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Browsing by Author "Murzi Escobar, Homero Gregorio"

Now showing 1 - 12 of 12
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    Exploring the Implementation of Care in Teaching in a First-year Engineering Course
    Sunil Kumar, Siddharth (Virginia Tech, 2023-11-14)
    Instructors in higher education are typically hired for teaching positions based on their research expertise in a particular area, understanding that subject matter expertise is necessary for teaching and instruction. What is sometimes overlooked and not given enough importance is that teaching is also a relational activity, and because of this, care can be considered to be a fundamental component of effective instruction. Research has shown that some faculty are hesitant in showing care to their students since this might suggest a lack of academic rigor and lessening expectations for students. It might also be that faculty view care as a concept that does not belong in higher education and is something that is more appropriate for younger children. Yet there is research in higher education which shows that implementing care to students motivates them to perform well in class, meet and exceed the goals set for them by the instructors, make constructive improvements and create overall ideal conditions for learning. Along with this, prior research on care in teaching has focused mostly on primary and secondary education levels, with far less attention given to care in teaching in higher education specifically, and little in the context of Engineering Education. To advance our understanding of the potential value of care in teaching in higher education, this study presents an empirical case study of how care can be enacted in teaching in an Engineering Education classroom. The study draws on Tronto's political ethics of care framework, originally developed in the context of feminist theory and methodology, and operationalizes it in the teaching and learning setting by situating the context of the study in a first-year general engineering classroom in the department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. Since the purpose of the study is to understand what teaching behaviors can act as evidence of care, this context was selected as a likely scenario where these teaching approaches might be present. Virginia Tech is an R1 institution, the Department of Engineering Education values student-centered teaching, and the foundations of engineering course: ENGE 1216, is a project-based course where it may be more likely to see care being implemented in the teaching. Along with this, the three instructor participants that were chosen to bring light to this phenomenon have been recognized for their teaching expertise by being given teaching awards in the past, and also have experience in teaching this specific course, having taught it at least twice before. This study used a case study approach and included two interviews with the instructor participants to understand their general beliefs about care as well as how they intended to implement care in relation to Tronto's ethic of care framework. It also included three observations of their classrooms, one for each phase of the semester, and looked at three years' worth of students' SPOT comments. Tronto's framework includes four ethical elements: attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness. Findings suggest that instructors' intentions with implementing care, their enactment of care in the classroom, and students' perception of what instructor behaviors they found to be most valuable to their learning, all have strategies and approaches that relate to each of the four ethical elements. The responsibility element iii was seen to have the most approaches and strategies. Findings also showed that despite different instructor backgrounds, beliefs and personalities, each instructor had relatively similar approaches to implementing care in relation to each of the four ethical elements, with some unique features for each instructor. There also seems to exist, a reasonable degree of alignment between instructors' intention with implementing care, their enactment of the care in the classroom, and what students commented was helpful. This study took a framework developed in accordance with another discipline and operationalized it in a teaching setting. It has shown what teacher behaviors can act as evidence of care in the context of Engineering Education. The study has also disaggregated common instructor actions that usually tend to be conflated, to more specific behaviors to understand the impact each behavior can have in relation to care. It has also grouped common approaches and strategies together that instructors use, to show how when this is combined, is also a way of implementing care. There are a list of specific teacher approaches and strategies that instructors should be using that can satisfy each element in the care framework and can thus implement care in the classroom.
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    Leveraging Artificial Intelligence for Improving Students' Noticing of Practice during Virtual Site Visits
    Olayiwola, Johnson Tumininu (Virginia Tech, 2023-01-11)
    Complementing the theoretical concepts taught in the classroom with practice has been known to enhance students' contextual understanding of the subject matter. Exposing students to practical knowledge is crucial as employers are expressing discontent with the skills of newly hired graduates. In construction education, site visits have been identified as one of the most effective tools to support theory with practice. While site visits allow students to observe construction projects and engage with field personnel, numerous barriers limit its use as an effective educational tool. For instance, there are safety, cost, schedule, and weather constraints, in addition to the logistics of accommodating large class sizes. As a result, instructors employ videos of construction projects as an alternative to physical site visits. However, videos alone are insufficient to draw students' attention to essential practice concepts. Annotations can be used to attract students' attention to practical knowledge while reducing distractions and assumptions. Leveraging on the recent progress in computer vision techniques, this study presents an AI-annotated video learning tool that instructors can utilize to equip students with practice knowledge when there is limited access to physical construction sites. First, this study investigated the construction practice concepts that industry practitioners would want students to know when engaging them in site visits. Afterward, the design and development of the AI-annotated learning tool were guided by the identified practice concepts, cognitive theory of multimedia learning, and dual coding theory. To determine if the learning tool can call students' attention to annotated practice concepts in videos, a usability evaluation was conducted. Finally, this research investigated the influence of individual differences that could contribute to how learners notice practice concepts in videos. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by identifying what construction professionals notice about their work and what they would like students to notice about construction practice. This study reveals that annotations of learning contents in construction videos can direct students' focus to the annotated contents, thereby contributing to the cognitive theory of multimedia learning and dual coding theory. By leveraging machine learning classification algorithms, this research identified the extent to which individual differences such as gender, academic program, and cognitive load can be detected from the ways students notice information in construction videos. Results from this research provide opportunities for researchers to further advance the potential of annotated videos in the construction domain and other fields that employ video as a learning tool.
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    A Multi-Agent Defense Methodology with Machine Learning against Cyberattacks on Distribution Systems
    Appiah-Kubi, Jennifer (Virginia Tech, 2022-08-17)
    The introduction of communication technology into the electric power grid has made the grid more reliable. Power system operators gain visibility over the power system and are able to resolve operational issues remotely via Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) technology. This reduces outage periods. Nonetheless, the remote-control capability has rendered the power grid vulnerable to cyberattacks. In December 2015, over 200,000 people in Ukraine became victims of the first publicly reported cyberattack on the power grid. Consequently, cyber-physical security research for the power system as a critical infrastructure is in critical need. Research on cybersecurity for power grids has produced a diverse literature; the multi-faceted nature of the grid makes it vulnerable to different types of cyberattacks, such as direct power grid, supply chain and ransom attacks. The attacks may also target different levels of grid operation, such as the transmission system, distribution system, microgrids, and generation. As these levels are characterized by varying operational constraints, the literature may be categorized not only according to the type of attack it targets, but also according to the level of power system operation under consideration. It is noteworthy that cybersecurity research for the transmission system dominates the literature, although the distribution system is noted to have a larger attack surface. For the distribution system, a notable attack type is the so-called direct switching attack, in which an attacker aims to disrupt power supply by compromising switching devices that connect equipment such as generators, and power grid lines. To maximize the damage, this attack tends to be coordinated as the attacker optimally selects the nodes and switches to attack. This decision-making process is often a bi- or tri-level optimization problem which models the interaction between the attacker and the power system defender. It is necessary to detect attacks and establish coordination/correlation among them. Determining coordination is a necessary step to predict the targets of an attack before attack completion, and aids in the mitigation strategy that ensues. While the literature has addressed the direct switching attack on the distribution system in different ways, there are also shortcomings. These include: (i) techniques to establish coordination among attacks are centralized, making them prone to single-point failures; (ii) techniques to establish coordination among attacks leverage only power system models, ignoring the influence of communication network vulnerabilities and load criticality in the decisions of the attacker; (iii) attacker-defender optimization models assume specific knowledge of the attacker resources and constraints by the defender, a strong unrealistic assumption that reduces their usability; (iv) and, mitigation strategies tend to be static and one-sided, being implemented only at the physical level, or at the communication network level. In light of this, this dissertation culminates in major contributions concerning real-time decentralized correlation of detected direct switching attacks and hybrid mitigation for electric power distribution systems. Concerning this, four novel contributions are presented: (i) a framework for decentralized correlation of attacks and mitigation; (ii) an attacker-defender optimization model that accounts for power system laws, load criticality, and cyber vulnerabilities in the decision-making process of the attacker; (iii) a real-time learning-based mechanism for determining correlation among detected attacks and predicting attack targets, and which does not assume knowledge of the attacker's resources and constraints by the power system defender; (iv) a hybrid mitigation strategy optimized in real-time based on information learned from detected attacks, and which combines both physical level and communication network level mitigation. Since the execution of intrusion detection systems and mechanisms such as the ones proposed in this dissertation may deter attackers from directly attacking the power grid, attackers may perform a supply chain cyberattack to yield the same results. Although, supply chain cyberattacks have been acknowledged as potentially far-reaching, and compliance directives put forward for this, the detection of supply chain cyberattacks is in a nascent stage. Consequently, this dissertation also proposes a novel method for detecting supply chain cyberattacks. To the best of the knowledge of the author, this work is the first preliminary work on supply chain cyberattack detection.
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    Pursuing Intentional Design of Global Engineering Programs: Understanding Student Experiences and Learning Outcomes
    Davis, Kirsten A. (Virginia Tech, 2020-05-05)
    As engineering work becomes more globalized, it is important to prepare students to succeed in a global engineering workforce. Prior research has explored different factors important to the design of global programs generally, but less is known about the experiences and learning outcomes of engineering students while abroad. Because this population has historically been underrepresented in global programs, few research-based practices have been identified to support the intentional design of global experiences for engineering students. This dissertation seeks to provide such insights through three studies that address the following components of global engineering program design: 1) the assessment of Global Engineering Competency (GEC) through use of a series of scenarios based in the Chinese context; 2) the relationship between program destination and students’ experiences and reported learning outcomes; and 3) the experiences that engineering students identify as most significant during their time abroad. I used a combination of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research methods to explore students’ learning and experiences in global engineering programs. The results of these studies revealed that engineering students have a wide variety of learning outcomes and experiences as a result of global programs, that great care should be exercised in choosing and interpreting assessment methods for global programs, and that the design of global engineering programs should be informed by characteristics of both the student participants and the program destination. Overall, the results of this dissertation highlight the importance of intentionality when designing global engineering programs to better prepare students for success in a global work environment.
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    Students' Perspective on the Purposes of Engineering Higher Education: A longitudinal qualitative case study of the U.S. and England
    Abdalla, Alaa (Virginia Tech, 2023-08-28)
    University education across history and contexts aimed for a myriad of purposes, from the advancement of knowledge to educating citizens and contributing to the social good. With the rise of universities functioning in a market economy, and navigating higher education institutions' public role, some of the university purposes are constantly debated, and often without accounting for the students' perspectives. The purpose of this qualitative multi-case study is to explore the students' perspectives on the purpose of enrolling in a higher education institution and obtaining an engineering higher education degree. Each case is focused on a higher education institution, for a total of four institutions across the U.S. and England. The embedded units of analysis focus on twenty (20) undergraduate chemical engineering students' narratives from the time they enroll in those institutions to the time they graduate to answer the following two main research questions: RQ 1: What are the perspectives of undergraduate engineering students towards the purpose of higher education? RQ 2: How, if at all, do undergraduate engineering students' perspectives of the purpose of higher education change throughout their degree? The Capabilities Approach is used as the main theoretical framing. The framework is concerned with the question of what a person is able to do and be. It also provides a perspective on thinking about the purposes of education in terms of instrumental, intrinsic, and social values. Results show a variety of perspectives and reasons why students pursue an engineering degree, mainly expressed in terms of career-driven purposes and personal-driven purposes. Fulfilling being good at math and science, seeking a job for purposes beyond individualistic reasons, and personal growth were some of the common purposes mentioned by the students. In addition, more students than not maintained a fixed perspective throughout their undergraduate years. This research is set to address the problem of the neglect of the students' voices in the literature and to address the lack of research on longitudinal studies, higher education, and capabilities approach within the engineering education space.
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    Through the Lenses of Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Instructor Beliefs: Understanding Engineering Instructors' Enacted Practice
    Espera Jr, Alejandro Hanginon (Virginia Tech, 2022-04-28)
    Education research has investigated teaching practices and uncovered a potential disconnect between instructors' knowledge and beliefs about teaching and their actual teaching practices. While experts of the subject matter, their understanding of teaching and their awareness of their own teaching capability significantly impact their enacted practices. However, there is a dearth of research in engineering on this aspect, particularly in electrical engineering (EE) education. EE as an applied science comprises many abstract concepts among other engineering disciplines that require strategic teaching practices to facilitate student learning. The intangible nature of these concepts, such as the foundational circuits concepts, raises the likelihood of acquiring issues in teaching among engineering instructors that can impact the construction of contextual knowledge and skills among engineering students. In this qualitative case study, the primary aim was to study the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) faculty who taught the first and second-year ECE courses at Virginia Tech. Answers were sought through the overarching research question how do engineering instructors' knowledge and beliefs about engineering teaching influence their enacted practice in teaching introductory electric circuits? using a synthesized framework of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), instructor beliefs and Watkins and Marsick's Continuous Learning Model (WMCLM). The significant findings from the analysis of interviews, class recordings, and Canvas course materials suggested that the ECE instructors' formed PCK and held beliefs can have an affirmative influence on enacted practice, meaning, their knowledge and beliefs about engineering teaching reinforced their enacted practice. This influence was apparent in their various student-centric approaches to contextualizing the ECE concepts using their combined experiences. In contrast, constructive influence captured the potential causes of "disconnect" between their formed "knowledge and beliefs" and their enacted practice. This influence was rooted in how the abstract fundamental ECE concepts, in most cases, required contexts outside of the instructors' core experiences. The attempt to use multiple strategies to attain the course goals had created oversight tendencies on their implementation magnified by the online and hybrid modality, especially with the team-teaching design of the base ECE courses. Such relevant issues needed time-constraining solutions from the course instructor to the administrative level. This work can further advance the instructional methods in EE education after understanding the influences of instructors' beliefs and knowledge on their enacted practices to teach foundational concepts in ECE. More broadly, this work will have implications for educators, curriculum designers, and researchers who seek to improve engineering instruction and address the current issues in teaching engineering. The outcomes provide research opportunities to interrogate how we can use instructional practices to design methodologies that can elucidate and solve issues on instructors' enacted practices constructively. More importantly, the results of this study can be utilized to design professional development programs for engineering teaching faculty by having a framework to continuously examine instructors' beliefs and knowledge to support their teaching practice.
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    (Un)Bundling the Black Experience at PWIs: Using Assets-based Frameworks to Explore the Lived Experiences of Black Sub-Saharan African-born Graduate Students in STEM
    Woods Jr, Johnny Crayd (Virginia Tech, 2022-05-03)
    One of the historically marginalized populations in the United States (US) is the Black population. This marginalization extends into higher education, where Black students are underrepresented and continue to experience challenges, especially at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI) and in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs. However, the current constitution of the Black population, including Black students in the US, is inherently culturally and ethnically diverse. The Black student population includes domestic US students and various groups of foreign-born students such as Black Sub-Saharan African (BSSA) students whose educational trajectories, outcomes, and experiences are unique based on their cultural orientations. Given the within-group differences in this population, prior research has demonstrated the need to disaggregate the experiences in research among different groups for precise research outcomes. This dissertation contributes to that effort by explicitly focusing on the lived experiences of BSSA graduate students pursuing STEM degrees at a PWI through two studies from an assets-based approach: 1) the meaning BSSA graduate students in STEM make of their lived experience with the campus climate at a PWI, using community cultural wealth as a conceptual framework; and 2) the role of family and other funds of knowledge in the educational trajectories and persistence of BSSA doctoral students pursuing STEM degrees at a PWI. I used different qualitative methodologies across both studies, including a blended case study with tenets of participatory action research in the first study in the first study and narrative analysis in the second. The results of these studies revealed that BSSA graduate students in STEM and at PWIs possessed a variety of assets that enable them to resist challenges and persist in their education. Second, the educational environments were not holistically supportive of students. Finally, there was a lack of cultural awareness and validation of students' assets and ways of knowing. The results offered implications for the BSSA graduate students in STEM in the US, scholars, practitioners at PWIs and in STEM departments who work with them, especially in creating inclusive and supportive academic environments.
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    Understanding Dimensions of Disciplinary Engineering Culture in Undergraduate Students
    Murzi Escobar, Homero Gregorio (Virginia Tech, 2016-07-12)
    The purpose of this study is to understand how engineering students perceive the patterns of culture at the disciplinary level using Hofstede's constructs (power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity). The methodology design for this study is mixed methods. More specifically, the design of this study is an explanatory sequential design that begins with the collection and analysis of quantitative data from a version of Hofstede's survey developed by Sharma (2010), followed by subsequent collection and analysis of qualitative data, with the qualitative analysis being informed by preliminary results from the initial quantitative phase. Results from the quantitative study led to a review of the literature regarding Hofstede's main critiques and how other authors have successfully implemented his model in different contexts, and qualitative data collection with semi-structured interviews with undergraduate students. There are three aims of this study, which are addressed and presented in three separate manuscripts. The first aim (Manuscript 1) was identifying if Hofstede's theory of dimensions of national culture can map to academic disciplines. Results from surveying 3388 undergraduate students provided scores on Hofstede's dimensions for each major. Responses matched the national culture of the students rather than the disciplinary culture; therefore, Hofstede's theory didn't map to explain cultural differences in academic majors. The second aim (Manuscript 2) of this study was to review the extensive available literature regarding the critiques of Hofstede's model and its implementation in different settings. Results provided with conceptual, and methodological critiques and misuse of his theory that allowed us to understand the value of his model to understand cultural differences at the national level, as well as the value of the dimensions to inform our qualitative research design. The third aim (Manuscript 3) of this study was to explore students' perceptions of disciplinary engineering culture and how it compared to other disciplines using a qualitative interview protocol that provided rich findings that complement the quantitative results. Results from interviewing 24 students in industrial and systems engineering, electrical and computer engineering, marketing, and industrial design provided with valuable information on how students perceive their disciplinary culture in terms of what it is valued, how they learn, how it is taught, why they learn, how it is going to be used in the workplace, and the reason for select the major. Implications for research and practice in the engineering education field are provided to inform how to make decisions on engineering curriculum, and engineering classrooms and try to find ways to improve some of the issues that engineering education has been facing for the last decades.
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    Understanding Faculty Decision-Making in Engineering Education for Sustainable Development
    Menon, Maya (Virginia Tech, 2023-09-05)
    Engineering education for sustainable development (EESD) has emerged as a significant focus since the early 1990s, driven by the broader integration of sustainable development (SD) across education. SD has gained global attention and support from governments, businesses, and organizations. Still, education for sustainable development is emergent in engineering, and varies globally. Scandinavian countries, for example, have made significant progress in EESD with research and growth in courses and curricula, while the United States has seen more localized efforts. Prior research on EESD has focused heavily on course content and student learning, with far less attention to faculty attitudes and experiences. To advance global integration efforts, this study provides a deeper understanding of faculty engagement with EESD. Drawing on Lattuca and Pollard's (2016) model of faculty decision-making to engage in curricular change, this study compares the perspectives of faculty at two universities, one in the U.S. and one in Denmark, to explore the influences that shape engineering faculty choices to engage in EESD. To operationalize EESD, the study focuses on faculty who incorporate the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their courses. Denmark and the U.S. were selected because of the wide divergence in national policies and practices relative to SD. The two institutions, however, are similar in engineering program size, research orientation (both very high research), and scope of engineering programs. The research used a case study approach and included interviews with five to seven engineering faculty and two to three key informants at each site, along with available texts such as university mission statements, program descriptions, course syllabi provided by interviewees, and national policies or declarations. Lattuca and Pollard's model posits three levels of influence: external (outside the institution), internal (within the institution and the department), and individual (within the person) Findings suggest that all three categories of influence are present in each case, but the salience of each category, the specific factors within each category, and the interactions across categories differ markedly. Where the Denmark case had a more consistent alignment across the three levels of influence, with a largely top-down direction of influence, engagement in EESD in the US case was largely an individual, bottom-up phenomenon with some alignment to, but limited drivers from the external and internal levels. This study captures the importance of strong external and internal influences in shaping faculty engagement in EESD and underscores the limitations of relying solely on individual influences. The findings highlight the role of national policies and cultural norms in creating a supportive environment for faculty to integrate sustainability into their teaching. Where external influences are limited, institutions need to actively align their vision, culture, and resources with the principles of sustainable development to foster a widespread and consistent practice of EESD. While individual faculty have been shown to act as change agents in the absence of strong external and internal influences, their efforts alone are limited in their impact on the practice of EESD.
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    Understanding the Teaching and Learning Experience in Fundamental Engineering Courses
    Soledad, Michelle Millete (Virginia Tech, 2019-06-21)
    Fundamental engineering courses are important to the undergraduate engineering student experience but have been associated with challenging educational environments. Several factors influence the educational environment, although learning experiences are primarily the outcome of interactions between instructors and students. To initiate change, it is important to understand teaching and learning experiences in fundamental engineering courses from the perspectives of the key players in these environments: instructors and students. To accomplish the goal of understanding teaching and learning experiences, I conducted studies that examined instructors' and students' perspectives on their experiences and the educational environments, using qualitative research methodology. Through these studies, this dissertation: 1) examined instructors' beliefs and self-described behaviors, guided by motivation theory and focusing on the role of instructors as socializers in the learning process; 2) considered interacting fundamental engineering courses as a foundational curriculum within engineering curricula to describe the educational environment in these courses from instructors' perspectives; and 3) examined student perceptions of their learning experiences and the educational environments in fundamental engineering courses using responses to open-ended items in end-of-semester student evaluations of teaching surveys. Data indicate that participants strive to integrate strategies that promote effective learning despite challenges posed by course environments, although expected gains from these behaviors may not always be maximized. Students and instructors may benefit from a student-focused, collaborative and holistic course planning process that considers interacting fundamental courses as a foundational curriculum within engineering curricula, and that engages instructors as equal partners in the planning process. Student feedback may be infused into the course planning process by productively and meaningfully utilizing students' responses to end-of-semester student evaluations of teaching surveys. Overall, the results of this dissertation highlight the importance of institutional support, collaboration, and integrating student feedback in the quest for facilitating effective educational environments and positive learning experiences in engineering.
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    Walking Between Two Worlds: Indigenous Student Stories of Navigating the Structures and Policies of Public, Non-Native Institutions
    Ketchum, Qualla Jo (Virginia Tech, 2023-07-10)
    This dissertation walks the balance between the western structures of academia and Indigenous ways of storytelling and knowing. Stories are how knowledge is shared and passed down in many Indigenous cultures. This study utilizes Indigenous Storywork methods, alongside western case study methodology, to explore how colonialism and the structures of public, non-Native higher education institutions and engineering programs impact the lived experiences of Indigenous STEM students. Using Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit), this study also connects individual student experiences through stories to systemic structures of universities and engineering programs in a way that honors and amplifies Indigenous ways of thinking and doing. The study was situated at a university in the eastern U.S. and had three primary forms of data: public documents such as university historical documents and program policies and structures, focus group discussions with a university Council of Elders from the Indigenous community, and individual interviews with Indigenous STEM students from the Lumbee and Coharie nations. The findings demonstrate the ways that the Indigenous STEM students at North Carolina State University hold community as a cultural value from their Tribal backgrounds that is paramount to their success at the university. The students utilize community to access knowledge and build power for themselves as well as for the whole university Indigenous community. NC State's Indigenous engineering students perceived the structures and policies of their engineering programs to be disconnected from community and relationality and thus did not utilize or connect to these structures as designed. This work also provides an example of a framework for engaging with university Indigenous communities to co-create meaningful and impactful research and demonstrates the differences in the experiences of Indigenous students in the eastern U.S. from those in the west, specifically in terms of their invisibility in the larger community, both on and off campus.
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    What Sustains Inter-institutional Collaborations? An Exploratory Study of Research Collaborations between Faculty at HBCUs and PWIs
    Jalali, Yousef (Virginia Tech, 2022-05-31)
    Despite the significant growth of inter-institutional research collaboration, there has been a disparity of partnerships between universities with different history, missions and identities. In competition for limited resources, inter-institutional collaborations among Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) and research-intensive universities appear more frequent and better supported than between PWIs and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) or other minority-serving institutions (MSIs). Developing grant funding strategies is one way to enhance collaboration between faculty at HBCUs/MSIs and faculty at PWIs and improve pathways for success among traditionally underrepresented groups. The Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS) at Virginia Tech, a research-intensive PWI, launched a unique seed funding program, the ICTAS Diversity and Inclusion Seed Investment (ICTAS DandI Investment), in 2016 to build direct faculty-to-faculty research partnerships between faculty at Virginia Tech and faculty at various HBCUs/MSIs. With the rarity of such initiatives and recognizing the primacy of the topic, this doctoral study was defined in the context of the ICTAS DandI Investment to investigate the little-understood phenomenon of research collaboration between faculty at HBCUs/MSIs and faculty at PWIs. The study informed by several bodies of literature including social psychology, inter-organizational relationships, and ethics and moral philosophy. A qualitative multiple case study approach was employed to explore factors that influence the sustainability of collaboration considering the perspectives of faculty in the context of the ICTAS DandI Investment. The ICTAS DandI Investment-related reports as well as survey and interview data were collected from 15 faculty members representing eight collaborative teams, across Virginia Tech and six different HBCUs. The findings indicate that potential collaboration and sustainability of partnerships rely on dynamic interactions between three dimensions in temporal context: Structure, broader institutional and contextual elements, Diversity, similarities and differences between team members' characteristics, abilities, and identities, and Relation, interactions and exchanges between collaborators and their outputs in doing collaboration. The study shows ICTAS has been successful in facilitating fruitful collaborations among faculty participants at different institutions. Based on the findings in this study I recommend that forging and maintaining long-term relationships of collaborative teams across HBCUs and PWIs need attention to the importance of capacity building over time and broader organizational and administrative factors such as support structure and credit allocation. Further, I recommend that administrators and policymakers to develop similar programs as a strategy for broadening participation and enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, not merely as a means for enhancing research productivity.