Laura Parson, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Educational and Organizational Leadership. Her Ph.D. is in Teaching & Learning, Higher Education from the University of North Dakota. Additionally, she has a MEd in Adult Education from Westminster College with a certification in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL). She received the 2019 NASPA Ruth Strang award for research concerning women in higher education and was the first recipient of the Gloria Nathanson Research Fund for International Research. She is the co-editor of a four-volume edited series titled Teaching and Learning for Social Justice and Equity in Education, the first volume was published in 2020, the second and third in 2021, and the fourth in 2022. She is the author of Polygamy, Women, & Higher Education, a monograph published by Palgrave Macmillan, published in 2019, and has authored and co-authored 21 peer-reviewed articles, 9 book chapters, and 6 invited articles, with many more in press. She also maintains public scholarship on her website (lauraparson.com).
Laura’s research seeks to identify where and how institutional disjunctures occur in higher education for women and members of minoritized groups. She is a qualitative methodologist, with a focus on ethnographic and discourse methods of inquiry. Her research questions seek to understand how policy, procedures, discourses, and institutional environments inform student experiences, and how the institution coordinates those factors through translocal practices. Building on that research, she uses policy and curriculum to recreate the teaching and learning environment in higher education to promote equitable and effective learning spaces. Laura teaches courses in higher education structure and organizational culture.
If you are interested in collaborating or would like to speak more about any of these or past projects, please contact Laura.
Selected Publications:
The language of retrenchment: A discourse analysis of budget cutting in higher education
Digital media responses to a feminist scholarly article: A critical discourse analysis
Gendered student ideals in STEM in higher education
Are STEM syllabi gendered? A feminist critical discourse analysis
Considering positionality: The ethics of conducting research with marginalized groups
If you would like to read any of these manuscripts but do not have institutional access, please contact me.
Laura Parson, PhD 