Education Commons^™

Restorative Supervision: Experiences Of Mid And Senior-Level Professionals In Using Restorative Practices As Supervisors In Residential Life, Brandin Howard

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Student affairs professionals often enter their first supervisory positions with little to no training on how to effectively supervise others (Calhoun & Nasser, 2012; Shupp & Arminio, 2012). As professionals advance to mid- and senior-level positions, they often inherit direct and indirect supervisory responsibilities over multiple levels of staff of which they must attend to the performance, development, and morale. How student affairs professionals supervise and build supervisory relationships is essential to the success of departments and can significantly impact the development, morale, and retention of student affairs professionals (Bolman & Deal, 2013; Davis & Cooper, 2017; Winston & Creamer, …

Resilience Amidst Adversity: The Sine Qua Non Principle For Meaningful And Effective Leadership In Education, Jennifer Jang Helgesen

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Have you ever encountered difficult moments that trigger you? Do you find it difficult to monitor your internal dialogue after a setback? Do you struggle to find meaning and purpose amidst all the hardship? As leaders in higher education, we must prioritize others, often giving ourselves away in the process only to find there is nothing left within. We might feel empty, beaten down, and exhausted as others need us to repeatedly and reliably show up as competent leaders. I believe the art of cultivating resilience is the antidote for us as leaders to be meaning-filled and effective at work …

As The World Interns: The Impact Of Identity And Social, Economic, And Cultural Capital On College Student Internship Engagement, Amanda Chase

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Internships have become a critical credential for employment, and college students with internship experience reap significant gains compared to their non-interning peers. Students who have engaged in internships are more likely to find work post-graduation, earn higher starting salaries, have better retention and engagement while still in college, and are more engaged in their workplaces many years after their internship experience has concluded. Companies who hire interns benefit from a steady pipeline of new talent, cost-savings in the hiring process, and employees who stay longer and are more engaged. Despite the significant advantages of internships, limited information exists about the …

Mind The Gap: Preparing For The Future Leaders Of Small Private Colleges In New England, Jennifer Ann Sweeney Nicholls

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

At a time when the higher education as a whole is experiencing an incredible leadership turnover and a narrowing pipeline of prepared or willing leaders to step into these important roles, the industry is also experiencing more scrutiny than ever before, creating a challenging time for the leaders of these institutions. Small private colleges in New England, in particular, have their own unique set of complications, which makes finding the right kind of future leaders particularly important. This phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of 14 small private college presidents amidst an incredibly unique set of factors which substantially complicate …

Online First-Generation Students: A Qualitative Study On Retention, David Michael Dearden

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Higher education institutions face several complicated and difficult challenges and one of those challenges, student retention, has been around for many years. Tinto (2006), a major researcher on college retention whose research has spanned over four decades, suggested that one of the most widely studied areas of higher education is student retention. Since the inception of higher education, institutions have explored and researched retention strategies to combat attrition. Many of the strategies and theories that address retention focus solely on the campus-based student. With the growth of technology, online education has become a new avenue toward earning a college degree, …

The Upsides & Downsides Of College Athletics Within The Ncaa: An Analysis Of The Rules And A Personal Account Of The Power Of Resilience, Cassidy Evelyn Derda

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

ABSTRACT

For the past five years, I have been a Division I Women’s Basketball player under the National Collegiate Athletic Association. I have played at two different schools, I have spoken to numerous investigators and lawyers, and I am now on my third set of college basketball coaches. Most athletes that enter college have one set of four-five coaches during their four-five-year period, I have had thirteen. College basketball has presented countless challenges for me mentally and psychically. For a while I thought that the adversity that I was facing as a young woman playing a high level of athletics …

Transformative Preparation: Measuring The Intercultural Competence Development Of Higher Education And Student Affairs (Hesa) Students And Exploring The Intercultural Learning Experience Across Assistantship Sites, Rafael A. Rodriguez

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Today’s college student body reflects, among many things, the outcome of policies geared towards increasing access and diversifying the academy, efforts to recruit international students, the vast social, political, and economic disparities among marginalized populations, and the extreme cultural polarization of our times. Students on campuses have broad and individualized perspective, approaches, and values, which are culturally rooted, embedded within our socialization and often times conflict with the experiences of other students or the student affairs professionals tasked with supporting students. Student affairs practitioners must enter the field possessing a degree of intercultural competence, defined as an appropriate skillset and …

La Jaula De Oro Y Dreamers: Wellness Of Latinx Undocumented College Students In A Divisive Political Climate And #45 Era Presidency, Sarah Maria Childs

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Undocumented, unafraid, and unapologetic is how our students should be able to communicate to us; yet this is not the reality for many. There are an estimated 65,000 undocumented students who graduate from high schools every year in the United States, and another 7,000 to 13,000 enrolled in colleges and universities. As of September 2017, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has granted about 800,000 individuals deferment from deportation. DREAMers are those brought to this country, are out of status, and likely also qualify for the DREAM Act if it were passed. Many undocumented students in general are …

Becoming By Believing: One Fraternity And Sorority Life Professional’S Journey In Finding Her Voice, Kimberlee Monteaux De Freitas

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

While fraternity and sorority life continues to make headlines and is called upon regularly to validate the purpose it holds to remain on college campuses today, many still believe that when fraternity and sorority are done right, it is one of the best opportunities on college campuses today outside of the classroom. Much of their success is due to the efforts and support of the fraternity and sorority life professionals.

This dissertation will offer the first Scholarly Personal Narrative of a mid-level, seasoned, fraternity and sorority life professional working in higher education. Current research shows the average age of a …

Everyone Is Anxious: A Narrative For Admissions Professionals, Students, And Parents, On College Admissions And Anxiety, Sarah Hecklau

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Written in the Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) style of writing, this thesis explores my personal experience as a college admissions counselor. It offers a reflection of my own college search and application experience, my perspective on the experience of today's high school students, and my professional experience working within an admissions office. The juxtaposition of these three perspectives alongside scholarly references on higher education, philosophy, and anxiety, provides a full-spectrum view of the college admissions process.

The core topic of this reflection is anxiety, and showing how each party experiences anxiety in the college search, application, and selection process. Other …

Exploring The Reciprocal Relationship Between A Comprehensive Living-Learning Program And Institutional Culture: A Narrative Inquiry Case Study, Christopher Paul Marquart

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Over the past 50 years, living-learning programs (LLPs) have emerged as a dynamic curricular innovation in higher education. These programs are residentially based, seeking to seamlessly integrate the classroom and residence hall environments and blur the traditional boundaries between the academic and residential experiences for students (Kuh, 1996; Inkelas & Soldner, 2012). However, efforts to implement LLPs at some campuses have been met with resistance; this is not surprising, as institutions of higher education are often charged in part with preserving cultural and social norms, therefore making them naturally resistant to change (Shapiro & Levine, 1999). One of the most …

Powerful Peers: Resident Advisors' Experience With Restorative Practices In College Residence Hall Settings, Patience Whitworth

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This study explores the implementation of Restorative Practices (Costello, Wachtel, & Wachtel, 2009) in a residential life program at a small public university. Narrative inquiry is used to explore the perspectives of eleven resident advisors (RAs) who have been trained in Restorative Practices (RP) and are using them in their residential communities. Participants were interviewed three times over the course of one academic year. The study illuminates the RAs' perspectives, growth and experiences with RP over that year. The findings demonstrate that RP may not only provide a structure for RAs to succeed within their challenging position, but may also …

Examining Undergraduate Faculty's Competence And Confidence In Addressing Distressed And Disruptive College Students, Nicholas Efren Negrete

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Mental health issues serve as a leading barrier to academic success for college students. As mental health issues among college students continue to escalate, there is an increased likelihood in the manifestation of demonstrable distress and disruption among college students within the classroom. However, there is dearth of research surrounding faculty's confidence and competence related to college students' mental health experiences, namely experiences with students in distress or those whom are disruptive. This qualitative research study will focus on examining faculty's confidence and competence in responding to distressed and disruptive college students through an interpretevist lens. Using Noddings's (1999) Ethic …

The Story Of A Foster Youths Journey Through The Maze Of Higher Education; Implications For Faculty And Staff Throughout The Campus, Lynn Wales

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

As educators and higher education administrators, it is important that we connect to our students. It serves us well to learn the stories behind those beautiful eyes looking back at us, as we support their navigation through the journey of higher education. This thesis, written in a Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) style, will use former foster youth students, as well as at-risk youth, as the population of focus. I will relay my own personal experiences, as a former youth-in-care. I will also explore this kind of alternative upbringing, to draw closer to the conclusions and insights of the struggles and …

Tejanos In College: How Texas Born Mexican-American Students Navigate Ethnoracial Identity, Tomás Sanchez

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

For Latina's in the United States, navigating the spectrum of racial and ethnic identities can be complicated. This same complication has the potential to affect one of the largest groups of Latina's in the nation: Mexican-Americans living in Texas or Tejanos. Through qualitative analyses of interviews and surveys and the use of an ecological framework on identity development theories for Latina's, Native Americans, Multiracial peoples and those in the Mexican diaspora, this study examines various factors that influences the ethnoracial identity choice of Tejano college students.

Findings revealed that there were several common themes across all the participants, even those …

Helping Students Find Meaning While Finding My Own: A Scholarly Personal Narrative Navigating Single-Motherhood And A Career In Admissions, Amber Rich

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

ABSTRACT

In this dissertation, I explore my role as an administrator in higher education admissions at a major university and as a working mother who faces many real world challenges. The grueling travel demands, lofty enrollment goals, campus and inter-office politics, as well as the weekend and late night hours required, made it extremely difficult to achieve a healthy work life balance in admissions while also raising a small child. Additionally, "admissions" is increasingly becoming the "hot seat" within institutions of higher education. Gone are the days of an almost tenure like quality to enrollment professionals. If an enrollment director …

Campus Climate Perceptions Of Queer College Students Of Color: Disidentifying The Rainbow, Khristian Kemp-Delisser La'mount Kemp-Delisser

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation explored the experience lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer students of col-or. Influenced by the Queer of Color theoretical framework, this dissertation employed multiple methodological traditions (namely qualitative and Scholarly Personal Narrative), to deepen the exploration and unlock multiple dimensions of experience of queer college students of color.

Analysis of the student interviews produced 29 themes. The results are, framed by four categories of campus climate (behavioral, socio-historical, psychological, and structural or compo-sitional (Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Pedersen, & Allen, 1998).), and offer a glimpse into the inter-locking dynamics of racism and homophobia that the queer students of color navigate in …