African American artists have participated in every major art style and movement since before the founding of this nation. However, until recent decades, this "grand epic" had been marginalized within the traditional survey canon of American art. Art historians have undertaken considerable scholarship (Bearden & Henderson, 1993;…

With the rise of mental health issues occurring on college campuses, college counseling centers are increasing their efforts to meet the needs of students by ensuring that students are able to matriculate in their educational journey. Over the past few years, national data indicated that annually about 38% of college students "felt so…

This study highlights the importance of clear communication in fostering career readiness. Students exhibit higher motivation on achievement tests when they understand the value of an assessment and are able to familiarize themselves with the exam prior to testing. Increased communication regarding the work requirements of local employers can…

In efforts to more efficiently assess and manage the student teaching experience (internship) of students, a pilot program was undertaken to implement the LiveText Field Experience Management (FEM) tool. This paper relates the efforts of stakeholders (mentor teachers, university supervisors, school district administrative personnel, teacher…

The aim of this article is to discuss a portfolio of interventions used to improve student outcomes in an accredited southeastern university's baccalaureate nursing program. Faculty identified three specific student-focused issues challenging student learning: (a) a steady trend of increasing student enrollment, (b) increased difficulty level of…

Accreditation by the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (AAFCS) was a long-held dream of the Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) Unit at Jacksonville State University in Alabama. After more than 6 decades of preparing FCS students for life and the workplace, the FCS Unit resolutely began the journey to the coveted and honored…

Intermediaries--also referred to as bridge builders, boundary spanners, conveners, and other names--fill the critical role of connecting all the parties in the system to empower people with the skills required in the labor force. Those parties generally include employers, educators, workers, and prospective workers. Within these categories may…

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe successful innovations in educational leadership preparation programs. Professors of educational leadership from across the nation nominated innovations of 12 programs. Based on review of descriptions of the innovations provided by nominees, further documentation on the innovations was…

Prompted by the passage of Alabama House Bill 56, I organized the museum studies course I taught for Auburn University at Montgomery in the 2013 spring semester around an exhibition on immigration. The course offered the opportunity to engage students, faculty, and the community in discussion of an important, timely, and controversial topic.…

Social Entrepreneurship (SE) programs have been expanding over the past decade. The emergence of this new discipline can be attributed to two overlapping factors. Students (particularly business students) have expressed an increased desire to blend values, ethics and social causes into their own vocations. At the same time, the nonprofit and…

On Thursday, April 27, 2011, one of the worst natural disasters in the history of Alabama struck in the form of ferocious tornadoes touching down in various parts of the state. The dollar amount of the property damage was in the billions. Lives were lost and thousands of survivors' lives were seriously and in many cases forever disrupted. A few…

Universities struggle with how to get students more involved and active in the university and community. Providing projects that just collect cans or raise money for a cause, while admirable, are not teaching the students how to be active, how to conduct projects, and give them connections to the community. This paper will describe service…

This paper builds on prior work defending innovative information systems programs as ABET-accreditable. A proposal for a four-year degree program in health informatics, initiated at the authors' university to combat enrollment declines and to therefore help information systems to survive and thrive, is described. The program proposal is then…

Retention and graduation rates for engineering disciplines are significantly lower than desired, and research literature offers many possible causes. Engineering learning communities provide the opportunity to study relationships among specific causes and to develop and evaluate activities designed to lessen their impact. This paper details an…

There has been a renewed interest in the purposes of professional education and the teaching of civic professionalism, whereby future professionals are exposed to their responsibility to use their specialized skills and knowledge to serve the public good. Recent studies on civic purposes in professional education, however, have largely ignored the…