Three WVU faculty members have been named as the 2019-2020 recipients of the University’s Big 12 Faculty Fellowship Program:
Daniel Eades, associate professor with WVU Extension Service’s Family and Community Development
Margaret Stout, associate professor in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Public Administration
Kimberly Floyd, associate professor College of Education and Human Services’ Department of Learning Sciences and Human Development
The Big 12 Faculty Fellowship Program at WVU is designed to stimulate scholarly initiatives through the creation of an academic community within the institutions in the Big 12 Athletic Conference. The Big 12 Faculty Fellowship Program offers WVU faculty members the opportunity to travel to member institutions to exchange ideas and research. Faculty may work on collaborative research, consult with faculty and students, offer a series of lectures or symposia, acquire new skills or take advantage of a unique archive or laboratory facility.
Two of WVU’s Big 12 Fellows, Eades and Stout, are working on a joint project with Cornelia Butler Flora, distinguished professor emerita of both sociology and agriculture and life sciences at Iowa State University. Flora is a founding architect of the community capitals framework, a method for organizing and understanding the diverse assets involved in community sustainability, resiliency and quality of life. These include natural, cultural, human, social, organizational, political, financial and built forms of capital.
Eades and Stout will collaborate with Flora to investigate and deliberate on potential indicators and metrics for specific social, economic and environmental determinants of health and prosperity. Their goal is to identify a prioritized set of indicators that they can propose to West Virginia stakeholders for possible adoption in longitudinal benchmarking research. Collectively, they are working toward systemic adoption of a shared research, program design, and evaluation methodology that employs the community capitals approach. This approach will establish a common language and structure for collaborative and cooperative research across contributing disciplines.
Floyd is a rural special education issues and needs specialist and will be working with Brittany Hott at the University of Oklahoma to conduct a pilot research study, provide professional development for surrounding communities in either distance education and trauma-informed instructional practices, and gather support from area stakeholders for future research and training. Floyd and Hott will develop a grant proposal for conducting a multi-state, multi-site randomized controlled trial to be implemented during the 2020-2021 school year. They will work with other special education faculty on collaborative grant proposals to be submitted over the summer.
All of the 2020 award recipients will be recognized by President Gordon Gee and Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Maryanne Reed during a faculty and staff awards dinner at Blaney House, which has been postponed until Fall 2020 due to the University’s closure and COVID-19 pandemic.