{"id":20560,"date":"2023-02-03T10:11:32","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T15:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/news\/?p=20560"},"modified":"2025-08-19T16:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T16:11:15","slug":"taylor-burtch-higher-education-administration-and-policy-changes-future-generations-with-educational-policy-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/news\/2023\/02\/03\/taylor-burtch-higher-education-administration-and-policy-changes-future-generations-with-educational-policy-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Burtch, Higher Education Administration and Policy \u2014 Changes Future Generations with Educational Policy Research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cExpanding the types of opportunities that are available to people regardless of background<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">having an authentic choice<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2014<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and the support to succeed\u201d is what expanding education means to Ph.D. candidate Taylor Burtch. Taylor received her undergraduate degree from the University of Toledo, then earned her master&#8217;s degree from the University of Florida in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/wst.ufl.edu\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Gender, Sexuality and Women\u2019s Studies<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> before pursuing her <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/higher-education\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">doctoral degree in higher education administration<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">from UF\u2019s College of Education. Taylor says that she always knew she wanted to get a Ph.D., though it wasn\u2019t until she conducted research for her master\u2019s program at the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pace Center for Girls<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> here in Gainesville that she knew she wanted to focus on higher education. Taylor feels that a Ph.D. in higher education will allow her to continue her research while looking at it from a new perspective. Her program is allowing her to explore her life-long fascination with research and educational policy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor credits the College of Education for preparing her for various of professional roles, including her most recent position as a legislative fellow for Representative Wilson (FL-24) in her congressional office. \u201cHonestly, the UF College of Education has prepared me for a variety of roles, and that&#8217;s kind of the beauty of it. I think this experience was that last piece.\u201d During this fellowship, Taylor has done both qualitative and quantitative research on college access with a specific focus on the policy implications of that access. Her work is visible in the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/117th-congress\/house-bill\/9566?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22frederica+wilson%22%2C%22frederica%22%2C%22wilson%22%5D%7D&amp;s=1&amp;r=2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">American Teacher Act<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a bill Representative Wilson introduced, which will incentivize an increase in teacher salaries to reflect inflation. Taylor recognized the importance of this work when her nieces and nephews experienced a teacher shortage at their school. Although early in her career, she already sees the changes her policy work is creating for future generations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor\u2019s desire to focus on policy in education ultimately led her to UF\u2019s College of Education. <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI chose the UF College of Education because it had a reputation for being oriented toward policy. I was also offered a research assistantship that afforded me the opportunity to do interesting and meaningful work.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Additionally, she was impressed with the community of outstanding scholars as well as the dedication and passion of her fellow students. Her advisor, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/faculty\/skinner-benjamin-t\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Benjamin Skinner<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Ph.D., is guiding her while she completes her research. Her doctoral project studies how adverse childhood experiences impact students in college. Taylor is analyzing how trauma impacts students\u2019 trajectories during their K-12 education and their college experience. Additionally, she is working with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/faculty\/ortagus-justin-c\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Justin Ortagus<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> on a program evaluation through <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.helios.org\/latest\/briefs\/interventions-to-increase-college-reenrollment-and-completion\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Helios<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pursuing opportunities presented to her as a UF student has allowed her to experience the field while completing her doctoral program. They are also shaping her future career goals and trajectory. Taylor states that once she has her Ph.D., she will seek out a policy-oriented research position. She hopes to connect the research she\u2019s done as a UF student with her future endeavors. Reflecting on her education and experiences, she says the program has \u201copened up\u201d more \u201cpossibilities than I thought were there.\u201d Hear from Taylor live as she discusses Bridging Research &amp; Policy: An Overview of February UF College of Education\u2019s Legislative Fellowship Program on February 9th as part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/eprc\/\">Education Policy Research Center<\/a>\u2019s Research Brown Bag. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor Burtch<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taylor Burtch, Ph.D. candidate works to expand opportunities for students through her educational policy-based research. Additionally, her research assistantship allowed her to do interesting and meaningful work under Representative Wilson (FL-24).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":20562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-students"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.0 (Yoast SEO v22.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Taylor Burtch, Higher Education Administration and Policy \u2014 Changes Future Generations with Educational Policy Research - News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/news\/2023\/02\/03\/taylor-burtch-higher-education-administration-and-policy-changes-future-generations-with-educational-policy-research\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Taylor Burtch, Higher Education Administration and Policy \u2014 Changes Future Generations with Educational Policy Research\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Taylor Burtch, Ph.D. candidate works to expand opportunities for students through her educational policy-based research. 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