Image: Dr. Jennifer M. Blaney, a newly appointed Associate Professor of Higher Education, will serve as principal investigator on two new NSF Awards – the CAREER Award valued at more than $625,000 and the EDU Core Research (ECR) Award, valued at almost $1.5 million. The NSF CAREER Award is a competitive funding opportunity awarded to faculty members who can serve as solid academic role models in educational and research fields. The NSF ECR Award supports fundamental STEM education research and research initiatives. When asked about receiving these awards, Dr. Blaney stated, “As a new faculty member at UGA, I’m excited to leverage this support to grow my research team in the Institute, build connections across the university, and translate my research findings into practice at UGA.” “We are honored to welcome Dr. Blaney to the McBee Institute faculty. She has already made significant contributions by bringing national expertise on community colleges and by virtue of receiving two major NSF awards,” said Erik Ness, director of the McBee Institute. “Her research projects are sure to provide insights to higher education scholars and leaders that advance opportunities for more equitable STEM degree pathways.” Blaney currently examines community college degree pathways that can advance equity in STEM fields, primarily focusing on transfer pathways in computing. Her recent work has focused on universities' role in facilitating transfer student success in computer science majors. This scholarship is well aligned with several core values of the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education. For example, Blaney’s work endorses the belief that broad participation in postsecondary education is necessary to improve the lives of students and society. Additionally, Blaney—through her scholarship--seeks to address gaps that contribute to inequity in educational opportunities and outcomes. Blaney’s new NSF CAREER Award, titled Divergent Transfer Trajectories in Computer Science: A Mixed Methods and Person-Centered Exploration of (In)Equity and Community College Transfer Pathways, will allow her team to explore the degree and early career trajectories that community college transfer students follow over the course of seven years, beginning from the time they enter research-intensive universities in California and following them as they matriculate through their programs and into the workforce. In addition, with support from the $1.5 million NSF ECR grant, Blaney will collect data from students, faculty, staff, and administrators across six public comprehensive universities in California for a new project titled Upward Transfer Degree Pathways at Public Comprehensive Universities: A Mixed Methods Study of Structures, Policies, and Practices, which will look at the systemic structures and policies that shape community college transfer student success. Dr. Blaney serves as the lead PI on this project and will work in collaboration with two co-PIs, Dr. Devon Graves of NC State and Dr. David Feldon of Utah State University. Both of these five-year, mixed-methods studies will build on existing research on STEM transfer momentum and Blaney’s prior research on post-transfer computer science student success to provide a comprehensive picture of the degree and early career trajectories followed by community college transfer students in computer science majors, centering opportunities for universities to create more equitable access to computing degrees. These grants also provide support for a postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Kaitlyn Stormes, who joined McBee IHE in August. Through their research, Drs. Blaney and Stormes aim to provide new insights into computer science degree trajectories. As a first-generation college graduate whose experiences in community college were her introduction to higher education, Blaney actively acknowledges how essential community colleges are in facilitating access to higher education and calls on universities to do their part by supporting community college transfer students on their campuses. According to Blaney, this commitment to centering community college students began about five years ago. “When I started my first faculty job about five years ago, I pivoted to focus my research agenda on community college transfer as a potential mechanism to advance equity in computer science. At that time, little was known about community college transfer pathways to computing degrees. I noticed that community colleges and the students they serve were often systematically excluded from studies and initiatives designed to broaden participation in computing. Given that community colleges are critical to increasing access to higher education and transfer students disproportionately hold multiple identities that have been minoritized in higher education, this struck me as a glaring gap that needed to be addressed.” Because community college transfer students represent a diverse and high-achieving group, supporting their success is essential to building more equitable and diverse computing degree programs. Blaney’s projects will provide new insight into how we can best support community college transfer students in achieving their degree and career goals by analyzing the structures, policies, and practices in public universities that impact transfer students and also by exploring the diverse degree and early career trajectories that community college transfer students follow, focusing on how students make meaning of their success over time. Specifically, Blaney aims to add nuance and complexity to how scholars and university stakeholders understand community college transfer student success. The results of this research will push leaders to define success beyond traditional metrics such as degree efficiency and four- or six-year graduation rates. Data collection for both of Blaney’s new projects will begin during the 2024-2025 academic year and continue through the 2028-2029 academic year. Please visit Dr. Blaney’s faculty profile to learn more about her work and interests: https://ihe.uga.edu/directory/people/jennifer-m-blaney. Type of News/Audience: General News Research
