Doctoral Defense - Kristi Johns (April 9, 2020)

Constance there's a in the top right if you probably have all you zoom I want to go to the beauties oh my god me too you'll see there's something click for speaker view or gallery view so right now I have it on gallery so let's just kind of go around in a circle and introduce ourselves my name is Melanie Bertrand and I've had the honor of being going along and this journey with Christi and being her dissertation chair and let's see for me Lindsay is next on the in the in the listing I'm a clinical assistant professor in our higher education program at ASU and happy to be a committee member for Christie wonderful and for me Lauren is next hi my name is Lauren I was Christine intern for this past semester and we worked on the Instagram pages there and even I'm Ethan I'm Chris these other interns from the past semester hi everyone my name is Brooke noeul's I'm an associate professor of communication and network science at Northeastern University a member of Christy's committee and we met through a mutual connection at Northwestern where I did buy a PhD and she was at least located for some of the time who's doing this [Music] I'm leaving myself hi everybody I'm Joe Santo formerly I'd worked when I met Christy I was working with the department in diversity multicultural affairs at Loyola University of Chicago I'm thrilled to be part of this is to see you antosha hi I'm Tasha I'm a graduate student at ASU I met Christiana event and interested in a topic thank you all so much for being here and joining us I want to give a special thanks to the committee thank you so much doctors Dippold and oil wells appreciate you so much and thank you to the rest of the folks who are here I mean you know what what an amazing group present here and I know that everyone contributed to Christy's amazing dissertation in different ways and so that's and I I'm so thankful and I'm sure she is too so just to give you kind of an overview of how we're gonna go forward we're going to go for maximum two hours so in Arizona that's until noon and I think for some folks that's until 3:00 or - it's depending on where you live and so first Christy is gonna do a 25-minute presentation of her dissertation and then we're going to open it up for comments questions and feedback and then for those of you who have never been in a dissertation defense what happens is well if this was live in-person usually what happens is that the committee members ask everyone to leave the room including the person who is defending the dissertation and anyone else other than the committee members and so it's just the committee members sitting in the room talking about the dissertation what change might and we might want to see etc and then we bring everyone back together with final results and steps forward any questions on the process okay all right well let's go ahead and dive in oh I didn't want to say that because of changes related to the corona virus and ASU changed its policies related to online dissertation so usually I the zoom account is through my own zoom account and I record and I'm able to upload it for for Christie to view but in this case what's happened is that it's the it's the doctoral program accounts that were on right now and so the recording started as soon as I entered the room so so we're actually the whole thing is being recorded whether we like it or not and so and then once that's all done it'll be edited and then Christie will be able to view it and it'll actually be public so anyone will be able to view it including everyone in this room so without any further taking any further time I want to turn it over to Christie for your presentation thank you thank you everyone this is it means a lot to I know like my committee members have to be here but I'm also very glad that you're here and I'm glad that everyone that's coming to listen to my dissertation defense I tried to cut down on the amount of time it would be and I feel like in the effort I made me no longer see how this goes in the right amount of time okay now let me check really quick is everyone able to see it yet no not yet there it is very good okay so welcome my defense it's titled spreading the wealth the influence of first-generation college students and network counter storytelling on social capital theory in practice I want to begin by presenting to two different quotes that I feel like really represent the crux of my dissertation the first comes from a recent publication white Hamid ani and Marcus that explained the u.s. higher education reflects and promotes assumptions about what it means to be smart educated and successful and that these assumptions are not neutral but are powerfully shaped by white middle dr. class beliefs norms and values and then in contrast to this we have this quote from a student and from our campaign who said I began to explore what it meant to be undocumented in America while also being a woman of color and working class and first gen and all the other identities I hold now that I'm in college I see my identities as my assets they are my superpowers so to give some context and the problem with practice being addressed I'm focused on first-generation college students they make up around 1/3 of the student body in higher education that's a very loose number because the definition of first gen students varies but a very unsettling thing as the graduation rates between first gen students and their non first gen peers which for first gen students of low-income backgrounds its 14% compared to their peers which is 68% there's been a growing push and research and practice to focus on social capital and the influence that has in helping to sustain first-generation students at college this can include creating mentorship programs advising services and different affinity groups for students however there is bias just implicit within a higher education system that is manifest in different ways first it means that in academic research and in the structures of higher ed that these things are shaped by racialized gendered and classed assumptions including additional ones beyond that but those are the primary the three that we address here the I address here it assigns expertise to those who are at the center who hold traditional forms of power and it dismisses the leadership and perspectives and voice of those on the margins the consequences of having this implicit bias in academic research is that we have a very narrow lens that shapes theory and research where we only take one viewpoint and not necessarily the other and that in turn can create a deficit based ideologies around difference and create education practices that reinforce that and then that in turn lays the crux of these design errors it's implicit bias on those who are experiencing the oppression that comes from that that they have to deal with that instead of necessarily you know looking at this design like this stairs to a garage door and seeing maybe the design is problem here now we've seen how fresh perspectives in academia have changed theory I have here pictures of some incredible thought leaders Baldwin creme RA and specifically yo sub whom I focus on here who she brought the critical race Theory perspective to social capital and community wealth and through these fresh perspectives we were able to reframe and change how theory was used in the affected research and practice many of these people that I just shared with first-generation college students themselves so there's this idea that if we have these fresh voices in research and in academia we can have more novel of theoretical lenses in which we do research and that would in turn create more equitable research and practice there's some examples of that there's some studies from a professor a word with the north-western that did difference education interventions where they leverage student voice dr. Bertrand does a lot of research in Waipara which is really leveraging the power of student leadership and research and there's examples of digital activism like Network counter public's that dr. Cole Wells does so the problem practice is that there's this bias in higher education and the research that we have on social capital and first-gen students is being built on these biased in their of the reticle lenses so the intervention that this research implemented was Network counter storytelling meaning that we leveraged network technologies to create a space for student voice their leadership and their activism in order to be involved in the research process the guiding theories of my research I took the two aspects of social capital first I focused on the structural components of social capital presented by Lyn he had three main elements so for him social capital was the resources first that are within a network one's ability to access those resources and then finally the ability to mobilize your networks to use those resources the other framework going to use within those social capital umbrella was community cultural wealth which I said earlier joso presented in that she presented these six forms of capital that are held by communities who are typically pushed to the margins of their organization or society and how they use that as a source of strings and then finally I presenting this new form of this new theory Network counter storytelling which is a merge of Solorzano and yo so scatter story selling and networked counter public's and this is Network counter storytelling and it's using these network technologies to be able to shape a larger community narrative that is owned by those sharing the stories and be able to build social capital and transfer that capital my research design I when I looked at this it's kind of was bringing together these three different aspects it was taking student voice digital activism and the leadership of students and combining it into a social media campaign which we're calling here the networked counter storytelling campaign and in that we were able to leverage this technology amplify student voice and create space for students to be involved in the research process phases of the the first phase was recruiting a campaign team which I am so honored to be able to have my two team members here Ethan and Lauren through the support of Joe he was able to connect me with a group of first generation and students of color at Loyola University so I'm calling it Midwestern I don't know how this is hard cuz they're here right now but we recruited from their program and Ethan and Lauren opted to volunteer and run the campaign alongside me that was last spring and then over the summer I restarted to record interviews with some alum from that program and in order to create podcast and then we worked together to figure out which social media sites we wanted to use the intervention portion of this research took place in the last fall semester where we launched the campaign and in that process we had weekly or we tried to have weekly meetings where we would come up with content for the campaign come up with ideas of you know what type of values to be wanted to hold what was the mission angles and just the iterative process of making a social media campaign and in the last face was these last couple months was doing a final analysis of the data that I collected so I shaped the research questions on these three forms of theory for structural social capital I wanted to know how within the Instagram campaign could we measure those three structural components of social capital and then I also wanted to know in this larger narrative that was created through the campaign how did the students talk about social capital I also went through that larger multimodal narrative and look to see what aspects of community cultural wealth and capital came out and then finally I wanted to understand how students viewed this entire campaign Network counter storytelling and the campaign we created I used a concurrent mixed methods approach where I collected both quantitative and qualitative data along this analyzed and then triangulated that data to find results from those research this is a really helpful method if you're doing action research or participatory action research search where you're working together it's also very effective in social media studies and now let me go through some of the methods so first in order to study the structural social capital I did a network analysis of the Instagram account campaign that we made some of the ways I did that because we owned the account I was able to pull I use all data scraped on my own I called it from our own account also from three sites like our three platforms that are available to Instagram which is Instagram insights and creator studio and then finally I just kept track of data throughout the whole process and kept it in a Google Excel spreadsheet so findings for research question one I wanted to know these three forms of capital first we needed to find a way to measure that and by we I mean I I already have a problem saying that so what I did was I operationalize social capital through storytelling so stories became the resource and in that sense there were both the stories themselves direct and storytellers so the people who held those stories um access was an individual's connection to the stories or storytellers and the mobilization was how individuals could engage with those resources using Instagram metrics I was able to group these into different categories so I'll go through each type so the resources we measured both the real and the potential resources which is a part of the definition lens definition of social capital the direct resources were the posts and the enca stories indirect resources were followers and we found as analyzed we had 41 different posts in 88 insta stories from looking through those there are three main themes of what those stories serving first it was a chance to share actual stories firsthand stories from students I didn't get a chance to reach out to the students see if it's okay to use this picture so we have an emoji smiley face we have they were also used to make commentary on higher education or on their experience and finally stories were used to promote the values of campaign which included ideas like community cultural wealth and intersectionality followers there were a hundred thirteen followers over the process a few of the followers dropped but this was the total number and then took three different time increments across the campaign about a month apart and measured who followed the campaign how large were their own networks were they private or personal accounts and how closely associated were they with the Instagram account we can go into that more detail later because this is gonna be long um access I created some novel ways to evaluate access a lot of these I haven't provided the statistical analysis yeah it's something I want to do but most of the process was being able to identify ways to measure these so we were able to measure access through the metric of reach how many unique accounts were reached by each post this is an example of the reach of the different posts over time and as you can see there it varied dramatically depending on the post that was put out how many accounts were reached what I wanted to follow up more is to see would reach out an individual post effect the connection to indirect resources to other followers and their engagement so we showed the reach for each post and then what type of indirect resources were connected to each post like we're there more people who followed who commented where they're outside likes that weren't necessarily followers and then finally found metrics to measure what could facilitate reach which included hashtags and mentions mobilization as well we use the I use the metric of engagement to how how much unique accounts engaged with the post that were made and so I tracked this along with reach and there was a very close association between that again I haven't put statistics up yet and then I wanted to be able to better understand how how they will be mobilize these resources so first I identified more active forms of mobilization so that included making comments or replies shares or saves of the accounts that require required additional action by the user and then um this also included follows of the account or was visiting the website that we created and then there were more passive forms of mobilization that included doing a post like or like on a comment or just clicking to see the profile okay now I want to talk through how we address how I address research questions two three and four which was viewing this larger multimodal narrative the methods for this was using an ethnographic analysis so first identified just the larger like use a large net to find all the different stories that were connected with the campaign that it created and from that initial compilation we had about two hundred and four different stories those go through an ethnographic screening where you use a metrics provided by provided by Casa nets to determine the relevance of those stories to the research question you trying to address and so through that then it was narrowed down to about one hundred and fifty one stories and then finally you do a duplication check to see or I did a duplication check to see if there were any repeated stories where it was the same person sharing a narrative on different places and through that we ended up I ended up having a hundred and six total stories from unique perspectives that were used these were then viewed through a quasi grounded Theory approach I wanted to be able to let the student stories be able to share whatever it was they sure to not shape that too much the beginning for the first the first two elements of initial coding and focus coding uses the grounded theory approach just to see what type of themes and codes emerged from the data and then from that I took the different I took structural social capital and then look through those things that came to see where they fit in and I sit them in those groups and anything that didn't fit I put into its own category so that could make room for additional insights from students I did the same thing with community cultural wealth and then finally with Network counter storytelling that one took much more of a traditional grounded Theory where it just shaped from wherever the data came from though I had to say because I was so focused on social capital and community cultural wealth that definitely did feed into the process findings for that so structural social capital this question was wondering what are the different parts of social capital that came through the students stories when they were sharing this in the campaign so first they talked about these different resources both direct and indirect one of those was firsthand stories so I love this part where they said there's just something more about hearing it from them a student talking about just hearing stories from another student really mattered they also really valued mentorship being able to see how other people could navigate stereotypes and then this last quote here I love was a student of first year student listening to other older first gen students sharing their stories and in that process of hearing their stories they were able to see themselves as being a potential storyteller and a mentor themselves thing maybe one day I'll be able to do that too she's also talked about different spaces that they tried to access these resources so what I thought was interesting is that so several of students that we were able to interview attended the same campus and went to the same intervention programs that helped to support first gen students and they had differing experiences there so this student talked about how immediately when they went to their first gen they felt they felt that they knew that whether people were yeah another student who also attended that talked about how going to the cohort was nice but they still felt so different and felt like they didn't connect and they still didn't go home feeling validated so students had different experiences with these University spaces and how it helped them and a lot of them talked about how how difficult it was having these traditional spaces of support being so compartmentalized so I love this quote where when the students a group of students were talking about having these support programs and the student remarked that you know at one o'clock you can be a person of color and at two o'clock I'm going to go be clear where they felt like they could only have different aspects of their identity represented at these different times or spaces additionally multiculturalism was another thing that came out a lot that having more nuance to the type of cultures that they have made it difficult sometimes to fully engage with these spaces so students would often describe more non-traditional spaces where they found their network of resources this student talked about how they felt like they really found who they were and their story when they left campus for a while and came back because they were able to hear and experience other people's perspectives and that helped them to really own their own view social media was a really common space where students would go to find a source of comfort the student here talked about how leaving home was really difficult to be separated from family and friends but when they were in legal and social media they felt closed or connected with that network and then finally there's a student who is affiliated with the campaign who give an example of creating a non-traditional space where he talked about how they really value being able to discuss what it was like being a student of color at a predominantly white institution but that most of the spaces to do that were highly organized and structured and so they took it upon themselves to go and start their own podcast and share their own not and created their own non-traditional spaces finally with regards to mobilization key elements were safety and being able to mobilize and connect with people and a lot of that for example this quote talked about being able which was so vital and being able to connect you people but also made it difficult when students don't unsafe to express that form of vulnerability homophily came up frequently where students would talk about being drawn or connected to other groups of students based off identities and experiences so this also was nuanced homophily was elastic it depended on each student's experience so for example this quote here the student talked about how they felt much more comfortable being around another group of students who are people of color as opposed to being around white students whereas another student of color talked about how they found community regardless of race they wanted to find it based off of a similar mindset so for him it was being able to be around students who are also first gen and from low-income backgrounds so there is this element of being able to connect off the shared experience but also that sense of safety that your identity is safe with the other group that you're with and then they listed some of the things that were threats to safety that prevented their ability to mobilize a few examples were with lack of representation not being able to see other students that align with their identity and this quote of the higher you go to less you see of yourself they also talked about the importance of having faculty and professors who are of their same identity so that you know they could feel though that they were aspiring to something and they could see someone who looked like them in those same roles and finally they made comments about I love this one there are some courses that just can't be taught by white faculty and the fact that not having representation in the instruction that align but the curriculum was really important imposter phenomenon came up frequently where students felt as though they didn't belong on campus and that they fell short of expectations that weren't sure where those expectations came from this student said I felt like I had snuck my way into a prestigious institution where I didn't belong and then there's also identity threat which apparently unless my quotes on those yes I apologize for that so the last ones oh there it is the final one was exploitation of student labor and lots of students talked about how it was put on them to be able to address microaggressions to be able to help teach their peers or faculty why what they were doing was racist or sexist or classist and that that was that labor was put on them instead of the administration and other students taking responsibility for it I'm so sorry to interrupt um just because since this is the you know we have to stick to the schedule are you able to maybe in about like eight minutes or so okay awesome okay community cultural well I'll go quickly from this I from analyzing student stories they're all the different forms of capital came up that you so presented I already addressed social capital so that won't be addressed here familial capital was such a strong theme throughout that I am bundled it into three different types that aligned with different parts of the Osos definitions so there was Network generational and cultural and then beyond these there were three additional forms of capital that emerged from the data there's economic positional and perspective and all these different forms of capital were presented in contradictory ways so for example this network form of capital there is an interdependent type where students talked about how for example this student talked about and the pride of her parents and that stated that I'm so proud that she was so proud of her parents because with their time and effort to pay for my education they earned every bit of my achievement showing this interconnected network in achievement on the other side of that students would also Express often frustration at not having more than independent capital stating that it was hard to take risks and steer yourself off of that path whereas they saw a lot of their non first-gen peers being able to hear and adapt and pivot more I'll skip over these ones so you can go to the last part for Network counter storytelling just how do students view the value of network counter storytelling they I love this phrase about talking about it being an art of storytelling and the value that it holds so they need storytelling as a way to have mentorship they also do it as a way to be able to reflect on their own identity and find connection and homophily and it was a way to be able to create community and belonging on campus we're here talking about being able to be a part of a much bigger picture the demographics at their school they also discussed issues with silos and echo chambers a student talked about while they value social media it was also very easy to feel isolated if that was your only source of community the student talked about the selective curation of content and even though the campaign was able to put out those materials if someone didn't want to hear it they could just choose not to follow or to block it and students also talked about how it could break down these silos so it gave a chance to be connected and to learn about people who are different than themselves in a way that they maybe couldn't do in a physical sense or geographical barriers and also talked about how it created a place to be able to build emotional connections with people to understand other people and also to feel understood and then they've talked a lot about how can they bridge these barriers how can they be able to implement change beyond just in this digital format so to do that they talked a lot about accessibility and that was how did that social media was valuable because it was so accessible um they discussed their part in being able to spread the word that students could have ownership and leadership and being able to spread these stories and it have its impact and they talked about how when there's enough stories shared and enough people hear it and I like they reach the right people which is an interesting concept that it could create a call to action that could spread across the country was you that this potential could have in the network counter stories line campaign so oh man I don't know if I'd use my eight minutes but I go fast from the discussion first I wanted to present contributions of this research provided to research and practice first this research produced novel methods for measuring and analyzing social capital within social media communities but I think that could be valuable for both practitioners and researchers in studying these networks it also demonstrates the power of networked counter storytelling in creating a space that students can have voice and leadership in creating change and especially creating change within academic research and settings contributions to theory there are three different aspects of theory that this research contributes to first it presented a different view to social capital which I'm framing is mutualistic social capital so in a more traditional form of social capital is very unidirectional this is a quote from Lynn who was the one that shaped even the research that I was using or he viewed it as a transaction that was asymmetrical where there was a social debt from from the receiver to the giver and creates a very imbalanced system and in my perspective mutualistic social capital puts people in the same level and it shows this is a quote from the campaign saying that first gen students have new and refreshing perspectives that they should see themselves as having different perspectives gifts and talents that are relevant and useful to universities so being able to see a mutualistic sharing of capital the second theory is this concept of intersectional community cultural wealth from studying this you can see how one's social capital shapes the type of community cultural wealth that they have and within that there's nuance between how that capital is shaped in both dominant and non-dominant forms so within a different context you bring in your cultural capital and you can determine what aspects of your capital are more centered and which I've pushed large the margins and be able to understand the type of capital that that provides you I this is really valuable to create a more nuanced lens just community cultural wealth and how that is impacted in different systems and then finally with respect to network counter storytelling we use those concept of community cultural wealth for students and understanding that each student has their own types of capital that are shaping what their community cultural wealth is so we have a little orange one here and the number here different type of capital so they each have their own community cultural wealth but they're able to connect together through storytelling and build a shared connection and homophily which are used through storytelling resources these can be facilitated through spatial resources such as like a physical setting in a classroom or at a mentorship program however being able to broaden its impact there's also spatial resources that are digital like this network campaign where students who maybe aren't able to be in those physical spaces can also still connect and share stories and swap with that capital amongst themselves so I want to finish with this final quote from another student in the campaign they said first and college students are the leaders of a century long game of catch-up but if we stay motivated while acknowledging each other struggles and providing systems to support the gap we'll quickly close can I do a quick thank you I feel like I'm at like the part where you know you like the people get an Academy Award and they only have 30 seconds to thank people but I want to thanks people really quick I really want to thank Ethan and Lauren and Joe this couldn't have taken place without you so thank you so much to my committee for going with all the pivots and turns that I had with this research and also being able to embrace the innovation of this current dissertation format long before it was forced upon academia I love that we were able to connect from so many different places and regions that wasn't even really considered in most higher ed institutions until about a month ago and I thank you for raising that innovation and then my LSE community and especially even though he's not here right now my husband and my two kids who are out walking so that I can give this presentation this has been for them so thank you thank you so very much Christy as completely and totally beautiful so now it is the time where we turn it over to comments and questions and feedback and so I'd love to start with you know Lauren or Ethan or Tasha do you have any comments or questions or feedback not that not that if you have something along the way that this is the only time you know just wanted to open it up if you wanted to if you have any initial thoughts I told them there is no pressure for talking but like if you have it I mean this is all through my perspective of the campaign and if you have your own thoughts on you know how this differ or how it was for you and yeah no pressure to speak either it just if anyone wanted to jump in this okay so oh okay so we'll circle back around and see if if there are any thoughts from those who are directly involved now let's move on to mr. self say hello do you have any feedback questions comments yeah I mean just off the bat kudos and Bravo Christi and also special shout to Ethan and Lauren I missed seeing the students being removed now from the institution world but I just can't believe how much has happened and transpired since first meeting Christi with the idea thank you dr. Bertrand for being the connector for us and it's just been a pleasure to really sort of see where you've taken this whole dissertation process um and I I have a lot of I think questions and comments because I think in reading the dissertation and hearing you present right now it just elicited for me a lot of ways that you can serve as a bridge to you know student affairs practitioners at this institution and frankly any other institution who's willing to listen and really Center the voices of first gen students marginalized students but for me specifically for midwestern university i think it would be of great value to not only connect it back with the staff of this department of which the bright mentorship program is or overseen but I I think of for example meeting with admissions enrollment management were often very interested in highlighting in centering stories especially for a recruitment lens but I think they often don't do it justice as you noted you know there might be good intentions behind wanting to reach out to underrepresented but if they're not at the table or part of this design of whatever campaigns are then they're gonna miss the mark right and so ignitions I could see value for faculty we think about elements of diversity and inclusion and just being mindful to the cultural wealth that students already bringing you know when they start at the institution and then alumni engagement and sorry and then one last one advancement because the Brite program mentorship program is partially funded through an external grant and I think they're often interested in seeking ways innovative innovative ways I should say of how to you know award funding to support you know interventions that work and and and are not really sort of perpetuating these negative stereotypes of marginalized students but really doing the opposite which I think you've highlighted so well again in partnership with your internship team I'll stop there but yeah kudos to you thank you so very much this is just random but let's start with committee members suit do either one of you why go jump in I can jump in I'm just kind of I think because I was thinking along the same lines in terms of initial feedback that Joseph had so fantastic job Christy I appreciate your presentation and I think you know some of the graphics that you included like one of the last ones where you showed the relationships and they were colored I think I've had homophily on it like things like that I think if you're creating like maybe a quick snapshot to get your point across would be fantastic to include to those administrators to kind of illustrate your point really quickly but I think the graphics that you created for your presentation are fantastic so and and that are included in your dissertation the figures I think really help to illustrate your points really well so that was done really well and then also just wanted to mention yeah I think just the fact that Lauren and Ethan are here and are here to support you and are have been so participative in this research is just I think it speaks volumes that they're here so I think that's incredible and I'm excited by that and have just been excited by your work so I do have some some questions but I'll let everybody give a little bit feedback and then we can kind of maybe dive into some specific sounds great thank you dr.xu quote well sure yes thank you for sharing your work with us Christy both in the written dissertation in this presentation which I agree was smart and also beautiful well done I enjoyed hearing about the work I I do have a few small questions it would be excited to hear about next steps and how you're gonna translate this into practice in particular and I think the research trajectories are a little more obvious to me and I will hint it my question I would love to see more you teased us a little bit with additional details on network analysis so I would love to hear more about that when the time for additional okay all right yeah so I'm interested in so I see you know in your network chart which was particularly lovely so congratulations on that I totally appreciate it how challenging it is to get those things told what couldn't tell the story or what them to tell I'm I seeing a pretty clear growth pattern alright so we see the network getting bigger over time and certain know that's getting bigger I was wondering if you could just explain a little bit more both how you use size and color to indicate what am i what are we actually seeing there and then how that grows maps on to your ideas about social capital and particular yeah okay great let me pull up the visual cuz that would probably be easier to look at while I'm answering your question let me just go through the you know 200 slides that I have okay you're talking about this one right yes so what I did for this and granted this is a very new field of study for me I'm network analysis and especially in the Instagram there isn't a lot available for having to do there's not a lot of api's or programs that can help with this so I just scraped it all manually I did one Davis great being at the end of September so about a month into the campaign the same at the end of October and then one of the very close of the intervention period and from that for example in this graphic the size of so the central node represents the Instagram account so I used an egocentric Network for that and then all the connecting nodes are followers of our account the size of the node or the the circle that's there is based off of the number of followers that person had so for example if they had 200 followers versus 2,000 followers that would shape how large the circle was the colors of the edges the lines that connect from the central node to each the followers was based off of weather the weather it was a reciprocal connection so if they just followed our account or if we followed them back then they were and that's in orange so that there's a I don't know reciprocity in that connection and then the colors of each the notes were based off of the type of account that it was so going through each of the accounts identified whether it was a public or private account and then if it was a personal account versus a professional or organization account so the organizational and professional ones were in green the with the darker green being a personal account but that was done for professional purposes and the lighter green being an organization and then all the notes in black are personal accounts granted there's an element of subjectivity in that because I had to pull that through looking at the account and seeing you know how they labeled but mostly accounts is really easy to tell if it was an organization based off of the Dayman you could look up about it and then any of the ones that were personal account with professional typically laid that out in the caption where they discussed their bio oh yeah there's one other element I'm not sure if I I may even need some feedback on it cuz I was learning Jeffy for the first time which is how you present this but the proximity of each of the notes to the central node of the Instagram account was calculated by different aspects of each nodes connection to the Instagram campaign so that included on the length of time that they had been following the account which I marked from each of these time workers how long they've been there whether we re followed whether we followed each other and there's one other metric that was news been there and then that based off how close the node was to the central one very nice thank you and so given the patterns that you see can you connect anything from the network analysis to your assessments of social capital and the growth in different types of social capital yeah so I mean it's hard in some senses because this is so it's so early on in a campaign and being able to like you know make predictions of the trajectory of it would be difficult because it's just a few months but you can see a fairly consistent linear growth in the number of followers to the campaign over the course of the intervention period and I think with regards to social capital if I had more time to go through I would love to be able to evaluate each of these different connections and determine where these ones that we engaged in conversation through direct messages or how many of these you know created posts or do we eventually reach out and then they shared a resource of a story with us so I think that would be an effective way to start using this network to measure how these different forms of social capital are present great thank you um I just I had one more it's a very small question so I I was curious how do you operationalize reach um so I noticed not in this presentation I'm within the distribution and you have lots of different kinds of engagement that could happen so it's interested in particular that reach variable what does that actually mean to have a big reach for some small reach yes so reach was a was pulled directly from Instagram insights and so it's a it's a metric that they already provide and for them its measured based off its the number of unique accounts that had had visible contact with the post so I think that they don't really provide a lot of definition beyond that because its Instagram and they don't give a lot of information but I think from that it means that either they looked at the account it pulled up in their search feed at some point but somewhere where eyes could be able to see the account but it doesn't give nuance according to that so so that's where reach came from was that number and then I tried to break down things that could facilitate that reach so looking to see if hashtags or mentions had an effect on that and then also to see if reach then could influence connections to indirect resources so two other follows or other comments that could be made thank you that make sense okay my last question from me so in your assessment what was more important it was for the kind of benefits of this of engaging with those projects for the students was it the act of producing the stories was it the audience engagement who are they having the audience or some combination of the two I might even ask I mean I can share what my thoughts were but even and Lauren could probably speak to that more what was the most beneficial part so from for me as we were doing the interviews I think one element that that I loved was it was actually a focus group interview that we were in Ethan online and then another student and student talked about how they shared one of the stories that Ethan and Lauren had put up there that was about a student who was undocumented and she shared that story with another friend because that was also their same experience and I don't know for me in that conversation like being able to hear someone say like oh I looked at this story that you guys were able to put up and I was able to get utility out of it and also provide it for someone else that we wouldn't have been able to get connected to that for me was where I saw a lot of the benefit but I don't know I might turn to Lauren and Ethan to see like what what do you think was the most like beneficial part of the storytelling I would say I think how the show the stories were shared and like the act of like seeing them and reading them I think that was a really big thing because I noticed like a lot of the quotes that you usually talked about like how it has like the power to make people feel like understood and that kind of thing and I think that was a really big component of seeing other people that have similar and enemies and similar experiences I think that kind of it clicked it make you feel like you're not alone and I think that's what I noticed a lot of people were saying I think that was a really big thing was it yeah under that like I think a lot of people that we interviewed were like friends and colleagues through like diversity programs or just in general and I think like learning through these stories like a much deeper context like the impact its had on them and like the networks that they've built around I think like learning a lot from that was really beneficial for any of your questions are you recommending you know for instance changes in the in the methods to add more description of analysis the only minor change I would recommend is just in the kind of captioning around the network graph just make it a bit clearer what we're seeing there and how it's working and what we're meant to take from it is a bit self-evident but I didn't get all you know like okay thank you so much oh I'll jump in but then of course we can we'll turn it over to all kinds of - to anyone who has more feedback and I know dr. DePaul dyou definitely you said that you have some other feedback well first of all Christy your dissertation and this presentation was absolutely beautiful not just in its appearance but I mean beautiful at its core and it's truly innovative just like you were saying I mean the way that you brought theories together and you propose new theories and it was it was truly incredible I mean in the final wheel graphic with you know showing the dualistic nature of the different forms of capital it's a very it's a major contribution so I have I have some some comments on some minor things you know for changes and then one question related to one of the comments so these are all really minor but just in chapter 2 for when you talk about community cultural wealth if you could give a description of the different types I'm just to find them in there and you also have that in in your chapter for as you go along which is great but you could have them up front in chapter 2 to give us you list them but then you could also define them and yeah I have I have a list of little things and then on the actual document I have some little typos type things but I'll just say kind of the bigger the things but again they're very small they're very small so there is that in chapter 2 in chapters 3 the bigger things are if you could describe the intervention more kind of give us a breakdown of what you did at different times there's an intervention section if you could add some more information about that you know you can even use your presentation today as a model of that so just to you know for instance the podcast interviews and you how many podcasts were released during the campaign and things like that and then yeah more information about your coding so on page 66 more information paid coded the direct storytelling resources and on page 72 more information about how you coded the basically in that section called analyzing content from the Neto graphic screening so for instance you could include examples of codes things like that okay great that's I I knew that that was gonna be one o minor and small also in Chapter three some people put it in Chapter five it's your choice I mean I kind of preferred chapter three but it's up to you like a limitation section oh yeah as you can tell I was down to the wire I had the whole thing but hadn't edited it yet so I appreciate that call yeah and so those are those are and I have a question which is related to which whatever your answer will be will be kind of related to the other recommendation so in Chapter five you talk about contributions of research and practice I'd like to ask what were the contributions to research research and practice specifically related to higher ed in first-generation students and I know that that was really presented in your presentation but if you could just you know kind of give an overview um yeah I would say so I did and I had mentioned this before I think I included in the dissertation I I feel very strongly about putting more effort into merging the idea of research and practice and the contributions influenced both I think we silo research and practice so much that that is detrimental so I would lure more like meta concept I feel like the research helps to address that that whole issue of bringing it will being able to bring together research and practice more and realize that they go hand in hand more specifically to the content of the research I feel like the framework of network our storytelling one is effective way for research to be able to know how to more effectively bring first-gen student voices and student groups that get pushed to the margins or faculty they get pushed in the margins as a way to be able to incorporate them in research and also be able to create effective ways to implement with practice on campus so for example having a program that's already set up to support first gen students and then being able to recognize you know if we're able to help support use our resources to support developing a space for students to connect and be able to share stories and own that and not I think in higher education we like to take over and being able to recognize and find ways to know how to step back and see that power a little bit and just know that we don't have all the answers it's faculty like I can give an example of how this played out in our very campaign and Ethan and Lauren can tell you about this but when we were first starting to put out the post and I asked him like what time they were going to put the post out I kept like recommending to put it out around like 10:00 or 11:00 10 or 11 o'clock in the middle of the day because from other work that I had done on social media campaigns that was like a key trying to be able to reach the audience that we had that my audience in that group were primarily parents and that was the time and then we realized when we look at the data later on that that was like the worst time for us to be posting because that wasn't when they're on when students were on social media at all so that was an example of like my own implicit bias and my own experience and saying actually this is the best time so like we can take that micro example and then just apply it higher thank you so if you were gonna give I know this goes more toward the practice side but if you're going to give concrete recommendations you know what was mentioned to staff faculty alumni engagement and you know student affairs practitioners like so you would say create a space for the student run where they can share their stories and anything I'd better you know what that's a great I need to think on a little bit more but I feel like the most important elements is in every aspect of decision making whether it's curriculum whether it's a student program anything that the decision makers include students who will be affected by that so I think that would be one concrete thing there and then but I think you can't just have that because there's still power dynamics involved in that context and so there's some element of being able to create a safe a safe space for being able to communicate for being able to leverage their own power against these power dynamics so and that's something I think I would need to like talk more with students and faculty about to figure out what is the most effective way to be able to not just make space for students but create space that where they can effectively mobilize their capital awesome yeah so that's my recommendation for for Chapter five I'd like to see concrete recommendations for change I see maybe dr. the pulled nodding no okay concrete recommendations for change for practice at at higher education institutions you know what would you tell them you know people are gonna be wanting some really concrete lists of recommendations and of course since this is within the dissertation framework these have to be stemming from so you know you can say the following recommendations stemmed from my research my research suggests this that in the other in addition however with it you know you can include insights based on informal conversations that are outside their research you know what I mean like that's not a but just make sure that you know you're saying here are the recommendations that are stemming straight from my research my research is suggesting that you do a B C and D and that you know and then and in addition you know from other informal conversations or the Research Center I suggest this that the other so that's that's it for me before returning to dr. the poll did anyone have any comments or questions okay all right cool go right ahead yeah I was nodding that was one thing that I think that there's more potential for is are those concrete recommendations and I mean even to maybe a clear connection I mean you talk about like previous interventions from other researchers in Chapter two so the recommendations that they've recommended based on theirs and how those might overlap with your own the other thing I would think too is thinking about scope because it seems like this has just really been housed in more of the like social side of campus but I think there's opportunity to integrate it into the academic side too so I think that's just something to see if there's if there are implications out there but I do think that that concept could also translate really well to building community within academic departments too so something to consider and then my question for you would be it is an understatement to say that you have a lot of research here and a lot of data to share so I think your presentation even that you you did a wonderful job of presenting the overview of all the information you have but let's say you know we're we're your governing board or you're your institution's governing board what would be the highlights you know the the maybe one to two minute highlights of either your findings or that the most meaningful thing that you've found that you think I've only got a minute to share the most important things like what are the things that you are going to stand out and push along man that's not easy I should work on my elevator pitch I'm realizing you know I so I had there's a group at Northwestern that focuses on multi-modality and how that can be addressed in equity and I presented this to them and I felt like that was a really good experience because they asked a similar question like what is the key takeaway like if you had to pick one thing and one that was hard because there's so much stuff but I felt like I felt like the overarching story was this concept of counter stories being in network spaces and just the power that's there so I it is this concept of network counter storytelling because I feel like everything stemmed from this it's this combination of being able to speak and experience that is counter to what is mainstream and what is viewed as sometimes correct and having ownership of that but not only being able to do that but to do that in a way where those stories can be held as a resource and turn to later on and also being able to do that and build a network from that I think that there's something really powerful in that and we've seen how how quickly that can even I guess I was writing this dissertation that you know I imagine you prior on it but you know everyone's education is being shifted to digital and I read about the students in China who had that app that was supposed to be for homework and within like a day's time they had all given it one star so that the app couldn't be used anymore and I was and so they didn't have to do heart because the app crashed and I was just thinking about like wow this is like playing out in real life like this network of students who typically don't have any power and that's type of setting who are able to use technology and connect and just like I don't know make a steam it I know I'm sure was very frustrating for the app creators but but I don't know I feel like that's the crux of it is this this network ability to for outside groups to shape mainstream structures yeah yeah and it's certainly very timely right for you I would imagine like you're seeing this shift and and even I think if you were yeah I just say I think you would gain see even more support for your concepts and it wouldn't be I think when you started this research it was probably something that was novel and oh this is totally different and now it's gonna be more of the force like norm at least hopefully long term as well so I think kudos to you for having the foresight to see this importance and already start this work let's see there are a couple things that were just really fascinating to me the idea of this digital activism and and you know the role that that could play because I do think that we see a lot of students who are digitally active but this idea of digital activism is totally different so just I like that's included in there and and part of your narrative so just a comment on that and then I mean thinking I guess in in terms of like talking about the timeliness if you were to rerun the study knowing what you know now and in current conditions what would you do differently to improve maybe on on your research now that you've got one round under your health that's a great question um well first and foremost I would I mean I don't know if I can to do it wholeheartedly because I'm I'm thick-headed but I would pray and listen even more to the students who are running it even though I thought that I was I would do that I think in some ways and maybe Ethan can speak to us I think something that was difficult at first was that you know I was coming into this research project with an idea of what needed to do in order to graduate but also something that I wanted to do because I'm passionate about and you know he and Lauren came in for some matching reasons but probably their own and then trying to figure out how to do that together and also I wanted so much to be able to like let them have autonomy on it but I think at the very beginning I was like okay go like make a campaign and like okay where do you want so I realized that just giving autonomy wasn't like actually helpful like being able to know how to be engaged also know how to step back that's something I would try to be able to implement better and get more feedback on on how to do that I would say the one thing that is very interesting about and the timeliness of everything going on is that it's interesting that my my research project and how it was conducted is almost completely removed from the current situation with the pandemic because I had to conduct all the interviews through zoom calls you know is all through social media there were some elements of meeting on campus but we also met through like Ethan Laura and I met through zoom as well so there's some element of it that is kind of cool to see that it's not impeded by this very dramatic change that's happening to the world but I would definitely try to figure out ways to more effectively step back but also feel like I'm being supportive yeah thank you yeah I think I think I'll hold for there and we've got more time I'll ask more but I want to make sure everyone else has time to ask questions too thank you other questions or comments along the lines of anything that we've talked about or anything that we haven't talked about I might even s anythin you don't have to answer but kind of the question that I got of what I could do to do better what would have been me better like more helpful for you am I allowed to ask questions uh yeah for sure I think um also Lauren's internet cut out sorry but I think like one thing that we learned during this like a lot of it was learning while we were implementing the research and like doing everything so I think like if we went back into like having a solid plan from the beginning just I think we did learn a lot during it and from it and like we're making changes as we go like Chrissy talked about like like window post like that was like a big thing just trying to like figure out during so I think just like everything we've learned so far like implementing it at the beginning and having like a solid plan going into it yeah going forward I mean it's kind of hit a hiatus could because of writing a dissertation and you know you guys are kind of in a busyness of this semester but going forward I feel like we have like a good we have some traction now most actually you other other comments or questions you any recommendations from now the two of you who are her at Midwestern university of sign quotes well one formerly of Midwestern university about so when I was asking about the concrete basically the implications of this study for recommendations you know what if either one of you wanted to answer do you what recommendations do you see from this study that you would give a pass along to people at at the University you know something as I read through this Christy that kept coming up so I think maybe four or five years ago at this institution there was a push to create a sort of campaign around pride in being a first generation student there was talk at the time even loop in faculty and staff who shared that experience of being a first gen college Brad and I think that was at a time where we there was a larger sort of percentage of undergrads who identified his first gen and then it sort of went nowhere but the idea behind it was how can we sort of celebrate in in being part of like committees that were trying to meet with students I do recall there were students that were invited you know to present on their first gen experience but I think I was struck by how even despite you know bringing in you know just a small percentage of students I think a lot of people are still hung up on assumptions that that we often will make about the first gen experience and what I liked about your research was that you were already citing in your lit review even all the sort of theories that you know again perpetuate deficit narratives and so you being able to do that in a very thoughtful way to call out how you know there's so many interventions out there that exist and what where are they sort of missing the mark and I think a lot of times they they don't hold up this mirror to seeing that this is all you know laden with deficit approach to deficit mindset and so I thought it was refreshing to see that and I think any my recommendation would be that in any presentation to an administrator faculty anyone in the higher ed world I would say really be honest and transparent about and you have the data to showcase that but I think there's being honest about how you know what's not been working right and so let's take a step back from that and yeah I think it's not enough just to create space for stories but it's also to educate because even students I think have sort of without you know that education behind understanding what deficit narratives are and taking a strengths-based approach to it we're all going to sort of continue the same ol same ol anyone else want to add along those lines I think going off that like a lot of what we learned was just listening to students and what they need rather than just like the University trying to make the changes and implement what they think is best like us actually having a feedback in a voice in university policies and changes and things like that I heard all I would also add so I thought it was interesting I don't know if I got I don't think I was able to include it as much in the dissertation but there was also this element of how we were trying to spread awareness of the campaign and different engagement and that was exciting but also very difficult like you had to tread carefully for example like Ethan had a professor who was working with us and was really excited about the campaign and I think it was in one of our meetings with her she talked about sharing it out in an email to other faculty and then suddenly kind of had some reservations about like oh actually you know does it have does it mention our university does it say this stuff and that was an interesting nuance of one the benefit of having a campaign that isn't like stuck in the structures of the university because you can skirt around those barriers but also the the difficulties there are and actually being able to reach positions of power those traditional forms and I don't know that stood out to you at all even in that conversation but I kept thinking oh there's so many like these little voices this could go too but just sending it out sometimes isn't either isn't ineffective or could sometimes be harmful for those who are sharing those stories are sharing the campaign I think that like they need to be like ready to listen um like us just bringing this change to them won't actually do anything unless they're willing to make the change and kind of interact with it oh she's gonna add that it that might be just a sign of the institution itself you know in my current role working with a number of other institutions in the state a lot of them being public a lot of them being community colleges I've been really heartened by sort of the different approaches and how you know admin and leadership are really embracing the student voice so yeah I just for what it's worth it might just be sort of relegated to that you know and I wonder even with this campaign look how I wonder about how different it would look depending on the makeup of the campus environment like if this was at a minority serving institution if this is where first gen students made up the majority of students like how this would sort of play out but I think you never want to sort of discount the power of stories thank you for speaking on that because that's something that in some ways I wish I was like a year further down on the campaign because I felt like the stories that we got we represented quite a few different institutions but we had large chunks where you know where Ethan is situated and then another institution that collaborated and then kind of speckled around and I thought it would be if they had a larger sample size and heard these stories it would be great to be able to kind of unbundle what is the experience at like a predominately white institution or you know in this geographic region or for these students and it would I would love to be able to see that more hear those stories thank you so much everyone and I doctored the polled I think that you've had more feedback and questions yeah I'm trying to think if there's anything that needed the two that I needed to discuss I think they're all like minor things after after what we've already talked about though we're good this is good doctor Foucault Wells any other any other recommendations for changes or questions comments I do not have any more recommendations for changes I am curious where so this is really important research with both practical and theoretical findings where are you at in terms of sort of preparing the follow-on reports I imagine not very far because you've just finished this but I guess maybe it's not even a question for you to answer but to plant the seed there's a you know at least one strong theoretical paper to pull out about the storytelling aspect there's clearly lots of policy or practice implications so that's not some brief to give up to universities and then I would suggest there's also a really interesting methods piece here in that I could see being placed in kind of a social media a communication methods Journal and so that's my area of expertise I would encourage you to follow up on that too so how do you combine the net ography with the network analysis you know the kind of content analysis posts and how do you do that well one thing that's really commendable in your work is the care that you took not only with joining the methods together but situating them very specifically in the population so I'm sure you've noticed in a lot of social media research in particular we kind of forget about the fact that social media you know even the same platform is very different to different users it's very context dependent and and even for the same user it's different depending on what they're saying and who they're trying to reach or what kind of feedback they're getting and so there's something really lovely in here that you've done to lift that up as a third possible publication or follow-on piece thank you yes that is I will probably be reaching out to all of you for help on that because that is the next step and it's a step those are steps I'm not as familiar with so I would love guidance on that thank you wonderful any other final thoughts or questions or feedback suggestions for change you okay is that a no I think that's enough okay so now comes the part where if we were in person we would the committee would ask folks to step out of the room but instead I'm gonna do breakout rooms I congratulate dr. jeong's we were in there just praising your dissertation and just saying it's really he I don't know exactly how to phrase it it's it's in a class of its own it's not I mean it's it's not even in the regular sphere it's phenomenal it's absolutely phenomenal I would love to just lift up the fact that not only is this excellent it's excellent and my the worst possible circumstances right I mean I know that you have kids at home I know that you were like I mean you had so many challenges on your plate and I you delivered a thing that was so extraordinary I hope that you can be proud not only of becoming a doctor extraordinary so congratulations thank you for doing this work thank you for letting me be involved in it I'm just yeah and I would echo that I think in terms of just the amount of information that is useful for our field and enclosed in one like 200 page document it's just the way you put it together is phenomenal and yeah so enjoy this feeling of accomplishment because this is impressive and I'm just you know happy to be able to support you on this journey so congratulations dr. John thank you anyone else please just jump in if you'd like here congratulations beyond amazing was a beautiful thing to witness specially as a PhD who's on the fan next may the example presented the presentation is so rich and blown away a lot to capture a lot even grounded in theory and what was produced out of it and on time topic method approach also Congrats a proposal defense hey I did myself Friday I just want to say I mean I've liked me a lot we're very honored I worked on the presentation we're very proud congratulations yeah I would just echo everything everyone said congratulations dr. Don's and I can't wait for others to you know read their research to hear your presentations and be moved in the same way so thank you thank you yeah I just want to echo everyone's just like what Tasha said I was blown away by the dissertation by the presentation and every step of the way you taught me so much I kept learning I mean you you helped me see a counter storytelling in a different way you know as I could be networked I definitely the expertise in that dissertation was so far beyond what I have you taught me so much I mean even in the lit reviews chapter you taught me so much I'd never seen the different that so it's been an honor to walk with you yeah I mean you pulled this out like the so anyways well now we just hang out socially I feel like I'm my mental state is in a place where I don't know if I'm very coherent but I just I think it's I I realized the more I studied this the reason why the social capital was so important because I changed my life in my trajectory and I feel like this is just I feel like I was living my study in a lot of ways and you guys have been some of the in the most flattering sense possible the key nodes in my in my life and I'm just very grateful thank you and thank you for um going with me with all the different twists and turns of study thank you definitely and I didn't mention this but it's it's a pass obviously well this unless there's anyone else have any thing to add and like to encourage you to take some time off yeah it's just like a whole week without opening your laptop sign my papers or whatever yeah take advantage of it it's a tough time for everyone and you earned your incredible all right well that's all you know celebrate our own weight for Christy and also Tasha congratulations dr. jeong's and I just wish you all well it's been great this has been a wonderful and and because of the amazingness of the dissertation actually a shorter defense anyways wishing you all well be well folks thank you know take care of your good

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Length: 92min 49sec (5569 seconds)

Published: Wed May 06 2020