Molly Ott
Assistant Professor
Higher &
Postsecondary Education Program Coordinator
Faculty Affiliate, Center for Organization Research & Design
Faculty Affiliate, Center for Advanced Studies in Global
Education
Descriptions of Courses Developed and Taught at Arizona
State University
HED 573 Applied
Inquiry in Higher Education
The focus of this course is on
learning about and demystifying the process of scientific inquiry, with the
intent of translating that knowledge to regular practice in a higher education
professional career. It is not a highly technical methods course – no
advanced knowledge of statistics or qualitative techniques is assumed –
but instead gives practitioners a foundation in educational research design as
well as the tools to be literate, thoughtful, critical, and frequent consumers
of research. HED 573 also will
prepare students for the Higher Education masterÕs degree capstone course, HED
593 Applied Project. This course
uses a flipped classroom design, and lectures are publicly available for
viewing on my YouTube channel.
HED 593 Applied
Project
To improve their practice,
postsecondary educators often draw on research that informs their phenomenon of
interest. While journal articles, books, and academic reports provide guidance
to strategic planning and decision-making, they may not address important
details of oneÕs local context. To overcome this particular limitation, it is
critical that educators personally engage in ongoing practice-centered inquiry.
This allows educators to ground reported findings gathered from published
scholarship in their own educational environments. To that end, building on HED
573: Applied Inquiry, this capstone course allows students an opportunity to
carry out a small-scale inquiry-based project in a postsecondary context in
which they possess some familiarity. As such, a central learning outcome of
this course is to enhance studentsÕ abilities to gather, make sense of, and
present data in a manner that improves higher education practice. In addition to gaining the aforementioned
skills, as a capstone experience, Applied Project provides a purposefully
reflexive environment in which students critically consider their tenure as
graduate students in Arizona State UniversityÕs Higher and Postsecondary
Education program as well as their future as higher education practitioners.
HED 510
Introduction to Higher Education
American higher education is a
diverse and complex enterprise with over three centuries of history, tradition,
and social change. Colleges and
universities serve large segments of the U.S. and world populations and influence
many aspects of national and global society. American higher education certainly has
relevance far beyond any individual college or university campus. Therefore, the study (and practice) of
higher and postsecondary education must be contextualized within the larger
historical and societal milieus. This course provides an overview of the field
of American higher education with particular attention to the philosophical,
social, organizational, and historical dimensions of current practices and
issues. Lectures, discussion, and
class activities will introduce students to:
á
The social
and historical foundations and organizational structure of American higher
education
á
The major
roles and responsibilities of participants and constituents of higher education
á
The
opportunities and challenges that contemporary higher education faces now and
into the future
In addition, this course will
socialize students to graduate study in the field of higher education at
Arizona State University.
HED 598 Administration of Intercollegiate Athletics
(with Jean Boyd)
Arizona StateÕs President
Michael Crow often characterizes intercollegiate athletics as the universityÕs
Òfront porch.Ó As his metaphor suggests, athletics (more than any other aspect
of the institution) receives considerable attention from students, alumni,
faculty, and the general public. Much of this interest focuses on the playing
field, however, and few observers fully appreciate the complexity involved in
leading, administering, and supporting an intercollegiate athletics
program.
This course is designed to
prepare current and future athletic administrators for the challenging,
intense, yet (we would argue) incredibly worthwhile work that occurs off the
field. Higher education professionals
not directly employed by an athletic program will also benefit from the course
by improving their understanding of how athletics fits into, impacts, and is
influenced by the larger campus. All students will develop a working knowledge
of intercollegiate athletics as a field of study and an appreciation for how
faculty and staff can support college athlete success.
We will draw from the growing
body of scholarship specific to college sports to explore the national
structure of intercollegiate athletics in the United States, the organization
and administration of individual programs, and contemporary issues that face
the enterprise. Our approach will
be framed by the historical, sociological, and philosophical bases of
intercollegiate athletics, but we will emphasize practice through the use of
case studies, guest speakers, and other experiential learning activities.
HED 688
Organizational Theory
Learning about colleges and
universities as organizations not only emphasizes conceptual models and
multiple theoretical ways of thinking about the functions, activities, and
issues pertaining to postsecondary schools, but also how to overlay these
models on real contexts and problems. The framework for the course emphasizes
four Òframes,Ó or perspectives for understanding organizations. Each frame
provides a distinctive view, and when taken together the four frames encompass
much of the existing theory and research on organizations:
á
A structural
frame that emphasizes goals, roles, formal relationships, and the rational side
of organization.
á
A human
resource frame that emphasizes needs, attitudes, skills and the human side of
organizations.
á
A political
frame that examines power, conflict, and coalitions among organizational
participants who have interests and agendas to protect and advance within a
context of scarce resources.
á
A symbolic
frame that explores how organizations create meaning and belief through
symbols, including myths, rituals, and ceremonies.
As we learn about each frame
and how to use them simultaneously in organizational analyses, we will rely
heavily on case studies pertaining to different functional areas, topics, and
problems in higher education.