- Overtoun Jenda
- Assistant Provost and Professor
- Collaborative Research: NSF INCLUDES: South East Alliance for Persons with Disabilities in STEM (SEAPD-STEM)
- https://cws.auburn.edu/apspi/pm/includes
- Auburn University
- Maithilee Kunda
- Assistant Professor
- Collaborative Research: NSF INCLUDES: South East Alliance for Persons with Disabilities in STEM (SEAPD-STEM)
- https://cws.auburn.edu/apspi/pm/includes
- Vanderbilt University
- Carl Pettis
- http://www.alasu.edu/academics/colleges--departments/science-mathematics-technology-old/mathematics-computer-science1/faculty-and-staff/faculty-directory/cpettis/index.aspx
- Associate Professor and Department Chair
- Collaborative Research: NSF INCLUDES: South East Alliance for Persons with Disabilities in STEM (SEAPD-STEM)
- https://cws.auburn.edu/apspi/pm/includes
- Alabama State University
- Mohammed Qazi
- http://www.tuskegee.edu/academics/colleges/clae/mathematics/math_faculty/mohammed_a_qazi.aspx
- Professor
- Collaborative Research: NSF INCLUDES: South East Alliance for Persons with Disabilities in STEM (SEAPD-STEM)
- https://cws.auburn.edu/apspi/pm/includes
- Tuskegee University
Public Discussion
Joni Falk
Center Co-Director
Hi Overtoun, Maithilee, Carl, and Mohammed,
This is a really nice video with presentations that includes multiple perspectives of both staff and students involved. I really enjoyed viewing it and it touched me. Thank you. I see from your website that you have been engaged in this work for seven years. What new aspects of the work will the NSF INCLUDE grant allow you to explore? What has been your greatest challenges to recruiting and retaining students, and to scaling this program up?
Overtoun Jenda
sorry for the delay writing back. I am flying back from overseas as I type. We are focusing on peer mentoring. The biggest challenge has been getting IRB approvals at 21 institutions!! Cheers, Overtoun
Mia Ong
Senior Research Scientist
Hi Overtoun, Maithilee, Carl, and Mohammed. I really enjoyed your video about the SEAPD-STEM. Your project serves a critical and often overlooked population. With INCLUDES, you are suddenly scaling from 5 to 21 colleges and universities, and from one state to 6, plus D.C. Can you say more about how you will implement the activities (peer and faculty mentoring, internships, etc.) and track their impact on a much larger scale than before? Also, how do you anticipate your project contributing to research and theory? Thanks.
Overtoun Jenda
We plan to simply replicate what we have done at the 5 colleges and universities and evaluate the impact. This will allow us to serve more students across the region and get larger sets of data for analysis.
Mia Ong
Senior Research Scientist
Thanks, Overtoun. I wish you good luck with the replication and hope the faculty and staff at the new institutions demonstrate the same dedication that those in your video have! You mentioned that your focus is in peer mentoring. Could you say more about how you match and train peers? And if/how you are collecting data on the effectiveness of peer mentoring? Thanks.
Jeanne Century
Director/Research Associate Professor
Hi to all of you - I was excited to see this effort devoted to students with disabilities and I'd love to hear more about the students involved in your current program and those you plan to target in your expansion. More specifically, I'd be interested to hear more about your focus on physical impairments versus students with learning disabilities since their needs are so widely varied. I'd love to hear about your efforts to recruit participants and where you will be turning to do that. Thanks! Jeanne
Overtoun Jenda
Our focus is on peer mentoring and we work closely with faculty and the administration on accomodation. You have raised a good point ... we will see if we get good number for each conditionn so that we can compare. Will keep you posted. We work with officces of accessibility to get students. Cheers, Overtoun
Jeanne Century
Director/Research Associate Professor
Thanks for your reply, Overtoun. I'll be very interested to learn more about the participants you end up recruiting.
Overtoun Jenda
Great! Let us touch base again over the summer.
Mark Leddy
Congratulations on the submission of the video!
Overtoun Jenda
Thank you!!!
Janice Jackson
education consultant
Overturn, I tip my hat to you for focusing on a group that is often overlooked. Like Jeanne I had a question about how you will deal with the many disabilities students have. The needs will be quite different. You mentioned in your response to Jeanne that the office of accessibility will assist you. What kind of assistance will they provide.
Given the work that has already been done, what are the student demographics. I look forward to hearing where thi work takes you.
Sandra Laursen
Janice makes a great point about the variety of disabilities that reminds me of work by colleagues on what STEM students with disabilities experienced in pursuing STEM majors. While there were challenges for all, faculty more readily granted students with 'visible' disabilities the accommodations they needed, while faculty often doubted or challenged students with 'invisible' disabilities about accommodations. Peer mentoring is important as a resource for students, but addressing faculty biases may be important too. The reference is Seymour and Hunter (1998); it's hard to track down so your best bet is the link at our website, www.colorado.edu/eer/research/underrep.html#uwdis (and - note to the hosts - golly, it's annoying that I can't paste the reference into this message box! )
Janice Jackson
education consultant
Thank you for the response. Work with faculty about "invisible" disabilities will be very important.
I wish you all the best with this work. It could lead to important insights beyond your work.
Janice
Further posting is closed as the event has ended.