Rising Beyond the Classroom
Faculty members are leaving their mark at Cumberland with help from the Dr. C. William McKee Academic Research Grants.
Abby Pitts, Director of Student Retention and Tennessee Promise Support: These
projects, entitled “A Study on Increasing Freshman Resilience” and “Workshops to Aid Freshman and Sophomore Students in Selecting a Major” will focus on increasing student resilience and offering students ways to find their majors. The first project stems from CU’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) and will use test and control groups, along with pre and post surveys, to analyze results. The second will offer workshops to students with the goal of having students realize what major makes them passionate about their studies and in turn, become more engaged with course work and the campus.
Eddie Christian, Director of Counseling Services: The study is titled Physician Authentic
Leadership and Emotional Intelligence, as Healthcare Managers: Their Impact on Subordinate Ethical Strength. The study will involve a quantitative correlational design to explore answers to three research questions: (1) Does physician EI predict employee ethical strength? (2) Does physician EI predict their AL? and (3) Does physician AL moderate the relationship between physician EI and employee ethical strength? The purpose of this study is to address healthcare corruption and the lack of moral integrity in the field, as reported in the current literature. The aim is to provide relevant information to physicians and healthcare administrators as guidance toward proactively affecting corruption and its destructive repercussions in the industry.
Dr. Jenny Mason, Associate Professor of Psychology and Psychology Program Director: Recently, students began stating that they feel more invested and active in the Psychology program compared to others (both here and at other schools), which might be a result of the Family Chores Initiative (FCI). This initiative came about as an understanding that being part of a family often means helping without a direct reward, with simply the understanding that benefitting your family also benefits you. This project will connect each student’s direct involvement in FCI opportunities with their self-reported levels of program engagement and loyalty, trying to determine whether more involvement in FCIs directly connects to how invested students feel about this school and this major.
Dr. Kent Hallman, Assistant Professor of Sociology:
This project is dedicated to linguistic diversity and language preservation. The ancient Romani language has been spoken in the Americas since 1498, in North America since the 1600s, and is one of the two oldest non-indigenous minority languages in the Americas. However, minority languages - especially those unsupported by government agencies or other allies - are vulnerable to language loss. This project will collect language samples on contemporary American Romani, to gauge the current state of the language, collect linguistic data and lay the foundation for future work on language preservation. Other grant recipients include: Dr. Eric Cummings, Dr. Mary Bess Griffith, Dr. Laura Bechard, Dr. Paul Percy, Dr. Mark Cheathem, Dr. Peg Fredi, Dr. Jason Grindstaff, Katelynn Hatton, Dr. Andrew Wiley, Dr. Fred Heifner, Dr. Natalie Inman, Dr. Tara Mielnik, Dr. Robert Nichols, Rusty Richardson, Dr. Michael Rex, Ted Rose, Dr. Stephen Shao, Dr. Sandy Smith, Bettina Warkentin
