Doctoral Student Michael L. Tidwell is a doctoral student at the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education. He holds a Master of Science in Social Science from Clemson University (’23) and a Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (Public Administration & Sociology) from Valdosta State University (’21). At Clemson, he served as a graduate research assistant on three NSF-funded projects, contributing to an understanding of how Black engineering students selected between HBCUs and PWIs, how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted aviation maintenance technology education, and how the driving workforce perceives and is adapting to autonomous vehicles. He is also involved in a project aiming to understand demographic differences in social support within the graduate admissions pipeline. His broad research interests are in college selection and completion and issues associated with undergraduate on-campus employment. Specifically, he is interested in undergraduate and graduate school admissions pipelines (i.e., the pathway between deciding to apply to a degree program and enrollment), how students frame the decision to apply to graduate education, and the social support they receive along the way.
