Two New Faculty Research Funds

Fielding is excited to announce two new research funds that have been created thanks to the generosity of an alum and a university leader:

Dr. Marilyn Price-Mitchell

1. Established by alum Marilyn Price-Mitchell, PhD, who graduated from the Human & Organizational Development program in 2010, the Price-Mitchell Endowed Fund for Youth Research will support students at the dissertation level or faculty engaged in research on a topic that furthers our understanding of K-12 positive youth development and/or education.

Dr. Price-Mitchell is a developmental psychologist and researcher, whose passion is in positive youth development, education, and family-school-community partnerships. She is the author of Tomorrow’s Change Makers: Reclaiming the Power of Citizenship for a New Generation and the founder of Roots of Action.

2. Inspired by the recent $1,000,000 gift to Fielding from 1998 School of Psychology alumna Dianne Kipnes, PhD, Fielding President Katrina S. Rogers has made a personal $100,000 pledge to establish the President Katrina S. Rogers Faculty Research Fund. Thanks to Dr. Rogers’ support as well as gifts from alumni whom she has mentored, there will now be $45,000 available each year for faculty research projects like these, undertaken this year:

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  President Katrina S. Rogers

  K. Melchor Hall and a student travelled to Honduras’ northern coast to explore the use of images in interviews as a way to connect to deep emotion and memory among the Garifuna villages. In the next research stage, they hope to use interviewee drawings in the context of interviews about STEM learning in makerspaces and on farms.

• Karen Dill-Shackleford led a team of students and alums in researching whether viewing portrayals of strong, empowered Black individuals could empower Black youth specifically, and youth of color more generally. Their poster was presented, and well received, at the conference of the Institute on Digital Media and Child Development.
• David Blake Willis spent last term in South India researching successful examples of liberation from the apartheid of caste and class among the Dalits (former “untouchables”) through a continuing study of the radical Gandhian strategies for building inclusion, spirituality, and socio-ecological transformation.

“These generous gifts allow Fielding to support even more of the critical early stages in new research and scholarly directions by our committed faculty,” says Katherine McGraw, PhD, Fielding’s interim associate provost for research and scholarship. “These funds support not just faculty discovery but also support the many doctoral students who work alongside faculty in exploring critical issues of social and ecological justice. We look forward to seeing the projects supported by Faculty Research Grants provide future insights and develop into future publications, grants, and presentations.”

Donations to support research at Fielding can be made online; or by check, made out to Fielding Graduate University, with the fund you wish to support specified in the memo. Contact Elena Nicklasson, director of development, at 805-898-2926 or giving@fielding.edu with any questions.