'Whole Schools' Faculty Cluster Promoting Collaboration in College of Education and Health Professions

Improving education and health outcomes among children and youth leads to longer and healthier lives, higher educational attainment and lifetime earnings, and stronger communities and economies.

A unique "Whole Schools" cluster hire of eight new faculty members across six academic programs in the College of Education and Health Professions is working towards achieving those outcomes throughout the state of Arkansas.

"Our college is uniquely poised to promote collaboration across education and health programs to maximize learning and health in schools," said Dean Kate Mamiseishvili. "We've had great success with all eight of these amazing faculty hires, and I look forward to seeing the incredible work they continue doing in schools across the state."

Inspired by the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) Model, the college began hiring faculty committed to advancing research on whole schools in the fall of 2024.

The eight faculty members include:

·      Cian Brown, assistant professor of counselor education and supervision

·      Jennifer Cowhy, assistant professor of educational leadership

·      Anqi Deng, assistant professor of exercise science

·      Miguel Garcia-Salas, assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders

·      Emma McMain, assistant professor of educational statistics and research methods

·      Kristie Opiola, assistant professor of counselor education and supervision

·      Melissa Savage, assistant professor of special education

·      James Sinclair, assistant professor of special education

Sinclair, who joined the college in the fall of 2024, said that taking a holistic approach in schools helps researchers and administrators see how different systems affect one another, and that their collective efforts often help students succeed. He said the support he's received from the college is something he's never felt before.

"It feels like playing in a sandbox," Sinclair said. "My research ideas come to fruition via different collaborations and different methodologies. Bringing together an interdisciplinary set of scholars promotes diverse thinking, application of diverse theoretical perspectives, and fosters a sense of collective collaboration."

Cluster hire faculty are provided with support and resources through the college's WE CARE Strategic Plan.

Resources such as Team Up for Education and Health funds support impactful research in the college. Interdisciplinary teams of faculty and staff design projects to promote innovative solutions and integrated approaches to studying challenges in education and/or healthcare. 

Over the last two years, cluster hire faculty members have been involved in 12 interdisciplinary Team Up grants, including three that involved multiple cluster hire faculty members as collaborators.  

McMain received a Team Up grant, which enabled her and colleagues to study special educators from across Arkansas. She said the work has given her a deeper understanding of the need for educational change that values individual stories as much as structural contexts.

"Schools can and should be spaces that tend to many interrelated aspects of being—the social, emotional, physical and more," she said. "This also means nurturing the wellbeing of everyone in a school community (from paraprofessionals to custodial staff to parents and families), not just students."

Several Whole Schools faculty members have joined the college on WE CARE-A-VAN Tours. WE CARE-A-VAN's involve members of the college traveling to different regions of the state to hear from a wide range of people, strengthen partnerships and learn about the successes and challenges facing communities and organizations across Arkansas.

"As a new Arkansan, joining the WE CARE-A-VAN was a great opportunity to get out and learn more about the state and the partners doing great work across it," Garcia-Salas said. "The experience really reinforced for me the importance of community-engaged research and strong research-practice partnerships to ensure our work is responsive to community needs and helps address real-world problems."

He said a highlight of the tour was visiting family child care homes and seeing first-hand the innovative ways the college's partners address the needs of Arkansas families.

The college's Whole Schools faculty meet regularly throughout the academic year as they work to improve education and health outcomes for students in schools across the state.

A Lunch and Learn series provides both informal and formal opportunities for faculty to engage with one another and with other scholars and professionals working at the intersection of education and health. Sessions have covered topics like conducting research in Arkansas schools, understanding the LEARNS Act and state education policy, and accessing state-level data. 

Faculty members have also engaged with leaders from the EAST Initiative, which supports student-centered and project-based learning in Arkansas schools, and they received an early preview of the AR-COMPASS Explorer, an interactive dashboard that provides community-level health and social data from the Arkansas Health Survey.