Appalachian Futures at WVU: Class Projects

Classrooms across campus are connecting the Appalachian past to our possible futures, in subjects across the curriculum. These are just a few such projects where WVU student researchers helping to chart a distinctly Appalachian path forward

Connecting Aga Khan University\u27s nine campus libraries across three continents through a shared library system

The Aga Khan University (AKU) is the only university in the developing world that is serving through its eleven campuses spread across eight countries and three continents. It has a network of nine libraries, although small in size, in four developing courtiers in two regions (South Asia and East Africa). The university has recently implemented a library management system to integrate all nine libraries in four counties using a single shared database. The purpose of this paper is to share our experience of implementing the industry standard-base state-of-the-art library system. The geographical location of AKU libraries and multilingual collections makes this experience more significant. Keeping in view the complexity of geographical locations, multilingual collections, different time zones, and diversity of staff involved, one can consider it a unique occurrence in the field of library and information science

The Credo Second-Year Transition Guide: Extending Retention and Student Success Efforts Beyond the FYE

The second year of any college student’s journey is a time of great personal and academic transformation. How we support these students can have a profound impact on their persistence, grades, and graduation rates—and can also shape how they view themselves and their community. While second-years currently represent the most frequently overlooked cohort on campus, the library’s unique role offers several opportunities to address this shortcoming. With the right programming, strategies, and instruction, librarians can build off of the momentum established in the first-year experience, and propel students successfully into their chosen disciplines and beyond. This publication shares concrete ways librarians can support success of undergraduate students, with a focus on second-year students.Credo ReferenceTable of Contents: Note about the Author. 3 -- SECTION 1 Why Second-Year Programs Matter: Looking into higher ed's most overlooked year. 4 -- SECTION 2 Maximizing Library Instruction for Second-Year Students: Continuing your FYE momentum for student success. 17 -- SECTION 3 Collaborations and Partnerships to Advance Second-Year Students' Success: Expanding the library’s role and deepening relationships across campus. 31 -- Connecting With Faculty Through Teaching and Learning Centers. 42 -- Connecting With Parents and Families of Students. 43 -- CONCLUSION. 45 -- Further reading. 46No embarg

Spectrum, Volume 52, Issue 1

Highlights include: Shu Honorary Doctorate Recipient, Vince McMahon, Resigns from WWE Parent Company Amid Sex Trafficking Allegations - 2 Graduate Students Found Dead in Apartment - SHU Hires New Manager of LGBTQ+ Affairs - SHU Professors Rediscovers Tomb on Dingle Peninsula - Connecting Hearts Through the Office of Community Engagement - In the Classroom: Exploring the Interesting Classes SHU Has to Offer - From Campus to Canvas: Illustration Students Accepted to Competitions - SHU Band Tours the Emerald Isle - SHU Choir Takes Voices Across Borders - Rowing with Heart: Saige Harper Makes Paralympic Team - Cheer Clinches Third at UCA Nationals - An Update on the Men of the Martire Family Aren

Degrees of Coaching: Success Boston's Transition Coaching Model, Highlights Brief

SBC coaches engage in providing the general kinds of supports proven helpful in research about beginning college outcomes for students. Connecting students to resources, helping them plan their coursework and identify a major, and developing a positive relationship with coaches have all been identified as mechanisms by which supports may improve outcomes for community college students in particular. Two-thirds of SBC coaches reported that connecting students to resources on and off campus is an important component of transition coaching. Coaches and students communicated with one another through a variety of methods; generally, coaches relied upon the modes students most preferred—text, email and in-person.In 2014-2015 the SBC program, as a whole, was providing support services on those topics aligned with prior research findings about the specific factors linked with college persistence and graduation, including financial aid support, course selection, time management, connecting students to resources, setting goals, and selecting a course of study. Importantly, students concurred that their coaches were most helpful when providing support about these same topics. Coaches described two other central components of their work with students, including helping students learn to advocate for themselves, and developing the confidence to succeed, through encouraging students to meet with professors to discuss course requirements, seek out support services, and identify and apply for internships.Prior research also suggests that the amount of communication and contact coaches have with students may contribute to improved college-related outcomes.ix SBC coaches and students communicate frequently, as evidenced by the nearly 9,000 transition support interactions recorded for the 2014-2015 school year. Yet these same data suggest variability in nonprofit organizations' expectations about how often coaches should engage with students each semester. To ensure that all students receive a consistent threshold of coaching support, perhaps stakeholders could consider whether to establish a minimum number of interactions between coaches and their students or minimum amount of one-on-one coaching each semester.The findings summarized in this brief illustrate how the SBC program has continued to help collegeentering students navigate their first years in college. They also suggest possible connections between aspects of program implementation and later accomplishments—connections to be explored in subsequent reports about key student outcomes. The findings also point to some challenges faced by the nonprofit organizations, especially in terms of managing large and sometimes widely dispersed caseloads of students. Those coaches with caseloads of 60-plus students lamented the lack of adequate time with individual students, and coaches whose caseloads were distributed across multiple campuses faced logistical hurdles in managing multiple college calendars and spending valuable time traveling between campuses. These impediments hindered coaches' capacity to support students effectively. Over the coming years, as SBC triples the number of students to be served, helping coaches and organizations manage these barriers will be even more critical

On the Battleground at Gettysburg: A Journey to Remember

I was very pleased to be one of the two speakers at Sunday night\u27s inaugural Journey to Remember event sponsored by Gettysburg College. A group of students and community members trekked up the hill from the campus, resting on Oak Hill at the base of the Eternal Light Peace Memorial to hear myself and Janet Riggs, the college\u27s President and a fellow alum. The student organizers asked me to place that place into historical context. [excerpt

\u3ci\u3eThe Center of the World\u3c/i\u3e

A body of water is often seen as a serene place of relaxation, but just under the surface, aquatic life bustle around. This creative narrative will spark your imagination into having you believe that you are placed in the shoes of a wandering student as you encounter this great entity, known as the Bryant Pond. This journey will allow you to free your mind, and let it wander as you get lost in your own imagination. Have you ever wondered how certain things came to be, such as out-of-place objects in an environment that could have naturalistically been put there, but has a very small probability of actually being real nature? The Bryant Pond is located at the center of the university campus, and is an eye-catcher as you meander around. The pond acts as a waypoint for students, allowing them to navigate the campus with ease. Surrounding the pond are various forms of the environment, ranging from trees, to grass, to weeds and reeds around the perimeter of the pond. Since the pond is a secluded area inside of the campus, how did aquatic marine life come to be in this sort of environment with no connecting bodies of water? This would allow nothing to get in or out, unless an outside factor was to come into play. Fish swim around in the pond, and that draws the question on how they got there since there are no bodies of water connecting. Birds could have been the primary individuals that caused the influx of these marine creatures through transporting eggs in their feathers, or us humans could have planted them there to reconstruct a replica pond. Knowing and “Understanding the way that fish are dispersed in remote bodies of water is important for the maintenance of biodiversity”[1], and it can expand the wildlife that lives on Bryant’s campus. Maybe the bigger question is, what relationship do we have with the environment, and what do we do to appreciate what it has provided for us? [1] “Dispersal of Fish Eggs by Water Birds – Just a Myth?” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, February 19, 2018. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180219103258.htm

Connecting Passion and Purpose: Q&A with Changemaker Fellow Amanda Calderon ’18

Mario J. Gabelli School of Business junior selected for fellowship program that integrates student leaders into Rhode Island’s entrepreneurship scene

Engaging audiences through social media in colleges of agricultural and environmental sciences

Seventy percent of Americans use social media to connect with one another, share information and entertain themselves (Pew, 2019). Of those connecting socially, it's estimated 79% of 18-29-year olds are using Facebook and 38% are using Twitter. With college students being active on social media, college departments are able to leverage these many platforms to engage with students meaningfully. What is not clear, is what are the most successful tactics these departments are using. The objectives of this study were to 1) understand how departments within a college of agriculture and natural resources use Twitter and Facebook to engage audiences, 2) determine the success of tactics based on the highest levels of engagement, and 3) understand whom popular posts are targeting. For this study, researchers gathered 16 months of analytical information from 4 academic departments. The top 5 Twitter posts from each month per department were used to determine the average number of impressions, engagements, and the overall engagement. For Facebook, the lifetime of a post's total reach and lifetime of engaged users were averaged. Tactics noted included if the post had a photo, video, link, hashtag, or tagged another page. The audience of each post was analyzed to track popular themes. For Twitter, 307 tweets were analyzed across 4 departments. The departments had 608 total engaging elements, while on Facebook, 303 posts were analyzed for 493 total engaging elements across departments. Results show departments are engaging with three main audiences: students, faculty/staff, and alumni. Posts with engaging elements of images and videos had higher levels of user engagement in all departments. Popular themes across platforms include students on campus, student organizations, research, and events. This study aligned with most previous social media research in that posts with engaging elements have more reach. It is important that departments continue to use such tactics to reach audiences.No embargoAcademic Major: Agricultural Communicatio