Building a Model of Collaboration Between Historically Black and Historically White Universities

Despite increases over the last two decades in the number of degrees awarded to students from underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, enhancing diversity in these disciplines remains a challenge. This article describes a strategic approach to this challenge—the development of a collaborative partnership between two universities: the historically Black Elizabeth City State University and the historically White University of New Hampshire. The partnership, a type of learning organization built on three mutually agreed upon principles, strives to enhance opportunities for underrepresented students to pursue careers in the STEM disciplines. This article further describes six promising practices that framed the partnership, which resulted in the submission of nine proposals to federal agencies and the funding of four grants that led to the implementation, research, learning, and evaluation that followed

Building a Model of Collaboration Between Historically Black and Historically White Universities

Despite increases over the last two decades in the degrees awarded to underrepresented students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, enhancing diversity in these disciplines remains a significant challenge. This paper describes a strategic approach to this challenge—the development of a collaborative partnership model between two universities: the historically black Elizabeth City State University and the historically white University of New Hampshire. The partnership, a type of learning organization built on a mutually-agreed upon set of principles, strives to enhance opportunities for underrepresented students to pursue careers in STEM disciplines, specifically those in Earth system science and remote sensing. In examining the partnership, six promising practices have helped advance the partnership. These practices include institutional commitment and faculty engagement, establishing mutual respect and shared time commitment, identifying an engaged leader, engaging critical change agents, initiating difficult dialogues, and preparing for growth and evolution. In reality, these practices overlap and integrate with the partnership principles, forming the foundation for an effective working partnership

Students as ecologists: Strategies for successful mentorship of undergraduate researchers

Guiding undergraduates through the ecological research process can be incredibly rewarding and present opportunities to break down barriers to inclusion and diversity in scientific disciplines. At the same time, mentoring undergraduate researchers is a complicated process that requires time and flexibility. While many academics receive extensive guidance on how to be successful in research endeavors, we pay much less attention to training in mentorship and working collaboratively with undergraduate students. This paper seeks to provide a framework for successfully collaborating with undergraduates including initial recruitment, development of a contract, fostering student ownership of research projects, and submission of a polished manuscript.While institutions worldwide encourage undergraduate research and publication, little training and professional development are provided to potential mentors. Our paper fills a critical gap in knowledge and provides a framework for academic mentors of all career stages to successfully guide students from question to publication.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149365/1/ece35090_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149365/2/ece35090.pd

The Evolution of University Access Programmes in Ireland

The aim of this report is to explore the historical development of third level access programmes in Ireland, that is, programmes aimed at improving access to third level education by the socio-economically disadvantaged. One key objective is to locate the UCD higher education access programme – New ERA – within the context of developments in national policy and access initiatives in Ireland. The report also presents a brief overview of previous evaluations of targeted initiatives in Ireland as well as barriers to Higher Education as outlined by Lynch & O Riordan’s 1996 study which provided the framework for the development of New ERA. Section 2 provides a definition of ‘access’ and ‘disadvantage’. Section 3 discusses the development of relevant policy on access to higher education. Section 4 examines previous evaluations of targeted initiatives. Section 5 describes the evolution of New ERA and section 6 places the New ERA programme in the context of tackling barriers to access as outlined by Lynch & O’Riordan. Section 7 focuses on current and possible future developments in the New ERA access programme and finally section 8 concludes.

Early-year undergraduate research experiences: How students are mentored, how valuable they find this experience, and what kinds of costs they associate with it

Undergraduate research has been considered as a high impact practice. Engaging in research in early college years are crucial to attracting and retaining students in research-related STEM careers. However, undergraduate research literature mostly focuses on the research experiences of students that are later in their undergraduate years. This dissertation is formed in an article-style format, which is a compilation of two separate research efforts to explore undergraduate students’ research experiences in their freshman and sophomore years. This article-style dissertation is part of a larger investigation into the academic and social experiences of high-achieving low-income undergraduate students. The context of the studies in this dissertation was the National Science Foundation [NSF] funded the Strategic Undergraduate STEM Talent Acceleration INitiative [SUSTAIN] project and the twenty-four undergraduate researchers who participated in the project. Chapter 1 provides an introduction that discusses the need for studying students’ early-year undergraduate research experience and explains the structure of the dissertation. Chapters 2 and 3 each present a complete study with an introduction, literature review, method, results, and discussion. Chapter 2 includes a qualitative investigation of the mentoring structures and the types of support provided to early-year undergraduate researchers. The types of support participants received revealed differences in mentoring dyad or triad structure, as well as the amount of their research experience. Given the potential benefits to undergraduate researchers, undergraduate research programs should be designed to provide clear roles, responsibilities, and expectations from mentors to maximize the support provided to students. Chapter 3 is an exploratory study that utilizes the expectancy-value theory to investigate how much and in what ways early-year undergraduate researchers value their research experience, and which costs they associate with it. Results indicated that intrinsic value and opportunity cost played the most important role in students\u27 motivation to engage in research. This study contributes to the literature by providing preliminary evidence of the range of possible student experiences about the values and costs students associate with their research experience and identifies the most promising avenues for future studies to find ways to improve undergraduate research programs. Collectively, the studies in this dissertation help us better understand early-year undergraduate research experience from students’ perspectives

Exploring Efforts on Two College Campuses to Cultivate a Culture of Vocation

Young adults today experience an extended adolescence, a period of time now commonly referred to as emerging adulthood, in which they delay undertaking the roles traditionally associated with becoming an adult in contemporary society. College has the potential to become the mentoring environment needed for emerging adults to consider their future life choices grounded in the context of their deepest beliefs, shared values, and personal passions. Since 2000, the Lilly Endowment, Inc. has invested over $2 million in 88 select religiously affiliated colleges to fund Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation (PTEV). These Programs were designed to help students consider a sense of God\u27s call in their life, or vocation, and to assist them in exploring their vocation during their undergraduate years. This qualitative comparative case study explores the PTEV initiatives that were developed at one Jesuit college and one non-Jesuit Catholic college in order to discover the extent to which their initiatives helped to support (or impede) a culture of vocational exploration on campus. In comparing the two cases, a similar theoretical framework for understanding their Programs\u27 effectiveness emerged from the data. In each case, the success of their Programs rested upon factors related to structure, culture, and agency. The structural elements consisted of the curricular and co-curricular programs put into place to help their campus communities explore the idea of vocation, both individually and as a community. The cultural factors influencing their PTEV initiatives entailed both the pre-existent campus culture shaped by each college\u27s founding religious order and the culture of vocation that their Programs shaped. Finally, the individual actions or agency involved in these case studies refer to the leadership exercised by those who were responsible for the Programs that enabled each Program to be a truly collaborative and effective agent for cultural change on campus. While case studies of just two colleges, the study has the potential to become a useful heuristic tool for other colleges that wish to create a mentoring environment on campus that supports students in their exploration of vocation

SPEC Kit 356 Diversity and Inclusion

Today, diversity is defined beyond racial and ethnic groups and includes gender, sexual orientation, ability, language, religious belief, national origin, age, and ideas. The increase of published literature about cultural competencies, microaggressions, and assessment of diversity issues, as well as the inclusion of social justice movements in libraries, suggests diversity-related activities have increased and evolved over the last seven years. Over this time span, several libraries have obtained funding to support strategies to increase the number of minority librarians on their staff and support their advancement within the organization. There also appears to be an increase in the number of diversity or multicultural groups at the local, state, and national levels. However, these changes have not been consistently documented. Therefore, it is important to re-examine this topic to evaluate the impact of evolving endeavors, to see if more ARL libraries are involved, to see how diversity plans have changed over the years, and to document the current practices of research libraries. The main purpose of this survey was to identify diversity trends and changes in managing diversity issues in ARL libraries through exploring the components of diversity plans and initiatives since 2010, acknowledge library efforts since the 1990s, provide evidence of best practices and future trends, and identify current strategies that increase the number of minority librarians in research libraries and the types of programs that foster a diverse workplace and climate. The survey was conducted between May 1 and June 5, 2017. Sixty-eight of the 124 ARL member institutions responded to the survey for a 55% response rate. Interestingly, only 22 of the respondents to the 2010 SPEC survey participated in this survey, but this provides an opportunity to explore the diversity and inclusion efforts of a new set of institutions in addition to seeing what changes those 22 institutions have made since 2010. The SPEC Survey on Diversity and Inclusion was designed by Toni Anaya, Instruction Coordinator, and Charlene Maxey-Harris, Research and Instructional Services Chair, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. These results are based on responses from 68 of the 124 ARL member libraries (55%) by the deadline of June 12, 2017. The survey’s introductory text and questions are reproduced below, followed by the response data and selected comments from the respondents. The purpose of this survey is to explore the components of diversity plans created since 2010, identify current recruitment and retention strategies that aim to increase the number of minority librarians in research libraries, identify staff development programs that foster an inclusive workplace and climate, identify how diversity programs have changed, and gather information on how libraries assess these efforts

Undergraduate Community Psychology Research Practice: The Story of the Community Narrative Research Project at Rhodes College

The Community Narrative Research Project (CNRP) is an undergraduate action research initiative focused on undergraduate students’ experiences of community engagement over time. At the center of the project is the collection and analysis of narratives written by Bonner Scholars at Rhodes College over their four years working in Memphis communities as part of their scholarship. This paper describes the participatory community research model that has evolved in the CNRP, including the voices of undergraduate student leaders in the Bonner Scholars program and undergraduate researchers in developmental and community psychology. We focus on the community of practice that has emerged in our team, and how this community grounds our interpretive and longitudinal analysis of the narratives we examine. Our discussion of the data analysis process, including students’ engagement with coding and reliability, illustrates the methodological repertoire that undergraduates develop in a community of practice and that is scaffolded by more experienced faculty and senior student researchers. Undergraduate students build the community psychology research and practice competencies that are often understood to be part of graduate student development. We are able to ask creative research questions informed by our unique and shared experiences, as well as our deep understanding of the data. We feature individual accounts by each of the six student authors to illustrate our research practice and share the experiences of team members. We offer practices that may be adapted to other undergraduate research contexts, and we discuss challenges and supports needed to sustain participatory action research with undergraduate students.&nbsp

A Phenomenological Study on the Professional Development of African American Male Administrators at Predominately White Post-~Secondary Institutions

As of today, African Americans continue to face a daunting endeavor when seeking to become executive administrative leaders at predominately White post-secondary institutions, even though, according to Tillman (2001), “Mentoring was identified as a technique to assist the professional advancement of African American faculty. In doing so, their numbers will increase at predominantly White institutions” (p. 295). Literature steadily indicates that mentorship contributes to one’s career development in the post-secondary environment. The influential aspects of mentorship on one’s professional development is supported by numerous studies that examines mentoring relationships across various academic disciplines and businesses in corporate America (Brown, 2005). In spite of this body of knowledge, African Americans in academic leadership positions often face various cultural challenges with minute mentoring opportunities (House, Thornton, Fowler & Francis, 2007). Within post-secondary academia, there is a considerable shortage of African American male administrative leaders. Numerous post-secondary institutions have mentoring programs, however, there is limited research aimed at examining how African American males are identified, recruited, retained, and developed for administrative positions. Furthermore, little has been documented regarding the experiences of African American male administrators who have been mentored. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to explore the role mentoring plays in the professional development of African American male administrators at post-secondary institutions. Keywords: African American, male, administrative, mentorin

A Social Capital Perspective on the Mentoring of Undergraduate Life Science Researchers: An Empirical Study of Undergraduate–Postgraduate–Faculty Triads

Undergraduate researchers at research universities are often mentored by graduate students or postdoctoral researchers (referred to collectively as “postgraduates”) and faculty, creating a mentoring triad structure. Triads differ based on whether the undergraduate, postgraduate, and faculty member interact with one another about the undergraduate’s research. Using a social capital theory framework, we hypothesized that different triad structures provide undergraduates with varying resources (e.g., information, advice, psychosocial support) from the postgraduates and/or faculty, which would affect the undergraduates’ research outcomes. To test this, we collected data from a national sample of undergraduate life science researchers about their mentoring triad structure and a range of outcomes associated with research experiences, such as perceived gains in their abilities to think and work like scientists, science identity, and intentions to enroll in a PhD program. Undergraduates mentored by postgraduates alone reported positive outcomes, indicating that postgraduates can be effective mentors. However, undergraduates who interacted directly with faculty realized greater outcomes, suggesting that faculty interaction is important for undergraduates to realize the full benefits of research. The “closed triad,” in which undergraduates, postgraduates, and faculty all interact directly, appeared to be uniquely beneficial; these undergraduates reported the highest gains in thinking and working like a scientist