This brief summarizes early educators' experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, including changes in employment and wages, supports they received, and challenges they faced. The findings come from a survey of early educators working in licensed child care facilities in the District of Columbia in early 2021. The survey is part of the larger DC…

Schools are undertaking social distancing measures to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to unprecedented challenges for school leadership. This essay explores four such specific challenges: (1) teacher-student connectedness in virtual learning; (2) inadequate computers and internet access; (3) food insecurity; and (4) lack of child-care.…

This article describes a project to engage sociology students in real-world research designed to foster critical thinking about food security. Faculty-librarian collaboration was an essential component. An open-ended questionnaire was administered to three classes at the end of the semester. Assessed were students' experiences gathering data and…

In the fall of 2019, the American Indian College Fund published a report about a Gallup survey on tribal college alumni. The report illustrates how tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) are institutions that provide Native students with the education, skills, and support they need to succeed. The report also shows that Native students who attend…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe faculty and graduate students' motivation and learning experiences in a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary graduate course focused on the nexus of food and nutritional security, hunger, and sustainability. Design/Methodology/Approach: A one-group pre-experimental case study design was used.…

Economic insecurity is part of many college students' daily lives. In this dissertation, I investigate food insecurity as a key manifestation of student economic insecurity. I study both individual experiences of food insecurity and institutional responses to student food insecurity through the adoption of on-campus food pantries. I specifically…

Food and food concerns within the context of higher education have been under-researched, despite that food is essential and should be a basic provision for all. This theoretical paper advocates for the adoption of a transformative paradigm in researching food concerns at the university and makes an appeal to conduct research that promotes and is…

Assessing basic needs of students at colleges and universities is gaining traction across the United States. Our research examined the prevalence of food and housing insecurity at a land-grant institution and its implications on student success. Food insecure students have poorer health status, difficulty concentrating on their studies, lower…

Food insecurity among low income students has increased during COVID-19, and could persist for months or years for students saddled with educational debt or facing uncertain unemployment. Access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for children has a proven effect on reducing childhood food insecurity, and when students…

The California Community College system is the largest community college system in the United States, with a current enrollment of more than 2.1 million students on 116 campuses. Demographically, more than two thirds of students enrolled in the California Community College system are people of color and most qualify for federal and/or state…

The Cooperative Extension National Framework for Health and Wellness calls on Extension professionals to operate in new ways that will shape "the context in which people grow, learn, work, and play" and to practice multidisciplinary and collaborative approaches in communities. In this article, we present three cases in Oregon as examples…

Food security is one of the most pressing concerns of our times. Despite the vast opportunities, there is a shortage of skilled professionals in the food, agriculture, and plant sciences. Although most programs focused on addressing this concern have targeted students, we have often overlooked another critical group--the teachers. To address this…

This report describes how rural districts navigated school closures due to the COVID- 19 pandemic in Spring 2020. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 out of 49 districts in New York and Ohio that were part of the National Center for Rural Education Research Networks (NCRERN). The majority of interviews took place when schools were…

In their review of the students-as-partners literature, Mercer-Mapstone et al. (2017) found that only 5-6% of published research articles on student-partnership models focused on multidisciplinary partnerships. This case study, authored by five undergraduate students and two academics, sought to examine the utility of using a multidisciplinary…

This paper is based on a survey conducted with 3153 students coming from 29 public elementary and high schools in the Philippines. A majority of the students were 9-12 years old. This current paper seeks to know which type of parental involvement is most pronounced and helpful in improving children's school outcomes. This study concludes that…