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A Retrospective Study of a Scientist in the Classroom Partnership Program
Get PDFThe Scientist in the Classroom Partnership (SCP) is a unique, long-term program that partners STEM fellows with K-12 teachers. The SCP was adapted from the original NSF GK-12 model, with fellows and teachers working in the summer and academic year to build their partnership and design and coteach inquiry-based STEM curricula. The current study is a retrospective investigation of the first 10 years of the program to determine the impacts on university fellows and K-12 teachers and the implications for students in the participating classrooms. Results from surveys and focus groups showed that fellows gained communication, mentoring, and pedagogical skills and served as role models for students. Teachers gained STEM content knowledge, increased use of inquiry, and greater confidence in teaching science. The SCP represents an innovative model that enhances hands-on and inquiry-based teaching and learning of science through a unique partnership that brings together the university and K-12 systems
Shifting Engagement Efforts Through Disciplinary Departments: A Mistake or a Starting Point? A Cross-Institutional, Multi-Department Analysis
Get PDFThis article documents the innovative practices and initial outcomes from the Grand Rapids Engaged Department Initiative, a cross-institutional collaboration designed in response to the failures of higher education to systematically engage in place. Created to incentivize and resource systemic and cultural shifts across three institutions of higher education in the region, the initiative seeks to increase faculty knowledge and skills in community-based teaching, foster inter- and intracollaborations, expand students’ community-based learning opportunities, and enhance community partnerships. Initial outcomes and stakeholder perceptions are detailed using previous validated research instruments and systemic action research practices. An examination of the three institutions and the seven participating departments reveals how structural and cultural barriers pose heavy challenges to cross-institutional engagement; we also highlight promising countermeasures for effecting change, including inclusive visioning processes and accountability mechanisms. Recommendations aim to support others’ efforts to generate and sustain collaborative engagement
Personality and borrowing behavior: An examination of the role of need for material resources and need for arousal traits on household’s borrowing decisions
No full textThis research is an empirical examination of the role of psychological characteristics of household decision makers in their borrowing decisions. Using a unique household survey data that ties together relevant concepts from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) and psychological and attitudinal literature, we obtain direct measures of each surveyed household’s personality scores, relevant attitudes, and financial profiles. Following regression analysis, we examine the relationship between attitude towards borrowing and intentions to apply for specific borrowing options and inspect the role of personality traits in such decisions. Specifically, we focus on tow personality traits, the need for material resources and the need for arousal, which have been largely ignored in extant household finance literature. Our findings indicate that the attitude toward borrowing and the intention to borrow are not always consistent and, more interestingly, the discrepancies between the two vary across personalities, highlighting the role of personality traits in borrowing decisions. Specifically, while the positive relationship between attitude towards borrowing and intention to borrow is intuitive, we show that this relationship is trivial for individuals who score low on need for material resources and individuals with low degrees of need for arousal. In contrast, for individuals with higher levels of need for material resources and need for arousal, the positive association between attitude towards borrowing and the intention to borrow is significantly intensified. Further, our results suggest that borrowing options are not homogenous and are motivated differently. Consistent with the view that individuals with greater need for material resources consider quantity and quality of possessions as the criteria to judge personal success, we find that these individuals have stronger intentions for mort- gages, home improvement loans, business loans, personal loans, and payday loans. Similarly, consistent with the view that individuals with greater need for arousal favor stimulation and excitement that is often associated with more spending, we find that the borrowing decisions of these individual are marked with stronger intentions for home improvement loans, business loans, student loans, personal loans, and payday loans. The intentions for credits cards and automotive loans seem to be independent from the borrower’s personality. Finally, we report strong evidence that personal attitu- dinal biases towards money, risk, financial planning, and borrowing as well as certain demographic characteristics influence household’s borrowing behavior. Our work contributes to the literature on household finance in several ways. First, we focus on two under-researched personality traits to examine their roles in household borrowing decisions. Second, this research recognizes the distinction between the attitude towards borrowing and the intention to borrow and examines the inconsistencies between them. Third, we consider a wide spectrum of borrowing options that differ in terms of risk, motivation, and loan maturity
Portfolio insurance using leveraged ETFs
No full textThis study examines the use of Leveraged Exchange Traded Funds (LETFs) within a constant proportional portfolio insurance (CPPI) strategy. The advantage of using LETFs in such a strategy is that it allows a greater percentage of the portfolio to be invested in the risk-free rate relative to a traditional CPPI. Where a standard CPPI strategy may require 50% of the portfolio to be invested in equities, using a 2x LETF only requires 25%, and a 3x LETF only requires 16.7% to attain the same effective exposure to equities. Results show when the risk-free asset is yielding at least 3% or the 1 year minus 90-day Treasury exceeds 1%, the use of LETFs within a CPPI framework results in annual returns approximately 1–2% higher with better Sharpe, Sortino, Omega, and Cumulative Prospect Values while reducing Value at Risk (VaR) and Excess Shortfall (ES) below VaR
Faculty Development for Advancing Community Engagement in Higher Education: Current Trends and Future Directions
Get PDFThis research involved the conduct of a conceptual review of 28 refereed journal articles and a survey of campus centers for community engagement staff to identify salient features and trends of existing faculty development programming designed to advance service-learning and community engagement in higher education. Results of this investigation are presented and discussed. The article begins with an overview of theoretical frameworks and competency-based approaches for faculty development. The narrative concludes with additional questions and suggestions for future research and practice
A Decade of Community Engagement Literature: Exploring Past Trends and Future Implications
Get PDFAcademic journals play a lead role in disseminating community–campus engagement scholarship. However, assessment of the content, methodologies, and authorship of this published body of works is lacking. This study was performed to review publication trends in the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement (JHEOE), an academic journal focused on community engagement and outreach, during a 10-year time span. A content analysis framework was used to incorporate descriptive and correlational analyses. Two findings were of particular note. One was the increased prominence of articles on service-learning in the most recent years examined. Another was the absence of articles treating finance, strategic planning, community voice, and faculty promotion and tenure. Because these topics have significance for institutionalizing community engagement in higher education, this trend suggests an opportunity to broaden the topics published in the Journal and the field