Summer Workshop scheduled for May 8th, 2009!!!!

Agenda
Collaborative Research Project on Diversity at Mason
Friday, May 8, 2009
SUB II, Rooms 3 & 4
10a.m – 4p.m.

I. Overview and Introductions (10:00-10:30 am)

II. Conversation with students from the first cohort (10:30 – 12:00)
Hattie Barker, Joary Casey, Rose Guterbock, Angela Hamilton, Lucy Hochstein, Shannon Jacobsen, Amber Logan, Shamama Moosvi, Brian Picone, Sarah Sierralta

Summaries of the research projects, reflections on the experience,
suggestions for the future

III. Conversation with the GRAs from the first year (over lunch)
Naliyah Kaya, John Robinson

Reflections on the year and suggestions for the future

IV. Planning for the second cohort (all) (1:00-4:00 pm)

Possibilities for expanding the model:
from ethnography to mixed methods
from student to faculty generated projects
from instructional to administrative faculty project oversight

Criteria for funding 2nd year projects

Identifying 2nd year “products”

Procedural matters
Graduate and undergraduate student recruitment
Routinizing HSRB

Student Researchers Have Success at the ESS!

Congratulations to the student researchers of the diversity project for successful presentations at the Eastern Sociological Society's annual conference in Baltimore, MD!!!!!

Here are a few photos of our victory dinner at a local Afghan restaurant:

*SPOTLIGHT*: Joary Casey

Student research is the lifeblood of the Ethnography of Diversity in Higher Education (EDHE) at George Mason University. To give a taste of the breadth and range of the research currently underway by students involved with EDHE, every month we spotlight a student researcher and the work that they contribute toward exploring the limitless diversity of campus life at Mason.


Meet:

JOARY CASEY

Classication: Junior

Major: Public and Community Engagement (New Century College, with a double minor in Nonprofit Studies and Leadership Studies)


Research in her own words:

"My research is about the varying ways that differenty offices on campus create retention programs as a means to ensure retention. I looked at 3 offices: the Office of Orientation and Family Programs and Services, the Office of Diversity Programs and Services, and the Office of International Programs and Services. As retention is a vital objective of any university, there is always the need for programs in place to help keep students invested in the social and academic life in George Mason. Following Tinto (1975), I approach the university as "a social system with its own values and social structures", and consider retention as an issue involving the institutional commitments (or lack thereof) of students, fostered by university programs."


How Research Interest Developed:

"I worked with orientation for 2 years and have also been very involved in campus organizational life. I know that retention is one of our program pieces when working with orientation and I didn't see how we were being very effective. We didnt' take our retention pieces as seriously as we did other program pieces that got students interested in GMU in the first place. I know we have other organizations that try to ensure retention such as Akoma Circle, which provides mentor and mentee relationships, but what do the faculty and staff do to make sure that we as students do not drop out or transfer?"

*SPOTLIGHT*: Shamama Moosvi

Student research is the lifeblood of the Ethnography of Diversity in Higher Education (EDHE) at George Mason University. To give a taste of the breadth and range of the research currently underway by students involved with EDHE, every month we spotlight a student researcher and the work that they contribute toward exploring the limitless diversity of campus life at Mason.


Meet:

SHAMAMA MOOSVI

Classication: Sophomore

Major: Government (minor in English)


Research in her own words:

"My research centers on the faculty experience of teaching non-native speakers of English in the United States Academy. I, along with the help of the University Writing Center Director Terry Zawacki, Associate Directory Anna Habib, and ESL Specialist Eiman Hajabbasi, interviewed faculty about their experiences with and approaches with respondign to the writing of non-native speakers of English using a set of Human Subjects Review Board approved questions. The questions were aimed to provide us feedback on the the type of adivce faculty give to non-native speakers of English, what they characterize as 'strong' and 'weak' writing in the discipline, and the solutions that they use to help non-native speakers. Currently, we have interviewed eight faculty and after coding the transcribed interviews we are finding that faculty are saying that non-native speakers of English are successful and more comfortable in using their voice when 'alternative discourses' are used in the writing process, such as technology, instead of writing using 'standard English.' However, this observation was recently observed in our interviews so we do still need to further research that aspect."

How Research Interest Developed:

"My interest in the research came greatly from the fact that the I peer tutored in the writing center last spring. I am bilingual since I speak English and Urdu and early on in elementary school I did have to take a couple of ESL classes so I also have a personal connection to the research."