Background: Collaboration among teachers is now considered a marker of effective schools and key to creating successful professional learning opportunities. However, the nature and efficacy of collaboration vary widely, and research suggests that collaborative efforts often fail to promote teacher development. Purpose: This study draws on…

There are more than 300 anti-Queer policies that are being proposed and implemented across the nation that impact education, including Tennessee's Senate Bill 1229; Virginia's "2022 Model Policies on the Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for all Students and Parents in Virginia's Public Schools;" and Florida's "Parental Rights in…

MegaSoTL projects are scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects that generate evidence of learning from multiple institutions. While being increasingly practiced, MegaSoTL projects and their potential contribution to improve higher education pedagogy remain understudied in higher education literature. In this article, we introduce…

Community colleges in Tennessee, either directly or indirectly, experienced unprecedented change as a result of Tennessee Promise. The present study explored how student support service administrators at three community colleges responded to organizational change as a result of the Tennessee Promise legislation. Investigators selected community…

This article discusses the use of ePortfolios in interdisciplinary online adult degree programs at two universities. Whereas one university uses the ePortfolio only in a capstone course, the other institution introduces the ePortfolio in an introductory course that focuses on goal setting and then has students add content to the ePortfolio in the…

This is an era of transformation in the preparation, induction, and assessment of prospective teachers. The tension between local and state control is at the heart of the debate. States should be responsible for establishing performance standards that ensure that new teachers are well-prepared, competent, and ready to teach. This is why the…

This article describes Marathon Month, a workplace wellness program for Extension employees. The program promoted physical activity by challenging employees to walk or run the length of a marathon (26.2 mi) or half marathon (13.1 mi) over the course of 1 month. Of the 317 participants, 90% achieved a self-set goal of completing a full or half…

Interdisciplinary undergraduate research experiences often require students to work in teams with other students and researchers from different disciplines, creating a need for development of new skills in interdisciplinary collaboration. In this paper, we describe our unique efforts to mentor participants in developing these skills during our…

The purpose of this study is to examine college skills Alumni from 1862 and 1890 Land-Grant universities in Alabama and Tennessee rated as essential to acquire in their college education. The data are from a survey of colleges of agriculture alumni who graduated from six land-grant universities in Alabama and Tennessee. IBM SPSS Statistical…

While there is a whole field devoted to the widely esteemed enterprise of epistemology, until fairly recently much less attention has been given to "agnotology," the study of ignorance. Epistemologists of ignorance use the concept agnotology to signify the study of the making and unmaking of ignorance, as well as the task of…

This study focused on the association between 3 school-level supports for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students and teachers' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors toward LGBT youth. Framed within social support theory, the study used survey method with a sample of 98 teachers in Grades 6-12. The purpose was to examine the relation…

We report findings from a statewide study of 333 administrators focused on (a) the extent to which they prioritize each of seven self-determination skills, (b) whether and where staff at their schools are providing instruction on these seven skills, and (c) potential avenues for equipping educators to learn strategies for fostering…

This article examines arts participation as a context for youth to develop purpose. Two analyses were conducted of interviews with arts-involved youth to explore the relationship between their arts participation and purpose, which was defined as an "intention to accomplish something that is both meaningful to the self and contributes to the…

In July 2011, the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees approved a new strategic plan called VolVision for the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) campus. VolVision provides the road map for UTK to become a Top 25 university. For more than a year before the board approved the plan, faculty and administrative leaders led focus groups and…

First year students, like all students at a university, comprise a diverse mixture of personal traits, backgrounds, experiences, and assorted learning styles. Each of these unique student characteristics can either enhance or inhibit successful integration to the campus community. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of various…