Research News

Jennifer Rippner (Ph.D. 2013), who recently served as an IHE postdoctoral research and teaching associate, has a new book out based on her dissertation research.

Jason C. Lee, a graduate student and research assistant in the Institute of Higher Education, has been named the 2016 recipient of the Zell and Shirley Miller Fellowship, awarded annually to an IHE doctoral student of high promise.

Research by IHE professor Rob Toutkoushian and two IHE students on what is meant by the term “first-generation student” was reported in a recent Inside Higher Ed article, following a presentation on their findings at the 2015 ASHE conference.

Despite the widespread use of the term by educators and policy makers, “no one has defined what they mean by ‘first generation,’” says Toutkoushian, who used data from a nationally representative sample of students for his study, assisted by graduate students Rob Stollberg and Kelly Slaton.

Sixteen IHE students are participating in a total of 27 presentations, poster sessions and roundtables at the 2015 conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) in Denver this week.

Their topics – ranging from investigating student loan debt to outcomes-based funding policies – relate to the theme of the 40th annual conference: Inequality & Higher Education.

IHE professor and associate director James Hearn is among 13 higher education researchers and thought leaders nationally who have authored a series of papers to be released over the coming months by the Lumina Foundation.

IHE Fellow Lorilee R. Sandmann is a 2015 inductee for membership in the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship (ACES).

She was one of nine inducted during a Sept. 30 ceremony at the Engagement Scholarship Consortium Conference held at Penn State University.  A professor emerita in the Department of Lifelong Education, Administration, and Policy at UGA, Sandmann serves as editor of the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement.

Athens, GA – Denisa Gándara, a doctoral candidate in the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia, has recently received two prestigious honors. She is one of 33 students nationally awarded a 2015 Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, and she is also one of nine students receiving support from a minority dissertation fellowship program of the American Educational Research Association.

The Institute of Higher Education invites applications for a post-doctoral research and teaching position. The position is designed to engage an emerging scholar in the Institute’s research and teaching mission. The candidate should have expertise aligning with the overall research interests of the faculty, while also bringing new areas of inquiry into the Institute’s research activities. The candidate should also have appropriate expertise to teach in the Institute’s graduate curriculum.

Denisa Gándara has been awarded a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. The dissertation fellowship provides one year of support to individuals working toward completing their dissertation. It is intended to support the final year of writing and defense of the dissertation.

An Institute of Higher Education graduate’s dissertation has been selected as the runner-up (semi-finalist) for the Politics of Education Association Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award. Mary Milan Deupree’s (Ph.D. 2013) dissertation “’Policy Be Damned, Research Be Damned’: A Multiple Case Study of Research Use in Undocumented Student Policy Decisions,” will be recognized at the 2015 American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting in Chicago in April.

Editors: Karen L. Webber, Associate Professor in the Institute of Higher Education, University of Georgia, USA; and Angel J. Calderon, Principal Advisor of Planning and Research, RMIT University, Australia.

Timothy Cain writes and teaches about the history of higher education, university faculty, campus speech, and learning outcomes assessment. He is currently writing a book on the history of faculty unionization from 1918-1980, arguing that unions were significant even before they could collectively bargain and that studying their contested rise reveals core tensions in American higher education.

Slaughter received the Howard R. Bowen Distinguished Career Award, which is the highest honor presented to an individual by ASHE. The award is presented to “an individual whose professional life has been devoted in substantial part to the study of higher education and whose career has significantly advanced the field through extraordinary scholarship, leadership and service,” according to the ASHE website.

Tim Cain is one of a group of scholars who has written a new book, Using Evidence of Student Learning to Improve Higher Education, to inform and shift the functions and forms of assessment away from the conventional view that assessment is primarily an act of compliance with outside forces and toward the view that understanding what matters to stud

Institute of Higher Education faculty members Sheila Slaughter and James C. Hearn have received prestigious awards from the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). The awards were issued at the association’s annual conference on Nov. 19-22 in Washington, D.C. 

The Institute of Higher Education has named two students, Lucia Brajkovic and Kelly Ochs Rosinger, as Zell and Shirley Miller Graduate Fellows for 2014-15.

The annual award is given to students with outstanding scholarly potential, academic record and professional achievements. The $1,500 award supports professional development.

Institute of Higher Education faculty receives reviewer certification for national studies

Manuel S. González Canché, assistant professor of higher education, has received certification as a reviewer for the What Works Clearinghouse™ in Postsecondary Education.

Introduction

In 2012, Sheila Slaughter, was honored by being named a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). The purpose of the Fellows Program is to honor education researchers with substantial research accomplishments, to convey the Association’s commitment to excellence in research, and to enable the next generation of emerging scholars to appreciate the value of sustained achievements in research and the breadth of scholarship worthy of recognition.