Dr. John Kuykendall Hired in HIED Program
It is with great pleasure that I announce the appointment of Dr. John A.
Kuykendall to the Higher Education faculty effective January 5, 2009. Dr.
Kuykendall will serve as Assistant Professor of Higher Education. He will be
responsible for coordinating the Master¹s program in College Student Affairs
and will serve as the content expert for the doctoral concentration in
Student Affairs Administration. Dr. Kuykendall comes to us from Marquette
University where he has been serving as co-director of the College Student
Personnel Administration (CSPA) program engaging in such functions as
assisting with the recruitment, admission, and orientation of incoming
cohorts of Master¹s students as well as teaching graduate courses in the
CSPA program.
A native Arkansan, John Kuykendall began his baccalaureate studies at the
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff where he earned a B.S. in Biology
Education. His Master¹s studies took him to Christian Brothers University
in Memphis, Tennessee where he earned a M.S. in Educational Leadership. For
his doctorate, John selected the Department of Educational Leadership and
Policy Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, one of the top Student
Affairs programs in the country where he studied under George Kuh, Edward
St. John, and Don Hossler as well as many other distinguished scholars.
Dr. Kuykendall¹s dissertation research focused on the effects of college
major choice for diverse students and the impact that major choice has on
student persistence, particularly among African Americans. His current
research interests include: 1) college access for diverse populations; 2)
student involvement and retention; 3) pre-college experiences of high school
students who want to pursue science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics (STEM) fields; and 4) the persistence of diverse graduate
students toward the achievement of a doctoral degree. Dr. Kuykendall plans
to continue these lines of scholarly inquiry and to seek external funding to
support these important projects.
Please give Dr. John Kuykendall a warm UALR welcome. We hope to keep John
as a member of the UALR College of Education faculty family for a long, long
time and your expressions of excitement and support will go a long way
toward making him feel at home with us.
Sincerely,
Greg Barrett
Associate Professor of Higher Education and
Doctoral Program Coordinator