Overview:
Education:
Ph.D. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Educational Policy Studies
M.Ed. Howard University, College Student Development
B.S. Pace University, Early Childhood Development
Timothy Eatman, an Assistant Professor of Higher Education, teaches courses on the American Colleges and Universities and Understanding Educational Research. He is also the Director for Research for Imagining America (IA). Professor Eatman joined the Syracuse University community in the fall of 2007 after a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education.
At Michigan, Eatman worked with the IA Consortium, which has since moved to Syracuse University. IA, a national consortium of academic and community institutions designed to strengthen the public role and democratic purposes of the humanities, arts and design is involved in a national research and policy project called the Tenure Team Initiative on Public Scholarship under Eatman’s direction. The research focuses on improving the rewards system in academe for faculty who practice engaged scholarship in the cultural disciplines. Working with a cadre of higher education leaders, the TTI seeks to develop a broad understanding of the university’s public mission and its impact on changing scholarly and creative practices in the cultural disciplines.
As the research director of IA, Eatman recently served as a scholar-in-residence at the University of the Free State (UFS) in South Africa. As one of the country’s oldest institutes for higher education, he was sought to review and evaluate its current community engagement and service learning practices, as well as the institutional life of the university. His advisement to UFS on how to ensure these practices conceptually and operationally are academically grounded and work to empower needy and disadvantaged communities, as well as the institution and its students.
In addition he has worked as the Associate Director for Research and Policy for the Academic Investment in Math and Science (AIMS) program at Bowling Green State University. This work emanates from Eatman's research interests in students from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in higher education and the impact that their participation in research opportunity programs has on career trajectory. In this regard, he has a special research interest in students who aspire to careers in Science Math Engineering and Technology (SMET) disciplines and conducts research in this area.
Eatman will steer the committee of the American Commonwealth Project (ACP) as a senior research advisor for “We the People” in the upcoming year. The ACP is a partnership among colleges and universities, the White House, and other federal agencies, including the Department of Education. Together these groups will collaborate with students, faculty, administrators and community leaders to promote colleges and universities as agents of democracy and change. Overall, promoting the national campaign to make “agents and architects” of democracy out of already existing institutes of higher education with a special emphasis on schools which have high percentages of minority, first-generation, and low-income students. Both national achievements honor Eatman’s expertise in civic engagement and knowledge of using democracy and social service to promote higher education particularly for underrepresented groups.
Eatman has published in various venues including the Journal of Educational Finance, Readings on Equal Education, and other book chapters and reports.
Eatman’s own scholarship in action is represented by several involvements including member of the Board of Directors - Mt. Pleasant Christian Academy, a K-12 non-profit, private academic institution founded by his family in New York in 1981. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Michigan Reach, a non-profit mentoring effort in the Ann Arbor, MI community connecting university students to school aged children and community members. He is active in the American Educational Research Association, serving as a member of the Division G Affirmative Action Committee.