Around IHE - Faculty Research 2014

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. In January 2015, Jossey-Bass will publish Using Evidence of Student Learning to Improve Higher Education, a book co-written with colleagues at the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment.

Manuel González Canché is employing advanced methods from geography, statistics and information sciences to study college attendance patterns, academic networks, student loan debt, language issues in education, and the utility of geostatistical analysis in studying influences on institutional and student behaviors. He has examined the effects of faculty’s academic networks on their loyalty to higher education institutions, the impacts of restrictive language policies in education, and career capital in community colleges. He is also examining alternative approaches to improving the academic achievements of second-language speakers.

James Hearn examines organization, governance and policy in higher education. Currently, he has several pieces in press, including articles on the socioeconomic diversity of selective institutions, the effects of test optional admissions policies, and trends in degree offerings in liberal arts colleges. He serves as the Institute’s associate director.

Libby Morris’ research interests include college access, academic evaluation and assessment, faculty development, academic programs, and online education. Morris serves as executive director for the Georgia College Advising Corps, which places recent college graduates in high schools to assist underserved students with the college search, financial aid and application process. By increasing the number of Georgia high school students who are enrolling in and completing college, this program supports workforce and economic development for the state. Morris returned as director in February after serving four years in the Office of the Provost. Upon her return, she was named the Zell Miller Distinguished Professor.

Erik Ness continues to focus major attention on the use of research evidence in the policymaking process. His new grant from the W.T. Grant Foundation examines college-completion patterns and related policies across several states, employing theories and ideas from political science and policy studies. In other work, Ness recently wrote on the determinants of state capital expenditures for higher education and how capital project funding differs from general fund appropriations. He also is working on a Ford Foundation-funded project with the Tennessee Higher Education Commission to examine campus responses to Tennessee’s new outcomes-based funding formula.

Sheila Slaughter’s research focuses on a variety of issues relating to market emphases, privatization and commercialization in higher education. Recently, she examined relationships between universities and the corporate sector and how university trustees serve as links between academe and industry. She currently is working on a three-year NSF grant titled “The Executive Science Network: University Trustees and the Organization of University-Industry Exchanges.”

Rob Toutkoushian, an economist, focuses his work on the economic returns to college attendance, the costs and effects of state policies (such as state institutional allocations, precollege planning programs, early college enrollment policies, and merit scholarships) on students’ higher education enrollment patterns and institutional change, and patterns in faculty careers.

Karen Webber is working on projects relating to faculty careers including productivity, institutional research, assessment of learning outcomes, and undergraduate research outcomes. She has recently studied the influences of programs providing undergraduate students with research opportunities. Recent publications include an analyzation of graduate student borrowing