‘Tis the season for good cheer. So, as we turn the page on 2020, I want to highlight silver liningsfor education moving forward into 2021 and beyond. First, we have some experience with theonline format and this is crucial for our student’s learning. Second, we have been thoughtful inour development of content and pedagogy during…
Category: teaching
FSU Announces New Institute of Politics.
The institute will celebrate American democracy and promote citizen engagement. In October of 2020, Florida State University announced the launch of its new Institute of Politics (IOP@FSU), a non-partisan, world-class home for civic engagement and research, which will showcase the role of politics in improving the lives of Americans. Housed within the College of Social…
Ph.D. Spotlight: Political Bias in America’s Universities
Conservative media, politicians, interest groups, citizens, and even academics often discuss the leftist orientation and perceived intellectual decline of the American college campus. Based on nationally representative surveys, a majority of Republican partisans and leaners say that colleges and universities have more of a negative than a positive impact on society. What stokes this conservative…
Social Science Scholar: Pivoting to Distance Learning
This summer I interned remotely as a Youth Development Intern for the Nashville After Zone Alliance (N.A.Z.A) Program at Conexión Américas. Conexion Américas is a nonprofit, which promotes the social, economic, and civic advancement of Latino and immigrant families in Middle Tennessee. The N.A.Z.A. program is designed to provide quality afterschool learning opportunities for middle…
Becoming Better Neighbors: Building Relationships between the University and Communities of Color
In college towns, such as Tallahassee, there are longstanding critiques of the separation of “town and gown.” Town and gown refers to the two distinct communities that make up college towns: the community cultivated by and through the university (gown), and the residents of the city itself (town). Most students and faculty come from elsewhere,…
How “Chilly” Climates for LGBTQ+ Students Deepen Inequalities on Campus
When someone brings up “chilly” campus climates, it might draw forth images of female students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) classrooms. In fact, a long history of scholarly research traces the ways STEM fields have been unwelcoming toward women students, faculty, and workers. This chilly environment translates into lower pay than male counterparts,…
Teaching Spotlight: How Should and Can We Help the poor? A Course on Global Development & Giving
In the Fall 2019 semester I launched a new undergraduate course titled Global Development & Giving (PUP 4931), which was supported by FSU’s Council of Research and Creativity. I have been visiting poor countries, predominantly in South East Asia, once or twice annually since 2014. These countries include Cambodia, Myanmar, Tibet (China), and, foremost, Laos….
PhD. Spotlight: Distance Education and Horizontal Stratification in U.S. Higher Education.
Distance education has become an increasingly common mode of instruction in U.S. higher education, and today more than a quarter of students are enrolled in distance courses or programs that are fully online. Dr. Kaley Boggs’s dissertation asks two fundamental questions related to the growing presence of distance-based instruction in U.S. higher education. First, does…
Take Lessons of Empathy beyond Pandemic, into the Classroom
This piece first appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat. COVID-19 has thrown higher education into an unprecedented period of uncertainty. Funding sources, school openings, grades — each facet of the system is under a microscope. As another crop of seniors make way for a new crop of freshmen in the fall, the lesson to learn and…
COSSPP Faculty Impact on Scholarship: Influence at a Glance
As the spring semester comes to an end, we want to take a moment to celebrate the accomplishments and influence of faculty in the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy. This series of graphs produced by Dr. Jim Elsner offers a glimpse of the amazing work taking place in the College of Social Science…
