Laura C. Seithers, PhD
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Pronouns: she, her, hers
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Comparative and International Development Education
Areas of interest
- Critical internationalization
- Narrative research methods
- International student mobility
- Postcolonial feminist theory
- Pedagogical change
PhD, Comparative and International Development Education, University of Minnesota
MEd, Teaching English as a Second Language / Literacy, University of Cincinnati, 2010
BA, Linguistics and Spanish, University of Kentucky, 2008
My research focuses primarily on lived experiences of the internationalization of higher education and of pedagogical change. I explore these realms of experience using narrative methodologies to understand how students and faculty make meaning through stories.
My dissertation study is a narrative inquiry study of four Saudi Arabian women international students in the United States. Their narratives highlight the complexities and contradictions of self-construction as internationally mobile women and how they disrupt cultural stereotypes at home and abroad. Through analysis of their narratives, I argue that Saudi women students are becoming the new Saudis in the liminal contexts of study abroad and social change.
During my time in the CIDE program, I have had a number of enriching and rewarding opportunities, not least of which has been developing close connections with my cohort in OLPD. I have also served as a graduate research assistant in the department and as a graduate instructor for OLPD 3609: Profession and Practice of BME and HRD. I have engaged with the field of science education as a graduate assistant to Dr. Murray Jensen in the department of Biology Teaching and Learning. In Spring 2019, I had the chance to study Arabic at the Noor Majan Arabic Insitute in Oman with the generous support of a Boren Fellowship. From Fall 2019 to Summer 2020, I was an F-1 Advising Intern with International Student and Scholar Services at UMN. I currently serve as co-chair and founder of the Graduate League of OLPD (GLO) and co-chair of the New Scholars Committee for the Comparative and International Education Society.
Prior to joining the CIDE program, I was an English as a Second Language instructor in higher education. I taught in Kentucky, Spain, California, Illinois, China, and North Carolina.
Awards
- John and Grace Cogan Graduate Research Fellowship, 2019
- Boren Fellowship, 2019
- Foreign Language & Area Studies Fellowship, Summer 2018
- CEHD Graduate School Fellowship, 2016
Seithers, L., Amankulova, Z., & Johnstone, C. (2020). “Rules you have to know”: International and domestic student encounters with institutional habitus through group work. Manuscript under review.
Seithers, L., Hyson, A.R., Hull, K., & Jensen, M. (in press). Community college human anatomy and physiology faculty's professional growth: The influence of prior knowledge and experience on pedagogical change. The Electronic Journal for Research in Science and Mathematics Education.
Johnstone, C., Bittencourt, T., Adjei, M., & Seithers, L. (2019). “We see the world different now”: Re-mapping assumptions about international student adaptation. Journal of Studies in International Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315319861366
Seithers, L. (March, 2020). Mobility, institutions, and social change in the narratives of a Saudi Arabian woman international student. Paper accepted at the annual conference of the Comparative and International Education Society in Miami, Florida. (Presentation canceled due to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic).
Johnstone, C., Bittencourt, T., Adjei, M., & Seithers, L. (March, 2018). “Let’s speak in Portuguese because my head is killing me!”: Re-mapping assumptions about international student adaptation. Presentation at the annual conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) in Mexico City, Mexico.