RSS 1.0SUNY Empire State University
Founded in 1971 as the innovative campus of the State University of New York, Empire State University empowers learners from diverse backgrounds to achieve their educational goals. We have decades of experience providing educational access through online teaching and learning, individualized instruction, mentoring, and prior learning assessment. We are SUNY’s leading online institution and New York state’s only public online institution.
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Gatekeeping as an Online Adjunct Clinical Instructor in Counselor EducationThis interpretative phenomenological analysis study examined how adjunct instructors teaching online clinical counseling courses experienced gatekeeping in the context of the university system. The research question was: How do online, adjunct instructors teaching master’s level clinical counseling courses experience their university interactions as a part of gatekeeping? The participants described five experiential themes. These were: a) Balancing marginalization in the system with advocacy for the profession; b) Maneuvering through dependency on the system in gatekeeping; c) Finding consultation while navigating gatekeeping interactions; d) Managing the intensity of clinical courses; and e) Navigating the steep learning curve of learning how to gatekeep within university systems. The findings suggest multiple implications for counselor education departments utilizing adjunct hires to fill online clinical courses. Public Significance Statement Gatekeeping is essential for ensuring that counselors entering the profession are prepared to provide safe, ethical, and effective support. High training standards build trust in the counseling field and strengthen public confidence in mental health care, ultimately benefiting communities by improving access to qualified practitioners. This study found that adjunct clinical instructors face significant challenges in their gatekeeping responsibilities, often due to marginalization within the academic system and a lack of clear guidance and support. Participants highlighted the importance of formalized support systems, such as structured onboarding, mentorship, and consistent communication, to empower adjunct instructors in their gatekeeping efforts
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Resources to support addiction counselors: A qualitative investigationBackground and Objective: Counselors have high burnout rates caused by demanding workloads. The objective of this research was to identify possible resources which could make a substance use counselors’ job easier. Methods: This qualitative study collected its information through interviews done over the phone or in person. Results: The counselors answers identified they feel overwhelmed and often have to multitask, which creates feelings of stress. Conclusions: A resource guide of group activities could help ease the stress caused by having to multitask.
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All About Mandell: A Special Issue of All About MentoringThe All About Mandell Special Issue of All About Mentoring features articles from the archives of All About Mentoring in celebration of Alan Mandell's retirement from SUNY Empire State University after a nearly 50-year career at the same institution. The articles from the All About Mentoring archives are supplemented with prefaces by the author's recounting how impactful Alan Mandell was in their careers and in the history of Empire State College and SUNY Empire State University.
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The Impact of Probe Difficulty Variation on Brief Experimental Analysis of Reading SkillsThe impact of variation in probe difficulty on the ability to replicate results in brief experimental analysis (BEA) of reading was examined. In the first phase of the study, 41 first- and second- grade students completed 16 reading probes. Calculations of probe difficulty were used to identify Low and High Variability probe sets. In the second phase of the study, 40 second- through fifth-grade students’ performance on two reading interventions was compared in a BEA-like task. The best-performing intervention was unlikely to be replicated on either probe set (i.e., for only 43% of students); rather, the best determinant of intervention replication was each students’ average difference in performance across the two interventions. The best-performing intervention was more likely to be replicated (i.e., 60% of students) when averages of two trials per intervention were compared. These results are discussed in the context of developing rules for determining the best-performing intervention in academic BEA.
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Generalizability Theory Analysis of CBM Maze Reliability in Third- Through Fifth-Grade StudentsDespite growing use of CBM maze in universal screening and research, little information is available regarding the number of CBM maze probes needed for reliable decisions. The current study extends existing research on the technical adequacy of CBM maze by investigating the number of probes and assessment durations (1-3 minutes) needed for reliable relative (e.g., rank-ordering students) and absolute (e.g., comparing a specific score to a cutoff) decisions. Nine CBM maze probes were administered to 272 students in third through fifth grades. Results suggested that the number of probes needed for reliable relative and absolute decisions varied by grade, with assessments in fifth grade exhibiting the highest reliability (at least two probes needed for both types of decisions). In addition, declining gains in reliability appeared to occur as assessment duration increased. Implications of the findings for universal screening and future research are discussed.
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Self-Directed Video Prompting and Least to-Most Prompting: Examining Ways of Increasing Vocational Skill Acquisition Among Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual DisabilityObjective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of point-of-view video prompting (VP) as a self-prompting strategy with a least-to-most prompting (LMP) system on the rapidity of skill acquisition of two students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and two students with intellectual disability (ID) when working on school-based vocational tasks. Methods: We used multiple probes across students design of single-case experimental methodology to examine whether or not causal relation existed between the intervention and students’ vocational skill acquisition and follow-up performance. Target tasks involved both process and basic functional mathematics steps that required students to pay attention to the process of task completion rather than the functional step itself. Results: All students showed immediate and considerable improvement in skill acquisition between baseline and intervention. Furthermore, all students completed the tasks with an average of over 90% accuracy once the LMP was removed. The four students in this study required two to six intervention trials to reach 100% accuracy without the use of LMP, with a mean of four trials. Tau-U effect size showed a strong effect of the intervention on skill acquisition and follow-up performance. Conclusions: VP and LMP as a combined intervention can be effective in teaching vocational tasks that involve process steps to students with both ASD and ID. VP can be a useful support for students with ASD and ID in school, community, and employment settings to decrease reliance on adult prompting and increase independence.
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Letter to the editor: changing to a person-centered approach when referring to substance use clientsDear Editor, The substance use field is moving away from the word addict and towards a more person-centered approach by using the term substance user. Addressing the use of the term ‘addict’ is important as it is stigmatizing towards the clients seeking support. This is challenging for academics and treatment providers to adjust the language they use. While some clients incorporate “old-school terminology such as addict/alcoholic” (Hassett- Walker, 2023) into their recovery journey, as professionals it is our responsibility to use professional language and avoid such labels. Research collected from participants of 12-Step Meetings by Hassett-Walker (2023) identified some individuals in recovery may choose to self-identify with the term ‘addict’ or ‘alcoholic’. While these findings provide a voice to the individuals in recovery, using first-person language places emphasis on the client/patient rather than their disorder (Dawkins & Daum, 2022). An example of using appropriate first-person language is a “person with a substance use disorder”. The National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA] (2021) provides guidelines on how the professional community can change the stigma associated with people affected by substance use/abuse disorders. NIDA recommends when professionals talk with or about a client affected by a substance use disorder, they use first-person language as it separates the person from their disorder, it recognizes the client is more than just their diagnosis (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2021). A study conducted by van Boekel, Brouwers, van Weeghel and Garretsen (2013) identified that health care professionals often have negative attitudes towards clients with substance use issues. Moreover, those attitudes are recognized and internalized by clients, and it adversely affects their trust in the practitioner and reduces their sense of hope and recovery. Professionals in healthcare, human services, psychology, social work, and addiction treatment actively work to change terminology and use language that positively supports clients.
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Unleashing the Storyteller Within: Using an Integrated Learning Theory and Multimedia Approach to Designing a Digital Online Genre Fiction Writing WorkshopThe purpose of this creative, professional capstone project is to design the first module of a digital online genre fiction writing workshop using an integrated learning theory and multimedia approach. The module will eventually be expanded to a four module creative writing workshop geared toward people who’ve always wanted to write a genre fiction novel, but didn’t know where to start. The digital age has changed the way information is exchanged, researched, and learned. Our busy lives have made learning at a distance especially appealing, and with the advent of free, low-cost, and subscription based online learning sites such as Coursera, Udemy, and Lynda.com, online learning has grown in popularity. This creative, professional capstone project is the first step in creating an online genre fiction writing workshop that is intuitive and easy to navigate for learners of all digital literacy levels.
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Educating Non-Traditional Female Students Through Leadership Development at Delgado Community CollegeWhen a person wants to better themselves, there is no better way to do this than by getting a quality education. In today's world, education is the key to empowerment. Education is a gift and a privilege many take for granted. The purpose of this project is to identify non-traditional female students who are returning to or just beginning their college experience and assist them in obtaining their degree. The intention of the project is to educate these female students on how to locate and utilize financial resources, tutoring, scheduling, etc. as well as develop their leadership potential. The female population at Delgado Community College is 68% female with 52% of those students being age 25 or older. By identifying the ways in which these students can succeed, it will show higher retention and completion rates. By being able to teach students how to recognize their leadership abilities and develop their core leadership strengths, this leadership development studies course will enable them to reach their full potential. A person who is teaching others how and what it means to be an effective leader is sharing his or her knowledge of what it means to be a true leader.
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Letter to the editor: best practices in treating substance use and eating disordersFor counselors to be able to properly support a client with a substance-use disorder as well as an eating disorder, they must be properly trained in evidence based best practices designed to support these diagnoses.
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The impact of corporate characteristics on climate governance disclosureThis study examines the impact of corporate characteristics on climate change governance among 100 of the world’s largest companies, with 1400 observations in the fiscal year 2020. We consider variables such as company location, size, profitability, female board representation, years of reporting using Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) guidelines, the inclusion of UN Global Compact and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) information, Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) membership, MSCI ESG ratings, and the presence of a climate transition plan, a sustainability executive, and a sustainability board committee. Applying a multi-theoretical framework, we employ correlation analysis and univariate and multiple linear regressions to assess the relationships. Our findings reveal positive correlations between climate governance and the presence of a climate transition plan, MSCI ratings, DJSI membership, and the existence of a sustainability executive. Additionally, companies located in developed countries exhibit significantly higher levels of climate change governance. These results hold across various scenarios, offering valuable insights for researchers, academics, business leaders, practitioners, and regulators. With the growing importance of climate change reporting, understanding the key contributing factors for effective climate governance is crucial for organizations seeking to address this critical issue.
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Navigating and Hybridizing Interpretive Claim-Making Across Discursive CommunitiesIn order to better understand how the full range of students’ semiotic resources may be marshalled for learning, we analyze the role of interpretive claim-making across fandom and disciplinary communities. Using a framework of syncretic literacies with a focus on navigation, we analyze data from a series of writing conferences in a U.S.-based, fandoms-themed English course serving diverse high school students. Our analysis attends to shifts in convergent and divergent intersubjectivity to trace students’ navigation of interpretive practices as they talked with their peers and their instructor. Discursive claims emerged as an important tool functioning differently across these interactions. Specifically, the claim-making practices of one focal student demonstrate an emerging understanding of the distinctly different functions that claims serve as tools for navigating between, and hybridizing, discursive communities. Our findings highlight the importance of using discourse to analyze the presence of multiple or conflicting discursive practices, and designing learning environments in ways that support students’ use of hybrid discursive tools.
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All About MentoringA biannual publication of Empire State University, All About Mentoring provides opportunities for colleagues from across the university to share scholarly activities, reflect on ideas and practices about teaching, learning and mentoring, and, prompted by essays, visual art, poetry, and reviews from inside and outside the university, to think about a range of issues, questions, and experiences relevant to our common work.
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Tourist brides and migrant grooms: Cuban–Danish couples and family reunification policiesAs a development strategy mass tourism often precipitates social changes, expected and unexpected. Emigration through marriage may seem to be an unlikely by-product of the expanding tourist industry in Cuba, but the increasing number of Cubans emigrating through marriage to a foreign partner has paralleled the influx of tourists since the mid-1990’s. This article explores how gender dynamics in the Cuban tourist milieu intersect with gendered underpinnings of family reunification policies in Denmark by focusing on the marriage migration pattern of Cuban grooms with Nordic brides. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Denmark among Cuban marriage migrants and their spouses, the study shows a cross-border migration pattern shaped by multiple factors including global economic asymmetries, the eroticization of Cuban culture in the tourism industry, and the gender egalitarian welfare state of Denmark.
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Moral boundaries and national borders: Cuban marriage migration to DenmarkThe discussion of marriage migration in Denmark primarily has focused on citizens of immigrant descent (“New Danes”) who marry partners from their ancestral homeland (often Turkey or Pakistan). This type of marriage migration was the target of the strict Danish family reunification policy instituted in 2002. This paper examines the genealogy of the morality underpinning the family reunification policies and asks whether the rules actually promote this moral agenda or have unintended consequences. Empirically, I shift the focus from immigrant Danes to native Danes who marry Cubans. Finally, while little attention is paid to the non-western country involved, transnational marriages always involve two nations. This paper investigates how state policies on both ends of this migration trajectory shape moral-territorial borders that transnational couples navigate.
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Intimate Contradictions: Comparing the Impact of Danish Family Unification Laws on Pakistani and Cuban Marriage MigrantsThe Danish family unification policies are based on an underlying moral agenda rooted in the idea of emotional, intimate, love-based marriages as the basis of the modern nation state. This paper questions the efficacy of this moral agenda by examining the unintended consequences and false dichotomies that emerge with the implementation of the legislation, particularly focusing on kin relations and individual autonomy. Empirically, the article compares how the legislation affects both the intended targets (intra-ethnic marriages among Danes of immigrant descent) and the unintended targets (ethnic Danes who marry non-European spouses, namely, Cubans). This comparative perspective highlights the cracks in the moral agenda of the state’s efforts to shape family formation and, ultimately, the contradictions of attempting to promote ‘modernity’ over ‘tradition’.
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Your Abortion is in the Mailbox: A Study of Abortion Seekers’ Understanding of their Choices in 2023On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Clinic, overturning its 1973 decision in Roe and allowing states to regulate abortion. Twelve states immediately criminalized abortion care, precipitating chaos around the country. In Texas, abortion clinics had closed in September 2021, causing patients to travel to Oklahoma and beyond. Oklahoma's clinics closed in May 2022. After Dobbs, residents of Oklahoma and Texas joined residents of three other states seeking limited clinic appointments in access states like Kansas, Illinois and Colorado. More than 50% of these appointments were for medication abortions. Due to changes in federal regulations about telehealth care, abortion pills could also be ordered online, letting prospective patients obtain the same pills available in clinics at home, without travel. The goal of this study is to understand why abortion-seekers from Texas and Oklahoma chose to travel long distances for their pills, instead of ordering online. Clinic patients were surveyed to answer the research question: What do women who choose to travel to a clinic for medication abortion, from their homes in states where it is extra-legal or illegal, believe about telemedicine and clinic provision? The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of SUNY Empire State University. Data was collected April-June 2023 at a medication abortion clinic in Kansas. Adult residents of Texas or Oklahoma who traveled to the clinic for a medication abortion were offered a survey during their visit. The survey collected demographics and asked which alternatives the patient considered to end the pregnancy, which factors influenced their decision to travel to the clinic, and whether they thought that mailing abortion pills for home use is legal in their state. If they considered a method using mail-order pills (abortion pills online or telehealth), they were asked why they decided against it. Findings indicate that speed to appointment date was the top priority for the patients sampled; at the time of data collection, mail-order pills could take up to three weeks to arrive. Legality of the clinic appointment was also a concern for a majority. Privacy was a secondary concern. Seeing a doctor, the defining feature of a clinic visit, did not seem important. While many respondents were concerned about the legality of ordering pills for home use, most were confused about whether it was legal in their state. Based on these findings, policy implications of the shift to self-managed abortion and the impact of abortion access on public health outcomes are explored. Policy recommendations are offered to support access to abortion, despite criminalization of abortion practice in 13 states. Further study is needed to understand what information and messaging informs potential users of at-home abortion about their options.
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The ABCs of CPL: How to simplify the very complex concept of credit for prior learningHow can the workbook help you? Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) has been demonstrated as an effective tool in increasing student engagement in the learning process and student degree completion. This self-guided workbook was developed to address the most frequently asked questions about CPL. The workbook allows students to reflect upon essential factors before enrolling in a degree program at a college or university. It can also assist students in assessing their knowledge and determining their ability to complete learning and obtain college-level credits within a particular area. It answers common questions about CPL and considers the advantages and obstacles students may face in this process. This workbook was also designed to help administrators, faculty members, and professional staff understand the value and importance of CPL. The workbook will help them explore existing areas for creating opportunities for students to access CPL and reflect on essential considerations when integrating this policy at their institution. The purpose of this workbook is to create a more equitable and transparent path toward CPL for any students interested in pursuing at any institution.
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Art History in the Virtual Reality EnvironmentThe objective of this project is to create a virtual reality environment for teaching art history in an interactive, collaborative way. The environment will make it possible for students to meet, interact with works of art and architecture, and work together on project-based art history assignments. The method for developing this project involved sourcing online teaching materials, and researching effective methods of assessment. Exploration of virtual reality platforms was necessary to find one accessible for most users, that could be developed for use as an art history classroom and galleries. A learning management system was chosen to organize information and materials, post feedback and grades, and be a repository for work done in the virtual environment. Research into online resources found that art museums offer a multitude of images, essays, and videos that are available for download or linking to, as well as online resources for downloading 3D architectural and sculpture models. FrameVR proves to be both the most accessible and user friendly VR environment for this project. The conclusion in the development of the project is that by providing an easily accessible VR environment, populating it with engaging and interactive art history resources, and offering collaborative, constructivist learning experiences with portfolio and project based assessment, a rich environment for the teaching and learning of art history is provided. This project also provides a template for future specialized topical courses in art history.
