IHE RESEARCH
2008 Institute of Higher Education Faculty
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Research at IHE is fully integrated into the teaching and service missions. Policy research goes hand in hand with service and outreach in contexts ranging from analysis and technical assistance with developing higher education systems around the globe, to studies of capacity-building strategies at a variety of institution types, to system-level assessments of distance learning initiatives in Georgia, for instance. Instruction and outreach activities, in turn, help ensure that IHE's research agenda remains relevant and grounded in practical as well as theoretical challenges in higher education. And the cross-pollination among international, state and federal, and institution-level research initiatives further enhances the depth and relevance of the IHE research agenda — to the scholarly disciplines of IHE faculty members, to the higher education policy community, and to leaders of higher education systems and institutions in Georgia and around the world.
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Funded by the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc.
Principal Investigator: Libby Morris
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With support from the Watson-Brown Foundation, the Institute of Higher Education has begun an innovative college advising program, modeled on AmeriCorp and coordinated by the National College Advising Corps (NCAC), to provide tailored training to advisers to support their work with students, families, and school administrators to broaden access to college and to promote college attendance. Advisers will be placed in selected Georgia high schools that serve underrepresented populations and geographical areas.
Many barriers exist for students who fail to matriculate, including financial difficulties, educational preparation, and development of the cultural and social capital necessary to navigate the high school-to-college pipeline. For many students, the college-going process is filled with complexities, and unfortunately little one-on-one assistance is available. On average, the student-to-advisor ratio in high schools across the U.S. is 1 to 488, and the distribution of counselors prepared to provide accurate college information varies widely across schools. Moreover, schools in low-income areas have even higher ratios of students to counselors, and research shows that counselors in these less well resourced schools — typically those with high concentrations of minority students and/or those found in urban or rural areas — are faced with many responsibilities in addition to the transition to college. Clearly, to improve college-going in Georgia, better advisement is essential for those students who are capable of becoming qualified to matriculate into college, but fail to do so for a variety of reasons. We believe that the potential for success of the Georgia program is strengthened by the national network and the availability of NCAC to provide guidance and assistance.
The Institute's initial goal is to place 4 to 5 advisors in 6 to 8 Georgia high schools in fall 2009. We have established an advisory board that represents program-related offices at the University of Georgia: Registrar, Admissions, Financial Aid, Service-Learning, Student Affairs, Honors, and Public Service and Outreach.
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Funded by the National Science Foundation
Co-Investigators: Sheila Slaughter and James Hearn
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This grant funds a two-day workshop to advance the scientific study of federally funded centers and institutes as key elements in the innovation ecosystem. The workshop will bring together engineers and natural, physical, and social scientists to address central questions relating to the role of NSF-funded centers and institutes in science and innovation policy. It will differ from previous workshops in two ways. First, it will build on the knowledge base derived from studies of other organizations to develop social-scientific models, tools, and data with which to study new organizational entities that can contribute to innovation, with particular attention to federally funded centers and institutes. Second, it will directly engage the focal units of analysis — the centers and institutes and some other related organizational entities (such as research parks and start-up firms) — in developing appropriate models, data, and tools for analysis. The workshop is for approximately 30 scientists and will be held at the National Science Foundation in March 2009.
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Funded by the National Science Foundation
Principal Investigators: Maryann Feldman and James Hearn
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Each of the fifty U.S. states has adopted science and innovation policies aimed at improving economic performance. These policies seek to leverage the research capacities of universities in the state, under the logic that those institutions are essential actors in both increasing the state's prominence as a center for technological and scientific progress and building the state's commercialization infrastructure to facilitate entrepreneurship and firm growth. Unfortunately, there have been few attempts to systematically study the origins of these policies and the nature of the incentives and mechanisms they provide. Archival records of state programs exist but remain difficult to categorize. Relatedly, little attention has been paid to how individual states' policies relate to the states' socioeconomic, institutional, and academic contexts. Finally, although these policies attempt to leverage universities and move research in specific directions, little is known about how universities are in fact being affected.
To address these knowledge gaps, this proposed 2-year project will utilize multidisciplinary theoretical models, extensive longitudinal datasets, and a mix of econometric and case-study methods to examine four research questions regarding state science policy initiatives: 1) Origins: When and why do states adopt science and innovation policies involving universities? 2) Nature: How might state science and innovation policies be systematically described, categorized, and differentiated? 3) Fit: To what extent have state policymakers matched their science and innovation policies to their states' and universities' distinctive characteristics? 4) University effects: What impacts have state science and innovation policy initiatives had on both public and private universities in the state?
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Appointed by the University System of Georgia
Co-principal investigator: Libby V. Morris
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In September 2005, the University System of Georgia appointed a Task Force on Health Professions Education, chaired by Dan Rahn, President of the Medical College of Georgia, to inform the decision making necessary to address the health professions education needs of the state. Serving on the task force from UGA was Provost Arnett Mace. The Task Force was charged with documenting critical areas of shortage, considering demographic and economic influences, examining current and future challenges, and identifying programmatic strengths and educational gaps. The final report (June 2006) provided detailed recommendations about the University System's role and strategic directions related to health professions education. The research team was led by Dr. Valerie Hepburn, Georgia State University, as principal investigator and Dr. Libby Morris as co-principal investigator.
Report (PDF)
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Funded by the Board of General Medicine of the National Institutes of Health
Principal Investigator: Sheila Slaughter
Co-principal investigators: Maryann Feldman and Scott Thomas
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The team of investigators will study the ways in which research universities address conflict of interest in the context of the growing emphasis on commercialization in higher education. Slaughter and her colleagues anticipate that the study will identify patterns of handling institutional and trustee-level conflict of interest and help to shape policies that best address such conflicts and support research integrity in an increasingly complex, technology-driven, and global economy.
Their project hypothesizes that all AAU universities exhibit some systemic conflict of interest — stemming from the close networks of trustees representing commercial biomedical interests, and reflected in patent citation patterns that show the exchange of knowledge between universities and the corporations represented among their trustees, among other indicators. Through three “snapshots” of board composition at AAU institutions in 1965, 1985, and 2005 — as well as a more detailed longitudinal panel covering 1996-2005 — the researchers will examine the dynamics of the trustee networks and identify trends in the practices and policies of conflict of interest. “We are especially interested in high opportunity biomedical nodes” of intense patent activity, says principal investigator and McBee Professor Sheila Slaughter. “The tight linkages of university and corporate research interests in the biomedical industry will provide a useful framework and data set for our analysis.”
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Funded by the National Science Foundation, Information Technology Research
Co-principal investigators: Jennifer Croissant, Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades
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Croissan, Slaughter, and Rhoades will explore three questions that address virtual values. How do information technology and intellectual property intersect research and service? How does information technology structure and value faculty teaching? What values does information technology use feature in student socialization? To answer these questions we will look at academic units that produce technologically intensive intellectual property, organize on-line and hybrid (on-line and conventional) instruction in ways that “unbundle” faculty work, and produce and use technology saturated materials.
Studying virtual environments is significant because they may change values associated with the traditional tripartite faculty work role of research, service, and teaching as well as altering student socialization processes. The value sets associated with the tripartite role are normative guidelines for faculty work (research, service and teaching). If new sets of values, which we tentatively call virtual values, emerge around faculty work as information technology is increasingly utilized in universities, we want to know what they are and how they intersect traditional values.
This study should clarify some of the ethics and values tensions associated with faculty work — research, service, and teaching — when a new mode of production — information technology — is widely introduced to the university. Exploration of the intersection of intellectual property and information technology will show when market values and traditional values complement and or contradict each other, suggesting the degree to which commercialization is feasible, and when it might defeat the purposes of research, for example, by cutting off access to research and instructional materials. Looking at ways in which technology intensive research is deployed as service will speak to changing conceptions of the public good, contrasting values of service for free and service for fees, both of which may serve the public, although perhaps the different types of service may be directed at differing constituencies with different needs for knowledge. Studying the values attached by the parties involved in (varying degrees) unbundled information technology instruction will let us see the embedded and explicit values accruing to this mode of instruction production, as well as to assess differing conceptions of quality. Beginning to understand the ways in which technology intensive products and processes contribute to values that are part of student socialization, including the ways in which they understand knowledge claims, will let us see how our future professionals may serve their disciplines and society. Attending to the embedded and explicit gender values in technology saturated educational materials will contribute to understanding equity issues in the virtual socialization process. We expect that this information will be of use to both faculty and administrative policymakers at the institutional level with regard to the effects of IP regimes on work and values for faculty research and service and with regard to quality and values in IT in educational settings.
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Funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation
Principal investigator: Melvin B. Hill, Jr.
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Historically black colleges and universities have long played a significant role in reaching out to their local communities, bolstering K-12 educational systems and fostering economic development, among other contributions. This special issue, guest edited by Susan Batten, a senior associate at Annie E. Casey, will bring together current scholarship on best practices among these institutions.
“We are especially pleased that the Casey Foundation is continuing its collaboration with the Institute of Higher Education on this important topic, one that has been of interest to IHE for a long time,” says Mel Hill, editor of the Journal. “This special issue will deepen and extend IHE’s long tradition of policy-relevant scholarship and capacity-building outreach and engagement with historically black colleges and universities in the South and across the nation.” The Journal is published twice yearly by the Institute of Higher Education and the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach and is dedicated to promoting a continuing dialogue about the service and outreach mission of the university and its relationship to the teaching and research missions and to the needs of the sponsoring society.
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Funded by the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Embassy (Zagreb)
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The impetus for this six-year partnership is Croatia's desire for membership in the European Union, which includes meeting the tenets of the Bologna Accord through which 40 European countries agreed to standardize higher education systems in Europe. Meeting these standards means major restructuring of Croatia’s education system, which is currently hampered by highly decentralized management by individual faculties; state budget limitations; lack of communication and cooperation among units; uneven technological resources; and other challenges.
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Contract between the University System of Georgia and IHE
Principal investigator: Libby V. Morris
Co-principal investigator: Catherine Finnegan
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The Advanced Learning Technologies unit (ALT) of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia is working with IHE faculty on a project to investigate teaching and learning online and to evaluate the impact of eCore, the system’s electronic core of lower division courses. This evaluation information helps to shape course development and faculty development activities. As part of this project, ALT has provided significant funding for dissertation research and assistantships to investigate issues of teaching and learning online. Click here for research reports and articles.
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Funded by the Lumina Foundation for Education
Principal investigator: Christopher C. Morphew
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This project examines the WUE program, which served more than 21,000 students in 2006 across the 15 WICHE states and allowed students from participating states to enroll in out-of-state public colleges and universities at a reduced rate (150% of in-state tuition). The project includes a web-based survey of 8000+ WUE students and focuses on the demographics, motivations, and experiences of these students, as well as evaluating the program’s utility to meet the needs of both states and students across the West.
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Consultant: James C. Hearn
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For the past several years, Jim Hearn has been consulting for the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative (NPEC), conducting and helping coordinate funded research on student success in postsecondary education and organizing conference papers and presentations on this topic.
As part of its National Symposium on Postsecondary Student Success, the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative (NPEC) commissioned five papers from experts in the field to address the question “What is student success?” Each of the commissioned papers explores this question from a different viewpoint and each makes a unique contribution to the literature in this field.
NCES commissioned James Hearn to develop a paper which summarizes and synthesizes the five student success papers. The Hearn paper identifies common and unique themes in the five commissioned papers and identifies areas for additional and continuing research.
In his most recent work for NPEC, Hearn is organizing sessions on student-success research for several major professional conferences.
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Contract with TIAA-CREF Institute
Consultant: James C. Hearn
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This work will appear as a chapter in a forthcoming book.
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Funded by the National Association for College Admission Counseling
Consultant: Libby V. Morris
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The purpose of the white paper, “The Role of Technology in the College Admissions Process,” is to review the status of technology use in the admissions process and its impact on prospective students and parents, high school counselors and college admissions professionals, and institutional decision-making and organizational structures.
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Co-principal investigators: Christopher C. Morphew and J. Douglas Toma
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On December 15, 2006, the East African Institute for Higher Education Strategy and Development (EAIHESD) at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda (the oldest and largest university in East Africa) and the Institute of Higher Education entered into a formal collaboration during a visit to Kampala by a four-member UGA delegation. Over three days, EAIHESD and IHE agreed to collaborate on a comprehensive program focused on developing EAIHESD's research, instructional, and public service roles. The partners are now seeking foundation funding to support the partnership and its programs.
Professor James L. Nkata of Makerere visited the Institute in April 2006 to explore possibilities for the collaboration. IHE's tradition of faculty development was among the reasons Professor Nkata gave for initiating discussions with the Institute.
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Funded by the Lumina Foundation
Principal investigator: Scott Thomas
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With his co-principal investigator Laura Perna, Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Thomas is focusing on the ways in which federal, state, and institutional policies interact to shape high school students’ sense of opportunity for college. The project is designed to yield results that will suggest new strategies for better targeting policies and programs aimed at strengthening students’ orientation to college-attendance and encouraging behaviors that promote college continuation and completion. The project will also yield recommendations for improving the implementation and coordination of federal, state, and institutional policies at the K-12 and higher education levels.
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Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Office of the President at the University of Georgia
Principal investigator: J. Douglas Toma
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Read paper (pdf)
On August 20-21, 2006, the Institute assembled 19 presidents, athletics directors, campus and conference administrators, and leading scholars writing on intercollegiate athletics for a daylong discussion of the challenges associated with athletics recruiting. The roundtable focused on framing issues in recruiting student-athletes in the context of the entire university. We worked from the prospect that trends and challenges across higher education parallel and thus can inform and be informed by those in intercollegiate athletics, concluding that positive change in areas such as athletics recruiting cannot occur if it is considered in isolation from the whole of university communities. The recruitment and admission of student-athletes must be grounded in the principles of academe — and it must involve faculty and academic administrators in meaningful ways.
The result of the convening was an essay circulated to and approved by those attending. The essay not only clarifies and reframes the issues and trends under consideration, but also includes a set of concrete guidelines toward improving practices related to recruiting ethics.
The essay, written by Associate Professor Doug Toma, explores the athletics recruiting process with a view toward reconceptualizing it, advancing an approach that improves practice through spreading the risks associated with recruiting and admissions across universities as a whole by enhancing transparency in the process. By more formally and completely involving the entire university community in recruiting student-athletes, Toma suggests a means of counterbalancing the negative incentives and poor decisions that too often define what fundamentally must be a legitimate admissions process.
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Principal investigator: J. Douglas Toma
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The Institute of Higher Education entered into an historic partnership in 2006 with Jilin University, the largest institution in China, to provide management training for its senior administrators. Jilin, which ranks among China's top ten universities, believes this to be the first such effort in China. In July, thirty Jilin administrators arrived in Athens for a three-week, intensive institute.
In planning for the program, a delegation of eight Jilin University officials, led by President Zhou Qifeng, visited Athens and Atlanta in early March 2006. President Zhou was introduced on the floor of the state senate by Senator Sam Zamarripa (D-Atlanta).
In fall 2006, four faculty members, a university administrator, and an Institute doctoral student met with the Chinese Ministry of Education in Beijing and with faculty and administrators at Jilin University, Changchun, for educational planning meetings.
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