Five faculty members at Indiana University East have received grants for research projects and course development.

Kelly Blewett

The awards have been presented to the faculty and will be announced during the Faculty and Staff Annual Award Ceremony on April 15.

Faculty awards and recipients include:

• Erwin and Priscilla Boschmann Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Grant: Kelly Blewett, assistant professor of English, IU East School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
• Center for Faculty Development Faculty Fellowship in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) for 2022: Yan Liu, assistant professor of business administration and management, IU East School of Business and Economics.
• Chancellor’s Community Engagement Course Development Grant: KT Lowe, assistant librarian for instruction, IU East Campus Library, and Tanya Perkins, assistant professor of English, IU East School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
• Chancellor’s Community Engagement Course Development Grant: Jaynne Rivas, assistant professor of management, IU East School of Business and Economics.
  

  Yan Liu

The Erwin and Priscilla Boschmann Scholarship grant opportunity is made possible through the generous contribution of Erwin and Priscilla Boschmann. This award is offered annually to full-time faculty to support research in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) at IU East.

Blewett plans to work on her project, “Number versus Letter: Grade Presentation Settings as Feedback in the Writing Classroom,” and prepare it for publication.

In 2021, Blewett received the Horizon Research/Creative Activity Award, which recognizes excellence in research and/or creative work by an untenured faculty member during some or all of their first four years at IU East. She presented on the project in 2019 at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the largest national conference in the field of writing studies.

Blewett’s presentation discussed the results of a 2016 study of teacher grading practices. Blewett reported how an experienced writing teacher adjusted the settings of her learning management software (Blackboard) with intended psychological effects on students. Additionally, she spent a portion of her summer in 2021 working on developing an article on the project to submit for publication to the College Composition and Communication and the Journal of Response.

KT Lowe

Blewett received her Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from the University of Cincinnati. She received her Master of Arts in English from the University of Louisville and her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Miami University of Ohio. Her research interests include composition theory and pedagogy, teacher feedback and reading.

The Center for Faculty Development Faculty Fellowship Award is an opportunity designed to offer faculty members an opportunity to cultivate and share their knowledge, techniques, and information on a particular teaching topic. This is an excellent opportunity for new and experienced faculty to build a foundation or develop a new research trajectory in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Liu will use the grant to research her project, “Design Effective Team Activities in Online Courses: How Task Interdependence and Use of Online Tools Impact Students’ Engagement and Performance.” The project focused on how to encourage asynchronous online students to collaborate for or complete team assignments. The purpose of the project is to examine the different formats of teamwork design an asynchronous online class, and apply management teamwork theories including task interdependence and outcome interdependence.

Liu received her Doctor of Business Administration and her Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Management from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana. She received her Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Nanchang University in Nanchang, China. Her research interests include positive organizational behavior, leadership, proactive behavior, deviance behavior, human resource practice and research methodology.

Tanya Perkins

The Chancellor’s Community Engagement Course Development Grant goes to three faculty for two separate projects. The grant is designed to assist faculty as they develop new or modify preexisting courses based on the use of best practices in service-learning course design and assessment.

Lowe and Perkins will use the grant to develop their community service oriented course. “ENG W395: Community Archives: Methods and Process” is a project that will allow students in the course to work directly with a community archive. For this English Writing course, students will work with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra Archive with a collection spanning over 60 years’ worth of material covering a diverse array of media and document types. As a primary source collection, this class also introduces research concepts related to physical objects and primary sources. The grant will help gain insight into better teaching practices regarding assignment construction, particularly with tangible collections, and to discover ways to better integrate students into community service class projects.

Lowe received her Master of Science in Information, a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies, and a Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies degree from the University of Michigan. Her current teaching interests include first-year experience, library instruction for humanities and social sciences. Her research interests are misinformation and information literacy, and community information seeking.

Jaynne Rivas

Perkins received her Master of Fine Arts in fiction from Murray State University, and a Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts in English Studies, both with an emphasis in creative writing, from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. She teaches courses in fiction, professional and technical writing, digital writing and creative writing studies. Her research and creative interests include short story cycle, contemporary fiction, digital media, online teaching and learning, and program assessment.

Rivas will research her project, “The Recycling Power.” In this project, Rivas will create a mobile unit to recycle plastic. She plans to use the mobile unit in different neighborhoods or organizations in the community to promote recycling behavior among people. This project will help students in Rivas’ Business and Society course to develop analytical skills by applying theoretical frameworks to real-life situations; leadership skills through project execution; and to acquire a philanthropic culture through working as volunteers. Students will use the stakeholder theory and the corporate social responsibility theoretical frameworks to involve several organizations and people in the project implementation. The Recycling Power project is a long-lasting initiative created to grow over time.

Rivas received her Ph.D. in Business Administration and her Master of Science in Management from Tulane University. She has a Master of Science in Public Policies from IESA Business School in Caracas, Venezuela, and her Bachelor of Science in Agronomic Engineering from the Central University of Venezuela. Her research interests include institutional theory, franchise system and international business expansion.