Faculty Research Awards: CLA Recipients

CLA would like to congratulate the 22-23 Faculty Research Award recipients from the college: 

Faculty Member: Beth Manke, Professor, Human Development & LBCIP Program Director; Jake Wilson, Professor, Sociology & LBCIP Internship Course Instructor/ Coordinator 

Project Title: Long Beach Community Internship Program: Promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 

Project Theme #1 – EDI Campus Programming 

Abstract: The Long Beach Community Internship Program (LBCIP) is a high impact internship program for CSULB students who graduated from Long Beach area high schools. The primary goal of LBCIP is to curate paid internships for students with local nonprofits, creating a bridge for low-income students of color back to their own communities to work and live. LBCIP aims to close the racial equity gap of paid internships and the loop of the Long Beach College Promise while ensuring students have opportunities to do meaningful work, hone professional skills, build high quality job networks, and explore local career options in local nonprofits. LBCIP intentionally partners with organizations that are not profit driven, many of which promote racial and social justice. In order to scale LBCIP, it is crucial that we gather data on students’ internship experiences so that we can develop additional program components that explicitly center anti-racism, equity, and social justice (i.e. community site trainings and workshops for students). For this project, we will utilize a multi-method evaluation of LBCIP where we gather information about racialized experiences and impact data from both students and community host partners. This will be the first effort on campus to evaluate internship programming through an EDI lens. Our research goals are as follows: (1) to better understand LBCIP student intern experiences especially those related to racism and classism; and (2) to better understand LBCIP site supervisors’ experiences mentoring and supervising student interns. Evaluation data will help LBCIP secure external funding while also improving LBCIP student internship experiences by developing anti-racism trainings for LBCIP site supervisors and EDI workshops for students. 

Faculty Member: Kimberly Kelly, Associate Professor, Human Development 

Project Title: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in High-Impact Practices at The Beach: Student Experiences and Perceptions of Internships, Undergraduate Research, and Service Learning 

Project Theme #2 – EDI Campus Information 

Abstract: Approximately one in three CSULB undergraduates participates in an internship, research experience, or service-learning class during their time at The Beach. These High-Impact Practices (HIPs), among others, are widely considered essential experiences for undergraduate students that lead to greater academic achievement, learning outcomes, and personal and social development. However, most existing HIPs research is limited by its focus on HIPs at predominantly white institutions, often obscuring the experiences of historically marginalized students. To investigate whether all students have equal access to and equitable experiences in HIPs, research is urgently needed at Minority-Serving Institutions to amplify the experiences of students of color, as well as students who are first-generation and from lower-income backgrounds; in internships; research; and service learning. The current project uses a mixed-methods design to analyze institutional student demographic data and survey data on CSULB student experiences in internships, undergraduate research, and service learning. Quantitative analyses will test whether the degree of participation, quality of experiences, and perceived learning gains vary by race, first-generation status, and Pell eligibility. Qualitative analyses of open-ended survey responses will identify what, if any, barriers to HIPs participation and inequities in experiences exist for CSULB students. The results center the experiences of historically marginalized students in HIPs, unpack inequities in program implementation, and reveal barriers to participation. The findings can be used to develop empirically based and actionable recommendations to increase equity in HIPs implementation and access to HIPs programming at The Beach.   

Thank you for your hard work in these important areas. Go Beach!