Throughout this academic year, I will be using this Initiatives column to share parts of the college’s strategic plan. My goal is to help you understand the goals and how we aim to reach them, and to help you see yourself in the plan as someone who can not only help to implement it, but also can benefit from it.

This week’s initiatives column will focus on the two action items of goal 3 (Research Addressing Social Issues), objective 2 (professional development in research) in our strategic plan for 2021-25. You can read the full plan on our website.

This objective calls on us to build on current efforts to provide opportunities and experiences that enhance the research capacities of students and faculty.

The first action item calls on us to enhance the research experience and expertise of all students.

There are four implementation tasks associated with this action item:

• Expand programs supporting the academic training, individualized mentorship and placement of historically underrepresented students with interest in graduate study.
• Establish internal resources for student-initiated research and innovation projects that will aid access of media technologies, software and hardware for qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods research.
• Maintain and increase the number of dissertation research initiation grants to support student research initiatives.
• Engage undergraduate researchers in projects to promote transformative education for social justice, including innovative approaches to teaching and curricula.

The second action item calls on us to enhance the research experience and expertise of all faculty.

There are four implementation tasks associated with this action item:

• Provide research methodology workshops on qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods to support research goals.
• Schedule seminars to feature innovative uses of technology (e.g., data visualization, game-based learning environments and simulations) to support research on social justice, essential literacies, curricula, instruction, and mental health and well-being.
• Continue the invited speaker series focused on research that addresses issues of essential literacies, inclusive instruction, anti-racist curricula, equity, diversity, inclusivity, anti-racism, and mental health and well-being.
• Host a workshop series for faculty and their collaborators, postdoctoral research scholars, and undergraduate and graduate students that features socioecological systems and research methodologies that are directed toward the empirical study of the intersections among essential literacies, instruction, social justice, and mental health and well-being.

Involving our students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in research is a way to develop their curiosity, their critical thinking and their problem-solving skills. It will enable them to grow and develop into better versions of themselves, ready to make their own positive impact on the world through their chosen professions.

Providing this type of professional development to our faculty will improve every aspect of their work — teaching, research and outreach.

In short, achieving this goal will create change-agents at every level, and will help to emphasize the added value of a Penn State College of Education degree.

Coming up

The next Initiatives column will include a look at the first two action items in goal 3, objective 3.