At third Research for Impact Conference, 40 presentations on education research were given by over 70 faculty, staff, students, alumni and research partners

If you want to gain a deeper understanding of the wide-ranging research coming out of the USC Rossier School of Education—an institution that includes nearly 300 faculty, over 200 staff, 1,775 students and more than 33,000 alumni—the Research for Impact Conference is the ideal place to start. Attendees are given a glimpse into the breadth of the research the USC Rossier community is conducting over the course of a single day.

At this year’s event, the third Research for Impact Conference, there were 40 presentations from over 70 faculty, staff, students, alumni and research partners. Topics covered included supporting student autonomy; social-emotional learning strategies for teachers; institutional support for Muslim students; virtual reality teacher training; the relationship between a strong democracy and education; and the impact of transitional kindergarten. The conference took place on Mar. 7 at the USC Hotel with plenary sessions held in the hotel’s ballroom and additional individual and panel presentations conducted in breakout rooms and online.

To kick off the event, associate dean for research Gale Sinatra welcomed the over 200 registered attendees and thanked the many faculty and staff at USC Rossier who made the event possible. Sinatra also introduced USC Rossier Dean Pedro Noguera who provided some reflective remarks.

In his address, Dean Noguera reflected on the history of the event and set the tone for the day. “We came up with this idea in 2023 to hold an event where we feature the research that goes on at USC Rossier. It’s exciting to see this come to fruition [as] the theme of research for impact is really what our school is about,” Noguera said.

Noguera also introduced the theme of this year’s conference, sustainability. Education is an essential part of solving the climate crisis, Noguera said and urged us to “use our educational resources to support the notion of sustainability with our environment rather than simply ignoring what is happening.”

The conference’s lunchtime keynote address was given by Asli Sezen-Barrie, the Stacey Nicholas Endowed Chair of Climate and Environmental Education at the UC Irvine School of Education. Sezen-Barrie is an expert in transdisciplinary approaches to climate change education and dedicated her talk, “Beyond Awareness: Transformative Climate Change Education for a Just and Thriving Future,” to strategies for success.

Sezen-Barrie highlighted recent extreme weather events including Superstorm Sandy which struck the East Coast in 2012. The storm impacted her personally and inspired her to focus her work on science education.

Fresh on the minds of many in attendance were the L.A. wildfires. Sezen-Barrie explained that recent fires have become more deadly because of the effects of human-caused climate change. For reasons like these, “we can’t afford to teach climate change as if humans aren’t part of the ecosystem,” Sezen-Barrie said.

So, what then is the best way forward? According to Sezen-Barrie, climate change education must be approached holistically. Her “transformative climate change education” method includes three important elements: climate education must be done across disciplines, contexts and epistemologies; action-oriented learning through community-based and participatory approaches will have greater impact; and the work must attend to emotional well-being and use action to cultivate hope. This last point is especially important as many young people experience climate anxiety, and “hope is necessary to take action,” Sezen-Barrie said.

The inaugural Hentschke Family Early-Stage Research Award was also announced at the conference. This year’s recipient was assistant professor of education Dwuana Bradley for her research project, “The Black Ontology Project,” which studies agentic coping and resilience among Black students, staff and faculty. Former USC Rossier dean Guilbert Hentschke, whose family established the new award, was in attendance and presented Bradley with the honor.

The Research for Impact Conference not only provides seasoned faculty an opportunity to share their work with the community but also gives students and alumni a platform to present their work, some for the very first time. This point, in particular, is integral to the mission of USC Rossier, as Noguera stressed in his opening remarks.

“We should always be thinking about impact. The worst thing you can do is put all that effort into a dissertation that no one reads,” Noguera said. “We want not only for it to be read but to have impact and use. When you put time, effort and thought into this work, you want to share it because you want it to be of use. That’s what this event is about.”