Steve Whitney

Assistant Professor, Educational School and Counseling Psychology

Steve Whitney continues to diversify and bolster the College of Education’s international connections and diverse perspectives.  Whether he’s collaborating with professors in India or examining Hispanic student recruitment efforts, the Educational, School and Counseling Psychology assistant professor is a prime example of research’s role in the COE.

Overseas impact

Sure, Steve Whitney would like to visit India – but that’s not the only reason the Educational, School and Counseling Psychology assistant professor chose to conduct research on resiliency in the exotic locale.

“They’re a distinct culture with a long history,” Whitney says of India. “But at the same time, they’re familiar with the English language and have a long history with Britain. Even though they’re culturally distinct, bridges exist that bring relevance to our collaborative research.”

Whitney, who joined MU’s College of Education in 2005, is in the initial stages of the cross-cultural project that will examine how students’ development, specifically their ability to overcome significant risk and obstacles, varies based on education and culture.

Whitney, Sangeeta Bhatia, a professor at the University of Delhi, and Geetika Agarwal, an MU School Psychology graduate student, have teamed up for the project. 

Whitney foresees this collaboration as taking place over the next several years.

Currently, the group is developing a resiliency scale; a questionnaire on how students respond to high-risk situations such as natural disasters, abusive family members and poor health, will be distributed and used to create the measurement system.

“It has to do with how development is similar or different based on culture and how education impacts those different outcomes,” Whitney says of the project.

At-home diversity

Cross-cultural and cross-discipline research, such as the Delhi-based study, seem to define the beginnings of Whitney’s career at MU: He’s also collaborating with Jennifer Hart, an assistant professor in the department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, on “Taking the Family to College.” The pilot program is in its initial research phase, and will examine methods to better retain and recruit Hispanic university students at MU. 

“In 2005, I went to a talk with graduate and undergraduate Latino students,” Whitney says. “One of the things I noticed is that many of the students think of themselves as part of a family first, and as an individual second. Individualism is a very Western European endeavor, so we need to look at how to accommodate everyone, including those with the ‘family first’ perspective.”

Latino students have already tossed around ideas for family-university integration in a yearlong set of focus groups through Hart and Whitney’s project.

The next research step would be to implement those ideas, which could mean MU providing services that expand on email and telephone communication, such as Sunday dinner videoconferences.

“If MU could provide video conferences, instead of just ways of talking over the phone, the family and the student would together be visually integrated with the University,” Whitney said. “Eventually, it could also apply to sessions with academic advisors and professors.”