Education Commons^™

Served Through Service: Undergraduate Students’ Experiences In Community Engaged Learning At A Catholic And Marianist University, Elizabeth M. Fogle, Savio D. Franco, Edel M. Jesse, Brent Kondritz, Lindsay Maxam, Heidi Much-Mcgrew, Cody Mcmillen, Carolyn Ridenour, Daniel J. Trunk

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Students participating in sustained community service at an urban Catholic and Marianist university were volunteer informants in this qualitative exploration of the meaning they make of their service experiences. A PhD student research team (nine members) interviewed fourteen undergraduate students (eleven of whom were seniors). Findings were organized as themes constructed within three domains: background, experience, and meaning. Within “background,” students who had prior work in faith-based service before college deepened their meaning of service. Within “experience,” there were social and cultural dynamics of navigating on and off campus life, including the roles students played as well as the challenge …

Supreme Court Docket Preview: Are Changes In The Offing?, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

During most Supreme Court terms, which begin on the first Monday in October and usually end in late June, the justices accept at least one case focused on education. Two cases before the current Court—Fisher v. University of Texas (2014) and Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (2014)—have the potential to affect education significantly. Moreover, the sudden death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Saturday, February 13, 2016, may affect these and other cases, especially Fisher, considerably.

Gravissimum Educationis: Golden Opportunities In American Catholic Education 50 Years After Vatican Ii, Gerald M. Cattaro, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Gravissimus Educationis: Golden Opportunities in American Catholic Education 50 Years after Vatican II reviews the development of American Catholic schools since the promulgation of Gravissimus Educationis, the only document on education produced by the Ecumenical Council known as Vatican II. This document literally translated as “The Importance of Education,” addresses how extremely vital Catholic education, in particular, is in modern life.

Cattaro and Russo also reflect on changes that have transpired since the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore of 1884. This council forever changed the shape of nonpublic education in the United States in its decree that all parishes …

Working Students’ Perceptions Of Paying For College: Understanding The Connections Between Financial Aid And Work, Mary Ziskin, Mary Ann Fischer, Vasti Torres, Beth Pellicciotti, Jacquelyn Player-Sanders

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

For many students at urban commuter colleges, the process of financial aid is unknown or mysterious; and so they work—often many hours a week—to pay expenses that financial aid might have covered. Missteps, unforeseen events, and limited resources can have severe consequences for the academic progress of these students. The broader study, of which this paper is a part, represents an effort to explore and describe students’ college-going, working, family responsibilities, and academic success at three commuter institutions in a metropolitan region in the Midwest. The encompassing project aims to introduce new qualitative data and situated description into the study …

Student Newspapers At Public Colleges And Universities: Lessons From The United States, Charles J. Russo, Terry L. Hapney

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

An on-campus activity of enduring interest in the United States that is present elsewhere in the English-speaking world, but that has yet to yield reported litigation or academic writing in Great Britain, concerns free speech issues associated with student newspapers in higher education. Student newspapers have long occupied a significant role in their dual functions of informing members of their campus communities and as preparation grounds for future journalists. Against this background, the remainder of this article is divided into three major sections. The first part examines the nature of student newspapers and related issues while the second examines key …

Handbook Of Comparative Higher Education Law, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The Handbook of Comparative Higher Education Law addresses legal issues from institutions of higher learning in seventeen countries on all six inhabited continents in a reader friendly manner. All chapters follow the same outline on institutional issues, faculty rights, student rights, and emerging issues so that similarities and differences can be compared. An introductory chapter provides an overview on the legal status of higher education as selected in various international covenants. In addition, a concluding chapter draws the themes addressed throughout the book together and centers on the concept of best practice management. This book serves as valuable resource for …

Status Of Women In Higher Education: A Metanalysis Of Institutional Reports, Kathleen Brittamart Watters, Carolyn Ridenour

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The authors examined twenty-one institutional reports on the status of women on American college and university campuses. The analysis revealed a dominant discourse of women positioned as dependent on men. Among the five emergent themes included, first, the reality that women were marginalized on these campuses and second, overrepresented in lower power positions. Third, evidence suggested an unequal distribution of salary and perquisites by gender. Fourth, adopting policies toward equity can lessen gender discrimination; however, not with a lack of a strong public and visible commitment to equity by campus leadership, the fifth theme. Additional findings include explanation of three …

'Divertual' Learning In Education Leadership: Implications Of Teaching Cultural Diversity Online Vs. Face To Face, Carolyn Ridenour, A. Llewellyn Simmons, Timothy J. Ilg, A. William Place

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

What are the consequences of this teaching-learning situation when graduate students in a Department of Educational Leadership are enrolled in a course on cultural diversity? Might the words on the computer screen be completely unrelated to the humanity, personality, style, interpersonal behaviors, and dispositions of the student writing them, as Menand suggests? Or, might the detachment provide a security in which the most honest and unadulterated discourse can be shared between teacher and students, as some proponents hope? In this chapter we explore responses to this dilemma. We attempt to capture this situation in our label: "divertual learning," a neologism …

The Sacred And The Secular: Aligning A Marianist Mission With Professional Standards Of Practice In An Educational Leadership Doctorial Program, Darla J. Twale, Carolyn Ridenour

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

This inquiry was conducted to explore how the characteristics of our university’s religious mission are interwoven into our educational leadership doctoral program and are manifest in the structure and learning experiences that our students encounter. We examined how these characteristics might correspond to or relate to the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards that resulted from national reform initiatives in educational leadership in the mid 1990s. We concluded that the foundations of the PhD program are built solidly on the distinctive characteristics and identity of our founders and are aligned with these professional standards as well. Implications for universities …

Issues Of Racial, Ethnic, And Gender Diversity In Preparing School Administrators, Carolyn Ridenour, Patricia F. First, Angela Lydon, Michelle C. Partlow

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The four authors teach in the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of Dayton. Each taught a new course that addressed issues of diversity in schools, focusing on race, ethnicity, and gender. Each developed the course in a unique way and in distinct settings, though each involved:

1. Reflecting holistically on the experience of teaching the course in order to generate common themes explaining what the experience meant to the faculty as individuals and as women (Blackmore & Kenway, 1993).

2. Examining students' work, behaviors, communication, and attitudes in order to infer level of, as well as changes in, …

The Experience And Meaning Of A Marianist Education Today: A National High School Study Of Mission And School Culture, Carolyn Ridenour, Alan Demmitt, Jill L. Lindsey-North

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Focus groups conducted with students, parents, teachers, and alumni (N=540) at 13 Catholic Marianist high schools provided rich insights into the experience and meaning of the education provided at these institutions. While academic excellence was a common thread woven across meaning given by both parents and teachers, students and alumni articulated a meaning replete with images of belonging. That these schools valued persons holistically (rather than solely academically) permeated most groups. Using theories of organizational culture as the foundation, the relationship between missions and the meaning of life in these schools is discussed.

Meanings Underlying Student Ratings Of Faculty, Carolyn Ridenour, Stephen J. Blatt

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine how undergraduate students interpret the items on a faculty evaluation instrument. Most research on faculty evaluation is quantitative (Marsh and Bailey 1993). Our first study was also quantitative. After we produced a profile of quantitative ratings of faculty by students across all departments in our university in an earlier study, we wanted to go beneath the numbers to their meaning. We designed the present qualitative study to investigate what the items on that form meant to students.

Factors Underlying Effective College Teaching: What Students Tell Us, Carolyn Ridenour, Stephen J. Blatt

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The researchers analyzed 28,000 student evaluations of faculty across 46 departments for one academic term. A 27-item instrument on which students rated faculty was used. One global item assessing overall instructor effectiveness was predicted most strongly by three items: namely, students' perception that the instructor was prepared, presented subject matter clearly, and was interesting. The predictors of students, perceiving that they "learned a lot" were the ratings on three items: the instructor was interesting, the course met the objectives, and the instructor was well-prepared. Being prepared and being interesting seem to be critical characteristics for university faculty in the classroom.