The article, “,” was published Sept. 8 in the Journal of Sport Management, a leading scholarly journal in the sport management field. Dabbs and Burton collaborated on the research with Jeffrey Graham of Texas A&M University and Anton Schulz of Texas Tech University.

Using in-depth interviews with 16 women NCAA head coaches, the researchers explored how coaches responded to unexpected career-defining moments, primarily termination or institutional investigations. Their analysis identified three interconnected themes: an abrupt and isolating separation from the professional world; an attack on personal and professional identity; and lasting consequences affecting finances, health, families and future plans.

Rather than viewing forced job loss simply as a professional transition, the research frames the experience as a broader life crisis and points to the need for more humane off-boarding practices within sport organizations, including compassionate communication and access to independent mental health, financial and career-transition resources.

“This topic is important to me because the experiences of women coaches following an investigation or forced exit are rarely discussed openly,” Dabbs said. “These women entrusted us with deeply personal stories about losing not only their jobs, but also their professional identities, financial security, relationships, and sense of belonging.”

Dabbs said she hopes the findings will draw greater attention to the experiences of women coaches and encourage sport organizations to reconsider how they handle difficult career transitions.

“I wanted this research to give them a voice, shed light on a serious problem within college coaching, and encourage sport organizations to develop more ethical and humane exit strategies,” she said.

The publication also represents the culmination of a faculty-student research collaboration between Dabbs and Burton, who worked on the project while an Elon student. Burton played a pivotal role in the study’s qualitative data analysis, working with the 16 interview transcripts and collaborating with the research team to examine, code and organize the coaches’ experiences into the themes ultimately presented in the article.

Dabbs mentored Burton throughout the process, �þ��� her how to conduct qualitative data analysis and write the methodology section of a scholarly article.

“Her careful engagement with the participants’ stories contributed meaningfully to both the rigor of the analysis and the development of the manuscript,” Dabbs said.

For Dabbs, Burton’s involvement illustrates the value of providing students opportunities to participate directly in research. Such collaborations allow students to apply concepts learned in the classroom while gaining firsthand experience with how scholarly research is conducted and developed.

“They learn to work carefully with evidence, recognize patterns, question their assumptions, and communicate findings responsibly,” she added.

Another benefit? The experience can also reshape how students view their own place within an academic and professional community.

“�þ��� gain confidence from knowing that their work can contribute to meaningful conversations in their field,” Dabbs said. “Mentored research helps them see themselves not only as students, but also as scholars and professionals whose ideas and contributions matter.”

“The research I do has nothing to do with dance,” says Scherich, the A.L. Hook Emerging Professor in Science and Mathematics and assistant professor of mathematics and statistics at Elon. “Dance is just the mechanism in which I communicate my research.”

Scherich’s research focuses on topology, a branch of mathematics that studies flexible geometric shapes that remain preserved through deformation such as twisting, stretching or bending without opening holes, tearing or passing through themselves. More specifically, her research centers on knot theory, a field examining mathematical knots and braids.

Advanced mathematics requires years of foundational knowledge and technical language that can be difficult to explain to those outside the discipline. This challenge prompted Scherich to think creatively about how to share her work with broader audiences in an accessible way.

“Mathematics can be very abstract and uses a lot of specific jargon language,” Scherich says. “It can be difficult to tell somebody about your work, because first you have to define years’ worth of math before you can even get started. I was looking for ways to explain what math is in a way where you do not necessarily understand the technicalities, but you can get a flavor for what we are studying.”

Dance allows her to bypass that barrier, not by simplifying math but by translating it into a story with motion and emotion.

“Dance is a really effective way to emotionally story-tell,” she says. “I don’t really think in terms of dialogue. I think in terms of movement.”

Scherich’s work intentionally challenges stereotypes surrounding mathematics. Many of her videos feature female dancers and traditionally feminine aesthetics, in contrast to what has historically been a male-dominated field.

“When you think of a ballet dancer, you think of a woman,” Scherich says. “When you think of a mathematician, you probably don’t.”

The intersection of dance and mathematics flows into her work with students. She collaborated with Sol Addison ’25 and Lila Snodgrass ’26 on research examining how dancers move across a stage over time to define a new knot invariant called the danceability index.

In the classroom, Scherich uses videos of her dances as part of a larger narrative. She might begin a lecture by introducing different branches of mathematics such as algebra, geometry and topology through movement, giving students a conceptual framework before diving into formal definitions. One of her recent pieces uses , a foundational result in knot theory. The videos do not replace traditional instruction but provide students with another way to grasp complex ideas.

Scherich’s path to mathematics was far from linear. Growing up in California, she left high school early to pursue performance opportunities and began college at 14, initially planning a future in performing arts. Encouraged by her father, a high school math teacher, she also enrolled in math courses as a backup plan.

I was looking for ways to explain what math is in a way where you do not necessarily understand the technicalities, but you can get a flavor for what we are studying. — Nancy Scherich

She changed majors several times — performance, French, biochemistry, chemistry — before mathematics finally stuck. The turning point came during a calculus class when she learned how to calculate the volume of a three-dimensional shape created by rotating a two-dimensional object.

“I was like, ‘I think I just became a mathematician; this is so cool. I’m in,’” Scherich says.

For years, Scherich kept dance and math separate. That changed during graduate school at the University of California, Santa Barbara when she learned about Science magazine’s “Dance Your Ph.D.” competition. Encouraged by a friend, she spent an entire summer creating a dance video inspired by her dissertation research. The project went on to win the competition.

“I feel like the video I created is probably my life’s masterpiece,” Scherich says. “So much love and passion went into that dance video. Since then, every time I am doing research or learn a new piece of mathematics, or I’m having trouble explaining math to someone, I think ‘Can I make a dance about this?’”

While the approach is unconventional, Scherich says the response from the mathematics community has been overwhelmingly positive.

“People will come up to me at conferences and say, ‘You’re the math and dance girl, right?’” Scherich says. “They appreciate that it’s making math accessible and fun.”

The 2025-26 academic year also marked major milestones in Scherich’s career. She was named the A.L Hook Emerging Professor in Science and Mathematics and received a $125,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support her research and community building within Elon’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics.

Through her work, Scherich continues to demonstrate that mathematics is not limited to formulas and symbols on a page. By combining movement, storytelling and research, she offers students and audiences a new way to see mathematics — as dynamic, creative and deeply human.

“The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. We had our “Vs. Cancer” game this season and having a 7-year-old girl around our team who is going through a lot of tough times, it makes you reflect on something. So, when I found out about the book, I just wanted to read it. I wanted to see how I could personally look at that situation and how it would reflect on me.

What is your favorite phone app?

The onX Hunt app. In my spare time, which I don’t have much, I like to hunt. It’s an educational app that provides you with terrain, property boundaries and corridors on your property that might hold more deer than others.

If you could invite someone from history to dinner, who would it be?

Yogi Berra. I think just over time with all his funny quotes and how he kept the game fun, it would be an hour of constant laughs. His history with one-liners and the quotes he has are classic, so I think that would be an awesome night.

What is your favorite place on campus?

The first-base dugout. That’s where I have built most of my relationships here at Elon. I’ve always said the best time for me is the 30 minutes after practice with three or four guys just sitting in that dugout chopping it up. Sometimes, I’ll learn more in that dugout about our guys than I do anywhere else.

Nine hundred wins is an incredible milestone. When you think about your career at Elon, what are you proudest of? and what has kept you here all this time?

More than anything, the relationships I’ve been able to build with former players. I love that at a time where there are a lot of departures in and around college athletics, we have so many former players that have built lifelong friendships and an incredible bond to Elon Baseball. I love that they reach out after a big win or a bad loss. I love that they follow the program and support current players. Truly, it’s an extension of family. This program is special! I love this campus and I’ve been blessed to be around great people.

This summer, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Safia Swimelar teaches New York City: Living in the Global Community using the city as a microcosm to help students understand the diversity and complexity of global humanity. The course explores the meaning of NYC as a global city and how cultural, political and economic aspects of globalization are reflected and visualized there.

“Even though I teach political science, we’re talking about the globalization of hip-hop, food, 9/11, identity and culture,” Swimelar says. “They all fit the idea of New York as a global city.”

�þ��� spend Monday through Thursday interning in industries ranging from finance and marketing to communications and graphic design. On Fridays, everyone comes together for weekly seminars, encouraging students to connect their workplace experiences with broader discussions around globalization, identity and culture.

In true Elon fashion, learning extends beyond the classroom. “We try to match the academic topic with some kind of hands-on experience, whether that’s a museum, a tour or meeting people in the community,” Swimelar says. This summer’s experiential learning opportunities included a visit to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, a World Cup watch party, a Juneteenth celebration in Central Park, a performance of “Ragtime” on Broadway, the Pride Parade, a tour of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, an international food tour in Queens and a private tour of the New York Stock Exchange, to name a few.

At its core, the course is about helping students understand the world from a new perspective. “I really want them to understand that the United States — and every city in it — is inherently connected to the rest of the world,” Swimelar says. “The global is everywhere.”

By the end of the summer, students bring home much more than academic knowledge and internship experience. Living in Brooklyn, navigating the subway and working full-time internships provide a realistic glimpse into life in one of the world’s largest cities.

“For many of them, this is the first time they feel like they’re actually living here instead of just visiting,” Swimelar says. “When I read their journals each week, many are saying, ‘I think I really do want to move to New York.’”

Whether students pursue careers in business, the arts, communications, finance or public policy, Swimelar hopes they leave New York with a deeper appreciation for the people, cultures and ideas that shape communities both locally and globally.

About the Professor

Professor Safia Swimelar has taught political science and policy studies at Elon since 2008. Her �þ��� and research focus on international relations, human rights, European politics, global studies and film and politics. As a former Fulbright Scholar, Swimelar draws on her international experience to help students better understand global politics and contemporary issues.

Recommended Materials

• “The Colossus of New York,” by Colson Whitehead
• “Hip hop’s Enduring Echo: From New York’s Streets to Global Beats,” The Elephant, 2023
• “America After 9/11,” PBS Frontline documentary

Now, as a graduate, I can attest how those connections — first planted on the university’s campus — grow into strong bonds well beyond Elon’s brick pathways and oak trees. That is true of my connection to Dr. Anthony Hatcher.

Although I only took a few of Dr. Hatcher’s courses at Elon, our paths crossed countless times inside McEwen Communications Building. Every conversation included a kind word, encouragement and a quiet chuckle. But it was a senior-year trip to Hong Kong that revealed why so many students held him in such high regard.

Traveling with Dr. Hatcher and a cohort of classmates for an Imagining the Internet project, I truly understood what great �þ��� looks like. Dr. Hatcher let us students take the wheel and learn by doing, producing the interviews, choosing our story angles and cutting the video. By knowing when to offer guidance and when to step back, he let his students discover how to do journalism.

But it was in the “between” moments — a shared meal at the top of Victoria Peak, wandering the chaotic shopping markets and navigating the busy streets — that made the trip special, where I and my classmates could share stories with him, listen to the advice of a seasoned journalist and just talk about our hopes and dreams upon graduating. They say that travel often brings out the best or worst in a person, and I can say unequivocally, Dr. Hatcher shared the best of himself with us. We successfully completed that trip, bonded by adventure and nearly 24 hours of straight travel.

I’m happy to say that connection is still present today, whether through emails exchanged or virtual coffee chats. And while Dr. Hatcher’s time at Elon may be ending, his impact on students and alumni like me will live on long after departing campus.

An Emmy Award-winning communications leader, Addie Haney ’14 has built her career around storytelling and audience engagement. Earlier this year, she joined CNN Newsource as a content producer.

The study, “,” looked at whether the growing availability of generative AI has changed who enters the video game market and how developers use AI in the creative process.

Kim and his co-authors analyzed more than 66,000 developers whose first game was published on Steam between 2014 and 2025. They found that more indie developers entered the platform in 2024 and 2025 than earlier trends predicted, while new non-indie developers remained within the expected range.

Key findings

• More indie developers entered the market after generative AI became widely available. The increase was greater than researchers’ models predicted based on previous trends.
• Images were the most common use of AI. Both indie and non-indie developers most often reported using AI to generate images, while use for music, voice and coding was lower.
• Indie developers used AI differently. Compared with non-indie developers, indie developers were more likely to use AI for music and coding.
• AI was associated with shorter indie games. The researchers say this may reflect AI’s usefulness in helping developers quickly develop and test ideas.
• The study shows an association, not causation. The researchers do not conclude that generative AI caused more indie developers to enter the market.

Kim plans to bring the research into his business analytics courses.

“I will use this paper in class to demonstrate the positive role of AI in facilitating human creativity by enabling individuals to quickly prototype and implement their ideas,” Kim said.

The research was published in ACM AI Letters by the Association for Computing Machinery and co-authored with Seonbin Jo and Woo-Sung Jung of Pohang University of Science and Technology and Jisung Yoon of the KDI School of Public Policy and Management.

Kim joined �þ��� in Fall 2023 from Boston University. His expertise includes business analytics, innovation, misinformation, and computational social science. He is currently the director of the Center for Applied Analytics and AI at Elon.

Raised in rural North Carolina, �þ���’s associate vice president for student life and dean of student health and well-being came from a family that valued education but had little firsthand experience with higher education.

Her parents, whose lives were shaped by the Great Depression and World War II, never attended college. The first person who helped Patterson imagine a different future was her first-grade teacher. “I don’t think anyone had ever told me I was smart,” Patterson recalls.

Once she arrived at North Carolina State University, Patterson discovered how much she didn’t know. There was no roadmap for managing finances, selecting courses or understanding that struggling academically at times was normal, a lesson that has stayed with her.

Patterson has since worked to ensure Elon students receive the guidance and reassurance she often lacked. Yet grades and academics were only part of the story.

Patterson remembers a time when being a first-generation student felt like something to hide. �þ��� rarely talked about parents who had not attended college, and many worried they would be judged for backgrounds that fell outside the perceived norm.

“While my immediate family and teachers were proud of me, there were other members of my extended family who said they don’t see why I didn’t just go in the military,” Patterson says. “Others were like, ‘Why don’t you just get married and settle down?’”

Today, she describes first-generation status not as a disadvantage but as an identity worthy of celebration. “It’s not just a status,” she’ll tell you. “It’s an identity.”

That commitment to inclusive excellence became a hallmark of her work. For Patterson, who retires in September following four decades of faithful service to �þ���, supporting students has always been about more than helping them succeed in college. It has been about helping them believe they belong.

“One of the things I am most proud of with my work is that we have moved how we think and talk about first-generation students,” she said. “Making connections with others that embrace both shared and differing identities provides so much joy and interest to your life.”

Jana Lynn Patterson is part of Huemanity of People, a series by the Division of Inclusive Excellence highlighting the people, paradigms and praxis of inclusive excellence that shape �þ���’s community. Learn more on the Inclusive Excellence website.

Executive Director of the Core Curriculum and Associate Professor of Music and Education Matt Buckmaster was invited to join a panel to share insights on general education assessment using the AAC&U VALUE rubrics.

Part of AAC&U’s VALUE Week webinar series, the panel was titled “Doing the Work: How Institutions Are Using VALUE Rubrics to Understand Student Learning.”  Buckmaster shared Elon’s process and design to student learning assessment in the Core Curriculum, including the successes and challenges encountered in the process.

Elon’s emphasis on engaged learning and student-centered curriculum led to very positive outcomes, and areas for continued improvement were able to be identified as well. The investment Elon has made in assessment in the Core Curriculum will inform faculty development opportunities, course and assignment design resources, and potentially future curriculum revisions.

�þ��� is a member of the .

Marna Winter, �þ��� professor of education and associate director of �þ���’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL), will present two projects exploring student reflection, joy and engagement at the (SoTL) Summit, held virtually Sept. 16-18.

The conference brings together educators from colleges and universities across the United States and internationally to share SoTL research and approaches to �þ���. Since its beginning in 1993, the summit has developed into a space for both experienced and emerging teacher-scholars to exchange research across disciplines and explore new approaches to student learning.
In “When �þ��� Wonder, Instructors Learn: Building a Metacognitive Feedback Loop,” Winter will present alongside  professor of psychology and director of SoTL at the United States Air Force Academy.

Their work grew from the “I Wonder” project, an activity originally used by Winter at the end of a semester to encourage students to reflect on lingering questions about their learning. Winter found that those reflections could also reveal misconceptions, gaps in understanding and areas of curiosity that could inform �þ���. After presenting initial work at the 2025 SoTL Summit, Winter connected with Scharff, leading to a contribution to the  blog and ongoing collaboration. At the summit, Winter and Scharff will share new findings and introduce a metacognitive instructional cycle for using student reflection to inform pedagogical decisions.

Winter’s second presentation, “From Play to Pedagogy: Reflective Inquiry into Joy and Student Engagement,” explores how brief, intentional “mini play sessions” at the beginning of class can help students pause, connect and transition into learning. Drawing on student reflections and survey data, Winter’s ongoing SoTL inquiry considers how small moments of play can foster curiosity, focus and engagement, positioning joy not as an addition to learning but as part of creating the conditions for meaningful learning.

Together, Winter’s two presentations reflect a broader focus on her active scholarship on creating learning environments that are responsive to students and attentive to how they experience the classroom.

For Winter, presenting at the SoTL Summit offers an opportunity not only to share what she has learned through her own �þ���, but also to continue developing that work through conversation with educators examining similar questions about student learning and engagement.

This August, �þ��� hosted university and college educators from across the region and around the world for the 22nd Annual Teaching and Learning Conference. A free, hybrid event sponsored jointly by the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (�䴡�ճ�),��Teaching and Learning Technologies (TLT), and the Office of the Provost.

Nearly 70 educators attended the conference on Elon’s campus, including faculty from Queens University of Charlotte, providing an opportunity for educators to connect and exchange ideas. Hundreds more participated virtually from institutions across the country and beyond.

Rather than simply streaming the in-person conference, the fully hybrid format offered distinct programming for virtual and on-campus participants throughout the day. The two groups came together virtually for the conference’s keynote, while other sessions were designed specifically for each mode of participation.

This year’s conference, themed “Teaching for Tomorrow: Building Transferable Skills and Lifelong Learners,” encouraged attendees to reflect on how today’s �þ��� practices shape students’ abilities to adapt, think critically and thrive in the future. Presentation submissions addressed one of four related sub-themes: Technology and the Future of Learning, Foundations for the Future, Building Transferable Skills for Tomorrow, and Teaching Innovations.

The keynote address was given by director for curriculum transformation initiatives at , titled “Boldness by Design: Reimagining our University from the Classroom Out.” McGowan shared how universities might move from preserving tradition to designing new models, structures, and pathways toward the learning outcomes they seek for students, drawing on her experience leading institution-wide educational transformation initiatives.

Following the keynote, McGowan and Jill McSweeney, assistant director of CATL, led an in-person workshop for on-campus attendees, “Envisioning Structures of the Possible,” which invited participants to imagine a new, fully experiential core curriculum requirement for the year 2032. The workshop asked educators to consider experiential learning as a holistic, emergent and relational response to the complexities of higher education today.

Throughout the day, presenters shared research, practices, and �þ��� strategies aligned with the conference’s themes, creating opportunities for both virtual and in-person participants to connect with colleagues and exchange ideas about the future of �þ��� and learning.

The Teaching and Learning Conference is held annually at Elon and remains free for registrants. Information about the 2026 conference schedule, past conferences and future calls for proposals is available on the CATL and TLT websites.