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William & Mary Higher Education Program at ASHE Conference 2016

William & Mary’s Higher Education Program was well-represented at the 2016 ASHE annual conference held in Columbus, OH.  The William & Mary representatives including faculty, students, and alumni presented three research papers, two posters, three round-table discussions, as well as serving as chairs and discussants on four symposiums.  A list of all William & Mary presentations follows:

Understanding Students’ Nonreligious and Nontheistic Worldviews and Identities: A Case of (Mis)alignment by Amanda Armstrong, PhD student in Higher Education

College Presidents’ Responses to Race: A Historical Perspective for a Contemporary Issue by Eddie Cole, Assistant Professor

Support for Graduate Students Experiencing Trauma by Kristen Tarantino, PhD’16

Transcending the Undergraduate Experience: Stress and Coping in Graduate School Settings by Madeline Smith, PhD candidate in Higher Education

Focusing on Teaching to Promote Student Success: Faculty Change Agent Roles in SAGE 2YC by Pamela Eddy, Professor, and Yi Hao, PhD student in Higher Education

Rhetorical Perspectives of Research University Presidents on Higher Education and the Public Good by Tehmina Khwaja, PhD’15, and Pamela Eddy, Professor

Disaster Capitalism in Florida by Angelo Letizia, PhD’14

The Stigma of Tenure Denied: An Exploration of Individual and Institutional Implications by Nathan Alleman, PhD’08

Mid-Career Faculty: Explorations of Career Tensions and Professional Development. Pamela Eddy, Professor, served as discussant for the interactive symposium.

CAHEP-CIHE Joint Session: Graduate Education for the Global Good: Internationalizing the Higher Education Graduate Program Curriculum. Pamela Eddy, Professor, served as session organizer for the interactive symposium.

Historical Perspectives on Institutional Formation and Reform. Eddie Cole, Assistant Professor, served as the session discussant.

In addition to representing William & Mary at the conference, the Higher Education Program also reunited at a dinner with its alums, current students, and faculty.

Higher education doctoral student Amanda Armstrong reflected on her experience as an attendee, and her first time as a presenter at ASHE:

“I was able to experience numerous opportunities at ASHE this year including attending the Graduate Student Policy Seminar pre-conference, meeting new scholars and future colleagues, and receiving feedback on my developing research. The most enjoyable sessions I attended were titled "Conundrums in Publishing" and ‘Innovative Approaches to Teaching and Assessment.’ There's always such a variety of topical sessions offered across the field of higher education and ASHE offers a lot of support for graduate students' involvement in the association.”

Mike Postma, a PhD candidate in the Higher Education program, also shared his experiences going to the conference as he is approaching his finish line of dissertation:

“I attended the 41^st annual Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Conference that was conducted in the heart of Columbus Ohio from 10 to 12 November 2016.  Approximately 2,000 national and international postsecondary institution representatives contributed to a successful conference.  I think the primary ASHE learning outcome was the need to reinvigorate public investment in postsecondary education.  Several of the conference presentations noted that higher education investment in many American states is extremely limited.  Convincing those same cash-strapped states to increase their collegiate investment might continue to be a future challenge.  The recent American presidential election and the potential impact on the federal government’s higher education investment was an ASHE conference participant focus.  Time will tell if those concerns (e.g., dissolution of the U.S. Department of Education) will be realized.”