By Allie Lewis<\/strong><\/p>\n A URI College of Health Sciences professor\u2019s dedication to engaging students and preparing them for success beyond college has earned her national recognition. The American College Personnel Association has chosen Katie Branch, Ph.D., as a 2018 Diamond Award recipient.<\/p>\n Branch, associate professor of Human Development and Family Studies, centers her classroom courses and her research interests around the student experience \u2014 from student development, to collegiate environments and their impacts on students, to socio-cultural diversity. Branch said she makes a concerted effort to stay current with her students and establish relationships to better inform her research and ensure her teaching methods impact students in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n \u201cMy general approach is to embrace students holistically and promote diversity, and follow my strong belief in human potential to really try to help people not only see their potential, but fulfill it,\u201d Branch said. \u201cWhether that be through me daily advising, through my courses; whether that be through being involved with programs like diversity week or the leadership minor, I always bring that really strong belief in the power of human potential.\u201d<\/p>\n Branch said she cares most that her students are able to take what they learn in her classes and apply that knowledge to their own lives. To further that mission, Branch is working on a co-produced book, \u201cApplying Student Development Theories Holistically,\u201d which provides students with real life examples.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not only a case study of how you might apply that theory, but how professionals in the field are actually taking the theories that students are learning in class and how they\u2019re actually using them in their daily work,\u201d Branch said.<\/p>\n Such work, along with her research and teaching efforts at URI and within the American College Personnel Association, contributed to Branch\u2019s nomination for the award. She has left an impression on the university over her two decades at URI. For nine years she served as the director for the College Student Personnel graduate program. She serves on the advisory board for the interdisciplinary minor in Leadership Studies. She\u2019s served as co-chair of URI Diversity Week, and she\u2019s also been a recipient of the URI Pillar of Leadership Education Award. Her tireless efforts have earned her the respect and admiration of her colleagues.<\/p>\n \u201cDr. Branch contributes to the student affairs by adding to the body of knowledge our field relies on to advance, teaching new practitioners while simultaneously learning from them, encouraging membership and involvement with professional organizations, and sustaining an unwavering moral and ethical compass that others admire and aspire to emulate,\u201d said Dan Taylor, assistant director of Housing and Residential Life.<\/p>\n Branch said she is particularly grateful to have received the 2018 Diamond Award this year because the association has a renewed focus on racial justice and decolonization. She said the topic of race is something people generally aren\u2019t dealing with particularly well in higher education or across the country. Given her previous work in the field, she said she hopes her research can help further the imperative.<\/p>\n Overall, whatever Branch does in her line of research or teaching, she said her goal is always to help students.<\/p>\n \u201cI would like to keep focusing on how we actually use the knowledge and information that\u2019s being generated, and use it to empower and benefit students,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Allie Lewis is a senior intern in the Communications division of the Academic Health Collaborative.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Katie Branch named Diamond Award recipient by American College of Personnel Association By Allie Lewis A URI College of Health Sciences professor\u2019s dedication to engaging students and preparing them for success beyond college has earned her national recognition. The American College Personnel Association has chosen Katie Branch, Ph.D., as a 2018 Diamond Award recipient. Branch, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1710,"featured_media":3741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-uri-academic-health-collaborative"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3738"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4156,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738\/revisions\/4156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}