COPH Faculty Awarded Best Paper Award at International Conference

Colin Chesley, Instructor and Field Internship Coordinator for the Department of Health Services Management and Policy in the ETSU College of Public Health, has been awarded the Best Paper Award by the International Conference on Learning and Administration in Higher Education 2016.  The paper, which he co-wrote with Jennifer Barber, doctoral student, and Bethany Flora, Assistant Professor in the Claudius Clemmer College of Education and Human Development is titled “Impacts of the FOCUS Act on Governance in Tennessee Higher Education Institutions.” 

With the final passage of the Focus on College and University Success (FOCUS) Act, which was signed into law on April 19, 2016, state universities within Tennessee are heading for major transitions in governance structure and autonomy. Six soon-to-be former Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) universities must determine the best way to proceed from their current governance structure to a localized governing board. Drawing on historical precedents and current policy changes, the paper detailed recommendations for the six universities regarding future governance structure and appointment of the board, and proposed future directions and policy discussions for the institutions.

All papers submitted to the conference are reviewed on a five-point scale by three or more of the submitter’s peers.  Each manuscript, receiving an average score of four or higher, is subjected to a second round of reviews to determine if it qualifies for a Best Paper Award and an offer to publish in one of the conference journals.  Based on the results of this two-stage process, Mr. Chesley and his co-authors were awarded a Best Paper Award. The International Conference on Learning and Administration in Higher Education, in conjunction with Academic Business World (ABW), jointly sponsors an annual international conference for the exchange of research ideas and practices. The aim of the Joint Conference (ICLAHE-ABWIC) is to provide a collegial forum for the presentation of research and the sharing of ideas and experiences.  This year’s conference was held in Nashville, Tennessee.