Professional Organizations Supporting Academy-Business Partnerships

This chapter explores four categories of organizations that support academy-business partnerships. First, there are general organizations that guide higher education behavior in academy-business partnerships. This area also includes third-party accrediting agencies and rankings. Second, there are also general organizations that guide business-industry relationships in academy-business partnerships. Some in this area also include third-party indices and ratings of businesses and corporations. Third, some support organizations emphasize human resource, human capital, or talent and skill development including career services and relationships with professional associations, student clubs, honor societies, and alumni relations. Finally, some organizations are research and/or commercialization related for technology transfer. While these supporting organizations are independent, they periodically interact to share ideas and best practices.

Gender and Status in American Political Science: Who Determines Whether a Scholar Is Noteworthy?

We investigate gender disparities in status construction in American political science, focusing on three questions: 1) Do institutions within the discipline of political science—including departments, APSA, editorial boards, and academic honor societies–reflect or remedy gender disparities that exist in many forms of recognition, including appointments to top leadership and citations? 2) Are institutions with centralized and accountable appointment mechanisms less gender skewed compared to networked and decentralized selection processes where implicit bias may go unchecked? 3) Does leaning in help? Does the effort of women to publish and to claim a seat at leadership tables increase the likelihood that higher-level status positions will follow? We find that the distribution of highest-status positions is still gender skewed, that women are over-represented in positions that involve more service than prestige, that “leaning in” by serving as section chair, on editorial boards, or on academic councils is not necessarily a gateway to higher-status appointments, and that accountability promotes greater gender parity. The study raises questions about the goal of gender parity when it comes to lower-status service, and about the types of contributions our discipline rewards.

Virtual induction ceremonies: Upholding time-honored tradition

An induction ceremony is a time-honored tradition among honor societies. Designed to recognize new members and denote transition into the society, induction signifies an important step in formal membership. However, with the growth of online education programs, there is a need for honor societies to adapt from traditional on-ground communities to virtual ones. This adaptation includes conducting an induction ceremony virtually to further create a sense of membership belonging and value. Recognizing the importance of upholding a time-honored tradition, a small private liberal arts university in Southwestern Pennsylvania sought to digitally record their international honor society chapter induction ceremony and share it with their distance inductees via their chapter website. Use of the virtual induction began prior to becoming an international chapter and has continued annually for the past 10 years. Therefore, this experience exchange shares strategies for planning and conducting a successful virtual induction ceremony, thus emphasizing the importance of membership induction for all students especially those online.

Protecting students from “honor society” predators

As students compete for college admission, some are tempted by invitations to join honor societies that promise learning opportunities, scholarships, and a leg up in the college admission process. Yvonne Vissing explains how these organization target millions of students each year, encouraging them to purchase “opportunities” that fail to deliver on their promises. The frauds are often difficult to spot, because many use the slick marketing tactics of lucrative businesses. Despite lawsuits and consumer complaints, they continue to proliferate, often forming partnerships with businesses that have a financial interest in marketing to or manipulating students.

Contributions of Learning through Service to the Ethics Education of Engineering Students

Previous studies have found that engineering students can learn about ethics, both microethical and macroethical, through service-learning courses and co-curricular community engagements. This research has sought to generate a national picture through survey responses of how ethical issues are taught in these settings. Based on survey results, individuals who taught courses that included service-learning (n=160) incorporated a median of 8 ethical topics. Among co-curricular engineering service groups like Engineers Without Borders, a median of 7 ethical topics were incorporated. Microethical topics were more common in service-learning courses compared to co-curricular activities. A smaller percentage of co-curricular activities such as professional societies (39%), honor societies (39%), and design competitions (21%) indicated that students learned about ethics through working with communities. A range of teaching methods complemented the community engagement activities, with discussions and lectures used in over half of all learning through service settings. Assessment of students’ learning on ethical topics was nearly universal in service-learning courses (94%), but uncommon in co-curricular engineering service settings (less than 14%). These results provide ideas on ethics topics that can be infused into community engagement activities, complemented by various teaching and assessment methods.