Seattle. Baltimore. Denver. Los Angeles.These are just a few of the cities that NC State College of Education doctoral students have traveled to in the past academic year in order to present at conferences and share their research.
To support them on their journeys, gifts from donors provide the money that the college awards to support travel, which make it possible for more students to make connections across disciplines, gain valuable presentation experience and receive feedback on work shaping the future of education.
Here are just a few students who have benefited from travel awards in the past academic year.
Making Connections
Whether she’s networking with content experts from across the nation, hosting a social for College of Education graduate students or presenting on different aspects of community, Janay Crosland sees every conference as a chance to build relationships.
“They call me the connector,” said Crosland, a third-year doctoral student earning her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development. “A big part of what I’m doing is camaraderie and relational.”
Over the past academic year, Crosland has attended conferences hosted by the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education (AABHE); and she has presented on different aspects of community including mentorship, wellness and Sista Circle Methodology.
These experiences were made possible, in part, by funding Crosland received through the Sharbari Dey and Kushal Dasgupta Graduate Award.
“The College of Education has supported me by providing these funds to be able to attend these conferences in multiple capacities,” Crosland said. “I’ve been able to scaffold a lot of the things that I’m learning in my coursework, but also have been able to develop an identity as a national scholar.”
When she’s not presenting, Crosland seeks out sessions, such as a panel hosted by college presidents at the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education annual conference, that she hopes will support her future career trajectory, which she is grateful to donors for supporting.
“They are part of building our future leaders,” Crosland said. “As someone who aspires to be a college president, I’ll never forget this experience.”
A Seat at the Table
Tom Mattos didn’t just attend the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting as a first-year doctoral student. No, when he flew to Los Angeles for the conference last spring, it was to present, as part of a roundtable discussion on teacher leaders in North Carolina’s Advanced Teaching Roles program.
“To have this experience as a first-year Ph.D. student is rare,” said Mattos, who is earning his doctoral degree in Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development.
Mattos was able to attend the conference and take part in this roundtable, which drew on work by a number of researchers from the College of Education and the Friday Institute for Educational Innovationthanks in part to financial support he received from the college’s Mallette Award.
“To be given any kind of help, let alone help that was this substantial, is incredibly rare and incredibly fortuitous,” Mattos said. “It made a sincere difference.”
At the conference, Mattos was also able to interact face-to-face with scholars whose research has informed his own work.
“To see people in the flesh whose papers and books you’ve been studying is a remarkable opportunity,” Mattos said.
As he continues to study how teachers assert themselves as leaders, he hopes his early conference experience will prepare him for the day he presents his own paper at AERA.
“To already have the experience of being there and doing it is invaluable,” Mattos said.
Providing Feedback
Lynn Huff’s career as a science teacher began nearly 20 years ago, when she was dropped into the classroom with little in the way of support.
“I felt so abandoned,” said Huff, who is now a doctoral student earning a Ph.D. in Learning and Teaching in STEM and science instructor at Edgecombe Community College. “I don’t want other beginning teachers to feel how I felt.”
That’s why Huff has spent the last few years studying how to improve mentorship opportunities for teachers. Last spring, she had the opportunity to present her work, conducted as part of the Supporting the Implementation of Modeling Instruction in Rural Schools (SIMIRS) project, at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Annual International Conference in Seattle.
For Huff, the presentation was a chance to share her research on how mentors provide science teachers with feedback, while also receiving some feedback of her own.
“Just being able to take it all in and be in the space where I can kind of just focus and work with other professionals, to see how they’re doing, that was really nice,” Huff said.
Huff, who works full-time and is married with two children, said the financial support she received through the Agnes and Garfield Stiff Endowed Award was essential in allowing her to keep her attention on the work.
“When you’re the server with all the plates, just to have one less is really, really nice,” Huff said.
Huff has already begun to implement learnings from the conference in the feedback she provides to student teachers at NC State, and she hopes to continue to pass on the support she has been given as she advances in her academic career.
“I would love to be in a position where I can work with new teachers and help them learn how to teach, so that way they’re not alone,” Huff said.
Source: ced.ncsu.edu
