Regional Comprehensive University Research Articles

A.M.Aminee, J.Taylor. Generative AI Results and Reality

The accuracy of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) tools is the product of the quality of underlying data used to train models, and the models themselves. This interplay between data and models can lead to differences in the accuracy of outputs provided to common prompts across different GAI tools. This study investigates the disparities in accuracy related to representativeness between the outputs of GAI tools and demographic data from National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and large enrollment, regional comprehensive university in the western United States (CSU). Three GAI platforms - ChatGPT, Co-pilot, and Gemini were evaluated using five samples each, with the same instruction across all platforms: “Show a class of graduate students.” The GAI outputs were analyzed based on three demographic variables: gender, race, and age group. These outputs were then compared to national averages from the NCES for gender and race and the CSU for age group. Notably, the variances in the results showed broader distributions across the demographic variables. To assess accuracy, a representation rate metric was calculated, reflecting the average absolute variance from the NCES and CSU benchmarks. The findings highlight the opportunity of higher quality data in model training, as well as the necessity for improved algorithms and methodologies in GAI systems to represent complex demographic information more accurately.

A CURE Lab in Introductory Biology at a Regional Comprehensive University Negatively Impacts Student Success in the Associated Lecture Course Among Students from Groups Underrepresented in Science.

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been proposed as a mechanism to democratize access to the benefits of apprentice-style scientific research to a broader diversity of students, promoting inclusivity and increasing student success and retention. As we evaluate CUREs, it is essential to explore their effectiveness within the environments of regional comprehensive universities and community colleges, because they are important access points for a wide variety of students. It is also important to address the potential influence of volunteer bias, where students can opt to enroll in either the CURE or a traditional lab, on the outcomes of CUREs. We evaluated a CURE at a regional comprehensive university under conditions both with and without volunteer bias. We find that nonvolunteer students report a lower sense of discovery and relevance of the CURE compared with students who volunteered for the course. Importantly, we also find that our replacement of the traditional lab class with a CURE resulted in lower scores on exams in the associated lecture course among students who are both BIPOC and Pell eligible. We call for additional research on the effects of CUREs at nonresearch-intensive institutions and without volunteer bias, to better understand the impact of these classes.

Incremental Reorganization at a Regional Comprehensive University: A Case Study

This paper will discuss a series of incremental reorganizations, prompted by a variety of simultaneous challenges, which presented opportunities to reconfigure staffing to update or add services and meet new needs. This paper will also discuss how best to approach staffing re-organizations for increased chances of success.

Going Dewey: Reclassifying a Curriculum Materials Collection

Library staff developed a project to reclassify the Curriculum Materials Collection of a specialty library on the campus of a regional comprehensive university from its custom classification system derived from those developed during the 1960s and 1970s to Dewey Decimal Classification. While this system had the advantage of browsability for patrons who were familiar with previous use, its unusual nature made training patrons and staff challenging. The transition to Dewey is expected to ease training and use, enhance resource sharing, and allow student teachers to transfer their library skills to their new schools.

Serving Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Students: Examining How Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander- Serving Institutions Build Students’ Capacities

This study examines how Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISI) serve Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA&NHPI) students. Through a two-site case study of a community college on the west coast and a regional comprehensive university on the east coast, this study details the processes that are undertaken to serve and enhance the educational experiences of AA&NHPI students by building their capacities. Findings suggests that federally-funded AANAPISIs design and implement their programs in a manner that reflects the lived experiences and realities of AA&NHPI students through academic coursework, co-curricular programming, and research opportunities, in an intentional and strategic multilayered process, which resembles a developmental nested design focused on five thematic domains. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also offered to advance the work of AANAPISIs.

“You Can Help Me with That?”: Creating a Program of Faculty Research Support at a Regional Comprehensive University

“You Can Help Me with That?”: Creating a Program of Faculty Research Support at a Regional Comprehensive University

That Ropes Course Might Not Be the Metaphor You Think It Is

Summary Students from a regional comprehensive rural university were completing a challenge course activity as part of a graduate course under the auspices of team building. During the “Tarzan Swing” activity, where all participants move from one location to another by swinging on a rope, the team thought long and hard about how to support members with different physical abilities and body types, accounting for diverse strengths, weaknesses, and various fears related to accomplishing the task. One team member was reluctant to participate and her colleagues immediately started offering encouragement. The facilitator and professor also joined in the support discourse. What we all failed to recognize in the moment was that a group of white peers (fellow students), at the encouragement of two white men in power (the professor and facilitator), pushed a Black woman to swing from a tree on a rope with a loop on the end, in the middle of the woods in the rural American South. Information © The Author 2023

Peer Mentoring: A Case Study in Developing Legislative Advocacy Skills among Social Work Students

Peer mentoring in social work education can be beneficial in developing and promoting legislative advocacy skills among social work students taking foundational social welfare policy courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. A descriptive case study is presented of a student peer mentoring project within a social work educational program at a regional comprehensive state university. This study describes the incorporation of a peer mentoring program to assist in promoting legislative advocacy skills among social work students. The project encompasses annual state-level high-impact practice (HIP) legislative advocacy action events across 5 years before and during the global pandemic. This article also seeks to inspire social work educators to embrace peer mentoring as a means to enhance and promote the development of advocacy skills as students find their collective voice and speak up to educate lawmakers on contemporary social problems impacting vulnerable populations.

From Worriers to Warriors: Leading while Black in a Predominantly White Institution

This manuscript captures the leadership development of two Black leaders at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) as they navigated their way through the whirlwind of decisions that needed to be made during the 2020-2021 academic year of the pandemic and social and racial unrest. The leaders were the chancellor and the associate vice chancellor of equity, diversity, inclusion, and support programs. The leaders serve at a regional comprehensive university in a state system in the Midwest with a population of 11,900 students, including a 2-year campus. During the 2020-2021 academic year, the leaders embarked on an investigation of Whiteness through the lens of Blackness as they developed programs, practices, policies, and protocols to assist students, faculty, staff, and fellow administrators with decisions during a time of conflict, criticisms, and crisis.

Research Methods Courses Redesigned for an EdD in Instructional and Performance Technology

This essay describes the design, and subsequent redesign, of the research methods courses included in an Instructional and Performance Technology (IPT) EdD program at a regional comprehensive university in the southeast United States. The program under examination was developed based on the principles of the Carnegie Project for the Education Doctorate (CPED) and research and best practices aligned with the practice of performance improvement. The curriculum includes three research methods courses. The first introduces the students to the principles of action research as applied to the analysis of performance problems in organizational settings. The second addresses instrumentation and data collection processes used in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research, and the third examines analyzing and reporting quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. Collectively these courses provide students with the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to serve as scholarly practitioners, examining any type of problem of practice in any organizational setting.

Incorporating a REIT Module to an Undergraduate Capstone Course: An Experiential Education Approach

This paper describes the pedagogical approach of incorporating a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) module in an undergraduate finance major capstone course at Florida Gulf Coast University, a regional comprehensive 4-year university. The module consists of two class periods and requires research of publicly-traded REITs using industry accepted sources of data, empirical and qualitative data analysis, and preparation of written and oral presentations that receive academic and practitioner feedback. The assignment aligns with experiential learning theory and the constructivism learning theory found in research in that it incorporates experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and active learning combined with the participation of guest speakers and judges who serve as external validators enhancing the student classroom experience.

Gratitude at Work

Guest columnist Ginger H. Williams is a new dean at Fort Hays State University, a regional comprehensive university in western Kansas. Ginger reflects on aspects of her work she is grateful for, such as a challenging renovation project and other new-to-her duties that help expand her skills. She also considers the many people whose support she relies upon. Readers are encouraged to consider what they are grateful for in their own professional lives and to find ways to express gratitude in a professional setting.

Sonic Histories: Reckoning with Race through Campus Soundscapes

Abstract: The sounds of the college campus raise important questions of participation, identity, privilege, disability, and marginalization. During the 2019–2020 academic year, three university instructors from distinct disciplines (music, history, and political science) and a student research assistant (history) used sound as a method for inquiring into contested and erased sites on the campus of Western Carolina University, a regional comprehensive university located in the southeastern United States. The project came to be called Sonic Histories. Paid student volunteers were led on a soundwalk and completed three online questionnaires that engaged questions of race and belonging on campus. This study presents findings on how students experience and interpret contested and erased sites through sounds heard and imagined. Sonic Histories explores two central questions. Historically, whose voices have been included and whose have been excluded on college campuses? How can sound promote awareness of racialized spaces and, in turn, achieve social engagement? The authors challenge the triumphant narrative of campus histories, which highlights racial reconciliation and progress while eliding the ways predominantly white campuses still exclude minorities. By re-centering minority voices in campus spaces, the authors explore the systemic exclusion of minorities that has occurred on college campuses across the country. At a time when places of higher education are refining and developing their commitment to diversity and inclusivity—while assessing their past in honest ways—the Sonic Histories project builds upon ongoing initiatives to position the college campus as a scholarly community that lives up to its democratic ideals of inclusion.

MOVING FROM ENDORSEMENT TO ACTION: ALIGNING AFU EFFORTS WITH UNIVERSITY STRATEGIC PLANS AND GOALS

Abstract The Age-Friendly University global initiative has the opportunity to unite nations around the world towards making higher education spaces inclusive of older adults. Once a university joins the AFU Global Network and endorses the 10 guiding principles, the real work of living up to the principles begins. Each institution has unique geographical, political, social, and financial characteristics that require tailored approaches to this work. At our regional comprehensive university, we completed three separate analyses (external, internal, future directions) as part of our Environmental Scan. The goal of the Environmental Scan was to understand the initial strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities to age-friendliness and inclusiveness for older learners within our campus community. We utilized a multi-pronged data collection approach, including individual stakeholder interviews, online surveys of older leaners, policy analysis, and internal and external audits. Many aspects of data collection for the environmental scan occurred concurrently with data analysis. Data from each of the eight data collection methods were used to generate key findings and recommendations and will be presented. Furthermore, we found that aligning our recommendations with the University’s marketing and enrollment efforts as well as the University’s goals relating to diversity, equity and inclusion allowed for greater administrative support for strategies to increase age-friendliness on campus. with implications for similar work at other institutions. The Age-Friendly University global initiative has the opportunity to better support the inclusion of older adults in higher education. Our Environmental Scan of age-friendliness, from inception to completion will apply to institutions across the globe.

Bottled vs tap water perceptions, choices and recommendations in a US Midwest university community

PurposeThis study aims to determine preference and concerns regarding tap vs bottled water and recommendations to increase tap water use in a US Midwest university. The authors propose interventions to increase tap water use based on survey results.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted an online survey of the community of a regional comprehensive university in the St. Louis metro-east region (Illinois, USA). They analyzed 781 responses using mixed methods, and developed recommendations based on community-based social marketing principles.FindingsBlack respondents reported higher bottled water use than White respondents. Undergraduate students reported higher bottled water use than faculty or staff. Most respondents were concerned about cost and environmental impact for bottled water and taste and water quality for tap water. Chemical and safety concerns were specific and location-focused for tap water only. Concerns were similar to Safe Drinking Water Act mandated public information, such as prior reports of lead (Pb) in campus drinking water. Tap water taste concerns may relate to proximity to the water treatment plant, resulting in high residual chlorine levels. To increase tap water use in this community, the authors recommend persuasive information campaigns, improvements to infrastructure and distribution that increase tap water convenience, more transparent public reporting on tap water lead levels, management of residual chlorine levels, and establishment of institutional norms favoring tap water over bottled water.Originality/valueThe authors evaluate barriers to drinking tap water across multiple environmental and social systems. The methods used in this study combine mixed methods analysis and community-based social marketing. The findings integrate respondent demographics and concerns, local water quality, local and national contamination events, campus-specific sustainability initiatives and barriers, and national drinking water regulations.

The Iterative College Choice Process of Students with Disabilities: A Mixed-Methods Study

Background: Although students with disabilities are enrolling in higher education in larger numbers than ever before, they are still underrepresented in colleges and universities, particularly among four-year institutions. College choice has been explored across multiple facets, but limited research has examined the college choice processes of students with disabilities. Research Questions: (1) What factors are most influential to the successful college choice processes of students with disabilities? (2) To what extent are these factors different from those that influence the choice processes of students without disabilities? (3) How do students describe the influence of key factors on their college choice process? (4) How does the college choice process for students with disabilities vary across institutional types? Setting: This research took place at three public institutions in the state of Massachusetts, one public research university (Research University [RU]) and two regional comprehensive universities (City State University [CSU], Suburban State University [SSU]). Research Design: We utilized a convergent mixed methods study composed of survey research and qualitative interviews. Participants: For the quantitative survey, we recruited students with and students without disabilities by sending invitations to a random sample of 30% of students at RU and all students at CSU and SSU. A total of 1,981 students completed the survey. For the qualitative interviews, we recruited students via a targeted email invitation sent through the disability services office on each campus, resulting in 27 participants. Data Collection and Analysis: Data were collected through a quantitative survey and a qualitative interview. The survey took approximately 15 minutes and took place over Qualtrics; data were analyzed using descriptive analysis and chi-squared tests. Qualitative data were collected through 60- to 90-minute semistructured interviews and were analyzed through deductive and inductive coding. Conclusions and Recommendations: Our findings revealed that although students with disabilities considered the same factors as their peers without disabilities, they faced additional considerations related to the quality of disability services and accessibility of the campus. We also found that although factors such as family, school, and distance had similar influence across students with disabilities, subtle distinctions emerged in how students approached these categories when they chose a research university versus a regional comprehensive institution. We concluded with recommendations for further research into how disability and institutional type shape college choice and for practices to help students with disabilities in their college search and choice processes.

Developing research data management services in a regional comprehensive university: The case of Central Washington University

This study aims to analyze the needs of researchers in a regional comprehensive university for research data management services; discuss the options for developing a research data management program at the university; and then propose a phased three-year implementation plan for the university libraries. The method was to design a survey to collect information from researchers and assess and evaluate their needs for research data management services. The results show that researchers’ needs in a regional comprehensive university could be quite different from those of researchers in a research-intensive university. Also, the results verify the hypothesis that researchers in the regional comprehensive university would welcome the libraries offering managed data services for the research community. Therefore, this study suggests a phased three-year implementation plan. The significance of the study is that it can give some insights and helpful information for regional comprehensive universities that are planning to develop a research data management program.

How I stopped fearing micro-credentials and began to love digital badging – a pilot project

Higher education faces increasing demands to take a more active and direct role in assuring employability for students. Micro-credentialing and badging is a growing movement, attractive for its flexibility and efficiency in connecting students with careers and jobs. This paper presents a case study of the development and pilot of an industry-specific micro-credential at a regional comprehensive university. Florida Gulf Coast University developed the Fundamentals of Medical Device Industry badge (micro-credential) in response to specific regional workforce needs in partnership with a major area employer. The concept, design, course integration and initial results are detailed, along with the next steps and best practices for institutions implementing similar badges.

Student Perceptions of Course Configuration: Hybrid and Face-to-Face Models

Hybrid or blended learning has gained enormous popularity in higher education because of its demonstrated ability to increase student learning, reduce undergraduate attrition rates, and maintain costs in an era of relentlessly increasing tuition. This study reviews the literature on hybrid or blended learning, enumerating both the benefits and liabilities of this type of instruction and the controversies surrounding it. The researchers then describe the two forms of a mixed-methodology survey instrument used to determine the satisfaction of primarily undergraduate students who are enrolled in separate sections of an introduction to education course, one taught in a traditional face-to-face mode and one in a blended configuration during two academic terms at a public regional comprehensive university in the Northwest portion of the United States. They then analyze the findings of the qualitative and quantitative data with recommendations for further research.

Cultivating not Weeding: STEM First Year Learning Community Fosters Student Persistence and Engagement

Regional comprehensive universities with access-oriented missions provide critical pathways for increasing the number and diversity of STEM graduates. The BOND program at California State University, Fresno supports the transition to college for first-time, full-time freshmen in selected STEM majors. BOND incorporates a learning community, active learning, and early course-based research experiences. Compared to comparison groups, students that participate in BOND are 1.93 times more likely to persist in STEM into their fourth year despite similar academic achievement in introductory STEM courses. A higher proportion of BOND students also engage with campus resources that support their first and second year on campus, which suggests that appropriate support builds persistence through the challenges of a STEM degree. This study highlights the importance of providing support strategies and resources in the first year for STEM retention, counter to the traditional narrative of “weeding out” students in their first year on campus.