The EC2000 Project Personnel

The principal investigators bring a wealth of methodological and topical experience to the project. In addition to knowledge and skills in quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, the Penn State group brings national reputations in the areas of assessment of college student learning outcomes (P. T. Terenzini), organizational and administrative issues in higher education (J. F. Volkwein), and postsecondary curriculum and instruction (L. R. Lattuca). Dr. Terenzini’s work for the ECSEL Coalition provides the team with substantive knowledge of engineering education. This expertise will be supplemented by a consulting relationship with Drs. Carol Colbeck and James Fairweather who also have experience in assessing engineering education.

Faculty

Lisa R. Lattuca

Project Director and Co-Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor of Education and Research Associate

Dr. Lattuca holds a Ph.D. in education from the University of Michigan, an M.P.S. from Cornell University, and a B.S. from Saint Peter’s College. Her research and teaching interests include postsecondary curricula, teaching, and learning; engineering education; the influence of academic disciplines on faculty work; interdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge production; learning theory; and qualitative research methods. She is the co-author of Shaping the College Curriculum: Academic Plans in Action (1997) and co-editor of College and University Curriculum: Developing and Cultivating Program of Study that Enhance Student Learning (2001) as well as studies of the influence of academic disciplines on postsecondary curricular reform. Dr. Lattuca is also the author of Creating Interdisciplinarity: Interdisciplinary Research among College and University Faculty.

Dr. Lattuca served as Co-principal investigator of an NSF-commissioned study of the planning processes of interdisciplinary collaborations of faculty working to improve engineering and science education. Her related work experiences include two years of service as an Associate Program Officer with the Spencer Foundation (Chicago, IL) and six years as a college administrator. 

Patrick T. Terenzini

Co-Principal Investigator
Professor and Senior Scientist

Terenzini has over 30 years of experience in higher education as a teacher, researcher, and administrator. He holds an A. B. in English from Dartmouth College, an M.A.T. in English education from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in higher education from Syracuse University. His research interests include the impact of college on students, student retention, institutional research and planning, and the assessment of student learning outcomes. He has extensive experience with large-scale research design, multivariate statistics, program evaluation, and policy analysis. From 1998-2000, Terenzini (with Carol Colbeck) directed CSHE’s evaluation of the Engineering Coalition of Schools for Excellence in Education and Leadership (ECSEL). ECSEL was an NSF-funded coalition of seven leading schools of engineering that were developing innovative engineering curricula and instructional practices and seeking to increase recruitment and retention among women and historically underrepresented minorities. This project concentrated on documenting the extent of the institutionalization of curricula and pedagogies consistent with ABET’s EC 2000 criteria, as well as the measurement of the student learning outcomes contained in Criterion 3.

Prior to the ECSEL Project, Dr. Terenzini was associate director for research of the National Center for Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (NCTLA), and one of the lead researchers in NCTLA’s National Study of Student Learning (NSSL). He has published over 100 articles in refereed journals and made more than 150 invited presentations at national scholarly and professional conferences. Terenzini is co-author (with Ernest T. Pascarella) of How College Affects Students (Jossey-Bass, 1991), an award-winning synthesis of twenty years of research on the impacts of the college experience on students. He has received distinguished research awards from the Association for Institutional Research, the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the American College Personnel Association, the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, and the College Personnel Associations of New York and Pennsylvania. He is also a three-time winner of AIR’s Forum Best Paper Award.

Most recently, Terenzini (with A. F. Cabrera, C. L. Colbeck, J. M. Parente, and S. A. Bjorklund) received the William Elgin Wickenden Award from the American Society for Engineering Education for the best paper published in the Journal of Engineering Education during 2001. Terenzini is (or has been) a member of the editorial boards of Research in Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, and Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research. From 1984-1996, he was editor-in-chief of New Directions for Institutional Research. He is also a past president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

J. Fredericks Volkwein

Co-Principal Investigator
Professor and Senior Scientist

Dr. Volkwein comes to Penn State from the State University of New York at Albany where he had been director of institutional research and a faculty member in the Department of Educational Administration and Policy Studies for 30 years. Since receiving a bachelor's degree from Pomona College and a Ph.D. from Cornell University, he has produced more than 100 research reports, conference papers, journal articles, and book reviews. His teaching and research interests include the areas of academic program evaluation and accreditation, enrollment management, faculty governance and administrative structure, government regulation and university autonomy, planning strategies and models, assessment of student learning and growth, faculty scholarly productivity, and the study of colleges and universities as complex organizations. All his scholarly work is related, directly or indirectly, to the topic of organizational effectiveness. He currently is working with Middle States, ABET, and AACSB on an evaluation of combined versus separated accreditation processes at universities like Binghamton and Drexel.

Dr. Volkwein has served as a consulting editor for three higher education journals, and in 1995 became the new editor-in chief of the Jossey-Bass series, New Directions for Institutional Research. He has been a frequent contributor to professional workshops and meetings at AIR, NEAIR, and SAIR. Dr. Volkwein also served for two years on the AIR Executive Board and chaired the AIR Publications Committee. He just completed a term as President of NEAIR, and in New York, he served for two years as President of its Association for Institutional Research and Planning Officers. From 1994 to 1996, Dr. Volkwein chaired the Middle States Advisory Committee that produced the publication, Framework for Outcomes Assessment. He is the 2001 winner of the AIR Suslow Award for Distinguished Scholarship, and teaches institutional research and administration courses in the Penn State Higher Education Program.

Research Staff

Linda C. Strauss

Senior Project Associate (2003-2005)

Dr. Strauss has more than ten years of experience as an administrator and researcher in higher education. She initiated a living-learning experience for underrepresented students in the sciences and engineering at Penn State and, in 1998, was selected as an Administrative Fellow to Penn State’s Senior Vice President of Finance and Business/Treasurer. Strauss has published on a wide array of topics ranging from the impact of institutional and student characteristics on student outcomes to racial identity development. She has co-authored several book chapters and has published in Research in Higher Education and the Journal of Higher Education. Most recently, Strauss served as an institutional research consultant to the Office of Undergraduate Education at Penn State, and she teaches a course on research and assessment in student affairs.

Suzanne S. Bienert

Project Assistant (2003-2005)

Ms. Bienert holds a M.Ed. from The Pennsylvania State University in Higher Education and a B.S. from Lock Haven University in Management Science. She served as the Administrative Assistant for The American Center for the Study of Distance Education (ACSDE) from 1999 to 2002. Her main responsibility included serving as the production/marketing manager for The American Journal of Distance Education and other publications.  She also served as the ACSDE human resources manager, financial manager, and office manager. During her years of service she lead a team to produce three books of readings and was in charge of graphic design for the book covers. In 2001 Suzanne designed a new cover for The American Journal of Distance Education.

From 1993 to 1996, Suzanne served as the Administrative Assistant for the Center for Advanced Materials in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State. Suzanne administered personnel, financial, and contractual matters of three general funds and fifty research funds with approximately $3.5 million in annual funding.

Suzanne's research interests are in assessment of students, programs, and curriculum. She is also interested in instructional design, e-learning, Web-based education, multimedia, and graphic design.

Graduate Research Assistants

Vicki L. Baker

Graduate Assistant (2003-2005) 

Vicki received her PhD in Higher Education in 2006. Vicki received her B.S. degree in Safety Sciences with minors in Applied Statistics and Spanish from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a Masters of Business Administration from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to Penn State, Vicki worked as an Administrator for three years at Harvard Business School 's Executive Education Division. While at Harvard, Vicki pursued course work in Higher Education at Harvard's Graduate School of Education.

From 2003-2005, Vicki was a research assistant on the project team evaluating the impact of ABET's EC2000 accreditation standards at Engineering Schools. Vicki has co-authored and presented scholarly papers on the ABET EC 2000 study and doctoral student persistence. Vicki's research interests include mentoring, doctoral student attrition, and social networks theory. Vicki's future goal is to earn a faculty position in either Management and Organizations or Higher Education.

Robert Jaymes Domingo

Graduate Assistant (2005-2006)

Robert Domingo is a doctoral candidate in the Higher Education Program at Penn State. He earned his M.A. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from The Ohio State University and his B.A. in English and Philosophy from Case Western Reserve University. Robert has nearly four years of professional experience in academic advising and one year in student financial aid. Robert's research interests include undergraduate student retention, the college and university environment, and professionals in student and academic affairs.

Betty J. Harper

Graduate Assistant (2005-2007)

Betty received her PhD in Higher Education in 2008. Before returning to school in the fall of 2004, Betty worked as an undergraduate program coordinator in Penn State 's School of Forest Resources. Betty has a B.S. and an M.S. from the University of Florida in Natural Resources Conservation and Wildlife Ecology respectively. Her research interests include teaching and learning, STEM education, and research methods.

Amber D. Lambert

Graduate Assistant (2005-2007)

Amber received her PhD in Higher Education in 2008. Amber is an Adjunct Mathematics Professor at Hawaii Pacific University where she continues to teach courses on-line. She earned a Masters degree in Public Administration and a B.S. in Mathematics from Indiana University. Her research interests include student access and financing in Higher Education.

Javzan Sukhbaatar

Graduate Research Assistant (2003-2005)

Javzan received his PhD in Higher Educaiton in 2007. He received a diploma (equivalent to a bachelor degree) in commerce from Russian Economics Academy (Russia) and a MBA from Maastricht School of Management (Holland). Before coming to Penn State in 2001 as a Hubert H. Humphrey fellow, Javzan served as Executive Director of the Consortium of Mongolian Management Development Institutions. From 2003-2005, he was a graduate research assistant in the Center for the Study of Higher Education, working with Drs. Lisa Lattuca, Pat Terenzini, and Fred Volkwein on a study of engineering education accreditation.