This qualitative study aims to improve accessibility and equity in digital spaces by identifying the prevalent mismatch between online course design, student culture, and its connection to instructional design for teacher preparation programs. Utilizing feminist theory, we explore the intersection between community, identity, and learning within…

This dissertation introduces and employs the HERC model, a novel conceptual framework developed to critically analyze the intricacies of town-gown relationships during a boundary-spanning crisis. Situated in Tucson, Arizona, the study delves into the nuanced communication dynamics of two key higher education institutions: The University of Arizona…

Community college students represent a large percentage of U.S. undergraduates. In California, most of these students are low-income Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. However, despite the size of this student population, the mental health challenges these students face, and a need for alternatives to current campus mental health services,…

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have been used among educators in higher education as a way to address areas of concern, such as reform. One such area in higher education concerns inequities in education because they impact student learning and achievement. Faculty-driven PLCs in higher education have also been focused on ensuring that…

Technology advances have changed the way faculty teach and students learn. The classroom has evolved from students listening to their faculty lecture to convey their knowledge to students utilizing interactive electronic resources that can take students worldwide in milliseconds. Tools in the classroom have also allowed faculty to quiz students…

Employing an institutional case study approach, this manuscript features two high-impact learning opportunities open to Albion College students who seek to contribute to solving real-world problems in collaboration with local and surrounding communities: Albion College Community Collaborative (AC3) and Human Rights Lab. The programmatic approach…

A strong sense of community is linked to higher levels of student retention, wellness and quality of education in counselor education doctoral programs. This is particularly true for marginalized students (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, motherhood status, and international students). Strong, positive faculty relationships with students as well as…

Degree completion rates have recently dominated national debates regarding the value of higher education (Gagliardi et al., 2018). Inherent in this debate is the issue of how to utilize institutional data to evaluate student performance (Hubbard et al., 2020). This process, known as data-driven decision-making (DDDM), has been studied at four-year…

One current challenge highlighted by the United Nations is to increase the number of adults who achieve literacy and numeracy by 2030. This article focuses on one experience from an underprivileged Mexican school that implements "Family Education, a Successful Educational Action." Following a communicative methodology, we conducted a…

The article combines later Wittgenstein's fictitious language games, along with the forms of life associated with them, with the concept of otherness and places them both within the philosophy of education. The account of otherness overlaps with the view of fictional language games in that the latter deviates from our ordinary, extant uses of…

This paper considers what is at stake in the idea of universitas--a community of masters and scholars --in the context of the shifting landscape of higher education engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, we consider what it means to be together in a university community. We draw a distinction between the…

Collective impact (CI) is a structured approach that helps drive multi-sector collaborations to address social problems through systems changes. While the CI approach is gaining popularity, practitioners experience challenges in evaluating its implementation and intended outcomes. We conducted a systematic scoping review to understand evaluation…

Given the growing global environmental threats, shifts to increasingly binary thinking that isolate and polarize discourse, and the erosion of caring for each other and our places, the authors believe it is imperative that we change the way science and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education connect with communities and are…

In the context of virtual learning communities (VLCs), where the participants may not know each other, it is necessary to have a mechanism to help when deciding who to work with and what reliable contents and information sources are. This study aims to design a generic trust model, named T-VLC, applicable to VLCs, which can be adapted to different…

Wax, taffy, immigration. Removal, alien, roots, belonging. Screendance. These apparently unrelated words were the inspiration for "Uprooted," a screendance project that addresses issues of immigration through movement and metaphor. Developed with a cast and crew of college students, "Uprooted" became the nucleus for community…