Community Engaged Scholars (CES) Faculty Research Mini-Grant Program
Are You Looking for Support for your Research?
The Community Engaged Scholars (CES) Faculty Research Mini-Grant Program is open to faculty who propose a research project that focuses on an investigation of service-learning pedagogy and practices here at Xavier University or pursues research that engages community partners through shared academic and community goals. The program provides the opportunity for a Xavier University Community-Engaged Fellow (four-year service scholarship recipients) to support the faculty member’s scholarly work during the summer and provides additional assistance with the project through the fall semester. Grant recipients participate in a community of practice, engaging with faculty across the university.
Up to eight upper-class Fellows are invited to be paid summer research assistants for Xavier faculty to support projects that address an identified community need or opportunity with a nonprofit partner and examine the broader impact of our teaching and learning.
2022 Participating Faculty and Research Projects
Patient Satisfaction with Occupational Therapy Services after Amputation
Dr. Leah Dunn, Department of Occupational Therapy
The purpose of this research study is to explore satisfaction with the experience of occupational therapy services in an inpatient rehabilitation facility after amputation. This study will use a qualitative descriptive method to describe patient perceptions of occupational therapy after amputation. Through the use of individual interviews, patient perceptions of occupational therapy will be examined. The results will serve to improve occupational therapy services for patients with amputation.
Latinx Immigrant Community Integration
Dr. Diane Ceo-DiFrancesco, Department of Classics and Modern Languages
This project will examine issues of community integration as it pertains to survivors of intimate partner violence. In addition to language, cultural and immigration status and fear of deportation, women survivors of intimate partner violence have experienced levels of trauma that can augment and complicate barriers of community integration.
Mock Jurors’ Evaluation of Evidence, Determinations of Guilt, and Response to Expert Testimony in False Confessions
Dr. Kathleen Hart, School of Psychology
Police questioning and interrogation of suspects have been the subject of psychological study for decades. This research has repeatedly demonstrated that the commonly held belief that confessions reliably and accurately inform investigators and courts about the “truth” is incorrect; instead, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that individuals can, and do, falsely confess to misdeeds. The specific research question on which this proposal rests is the role that expert testimony might play in helping jurors understand and identify a false confession.
The Dark Sides of Entrepreneurship
Dr. Matthew D. Regele, Department of Management & Entrepreneurship
Despite growing recognition of the dark sides of entrepreneurship (DSE), the topic is rarely discussed in entrepreneurship courses. The goal of this project is to develop a multimedia case study that will document the experience of the founder of a local organization (for-profit or nonprofit) who has suffered from – and ideally overcome – DSE. A teaching note will provide guidance about how to teach the case. Ultimately, the goal will be to publish the case in a journal or case collection.
Student Perceptions Regarding a Community-Based Class Project
Dr. Jeffrey Gerding, Department of English
This research connects to a classroom-based project for ENGL 305: Professional Writing. Since 2019, the professor has conducted research to better understand student expectations, prior experience, and outcomes during a community engaged writing project. Through a partnership with MORTAR, a startup incubator for marginalized entrepreneurs based in the Pendleton neighbor of Cincinnati, the course includes a 12-week project in which students work with alumni of MORTAR’s 15-week “academy” for entrepreneurs to help their clients identify a writing need, develop ideas to address that need across multiple drafts with direct feedback from the client, and then present their work at a public showcase during the final week of the semester. Our goal with this research is to ascertain the differences in attitudes students may experience as the result of a community-centered project, as well as to assess their perception of how applying classroom-based skills in a real-life setting affected their learning.
Infant Mortality: A comparison of Cincinnati with a Global Location
Dr. Terri Enslein, College of Nursing
This project will involve a dialog between spring 2023 NURS 562 students and students in Finland, which has the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. Students will explore the significant issues affecting infant mortality rates is each country. Through research and shared discourse, the student groups will then create a deliverable for Cradle Cincinnati, a local coalition of health providers addressing infant mortality rates in our region.
2021 PARTICIPATING FACULTY
- Kathleen Timmerman, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science
- ShaDawn Battle, Assistant Professor, Gender and Diversity Studies Program
- Lauren Angelone, Assistant Professor of Science Education and Instructional Technology, Department of Education
- Supaporn Kradtap-Hartwell, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry
- Kathleen Smythe, Associate Professor, Department of History
- Stacey Raj, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
- Mich Nyawalo, Associate Professor, Diversity and Gender Studies Program
- Thomas Wagner, Associate Professor, Department Communication Studies
2020 PARTICIPATING FACULTY
2020 Community Engaged Scholars research projects.
- Christine Anderson, Associate Professor, Department of History
- Diane Ceo-DiFrancesco, Associate Professor, Department of Classics & Modern Languages, Jennifer Gibson, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, and Leah Dunn, Assistant Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy
- John Fairfield, Professor, Department of History
- Anne Fuller, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
- Tammy Sonnentag, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
- Joan Tunningly and Stacia Galey, Clinical Faculty, Department of Occupational Therapy
- Carol Winkelmann, Chair & Professor, Department of English
2019 Participating Faculty
- Eileen Alexander, Assistant Professor, Health Services Administration
- Christine Anderson, Associate Professor, Department of History
- Leah Dunn, Assistant Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy
- Diane Ceo-DiFrancesco, Associate Professor, Department of Classics and Modern Languages
- Renea Frey, Assistant Professor, Department of English
- Jeffrey Gerding, Assistant Professor, Department of English
- Cheryl Jonson, Associate Professor, Department of Criminal Justice