Infographic: Black Unicorns - Pre-College Access to STEM and Non-Revenue Sports

This infographic was created to support the article titled Black Unicorns: STEM Access for Black Student-Athletes in Non-Revenue Sports. The article is for the 3rd Annual Conference of CoNECD - Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity. The infographic covers Black students\u27 pre-college access to non-revenue generating sports and STEM. Suggested recommendations are included

Poster: Life After Sports: Black Males Pursuing Engineering and Related STEM Fields

This poster summarizes findings and offers recommendations from a research study involving Black males who majored in engineering or a related STEM field and played a collegiate sport. Specifically, the poster highlights ways in which the research participants were able to transition from playing sports to pursuing an engineering or related STEM career. For this particular poster, the presenters focused on the experiences of four Black men. Two of the Black men played college football at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the Southeast. Two other Black men ran track at Division 2 (D2) predominantly White institutions (PWIs) in the Southeast. Two of the four participants are current engineering students and the other two have engineering degrees. This poster should particularly benefit people who are interested in the post-playing careers of Black male student-athletes and practitioners who provide direct services to Black male student-athletes in engineering or a related STEM field. This poster should also benefit students interested in playing a collegiate sport and those who are concerned with career pursuits of Black male student-athletes

Building Writing Identities: Integrating Explicit Strategies with Authentic Writing Experiences to Engage At-Promise Writers

The message of what constitutes good writing instruction, though promulgated for decades, has not always nor consistently trickled down to P–12 schools, where writing instruction is often focused on preparing students for success on standardized tests and where prescriptive and formulaic approaches to teaching writing are prevalent. Part of the reason for this might be that teachers are not always familiar enough with authentic writing experiences that adequately engage all learners. As scholars in the fields of literacy and special education, respectively, the authors combine their collective expertise to address this concern. They offer skills-based tools and strategies that can be integrated into authentic writing experiences to promote critical thinking and creativity, build students’ writing identities, and help at-promise learners gain and maintain writing momentum. A balanced approach that harmonizes different orientations and paradigms lends credibility to this piece as an example of what educators joining together to form a coalition for student support can look like. This article is positioned to bridge the divide between seemingly dichotomous perspectives. Through the strategies and ideas the authors share, teachers will be better equipped to give at-promise writers reasons to believe in themselves and their writerly capabilities

Public health policy and walking in England - analysis of the 2008 'policy window'.

Although the government in England has a long-standing interest in walking promotion, this has not been accompanied by a coherent strategic plan or investment to support physical activity behaviour change. However, in 2008 the government announced its intention to invest £7 million into walking promotion. This article utilises Kingdon's Multiple Streams framework as an organising principle through which to interrogate the reasons behind the increased emphasis on walking promotion as part of the public health policy agenda in England.The research adopted a case study design. Data were obtained through document analysis of relevant policies and semi-structured interviews with experts in the walking sector, including both government and non-government representatives.Kingdon's Multiple Streams theory proposes that at certain points in time, 'policy windows' are created through the convergence of a problem, an appropriate solution, and a receptive political environment, and this policy window presents an opportunity for major policy change. The findings of this research suggest that the success of London in securing the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was the primary trigger in the creation of a policy window for walking promotion in recent years.Despite previous interest in walking promotion from the health and transport sectors, it was the recent alignment with the sports agenda that led to increased political commitment. This raises concerns that the research evidence on the health benefits of physical activity and rising levels of inactivity in England, are insufficient to secure government support and investment, and that multi-sector lobbying and joined-up political action may be critical in advancing this agenda