Digital Commons Network^™

Latinx Students' Sense Of Belonging In A Comprehensive Suburban High School, Samantha Ketover

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Sense of belonging (SOB) is of critical importance to students as it impacts multiple aspects of a student’s life (Penergast et al, 2018). The need to belong is a fundamental human need (Maslow, 1954). A student’s SOB can be measured by the foundational Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale (Goodenow, 1993). SOB is of particular importance for students of color (SOC). When SOB is negatively impacted in SOC this can cause declines in motivation and achievement (Penergast et al, 2018). The first three goals of this dissertation were quantitative. First, there was a calculation of the levels of the …

Covid-19 School Closures: Professional And Personal Impacts On Building Principals, Paula R. Dawson, Alicia M. Nosworthy

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a global impact resulting in an altered reality for educational systems around the world. The mandate by the governor of Washington State to close all school buildings produced immediate and significant impacts to the educational systems throughout the state, which resulted in professional and personal challenges for building leaders. The researchers, two school administrators at different levels in separate districts, had a unique “front row seat” to the challenges being faced by educators in the region and across the state. Based on this positionality and the current reality, the overarching question of this study focused …

Asian American Community College Presidents: Their Leadership Practices, Insights, And Attributes, Michael Pham

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Asian Americans continue to be underrepresented as university and college presidents, despite the significant growth in population as well as in the number of Asian American college students. The purpose of this study was to examine the personal experiences, including leadership practices, insights, and attributes, of five Asian American community college presidents. The intent was to identify potential factors contributing to the underrepresentation problem. Additionally, supplemental data were collected from five trustees to enhance the overall quality of the study. Adaptive leadership theory was used as the theoretical framework for this study. Narrative inquiry was used as the methodology. Interviews …

Examining Social Capital And Whiteness In A University Community Engagement Network, Bonnie Nelson

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

University place-based community engagement initiatives often draw upon diverse stakeholders and organizations. However, these initiatives often uphold systems and structures rooted in Whiteness and oppression. Drawing from Critical Race Theory and social capital theory, this study examined Whiteness, network structure, value, and trust within the Seattle University Youth Initiative (SUYI) Network. The results suggested that the SUYI network had a moderate to high degree of value, where institutional partners were perceived as having significantly more value than nonprofit partners in the network. Additionally, the SUYI network was found to have a high degree of trust, where nonprofits were viewed as …

Still Just White-Framed: Continued Coloniality, Hispanic Serving Institutions, And Latin@/X Students, Ilda Guzman

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Abstract

Throughout the Pacific Northwest there are a total of 12 Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) with an average Latin@/x undergraduate full-time enrollment rate of 33.7 percent. In order to be designated as HSIs, institutions of higher education must have an enrollment rate of 25 percent or more students who identify as Latin@/x. HSIs became recognized in the late 1980s when a small number of higher education institutions enrolled a large number of Latin@/x students, yet did not have the resources to successfully educate the students (Excelencia, 2019). Since then, HSIs have consistently and continuously risen in Latin@/x enrollments. To date, …

Equity By Design And Delivery Model In Online Learning: Educator And Student Perceptions And Behaviors As Leading Indicators Of Systemic Change, Miebeth Bustillo-Booth

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

The purpose of this study is to explore educator and student perceptions of and behaviors in the Equity by Design and Delivery (EDD) model and its online courses as leading indicators of systemic change. The EDD model is a pilot intervention to eliminate opportunity to learn gaps at the program level in a mid-sized northwestern college in the United States. It shifts instructional behavior from individual efforts to collective approaches to limit quality variances in online courses, theorized to be a major contributor of missed opportunities to learn at high levels, by developing and delivering reliable quality courses based on …

Institutional Accreditation: Making The Process More Efficient, Effective, And Meaningful To Colleges And Universities, Cynthia J. Requa

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Institutional accreditation is a voluntary, peer-review process that is overseen through the seven institutional accreditors governed by the U.S. Department of Education. The purpose of accreditation is to ensure institutional quality standards are being met by colleges and universities. The purpose of this study was to identify how the accreditation process could be improved with foci on efficiency, effectiveness, and more meaningful impact to the institutions. Drawing on Heifetz et al.’s (2009) theory of adaptive leadership, Kotter’s (2012) accelerators and the integrated planning principles of Stephens (2017) and Immordino et al., (2016), this study employed grounded theory to discover the …