Midwestern Land-grant University Research Articles

Public engagement: Faculty lived experiences and perspectives underscore barriers and a changing culture in academia.

The idea of faculty engaging in meaningful dialogue with different publics instead of simply communicating their research to interested audiences has gradually morphed from a novel concept to a mainstay within most parts of the academy. Given the wide variety of public engagement modalities, it may be unsurprising that we still lack a comprehensive and granular understanding of factors that influence faculty willingness to engage with public audiences. Those nuances are not always captured by quantitative surveys that rely on pre-determined categories to assess scholars’ willingness to engage. While closed-ended categories are useful to examine which factors influence the willingness to engage more than others, it is unlikely that pre-determined categories comprehensively represent the range of factors that undermine or encourage engagement, including perceptual influences, institutional barriers, and scholars’ lived experiences. To gain insight into these individual perspectives and lived experiences, we conducted focus group discussions with faculty members at a large midwestern land-grant university in the United States. Our findings provide context to previous studies of public engagement and suggest four themes for future research. These themes affirm the persistence of institutional barriers to engaging with the public, particularly the expectations in the promotion process for tenure-track faculty. However, we also find a perception that junior faculty and graduate students are challenging the status quo by introducing a new wave of attention to public engagement. This finding suggests a “trickle-up” effect through junior faculty and graduate students expecting institutional support for public engagement. Our findings highlight the need to consider how both top-down factors such as institutional expectations and bottom-up factors such as graduate student interest shape faculty members’ decisions to participate in public engagement activities.

Play, Design, Create, Fail, Teach, and Repeat: A Design Case Of Designing a Maker Education Course for Preservice Teachers

This design case shows a course designed for teaching preservice teachers about how to design literacy-infused STEAM learning experiences that involve both making and the use of educational technology at a large Midwestern land-grant university in the U.S. This course emphasizes the high-tech making activities in PK-12 formal education that offers students richer, more engaging, and potentially more meaningful learning experiences. The course expects to equip the preservice teachers with the understanding and skills they need to be ready to transform existing curricula in PK-12 education, incorporate curricula that cultivate creativity, design thinking, and problem-solving, and provide students authentic instructions and the opportunities to be the creators and owners of their learning. The current design case highlights design decisions during the design process.

Seeds of equity: cultivating critical food literacy in the land-grant undergraduate classroom

ABSTRACT This pedagogical piece reports on the successes and challenges of developing and teaching an undergraduate “critical food literacy„ course in a land-grant university’s college of agriculture. The United States agricultural industry is built upon a foundation of stolen land and stolen labor, and depends to this day on the labor of marginalized populations. Despite these hard truths about who grows our food, colleges of agriculture remain overwhelmingly white demographically, culturally, and epistemologically. Though scholars have called for greater incorporation of social justice themes in college-level agriculture courses, there is little research to date on the effectiveness of various suggested teaching methods. To address this gap and contribute to the necessary work of diversifying curricula across colleges of agriculture, we conducted a qualitative assessment of the course “Seeds of equity: Exploring race, class, and gender in our food system„ while simultaneously developing and teaching it. We use our personal experiences and research findings to argue that critical food literacy is an effective framework for teaching students at a large, Midwestern land-grant university about race, class, and gender in the food system. We also offer concrete suggestions of course materials, assignments, and teaching methods that can be utilized in myriad food studies and agricultural education classroom contexts.

Factors that Influence Farm Safety Decisions of Young Adults when Entering Agricultural Grain Bins.

HIGHLIGHTS A grain handling scenario-based survey was administered to college students studying agriculture. Participants chose an action after reading each scenario and ranked factors affecting their decision-making. Most participants chose a "safe" option and claimed to value their personal safety when making decisions. Parental authority and pressure had little influence on participants' decisions to enter grain bins. ABSTRACT. The approaches that parents take in the supervision of youth who perform hazardous tasks on family farms can affect youth safety outcomes. This research examines the most significant factors affecting youths' decisions to enter agricultural grain storage facilities. Over 200 students attending a Midwestern land-grant university who had grain bin experience as youth completed a decision-making survey. Students chose from a list of actions in three realistic but hypothetical scenarios involving grain bin entry. Afterward, they ranked factors according to the level of importance in their decision. Although most participants chose options that emphasized safety when answering the scenario questions and held the "personal safety" factor in highest regard, some chose higher-risk options and valued "productivity." The findings revealed that youth held little value in their parents' authority and pressure when making decisions related to grain bin entry. The study's limitations are addressed, as are the implications of these findings for youth safety outcomes on family farms.

Lessons in Diversity: Origins of Interior Decoration Education in the United States, 1870–1930

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, many factors, such as greater emphasis on the importance of the home and its decoration, contributed to the separation of interior decoration from other similar vocations. By the early twentieth century, interior decoration as a profession and occupation had begun to gain acceptance in the market place and academic world. Print media attention focused on the interior decorator who was no longer merely a wall painter or furniture salesman but was a furnisher and marketer of art and good taste. Advances in formal education and a culture of professionalism contributed to the realization by practitioners and others that interior decoration required specialized knowledge so many began to push for training in newspapers, books, and magazines. This study discusses the origins of interior decoration education in the 1870s, when the first courses related to the home were offered at mid–western land–grant universities, to 1930, the year before the organization of the American Institute of Interior Decorators (AID) was founded. It covers the variety of training methods for decorators and the sometimes conflicting views of early advocates for the profession and for education. It points out tensions within interior decoration and conflicts with other similar fields. Finally, it looks at several university programs in different academic homes and the various course titles used in the curriculums. If training for interior decorators between 1870 and 1930 could be described in a single word, it probably would be diversity. This was reflected in the many means and places to acquire training, the institutions that offered it, and the opinions about it. The earliest training methods were those that were most readily accessible for most people, such as self–education or apprenticeships. They were soon joined by interior decoration courses and programs at various art, design, and industrial art schools; colleges and universities; teachers’ colleges; and other institutions across the United States. Throughout this early period, institutional training evolved from a single course to complete programs. The first bachelor's degrees were awarded. This early period also established ties between interior decoration and the disciplines of fine arts, architecture, and home economics. Diversity was important to interior decoration at its inception because it permitted individuality, provided availability for more people, and accommodated the evolving definition and practice in the field. At the same time, it reflected and contributed to such challenges as a lack of identity and cohesion. In education, this diversity was evident in the variety of institutions offering study in interior decoration, its various academic homes, the assortment of course and program titles, and differences in program requirements. A lack of standards and consensus in education helped to create gaps and disparities in preparation, knowledge, and skill among practitioners. Interior decoration did not resolve these problems. As a result, they became the foundation on which interior design was built.

Sociocultural tensions and wicked problems in sustainable agriculture education

Future practitioners of sustainable agriculture and agroecology must have the capacity to address the wicked problems in the food system to make progress toward sustainability. Undergraduate sustainable agriculture students from a variety of backgrounds may struggle with the question, is the challenging and complex work of addressing wicked problems of agroecology for me? Our case study investigated sociocultural tensions associated with identity encountered when wicked problems teaching units were integrated into the Advanced Practices of Sustainable Agriculture course at a large, Midwestern Land Grant University. The research and course employed a four-part framework that focused on (1) attending to individual needs and identities, (2) facilitating practice-based and community-based learning, (3) engaging in problems situated in regional contexts, and (4) supporting awareness of local and global political and ecological issues. Researchers used a community of practice theoretical lens, and focused on the sociocultural tensions that may have impacted individual and community identity formation. Two wicked problems teaching units are described by drawing upon documentation and audio recordings from planning meetings, course sessions, student and instructor interviews, and course artifacts. Vignettes were constructed to situate four interrelated types of sociocultural tensions encountered by instructors and students. These tensions reflected forces at the individual, community, local, and global levels which interact to influence learners’ capacity to become full participants in sustainable agriculture. The study fills a gap related to affective dimensions of learning like identity in agroecology education. Dilemmas and implications related to identity, pedagogy, and epistemology are discussed.

Optimization of Change Order Management Process with Object-Oriented Discrete Event Simulation: Case Study

AbstractChange orders are common to most construction projects. They can significantly increase project cost and duration, leading to more claims and disputes and ultimately creating an adversarial relationship among project members. Evidence has shown that a contributing factor to the inefficiency of change order management is the management process utilized in most construction projects, which always relates to suboptimal allocation of resources and unnecessary procedures. Discrete event simulation (DES) provides an effective approach to streamline the change order management process by evaluating a series of improvement options. Based on a comparison of two prevailing DES paradigms, activity scanning (AS) and process interaction (PI), this paper presents an object-oriented DES model to investigate the change order management process. A case study has been performed to investigate the change order management process at a Midwestern land-grant university with the proposed simulation model, where the bott...

The Minnesota School and Immigration History at Midwestern Land Grant Universities, 1890–2005

This article offers an alternative genealogy for American immigration history. It traces the origins of the methods and analytical interests of the new social historians of immigration in the 1960s and 1970s to the early work of immigration historians at midwestern land grant universities. At the University of Minnesota, historian Theodore Blegen introduced a long-term legacy of ‘history from the bottom up,’ privileging the building of archives and the building of collaborations among first and second generation academics, ethnic communities and scholarly research.

Understanding International Graduate Students’ Acculturation Using Q Methodology

When students from other countries come to the United States to study, social, cultural, and often academic adjustments are necessary to foster their successful integration into college and university life. Using multiple theories of personal adaptability (social, emotional, cultural, communication), a Q sort of 47 statements was sorted by 21 international students studying at a Midwestern land-grant university. The procedures of Q method were followed to yield 3 resultant factors, which were interpreted as Confident, Appreciative, and Apprehensive Optimists. Implications for student development and programs to facilitate success for international students are evident.

The digital natives as learners: Technology use patterns and approaches to learning

This study investigated the claims made in the popular press about the “digital native” generation as learners. Because students' lives today are saturated with digital media at a time when their brains are still developing, many popular press authors claim that this generation of students thinks and learns differently than any generation that has come before, but the evidence to support these claims is scarce. This study used a survey to gather data on the technology use of university freshmen, the degree to which they identified with the claims being made about their approaches to learning, and the productiveness (in terms of focused attention, deep processing, and persistence) of their approaches to learning. Valid surveys were received from 388 freshmen at a large Midwestern land grant university. A factor analysis was used to identify meaningful patterns of technology use, and descriptive statistics, analysis of correlations, and extreme group t -tests were used to explore the relationships between technology use patterns and learning characteristics. The findings indicate some positive correlations between use of digital technology and the characteristics ascribed in the popular press to the digital native learners, and negative correlations between some categories of technology use and the productiveness of student learning behaviors. Overall, however, the small to moderate relationships suggest a less deterministic relationship between technology and learning than what the popular press writers claim. ► Nine technology use factors were present in a sample of university freshmen. ► Some technology use patterns correlate with often-claimed “digital native” characteristics. ► Technology use is an influence on students but is not deterministic.

Fostering Academic Cooperation and Collaboration Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Faculty Research Abroad Program in Poland

This study is a narrative analysis of participants’ perceptions of the development of crosscultural awareness through The Faculty Research Abroad Program in Poland, a joint initiative between a regional campus of a Midwestern land grant university and a private university in Poland. The purpose was to foster academic cooperation and collaboration through a co-sponsored symposium on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Results from a survey of the 15 participating faculty members from the United States provided the basis for the development of the University Global Collaboration Model. The model depicts how awareness of culture, connection to others, and collaboration can result in tangible outcomes. The American faculty participating in the week-long sojourn in Poland experienced a different culture, but the short amount of time on-site attenuated the development of cultural awareness. Participants viewed the experience as having the potential for international collaboration.

Higher Education: Transform Society or Keep Status Quo?

Higher Education: Transform Society or Keep Status Quo?

Graduate Students’ Perceptions of Privacy and Closed Circuit Television Systems in Public Settings

This qualitative study used grounded theory to examine how university graduate students felt about closed circuit television (CCTV) as it relates to the privacy and safety of students on campuses. As a result of violence at a few universities, more administrators are considering the implementation of CCTV systems. Because graduate students are an important part of the university population, their views were solicited. A qualitative approach was used because of the lack of previous research on this particular topic. Themes that emerged from interviews with 10 graduate students at a large Midwestern land-grant university were identified as: right to safety, right to privacy, personal privacy responsibilities, post-CCTV sense of privacy, post-CCTV sense of safety, crime displacement, false sense of safety, and international perspectives. The findings provide insight into graduate students’ perceptions of a CCTV system and have implications for implementation decisions regarding such a system. Additionally, the findings were utilized to formulate hypotheses for a larger scale research project.

American pragmatism and Chinese modernization: importing the Missouri model of journalism education to modern China

Journalism education was anAmerican invention, oriented from the beginning toward the training of vocational skills. Older European and elite US universities had rejected journalism education for a perceived lack of a specialized body of expert knowledge. Harvard, for example, turned down an endowment from Joseph Pulitzer for establishing a journalism school; the money was accepted reluctantly by Columbia to launch the now-renowned Journalism School in 1912. Boorstin (1978) argues that applied vocational fields (notably, agricultural colleges) gained their academic legitimacy mostly in Midwestern land-grant state universities, where one of the proclaimed missions was community service, which was regarded as being as important as teaching abstract knowledge. The development of journalism education might have paralleled the legitimization process of applied fields in American universities. Missouri founded the world’s first journalism school in 1908, and by the 1930s journalism education was firmly established in major Midwestern land-grant universities. Part of the impetus came from strong lobbying efforts of state press associations and publishers who saw a university journalism curriculum as a way to enhance the occupational prestige of the trade (Carey, 2000). Even though many countries came to adopt American journalism education, it has continued to be met with suspicion. None of the Ivy League institutions in the United States has joined Columbia to offer a degree in practical journalism. What’s most intriguing is that US-style journalism education

Developing and Extending Sustainable Agriculture, a New Social Contract

Developing and Extending Sustainable Agriculture, a New Social Contract is a collection of essays by several authors, most of whom are involved with cooperative extension programs and midwestern land grant universities. Charles A. Francis of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, is the primary author

Moving Into Students' Spaces: The Impact of Location of Academic Advising on Student Engagement among Undecided Students

University stakeholders recognize the importance of exposing all students to academic advising as a means to enhance their engagement with the institution. Living-learning communities are of particular promise. In this study, conducted at a midwestern land grant university in the 2004–05 academic year, advisees in living-learning communities reported significantly higher engagement in their educational experiences than advisees with access only to a central advising office, and the differences in levels of engagement with advisors were significant as other predictors of engagement were taken into account. Relative Emphasis: practice, research, theory

Differences exist in the eating habits of university men and women at fast-food restaurants

Fast-food restaurant eating habits of a group of college students at a large Midwestern land-grant university were determined and evaluated by sex. A 2-page questionnaire was developed, which assessed the subjects' frequency of eating meals and snacks at fast-food restaurants, the predominate types of fast-food restaurants patronized, and the factors influencing food choices at fast-food restaurants. Questionnaires were completed by 113 men and 113 women. A significantly higher percentage of men (84%) than women (58%) reported typically eating fast foods for lunch at least once weekly. A significantly higher percentage of men (70%) than women (63%) reported typically eating at American burger/fries establishments at least once weekly. A significantly larger percentage of men (41%) than women (21%) typically ordered carbonated soda, whereas the reverse was reported for carbonated diet soda (14% vs 31%). A significantly larger percentage of women (34%) than men (13%) gave eating with family/friends as 1 of 2 main reasons for eating at fast-food restaurants. More men (44%) reported typically eating everything ordered at fast-food restaurants, whereas more women (40%) typically ate until satisfied. Fifty percent of men reported not typically considering portion sizes, and 53% of women reported typically considering small portion sizes when ordering. Thirty-seven percent of men and 51% of women reported sometimes choosing menu options they considered healthier at fast-food restaurants. Many differences were observed by sex in the fast-food restaurant eating behaviors of this group of college students.

The Impact of Unexpected Leadership Changes and Budget Crisis on Change Initiatives at a Land-Grant University

The problem and the solution. One of the greatest challenges to successful organization development is managing the impact of unexpected events on planned institutional change initiatives. Too often, in the face of crises, organizational development efforts are put on autopilot and attention is shifted away from identified objectives to the immediate problem at hand. This article examines three organizational change initiatives undertaken at a Midwestern land-grant university during the period 2000 to 2004. Along with planned change, the authors examine the impact of unexpected budget cuts and leadership turnover, which threatened to derail the change initiatives. From this case study, they elucidate some of the unique challenges for implementing change strategies in institutions of higher education and the particular challenges posed by the emergence of unanticipated circumstances.

A Survey of Undergraduate Student Reactions to Academic Advising

At the midwestern land-grant university under study, undergraduate academic advising is part of the teaching mission and under the purview of the academic deans. In the decentralized system used, academic advising is delivered via full-time professional advisors in advising centers serving entire colleges or multiple curricula, full-time professional departmental advisors, and faculty advisors. Evaluation data collected annually from over 17,000 undergraduate advisees are used to compare the three advising methods with regard to student utilization of advising services, reasons for not utilizing advising services, and student evaluations of the advising received.

Master's and Doctoral Thesis Citations: Analysis and Trends of a Longitudinal Study

This article reports the results of a longitudinal study of over 9100 citations from 629 master's and doctoral theses written between 1973 and 1992 at a large midwestern land-grant university. The results of this study suggest that graduate students writing theses favor current research regardless of disciplinary affiliation. The length of theses increased over time and the number of citations in thesis bibliographies varied by discipline. Implications of the results for collection development and scholarship as well as areas for future research are discussed.