Knowledge Discussion Essay

Over the course of the past three years, the PhD in Higher Education program has re-

shaped the way I view the world. Now, this may be a bit of an overstatement, as I have likely

been using a constructivist view to make sense of the world for more than just those three years,

but until I started this program, I was not aware that there was a specific way I conducted

inquiries. This transformation started in the Ways of Knowing course, but has continued to grow

throughout my coursework.

Ways of Knowing

The Ways of Knowing course served as my introduction to the world of doctoral level

classes. The first month of the course, which was primarily spent reviewing Descartess

Discourse on Methods, left me utterly confused and questioning whether or not I had made the

right choice in starting this PhD program. The objective of the course became clearer, however,

in our second reading, Bruners The Culture of Education. The notions of paradigms and

paradigm shifts has enabled me, throughout my coursework, to understand the evolution of

higher education as both a practice and a field of study, particularly in reflecting on how our field

has arrived at its current state.

The most important aspect of this course for me was our New Way of Knowing project.

I chose historical inquiry and researched its origins, which date back almost 3,000 years.

Through my own inquiries in the process, I began to realize how much influence historians have

in shaping the way history is understood. This was solidified when I found out that students in

the Southeastern United States learned about an event called the War of Northern Aggression

as opposed to the event called the Civil War that I learned about as a student in Canada, which
I had assumed was the universal name for the event. I began seeing more examples of this when

reading news articles, books, and research articles. Everyone has a slant they are trying to sell: it

is our job as researchers to collect as much information as possible and to then construct our own

interpretation of what is occurring or has taken place.

Looking at the source of information and how it could potentially be biased was the most

important concept that I took away from the Ways of Knowing course. It has helped shape my

constructivist view as a researcher.

Current Trends in Higher Education

The Current Trends in Higher Education course was an appropriate second course for me

to take in the program. The course discussed various issues facing higher education in the United

States, many of which I was not fully aware of having recently emigrated from Canada. These

issues included for profit institutions of higher education and the inability of many of those

institutions to prepare qualified graduates; the increased focus by government agencies on

graduation rates, retention rates, and graduates employment rates in related fields post-

graduation, and how these factors are being tied to funding; the decrease in state funding of

public institutions and increase in the amount of student debt being accrued; and the

consumerization of higher education.

In this course, I began my exploration of co-curricular transcripts. I see co-curricular

transcripts as a way to allow students to demonstrate to potential employers all of the

transferable skills they acquired outside of the classroom through their participation in campus

activities. My project focused on the skills employers seek in new employees, which are

primarily transferable skills related to teamwork, communication, time management, and

personal organization. I recommended the implementation of co-curricular transcripts as a way

for students to show employers the skills they developed both inside and outside of the

classroom during their university experience.

Higher Education Law

Higher Education Law remains my favorite class from my coursework. The course was

based on examining case studies on various subjects, including faculty tenure, the ability of

faculty to freely research their chosen subjects, free speech on campus, religious freedom on

campus, affirmative action, Title IX, and the rights of students to have safe learning

environments.

My final project in this course examined hazing in higher education institutions from

both a criminal statute and a federal civil rights statute point of view. I used two cases involving

marching bands as a case study for this project: Florida A&M University (FAMU) as an example

of a criminal case, and Ohio State University (OSU) as an example of a Title IX violation case.

The FAMU case allowed me to explore how each state has a different statute in place in

regards to hazing, including different definitions and penalties. It also allowed me to explore the

concept of Sovereign Immunity, in which a state entity, such as a public higher education

institution, is able to protect itself from negligence claims by limiting the amount that it is legally

able to pay out in a lawsuit.

The OSU case enabled me to explore federal statutes, including Title IX and the

Department of Educations Office of Civil Rights Dear Colleague letters, which offer clarifying

guidance on institutions requirements of providing safe learning environments for all students,

free from discrimination or intimidation based on gender, ethnicity, and other factors, and
university employees responsibilities when it comes to ensuring a student is not discriminated

against. The project also explored George Mason Universitys policies regarding hazing.

My final project also served as the basis for a presentation I did at the NIRSA Club Sport

Institute in Minneapolis, MN in 2015. The goal of the presentation was to inform colleagues in

my profession about their responsibilities as a university employee to act to stop the

discrimination and to provide support for a student if they learn of a situation in which a student

is being discriminated against. I also used a variation of this presentation with my student leaders

to educate them about the dangers of hazing, the legal implications of hazing, and their

responsibilities as student leaders to prevent hazing from occurring in their organizations.

Problems and Methods in Educational Research

This course served as an introduction to both qualitative and quantitative research

methods at a PhD level. The coursework allowed me to learn more about resources available to

PhD students on campus, particularly through the library, and to complete the CITI Program

certification. I was also able to complete mock IRB approval requests for both a quantitative and

a qualitative project.

Two projects in this course were particularly useful as I began exploring a potential topic

of interest for my dissertation. In working with club sport participants here at Mason and

previously at Mount Royal University and Southern Illinois University, I have found that these

students tend to have a higher affinity for their institution. As colleges and universities struggle

with funding models, donations from alumni can become an important source of income. I am

interested in seeing if former club sport athletes have a higher affinity for their institution as
alumni than former non-club sport athlete alumni of the institution and if that affinity translates

into donations back to the institution.

The quantitative project I designed in this course involved the process by which I would

determine if a higher percentage of former club sports alumni do in fact donate back to their

institution than non-club sports alumni. The qualitative project involved replicating a study

conducted by Shapiro and Giannoulakis (2009) that interviewed former varsity athletes to

identify barriers that prevented them from donating back to their institution. My study would be

replicated to identify barriers and motivations for club sport athletes to donate. I also contacted

Shapiro, a professor at Old Dominion University, during this course. Shapiro was gracious

enough to share his data collection instruments with me to assist in my future work on this

subject.

Quantitative Research Methods

The quantitative research methods course that I took was based solely on classwork,

seven quizzes, and a final exam. The professor, Dr. Brigham, was testing out a theory, suggested

in a 2014 article by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel, of having several low stakes tests

throughout the semester and providing feedback to students, but no grades. This resulted in a

classroom learning environment that fostered ample time spent working collaboratively as a class

on projects, but with no large project to show from the time in class.

The course relied heavily on using Excel and SPSS as methods to analyze collected

quantitative data. The examples used in class were relevant to future projects that I may be

working on. Subjects covered included: hypothesis testing for a single mean, confidence
intervals, significance testing, statistical power, normal and chi-squared distributions, correlation,

one way analysis of variance, two and three factor ANOVA, ANCOVA, and multiple regression.

Student Services in Higher Education

With my current work in student services and my desire to continue working in student

services at a higher education institution, I took this course as it focused specifically on the

subject. One area of the course that stood out to me was examining different types of institutions

and looking at how student service professionals in those institutions likely have to operate

differently. Having only worked and studied at larger public institutions (the smallest institution I

have been at was Mount Royal University, which had over 14,000 students), I examined the way

I had typically been compartmentalized at the institutions I had worked at, having primary

responsibilities only over a small subsection of programming. A peer at a small liberal arts

college likely would not have the same experiences as they must typically wear multiple hats and

be a jack of all trades. This made me appreciate the types of institutions I have worked at.

In this course, I also worked on a group project that examined the regional accreditation

process that higher education institutions must go through in the U.S., and also looked at learning

outcomes as they relate to the accreditation process. We specifically looked at the Southern

Association of Colleges and Schools, of which Mason is a part of, and how learning outcomes

are a part of the Quality Enhancement process.

This course also required that I visit another institution, for which I chose University of

Massachusetts Amherst, and use Astins E-I-O model to assess the campus climate. Astins

model involves looking at the Environment, Inputs, and Outcomes. This opportunity to critically

examine another campus from an outside perspective was valuable in allowing me to see what
how the built environment and the student body make-up affected the culture of campus and the

types of graduates the institution produced.

Transformative Experience

As previously mentioned, throughout my coursework I have explored co-curricular

transcripts and the benefits of co-curricular involvement by students. Increasing student learning

through participation in co-curricular activities on campus has also been a large part of my

professional work and I have utilized my acquired research methods knowledge to find that

student participation in recreational sports at Mason does positively correlate with first-year

student retention rates and overall student GPAs. Recently, I designed a research project in the

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning course that will attempt to increase students

understanding of skills developed via their co-curricular participation in Club Sports, which I

plan to conduct throughout the 2017-18 academic year. I plan to continue to explore the benefits

of co-curricular involvement and the barriers that prevent students from becoming engaged in

co-curricular activities as part of my remaining academic and professional work here at Mason.

Outside of the classroom, I learned a great deal working on a research team with Dr. Arminio

and four other students that explored the acculturation of student services professionals in working

with minority populations on campus, in particular student veterans and service members. The team

worked to code transcripts from previously conducted interviews into themes and then worked

collaboratively to discuss these themes and identify some important aspects of the acculturation

process for student service professionals from varying backgrounds. The work led to presentations at

the 2017 ACPA conference and the 2016 Service2Civilian symposium, both of which I was able to

present at, the 2016 ASHE conference, and a manuscript that has been submitted for consideration for
publication in the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice. The subject of this project,

particularly the part focusing on student veterans and service members, was rather new to me and

helped me to better understand the challenges that this population faces while attending higher

education institutions, which will help me in my professional career through the way in which it has

made me consider the experiences of minority populations of students on campus. I intend to continue

to develop my understanding of the various groups of students on our evolving campuses and the

challenges they face in the Contemporary College Student course in the Fall 2017 semester. The

project also allowed me to further develop my qualitative research skills and helped reinforce my

desire to complete a qualitative or mixed methods dissertation.

Studying towards a PhD in Higher Education Administration has been a transformative

experience for me. As a student and consumer of knowledge, I believe I have grown significantly

through my coursework as I have recognized my constructivist viewpoint and the importance I put on

answering the why questions. This inquisitive nature has shaped many of my projects in my

coursework, which have continually been of the qualitative variety, as I have garnered my desire to

understand why individuals feel a certain way about a subject. This has also led me to take courses

that help answer questions that will be relevant to my desired future career in student services

leadership, such as the way that the size and type of institution affects the work experience of student

services staff members, which has shaped the courses I have taken in the program. My aspiration to

grow as a professional has led me to grow as a researcher and as a consumer of knowledge through

this doctoral program.