Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Hartford
About
Karla completed her BS in higher education from the Universidad de Colima, Mexico, her MS in higher education administration from the University of Kansas, and her PhD in higher education with a minor in gender studies from Penn State University. Her scholarship and teaching interests examine the teaching, learning, and assessment processes, and how they intersect with students and faculty identity and diversity.
Her projects seek to improve college teaching and learning, faculty work, and academic conditions for students to thrive in college. A former academic administrator, Karla pairs her practitioner expertise with theoretical and methodological knowledge to inform her classroom, advising, and research work.
As a Latina faculty of color, Karla believes in the power of education to transform individuals, processes, and systems to create inclusive environments. To inform her work, Karla uses an array of theories, frameworks, and methods, and interdisciplinary approaches.
Current Work:
Karla's work seeks to find better ways to teach college students, improve faculty work, and help colleges and universities become spaces where the increasingly diverse students and faculty feel welcome and supported. One of Karla's projects on faculty work looks at how faculty members' receive, understand, and respond to their institution's expectations of their work, which is not always clearly communicated and might lead to failure, with faculty often not obtaining promotion and/or leaving the profession.
One of Karla’s newest projects is on understanding how the (mis)use of devices in the classroom (particularly students recording with cellphones) might influence faculty academic freedom. The ideas behind this project are that both faculty and students are likely to suffer from out-of-context distortions, and that some faculty and student groups are more likely to be supported or ignored by the institutions and the media, based on their identities, and social perceptions of these identities.
Research Area Keyword(s):
Teaching, learning, assessment, equity, faculty
