Alumna Abroad

Q&A with Shannon Chance Ph.D. ‘10

Where were you born? What do you consider your hometown?

I was born in Virginia and my hometown is Blacksburg, where I lived for 26 years. I completed my first two degrees at Virginia Tech (a bachelors and a master’s in architecture).

Where is home for you now?

Home is a nebulous concept for me. I live in Dublin, Ireland, and am seeking citizenship here, but I also still feel Virginian, deep down.

Mostly, however, I feel like part of a global community. Every day I work with other engineering education researchers from around the globe—I aim for diversity in my collaborations, but I also know that my network over-represents the English-speaking world. I feel I represent U.S. and European perspectives within this community.

Why did you choose to pursue a Ph.D. at W&M’s School of Education?

I wanted to learn social science research methods somewhere near Hampton University, where I was teaching as an Associate Professor of Architecture. In fact, I developed interest in pedagogical studies by being part of HU, because the University holds mandatory pedagogical training for faculty members at three points each year, where the provost and selected faculty members showcase and describe innovative teaching pedagogies. I always enjoyed learning new approaches and implementing them in my own classrooms and design studios. I’d also really enjoyed learning by serving on Hampton University’s committee on promotion and tenure (even as a junior faculty member elected by my peers, a great thing HU allows). I’d also enjoyed serving on visiting teams of the National Architectural Accrediting Board and getting to see how many different architecture programs run and meeting with top academic leaders in many different universities. These activities linked quite naturally to the Ph.D. course in Educational Policy, Planning and Leadership.

When I discovered that William & Mary had doctoral level offerings in higher education, it seemed a natural fit. And fortunately, the program was offered in the evenings, so I could continue working full time and pay out of pocket. That said, Hampton University and the Christopher Wren Association did, together, cover the cost for the full-time year of study that was required while I was in the program.

Have you found that having the Ph.D. has enhanced your career and/or personal and professional development? If so, how?

I started the Ph.D. in 2006, because (1) I’d written a couple of chapters for a textbook and realized I’d like to learn better strategies for conducting research, (2) in 2003, I’d set a goal to earn a Fulbright fellowship to Ireland, and I knew I’d need a Ph.D. to have a competitive application, and (3) my mom earned a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech the same day I earned my Bachelor of Architecture degree and that reassured me it was possible.

With a stroke of fabulous luck, Professor Pamela Eddy joined William & Mary when I was halfway through my Ph.D., and her first semester with W&M was spent in Dublin, as a Fulbright in the Core Scholars program, and based at the same institution I’d selected in 2003 as my goal Dubln Institute of Technology (DIT), now called Technological University Dublin or TU Dublin. I picked this institution because architecture was offered there, and because it was located in the center of the city.
Pam is an incredible and vibrant role model, and she provided helpful advice and connected me to people she knew in Dublin. My first application to Fulbright was not successful, but I persevered, and my subsequent application was! Pam has been here, cheering me on, every step of the way and I could not be more grateful for her caring and astute support. Still today, 12 years after I graduated, she is one of my top supporters.

Your thesis earned the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the International Society for Educational Planning and you graduated with the sole 2010 Dean’s Award for Ph.D. students at W&M. What was the subject of your thesis?

I am an architect and I love to teach students about design and sustainability. For the dissertation, I investigated the ways universities had been using green building rating systems (like LEED).

I wanted to know if they were using LEED a genuine way—to generate new knowledge and help innovate and push new approaches forward—or if they were primarily motivated by earning an award.
Overall, I found that the council that runs the LEED program was using effective strategies and could be seen as a “learning organization,” and that the council had established effective ways of upgrading the expectations and raising the bar over time as new knowledge and technologies moved into widespread, mainstream use. EPPL’s Dr. Pam Eddy, Dr. Brenda Williams, Dr. David Leslie, and others had instilled such values in me, and I was able to recognize effective organizational learning in the USGBC (United States Green Building Council).

I also found that K-12 organizations were very actively using the LEED Green Building Rating system to help with creating and defining new strategies for innovation, and for using the overall site and building design to help teach students and instill environmental values in them. They earned many LEED credits for innovative design.

Based on the data I analyzed, about which categories and credits LEED applications had used to earn their ratings up until the start of 2010, postsecondary institutions were seemingly less sincere of less holistic in their approaches to earning certification. The council had put new regulations in place that required applicants to invest in earning at least some credits in “energy and atmosphere,” the category that most affects climate change, and this new rule had helped encourage universities to earn credits in this category. As it turned out, how many credits an institution earned in “energy and atmosphere” was the top predictor of earning the highest levels of certification. This new requirement meant that university applicants had more incentive to support the main goal of LEED, to provide leadership in energy and environmental design. They had to start putting their money where their mouth was!

Did you know going into W&M what your dissertation topic would be or is it something that evolved from your time at W&M?

The selection of the specific dissertation topic evolved across the first half of my four-year enrollment in the course. I found solid support in the program for researching this topic and knew it would be of help to my future students as well. In fact, I earned the credential of LEED-Accredited Professional as one step toward completing the dissertation and this is a very good credential to hold for an architect and teach within Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC).

I also have intense interest in theories on student development and have been developing a line of research on this topic after graduating.

Overall, I loved investigating the topics of each EPPL course, and I had a lot of fun tying ideas together across courses. We had a two-day, on-site Comprehensive Examination, and finishing this successfully gave me a huge sense of accomplishment!

What are you currently doing professionally?

I hold a permanent academic position at TU Dublin (equivalent of tenured Associate Professor), where I teach and chair a program in Building Information Modelling. Also, I currently have a contract that provides buy-out of teaching hours to develop curriculum materials for a new course in architectural engineering at Newgiza University, just outside Cairo.

I don’t have any job obligations to conduct research, but this is actually where I am most active! I’m involved with engineering education research centers at TU Dublin and University College London (I got Marie Curie grants from the EU to work in each of these research centers for two years each).

I’d say that editing journals and handbooks is my forte. I’ll soon be Deputy Editor for the European Journal of Engineering Education and was previously Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Education. I’m an associate editor on an international handbook of engineering education and a lead editor on another on engineering ethics education. I’ve also spearheaded the development of three special focus journal articles with one more underway. The topics of these special issues were social-cultural diversity, students’ epistemological and identity development, engineering ethics, and— upcoming—on conceptual learning and how students come to terms with new abstract concepts.

Of course, I have multiple manuscripts underway—it takes a lot of time getting them ready for publication and I am very slow. Looking it us, I see that I’ve published 17 journal articles, 10 book chapters, and 69 peer-reviewed conference papers. I’ve personally secured grants and contracts totaling $1.2 million. I’m proud of this because grants to conduct education research are very rare in Europe.

Can you tell us more about your experiences as a Marie Curie Research Fellow?

I had that one-year Fulbright fellowship to Dublin Institute of Technology (2012-2013), and one of the other Irish Fulbright fellows at the time recommended I apply for a Marie Curie grant. I returned to Hampton University after my Fulbright sabbatical but soon got news that my Marie Curie proposal was in the 9% of applications that were funded that year.

The focus of that Marie Curie fellowship to Ireland (2014-2016) was interviewing female engineering students in Ireland, Poland, and Portugal to better understand their experiences. I was learning to use phenomenographic methods for data collection and research. I’ve expanded that data set over time, and I currently have a Ph.D. student, a sociologist from Mexico City, who is analyzing the expanded longitudinal dataset I collected.

Immediately following that Marie Curie fellowship, I got a permanent, fulltime teaching post at DIT.
But while I was looking for that job, I submitted a second application to the Marie Curie program. Low and behold, I won a second Marie Curie fellowship! DIT granted me a Career Break (unpaid sabbatical) so I could spend two years working at University College London (UCL), in one of the most vibrant cities in the world and learning new things at one of the world’s top ranked organizations for research. That was a truly amazing experience. I’m still closely aligned with the Centre for Engineering Education there and I have a formal position as Visiting Professor there at University College London (UCL).

Do you have any current projects/passions you would like to tell us about?

I’ve got seven or eight papers under development that I dearly love and would like to give more attention to. But my biggest joy right now is mentoring others, in research and publishing.
I just finished a very rewarding term as Chair of the Global Research on Engineering Education Network (REEN) and go to put so much of what I learned in W&M’s EPPL program to work! I’m the outgoing chair now, and I find mentoring the new Chair to be great fun. Dr. Leslie’s lessons on exit strategy and being a background source of support have been front and center in my mind.
I have two Ph.D. students and colleagues all around the world with whom I collaborate. They are all younger than me, but I consider them all colleagues and peers. I just have a bit more life experience under my belt, and I am happy to share it with others! In this regard, Pam Eddy is my brightest role model.

These days, I feel like I am “playing tag” with the global community of engineering education researchers—a project idea comes along, and I look around to see which colleagues would be fun to work with on the new endeavor.

Just last night, I was welcoming students into a course on Research Methods and telling them about the joy of collaborating with others on research projects. A new project comes along, and I ask myself, “Who have I been looking or an opportunity to collaborate with?” I email those people and form a team. I’m currently co-authoring with people from the UK, Portugal, Rwanda, Ireland, Belgium, USA, Mexico, Canada, and South Africa.

It’s been amazing to live at a time when we can reach out with such ease and to all corners of the globe. I aim to keep building programs—like the capacity building programs our REEN network has developed in Africa. A major professional goal of mine is to advocate for greater diversity and actively promote anti-racism. I did this across my 15 years at Hampton University, and I continue these efforts today.

Do you know your next professional “step” or project?

Contributing to the EER community via books and journals is my main professional goal, but my professional goals come second to my life goal of living and ultimately retiring in Europe with health and happiness.

My institution is evolving quickly and is currently re-structuring so that paths to promotion will become more obvious. For now, I am quite content with the possibilities I have via my joint appointment with TU Dublin and University College London. I’ve got interesting new activities on the schedule—a Ph.D. viva (i.e., defense) in Denmark, delivering a keynote in Spain —to look forward to.
I also aim to get back into teaching architecture (balanced with the Building Information Modelling and engineering graphics courses I currently teach). I feel so energetic and alive when I’m teaching and, although teaching architecture also takes loads of energy, it’s just so rewarding on a personal and intellectual level.

Did you have a favorite course or professor while you were at W&M?

I had so many great advisors at William & Mary: Dr. Brenda Williams who served as co-author for my first journal article, Dr. David Leslie who agreed to serve on my dissertation committee even after he had retired, and Dr. Pam Eddy for her boundless knowledge, energy, and support. There were many others, but I hold these three close to my heart.

Do you have a favorite memory or memories of your time at W&M?

Absolutely. The first EPPL module I took was “Student Development Theory.” I loved the topic, devoured the books, and thoroughly enjoyed discussing the readings with some of the other students, including Nathan Alleman. The way these students articulate ideas impressed me and convinced me that this program was the one for me.

I also have great memories:

of fruitful collaborations with teachers Brenda Williams, Pam Eddy, and Jim Barber;
of the many field trips that we took during the summer-time elective courses I offered on sustainability in higher education and of the highly engaged and inquisitive students who completed that course, including Luanna Martins, Laura Sorenson, Daniel Hoover, Amy Sykes, Justine Okerson, Juliana Wait, Kristina Neuhart, Michelle Mitchell, Michael Mullin and Dimelza Gonzales-Flores;
of engaging conversations with teachers Michael DiPoala, Tom Ward, Dot Finnegan and David Leslie;
of an eye-opening elective on educational advancement that I took with Karlene Jennings who brought flowers to my dissertation defense since it was next to her office in Swem library;
of meaningful research collaborations with students like Joe Lowder, Christen Cullum Hairston and Ben Boone;
of students I learned with, like Randy Williams, Jobila Williams Sy, Lisa Heuval and Sean Heuval.

You’ve studied and taught at several distinguished institutions of higher education. Were there any aspects of your experience at W&M that struck you as unique or of special value to you?

The EPPL staff at William & Mary was exceptionally supportive. I found the teachers to be mentors, dedicated to drawing out the best—and going above and beyond to support students like me. I experienced exceptionally high collegiality, particularly from Pam Eddy, Brenda Williams, David Leslie, Karlene Jennings, and Jim Barber. They and others—like Michael DiPaola and Dot Finnegan—allowed leeway in their assignments for highly motivated students like me to align with our own interests to complement the content of the course. This let me grow my knowledge in ways very relevant to me. Moreover, Pam Eddy and Tom Ward made it possible for me to teach that elective course three different summers – and working with the students at William & Mary in that way was a tremendous joy!

Do you think international experience as a student is helpful in future life and career?

I do find international experience as helpful in future life and career! The day after I earned my Bachelor of Architecture, I boarded a plane for my first study aboard to Europe. A couple years later I did a half-year exchange program and lived with six different farm families in Switzerland. These two experiences changed my life! Since then, I have lived and worked in the USA, Switzerland, Ireland, and the UK.

In my years at Hampton University, I organized and conducted more than a dozen international study abroad programs. I brought HU students to Italy, Tanzania, South Africa, Tunisia, Spain, Czech Republic, and France. I found grants to help cover the costs to allow lower-income students to travel.

Anything else you would like to add or tell us?

I’m happy to offer advice to anyone who wants to apply for fellowships in Europe. You can find me at the blog IrelandByChance.com.