On Campus - with CITI Program

Denise O’Neill is the Director of Enrollment Management at Penn State University (Lehigh Valley). Her primary responsibilities include admissions, financial aid, and grant-funded student success programs. With over 25 years of progressive experience in leadership, administration, teaching, and supervision in higher education, she has served as the Assistant Dean at Hofstra University and Dean of Students at Cedar Crest College. Currently, she teaches in the Higher Education graduate program at DeSales University. Denise received her BA in Criminal Justice from Moravian College, a MA from Marist College in Psychology, and her doctorate from Columbia University on Higher and Adult Education.

What does the United States Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action mean for higher education? To put it in the most basic terms possible, race is no longer a factor in admissions. At the center of this decision, were two court cases, Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, which have changed the direction of admissions in the United States. Advocates across the country have expressed concern about representation and diversity on college campuses and in several fields, such as STEM, in the coming years.

Learn more about CITI Program: https://about.citiprogram.org/

References: 

• https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/applying/articles/how-does-affirmative-action-affect-college-admissions 
• https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-will-the-supreme-courts-affirmative-action-ruling-affect-college-admissions/

Tiffany D. Tucker is the Deputy Director of Athletics at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). She is the chief operations officer responsible for the department’s day-to-day operations. She is one of Sports Illustrated’s 100 Influential Black Women in Sports. Tiffany is the 2022 recipient of the NIKE Nell Jackson Executive of the Year Award, the UNCW Kathleen Berkeley Inconvenient Woman Award for her activism on behalf of others and issues of social justice and gender equality, and a nominee for the 2022 WILMA Magazine Women to Watch Award. Tiffany recently partnered with Yahoo Sports and Degree to launch the Bracket Gap Challenge and Gender Equity Initiative. She is a graduate and former women’s basketball player at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, a two-time ACC Champion. She received her master’s degree from Hampton University and is a former women’s basketball coach.

Over the past several years, many collegiate athletic conferences have changed their membership structures overall. The realignment of conferences will have financial benefits and impacts for institutions, implications for student-athletes, and a new way of thinking for college administrators. More realignments between the collegiate athletic conferences will likely occur over the coming years.

Learn more about CITI Program: https://about.citiprogram.org/

References: 

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/08/07/college-sports-conference-realignment/
• https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/athletics/2023/08/07/conference-reshuffling-bodes-big-time-instability-college-sports
• https://www.chronicle.com/article/conference-realignment-is-sweeping-college-sports-heres-why-it-matters

Dr. Justin A. Gutzwa (they/them) is an Assistant Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education at Michigan State University. Shaped by their experiences as a queer, nonbinary, trans scholar, Justin employs critical theories and qualitative methods to dismantle deficit-based understandings of queer and trans communities in postsecondary education, particularly trans-Communities of Color. Justin’s research has also interrogated systemic minoritization in postsecondary STEM education spaces. Their work has been published in various prominent education and science journals, including Harvard Educational Review, the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, and the Journal of Women & Gender in Higher Education.

While transgender and nonbinary individuals are becoming more visible across different media forms, undergraduate trans and nonbinary students are still largely an invisible minority on most college and university campuses across the United States. Adverse experiences are common for trans and nonbinary undergraduate students across campuses, and they often receive little to no support from services on campus.

Learn more about CITI Program: https://about.citiprogram.org/ 

Resources: 

• https://sahe.colostate.edu/transgender-students-experiences-in-postsecondary/#:~:text=Transgender%2C%20gender%20nonconforming%2C%20and%20gender,services%20of%20student%20affairs%20professionals.
• https://legacy.lambdalegal.org/know-your-rights/article/trans-in-college-faq

Bryce Hughes is an associate professor of education at Montana State University. He holds a Ph.D. in education from UCLA, an MA in student development administration from Seattle University, and a BS in general engineering from Gonzaga University. His work highlights the disproportionate rates at which LGBTQ students leave STEM fields. His recent NSF CAREER award focuses on understanding the experiences of LGBTQ students in STEM majors, investigating students' social networks, degree completion rates, and science and engineering identity. His research has garnered recognition from the American Society for Engineering Education and the American Society for Engineering Management.

Data suggests that LGBTQIA+ undergraduate students are less likely to continue or finish a STEM major than their counterparts. A 2016 study from Queer in STEM identified that approximately less than 60% of queer scientists are openly out. Diverse perspectives and ideas are needed within STEM fields to ensure new ideas and perspectives can contribute to the next important discovery. More data and research is needed to truly understand the impact of LGBTQIA+ individuals studying STEM undergraduate majors.

Learn more about CITI Program: https://about.citiprogram.org/

Resources: 

• https://www.stemwomen.com/lgbtq-plus-in-stem
• https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abe0933

LaVena Wilkin is the Executive Dean of the College of Business and Technology at Sullivan University. She has facilitated workshops on workplace bullying, forgiveness, emotional intelligence, conflict and change, employee engagement, dealing with difficult people, and the P.E.A.C.E. © Model of Conflict Management. She has three co-edited books: 1) Organizational Conflicts: Challenges and Solutions (2009), From Discord to Harmony: Making Your Workplace Hum (2020), and the Handbook of Organizational Conflict Management (2023). Her next book, Workplace Bullying: Moving From Victim to Survivor, will be available in 2024. She is also the Co-Editor of the Journal of Conflict Management.

Administrators and faculty members deal with conflict daily. Unfortunately, most have not been taught how to deal with these inevitable situations, and as a result, their interventions may exacerbate the situation, not alleviate it. Conflict in the classroom can be cross-cutting across generations and modalities of learning. The strategies for addressing conflict within the classroom can look different for each independent situation and depend on the student, faculty member, and institution.

Learn more about CITI Program: https://about.citiprogram.org/

Resources: 

• https://about.citiprogram.org/course/conflict-management/
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022440506000082

Kristina Cone is a Critical Infrastructure and Emergency Management consultant with over a decade of experience working with local, state, and federal governments. She has experience in domestic security and emergency management, working across sectors such as public health, higher education institutions, and law enforcement agencies. She has a Master's degree from the University of Central Florida in Emergency and Crisis Management.

Critical infrastructure is vital to the day-to-day operations of colleges and universities across the United States. In fact, education facilities are a subsector of the government facilities sector, making them one of eighteen critical infrastructure sectors established under the authority of Homeland Security Presential Directive 7 (HSPD-7). As recent as the 2010s, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has also focused on consolidating efforts between cybersecurity and critical infrastructure by creating the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in 2018. Having a focus on institutions of higher education as critical infrastructure would allow for more federal funding for training, expertise, and support to strengthen their security and protect them from potential attacks in the future, both physical and cyber in nature.

Learn more about CITI Program: https://about.citiprogram.org/ 

Resources: 

• https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/nppd/nppd-ip-education-facilities-snapshot-2011.pdf 
• https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/directives/emergency-directive-21-04

Amber Grove is the Title IX Coordinator at the Pennsylvania State University and has served in that role since November 2022. She got her start in higher education in residence life at Duquesne University. As resident director, Amber became involved in Title IX investigations, which transitioned her focus in the field to Title IX. She went on to serve as the Director of Student Engagement and Responsibility at Bethany College, where she was also Title IX coordinator. She relocated to UNCW and served as an adjunct faculty member and the Director of Title IX and Clery Compliance.

In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration released a public notice for proposed changes to Title IX. Title IX has seen several public notice periods and rule changes over previous presidential administrations. The most recent proposed rule change to Title IX under the Biden-Harris administration received the most comments ever during the U.S. Department of Education’s public comment period, 240,000 comments. The anticipated final rule of changes to Title IX under the Biden-Harris administration is expected in October 2023.

Learn more about CITI Program: https://about.citiprogram.org/

Resources: 

• https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-releases-proposed-changes-title-ix-regulations-invites-public-comment
• https://blog.ed.gov/2023/05/a-timing-update-on-title-ix-rulemaking/#:~:text=U.S.%20Department%20of%20Education&text=The%20Title%20IX%20proposed%20regulations,protect%20LGBTQI%2B%20students%20from%20discrimination

Federick Ngo's research examines the impact of higher education policies and practices, with a focus on college access and community college students. He has active research projects on developmental education reform, undocumented students, and community college leadership and practice. Federick completed his Ph.D. at the University of Southern California and received the USC Ph.D. Achievement Award, the highest honor given to USC Ph.D. graduates. Federick also won the COE Early Career Award in 2020. He was formerly a high school math teacher in Oakland, CA.

Developmental education in the United States is aimed at developing a student’s abilities in reading, math, and writing prior to enrolling in college-level courses, often at community colleges. Reforms to developmental education date back to the 1990s and have spanned thirty years. The vast majority of reforms to developmental education have all aimed to strengthen student support and alter the content and structure of developmental education. Much debate still exists over which approach to developmental education best fits students, and research in the field is ongoing.

Learn more about CITI Program: https://about.citiprogram.org/

Resources:
1. https://postsecondaryreadiness.org/research/history-developmental-education-reform/
2. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/five-principles-reforming-developmental-education.html
3. https://pullias.usc.edu/blog/tatiana-melguizo-lets-make-math-equity-in-higher-education-a-reality/

Kristen Renn is a Professor of Higher, Adult, & Lifelong Education at Michigan State University with a background in student affairs administration, including inaugurating the role of LGBTQIA+ resource provider at Brown University, she has for the last 25 years focused her research on the identities, experiences, and development of minoritized students in higher education. She is co-PI of the National Study of LGBTQ Student Success, a two-phase study of LGBTQIA+ college students comprising a mixed methods survey/interview phase and a four-year longitudinal interview study conducted with LGBTQ students.

While there are more than 250 LGBTQIA+ centers across colleges and universities in the United States, there is still limited data available on LGBTQIA+ individuals on college campuses. In a 2020 survey from the Association of American Universities (AAU), which sampled more than 180,000 undergraduate and graduate students, approximately 17% of students identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, queer, or questioning. While LGBTQIA+ individuals on campuses are becoming more visible, there is still opportunity and work which needs to be done by leaders within higher education.

Learn more about CITI Program: https://about.citiprogram.org/

AAU 2020 Survey: https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU-Files/Key-Issues/Campus-Safety/Revised%20Aggregate%20report%20%20and%20appendices%201-7_(01-16-2020_FINAL).pdf

LGBTQ: Students on Campus: Issues and Opportunities for Higher Education Leaders: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/84007/LGBTQStudentsCampus.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Jillian Sitjar is the Director of Higher Education Partnerships at SchoolHouse Connection. Jillian works to identify best practices for supporting students experiencing homelessness and works closely with SHC's policy team to remove barriers on the state and federal levels. She provides practical assistance in partnership with high schools, colleges and universities, service providers, and other community-based organizations. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies from Butler University and a Master's in Higher Education and Student Affairs from the University of South Carolina.

Homelessness, food insecurity, and the need to provide students with resources is an ever-increasing issue. According to the National Center for Homeless Education, unaccompanied homeless youth, while desiring to attend college, may have barriers to enrollment. According to a 2020 Hope Center report, 14% of college students experienced homelessness in 2020. In the same 2020 Hope Center report, several students reported temporarily staying with friends and family or couch-surfing. Increasing access to financial aid tools, increasing access, and expanding resources can assist college and university students of all ages.

Learn more about CITI Program at about.citiprogram.org