Hofstra faculty members present research on LGBTQIA curriculum development
Russ Smith, Director of Residential Education and Adjunct Instructor of Counseling and Mental Health Professions, presents his research on first-generation LGBTQ+ students. // Photo courtesy of Moriah Sukhlal.
Hofstra University hosted its Spring 2022 Diversity Grant Lectures on Wednesday, March 9. Presenters consisted of faculty members across varying disciplines who performed research using the 2021-2022 Faculty Diversity Research and Curriculum Development Grants and the 2021-2022 LGBTQIA Research Initiative Grants.
Each year the provost’s office awards faculty members in any discipline grants to support curriculum development concerning diversity and researching the experiences of the LGBTQ+ community in the suburban area. This year the grants were co-sponsored by the National Center for Suburban Studies.
The lectures began with Scott Lefurgy and Emily Mundorff, associate professors of chemistry, presenting their research on “Improving Outcomes in General Chemistry for Underrepresented and Racially Minoritized STEM Undergraduates Through Early Intervention.”
Students who came from majority groups, white and Asian students, tend to perform much better than students from minority groups, according to Lefurgy and Mundorff.
After applying their two-week summer prep program, Enhancing Student Chemistry Aptitude and Performance Early (ESCAPE), “[Students felt] less anxious, more prepared and [are] feeling like their math skills are where they need to be to succeed,” said Mundorff. The percentage of students who received a D, an F or withdrew from Chemistry 3A decreased while their exam scores increased.
Sabrina Sobel, professor of chemistry, and Vandana Bindra, special assistant professor of chemistry, presented their lecture on “Mentoring and Training Teaching Assistants as Peer Mentors for Chemistry Courses.”
To improve the diversity of teaching assistants, Sobel and Vandana created a program focused on improving the training program of mentors by addressing the ways they “think about teaching and how they think about learning,” Sobel said.
According to Bindra, there was a reduction in the variability of test scores and, by the third exam, the average score increased.
Lectures also focused on the diversity of faculty members and how workplace ostracism impacted relationships among employees.
In the presentation “Workplace Ostracism and Prevention-Oriented Relationship Crafting among Employees with Minority Backgrounds,” Cong Liu, professor of psychology, stated that guilt was also found to predict ingratiation. “The interaction effect between workplace ostracism and the risk distribution was significant in predicting guilt,” Liu said.
Research using the LGBTQ+ grants focused on reshaping the curriculum for physician assistants and nurses on how to cater to the needs of the LGBTQ+ community.
Professor Gina Pontrelli and Dr. Amy Roberts, assistant professors of physician assistant studies, who researched the “Integration of High-Quality LGBTQ+ History and Physical Exam Skills in Physician Assistant Curriculum,” found that students felt more comfortable in articulating the special needs of the transgender patients after attending workshops centered on caring for LGBTQ+ individuals.
In support of expanding the knowledge of LGBTQ+ health care, Donna Willenbrock, assistant professor of nursing and Mary Lemp, assistant professor of nursing and director of the family nursing program, discussed the “Effectiveness of Curriculum-based Education on Nurse Practitioner Student’s Attitudes Towards LGBTQ+ Intimate Partner Violence (IPV).”
Willenbrock and Lemp found that while students reported less discomfort in speaking to LGBTQ+ patients, the biggest issue for nursing practitioner students was not having sufficient time to spend with a patient to get to know what happened.
To gain a better understanding of “The Perspectives of First-Generation Students Who Also Identify as LBGTQIA+,” Russ Smith, director of residential education and adjunct instructor of counseling and mental health professions, conducted a case study to determine the relationship of first-generation LGBTQ+ students among their families and heterosexual peers and how they integrated into the Hofstra community.
In Smith’s findings, students reported that they had tenuous relationships with parents and chose to create a geographic distance with college selection. “[Hofstra LGBTQ students were able to] find [a] quick and positive community with other queer and trans students,” Smith said.
Students such as Bryan Perez, a junior political science major, were happy to see faculty members performing research that represented the student population.
Perez stated that the LGBTQ+ grant lectures provided a way for students to understand the “experiences of [LGBTQ+] students [and] be able to understand their perspectives.”
Students were happy to see faculty members engaged in developing curriculums around diversity.
“The last thing I expected to see [was] my whole department here sitting in front of me watching the presentation,” said Pamela Vallejos, a senior biochemistry student. “Knowing that [professors] are keeping up to date with research like this, that doesn't just involve their specific area of study, but involves [the] community as a whole, shows that they’re not just trying to build students in terms of academics but also build a strong community around those departments.”
