Exploring the Pandemic through Language Learning and Multicultural Studies

This piece offers a reflection on how language learning and multicultural studies during the pandemic have highlighted the potential to help communities draw parallels with, and face wider issues concerning, minorities within a challenged society. Through storytelling, a novel approach to teaching and learning helps students find their voice and become active agents of change. A review of teaching and learning methods may bring about improvements both in academia and individual circumstances to help bridge the gap between loneliness and the need to be part of a wider social community. This article reiterates the importance of language learning, cultural understanding, and identity as useful employability skills for the new global graduates to support, rebuild, and unite communities especially in challenging times. [For the complete volume, "Languages at Work, Competent Multilinguals and the Pedagogical Challenges of COVID-19," see ED612070.]

The Untold Stories from COVID-19: The Calamity of Implementing Curriculum during a Pandemic

In March 2020, the COVID-19 Pandemic wreaked havoc on our nation's educational system. Students, teachers, and administrators were forced to engage in a new remote learning model, which was unfamiliar. This narrative study draws on the lived experiences of six K-12 teachers in Southwest Ohio urban school districts. The data analysis was examined through the lens of the Science of Learning and Development framework (SoLD). Findings highlight the impact of COVID-19 on curriculum implementation. Results show that unprepared teachers could not pivot to online learning effectively, which may intensify the educational gaps and inequities among students in six urban schools in Southwest Ohio.

Collaborating to Remove Barriers to Success

This article begins with a brief description of access and affordability and their relationship to equity, diversity, and inclusion within the higher education sector today. Because the authors work at a Jesuit Catholic institution, awareness and appreciation of the call to uphold access and affordability at Jesuit institutions are also important. COVID-19 institutional and library impacts are summarized, followed by the identification of pandemic-created opportunities for the library to demonstrate commitment to institutional values and align with institutional and library strategic directions and priorities. Descriptions of initiatives launched in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 academic years to advance access and affordability are provided, accompanied by profiles of campus partnerships that ensured the success and sustainability of these initiatives. Finally, the authors consider the challenges and benefits of constructing and maintaining campus partnerships to improve access and affordability for students and the components of effective campus partnerships.

Delivering College Telehealth, Telemental Health, and Telesupport Today--Looking Back to Look Forward

The purpose of this article is to look backward to an early American College Personnel Association (ACPA) Publications text, "Promoting Student Learning and Student Development at a Distance" (Schwitzer et al., 2001), in order to look forward to what an increased reliance on distance formats for health center and counseling center clinical services and educational delivery--and the many other supportive programs we employ on campus to promote learner success--during the corona pandemic moment and especially afterwards will mean in the college student development context. At the time of its publication, "Promoting Student Learning and Student Development at a Distance" was among the very first discussions of its kind. While the technologies have changed dramatically since this brief book appeared and therefore it is outdated for everyday instructional use--the predominant classroom delivery method was broad-band two-way televised instruction--the authors believe this original evidence-based text offers renewed lessons for their work with students in light of the current pressures of increased campus telehealth, telemental health, telesupport and distance education on college and university campuses in the current and post-COVID-19 environment.

Penn Access Summer Scholars program: a mixed method analysis of a virtual offering of a premedical diversity summer enrichment program.

In the USA, numerous summer programs are available for undergraduate students that seek to increase the number of individuals from groups underrepresented in medicine (URM) that matriculate to medical school. These programs have typically been conducted at research-focused institutions, involving hands-on-research and various enrichment experiences. For 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the suspension of on-campus student activities at American universities, necessitating a switch to a virtual format for these URM-focused programs. Outcomes, however, from these programs conducted virtually, necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have not been reported. The Penn Access Summer Scholars (PASS) program at the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) targets URM undergraduates, providing two consecutive summers of mentored research and enrichment experiences, with the goal of enabling participants' matriculation to PSOM. PASS has been an 8 week on-campus experience, but during summer 2020, virtual programming of 6 weeks was provided due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants in the 2020 virtual offering of PASS completed pre- and post-program surveys that included 5-point Likert-style and open-ended questions to determine the impact of the programing on self-assessments of research skills, familiarity with the physician identity, and preparedness to be a PSOM student. Post-program, participants also assessed program administration and content. With respect to program objectives, participants reported significant increases in their self-reported confidence in conducting research, understanding of physician identity, and sense of preparedness for medical school. The educational value of the program content, their level of engagement in the program and the overall quality of the program were rated as excellent or outstanding by large majorities of respondents. Content analyses of participant comments were consistent with these quantitative results. Therefore, a premedical summer enrichment program targeting URM undergraduates can be successfully conducted virtually to achieve program objectives and may increase the availability to these initiatives.

Reimagining Character Formation in the Christian University in Challenging Times

Changes in the demographic profile of students attending Christian universities combine with shifts in the culture at large to present new challenges to Christian higher educators who have the character formation of students as an aim. The pandemic will bring other challenges. In uncertain times, Christian universities aiming at character formation must, first, clarify and focus on their mission and must, second, work intentionally to create a campus climate supportive of character development. A Christian university wanting a climate that fosters character makes these seven efforts (among others): to build relationships and community, to build trust, to welcome dialogue on difficult issues, to consider the built environment, to go slow, to recognize the diversity of learners, to attend to its language. Uncertain times and their concomitant challenges present new opportunities for Christian universities to reimagine character formation.

Recruitment and Retention of Bilingual Graduate Students in School Psychology: Efforts and Challenges in Increasing Professional Diversity

The main goal of this paper is to illustrate recruitment efforts, strategies, and challenges in the process of training bilingual school psychologists to serve diverse schools. First, we address the acute and chronic shortage of bilingual school psychologists in the United States, particularly in urban schools where student populations are increasingly diverse. Then we provide a review of strategies and efforts to recruit and retain bilingual graduate-level learners in one school psychology program in an urban university. Quantitative data regarding recruitment and retention efforts are discussed. We identify challenges and future directions to increase diversity in the field of school psychology.

Establishing Social, Cognitive and Teacher Presences during Emergency Remote Teaching: Reflections of Certified Online Instructors in the United Arab Emirates

COVID-19 has forced many universities across the globe to implement emergency remote teaching as a preventative measure. Many faculty staff members were not adequately equipped with knowledge and skills of facilitating remote teaching. This made the establishment of social, cognitive and teacher presences difficult for them. The purpose of this study is to examine ways in which certified online instructors established social, cognitive and teacher presences during emergency remote teaching at a university in the United Arab Emirates. The study is guided by one critical question: How did certified online instructors establish social, cognitive and teacher presences in their online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic? The study adopted a qualitative case study within an interpretivist paradigm. Two certified online instructors were purposely selected to reflect on their experiences in establishing social, cognitive and teaching presences in their remote classes. It was found that students' engagement, critical thinking and self-directed learning and continual engagement play an indispensable role in students' remote learning. The study concludes that the establishment of the three components of a community of inquiry enhance students' learning experiences and allow instructors to cater for the diverse learning needs of all students in an online community.

Trauma-Informed Integral Leadership: Leading School Communities with a Systems-Aware Approach

The impacts of childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences can have devastating consequences on students' learning and wellbeing. Pairing this alongside the negative and vicarious impacts of secondary traumatic stress on teachers and school leaders, efforts towards whole school change are complex endeavours. The extant literature from trauma-informed practice for school leadership provides useful frameworks for leaders to understand their guiding roles within trauma-affected communities. However, trauma-informed practices require further enquiry and better integration with systems-aware perspectives. A systems-aware approach to school leadership positions leaders within the dynamic systems in which their schools are embedded. It helps leaders to navigate the networked patterns of relationships within their communities. Given impacts of intergenerational poverty, racism, childhood trauma and long-standing educational inequity, community devastation from natural events such as droughts and bushfires, plus the world-wide uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are many complex factors that now require systems-aware perspectives to address compounding systemic concerns. In order to contribute to the advancement of both trauma-informed leadership and systems-aware leadership, this paper makes the case for integrating these fields within school contexts. Predicated on a systematic literature review and novel theorising, this paper explores how a new practice framework for a trauma-informed integral response to bolster school leaders can be used to benefit whole communities.

An Interview with Eric Waldo

Students need to be able to complete a meaningful higher education degree without crushing debt. That is the simple, straightforward perspective of Eric Waldo, Chief Access & Equity Programs Officer at the Common App and Executive Director of Michelle Obama's Reach Higher initiative. In an age where higher education may feel out of reach for far too many students, it's time for some long-overdue conversations about what is really driving this "hard sell" of college applications and admissions. Waldo has quite a bit of practical experience working in higher education and helping to lead the charge to improve college access and graduation rates. In this interview, he addresses questions on affordability.