Congratulations to Rebecca Natow, author of the paper entitled, Higher Education Title IX Coordinators as Policy Actors: Street-Level Bureaucracy and Beyond, for winning the 2023 Lorne H. Woollatt Distinguished Paper Award.

The award-winning paper examined how higher education Title IX administrators view themselves and act as policy actors. Data sources included interviews with 28 Title IX administrators from across the United States. Findings illuminate how these  dministrators interpret, implement, advocate for, and create policy, and how they use discretion when implementing federal law. In addition, it was found that while Title IX administrators are often involved in campus level policy creation and sometimes join others to advocate for particular policy change, there is more work yet to be done to help improve policies aimed at promoting gender equity on college campuses.

Rebecca Natow will receive a NERA travel stipend to present this paper at the 2024 meeting of the American Educational Research Association. The paper was rated by the award committee members on its relevance, theoretical backing, clarity, design, analytical procedures, and presentation of results and conclusion, and received the highest average rating by the Lorne H. Woollatt Distinguished Paper Award Committee.

The Lorne H. Woollatt Distinguished Paper Award is named in honor of Lorne H. Woollatt, a distinguished New York State educator and NERA member. It is awarded annually, and a plaque is given to the recipient at the subsequent year’s conference (October 2024). Research papers from the 2023 NERA conference were submitted by their authors to the award committee for this competitive award.

Any questions about the award can be directed to the committee chair, Rochelle Michel at nera.woollatt.award.submission@gmail.com.