NOV/DEC 2022 - Well-being, Skate Study, CRT Webinar....and More

Guest Editor Zoë Corwin, Research Professor

Dear Colleagues:

When was the last time you paused to check in on how YOU are doing?

A recent family event — moving my father into a new memory care facility — presented an unexpected opportunity to disrupt my day-to-day routine and take a moment to seriously review the past year, as well as take stock of the present.

I realized how I had been ploughing forward with work and my personal life without properly acknowledging the challenges of the prior two years. Judging from conversations I’ve had with postsecondary practitioners, other academics and students over the past few weeks, I know I’m not alone in not carving out adequate time to reflect on my own well-being, let alone grapple with how to make sense of the new higher education wellness landscape. We know that mental health among U.S. college students has worsened over the last decade and that while college presidents are increasingly concerned about mental health, they lack information and resources to effectively support their students.

In this newsletter, we highlight two examples of how the Pullias Center is attempting to better understand how young people are navigating wellness. In the first article, my colleague Ralitsa Todorova shares how our Promoting At-promise Student Success (PASS) research team is collaborating with students and practitioners from the University of Nebraska to address well-being. In the second article, I share emerging findings and new directions related to research on well-being I’ve been conducting in partnership with skateboarders and an interdisciplinary group of colleagues.

In Solidarity,

Zoë Corwin

Research Professor, Pullias Center for Higher Education

PASS Study Focuses on Student and Practitioner Wellness

By Ralitsa Todorova

As well-being becomes an even greater concern for college youth, the Promoting At-Promise Student Success (PASS) project is directing more attention to student and practitioner wellness. The research team is developing innovative mixed methods approaches to better understand students’ experiences and practitioners’ responses. PASS scholars recently published a paper focused on job crafting, with an examination on how practitioner stress and burn out can impact their abilities to support at-promise student success.

Skateboarding and Wellness — Acts of Kindness, Stress Relief and Of Course, Fun

By Zoë Corwin

A colleague recently forwarded me a news article from Nebraska’s Flatwater Free Press – They built a skate park in Nebraska’s poorest county. Then they watched Junior do something priceless. The article shares a beautiful story about the opening of skate park on the Omaha Reservation after community members garnered resources to construct the park after recognizing both the mental health challenges their youth were facing and the passion they had expressed for skateboarding.

The story recounts a selfless act of kindness enacted by Junior, a 15-year old skater, that won’t surprise skateboarders, but likely might the rest of us. The article also mentions a Pullias Center report that helped inform the new project.

SPOTLIGHT

What is Critical Race Theory (CRT)?

This oft-misunderstood theory has elicited strong responses and moral panic, with some researchers suggesting that CRT is not a theory and questioning its rigor and validity.

In this webinar, we will explore what CRT is and is not with a panel of scholars who ground their research and practice in CRT.

The webinar will be facilitated by Pullias Center Alumni Award winners Raquel M. Rall (UC Riverside) and Antar Tichavakunda (UC Santa Barbara) who were awarded a Pullias Center 2022 Alumni Award to support racial equity-related research and projects.

Other Key Pullias Center Wellness Resources Include:

Equity in Graduate Education Consortium workshops on equitably recruiting, admitting, and serving graduate students. The next workshop is Fostering Wellbeing in Racialized Mentoring Environments (Julie Posselt)
Report on Promoting Graduate Student Wellbeing: Cultural, organizational, and environmental factors in the academy (Julie Posselt)
National Academics Science Engineering Medicine report on Supporting the Whole Student: Mental Health and Well-being in STEMM Undergraduate and Graduate Education (Julie Posselt)

Tatiana Melguizo and Pullias Center to Study Community College STEM Opportunities with NSF Grant

Non-STEM and STEM math tracks to be studied at LACCD’s Pierce College with a goal of advancing opportunity and equity in STEM participation at community colleges.

As community colleges around the country move toward eliminating developmental education, students are increasingly eligible to take a college-level Statistics/Liberal Arts Math (SLAM) OR Business and Science Technology, Engineering and Math (BSTEM) course. This new study, funded by the National Science Foundation, will first investigate the extent to which students are tracked into SLAM and BSTEM pathways along racial/ethnic, gender, first generation status and family income lines.

Join Pullias Center Researchers at ASHE, Nov. 16-19

Join Pullias Center and USC researchers at this year's ASHE conference in Las Vegas.

Check out our presentation schedule here.

UPCOMING PULLIAS CENTER EVENTS

Critical Race Theory Webinar — Thursday, January 26

44th Pullias Center Lecture with Dr. Shirley Malcom — Tuesday, March 21 at USC

MORE NEWS

Zoe Corwin was a panelist on AAC&U's recent webinar on Digital Equity and the Opportunities for Higher Education, where she shared suggestions for engaging first year students through digital tools.

Adrian Huerta was an invited speaker at the State of Latino Higher Education in Texas symposium at the University of Texas – Arlington, where he presented on “Barriers and Opportunities to Support College Access for Latino boys.” Dr. Huerta also presented research on college pathways for former gang members at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Adrianna Kezar shares how to move the needle to improve conditions for non-tenure-track faculty in a letter detailing the 2022 Delphi Award in The Chronicle for Higher Education.

Julie Posselt gave the keynote for the National Science Foundation's Alliance for Graduate Education & the Professoriate - "Deconstructing and Redesigning Admissions in Community: Research Practice Partnerships for Institutional Change."

Royel M. Johnson was awarded a research grant from the American Education Research Association, funded by the National Science Foundation for his study: “Examining the Varying Effects of Juvenile Arrest on College Enrollment for Racially/Ethnically Diverse Youth: The Role of School Level Factors .”

Tatiana Melguizo shared her expertise on the impending affirmative action Supreme Court decision and California Community Colleges in a recent LAist article.