Graduate Assistants Research Articles

THE PLACES AND SPACES STUDENT AFFAIRS PRACTITIONERS SHOULD LEARN AND PRACTICE LEADERSHIP EDUCATOR COMPETENCIES

Although leadership education typically is not explicitly incorporated into student affairs preparatory programs, student affairs practitioners are expected to facilitate the leadership development of their students. Thus, through two simultaneous Delphi panels, Group A: Student Affairs Practitioners (n=17) and Group B: Student Affairs Preparatory Program Faculty (n=20), this study explored the places or experiences where student affairs practitioners should learn and practice the professional competencies needed to be a student affairs leadership educator. Both expert panels agreed the graduate assistantship was the most important place to learn and practice how to be a leadership educator. Yet these findings demonstrate a gap between research and practice within student affairs preparatory programs. Four recommendations are provided to strengthen the professional preparation of student affairs practitioners as leadership educators.

ON DEMAND: Graduate Assistants supporting active learning in graduate classrooms

Starting in Fall 2020, the Department of Mathematical Sciences initiated a program to expand and build on our Learning Assistant Program (previously only for undergraduate classes) to our core graduate classes as well. This new initiative titled Graduate Learning Assistants (GLAs) consists of a cohort of graduate students that have advanced to PhD candidacy working with graduate students who are taking core courses, to facilitate their learning individually or in small groups. By aiding in active learning within the course and running review sessions for the PhD preliminary exams (both done in a synchronous online format), GLAs promote student discourse and help students develop a deeper understanding of the foundational concepts and connections inherent in the course content they are learning. Since the material of graduate courses is at a very different level from the large undergraduate classes, the method of presentation and interaction is necessarily quite different. In this presentation, the GLAs will explain the pros and cons, what works and what does not, for peer mentoring of graduate students in taking graduate courses and preparing for their PhD prelims. Faculty organizers will also be involved to answer questions about how the program was established and implemented. We hope that this new GLA initiative can serve as a model to enhance and strengthen PhD programs in other disciplines.

From the GAs: Congratulations, Publications, Presentations

News and congratulations from SLIS Director and Graduate Assistants for student, alumni, and faculty accomplishments, publications, and presentations.

Geomorphology and dynamics of a coastal transgressive dune system, central California

ABSTRACT The Callendar dunes are located within the Santa Maria dune complex in south-central California and have been studied repeatedly since the pioneering work of Bowen and Inman in the 1960's. Previous conceptual models of the system’s Holocene evolution relate variations in dune morphologies to changes in sediment supply and sea level. In the years since their studies, conceptual frameworks of coastal and continental transgressive dune systems provide useful avenues for re-visiting the morphodynamic history of the Callendar dunes. Our study presents grain size and dune spacing data collected by Tchakerian and Mulligan in 1981, while working under Orme as graduate assistants. These data, when considered in light of the more recent conceptual frameworks mentioned above, suggest that the Callendar dunes may exhibit some elements of self-organization. With this in mind, we apply a conceptual model of coastal transgressive dune systems to help elucidate some of the historical morphodynamics influencing the modern arrangement of morphologies at the Callendar dunes.

Determinants of retention strategies and sustainable performance of academic staff of government-owned universities in Nigeria.

Background: Retention of academic staff is gaining the attention of various educational stakeholders in many developing countries like Nigeria. However, there is little extant literature on how various determinants and risk factors affect retention strategies and sustainable performance of academic staff of government owned universities in Nigeria. Consequently, this paper showed the direct relationships between retention strategies and sustainable performance. Methods: Copies of the designed questionnaire were distributed to members of the academic staff ranging from the Professors to Graduate Assistants of the selected state-owned Universities in Southern Nigeria. Statistical analysis for the study included descriptive measures, measurement and structural models. Results: The determinants of retention strategies had significant impacts on the sustainable performance of academic staff at r = 0.660 (p < 0.05) and r = 0.558 (p < 0.05), respectively. A direct relationship was also established between academic retention and sustainable performance of staff in the selected universities (r = 0.187, p < 0.05). This implies that the 48.3% variance in sustainable performance is explained by the level of determinants/risk factors and retention of academic staff in the selected universities. Conclusions: The study concludes that adequate funding provides Nigerian universities with the opportunity to meet the needs of the growing population and to match other top universities elsewhere in the development of vital highly skilled manpower, research and innovations, which are the tools for sustainable performance.

The Relationship Between Spiritual Well-Being and Burnout in Collegiate Athletic Trainers.

Spiritual well-being is the expression of one's spirituality as measured in the dimensions of existential and religious well-being. The Smith Cognitive Affective Model of Athletic Burnout suggests that personality factors such as spiritual well-being and the use of religious coping methods may affect burnout as well as its causes and outcomes. This has not been examined in collegiate athletic trainers (ATs). To investigate the relationship between spiritual well-being and burnout in collegiate ATs. Cross-sectional study. Web-based survey. A total of 783 certified ATs employed full time in the collegiate setting participated. Part-time employees (eg, graduate assistants, interns) were excluded. A 100-item online questionnaire was created for this study. It used items from previously developed scales, including the Spiritual Well-Being Scale, the Brief RCOPE, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and substance-use questions from the Monitoring the Future study. Participants were able to complete the survey in approximately 10-15 minutes. Multiple regression analyses were used to analyze survey data. We mapped all independent (existential well-being, religious well-being, positive and negative religious coping) and dependent variables (situational variables, Maslach Burnout Inventory burnout subscales, substance use, and intention to leave) onto the Smith Cognitive-Affective Model of Athletic Burnout to determine which variables altered burnout levels, substance use, and intention to leave. Tests of mediation or moderation were conducted when appropriate. Existential well-being was a significant positive predictor of social support and a significant negative predictor of work-family conflict, decreased sense of personal accomplishment, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, intention to leave the profession, and binge drinking. Existential well-being also served as a mediator or moderator in several components of the model. Existential well-being was a protective factor against burnout as well as some of the causes and effects of burnout in collegiate ATs.

Makerspace: Makina Mühendisliği Eğitiminde İnovasyon

The complexity of industrial developments requires engineering students to have hands on experience as well as theoretical engineering knowledge. There is a need for a change of classical engineering curriculums. Makerspaces can be a crucial part of this change. They are introduced as physical locations where engineering student’s curiosity is fed and solutions to problems are found through teamwork. Their use in higher education can also provide an opportunity for students to engage in experiential learning. They can develop a large range of soft skills that traditional undergraduate curriculum is unable to provide, such as planning, teamwork, critical thinking and communication. There are still limited studies about the full effect and impact of these spaces in teaching and learning, from the pedagogical perspective. The aim of this study is to determine students’ experiences with such spaces and examine how makerspaces are contributing to their learning. Descriptive research method (one-on-one interviews and normative survey) were used to evaluate students, graduate assistants and a faculty members’ perception of the space and depict the situation. The results of this study showed that students want more than theoretical knowledge from their engineering education. They want to be able to gain hands on experience while they are learning theory. While designing a makerspace for that purpose, the sustainability and the functioning of these spaces should be taken into consideration. The findings of this study can provide guidance for the institutions that are planning to build a makerspace in their campuses.

“Hot” Issues in Workers’ Compensation in Colleges and Universities: Graduate Assistants and Teaching Assistants

Workers’ compensation laws vary throughout all 50 states and so has the interpretation of those laws regarding whether graduate assistants and teaching assistants should be considered employees for workers’ compensation coverage. This review details the history, current situation, key case law, and pros and cons of extending this benefit, whether by the educational institutions themselves or by governmental agencies and courts. The article provides a guide to public and private institutions regarding legal considerations, prevalent practices, and future trends in this continuing controversy.

Return on time investment: Research resources

Return on time investment: Research resources

Role of Replication Research in Biostatistics Graduate Education

Replication and reproducibility are an important component of scientific research. One reason research is not replicable is the misuse of statistical techniques. Educators can teach the importance of research replication by having students perform a replication study as part of a graduate assistantship or their coursework. In this article, we describe the components of a replication study, the process of conducting a replication study, and how to use the replication process as a teaching tool. Two biostatistics PhD students performed four full replication studies as part of their Graduate Assistantship and another 22 students performed a partial replication as their final project for a biostatistics service course. Students were queried for their feedback about their learning during the replication process. The PhD students indicated gaining a clear understanding of the importance of communicating statistical methods in publications, experience in communicating statistical techniques in writing, coding in various platforms, multiple statistical techniques that could be applied as robustness checks, and the importance of documentation. The students from the service course indicated gaining confidence in their analysis skills and a majority of the students indicated finding all aspects of the replication process enjoyable with the exception of writing the final report.

Note from the Editor-in-Chief

Note from the Editor-in-Chief Jürgen Buchenau I take great pleasure in greeting the readership of The Latin Americanist as our new editor-in-chief. First and foremost, these are big shoes to fill. My predecessor, Greg Weeks, served as editor for fifteen long years. During that time, he built the nation's oldest interdisciplinary Latin American Studies journal from its self-published status through an association with Wiley to its present status as a journal published by UNC Press. And Greg did so while he assumed ever greater responsibilities at UNC Charlotte: first, as Director of Latin American Studies, then, as chair of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, and finally, as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. As co-editor of the SECOLAS Annals issue along with Gregory Crider, I have watched the growth of the journal with great pride, and I look forward to the opportunity to keep The Latin Americanist on its upward trajectory. Even on the heels of such success, a new editor inevitably brings some changes. To begin with, Gregory Crider is now the sole editor of the Annals edition. Second, five associate editors—all colleagues at UNC Charlotte—will help make publication decisions and recruit manuscripts: Frederico Batista (Political Science), David Dalton (Spanish), Erika Edwards (History), Eric Hoenes (Anthropology), and Carmen Soliz (History). I appreciate their help very much and look forward to working with them in the coming years. Third, we will be growing the book review section under the leadership of Colin Snider (University of Texas-Tyler). In addition to the traditional book reviews, Colin is looking for review essays that examine two or more works from a comparative perspective. We know that these review essays are helpful for both teaching and scholarship. Please contact Colin or me if you have an idea for such a review essay. I would also like to take this opportunity to solicit suggestions more generally on how to further advance the journal and make it more helpful to our readers. Suggestions for special issues or sections are also always welcome. We look forward to hearing from you! I appreciate the support from our staff at UNC Charlotte and at SECOLAS early on in the transition. The Dean of our college, Nancy Gutierrez, has been very supportive of our journal throughout our time here. I especially want to acknowledge our former graduate assistant, Julia Poppell, as well as our new one, Susanny Acosta, who have been patient with a new and inexperienced editor. As has the SECOLAS leadership, especially our Secretary-Treasurer, Steven Hyland, who writes the checks and makes sure we stay afloat. I look forward to working with our current president, [End Page 319] Monica Rankin, as well as our next one, Martin Nesvig. I appreciate you all and look forward to seeing many of you at the next SECOLAS conference here in Charlotte! [End Page 320] Jürgen Buchenau UNC Charlotte Copyright © 2021 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies

Notes From the Editors

Notes From the Editors Gregory S. Crider and Jürgen Buchenau The Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies convened March 4–8, 2020 for our Sixty-Seventh Annual Meeting in Austin, TX, just before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered in-person academic gatherings. With the support from the Center for U.S.-Latin American Initiatives and the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas, the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP), the conference featured sixty-eight panels on a wide variety of topics. Program chairs Timothy Henderson (University of Auburn-Montgomery) and María Zalduondo (Bluefield College) completed the yeoman task of putting panels together in the areas of Literature & Humanities and History & Social Sciences, respectively. Monica Rankin (University of Texas at Dallas), Jürgen Buchenau (University of North Carolina Charlotte), Steven Hyland (Wingate University) and Gregory Crider (Winthrop University) organized local arrangements. The conference also included two professional development workshops for junior faculty and graduate students, respectively, organized by Vanessa Castañeda, one of the authors in this volume. We are now beginning our third year of collaboration with the University of North Carolina Press. We enjoy the broader readership afforded by our inclusion in Project MUSE, an online database of peer-reviewed academic journals and books. We also highlight our ongoing collaboration with the SECOLAS podcast, Historias, which frequently includes interviews with TLA authors and other Latin Americanists from diverse disciplines. As always, the editors welcome new ideas and suggestions. This volume features some of the best papers from the conference in article format. Eighteen of the 252 presenters at the conference submitted revised papers of their papers for publication. Following editorial and peer review and another round of revisions, the six articles published in this issue represent a range of disciplines in both the humanities and social sciences. In presenting these articles, we appreciate the help by our graduate assistant, Julia Poppell, and the Managing Editor of The Latin Americanist, Leah Walton. UNC Charlotte, Winthrop University, and Wingate University, the three SECOLAS host institutions, offer significant financial and institutional support for the publication and success of this journal. In particular, we offer our gratitude to Dr. Nancy Gutierrez, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UNC Charlotte; to Dr. Takita Sumter, Dean of the [End Page 7] College of Arts and Sciences, and the Ellison Capers Palmer, Jr. Professorship of History at Winthrop; and to Dr. Jeff Frederick, Provost at Wingate University, for their continuing encouragement of both The Latin Americanist and SECOLAS. [End Page 8] Copyright © 2021 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies

Mentorship Experiences of Doctoral Students: Understanding Desired Attributes of Doctoral Student Mentors

Background: Mentorship is a critical aspect of the professional development of the doctoral student who wishes to pursue a role in higher education. Continued understanding is needed regarding the needs of the doctoral student when it comes to mentorship. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe the needs of a doctoral student from their mentoring relationships, as they work towards their terminal degree. Methods: This is a descriptive, phenomenological qualitative research study within universities that offer doctoral education. One-on-one, semi-structured interviews were conducted using Zoom video conference technology. Each interview, after transcribed, was analyzed following the step-wise approach of a phenomenological study. Credibility was established by 1) research triangulation, 2) bracketing/reflexivity, and 3) peer review. Results: Twelve doctoral students (7 females, 5 males) who were enrolled in doctoral programs with a focus on allied health or exercise science completed the Zoom interviews. Our participants were an average age of 28 3 years, and all twelve had graduate assistantship positions in association with their doctoral programs. Three main themes materialized from the data analyses including 1) guided autonomy, 2) humanistic nature, and 3) professional advocate. Doctoral students want guidance to develop the technical skills necessary for success by providing opportunities to perform with the chance to gain feedback. Mentors were identified as needing to demonstrate humanistic qualities that were rooted in being interpersonal. The importance of a mentor serving as a professional advocate to help the student grow and develop as a professional was also discussed. Conclusions: Doctoral students need their mentors to demonstrate both personal and professional attributes in the mentor relationship. Specifically, they are looking for guidance and feedback through independent learning, as well as a mentor who values them, is relatable, and is invested in their development as a professional.

From the GAs: Congratulations, Publications, Presentations

Words from the SLIS graduate assistants about what makes being a SLIS GA "a good thing" beyond the job duties: outreach, office work, recruitment, teaching, research, data collection, transcribing, course preparation, and social media creation. News, updates, and congratulations from students, alumni, and faculty.

A Note from the Editor

A Note from the Editor Noe Montez I fell in love with academic work because I fell in love with the real-time process of seeing research and writing about theatre developed and distributed to an eager audience. It is a pleasure to hear work presented at a conference, and then to watch the author reimagine that presentation into a monograph or article. Four years ago, I joined the editorial staff at Theatre Topics hoping to highlight the ways that theatre moves between theory and practice to reach communities in and beyond our classrooms. This is my final issue, and I am truly moved by the generosity, care, and commitment to academic activism that many of you have written about over my time on the masthead. I look upon the work that my colleagues and I have published and I leave with a sense of appreciation for scholars and artists who have willingly written about their experiences with reproductive health in the academy, the value of theatre pedagogy in the aftermath of wildfire and mass shooting, the need to reimagine academic life in the wake of catastrophic climate change, and the labor that one must take on as a non-binary performer in order to create safe spaces. These are just a few among the many examples of the care work, classroom exercises, and productions that have asserted the value of theatre and performance in these pages. I am proud of the special issue on Graduate Education that captured the precarity of PhDs in the field, while offering suggestions about how our doctoral programs might better support those who matriculate. I am also grateful to my colleague and friend Kareem Khubchandani who coedited the special issue on Queer Pedagogy and Performance with me, giving space to those who practice pedagogy everywhere, from the classroom to the dance hall. It has been a joyful privilege to oversee this journal and build a representative editorial board, find more diverse external evaluators, and support authors of color who I hope will continue to see themselves represented in this journal and eventually apply for editorial positions here and elsewhere. I also want to thank several people. Soyica Colbert, DJ Hopkins, and Christin Essin have done tremendous work advocating for the journal during their respective terms as ATHE Vice President for Research and Publications. Gwendolyn Alker and Lisa S. Brenner brought me into the journal, created a system where I could learn from them, and have generously continued to offer guidance. Peter Campbell and Margherita Laera have invented and imagined the online editor roles in ways that have richly enhanced Theatre Topics’ offerings. Megan Sanborn Jones and Jessica Del Vecchio have been tireless book review editors doing unflagging work in an often-underappreciated role. Tufts University has supported me by providing graduate assistants, and I am deeply appreciative of Stephanie Engel, Jenny Herron, Teri Incampo, Mia Levenson, and Jessica Pearson-Bleyer for their careful proofing, initial evaluations of submissions, and other assistance. Finally, Bob Kowkabany and the staff at Johns Hopkins University Press make the journal run efficiently. Theatre Topics will remain in strong hands under the thoughtful editorship of John Fletcher (Editor), Susanne Shawyer (Coeditor), Jessica Del Vecchio (Book Review Editor), and Shannon Walsh (Online Editor). I am confident of the journal under their care. I leave the journal with four essays and one note from the field. These texts highlight a diversity of voices and demonstrate the ways in which the pedagogy moves people to reimagine themselves and the worlds they live in. [End Page ix] In “Developing Fontera Aesthetic through New Work Creation,” three professors from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) examine their process for investigating a performance aesthetic that is unique to the Texas/Mexico borderlands through the development and staging of Georgina Escobar’s Monsters We Create. The material was developed through three separate classes to promote student ownership of the artistic process while facilitating rigorous skill-building of playwriting techniques. The result is the creation of a “sci-femme frontera” aesthetic that enables UTEP students to embrace the inherent duality of their Latinx identity. Nicolas Shannon Savard writes of their attempts to engage undergraduate students with...

Student music stimuli composition in a scaffolded course-based undergraduate research experience

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CURE) allow students opportunities to develop research skills. In a scaffolded CURE, music therapy and music education students composed, evaluated, and selected the music stimuli used in a music and mindfulness study with non-musicians at Site 1 and musicians at Site 2. The purposes of this paper are to (a) describe the process of student music stimuli composition and evaluation for use in a course-based undergraduate research experience and (b) identify benefits, challenges, and lessons learned from the viewpoints of students, graduate assistants, and faculty who participated in the multi-site study. Eight students, two graduate assistants, and two faculty provide an overview of the CURE teaching model and assignments, and share first-person accounts of their experiences participating in this CURE.

Graduate Assistants Trained in Reference May Not Consistently Apply Reference Interview and Instructional Strategies in Reference Interactions

A Review of: Canuel, R., Hervieux, S., Bergsten, V., Brault, A., &amp; Burke, R. (2019). Developing and assessing a graduate student reference service. Reference Services Review, 47(4), 527–543. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-06-2019-0041 Abstract Objective – To evaluate the effectiveness of a reference training program for graduate student employees that seeks to encourage use of reference interview and instruction techniques in virtual and in-person reference interactions. Design – Naturalistic observation with qualitative content analysis. Setting – A large, public research university in Montreal, Canada. Subjects – Three graduate students in Library and Information Science employed by the university library to provide virtual and in-person reference services. Methods – After completing a training program, the three participants provided virtual and in-person reference training for two consecutive semesters. They self-recorded their desk interactions in a Google form. These self-reports, along with their online chat transcripts from QuestionPoint, were the subject of this study’s analysis. Focusing on the QuestionPoint data, the authors coded the transcripts from these participants’ online reference interactions to reflect the presence or absence of a reference interview and various instructional techniques in their responses to patrons. Also, all in-person and virtual questions were examined and categorized as being either transactional or reference questions. Reference questions were further categorized as basic, intermediate, or advanced questions. Main Results – Of the chat transcripts analyzed, 49% were classified as containing reference questions rather than transactional questions. At the desk, 21.9% of interactions were coded as reference questions. Taking the two semesters together, 232 of 282 virtual reference questions were considered basic, while 41 were labelled intermediate, and 9 classified as advanced. Similarly, of 136 desk reference questions, 120 were classified as basic, 14 as intermediate, and 2 as advanced. In their coding of chat transcripts, researchers indicated whether the interaction contained no reference interview, a partial reference interview, or a complete reference interview. Virtual chat transcripts from both fall and winter semesters showed that no reference interview took place in 77.3% of interactions. Authors noted evidence of partial reference interviews in 19.3% of fall transcripts and 21.5% of winter transcripts. Complete reference interviews took place in 3.4% of fall and 1.2% of winter transcripts. Additionally, authors found that 65.5% of chat transcripts contained elements of instruction, with Modelling and Resource Suggestion being the most prevalent forms. Conclusion – Because the graduate students used complete or partial reference interviews in a small number of their virtual reference questions, the authors of this study determined that more emphasis ought to be placed on reference interviews, particularly virtual reference interactions, in future training programs. Graduate students employed instructional strategies in observed virtual reference interactions, a promising trend.

Graduate Assistants Trained in Reference May Not Consistently Apply Reference Interview and Instructional Strategies in Reference Interactions

A Review of: Canuel, R., Hervieux, S., Bergsten, V., Brault, A., &amp; Burke, R. (2019). Developing and assessing a graduate student reference service. Reference Services Review, 47(4), 527–543. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-06-2019-0041 Abstract Objective – To evaluate the effectiveness of a reference training program for graduate student employees that seeks to encourage use of reference interview and instruction techniques in virtual and in-person reference interactions. Design – Naturalistic observation with qualitative content analysis. Setting – A large, public research university in Montreal, Canada. Subjects – Three graduate students in Library and Information Science employed by the university library to provide virtual and in-person reference services. Methods – After completing a training program, the three participants provided virtual and in-person reference training for two consecutive semesters. They self-recorded their desk interactions in a Google form. These self-reports, along with their online chat transcripts from QuestionPoint, were the subject of this study’s analysis. Focusing on the QuestionPoint data, the authors coded the transcripts from these participants’ online reference interactions to reflect the presence or absence of a reference interview and various instructional techniques in their responses to patrons. Also, all in-person and virtual questions were examined and categorized as being either transactional or reference questions. Reference questions were further categorized as basic, intermediate, or advanced questions. Main Results – Of the chat transcripts analyzed, 49% were classified as containing reference questions rather than transactional questions. At the desk, 21.9% of interactions were coded as reference questions. Taking the two semesters together, 232 of 282 virtual reference questions were considered basic, while 41 were labelled intermediate, and 9 classified as advanced. Similarly, of 136 desk reference questions, 120 were classified as basic, 14 as intermediate, and 2 as advanced. In their coding of chat transcripts, researchers indicated whether the interaction contained no reference interview, a partial reference interview, or a complete reference interview. Virtual chat transcripts from both fall and winter semesters showed that no reference interview took place in 77.3% of interactions. Authors noted evidence of partial reference interviews in 19.3% of fall transcripts and 21.5% of winter transcripts. Complete reference interviews took place in 3.4% of fall and 1.2% of winter transcripts. Additionally, authors found that 65.5% of chat transcripts contained elements of instruction, with Modelling and Resource Suggestion being the most prevalent forms. Conclusion – Because the graduate students used complete or partial reference interviews in a small number of their virtual reference questions, the authors of this study determined that more emphasis ought to be placed on reference interviews, particularly virtual reference interactions, in future training programs. Graduate students employed instructional strategies in observed virtual reference interactions, a promising trend.

Steven Universe

Steven Universe

(Invited) High Rate Cycling in ε-VOPO4 with Niobium Substitution for Lithium-Ion Batteries

In order to push the energy density of current commercialized lithium-ion batteries, a second lithium must be incorporated into the cathode host without causing any structural damage during intercalation. ε-VOPO4 is a promising high energy density cathode material for lithium-ion batteries due to its ability to fully reversibly intercalate two Li+ from the two redox transitions of V3+/V4+ and V4+/V5+. As a result, ε-VOPO4 displays a high discharge capacity of 305 mAh/g at C/50 (C = 2 Li) for over 50 cycles. However, this vanadyl phosphate material experiences poor Li+ kinetics which impedes its high rate capability at the high voltage plateau. In this work, we determine if niobium substitution can improve the electrochemistry of ε-VOPO4. Through X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy, we investigate the incorporation of niobium in the structure and the effect on morphology. The analysis of substitution on the electrochemical performance will also be discussed alongside with X-ray absorption spectroscopy to confirm the oxidation states of the transition metals during cycling. This research is supported as part of the NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES), an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award Number DE-SC0012583. CS gratefully acknowledges the financial support from Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) Fellowship and Binghamton University Provost's Doctoral Summer Fellowship.