Research News

by Jewel Caruso

A research paper co-authored by Amy Stich and Melissa Whatley in 2020 recently appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

by Jewel Caruso

Ben Cecil (PhD 2022) and Justin Jeffery (PhD 2021) co-authored an article recently published in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Leadership Studies. The paper, "International Student Engagement: Closing Gaps and Internationalizing Student Affairs," was released in the December 2022 issue.

by Jewel Caruso

Kate Collier (doctoral student), Sondra Barringer (former post doc), and Karley Riffe (alumnus) appear in The International Journal of Higher Education Research. The paper, "University presidents as agents of connection: an exploratory study of elite presidential ties in the United States, 2005-2020," explores how university presidents form relations between their institutions and external organizations. Using data from elite universities from 2005 to 2020, their results show growth in these connections over time.

by Jewel Caruso

In the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Journal, emeritus professor, Karen Webber, and associate professor, Amy Stich, published their article, "The importance of career competencies in work related experiential activities for engineering and computer science majors." McBee doctoral students Matthew Grandstaff and Collin Case contributed to the research and writing for the paper.

Krystal L. Williams, assistant professor at the McBee Institute, was presented with the Excellence in Public Policy in Higher Education Award this past week at the ASHE Conference.

This award recognizes an individual who shows excellence in their research in academic scholarship and policy practice that helps advance the public policy discourse in higher education.

Mid-conference and McBee Institute folks are still going strong in Las Vegas! Check out these Friday programs.

9:15-10:00

10:15-11:30

12:45-2:00

So many programs offered by members of the McBee Institute community today at ASHE!

10-11:15-

12:30-1:45-

ASHE 2022 is kicking off, and the McBee Institute community is presenting on many important topics. Check your programs!

8:00-9:15

8:15-9:30

by Jewel Caruso

Jillian Morn, a doctoral candidate, recently gave two presentations for the Assessment Institute. 

Her first presentation was co-presented with Jackie Belanger of UW covering how to build a compelling case with data, "Data Storytelling in Assessment: A Practical Guide to Narrative Centered Research Design, Visualizations, and Reporting."

by Jewel Caruso

Greg Wolniak, associate professor, and Sarah Burman, doctoral candidate, report the impacts of COVID-19-related campus closures on students' sense of belonging and academic self in their article, "COVID-19 Disruptions: Evaluating the Early Impacts of Campus." Published in the Journal of College Student Development, the article capitalizes on a pre-existing longitudinal survey that tracks student perceptions that began in 2017 and continued in 2020.

by Jewel Caruso

Three McBee Institute graduates and a postdoctoral associate combined forces to research funding trends during the pandemic, Paul Rubin (PhD 2017), Meredith Billings (Postdoc Research and Teaching Associate 2017-2019), Lindsey Hammond (PhD 2020), and Denisa Gándara (PhD 2016). 

An article based on this work was recently published in American Behavioral Scientist titled "State Higher Education Funding during COVID-19: Exploring State-Level Characteristics Influencing Finance Decisions."

by Jewel Caruso

Gregory Wolniak, associate professor at the McBee Institute, explores social exclusion in the arts with Amy Whitaker, assistant professor of visual art representation at NYU Steinhardt.

In their article, "Social exclusion in the Arts: The dynamics of social and economic mobility across three decades of undergraduate arts alumni in the United States," they highlight the acute diversity disparities in outcomes that persist among arts alumni over three decades.

by Jewel Caruso

Tim Cain, professor, co-authors the article "The queer student affairs career of Stephen Lenton, 1970-1980," with Michael Hevel. They extensively examined and drew from Lenton's papers to reconstruct his LGBTQIA+ advocacy when he was a student affairs professional at Virginia Commonwealth University.

by Jewel Caruso

Heidi Leming (PhD 2013) authored a chapter in the recently released book Delivering on the Promise of high-Impact Practices: Research and Models for Achieving equity, Fidelity, Impact and Scale.

by Jewel Caruso

Associate professor Greg Wolniak co-authored an article that appears online in Research in Higher Education.

The article, "The Long-Term Role of Undergraduate Experiences: Predicting Intellectual and Civic Outcomes," was written in collaboration with Nicholas Bowman, Tricia Seifert, Kathleen Wise, and Charles Blaich. Along with Wolniak, they explored the connection between college experiences and post-college outcomes. Their sample pool consisted of 21,716 bachelor's degree recipients from 68 private institutions.

by Jewel Caruso

Melissa Whatley (PhD 2019) announced her latest publication in the Journal of Comparative and International Higher Education which was co-written with Heidi Fischer of Old Dominion University.

by Jewel Caruso

by Jewel Caruso

On June 20th, Dr. Melissa Whatley (PhD 2019) tweeted an announcement of her latest publication in the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. "Who enrolls in internationalized courses? An exploration of at-home access at one community college" is available on APA PsychNet's website.

Melissa Whatley's quip on Twitter is representative of the humor and approachability that she brings to quantitative analysis. She writes, "when I was in the first grade all I wanted to do was be an author. I’m not sure a quant methods textbook is what 5-year-old me had in mind, but maybe this will do."

by Larissa Lozano

Courtney Cullen, a PhD Student at the Institute of Higher Education, examines the impacts of academic integrity policies on student behavior and why education-based policies are more effective in preventing academic dishonesty in comparison to punishment-based policies. Her findings appear in the Journal of College and Character.

by Larissa Lozano

Although there is substantial writing by academics from working-class backgrounds, there is little research on the relationship between social class and positions in academia. 

To address this gap in research, Karly Riffe (MIHE PhD 2018), Meghan Pifer, Jacob Hartz, and Maria Ibarra gathered narratives from over 200 working-class academics (WCA) to understand how they contribute to student goals and development. Their findings appear in Innovative Higher Education.

by Larissa Lozano

Denisa Gándara (PhD 2016) and Stijn Daenekindt, (Ghent University), take a unique approach to researching performance-based funding (PBF). While previous research focused narrowly on states that have implemented, their study also includes states that have not implemented this policy through data modeling and analysis of PBF-related rhetoric in newspapers.

A large number of MIHE students, faculty, alumni, and former postdoctoral associates are participating in the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Cultivating Equitable Education Systems for the 21st Century. The meeting was held April 21-26, 2002 with participants able to attend virtually and in-person in San Diego, CA.

AERA 2022Thursday, April 21 2:30-4:00

by Larissa Lozano

In their article for Review of Research in Education, Amy Whitaker (NYU) and Greg Wolniak argue that “dealing with social and racial/ethnic exclusion is a systemic problem that requires consideration of the many intertwined contributory factors.”

Amy Stich is a fellow on a new research-practice partnership grant team to explore financial burdens of college and how to improve. The 2022 Institutional Challenge Grant was awarded to Georgia State University’s Georgia Policy Labs (GPL) and Achieve Atlanta. The three-year project is led by co-PIs Sally Wallace, dean of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State, and Tina Fernandez, founder and executive director of Achieve Atlanta.