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4-27-2022
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Cain awarded research assistant in
competitive selection process
April 27, 2022
Georgia Southern University College of Education hosted a
competition in spring to award a research assistant (RA) for the
academic year. Elise Cain, Ph.D., assistant professor of
educational leadership, was named the 2022-2023 recipient of
the RA to assist with her research exploring the experiences of
college students from rural areas.
“Higher education has been paying greater attention to and
recruiting more students from rural areas over the past several
years,” said Cain. “Although people from rural areas are just as
likely to graduate high school as their more urban peers, they are
less likely to enroll in postsecondary education. Also, fewer rural
adults have at least bachelor’s degrees compared to urban adults,
and this educational gap is expanding.”
While current research focuses on students’ identities to
determine the influence on individuals’ educational pathways,
Cain saw a gap in the research pertaining to place.
“The influence of place and place-based identities have been mostly overlooked,” she explained.
“I have proposed a place-based identity model using existing theories and literature, but this
theory needs to be empirically tested.”
Utilizing the Reconceptualized Model of Multiple Dimensions of Identity by Abes et al., which
considers how one’s attributes such as race, sexual orientation, or gender and social group
memberships, converge to create one’s holistic self, Cain will additionally consider how
students’ place-based identities intersect with their other social identities to influence their
educational choices and pathways.
Cain will begin testing her theory alongside her RA, Aliyah DeLoach, an incoming M.Ed.
Higher Education Administration graduate student, through a qualitative research process
including virtual interviews of current college students at Georgia Southern who self-identify as
being from rural areas.
“I am excited to have a research assistant in the coming year,” said Cain. “Working with and
mentoring students is why I have worked professionally in higher education for the past 14 years,
and I am looking forward to expanding my mentoring skills and relationships through this
experience.”
Elise Cain, Ph.D.
Posted in Faculty Highlights
Tags: Aliyah DeLoach, Elise Cain, Higher Education Administration
Owens selected as Governor’s Teaching
Fellow, Summer 2022
April 27, 2022
Georgia Southern University Assistant Professor of
Science Education, David Owens, Ph.D., has been
selected to the Governor’s Teaching Fellows (GTF)
Program for summer 2022.
The Governor’s Teaching Fellows Program was
established by Zell Miller, governor of Georgia, 1991-
1999, to provide Georgia’s higher education faculty
with expanded opportunities for developing important
teaching skills. Each eligible university may submit two
nominees for the fellowship, and participants are
selected based on their teaching experience, interest in
continuing instructional and professional development,
and ability to make a positive impact on their campus.
Owens, who joined the College of Education in 2018,
serves as a middle grades and secondary education science faculty member on the Armstrong
Campus in Savannah.
“The idea of faculty coming together from universities from across Georgia, all of whom were
interested in sharing ideas to enhance the quality of instruction they are able to provide, was
certainly intriguing to me,” said Owens of applying to the program.
The fellowship also includes the articulation of a special project, one in which Owens has
already begun testing in his classroom.
“I’ve been working on a new means for engendering pre-service teachers’ taking of diverse
perspectives through the use of qualitative analysis and the experiences of a marginalized middle
school student who is the protagonist of a graphic novel called New Kid,” he explained. “I hope
to get informative, developmental feedback for the project from other participants in the program
who may be interested in or have experience with trying to achieve similar outcomes.”
David Owens, Ph.D.
The Governor’s Teaching Fellows Program summer symposium is a two-week intensive
professional development that includes a combination of structured faculty development and
instructional activities as well as independent study on the part of each participant.
“It feels great to be selected,” said Owens. “I’ve got a lot of room to grow as a teacher and
researcher, and I plan to make the most of this opportunity as well as contribute to the
development of others who are participating in the fellowship and back here at Georgia
Southern, through my participation in the program.”
Posted in Faculty Highlights
Tags: David Owens, Governor’s Teaching Fellows
COE’s Greer awarded $15k grant for teacher
development
April 27, 2022
Kania Greer, Ed.D., coordinator of the College of Education’s Center for STEM Education, is
the principal investigator on a grant partnering with Evans County to assist 5th grade teachers
with the classification of organisms through hands-on collections.
The project, totaling $15,000, was awarded from the FY22 Rural Education Innovation
STEM/STEAM Grant from the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) which is a one-year,
non-renewable grant used to start or supplement existing STEM/STEAM programs and activities
that focus on community and industry partnerships with schools in rural counties within First
District and Southwest Georgia RESA regions.
Greer is coordinating development experiences with the elementary science educators and
Georgia Southern faculty experts focusing on vertebrates and invertebrate taxonomy, an area of
need for the district’s science teaching practices.
Teachers participating in the program have began work with College of Science and
Mathematics (COSM) faculty members Steve Vives, Ph.D., Michelle Cawthorn, Ph.D., Lissa
Leege, Ph.D., and Kelly Cronin, Ph.D., to discuss plants, birds, fishes, vertebrates and
invertebrates. Additionally, Stephanie Luiowski, curator of education at the Georgia Southern
Museum, assisted with paleontology of vertebrates with the educators.
Greer will continue to work with the 5th grade teachers to hone their craft using claim-evidence-
reasoning skills as well as developing curriculum and lesson plans that the educators can use
moving forward from the program.
In the fall, the teachers will participate in internships at Georgia Southern Museum, Center for
Wildlife Education, Botanic Gardens, and Herpetology Collection Center to enhance their
curricular knowledge.
Posted in Staff Highlights
Tags: i2STEMed, Kania Greer
News Brief: Harris named national chapter
advisor
April 27, 2022
Kymberly Harris, Ph.D., associate professor of special education, was elected to serve as Chapter
Advisor Member of the National Executive Committee of the Gamma Beta Phi Society, a
national honors and service society.
Harris has served as a faculty advisor for the Georgia Southern chapter of Gamma Beta Phi since
2011. She will now serve as a National Executive Committee Chapter Advisor Member for a
two-year term, 2022-2024.
Posted in Faculty Highlights
Tags: Kymberly Harris
STEM education award named in honor of
COE Professor and Goizueta Distinguished
Chair
April 27, 2022
This spring, Georgia Southern University’s Alejandro Gallard,
Ph.D., was presented with the inaugural Alejandro José Gallard
Martinez Outstanding Contributions to STEM Education
Disruptor Award during the 5th Annual STEM Education
Conference hosted by the University of Texas Rio Grande
Valley.
The award is named for Gallard to honor his outstanding
contributions to STEM education in scholarship, mentoring,
furthering equity and social justice, and increasing the
representation of diverse individuals in STEM education. The
award will be given annually in Gallard’s honor to a deserving
member of the education community.
Angela Chapman, Ph.D., founding chair of the STEM
Education Conference and Consortium, explained the
committee’s decision to create and honor Gallard with the
“Disruptor Award.”
“Dr. Gallard is known for asking questions that challenge the status quo of research and the void
created by hiding the influences of the sociocultural context within which all research takes
place,” she said. “Dr. Gallard always wants to know what is not being told in any form of
research. This is what he calls ‘radical doubt,’ which is part of the theoretical model he and his
colleagues developed to unearth the sociocultural factors that continuously mitigate each and
every data point.”
“Dr. Gallard works very quietly in the background helping the disenfranchised within the
boundaries of the academy,” Chapman added. “When we created this award in his name, it was
not to underscore the existence of a rebel, but to acknowledge his efforts to thwart the hegemony
of cultural capital as determined by the status quo, as well as his non-tolerance of inequity, social
injustice, and the status quo’s institutional mechanisms to keep those who are down, down.”
Gallard joined the University in 2012 and serves as a professor of science education in the
Department of Middle Grades and Secondary Education as well as the Goizueta Distinguished
Chair in the College of Education (COE). He co-leads the Scholarship Development Program in
the College to assist early-career faculty develop a successful scholarship agenda.
Alejandro Gallard, Ph.D.
“I had no idea that I was to receive an award or even that one would be established in my name,”
said Gallard. “I was shocked. My first reaction was, ‘why me?’ This reaction has stayed with me
even though I have been assured I have earned it.”
During Gallard’s acceptance speech, he echoed this humility. “The problem that has been created
in being the first recipient of an award in my name is that I now need to reflect more profoundly
on how much more I need to give to others,” he said. “This is a wonderful renewal of my life.”
Posted in Faculty Highlights
Tags: Alejandro Gallard
