Center for Higher and Adult Education at Michigan State University

Contact Infomation:
Professor James Fairweather, Director,
Center for Higher and Adult Education,
416 Erickson,
Michigan State University,
East Lansing, MI 48824-1034
517-353-3387
fairwea4@msu.edu

Faculty proposals

DR. REITU MABOKELA:

My research seeks to understand the relationship between organizational culture and its impact on policies that affect academic lives of marginalized groups within institutions of higher education in South African and the United States. A significant part of my research engages discourse from international scholars to highlight the interconnected arena within which higher education institutions exist, and the global relationships that transcend varied social, political, economic and cultural particularities within each country. In this regard, my current research centers on the examination of two central themes: 1) organizational culture and its impact on historically marginalized groups, specifically people of African descent in predominantly white universities; and 2) institutional transformation processes and their impact on the professional mobility of women scholars and administrators, especially in developing countries.

DR. ANN AUSTIN:

Building on collaborations established in 1998 when she was a Fulbright Scholar to South Africa, Ann Austin continues to work with colleagues at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Most recently, she spent two weeks at NMMU in summer, 2007, interacting with institutional leaders and faculty concerning a number of organizational change endeavors. Specifically, Dr. Austin worked with senior administrators who were developing an institutional teaching and learning policy. Her work also focused on academic staff development, innovative teaching approaches, and institutional strategies for using both in-class and out-of-class experiences to promote learning. She also led several seminars for doctoral students on various research topics. During the coming year, Dr. Austin plans to return to South Africa for further collaborative work and looks forward to including some HALE students in the projects overseas.

DR. JOHN DIRKX:

I have received support from the Center for Higher and Adult Education in two areas: 1) Professional development for faculty at the University of Can Tho in Vietnam and surrounding institutions; and 2) a study tour for HALE graduate students and others with an interest in international and comparative experiences in higher and adult education.

Project-based Faculty Development Can Tho University in Vietnam

Supported in part by a grant from the Center for Higher and Adult Education within the Department of Educational Administration, I spent five weeks in Can Tho, Vietnam during January and February of 2007. This work took place at the University of Can Tho (CTU) and had three primary objectives: 1) To facilitate completion of a plan for an adult and continuing education program to be implemented within the thirteen provinces of the Mekong Delta Region; 2) To provide a workshop on teaching and learning to faculty at the University of Can Tho and surrounding universities, community colleges, and adult education centers; and 3) To explore the feasibility of a research project on the role of translation in the professional development of faculty in higher and adult education.

With the assistance of Dr. Kris Renn from the Department of Educational Administration at MSU, we continued our work with a multi-institutional regional task force to develop a plan for an adult education program that addressed the learning needs of the adult population within the region. During this last of three workshops, which began in March, 2006, the task force completed a rough draft of a curriculum plan for this program. Following the completion of the work of the task force, I continued to work with Dr. Lap, Assistant Dean of the School of Education, and others from CTU, to revised the program draft. Before I left CTU, I submitted a final draft of this plan to the Rector of the university and the Dean of the School of Education. This plan focuses on a) the professional development of individuals who staff regional adult education centers; and b) the implementation of training for adults in the areas of agri-business, aqua-business, industrial electricity, and tourism. At the present time, CTU is seeking support to continue curriculum development work within these subject areas. As this support becomes available, I will return to Vietnam to assist in this process.

As part of my visit at CTU, I also designed and implemented a six-day workshop on teaching and learning for faculty from CTU and surrounding community colleges and universities. The workshop focused on key principles of adult learning, active and contextual learning, and designing effective syllabi. In the workshop, I attempted to model the key concepts around which the training was organized. All participants were assigned the task of developing a micro-teach session and to be prepared to teach it. Due to a limitation of time and resources, four individuals from the group were randomly selected to teach their lesson to their peers, who were assigned to provide the presenting teacher with constructive feedback. Sixty individuals completed this training and received certificates of completion from CTU.

Finally, I was able to pilot an interview protocol that focused on developing a deeper understanding of the role of translation in professional development. All of our training workshops for the adult and continuing education project, and my workshop on teaching and learning were translated using a consecutive approach. My experiences as a presenter in these workshops caused me to question the meaning that participants were deriving from the training mediated by translators. It was my thought that, if we could understand this process of translation better, that we would be in a position to more effectively design and implement professional development for faculty who were not able to speak or understand English. In this pilot project, I interviewed three translators and three participants. Plans for additional interviews were complicated by reception activities that were sponsored by the host institutions that I visited to conduct these interviews. This experience represented the importance of understanding the cultural dimension of doing research in another country and culture. These pilot interviews helped me better understand the logistics of implementing data collection within this particular context. I hope to be able to continue this research when I return to continue work with CTU on curriculum development for the Adult Education project.

Study Tour of Great Britain for Graduate and Lifelong Education Students

Since 2004, the HALE program has offered a new course on comparative and international experiences in higher and adult education. In 2006, the Center for Higher and Adult Education began providing administrative support to help develop awareness of this experience among students and to help plan and arrange the study tour experiences.

Central to this experience is a study tour of institutions and practice sites of higher and adult education in Southwest England. Structured as a collaborative experience, HALE students join with a cohort of students from the University of Plymouth in England to explore policy, organization structure and behavior, student affairs, curriculum, and pedagogical practices across a wide range of institutions in higher and adult education. In their study tours and the related course experiences, many students have studied specific questions related to their areas of interest. Several students have written dissertations that were informed by their experiences in this course.

Out of these experiences, Dirkx has collaborated with Dr. John Brender, a formal doctoral student in HALE, and current doctoral students Jodie Jessup Anger and Bernard Gwekwerere in an examination of the role of study abroad experiences in the formation and transformation of student identity. This work has been presented at regional and national conferences.

At the present time, Dirkx is collaborating with Laura Tepper, an advanced doctoral student in HALE, in a research project that examines the students’ experiences within this course, and the ways in which it contributes to their awareness of cultural contexts in higher and adult education practice.