In Fall 2022, Auburn University Libraries faculty and staff hosted an orientation event for newly arrived international graduate students. Highlights of the event included tours of major library service points, a shared meal, and a meet and greet for graduate students and subject librarians. A key takeaway for both groups was an increased awareness of the differences that exist between U.S. academic libraries and those in other countries. The authors discuss elements of the library orientation that worked well, and address lessons learned that will be used to improve future events.

Graduate education can be psychologically taxing, and the academic tasks that graduate students are required to perform can cause a great level of stress, insecurity, and uncertainty. The unique experiences that female students of color face at the intersections of gender, race, and class may have negative effects on their academic performance and attainment. This research explored the experiences of discrimination among the female African American/Black and Hispanic/Latina graduate students and their coping strategies to survive in the program of study at the University of North Texas (UNT), as a minority serving institution (MSI). A narrative research method was applied and 13 in-depth interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview protocol. The findings showed the participants experienced various types of intragroup and intergroup discrimination based on the intersections of their multiple identities, especially race, gender, and socioeconomic status. The findings of this study revealed structural discrimination that participants experienced through their education; starting with their low income neighborhood where they were raised and the discrimination at the university. They perceived that minorities are not represented in the management and faculty positions, and there is an inadequacy of support resources and lack of racially sensitive advising services for female graduate students of color. The findings of this research showed that a large majority of the participants perceived UNT as an institution with diversity but without inclusion. They had used two strategies to respond to the incidents of discrimination; building resilience to fulfil a purpose, and self-care and building support system. This research concludes that UNT is in need to create a climate that is more accessible, caring, and supportive for female graduate students of color. Implications for practice and policy are discussed.

Most prior research and scholarship views cheating as an individual failing rather than a sociological or organizational phenomenon. The purpose of this study was to identify the challenges students face in graduate education and the factors that affect ethical beliefs towards academic dishonesty. This study used a mixed method research approach including an online survey with approximately 1,250 responses from graduate students representing each of UCF's colleges and fifteen interviews with students in fourteen different disciplines. Results of the online survey indicated no significant differences between international and domestic students. Survey and interview data indicate that graduate students' perceptions of the perceived norms and expectations related to academic honesty are impacted by the culture of the academic program. Analyzing these data through three sociological theories of deviance - anomie, labeling, and rational choice - shows that graduate students' understanding of appropriate academic behavior depends on their academic socialization. The data also reveal that graduate students struggle with subtleties of cheating, such as misrepresentation or "fudging" of data. Especially for the doctoral students in the sample, their views were highly influenced by viewing themselves as teachers and independent researchers. This sociological analysis emphasizes the role of culture in graduate programs and students' socialization into those cultures. This doctoral dissertation also provides a deeper understanding of the social and organizational factors affecting graduate students and re-frames students' perspectives on appropriate academic behavior.

The internationalization of higher education curriculum, including programs in educational leadership, in the United States is increasing, and with the increase in graduate interest in study abroad, this study predicted graduate students pursuing a graduate degree in higher education administration or student affairs (HESA) at institutions in the southeastern United States intent to study abroad short-term. The Theory of Planned Behavior was used to frame the study, which identified the behavioral beliefs (future job prospects), normative beliefs (family expectations), and control beliefs (administrative support) of graduate students that were related to study abroad. Future job prospects, family expectations, and administrative support formed one variable, willingness to pay, which was hypothesized to influence intent to study abroad. Desire and affordability were also hypothesized to influence intent to study abroad. The Theory of Planned Behavior and each variable were assumed to be important to short-term study abroad intent. However, this was an initial study focused on solely graduate students in an education discipline regarding study abroad intent to use the Theory of Planned Behavior and the chosen variables. A survey was emailed to all graduate students in a HESA program at 15 institutions in the southeastern United States. There were 171 students that fully completed the survey. In this study, I found that future job prospects had a positive relationship with willingness to pay. Thus, hypothesis 2 was supported. However, family expectations and administrative support did not have a positive relationship with willingness to pay indicating that hypotheses 3 and 4 were not supported. Regarding intent to study abroad, both desire and affordability positively influenced intent to study abroad with path coefficients of .62 and .24, respectively, while willingness to pay did not indicating that hypotheses 5 and 6 were supported while hypothesis 1 was not supported. The data were analyzed using a structural equation model (SEM) to create a structural model to understand the strength of the relationship of each variable by the resulting path coefficients and variance. Understanding the beliefs and intentions of such students provided implications to establish or improve existing study abroad programs focusing on graduate students.

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This inquiry project explores connections between mind and body in academic writing. What scholars, educators and researchers have noted about the inclusion of the body in academic study illuminates the challenges of understanding the relationship between the two. Using a framework shaped by embodiment and feminist criticality illuminates how the body is elided through schooling and educational systems, reaching a peak in higher education. An interdisciplinary review of the literature supports a broad consideration of embodiment and typical writing practices in academic settings. To better understand the body as a source of knowledge, data construction is holistic, using an embodied methodology with women who reenter graduate school later in life. Mindful awareness of the body guides the relating of writing experiences, and methods are designed with an ethic of care for participants, a spirit of co-creation, and shared experience. A narrative approach to data is used to explore where and how embodiment appears in women’s stories about academic writing. The research process reflects a time of social separation within a pandemic. By better understanding women’s embodied experiences, this project seeks to enrich and enliven the way institutions of graduate study understand writing as an embodied practice and to honor what the body knows alongside the mind.