Invisible but Essential: The Role of Professional Networks in Promoting Faculty Agency in Career Advancement

Niehaus, Elizabeth; O’Meara, KerryAnn

doi:10.1007/s10755-014-9302-7

Cited by 50 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…An easy first step is bringing early‐career professionals into a network through introductions and references to their expertise. Research in faculty success demonstrates that networks, especially off‐campus networks, contribute social capital to faculty, and relate to increased professional agency and career‐enhancing behavior (Niehaus and O'Meara ). Niehaus and O'Meara's () finding is applicable to educational developers: in my research, half of the named individuals belonged to a different organization than the participant who named them as contributors of social capital.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research in faculty success demonstrates that networks, especially off‐campus networks, contribute social capital to faculty, and relate to increased professional agency and career‐enhancing behavior (Niehaus and O'Meara ). Niehaus and O'Meara's () finding is applicable to educational developers: in my research, half of the named individuals belonged to a different organization than the participant who named them as contributors of social capital. When senior colleagues use their social capital to benefit junior colleagues, they influence both individual careers and the enterprise of educational development as a whole.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Impact of Social Capital on Educational Developers

Ingram

2019

New Drctns for Teach & Learn

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Social Capital on Educational Developers

Ingram

2019

New Drctns for Teach & Learn

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“…The MSL (Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership [MSL], 2017) is an international, multi-year study that examines students' educational needs and identifies elements of the higher education environment that contribute most significantly to leadership outcomes. Survey items on mentoring, professional relationships, and networks were taken from a previous instrument developed by the authors on professional networks (Niehaus & O'Meara, 2015;O'Meara & Campbell, 2011;O'Meara, Rivera, Kuvaeva, & Corrigan, 2017). Survey items and constructs of microaggressions and microaffirmations were developed from the work of Rowe (1990) and Sue (2010) assessing experiences with microaggressions and microaffirmations.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sense of Belonging and Its Contributing Factors in Graduate Education

O’Meara

Griffin

Kuvaeva

et al. 2017

IJDS

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Aim/Purpose: The purpose of our study was to gain a better understanding of the factors that contribute to graduate student sense of belonging and gain insights into differences in sense of belonging for different groups of students. Background: Sense of belonging, or the feeling that a person is connected to and matters to others in an organization, has been found to influence college student retention and success. Literature on sense of belonging has, however, focused primarily on undergraduate students and little is known about graduate students’ sense of belonging. Methodology: We conducted an exploratory, cross-sectional survey study of graduate students at four public doctoral and comprehensive universities in Maryland, USA. All four institutions were participating in the NSF-funded PROMISE program, which strives to support the retention and academic success of women and underrepresented minority (URM) graduate students. A total of 1,533 graduate students from these four institutions completed the survey. To analyze our data, we used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to test direct and indirect effects of multiple latent variables (i.e., gender, race/ethnicity, STEM affiliation, critical mass of women, participation in the PROMISE program, sense of belonging) on each other. Contribution: Research found that sense of belonging influences graduate student retention and success. Thus, gaining a better understanding of the factors that influence graduate student sense of belonging can help improve retention and completion rates, an important issue as national seven-year completion rates have hovered around 44% in the United States. Completion rates have been even lower for women and URM students (i.e., African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders) compared to White students, making sense of belonging an important topic to study for these populations. Findings: We found that professional relationships matter most to graduate student sense of belonging. Professional relationships influenced graduate student sense of belonging more than reported microaggressions and microaffirmations, though they also played a role. We also found differences based on students’ identity or group membership. Overall, microaffirmations played a bigger role in female graduate student sense of belonging and the eco-system of non-STEM programs seemed to have more facilitators of sense of belonging than the ecosystem of STEM programs. Recommendations for Practitioners: We recommend that graduate programs think strategically about enhancing sense of belonging in ways appropriate to the distinct culture and nature of graduate education. For example, departments can make efforts to support sense of belonging through creating community-oriented peer networks of students, transparent policies, and access to information about resources and opportunities. Programs such as PROMISE can support the retention and success of women and URM graduate students, but aspects of these programs also need to be incorporated into graduate programs and departments. Impact on Society: Because graduate student sense of belonging has been found to impact stu-dents’ interest in careers in academia, fostering graduate student sense of be-longing could be a tool for improving pathways to the professoriate for groups that are typically underrepresented in academia such as women and racial or ethnic minorities. Increasing the number of women and URM faculty could, in turn, positively impact the support available to future URM students, which could positively influence future URM students’ sense of belonging. Future Research: Sense of belonging is an important area for future graduate education research and should be studied through survey research with a larger sample of U.S. students than the current study. Sense of belonging is relevant to graduate education worldwide. Future studies might explore graduate student sense of belonging in different national contexts and the role culture plays in shaping it. Moreover, changes in graduate student sense of belonging over the course of their program should be assessed.

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“…For example, certain disciplines may favor particular epistemological orientations that graduate students come to view as legitimate. Third, networks, such as the faculty members and peers with whom students interact, influence scholarly identity by role modeling certain types of scholarship or values (Baker & Lattuca, 2010;Inouye & McAlpine, 2017;Holley, 2015;Niehaus & O'Meara, 2015;McAlpine et al, 2014;Sweitzer, 2009) or by recognizing a scholar's performance of their identity (Carlone & Johnson, 2007;Hudson et al, 2018).…”

Section: Theoretical Framework Scholarly Identity Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plugging In: How One Graduate Program Shaped Doctoral Students’ Scholarly Identities as Interdisciplinary Scientists

Culpepper

O’Meara

Ramirez

2020

IJDS

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Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand how one graduate program shaped doctoral students’ scholarly identities as interdisciplinary scientists. Background: Scholarly identity refers to the ways individuals see themselves as legitimate, contributing members of their academic community. However, much of the research on scholarly identity focuses on students and faculty within traditional, discipline-bound contexts. We therefore know little about how doctoral students develop scholarly identities that are interdisciplinary in nature. By interdisciplinary, we refer broadly to scholarly work that uses methods, concepts, frameworks, or perspectives from two or more academic fields or disciplines, or scholarly work aimed at addressing research problems that spans multiple academic fields or disciplines. Methodology: This qualitative, ethnographic case study focuses on the University of Maryland’s Language Science Center (LSC), which houses a National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) Program for doctoral students in the interdisciplinary language sciences, which includes fields such as linguistics, hearing and speech, computer science, and neuroscience. The LSC is nationally and internationally known for its interdisciplinary graduate training program and thus provides a platform for understanding the components of graduate training that contribute to students’ scholarly identity development as interdisciplinary scientists. We draw from four years of qualitative data collection, including student interviews, student and faculty focus groups, ethnographic observations, and document analysis. Contribution: Across the public and private sectors, there is a strong push for developing interdisciplinary solutions to society’s problems. However, many colleges and universities are not organized to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and research. Focusing on the ways one graduate program facilitated interdisciplinary scholarly identity development for doctoral students therefore provides graduate programs with a potential roadmap for navigating the barriers that may block the development of students with interdisciplinary research interests. Findings: We found curricular and co-curricular NRT program activities contributed to students’ scholarly identity development as interdisciplinary scientists by connecting them (or “plugging them in”) to a pre-existing, interdisciplinary network of students and faculty; increasing doctoral student competence in the methods, cultures, and perspectives of other disciplines; encouraging doctoral students to find common ground with scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds; and broadening doctoral students’ views of the potential impact and application of their work. Recommendations for Practitioners: Graduate training programs in the interdisciplinary sciences should think strategically about the kinds of activities that help students develop a scholarly identity and the conditions and contexts in which scholarly identity development might be undermined. We offer multiple examples of the kinds of activities graduate programs can consider using to facilitate scholarly identity development and the underlying mechanisms that make such activities successful. Recommendation for Researchers: Developing a scholarly identity is an important component of doctoral student success and should be considered as a useful potential theory for individuals who study graduate education. Impact on Society: Graduate programs play a critical role in training not only the next generation of faculty, but also the next generation of scientists in government and industry. If more graduate programs can successfully train doctoral students to be interdisciplinary scientists, societal benefits could include more responsive and adaptive solutions to pressing social problems. Future Research: Future researchers should consider how different graduate training elements produce students with different types of interdisciplinary scholarly identities, how the scholarly identity of students trained in interdisciplinary graduate programs continues to evolve as they transition into both academic and non-academic careers, and the strategies and experiences of faculty members who mentor students from outside of their own disciplines.

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Invisible but Essential: The Role of Professional Networks in Promoting Faculty Agency in Career Advancement

Cited by 50 publications

References 40 publications

The Impact of Social Capital on Educational Developers

The Impact of Social Capital on Educational Developers

Sense of Belonging and Its Contributing Factors in Graduate Education

Plugging In: How One Graduate Program Shaped Doctoral Students’ Scholarly Identities as Interdisciplinary Scientists

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