Doctoral Students Pablo Avila, Bret Beaufeaux, and Ying Tong are the 2023 recipients of the Anna Neumann Supporting Student Research Award.

The Anna Neumann Supporting Student Research Award was spearheaded by Dr. Aimee LaPointe Terosky (HPSE 2005) and supported over the years by Professor Neumann's former students and HPSE supporters. The award recognizes and seeks to advance promising dissertation research on faculty careers and college teaching and learning. 

PABLO AVILA

As a former community college student and now as a staff member at LaGuardia Community College in New York City, Pablo seeks to understand the values, commitments, drives, and other background features of part-time developmental math instructors known to work continually at improving their teaching, and how they go about doing so. His dissertation research considers how these instructors – recognized as consistently seeking to heighten the quality of their teaching – articulate their reasons for doing so given the precarious nature of their adjunct status. He also will document and analyze how these instructors organize themselves toward this aim.

This study is important because as prior research has shown, large numbers of students, including many from historically underrepresented populations, enroll in community college developmental education courses. Research also has shown that these students struggle more in math developmental courses than in reading and writing. Good teaching is, therefore, essential to these students’ learning, thus in moving them through developmental courses and putting them on a track toward degree completion. Given the growing numbers of part-time instructors in community colleges, it will be helpful to know how those who successfully undertake teaching improvement do so.

Pablo is the Associate Director of ePortfolio and Digital Learning at the Center for Teaching and Learning in the Division of Academic Affairs at LaGuardia Community College. In this role, he provides educational technology support to faculty, staff, and students. He also leads professional development for faculty across the college. Pablo also is appointed as an adjunct instructor in the Education & Language Acquisition Department at LaGuardia, teaching a First Year Seminar course for students who are new to college.

BRET BEAUFEAUX

Bret’s research focuses on identifying and explicating the ways in which queer alumnx describe navigating academic and social contexts during their undergraduate career, with specific focus on their use of virtual environments and communities. Through the joint application of contemporary social theory and paradigms of thinking regarding retention and persistence in higher and postsecondary education, Bret’s research seeks to illuminate the ways we define, identify, and engage virtual environments and communities in the college and university setting for queer students. Considering the multiplicity of ways queer students may identify and engage with virtual environments and communities before and during their undergraduate careers, such a study may add conceptual clarity to the discourse on virtuality within academic and social contexts in higher and postsecondary education.

Prior to Teachers College, Bret earned a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of West Florida and an M.S.Ed. in Higher Education Administration from the University of Miami. His undergraduate education in the social sciences and training in enrollment management theory and practice at the University of Miami influence Bret's research interests today. In addition to being a Ph.D. student in the Higher and Postsecondary Education program at Teachers College, Bret works in Residential Life and Housing Services at New York University. Bret serves as a research and editorial assistant for Professor Noah Drezner and has served as a course assistant for Professor Anna Neumann and Professor Katie Conway in ‘Introduction to Research Methods in Education’.

YING TONG

I am Ying, a first-year Ph.D. student in TC’s HPSE program.  I am interested in examining how doctoral students in the social sciences are prepared as future university faculty in Chinese universities.  I expect to examine these students’ intellectual growth and professional development as scholars. I am intrigued by the question of how these doctoral students experience the process of being socialized into their disciplinary and institutional communities.  To carry out this research, I expect to draw on theories of socialization, cognition, and learning, among others.  In the longer term, I plan to expand my research agenda to examine teaching and learning in higher education as well.  My ultimate aim is to contribute to the development of evidence-based policies and practices for promoting effective teaching and professional development of future faculty in higher education institutions, especially so in China.  Through my career, I hope to make a positive impact on the quality of higher education with attention to the intellectual and professional growth of both students and faculty.