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"There Is Power In Being Out": A Three Article Approach Celebrating The Experiences Of Queer University Leaders, Andrew R. E. Lorenzana

Dissertations

Institutions of higher education were historically built to serve a wealthy, White, straight male student population and the leaders of these institutions still largely reflect these demographics. This project specifically aims to celebrate and amplify the life and career of university administrators who identify within the LGBTQ community. Mainly through the use of a portraiture methodology, this three-article study attempts to examine the ways in which LGBTQ identity and career influence one another.

Worldmaking and narrative will be used as a theoretical frame to help analyze the ways in which the telling of a queer individual’s story makes the world …

A Qualitative Case Study Of An Ultra-Brief Trait Emotional Intelligence Intervention For University Student Leaders, Britne K. Bacca-Haupt, Melinda R. Dilley, Fletcher J. Ferguson, Lisa C. Gillis-Davis, Jacqueline M. Schneller

Dissertations

Emotional intelligence gained interest in the early 1990s from researchers in hopes of assessing how understanding and developing emotions can help individuals be “healthy, rich, successful, loved, and happy” (Mayer et al., 2001, p. xi). Because of the expanded interest, increasing implications began occurring at the postsecondary level of education (Petrides et al., 2018). Trait emotional intelligence focuses on perceptions of oneself and others, illustrating how we regulate our emotions and recognize them in others. This qualitative study aimed to explore the impact of an ultra-brief intervention on the trait emotional intelligence development of university student leaders and how they …

Grounded Roots Applied To Women Presidents In The California Community Colleges System, Penny Shreve

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this explanatory mixed methods study was to identify and describe what exemplary female presidents in California community colleges do to stay grounded and maintain physical, emotional, intellectual, social, vocational, and spiritual health.

Methodology: This mixed methods study identified and described the perceptions of 16 women presidents in the California Community Colleges system regarding strategies they use to remain grounded in their current positions. Respondents were purposively chosen based on specific criteria. Data were gathered through the Stay Grounded survey from 16 participants and interviews with 5 of the participants. Quantitative data were tabulated to determine mean …

Higher Education Business And Technology Leaders’ Behaviors That Drive Outcome Alignment, Katherine Lynch-Holmes

Dissertations

Higher education institutions (HEIs) face unprecedented challenges, including capacity alignment, financial sustainability, and even public confidence (Grajeck & Brooks, 2020; Grawe, 2019; Oblinger, 2019; Simone, 2020, Wheeler, 2020, Witt & Coyne, 2019). Financial challenges force HEIs to reduce costs by making decisions like cutting programs, laying off staff or merging institutions to reduce operating costs (Chen et al., 2019; Sellingo, 2017; Witt & Coyne, 2019). Higher education leaders (HELs) must act as trusted partners and broker technology to align processes, support, and outcomes (Luftman 2000; Petkovics, 2018; Reinitz, 2019). Unfortunately, higher education’s business-technology (BITA) alignment remains lower than other national …

How Navy And Marine Corps Veterans Make Meaning Of The College Choice Process In The Post-9/11 Gi Bill Era, Derek Abbey

Dissertations

The Post-9/11 GI Bill was implemented in 2009. Since then more than 1,900,000 people have used the benefit and more than $90 billion have been paid to institutions of higher learning and to Post-9/11 GI Bill users. During this period there has been a shift in the types of college and universities veterans attend, as well as the educational models they select. These shifts are different than the general population of students. This period also included a spike in questionable recruiting practices by some colleges. In response to many institutions taking advantage of veterans, the President of the United States …

Essential Leadership Competencies For College Presidents In A Metrics-Driven Community College System, Mark Mclean

Dissertations

Leaders in higher education face more change than ever before in a complex, challenging, and continually shifting social, political, and economic environment (Kezar & Holcombe, 2017). As a result, presidents are increasingly accountable for performance and metrics serve as an important component of accountability (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2017). However, presidents may not possess the “rare combination of skills that enables them to be both strong transactional and operational leaders as well as more visionary and transformational ones” (Pelletier, 2016, p. 31). As a consequence, leadership failure produces significant adverse results for presidents and institutions including the loss of positions and the threat …

How Professional Physical Therapist Education Programs Develop Cultural Competence Within Their Students: An Exploratory Concurrent Mixed Methods Study, Dustin E. Domingo

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this exploratory concurrent mixed methods study was to describe experiences that shape the factors of cultural intelligence (CQ) as perceived by students of professional physical therapist education programs. In addition, it was the purpose of this study to determine whether any particular factor of cultural intelligence influenced one’s overall cultural competence according to the cultural competence continuum by Cross et al. (1989).

Methodology: Students in a professional physical therapist education program completed a questionnaire, which included Likert scale questions, open ended questions, and a 37-item self-assessment based on the expanded cultural intelligence scale by Van Dyne …

The Role Of Chief Diversity Officers In Institutionalizing Diversity And Inclusion: A Multiple Case Study Of Three Exemplar Universities, Cynthia D. Dávalos Phd

Dissertations

Due to demographic shifts and the changing political and economic landscape, universities are experiencing increased demands to produce a culturally competent and well-trained globally minded workforce. To address these demands in a systematic manner, several universities have created a new senior level administrative position to direct campus diversity and inclusion efforts. This position known universally in academia as the Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) is responsible for institutionalizing diversity and inclusion so that diversity moves from the margins of the university to the center and becomes a standard way of thinking and doing business. Given this high-level executive leadership design, the …

Convergence Or Divergence Of Values? A Comparison Case Study Of Teacher Credentialing Programs, Rachel Homel Rice Phd

Dissertations

Educational commentators have long debated whether or not public school teaching is a profession. The definition of a profession is commonly anchored in Andrew Abbott's criteria, which include knowledge (specialized and academic), jurisdiction (diagnosis, treatment, professional inference), and control (ethics, professional organizations, licensure). Teachers in most states need to complete credentialing programs to be licensed. The purpose of this study was to explore what teacher credentialing programs at three diverse universities are doing to build teaching as a profession. The guiding research questions were: (1) What is the relationship between teacher credentialing programs and the professionalization of teaching? (2) What …

Study Abroad As A Multifaceted Approach To Supporting College Sophomores: Creating Optimal Environments To Promote Intercultural Maturity, Jessica Luchesi Phd

Dissertations

Leaders in higher education bear the responsibility of creating educational environments and programming that promote student development and help prepare graduates to work, live, and lead in today's interconnected and global society. Such institutional programming, which fosters intercultural maturity, defined as the cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal developmental capacities that enable students to act in ways that are aware and appropriate, should be available to all students. Scholarly work, however, demonstrates that sophomore students receive the least amount of institutional attention and thus have fewer programs directed at fostering their development. As a result, sophomores can find themselves negotiating developmental challenges …

Comparing Factors Of Bachelor's Degree Attainment For First And Continuing Generation Students, Holly Gilbertson Hoffman Phd

Dissertations

Colleges and universities have recently been under great pressure to increase institutional graduation rates, due to a surge in consumer demand for accountability and the use of graduation rates to deter nine effectiveness and funding. Many colleges may choose to achieve higher graduation rates by simply increasing selectivity. However, this strategy has the potential to exclude at-risk student populations, namely first generation students, who lack a family track record of college completion and have been shown to be less likely to graduate than continuing generation students. To allow for continued access for first generation students, institutions have the ability to …

Do New Buildings, Equipment, And Technology Improve Student Outcomes? A Look At One Community College's Experience, Danene Twyman-Brown Phd

Dissertations

During the last decade, community colleges have taken a close look at the way they educate and train students, and are using an assortment of student engagement indicators in an effort to assess and document learning outcomes of their students. While these indicators have proven helpful, the extent to which new buildings, equipment, and technology have been integrated into these metrics has been sorely lacking; instead, the assumption has been that more modem facilities, equipment, and technology will improve students' learning and better prepare them for the workforce. To test this assumption, this study examined the relationship between a new …

Exploring The Impact On Students Of Western Universities On Foreign Soil: A Case Study Of Qatar, Richard Bakken Phd

Dissertations

The development of branch campuses in higher education is not a new phenomenon. Over the past decades, however, branch campuses have expanded throughout the world as Western universities have begun to deliver their programs and course offerings in countries that expect the West to provide educational (and, by implication, economic) success. Middle Eastern countries in particular have rapidly expanded the number of Western-style branch campuses for native students in their countries. This qualitative research study focused on one specific Middle Eastern country, Qatar, and explored how native students respond to attending a Western university that has been transplanted from the …

Work/Life Boundary Management In An Integrative Environment: A Study Of Residence Life Professionals Who Live At Their Place Of Work, Pressley Robinson Rankin Iv Phd

Dissertations

How individuals manage work/life boundaries when they live at the place they work, as opposed to working from home, is a gap in both work/life literature and in higher education literature. An obvious example from higher education is the resident life professional that lives in the residential facility that she or he oversees. Living in a residential facility creates challenges to boundary creation. The job requirements; pressures from students and staff; supervisor expectations, both spoken and unspoken; and the physical location of their home within the building creates a highly boundary integrative environment making the establishment of boundaries difficult. The …

Cultivating Compassion In Undergraduate College Students: Rhetoric Or Reality?, Michael Lovette-Colyer Phd

Dissertations

While American colleges and universities are unparalleled in their ability to produce disciplinary-based knowledge through research and scholarship, their ability to encourage students to use the information and methods about which they are learning to create positive social change has lagged. Aware of the magnitude of today's global issues and dissatisfied with the current disparity between the world's reality and university curricula, scholars have begun to re-imagine the role of higher education in forming the leaders who will face our most pressing problems. Founded to provide education integrated with the formation of values, a significant number of Catholic colleges and …

A Comparison Of Predictors Of Student Grades In Online And Face-To-Face Community College Courses, Pamela Kay Wright Edd

Dissertations

There is an increased demand for online course offerings in community colleges while there is also an increased demand for college accountability. Many analyses examine persistence and completion rates as indicators of student success. This analysis focuses on grade outcomes. Although this traditional view of success is somewhat narrow, it will provide a starting point for an examination of online student success. This study examines to what extent the academic success of online and face-to-face course takers can be explained by student demographics, financial aid status, educational goals, and select high school performance measures. It, then, explores similarities and differences …

Advising To Promote Self-Authorship: Exploring Advising Strategies And Advisor Characteristics Among New Student Affairs Professionals, Emily Marx Phd

Dissertations

Self-authorship, a theory developed by Robert Kegan (1982) and applied to college students by Marcia Baxter Magolda, is the ability to internally define one's own beliefs, identity, and relationships (Baxter Magolda, 2001). People who self-author have the ability to make career, academic, relationship, and life decisions that take into consideration their own internal voice rather than relying on others' advice. The development of self-authorship has been correlated with gains in key learning outcomes, such as cognitive complexity and independence (Baxter Magolda, 2001; Pizzolato, 2008; Pizzolato & Ozaki, 2007). Achievement of self-authorship does not typically occur until after college, when young …

The Undergraduate Classroom As A Community Of Inquiry, Cara Taylor Miller Phd

Dissertations

This project contributes to the literature on action research and undergraduate pedagogy for leadership development through application and expansion of existing theory on collaborative ways of teaching and learning. I applied a participatory, inquiry-based approach to teaching an undergraduate course in leadership studies over four semesters using the action research process of recursively asking and answering living questions in real time about teaching and learning with students' participating as co-researchers. Reflection on my initial, mostly traditional teaching strategies generated questions about the students' detachment from and resistance to exercising leadership, as well as the challenge of aligning my deepest values …

Toward An Integrated Self: Making Meaning Of The Multiple Identities Of Gay Men In College, Daniel Weston Tillapaugh Phd

Dissertations

Since the mid-twentieth century, a shift in demographics of those attending higher education institutions has resulted in increased attention to underrepresented students and their development, specifically their social identities, including race (Cross, 1991), gender (Gilligan, 1982), and sexual orientation (Cass, 1979; D'Augelli, 1994; Fassinger, 1998). However, many theories have compartmentalized aspects of one's overall identity with little understanding of how one's social identity may influence the development of other identities. In the past decade, the concept of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1995), which explores the interplay between one's multiple identities and the larger systems of power and privilege within society, has been …

Graduate Student Experiences: The Impact Of A Mixed-Cohort Format, Kacy Kilner Hayes Phd

Dissertations

Student cohorts have been regaining popularity among graduate programs over the past few decades because they offer numerous advantages for students and can be molded to fit programmatic needs. The format of these cohorts range from open to closed according to the inclusion or exclusion of additional students during the life of the program. Although a number of graduate level programs employ a mixture of closed- and open-cohort formats, there has been a lack of empirical research examining the benefits or consequences of mixing cohort formats within a single academic program. To address this lack of inquiry, this study utilized …

An Empirical Look At Recipient Benefits Associated With A University-Issued Student Leadership Award, Robyn L. Adams Phd

Dissertations

Within academia there is an elaborate and extensive system of awards for both students and faculty (Frey, 2006). Although the majority of student-based awards are for outstanding leadership and related accomplishments, there has been virtually no research on the impact of receiving such a leadership award (Frey, 2006). Due to the conspicuous absence of empirical studies in this area, a significant knowledge gap exists regarding the possible value or positive effects associated with winning a university-issued student leadership award. To begin to fill this knowledge gap, this study examined the San Diego State University (SDSU) Quest for the Best award …

The Lived Experiences Of 3rd Generation And Beyond U.S.-Born Mexican Heritage College Students: A Qualitative Study, Richard Galvan Edd

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to describe the psychosocial and identity challenges of 3rd generation and beyond U.S.-born (3GAB-USB) Mexican heritage college students. Alvarez (1973) has written about the psychosocial impact "hybridity" can have on a U.S.- born (USB) Mexican individual who incorporates two distinct cultures (American and Mexican) in order to succeed in U.S. society, and yet, few empirical data is available beyond the 1st and 2nd generation on USB Mexican college students. As an example, there is no mention in the literature of two distinct and different worldviews present between immigrant and 3GAB-USB Mexican college students, which …

Perceptions Of Leadership: An Analysis Of College Students' Understandings Of The Concept Of Leadership, Paige Haber Phd

Dissertations

Colleges and universities increasingly have embraced the goal of developing students' leadership capacity. Diverse curricular and co-curricular leadership programs currently exist and continue to be developed to address leadership development outcomes. There is, however, limited understanding of how college students think about and define leadership. This study sought to fill this gap in the research by examining the ways in which college students understand the concept of leadership. In this mixed methods study the researcher analyzed data from the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership (MSL) project, a national research study on college student leadership and the college experience. Data for the …

Experiential Education Approaches In Nonprofit Management And Leadership Education: An Examination Of Master's Degree Programs Associated With The Nonprofit Academic Centers Council, Heather L. Carpenter Phd

Dissertations

University programs that prepare students to assume professional positions must be concerned with helping students link their work in university classrooms to their work in organizations outside of the academy. This concern often translates into incorporating experiential education into application-oriented university programs. Professional preparation is a central concern of nonprofit leadership and management programs. Prior to this study, however, there was no systematic attempt to document the various experiential education strategies employed in nonprofit leadership and management master's-degree programs in the United States. Documentation was not even available for master's degree programs associated with the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC), …

Parental Support Of Latinos In Higher Education, Maria Lorena Meza Phd

Dissertations

Many universities grapple with Latino student retention issues. Latinos are the largest and fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, yet they also are the group that has the least amount of formal education. The literature suggests that parental support helps Latinos succeed academically in elementary, middle, and high schools. However, there has been little research on how or even whether Latino parental support influences academic success at the postsecondary level. Consequently, there is a lack of knowledge about (a) Latino parental behavior and attitudes during the years their children attend college and (b) the relationship between parents' behavior and …

What Do They Say? Students From A Private, Faith-Based, Four-Year University Share Their Perspectives On College As A Mentoring Environment, Jeffrey Andrew Bolster Edd

Dissertations

Research indicates that the term mentor in the context of higher education currently has multiple definitions and is used to describe a variety of programs, efforts, and formal as well as informal activities. In recent years, interdisciplinary perspectives on traditional undergraduate students have been converging around the idea that the functions and characteristics of mentoring students could be shared across the institution, creating what Daloz Parks (2000) has called a mentoring environment. This sharing of responsibility has the possibility to address what Baxter Magolda (2009) has recently identified as missing in higher education, a "holistic, theoretical perspective to promote the …

Tapping The Hidden Job Market Through Informational Interviews: A Qualitative Examination Of Students' And Professionals' Perspectives, Kimberly S. Hogelucht Phd

Dissertations

A growing body of literature suggests that networking promotes not only learning about one's field of interest but also employment opportunities, without requiring a formal job search. Considering three-fourths of job openings are never advertised (Koss-Feder, 1999), it appears networking is a powerful strategy in successful job attainment. This study focuses on a less-than-obvious networking strategy, the informational interview. An informational interview is an interview with a professional that is conducted by a student or job seeker with the intention of finding out more about the professional's occupation or career field. In this study, informational interviews were examined, not only …

Using Internet Videoconferencing To Connect Fashion Students With Apparel Industry Professionals, Vera Bruce Ashley Edd

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the efficacy, benefits and student perceptions of using Internet videoconferencing and a web camera to connect college and university fashion students with apparel industry professionals. A total of 70 college and university fashion students, three instructors, and three apparel industry professionals participated in this introductory study. Data was collected through pre and post surveys from all three groups. Industry professionals were invited as guest speakers into the classroom via Internet videoconferencing using Skype and a web camera. The findings in the study indicated that students, instructors, and apparel industry professionals overwhelmingly benefited …

Latina First Year Experience: Factors That Contribute To Persistence From The First To The Second Year In Higher Education, Guadalupe Rodriguez Corona Edd

Dissertations

There is limited research that identifies the university, familial and community factors that support the persistence of Latinas in higher education from the first to second year. The research that does exist has tended to focus on how institutional programs and activities have failed to work for first-generation students. Therefore, there is a need to study the persistence of Latinas in higher education that is as focused on discovering what works as it is with documenting what is ineffective. Research that focuses on Catholic universities is especially needed since many Latinas come from Roman Catholic families and, consequently, Catholic universities …

The Role Of Higher Education In Advancing Nurse Practitioners: A Look At The Institutional Decision Calculus Of A Health Sciences University, Debra Jo Johnson Phd

Dissertations

In 2004, professional nursing joined the ranks of other health professions by altering accreditation standards for nurse practitioners, which now mandate that their terminal degree advance beyond the master's degree currently required for the doctor of nursing practice (DNP). This research examines the decision-making process involved in implementing a web-based DNP program in 2008 at a college of graduate nursing embedded in a health sciences university. Findings from two case studies, one of faculty and one of administrators, provide a narrative description of the institution, the decision process, and then describe how institutional and external factors influenced the process. Institutional …