2022 Internal Grants Program Recipients

Beginning with the Spring 2022 semester, the College of Education and Human Services Dean’s office launched the Internal Grants Program to offer a new set of internal funding opportunities to support the research and scholarly activities of members of the CEHS community. These activities can include initiating, conducting, or completing a study or presenting at a conference. This grant funding can be used to cover third-party costs such as: the cost of a transcriber, data consultant, or copy
editor; the costs to attend a conference; equipment needed for data gathering; specialized software, etc.

The CEHS Dean’s office aims to cultivate a community of the intellectually curious by providing opportunities to enhance their professional growth and deepen a sense of
 community and promote collaboration within CEHS and contribute to the communities we serve.

Congratulations to our inaugural winners! Our next round of funding will open shortly, with applications due on May 2, 2022.

Kencia Mele

• Doctoral student, Family Science and Human Development
• Title of research: Haitian Culture’s influence on Marriage
• “I want to expand the literature on marriage by learning how culture impacts marital practices and influences marital decisions.”

Cyrene Crooms

• Doctoral student, Teacher Education and Teacher Development
• Title of research: Teacher Activism for Emergent Bilingual Learners: A Qualitative Study
• Using a theoretical framework of Coloniality of Power and the sociopolitical backdrop of education language legislation and policies, this study provides portraits of four teacher activists of EBLs to better understand their work both inside and outside of the classroom.

Susan Chenelle

• Doctoral student, Teacher Education and Teacher Development
• Title of research: Involving All School Stakeholders in Defining Quality Teaching for Students
• This project addresses what the researcher perceives in teacher evaluation reform efforts as not only a fundamental weakness but also a disservice to schools and their stakeholders, particularly students and teachers.

Mia Kirk

• Staff, Teaching and Learning
• Title of research: The Counterstory: Black Women’s Use of Virtual Educator Affinity Groups While Working in Hostile Environments
• The subsequent exodus of teachers of Color may inevitably result in an exacerbation of the disproportionality between the dwindling population of teachers of Color (specifically Black women educators) and the growing population of students of Color.

Dr. Yeon Bai

• Professor, Nutrition and Food Studies
• Title of research: Impact of breastfeeding and breast milk on health, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable food systems
• “It is my goal to examine the impact of not-breastfeeding on every dimension of sustainable food systems utilizing quantitative research syntheses to encode the magnitude of the protective effect of breastfeeding across studies.”