Making College “Worth It” – Season 1, Episode 11

In this episode, we focus on student-faculty partnerships in higher education. We talk to Sophia Abbot, a doctoral candidate in the Higher Education Program at George Mason University and a long-time contributor to partnership practice and scholarship. She currently works as a graduate assistant on the Anti-Racist and Inclusive Teaching (ARIT) team in Stearns Center for Teaching & Learning, and she’s a co-editor of The Power of Partnership: Students, Staff, and Faculty Revolutionizing Higher Education. 

View a transcript of this episode.

Meet our Guest

Sophia Abbot is a doctoral candidate in the Higher Education Program at George Mason University. She currently works as a graduate assistant on the Anti-Racist and Inclusive Teaching (ARIT) team in Stearns Center for Teaching & Learning. Her primary responsibilities include developing inclusive teaching resources for faculty and carrying out assessment of ARIT programming to determine the impacts on instructor’s inclusive teaching practices and overall learning.

Sophia has studied the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and students’ perspectives on higher education for the last eight years, focusing in particular on pedagogical partnerships and co-creation among students and faculty. Prior to completing her Master of Arts in higher education (Elon University, NC), she spent three years working as a faculty developer at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. She has written and presented extensively on partnership, SoTL, and educational development. She currently serves on the International Advisory Board for the International Journal for Students as Partners (IJSaP), as a Special Projects Associate for the journal Teaching & Learning Inquiry, and as a co-chair of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning‘s (ISSOTL) Student Engagement and Co-Inquiry Interest Group. 

Learn more and connect with her at https://sophiaabbot.com/.

Episode Credits

This episode is co-hosted by Jessie L. Moore, Director of Elon University’s Center for Engaged Learning, and Nolan Schultheis, a first-year student at Elon University, studying Psychology with an interest in law. Nolan Schultheis also edited the episode. Making College “Worth It” is produced by Elon University’s Center for Engaged Learning.

Episode art was created by Nolan Schultheis and Jennie Goforth, managing editor for the Center for Engaged Learning.

Funky Percussions is by Denys Kyshchuk (@audiocoffeemusic) – https://www.audiocoffee.net/. Soft Beat is by ComaStudio.

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