Students Beyond the Classroom - 2013

Elisabeth Hughes

The achievements of the Institute’s graduate students over the past year once again underscores how productive and talented they are. From appointments to state education commissions, to numerous publications in leading journals and presentations at higher education conferences, to directing a nationwide seminar series with leading scholars on college access, persistence, and completion, to conducting webinars on online teaching and evaluation, to being researchers on national grants, to launching an independent college counseling practice, and to securing faculty and research positions, IHE students seem to have done it all. The Institute’s strong faculty and the success of its student body continue to attract top-level applicants to all its programs.

Jennifer Rippner has been reappointed by Governor Nathan Deal to the new State Charter Schools Commission, a statewide charter schools authorizing body, in which Charles Knapp is chair. As part of her assistantship with the UGA Provost’s Office, she is coordinating the University System of Georgia’s College Completion Incubator, a competitive grant program to fund institutional innovations intended to increase college completion. She is currently completing two research projects: one with Dr. Robert Toutkoushian on differences in average faculty salaries by institution and her dissertation on the role of state P-20 councils in furthering K-12 and higher education as they work towards college completion goals. In March, she published a book review of Hannah Holborn Gray’s Searching for Utopia in the Teachers College Record. In April, she was invited to participate in the William Boyd Politics of Education Emerging Scholars program at the annual AERA meeting. She is the current holder of the Zell and Shirley Miller Fellowship at the Institute of Higher Education.

Anthony Jones accepted a position as assistant professor of higher education at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC beginning with the 2013 fall semester. Prior to this position, Anthony was serving as the deputy director & director of policy research for the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance in Washington, DC. This past year he directed the Advisory Committee’s 2012 seminar series highlighting the latest research on access, persistence, and completion. Each of the nine seminars was led by prominent researchers on their respective campuses or in the Washington, DC area. Anthony also contributed to and co-edited, along with Dr. Laura Perna, a book that expanded upon the proceedings of the seminar series. The book, The State of College Access and Completion: Improving College Success for Students from Underrepresented Groups, was published in June 2013. At the 2013 Student Financial Aid Research Network conference, Anthony presented a paper (in collaboration with Andrew Belasco of IHE and Elizabeth Kurban of the Advisory Committee) analyzing the use of input-adjusted measures, such as six-year graduation rates, to assess institutional performance and distribute need-based grant aid. Anthony continues his work on the editorial board of the Journal of Student

During Lindsay Coco’s first two years at IHE, she worked as a graduate assistant at the Honors Program. She currently works as a research assistant on Dr. Sheila Slaughter’s research team and has spent the past two years engaged in a project studying resource stratification between high- and low-resource academic departments in research universities. In addition, Lindsay is also involved with the Higher Education Initiative for Southeastern Europe (HEISEE) project, an educational development collaboration between IHE and its Croatian partners. Lindsay’s professional experiences abroad have contributed to her research interests focusing primarily upon the internationalization of higher education. In particular, she is interested in the use of agents in international recruiting, international branch campuses, and Middle Eastern higher education.

Lissette Montoto has an article published in Educación Global titled “Universities and the knowledge hubs of the developing world: An in-depth look at the City of Knowledge in the Republic of Panama,” which is based on her dissertation research. This study examines the recent phenomenon of knowledge hub creation and how transnational education has helped convert this into a potential strategy for developing countries’ capacity building and competitiveness. It reviews trends over the past decade and ongoing initiatives towards this end in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Andrew Belasco was awarded an AERA Dissertation Grant for his work examining the effects of school-based college counseling. In the past year, Andrew has presented at various conferences on topics related to postsecondary undermatch, graduate school debt and “value-added” approaches to evaluating institutional performance. His sole-authored publication titled, “Creating College Opportunity: School Counselors and Their Influence on Postsecondary Enrollment”, will appear in Research in Higher Education later this year. Andrew and fellow doctoral candidate, Michael Trivette, have recently launched an independent college counseling practice under the name of College Transitions LLC.

Michael Trivette recently co-authored a paper with Dr. Toutkoushian and Dr. M. Najeeb Shafiq from the University of Pittsburgh, titled “Accounting for Risk of Non-Completion in Private and Social Rates of Return to Higher Education.” The paper is featured in the Journal of Education Finance, Vol. 39, No. 1. Michael’s current research focuses on student access issues as it relates to undocumented students in U.S. higher education. He has also assisted some undocumented students in Georgia with the college search and application process as a result of his involvement with a local nonprofit designed to help undocumented students obtain a college education. Michael and fellow doctoral candidate, Andrew Belasco, have recently worked to provide assistance to the Georgia College Advising Corps as the program expands to include additional counselors and schools. Michael and Andrew have also teamed up to start a new venture under the name College Transitions LLC, an independent college counseling practice designed to help students and families transition to and through higher education.

Kelly Ochs Rosinger’s dissertation research uses a randomized control trial to examine how changes in federal financial aid award policy affect student financing decisions. As a research assistant for Dr. Sheila Slaughter, Kelly works on quantitative and qualitative analyses of resource stratification at research universities. Kelly also continues to work with Dr. Jim Hearn, her advisor, on projects concerning institutional admissions and financial aid policies and socioeconomic diversity at selective institutions. She and Dr. Rob Toutkoushian are working on a project examining how the adoption of state merit aid programs affect admissions and enrollment at public four-year institutions. Kelly presented research this past year at annual meetings of the Association for the Study of Higher Education and the Midwest Political Science Association. She will spend much of the next year in the Bolivian Amazon assisting her husband with his dissertation research.

In June, Jonathan Turk was invited by Dr. Manuel González Canché to join an Institute of Education Sciences grant that will focus on improving the college readiness of underrepresented students. Jonathan has also submitted multiple research proposals for conference presentation. The first paper, co-written with Dr. González Canché, examines the effects of on-campus housing at community colleges on rates of student retention, graduation, and transfer to four-year institutions. Jonathan also joined fellow IHE students Drew Pearl and James Byars in writing a research study titled “The Impact of the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification: A Synthetic Control Approach”. This paper examines the effect receiving the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement has on measures of institutional prestige and success. An abridged version of the community engagement paper has been accepted as a 60-minute presentation at the 2013 Engaged Scholarship Consortium annual conference.

Julie Staggs spoke on a panel at the Business and Higher Education Forum meeting at the National Press Club in Washington, DC in March on the topic “The Case for 21st Century Workplace Competencies.” She also co-presented a paper at the National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals with Deborah Roach, assistant dean and director of graduate enrollment at Robert Morris University in Pittsburg, PA. Their session was entitled “Identifying, Maximizing, and Utilizing ‘Learning Agility’ to Develop Leadership Competencies that Drive Efficiency in Graduate Enrollment Management.”

Virginia Szabo-Durham presented at the SREB Educational Technology Cooperative’s K-20 Symposium on Virtual Teaching and Learning in March 2013. The presentation was “Creating an Evaluation Process for Online Faculty,” and she also conducted a webinar on the same topic in November. She presented a paper at the University System of Georgia Adult Learning Consortium Summer Institute in June titled “Quality Matters in Online Education,” and was keynote speaker for the Texas Virtual School Network virtual conference in August on “Evaluating Online Teaching.”

Jarrett Warshaw holds the UGA Graduate School’s Presidential Fellowship. Drs. Jim Hearn and Austin Lacy and Jarrett had a manuscript accepted for publication in Economic Development Quarterly entitled “State Research and Development Tax Credits: The Historical Emergence of a Distinctive Economic Policy Instrument.” In April, Jarrett presented “Institutional Generativity or Reproduction of Privilege? How an Elite Private University Affects Legacy Students” at AERA 2013 in San Francisco. Based on his master’s thesis, the manuscript is in preparation with co-authors for submission for publication. At ASHE 2012, Jarrett presented with Dr. Jim Hearn an NSF-sponsored comparative case study of state science and technology policies and effects on universities. They are preparing the manuscript for submission for publication. For ASHE 2013: he is working on one project with Dr. Erik Ness, research that explores governors’ perspectives on higher education and economic development. Dr. Rob Toutkoushian, Hyejin Choi, and Jarrett are examining graduate training and effects on faculty career outcomes. Also, he is working with Dr. Kem Saichaie, an administrator at UMASS-Amherst, researching how universities market to prospective students via institutional websites. Dr. Kathleen deMarrais, from UGA’s Qualitative Research program, is working with Jarrett preparing a case study of charter-school policy in Georgia for the American Educational Studies Association conference in November. Dr. Karen Webber and Mr. Warshaw are beginning a project on doctoral education and career placement of Ph.D. earners. In fall 2013, he is joining Dr. Sheila Slaughter’s research team to study trustees and academe-industry networks. He served recently as a reviewer for the Economic Development Quarterly.

Mary Milan Deupree currently works as a policy consultant for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission with Dr. Erik Ness and Ms. Denisa Gándara, planning and conducting a multi-institution case study that is funded by the Ford Foundation. The study explores the campus response to the implementation of Tennessee’s outcomes-based funding formula in 2010. Mary also continues her work with Dr. Ness on multiple projects regarding research utilization and the public policy process; last fall, the two co-presented a paper entitled ‘A No-Policy State’: Research Use in Pennsylvania Higher Education Finance Decisions” at the 2012 ASHE annual meeting. Also last fall, Mary and Dr. Jim Hearn wrapped up a TIAA CREF-sponsored project that researched emerging changes in faculty career contexts. The research led to two published policy reports: “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? The Increasingly Contingent Faculty Workforce” in Advancing Higher Education and “The Contingency Movement: A Longitudinal Analysis of Changing Employment Patterns in U.S. Higher Education” in Research Dialogue (co-authored with Austin Lacy).

During the 2012-2013 academic year, Drew Pearl assisted the faculty of the Engagement Academy for University Leaders during the implementation of the first mini-Engagement Academy hosted by the University of Minnesota. Drew has been selected as a Fellow for the 2013 National Data Institute and as a participant for the 2013 Emerging Engagement Scholars Workshop. He also presented his research at the 2012 Annual Forum of the AIR and the 2012 National Outreach Scholarship Conference. In addition, Drew joined fellow IHE students Jon Turk and James Byars in writing a research study titled “The Impact of the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification: A Synthetic Control Approach.”

Dennis Kramer has accepted a new position as assistant professor and associate coordinator of the M.Ed. programs in higher education within the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. He will be creating, promoting, and administering the intercollegiate athletic concentration within the higher education master’s program. The aim of the concentration will be training future athletic leaders–through a higher education framework–to understand the business of intercollegiate athletics and how it operates within the academic core mission of postsecondary institutions. Dennis will also teach courses within the higher education program.