AAHHE and ETS Announce Outstanding Dissertations Competition 2008

“The American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education AAHHE and Educational Testing Service ETS are pleased to announce the Outstanding Dissertations Competition 2008. The competition is designed to increase the number of Hispanics receiving doctorate degrees, entering higher education on the tenure track, and eventually serving in faculty leadership and administrative roles.

By developing this competition, AAHHE and ETS are providing an opportunity to spotlight top doctoral students and, at the same time, are rewarding excellence in Hispanic student performance at the doctoral level. The goals are to encourage greater numbers of prepared students to enter and complete doctoral programs and to enhance the quality of the dissertations they write.

“Although the Hispanic population is the fastest growing population in the country, Hispanics are underrepresented in higher education in all areas,” says Dr. Patricia Arredondo, AAHHE Dissertation Chair. “Gains are being seen every year in the number of doctorate degrees conferred to Hispanics and in the number in full-time faculty positions, but the percentages are not climbing commensurate with the populations growth.”

The competition is open to anyone who has completed a dissertation that focuses on Hispanics in higher education or to any Hispanic who has completed a dissertation in the social sciences, broadly defined, between June 1, 2004 and August 1, 2007. Dissertations are eligible if they are in domains that are related to the ETS corporate mission, including education, linguistics, psychology, statistics and testing. Dissertations in the humanities, sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics are not eligible.

There will be two types or levels of winners:

– Semifinalists — the writers of the top five to seven dissertation
abstracts, from which the three finalists may be selected, and
– The three finalists — the writers of the dissertations selected by
the Panel of Judges as first, second and third place winners.

The three finalists will be recognized at the annual awards luncheon during AAHHE’s third annual Conference in Miami, FL, on March 6-8, 2008.

The American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education will pay for travel expenses within the continental United States, a hotel room for two nights and per diem for two days for the three finalists. In addition, the Association will pay conference registration fees for the finalists.

The first place winner will receive an award of $5,000. The second place winner will receive an award of $2,000, and the third place winner will receive $1,000. All three finalists will receive an AAHHE/ETS plaque.

The three finalists will also present their dissertation in individual concurrent sessions at the conference. The American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, furthermore, will ask the three finalists to submit to the Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, AAHHE’s partner, an academic article based on the dissertation.

ETS will invite the first place winner to publish the essence of the winning dissertation in an appropriate ETS publication and to showcase the research at a seminar hosted by ETS in Princeton, New Jersey.

Anyone with questions about the competition may contact Dr. Patricia Arredondo, AAHHE Dissertation Chair, (480) 965-5909 empower@asu.edu. The submission deadline is September 10, 2007. “

Comments are closed.