashley L. Swift

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Student affairs professionals (SAPs) have long grappled with the pervasiveness of whiteness within predominantly white institutions (PWIs). In this paper, we bring together our perspectives to offer insight into how whiteness informs SAPs’ response to racialized incidents and advocacy for Students of Color.

Nphc And Mgc Sororities And Fraternities As Spaces Of Activism Within Predominantly White Institutions, Crystal E. Garcia, William R. Walker, Ciera A. Dorsey, Zachary W. Werninck, Jessie H. Johns

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

This study explored how Students of Color within National Pan-Hellenic Council and Multicultural Greek Council sororities and fraternities engaged in activism and in what ways this involvement connected to their membership. Using a qualitative critical narrative approach, we examined the journeys of ten participants. Findings unpack ways participants engaged in activism and resistance aimed at educating individuals and increasing awareness of societal injustices, addressing inequities through service, and inciting disruption and cultivating institutional and societal level change.

How Campus Space Becomes White Place: Advancing A Spatial Analysis Of Whiteness In Higher Education, Antonio Duran, Zak Foste, Crystal Eufemia Garcia, Jeremy T. Snipes

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Space and place are central to understanding the production and maintenance of racial inequality in the United States. Though examinations of the racialized dynamics of space are present in other disciplines, higher education scholars have infrequently interrogated how space becomes racialized on college campuses. This conceptual paper functions as a much-needed intervention, articulating how the racialization of space at historically white colleges and universities occurs and the subsequent consequences for Students of Color. In particular, we describe how physical campus spaces historically become racialized as white, how such spaces are maintained and fortified, and the consequences of racialized space on …

The Relation Between Childhood Maltreatment And Marriage Quality In Adulthood, Melanie Wagner

Honors Theses

Childhood maltreatment poses the potential for lasting effects on survivors as they enter adulthood. Research lacks investigations into these potential effects, such as the impact on interpersonal relations. This study investigates the correlation between different types of childhood maltreatment and overall quality of marriage, as well as aims to identify which type of childhood maltreatment may be the strongest relative predictor of marital quality. Analyses on a newlywed dataset from Lancaster County, NE yielded results of a strong negative association between measures of childhood maltreatment and marital quality through the application of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Quality of …

When Science Journalism Is Awesome: Measuring Audiences’ Experiences Of Awe From Reading Science Stories, Asheley R. Landrum, Kristina Janét, Kelsi Opat, Heather Akin

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

In collaboration with professional science journalists, we conducted a national online survey (N = 2,088) to explore facets of awe as potential response states to science journalism and how audiences’ dispositional science curiosity may influence these response states. Our science journalist collaborators identified several “awe-inducing” articles as well as a “business-as-usual” article to use in the survey, and we measured participants’ experiences of awe using the Awe Experience Scale (AWE-S). We replicated the factor structure of the AWE-S and found that participants’ generally experienced greater awe from reading the “awe-inducing” science articles compared to the “business-asusual” one. Only partial support …

Don’T Be Afraid To Eat The Whole Whale! Using Mixed Methods To Enhance What We Learn In Leadership Research And Assessment, Lindsay J. Hastings

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to identify proper uses for mixed methods in leadership research and assessment. This article will highlight research and assessment questions that are best served by mixed methods and will offer practitioner-friendly guides and examples for integrating quantitative and qualitative data to help eat the whole whale “one bite at a time.” Sound decision-making in the design, execution, and presentation of mixed methods studies and outcomes assessments not only produces better outputs, but greatly increases the likelihood of (a) publication in reputable journals, (b) sound program evaluation decisions, and (c) public consumption of study or …

Formfollows Function: Research And Assessment Design For Leadership Learning, L.J. Mcelravy

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

This article discusses how the design of research should follow the questions the study seeks to address. The article provides practical and diverse examples of broad research questions applicable to researchers or program architects and summarizes how different methods should be employed to respond.

I have been teaching “Research Methods in Leadership Education” for the past five years. The goal of the course is to help orient graduate students to leadership research and assessment, and for many students, I’m introducing them to social science research and assessment broadly. The beauty and challenge of engaging in leadership research and assessment is …