Cheryl Bardales

The LSUA CORE 3001 Undergraduate Teaching Assistant (UTA) program provides students a unique opportunity to gain teaching experience while advancing content-specific knowledge. Designed for upper-level students who have previously excelled in a course, this program benefits those not pursuing teaching as a career but looking for professional growth through mentorship and active learning. UTAs attend all class sessions, facilitate discussions and content reviews, assist with course preparation, and deliver short lectures under faculty supervision. While they do not grade assignments, UTAs provide invaluable peer support and contribute to a collaborative learning environment.

This presentation highlights the benefits of the UTA experience, including improved communication, time management, and pedagogical skills. The reflective component of CORE 3001, which encourages students to analyze their teaching experiences, ensures that UTAs develop meaningful insights into higher education instruction. Additionally, the program strengthens faculty-student mentorship and supports career readiness by fostering a deeper understanding of course material and professional expectations. By presenting outcomes and reflections from UTA participants, this talk will demonstrate how structured teaching assistantships can enhance undergraduate education, faculty engagement, and professional development. 

Lee Gary, Abraham Jimmy, Magdalene Umoh

Leadership of emerging higher education institutions in developing nations, as observed by the authors, face the daunting challenge of strengthening and sustaining the competitiveness of their core faculty members.  The respective challenges and lessons learned firsthand for the School of Public Health at the University of Makeni, located in the Republic of Sierra Leone, are presented as a potential model for other emerging universities in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Founded in 2005, the University of Makeni is the first private and Catholic University in the City of Makeni, located in the Republic of Sierra Leone – and was awarded full university status in 2009.  Its nickname is UNIMAK.

The overriding challenge of sustaining the competitiveness, as experienced by the authors, is strengthening faculty scholarship and advancement, labelled the “Success twins” for academic and professional standing – both suffering from limited recognition for higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa.  They are:

Scholarship – the ability to draft an article that meets peer-review

and is published by a journal with standing.

Advancement – the ability to identify potential sources of funding for

   research and securing adequate funding from source.

Lee Gary

Schools of Public Health in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, are earnestly and rapidly seeking to add rigorous Case Studies on the nature and scope of Disaster Management to the curriculum of their Master of Public Health (MPH) degree programs.

The challenges to incorporate Case Studies on the principles and fundamentals of Disaster Management into the MPH curriculum at the School of Public Health at the University of Makeni, an emerging private university, located in the arising Republic of Sierra Leone, are presented by the authors, all faculty members.

Examples of the first-ever Case Studies designed, piloted, and peer evaluated are presented for discussion.  Included are independent peer evaluations and student assessments, plus lessons learned by faculty and university leadership.

Haile Gilroy, Melinda Lanius, Sean Grate

Despite online homework's growing prevalence as a uniform component in coordinated mathematics courses, few studies have considered the connection, or lack thereof, between instructors of record and fixed online homework sets. In this mixed-methods study, we examined how ten university mathematics educators working in a coordinated setting judged the quality of a sampling of online Calculus I homework assignments. Following an initial review of the homework sets, we introduced the educators to a novel instrument called the Course Alignment Analysis Tool (CAAT), which leverages graph theory to assess the alignment between the learning outcomes that an instructor feels should be prioritized and the learning outcomes most emphasized by an assignment or assessment. We analyzed the impact of engaging with the CAAT on participants' consideration of uniform homework. We found that interacting with the CAAT affected coordinated instructors' definitions of homework quality and that the CAAT is a promising professional development tool for novice instructors in particular.

Lilah Landry

A notable concern in higher education is the insufficient preparation of students which may impede their academic potential. In response to declining enrollment and retention rates, we designed and implemented a "Biology Bootcamp" beginning in Fall 2021, aimed at enhancing students' sense of belonging and equipping them with essential scientific skills for success in introductory biology courses. This program was structured to provide equitable access to all enrolled students through a voluntary, free event conducted immediately before the semester starts, avoiding scheduling conflicts with other campus activities. The Biology Bootcamp includes: 1) a general session on college readiness to foster student engagement 2) a break with snacks and opportunities to create new academic social communities and 3) targeted breakout sessions aligned with specific biology courses. These sessions promote peer collaboration and instructor interaction, thereby bolstering student confidence and community integration on the first day of classes. Furthermore, we utilized intake and evaluation forms to iteratively enhance the bootcamp experience based on student feedback. Preliminary analysis of Fall 2023 data indicates a statistically significant increase in course quality points for participants compared to non-participants, supporting the efficacy of the bootcamp. Data collection continues while we also explore the potential application of this model to other academic disciplines.

Samuel Annerino, Kim Ernst

Previous literature looking at why conspiratorial beliefs evolve in people has focused on the connections that anxiety and trauma have on belief in conspiracy theories. Research shows that anxiety and traumatic experiences correlate with conspiratorial thinking. When people think of traumatic experiences they usually think of extreme singular events, however the literature shows that living in poverty causes many of the same psychological effects as living through a traumatic experience. The link between the trauma of poverty and belief in conspiracy theories has been overlooked in previous studies. This investigation aims to clarify the role that financial anxiety has in conspiratorial belief. A randomized, between-subjects design will be used. Loyola undergraduates (N = 100) will voluntarily participate. Five questionnaires and a priming element will be administered. Participants will be asked to complete a demographic questionnaire, the GAD-7, two questionnaires to measure financial anxiety, and the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale. To test if financial anxiety has a measurable causal effect, 50% of the participants will randomly be given a four-question measure designed to prime financial anxiety. This study will allow us to determine the extent to which financial anxiety affects an individual’s conspiratorial thinking. We hypothesize that as financial anxiety increases there will be a positive increase in conspiratorial belief.