As the midterm election approaches in November, Catherine Dierker ’27 is asking a timely question: Can educators better prepare young people to participate in democracy?

An Elon history major with teacher licensure from Marietta, Georgia, Dierker’s research focuses on improving civic engagement among young voters. She will present her findings during the Spring Undergraduate Research Forum on April 28.

“Considering that the youth turnout rate is so low, what can we do to make students feel prepared and make them feel like when they graduate, they can make a difference?” she said.

Dierker’s interest in research grew through ����app�ٷ���վ�� Teaching Fellows program, where she developed an inquiry project that eventually evolved into her SURF presentation.

“I’ve always really been very curious,” she said. “It was something that I was interested in, but then given the opportunity to develop.”

Her project examines effective practices in civics education, drawing from national and international data, teacher interviews and existing scholarship. While her findings reveal no single solution, they point to three key strategies that can help foster civic engagement among students.

“The first being to embrace controversy,” Dierker explained. “People shy away from trying to tackle big subjects that are a little controversial, but it’s what makes people engaged. It fires people up, and passionate people are going to act.”

In addition, her research highlights the importance of promoting civic agency, helping students feel that their voices matter, and incorporating service learning into classrooms.

“Allowing people to get out in their local community and do a semester-long project really demonstrates to them that they have made a difference,” she said.

Dierker emphasized that her work is less about prescribing a single method and more about offering a framework for educators.

“There’s not one thing that we can say to all teachers, do this and all of your students will go out and vote,” she said. “But if we apply these strategies, we will see a lot better turnout and results from our civic education.”

Her research process combined large-scale data analysis with qualitative insights. She examined U.S. census data, compared state-level education practices and reviewed studies from both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Mentored by Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Carrie Eaves, Dierker said the experience has been both academically rigorous and personally meaningful.

“She’s fantastic,” said Dierker of Eaves. “It’s those little connections that were nice to talk about and then really dive into the details of the research.”

During SURF Day, all other campus activities are suspended so the Elon community can come together around students’ creative endeavors and research efforts. Undergraduate research is also one of the five Elon Experiences, which provides a natural extension of the work students do in the classroom and ensure that Elon graduates are prepared for both graduate school and careers. Although this will be her first time presenting at SURF, Dierker is looking forward to sharing her work.

“I’m nervous, but I’m excited. I’m really passionate about it. I love talking about things that I’m passionate about,” she said.

As she prepares for a future in the classroom, Dierker hopes her research will help shape how civics is taught and how students see their role in society.

“It’s more of a framework to guide how we go about education and how we go about interacting with our community and with our nation,” she said.

Pate McMichael, director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition and instructor of communications, was quoted by Axios Charlotte about the Department of Homeland Security’s Operation Charlotte’s Web, which yielded 1,300 arrests in the city.

Axios Charlotte reports that much of the information about Operation Charlotte’s Web has come out of lawsuits, and there is a lack of transparency about the details of the operation.

“It’s a very dangerous thing for the government to be doing. It is an abuse of power,” McMichael said. “They’re not following the law, and��that’s why they’re getting sued, and that’s why they’re losing.”

Related Articles

• Strategic multifaith engagement shapes the Elon campus experience
• Elon welcomes ninth class of Multifaith Scholars

At ����app�ٷ���վ��, faculty say preparing students means helping them understand the people they will interact with throughout their lives, and that includes the influence of faith and religious identity.

That commitment to multifaith understanding is a primary goal of the university’s Multifaith Strategic Plan, which strives to “support opportunities for multifaith learning and engagement for all members of the academic community.”

“����app�ٷ���վ�� Multifaith Strategic Plan is a promise to our students, faculty, staff and the wider community that we will take them seriously as whole, complex people,” said Brian Pennington, director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society.

The multifaith experience

The Multifaith Scholars Program is a two-year program, founded in 2016, that emphasizes interdisciplinary learning as student scholars undertake original research projects and study in global contexts connected with religious diversity and multireligious societies.

“Our work is richer when we have students bringing questions from their own disciplines,” said Amy Allocco, director of the program and professor of religious studies. “It is a sign of a vibrant campus ecosystem when not only students but also their mentors can see their interests and expertise ��intersect with questions of interreligious contact, religion and society.”

Allocco says that the breadth of disciplines represented by students and mentors participating in the program has widened each year. The current cohort includes students with diverse majors such as psychology, theatrical design, history, economics consulting, political science, religious studies, and international and global Studies. Owen Hayes ’26, a history major with minors in political science and religious studies, is a 2024-2026 Multifaith Scholar studying the historical and contemporary relationship between Christian missionaries and Indigenous Australians.

“I’ve always been interested in understanding the interreligious encounters of the world, like global Christianity and understanding how different communities can come together and understand such an important religious concept in such different, varying ways, but still have that belief of Christianity,” Hayes said.

The interreligious studies minor also allows students to analyze the historical and contemporary encounters between and interactions among religious communities and traditions.

“Elon has done incredible work in enfranchising multifaith as an academic as well as a student affairs initiative and aligning and even blending those areas in meaningful ways that enhance the student experience,” Allocco said.

Multifaith in the classroom (and clinic)

In the Department of Nursing, faculty don’t just train future healthcare professionals on specific medical assessments but, as Assistant Professor of Nursing Lori Hubbard says, they “prepare students for the diversity in the populations they will serve,” including religion.

“Diversity in people is understanding their religious background, because religious practices are often infused into health practices and health beliefs,” said Hubbard, who teaches the Healthcare Relationships course, which focuses on understanding diverse backgrounds in healthcare.

The course is just one component of the Department of Nursing’s commitment to equitable healthcare teaching, which is incorporated throughout the curriculum.

“From birth to death and everywhere in between, the people that are going to be important in a person’s wellness or their healing may come from their church body,” said Hubbard, who says they also want students to understand the role of the chaplain in a hospital setting. “People may have members of a church congregation bring them meals, they may have pastors and friends visit to pray with them. A person’s support network is a social determinant of health.”

In December 2025, a faculty team consisting of Pennington, Jeanmarie Koonts, assistant professor of nursing; Molly Green, assistant professor of public health, and Helen Orr, assistant professor of religious studies, was awarded a $60,000 Faith & Health Campus Grant from Interfaith America to promote awareness of how religious diversity impacts healthcare space and medical decision-making.

Engineering a multifaith course

Along with nursing, several Elon courses across disciplines integrate multifaith understanding. Orr is co-teaching a new course, Engineering A Better World, with Professor of Engineering Sirena Hargrove-Leak on ethical practices in engineering.

“Religion is an important category for a lot of people, and it informs not only beliefs, but also everyday practice and ritual, including when people fast, how they dress and how they interact in professional spaces,” Orr said. “One of our sessions in the course focuses on the value of multi-faith spaces in professional working environments. Those spaces can be beneficial both for religious people and non-religious people, while also encouraging us to think about how environments themselves can be designed to be more inclusive.”

Hargrove Leak says the engineering curriculum requires an ethics course and, historically, faculty advised students to choose an ethics course through the Core Curriculum. The downside, she says, is they may not connect what they’re learning to engineering practice. This new course, she says, connects the dots directly.

“The work of engineering professionals has the potential to impact people directly; therefore, ethical practice is critically important,” said Hargrove-Leak.

Communicating religion

While Orr and Hargrove-Leak’s course is new this semester, Professor of Journalism Anthony Hatcher has been studying and teaching the intersection of religion and media for more than 20 years. His course Religion and Media analyzes how the two interact through media coverage of religious issues and themes, religion’s use of television and the Internet and media portrayals of religious people and traditions.

Hatcher began teaching the course in 2003, coming from a longtime interest in the intersection of the two subjects.

“It has always sparked my interest how religion intersects not only with a news item, but how it intersects with popular culture,” he said. “I tell my students, ‘If there is a secular entity of some sort, there is a religious corollary to it.’”

Finding religious connections in culture is endless for Hatcher, who says he never runs out of material for the course. For one assignment, students must attend a house of worship outside of their own faith and do a research project on the experience. The projects range from more well-known religious practices to lesser-known, like a student who visited a coven of witches in Hillsborough, North Carolina

“I make it clear: this is not a religion class. I’m not here to teach you about the scripture,” Hatcher said. “When they go (to these houses of worship), it’s not just a religious thing. I say, ‘What kind of media did they use? Do they have cameras? Do they have a single microphone? Do they use screens and slides? Is it a majestic organ? What are you seeing there? Did they give you a paper program? Everything that’s media.’ It gets them thinking about all the mediated ways that they experience religion.”

The course is open to all majors, and Hatcher says it can be relevant for all professions.

“The subject matter is so important,” Hatcher said. “It’s like how study abroad is mind-broadening. I think understanding where somebody else comes from, especially if faith is a big part of who they are, is a big deal.”

And for Pennington, ����app�ٷ���վ�� approach to multifaith learning is an example for others to follow.

“We live in a moment where we can clearly see that the faith commitments and religious practices interact with our global politics, our legal systems, our media environments, and our healthcare systems,” said Pennington. “By attending to multifaith education across academic departments and programs, ����app�ٷ���վ�� is leading the way in preparing its students for a rapidly evolving world.”

This story is part of a series of stories focusing on ����app�ٷ���վ��’s Multifaith Strategic Plan.��

“We are quicker to anger, we let anger drive too many of our interactions,” Bruni said. “There’s a culture that’s taking hold wherever everybody is taking inventory over what their slights are. They’re turning minor slights into major crises. They’re looking for someone to blame. They’re looking for someone to punish. That’s the story of our politics.”

Bruni explores this concept in his New York Times bestseller “The Age of Grievance,” and, on April 9, spoke of how society got to this place and how it can move past it, in a sold-out James P. Elder Lecture in ����app�ٷ���վ��’s Whitley Auditorium, part of the 2025-26 ����app�ٷ���վ�� Speaker Series.

Bruni served at The New York Times for more than 25 years as a White House correspondent, the Rome bureau chief, the paper’s chief restaurant critic and op-ed columnist. He is the author of five New York Times bestsellers.

Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Dillan Bono-Lunn welcomed the audience Thursday night, before Charlotte Pfabe ’27, a communications fellow and “ENN Tonight” anchor, introduced Bruni.��The James P. Elder Lecture series was first endowed by former students of the popular professor and mentor. An��estate gift��from Elder in 2021 doubled the endowment of the speaker series, ensuring it will endure for future generations.

Polluted media landscape

In his address, Bruni discussed three ways Americans got to the “age of grievance,” the first being the “polluted media landscape.” This landscape is something Bruni knows intimately after working for The New York Times. As more media outlets exists, along with social media, Bruni says that “nobody is living in the same reality.”

“Truth itself has become a marketplace with lousy merchants,” Bruni said. “There are no more gatekeepers when it comes to the information that’s put out.”

To combat this issue, Bruni says, there needs to be continuous discussions with young people about what is happening on social media and the “lopsided” role of information and whether “they are using social media or it is using them.”

Micro-climates of exclusivity

Another reason Americans have moved into the “age of grievance,” Bruni says, is because of “micro-climates of exclusivity,” how everything from entertainment, travel, dining, etc. has incorporated levels of tiering, mainly based on how much one pays. Bruni says this “pecking order” has existed for a long time in society, but has moved into “every facet, every corner of our lives.” Bruni says social media only makes the issue worse.

“There are all of these peep holes into how other people are living, and they present a very, very warped view that leads people to feel left out and resentful,” he said. “Social media platforms are engines of envy.”

But Bruni says people don’t have to buy into these micro-climates and instead focus on “civic care”: how people are taking care of society around them.��

Primed for disappointment

The third reason Bruni says Americans have moved into the “age of grievance” is because they have become more pessimistic, noting that a minority of Americans now believe their children will do better than them in life.

“We’ve all become catastrophists in front of our children. We’re just so primed for disappointment,” he said. “If I believe that tomorrow is certainly going to be darker than today, if I believe everything is going to hell, then I no longer have a collaborative relationship with you.”

Though he says all hope is not lost, people should avoid activities like “doom scrolling,” where you continuously look at negative news updates on social media, and get out of a cycle of pessimism.

“We need to start talking in a more realistic fashion about whether that pessimism is warranted,” said Bruni. “So much of it is not about the world being worse, it’s about expectations and a shortfall of expectations.”

The key, Bruni says, to get out of this “age of grievance,” and not “feel terrible all the time,” starts with perspective.

“Each of us (needs) to decide not to be that person who always sees things the most darkly, who is primed for offense, who is spoiling for a fight and is looking for people to be angry,” he said. “Because the way a culture changes is with each of us, and then our friends, and then our friends’ friends, and then we actually have enough people to make a difference and have a better America.”

On April 4,�� the Elon Engineering Club, Phoenix Racing Club and the Department of Physical Therapy brought the Go Baby Go Initiative to ����app�ٷ���վ�� campus for the first time. Founded in 2012 at the University of Delaware, Go Bo Baby is a national initiative that modifies ride-on toy cars to meet the individual physical needs of young children who experience mobility challenges.

Six young children zipped across the pavement in brightly colored toy cars, laughter trailing behind them. These weren’t ordinary rides; they had been carefully reimagined by those same students inside, transformed into custom vehicles designed just for the kids who drove them.

The collaborative effort between the Elon Engineering Club, Phoenix Racing and the Department of Physical Therapy brought the Go Baby Go Initiative to ����app�ٷ���վ�� campus for the first time. Founded in 2012 at the University of Delaware, Go Bo Baby is a national initiative that modifies ride-on toy cars to meet the individual physical needs of young children who experience mobility challenges.

Julianna Millett ’26 spearheaded ����app�ٷ���վ�� effort with fellow engineering majors Diego Hernandez ’26 and Abigail Johnson ’27, after learning about the program through their Tikkun Olam Makers Fellowship. The TOM Fellowship Program is a nine-month international program that supports campus leaders, students and faculty in leading “communities” of students who use their engineering and design skills to co-create TOM Solutions for problems faced by people with disabilities, the elderly and the poor.

“For a lot of children, this is their first mobility device. Insurance isn’t going to cover a mobility aid because kids grow so fast,” said Millett. “With this car, it’s giving them almost a first experience of having some autonomy over their movement.”

On Saturday, engineering students adapted the car’s gas pedal to be a button on the steering wheel so the children could drive the car more efficiently, and physical therapy students helped adjust five-point harnesses so the children could also ride comfortably.

Sirena Hargrove-Leak, professor of engineering, views this work as an extension of ����app�ٷ���վ�� Engineering Design for Service course, where students work in small teams to design devices for systems that aid a local community client.

“Now it becomes an extracurricular engagement for students who are really motivated by that type of work to be able to continue it, and it connects them to a much larger organization,” said Hargrove-Leak. “It’s international and several other institutions of higher education are part of this, so just having that connectivity with other people who are doing similar work and moving it into the extracurricular space broadens and deepens that experience.”

Rebekkah Manning’s 4-year-old son, Henry has cerebral palsy and works regularly with the Department of Physical Therapy. Manning says Henry has not been able to play like other children his age due to his condition.

“A lot of options are not open to him. Even the rides at the city park are not adaptable and accessible,” she said. “It’s discouraging to try to be the mother and father of a child who wants to play, and he can’t.”

Henry was fitted into his car on Saturday while his father controlled the driving through a remote control, and Henry was also able to use the steering wheel button to drive.

“It is a dream come true because it’s something that we realized that we couldn’t do with Henry unless we had help,” said Manning. “When he got in, he got a little bit nervous, and everybody was watching, but then after a few laps here, did you see his smile grow? And he started interacting more. So, it is definitely a confidence builder.”

Carrie McCollum heard about the Go Baby Go program through their family’s physical therapist at Cone Health, who is an Elon alum. McCollum’s daughter BillieAnn has cerebral palsy, and while her older brother had driven her in his toy car, McCollum says it’s safer and better for BillieAnn to now drive her own.

“I hope to see her getting outside more often,” said McCollum. “We live on a farm, we have plenty of open space for her to move around on, but the wheelchair does not go well on gravel or rough terrain. I hope that this will be a way for her to drive around and see things out in our yard and on our farm.”

Hargrove-Leak says while this experience has been beneficial for the families involved, the students and her find it rewarding as well.

“It is so fulfilling to be able to serve as a mentor for these students,” said Hargrove-Leak. “I have just enjoyed watching them grow as servant leaders, using their knowledge and skills to help other people. That’s always been my dream as an engineering educator, to try to encourage students to use what they’re learning for good in the world.”

This event is sold out.

Journalist and bestselling author Frank Bruni will deliver the Elder Lecture on Thursday, April 9, at 6:30 p.m. in Whitley Auditorium.

Bruni is the author of five New York Times bestsellers including “The Age of Grievance,” a dive into why Americans are so angry. He makes the case that Americans conflate legitimate causes and petty complaints, creating a condition of constant self-victimization. People obsess over how they’ve been wronged and who to blame, which poses a threat to American democracy, rather than choosing to focus on civil, productive dialogue and constructive action.

“The Beauty of Dusk” is a memoir detailing Bruni’s adjustment to the sudden loss of vision in one eye and the acceptance of the reality that the same fate could befall the other at any moment. It earned rave reviews from people and publications including Oprah Winfrey, Katie Couric, People magazine, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The first openly gay op-ed columnist at the Times, Bruni is a recipient of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association’s Randy Shilts Award for his career-long contributions to the LGBTQ community and the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Newspaper Columnist. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing, he is the Eugene C. Patterson Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.

Kari Taylor ’09 will be transitioning from her current role in the President’s Office to a new position as Elon’s Deputy Chief Integration Officer, based in Charlotte. Beginning June 1, Kari will play a pivotal role in ����app�ٷ���վ�� integration efforts, bringing the relationship-building expertise, collaborative efforts and strategic vision she has demonstrated through her extensive leadership at Elon.

An Elon alumna who earned both her undergraduate degree and MBA, Kari joined the President’s staff in 2018 and has been instrumental in amplifying campus engagement through innovative strategies and meaningful initiatives, such as the 1923 Commemoration, fostering trust and building community.

Director of New Student Programs Emily Krechel will transition to the President’s Office as Deputy Chief of Staff for Campus Engagement and Strategic Initiatives, also effective June 1. Emily joined the Elon community in 2017 and holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education from UNC Greensboro, where her research focused on equity and student success, and her career includes leadership roles at UC Berkeley, Earlham College, and now Elon.

As co-chair of the university’s Mentoring Initiative Design Team and former chair of Staff Advisory Council, Emily is a dedicated advocate for meaningful relationships on campus and embodies our commitment to student-centered excellence. Her deep belief in our mission, passion for student development, and proven ability to build transformative programs make her an outstanding addition to our team.

“These transitions reflect the strength of Elon’s leadership pipeline and our commitment to positioning talented colleagues where they can have the greatest impact,” said President Connie Ledoux Book in an email to the university community. “Please join me in congratulating Kari on her new opportunity and welcoming Emily to her expanded role.”

In a survey of 800 North Carolina adults conducted from March 13 to 20, 2026, 70% said they have heard a “great deal” or “some” about Cooper, compared to just 35% who have heard the same amount about his Republican opponent, Michael Whatley.

Whatley, who formerly served as chair of the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party, remains largely unknown to registered voters. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (62%) said they have heard “only a little” (33%) or “nothing” (29%) about him.

When asked about their overall impressions, 48% of registered voters viewed Cooper favorably and 34% unfavorably. For Whatley, 25% of registered voters viewed him favorably, 34% unfavorably and a plurality of 41% hold a neutral opinion.��

Election fairness and administration

Looking ahead to the fall mid-terms, the poll highlights a striking drop in public confidence regarding the integrity of the national vote count. Only 38% of North Carolinians said they believe this year’s election will produce a fair and accurate count of the votes cast nationwide.

While only 21% explicitly said the count will��not��be fair, a sizable 41% of voters said they are “unsure.” This represents a significant decline in confidence from an Elon Poll conducted in August 2024, when 48% believed the count would be fair and accurate, and 32% were unsure.

Despite this growing uncertainty, North Carolinians fiercely oppose the idea of the federal government taking over election administration. When asked if election administration should remain a state government responsibility or change to a federal responsibility, 63% of residents said it should remain with the states. Only 12% support nationalizing voting processes, while 25% are unsure.

The preference for state-run elections crosses party lines: 79% of Democrats, 56% of Republicans, and 53% of Independents all agreed that state governments should retain primary responsibility for election administration within their borders.

“While the U.S. Senate race continues to take shape around a major gap in voter familiarity with the candidates, a broader story emerging from the 2026 election is how North Carolinians view the electoral process itself,” said Jason Husser, director of the ����app�ٷ���վ�� Poll. “North Carolinians are increasingly anxious and uncertain about whether the national vote count will be fair, even more than they were in the contentious 2024 election. Yet, most voters do not see federal intervention as the solution. Rather, we measured a strong, bipartisan consensus that election administration belongs in the hands of the states.”

Regarding the partisan balance of power, voters currently show a slight preference for Democratic control of Congress. Forty percent of respondents favored Democratic to control of both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 elections, compared to 35% who preferred Republican control.

State approval ratings and policy issues

The poll also surveyed North Carolinians on state leadership and several hot-button policy issues:

• Approval Ratings:��Democratic Gov. Josh Stein received a positive job approval rating (43% approve, 27% disapprove). By contrast, the North Carolina General Assembly earns lower marks, with just 21% approving of the legislature’s job performance and 37% disapproving (42% are unsure).
• Data Centers:��As technology infrastructure expands globally, 44% of residents said they would oppose the construction of a large data center in their local community, compared to 24% who would support it and 32% who were unsure.
• Concealed Carry Permits:��The General Assembly has recently considered allowing concealed carry of handguns without a permit. A clear majority of North Carolinians (56%) said they oppose removing the permit requirement, which currently involves a fee, safety training and a background check. Only 30% supported removing the requirement. These numbers reflect slight change from a that found 54% opposed to removing the requirement.
• Healthcare:��A large majority (68%) said they are “very” or “somewhat” concerned that federal government cuts in health care spending might make it harder for them to get the care they need. Furthermore, 47% of respondents grade the U.S. healthcare system with a “D” or “F,” while 30% give it a “C.”
• Economy: Opinions about the North Carolina economy remained virtually unchanged compared with the September 2025 ����app�ٷ���վ�� Poll, with 29% giving the state’s economic condition an “A” or “B” and 71% giving it a “C,” “D” or “F.”

Poll Methodology

Access the poll topline and methodology at:��. The survey was developed by the ����app�ٷ���վ�� Poll and fielded by the international marketing and polling firm YouGov as an online, web-based survey, self-administered with online panels. Between March 13 and March 20, 2026, YouGov interviewed 928 North Carolina adults aged 18 and older. These respondents were then matched down to a sample of 800 to produce the final dataset.

The matched cases were weighted to the sampling frame using propensity scores based on age, gender, race/ethnicity, years of education, and home ownership. The margin of error for this poll (adjusted for weights) is +/-4.43%.

����app�ٷ���վ�� the ����app�ٷ���վ�� Poll

Established in 2000, the ����app�ٷ���վ�� Poll conducts national and North Carolina surveys on issues of importance to voters and residents. Information from these polls is shared with media, citizens and public officials to facilitate informed public policy making through the better understanding of citizens’ opinions and attitudes. The poll is fully funded by ����app�ٷ���վ�� and operates as the neutral, non-biased information resource.

The ����app�ٷ���վ�� Poll is a charter member of the��, a program created by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) in 2014 to educate polling firms on ways to better share how they collect and interpret their information. The Elon Poll’s voluntary participation in this initiative signifies a willingness to clearly state in its reports how questions were asked, in what order, who funded the poll and then conducted it, and a definition of the population under study, among other details.

The article was published in “Action in Teacher Education,” by Associate Professor of Education Heidi Hollingsworth, Associate Professor of Education Lisa Buchanan, Abigail Maclean Wilson ’21, Felicia Robinson ’21, and William S. Long Professor and Professor of Education Jeffrey Carpenter.

The research focuses on the impact of a course-based community asset mapping project on undergraduate students’ capacity for identifying and understanding assets within communities surrounding specific schools.

“Action in Teacher Education is a journal that I find relevant to my work in the undergraduate Teacher Education and M.Ed. programs here at Elon, and I have attended and presented at the ATE Annual Meeting conference in the past, so it was exciting for our article to be recognized in this way,” said Heidi Hollingsworth, associate professor of education, and one of the authors. “Huge thanks to my co-authors who were integral in the conceptualization and implementation of the project and the analyses that led to this publication.”

“The best part of this multi-year project was working with faculty colleagues and graduates. It is an honor write together and to share this award with them,” said Lisa Buchanan, associate professor of education and one of the authors.

Sponsored by the Robert Schuck Fund, this award recognizes and promotes exceptional research that makes a substantial contribution to the improvement of teacher education. Established in honor of Robert F. Schuck, the award reflects his enduring commitment to rigorous scholarship that strengthens the field. Through this recognition, ATE seeks to encourage research that advances teacher education, supports the national and international dissemination of impactful findings, and expands the knowledge base that informs our profession.

����app�ٷ���վ�� the Authors

Heidi Hollingsworth��is an associate professor of education at ����app�ٷ���վ��. Her research focuses on teacher preparation that involves policy and advocacy, community-based learning, academic service-learning, community asset mapping and study abroad.

Lisa Buchanan��is an associate professor of education at ����app�ٷ���վ��. Her research in teacher education is focused on preservice and in service teachers’ beliefs and decision making, social studies education and the use of children’s literature and media to teach difficult topics.

Jeffrey Carpenter��is a professor of education at ����app�ٷ���վ��. His research focuses on self-directed and collaborative teacher learning.

Abigail Maclean Wilson ’21��graduated from ����app�ٷ���վ�� in 2021 with a major in elementary education and a minor in early childhood education. She recently spent two years in Zambia working with a university ministry.

Felicia Robinson ’21��graduated from ����app�ٷ���վ�� in 2021 with a major in elementary education and a minor in African and African American studies. She is an educator and a program assistant for the Intercultural Learning Certificate Program at ����app�ٷ���վ��.