The Higher Education Researchers Workgroup was created and chaired by Senior Researcher Anne Maclachlan and doctoral student Zach Bleemer (now professor at Princeton) in 2018 to provide a forum for higher education researchers to present work in progress. More recently it has been co- chaired by Professor Rachel Spronken-Smith, former visiting scholar at CSHE and Deputy Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Otago, New Zealand. The group is open to any kind of higher education researcher with invitations extended to doctoral students at UC and the University of Otago. Over the years participation includes scholars from the around the US, former visiting scholars and others from many countries; individuals from independent research organizations, universities, and other sectors.
The goal of this group is to bring together qualitative and quantitative higher education researchers working on issues at Berkeley, the University of California, the State of California or elsewhere for the mutual exchange of knowledge, ideas, and issues through:
- Acquainting one another with their respective research
- Discussing our research strategies, data base use and data issues
- Engaging with the questions raised by all of our work
- Supporting each others’ work by providing feedback on substance and presentation
- Creating an ongoing list of projects past and present for eventual posting on the CSHE website
Format
- Meetings for an hour and a half
- At every meeting a check in with new and existing members about their project(s)
- When possible prior to each meeting an abstract, proposal, raw summary, finished or draft piece should be circulated among the group
- At the meeting the author informally presents a summary of his or her research questions and issues and does not necessarily make a formal presentation—this is research in progress
- Depending on the consensus of the group pertinent articles by non-members could be circulated and discussed for the issues germane to the participants