CIA VERSCHELDEN, M.S.W., Ed.D.
Executive Director Institutional Assessment
Office of Academic Effectiveness
University of Central Oklahoma  

Keynote Speaker: "Bandwidth Recovery: Reclaiming Cognitive Resources Lost to Poverty, Racism, and Other 'Differentisms'"

Learning outcomes:

• Understand how poverty and racism (sexism, nativism, heterosexism, etc.) can deplete cognitive/attentional resources (mental bandwidth).
• Understand how social-psychological phenomena like stereotype threat and identity threat, microaggressions, and belongingness uncertainty deplete bandwidth.
• Learn about interventions that have shown promise of helping students recover bandwidth so they are more likely be academically successful.
• Reflect on ways in which we can apply the bandwidth concept in our own work and life contexts.

Cia is the Executive Director of Institutional Assessment at University of Central Oklahoma where she also teaches in sociology. From 2009-2012, she was the Vice President for Academic Affairs at Highland Community College in Kansas. Cia was on the faculty at Kansas State University since 1989, on the Social Work faculty for 11 years, Director of Women’s Studies, and then Director of Assessment. Cia has a B.S. in psychology from K-State, an M.S.W. from The University of Connecticut, and an Ed.D. from Harvard University. In her 2017 book, Bandwidth Recovery: Helping Students Reclaim Cognitive Resources Lost to Poverty, Racism, and Social Marginalization, she makes the case that the mental bandwidth of many college students in certain non-majority groups is depleted by persistent economic insecurity and psychosocial underminers, e.g., racism and homophobia. She describes in-class and out-of- class interventions and attention to campus environments that can help students regain bandwidth so they can be academically successful.

PINDERHUGHES FELLOWSHIP FUND
In honor of the many accomplishments and contributions made by noted teacher and scholar, Professor Emerita Elaine Pinderhughes, we invite alumni, students and their friends and family to lend their support to the Elaine Pinderhughes Fellowship, a fund that provides financial aid assistance each year to outstanding African-American doctoral students at the Boston College School of Social Work.

To contribute to the Pinderhughes Fellowship Fund please visit: bc.edu/schools/gssw/alumniand click the GIVE link

Registration Required