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A recent President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology report predicts a shortfall of 1 million college graduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields in the United States over the next several years (2012). Recommendations to address this include diversifying the STEM workforce, which is plagued by a lack of gender diversity (Hill, Corbett, & St. Rose, 2010). University–School partnerships are crucial in developing a pipeline that moves interested primary and secondary students (aged 5-18) into majoring and eventually working in STEM fields. The lower involvement of women in STEM fields is multi-factorial and affects all communities, including Abilene, Texas. Abilene Independent School District’s STEM high school, the Academy for Technology, Engineering, and Science (ATEMS) consistently has a female student population at or below 35%. A local university, Abilene Christian University (ACU), has struggled to increase female undergraduate students in STEM fields. Creating a University–School partnership between ACU and ATEMS aided in building a STEM pipeline for girls in the Abilene community. In this chapter, we describe this collaboration between ACU and ATEMS and highlight the key features that led to success of the collaboration.

The purpose of this paper is to examine SWAT operator deployment experience, personality, cognitive-emotion regulation, and decision making to see if there were correlations with successful SWAT callout resolution. These findings would then be compared with the results of a national survey of hostage (crisis) negotiators in the hopes of finding information that might be helpful with team dynamics, officer selection for these teams, and with operational dynamics and successful resolution of SWAT callouts.

Active SWAT officers (n=277) from various law enforcement entities in 21 states participated in this survey research. They completed a demographic questionnaire, questions about their callout experiences and experiences on their SWAT team, the Big 5 Personality Inventory, the Cognitive-Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the General Decision-Making Style questionnaire. These results were then compared with the same results obtained from a national survey of hostage (crisis) negotiators (n=514) and patrol officers (n=72).

Common personality and decision-making styles emerged from the SWAT survey, and correlations between these variables and the successful resolution of SWAT callouts are discussed. These results were then compared with negotiators and patrol officers via an ANOVA. Distinct differences between these groups emerged.

Recruiting research participants from law enforcement, much less from a closed group such as SWAT operators, is difficult. The response rate for this study was low, and was due in part to the agency themselves declining to participate. The current study relied on honest self-report, which is always a limitation of this type of survey research. Another limitation was that lack of statistically significant findings for the multivariate and the binomial logistic regression analysis. No extrapolation of the relationship between personality, cognitive-emotion regulation, and decision-making styles and the outcome and resolution of callouts is possible based on these findings.

This research could have direct effect on the training and selection of SWAT team officers and hostage negotiators. There is also information provided that may impact the operation and coordination of these groups as they work together during callouts in the community.

The current social climate in the USA seems to be calling for police departments to do everything possible to resolve high risk and dangerous situations with as much care and as little force as possible. In order to achieve successful and peaceful resolution of these SWAT callout situations, departments must deploy officers with the necessary skills, personality, and decision-making abilities.

There is very little general research on SWAT teams, and almost nothing on SWAT operator experience, personality, or decision making. These findings have value and application in SWAT operator selection and training, along with SWAT and negotiator dynamics and decision making when trying to successfully and peacefully resolve a SWAT callout operation.

In the spring of 2018, Abilene Christian University’s College of Education and Human Services created a task force to explore opportunities for an integrated program of interprofessional education through both curriculum and experiential learning. In the fall of 2019, the program was launched with a shared case study assignment and simulation across 13 courses from all five departments within the college and the School of Nursing, allowing students to develop important interdisciplinary practice skills. Over 400 students were involved in the experiential learning activity across two years. In the spring of 2020, the program launched three interdisciplinary courses, focused on developing interdisciplinary skills and knowledge in the areas of ethics, vocation, and practice skills through further simulation. In this chapter, the authors will describe the development, implementation, and outcomes of this innovative curriculum, along with the challenges and benefits of implementing an innovative curriculum across a college. Challenges discussed will include consideration of traditional higher education structures and the need for flexibility and adjustment to allow for innovation.

The chapters in this book focus on how university-school-community (USC) partnerships are implemented in colleges, universities, school systems, and community organizations around the world. The purpose of these multi-disciplinary programs is to reform teaching and learning experiences for all participants. Using case studies and other empirical research, this volume presents a broad and in-depth overview on a variety of USC partnerships to assist educators in the process of transforming organizations using innovative approaches to improve community and school system development. This chapter will provide an overview to this volume and establish a framework for better understanding the nature of university partnerships to enhance community and school system development.

Beginning with a brief overview of education in Australia from both an Aboriginal perspective and that which developed after the arrival of European settlers, this chapter asserts the significance of faith communities in shaping school and teacher education in ways which express their worldviews and moral purpose. Reflecting a Catholic understanding and focusing upon the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, teacher education programs at Australian Catholic University incorporate a holistic approach through their course structures, core curriculum and community engagement experiences. These come together as a pedagogy of promise within community engagement based teacher education. The rationale, examples and model discussed here are presented in ways which show the transformative power of this person- and value-centered pedagogy.

The Thai–Burma refugee program of Australian Catholic University (ACU) brings young Burmese refugees from camps in Thailand to an internet-equipped teaching center to study for a Diploma in Liberal Studies. Some of the learning is carried out online and some in face-to-face mode provided by ACU or partner universities.

The authors detail the methodologies followed, combining sound pedagogy with an integral human development approach. This changed the students’ mode of learning from rote to critical thinking which, in turn, improved their self-confidence, gave them a good ethical and culturally acceptable grounding and provided them with fluency in oral and written academic English. In addition, the authors recount the many challenges faced by bringing together students from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds with all the baggage brought from a conflict ridden and divided country emerging out of decades of dictatorship.

The program’s results have been remarkable. Many students have found high-quality employment after graduating, especially with non-governmental organizations on the border or in Burma or in some other job serving the needs of their own people. Others have used the Diploma to go on to full degree courses in a number of countries in Asia, North America, and Europe.

The purpose of this study is to create a course in a learning management system (LMS), Canvas, for online Ed.D. students and determine if the course can improve scores measuring metaliteracy concepts from pretest to posttest. The course assessed knowledge of metaliteracy goals and objectives instead of using the ACRL Framework. This paper reports on the creation of the course, results of the pretest-posttest, a mapping of metaliteracy goals and objectives with the ACRL Framework and recommendations for including metacognitive practices in library instruction.

The researcher used a quantitative, quasi-experimental, exploratory design and developed a metaliteracy course in the Canvas LMS using a pretest-posttest design, creating video tutorials as the treatment for each module (five total) using Adobe Spark.

According to a t-test run in SPSS, there was a significant difference between the metaliteracy pretest and metaliteracy posttest. Using metaliteracy goals and objectives as a method for assessing information literacy knowledge can be useful. Using the ACRL Framework along with metaliteracy goals and objectives can be effective for presenting and assessing information literacy knowledge and skills.

One limitation of this study was the use of one population of online Ed.D. students at one institution. One implication of this study is the need for metaliteracy goals and objectives to be used in connection with the ACRL Framework.

This research adds to the limited knowledge of how metaliteracy goals and objectives can be used to assess information literacy and other literacies using a pretest-posttest format in an online format.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of socio-cognitive mindfulness on resilience, stress and thriving among middle managers in higher education at two separate periods during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Study 1, the authors examined how socio-cognitive mindfulness predicted perceived stress and whether the relationship between mindfulness and perceived stress was mediated by resilience. In Study 2, the authors replicated the first study and further hypothesized that the link between mindfulness and thriving was also mediated by resilience.

The authors conducted cross-sectional correlational studies to test the hypotheses using data from 163 middle managers in higher education early in the pandemic in Study 1 and 204 middle managers a year later in Study 2.

Study 1 findings showed socio-cognitive mindfulness predicted perceived stress, and that resilience fully mediated this relationship. In Study 2, socio-cognitive mindfulness did not predict perceived stress, but it did predict thriving, and that relationship was fully mediated by resilience.

This research is the first to address how socio-cognitive mindfulness directly impacts perceived stress and thriving and its impact through building resilience. To date, few studies have focused on stress in higher education middle managers or addressed the importance of building socio-cognitive mindfulness and resilience to thrive amid ongoing challenges. Implications of the pandemic's influence on the results are also addressed.