Lamont Flowers had an opportunity to pursue strictly research during his MFFP residency in Bloomington this summer.  He was invited by the School of Education’s Educational

Leadership and Policy Studies program to work with Professor George Kuh on the National Survey of Student Engagement (NESTE), of which Kuh is the director.  Flowers said he was delighted to be involved with the project, and that his contribution “dealt with evaluating psychometric properties of NESTE, and constructing validity evidence. It was a good experience to see the project take off,” he added.

 Although the statistical foundations informing his work for NESTE intersect with that Flowers did for his dissertation, the first advanced degree he received at the University of Iowa was an M.A. in Social Studies, with teacher certification.  He said his transition to a Ph.D. program in higher education at that university seemed a logical one.  “During my first masters program, I honed and developed my teaching skills. It seemed natural after that to focus on college students and policies.” 

His comprehensive areas of doctoral study were Higher Education Administration, Academic Planning, and Program Development. Flowers recalled his extensive collaborations during his time at the University of Iowa with dissertation chair Professor Ernest T. Pascarella, saying that Pascarella “has been a powerful influence, mentor, and friend.”  Together, the two have co-authored a number of publications. After a year’s work towards his Ph.D., Flowers realized that a significant portion of his analysis would be statistical, and hence undertook an M.A. in Educational Measurement and Statistics to complement his other program of study.  Flowers received both his M.A. and Ph.D. in May of 2000.

 His dissertation is entitled “Cognitive Effects of Race in College: Differences between African American and Caucasian Students,” and in it he employs two major modes of analysis: the first is longitudinal, based on information gathered by the National Study of Student Learning; the second is cross-sectional, rooted strongly in results gathered by the Basic Academic Subjects Examination.  Flowers calculated the net effects of race on each of several cognitive outcomes, statistically controlling for the influence of college.  He said, “There are usually four influences of college that need to be considered: pre-college background and individual traits (socioeconomic factors, age, gender, and so on); environmental influence of college, for instance perceptions of the racial environment; academic experiences ranging from grades, course major, amount of time spent in study per week; and non-academic social experiences, on or off campus.”             

 Flowers plans to extend this research later in his career.  For fall semester, however, he is busy acclimating to his new tenure track position at the University of Florida, Gainesville, in their School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Foundations.  Reflecting upon his experience this summer, he said, “I strongly recommend this program to graduate students and to those who recently defended their dissertations; it’s a chance to get experience on research and working with faculty as equals.”