104FALL LEADERSHIP The National Science Foundation awards Dr. James Huff a grant. JAMES HUFF, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGINEERING and Honors College faculty fellow, was awarded a grant of $575,000 from the National Science Foundation for his research on professional shame within engineering. Huff’s research was titled “CAREER: Advancing Academic Cultures of Well-being by Understanding Professional Experiences of Engineering Faculty.” Huff was awarded this grant in April 2021. The project began shortly after on June 1. The entirety of his study was planned to conclude in May 2026. Motivated from past research to understand how faculty experienced professional shame, Huff’s desire to assist faculty was the driving force behind his research to help guide the future of engineering. “The faculty are quite influential in determining what it means to be an engineer and create a lot of these messages,” Huff said. “After seeking to understand the faculty’s professional shame, I aspire to give targeted guidance to these engineering faculty to nurture and advance their own well-being.” Huff planned to gather data through interviews with engineering faculty nationwide and through interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), which he said was a qualitative method. This process was designed to study deep questions of lived experience, thinking and feeling, how it was lived and how it was put into words. “Following IPA, I will do broader research using the grounded theory method to look at the relationship between the engineering faculty’s individual emotional experiences and the cultures around them,” Huff said. “Alongside my research, I will be doing professional training at universities nationwide on how to identify and experience shame in a healthy manner.” Dr. Jim Miller, associate professor of communication, wrote an article in the 2021 summer issue of the Harding alumni magazine that stated the CAREER grant was the 59th to be awarded in Arkansas and only the sixth to be awarded to an institution other than the University of Arkansas. Additionally, Miller shared this was the first grant to be given among Church of Christ affiliated universities. “This grant is the most prestigious individual award given to an earlycareer faculty member at Harding,” Miller said. Bo Webb, junior mechanical engineering major and student worker for Huff, said Huff set himself apart in the classroom through his vulnerability. “Dr. Huff stands out from other professors by his willingness to be vulnerable with students about his life experiences,” Webb said. This difference in Huff’s style of leadership encouraged the students to feel comfortable in the classroom with freedom to explore. Webb said that both inside and outside of the classroom, Huff encouraged out-of-the-box thinking, providing additional learning opportunities and instilling confidence in his students. Through his research and experience with other universities in the nation, Huff hoped to show the world how special Harding University was, but his students already attested that he was one of the factors that made Harding as special as it was. WRITTEN BY HANNAH Grant meThis
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