New research: Lessons from the Jerry Sandusky case, limits of PhD admissions criteria, and more
Congratulations to Pullias Center co-director William G. Tierney and research associate Raquel M. Rall! Their co-authored article, “Lessons Not Yet Learned: Culture, Governance, and the Jerry Sandusky Case,” received the 2019 Neuner Award from the American Association of University Administrators for the outstanding article in The Journal of Higher Education Management.
Other recent works by Pullias researchers tackle a wide range of issues in higher education, from better understanding Latino male students to creating successful career academies to improving admissions criteria for PhD programs.
Read the abstracts and excerpts for these papers and find out more about the projects that inspired them:
Huerta, A., & Fishman, S. M. (2019). Marginalizing what matters: Revisiting Latino male students in the education pipeline. In P. Brug, Z. S. Ritter, & K. R. Roth (Eds.), Marginality in the Urban Center: The Costs and Challenges of Continued Whiteness in the Americas and Beyond (pp. 133-157). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96466-9
This chapter presents the results of a qualitative study using Schlossberg’s theory of mattering and marginality to provide an understanding of first-generation, low-income urban Latino male students and their transition experiences at and success in various higher education institutions. The study explored how these students navigated the college environment and developed relationships with campus agents. The findings illustrate (a) role modeling for society, (b) economic status and lived experiences, (c) first encounters, and (d) high school peer groups. The authors offer implications and program recommendations for high school and college professionals to more adequately support and understand Latino male experiences at their institutions.
Pullias Center Provost Postdoctoral Scholar Adrian Huerta works on projects related to college access for males of color in high schools, community colleges and four-year colleges and universities.
Lanford, M. & Maruco, T. (2019). Six conditions for successful career academies. Phi Delta Kappan, 100(5), 50-52. Retrieved from https://www.kappanonline.org/successful-career-academies-career-preparation-lanford-maruco/
To assess how viable and scalable career academies are, we recently conducted a yearlong qualitative study of career academies in an urban Southern California school district. Over the course of the study, we interviewed 52 academy coordinators and teachers, as well as 41 students, focusing on the relationships established among students, teachers, administrators, and employers because these are key to viability and scalability (Lanford & Maruco, 2018). While we discovered significant barriers to the scalability of career education in the United States, we also acquired a great deal of firsthand wisdom about the conditions that are necessary for establishing and maintaining an impactful career academy. We have distilled our findings into six conditions that we believe are essential to consider before devoting substantial public monies and resources to career academies.
Michael Lanford is a postdoctoral research associate in the Pullias Center . A past research project specialist for the Pullias Center, Tattiya Maruco assists the Digital Equity in Education team.
Lanford, M., Tierney, W. G., & Lincoln, Y. (2018). The art of life history: Novel approaches, future directions. Qualitative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800418817834
A life history approach could be employed to research boundless multidisciplinary topics that fall under the umbrella of several disciplines. This issue, however, was occasioned by papers presented during a colloquium on life history research at the 2017 American Educational Research Association annual conference in San Antonio. Therefore, diverse conceptual and empirical papers from the field of education serve as an archetype. The articles in this issue are motivated by three objectives: (a) to consider new theoretical, political, and social developments that can inform the future of life history research; (b) to explore various avenues for conducting life history research; and (c) to present examples of life history research in different educational contexts that demonstrate both the flexibility and the utility of the method.
Michael Lanford is a postdoctoral research associate, and William G. Tierney a co-director, of the Pullias Center.
Miller, C. W., Zwickl, B. M., Posselt, J. R., Silvestrini, R. T., & Hodapp, T. (2019). Typical physics Ph.D. admissions criteria limit access to underrepresented groups but fail to predict doctoral completion. Science Advances, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aat7550
This study aims to understand the effectiveness of typical admissions criteria in identifying students who will complete the Physics Ph.D. Multivariate statistical analysis of roughly one in eight physics Ph.D. students from 2000 to 2010 indicates that the traditional admissions metrics of undergraduate grade point average (GPA) and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Quantitative, Verbal, and Physics Subject Tests do not predict completion as effectively admissions committees presume. Significant associations with completion were found for undergraduate GPA in all models and for GRE Quantitative in two of four studied models; GRE Physics and GRE Verbal were not significant in any model. It is notable that completion changed by less than 10% for U.S. physics major test takers scoring in the 10th versus 90th percentile on the Quantitative test. Aside from these limitations in predicting Ph.D. completion overall, overreliance on GRE scores in admissions processes also selects against underrepresented groups.
Julie Posselt, an assistant professor of higher education in the USC Rossier School of Education, is an expert on graduate education and admissions policies.
Tierney, W. G., & Rall, R. M. (2018). Lessons not yet learned: Culture, governance, and the Jerry Sandusky case. Journal of Higher Education Management, 33(2), 12-27. Retrieved from http://www.aaua.org/journals/pdfs/JHEM_2018_33-2.pdf
We suggest that calls for individuals to come together and discuss the culture of an organization works from what we shall define as an integrationist perspective, whereas what actually is needed is a focus on a culture that is fragmented. Indeed, until the events became known, many would suggest that PSU’s culture was cohesive and mutually shared (DeSantis, 2009). We put forward a schema for thinking about culture and the larger environment that enables a more protective landscape than the one that existed throughout the time that Sandusky was abusing children.
William G. Tierney is a co-director of the Pullias Center. A research associate of the Pullias Center, Raquel M. Rall is an assistant professor of higher education in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside.