LSU Dissertation Fellowship Awarded to CHSE Student Sara Wooten

05/03/16

Sara Wooten, a doctoral candidate in the School of Education (SOE) in the College of Human Sciences & Education (CHSE) received the university-wide Dissertation Year Fellowship for the 2016-2017 academic year.

Wooten was selected from a highly gifted and competitive pool of applicants, signifying the scholarly potential of her dissertation research.

“To have my research recognized as meaningful and important by LSU is the highest honor I could have hoped to achieve during my time here,” Wooten said. “I have been tremendously fortunate to have consistently strong support and encouragement from my committee members, Drs. Roland Mitchell, Keena Arbuthnot, Petra Munro Hendry, and Jacqueline Bach, and owe them sincere thanks for getting me to this point.”

Her research examines the impact of campus sexual violence on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students in higher education. Most academic research conducted on campus sexual assault has focused on heterosexual and gender-normative female college students as survivors, and Wooten said she seeks to expand the realm of who “counts” as a survivor.

Wooten employed a web-based survey questionnaire for her study, which was sent to students at seven higher education institutions in Illinois. She is currently conducting quantitative and qualitative analyses on her final probability sample of 768 surveys.

Upon graduation, Wooten plans to pursue a tenure-track faculty position at a research university in order to continue her research agenda. She also hopes to partner with the Department of Justice in coming years.

“To say that this fellowship means the world to me is an understatement,” Wooten said. “I take my research incredibly seriously and aim to produce a dissertation that could have a positive impact on the lives of actual students.”

About SOE
The LSU School of Education (SOE) offers graduate and undergraduate programs in Curriculum and Instruction and in Educational Leadership, Research, and Counseling. The School’s mission is to prepare P-12 educational professionals to be leaders, practitioners and scholars knowledgeable in contemporary educational issues.

Visit the School of Education at lsu.edu/education

About CHSE

The College of Human Sciences & Education (CHSE) is a nationally accredited division of Louisiana State University. The College is comprised of the School of Education, the School of Leadership and Human Resource Development, the School of Kinesiology, the School of Library and Information Science, the School of Social Work, and the University Laboratory School. These combined schools offer 8 undergraduate degree programs and 18 graduate programs, enrolling more than 1,900 undergraduate and 977 graduate students. The College is committed to achieving the highest standards in teaching, research, and service and is continually working to improve its programs.

Visit the College of Human Sciences & Education at chse.lsu.edu.