Digital Commons Network^™

The Correlation Of Social, Financial, And Academic Supports To Military Benefit Recipients' Persistence In College, Bruce Mentzer

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study sought to determine the strength and nature of the relationships between social, academic, and financial support and the intent of military students to persist in higher education at a large private non-profit university. The study also collected data from nonmilitary students to note contrasting relationships and looked at overall results for the two groups combined. Multivariate stepwise models confirmed the emphasis on academic support for persistence towards degree completion with all groups. Financial aid effects varied by military, nonmilitary, and for the overall population; military students were negatively impacted by loans, nonmilitary by university scholarships, and the overall …

Enhancement And The Launch Of Odyssey, Jason Pascavage

Dissertations

The Change Leadership Plan utilizes student data garnered from the Program Evaluation to assist in the creation and implementation of the 'Enhancement' program. The Enhancement program is a research-based in-school student intervention developed in response to over two-thirds of Brooks Middle School students falling short of district College and Career Readiness (CCR) benchmarks. College and Career Readiness at Brooks Middle School is based on student outcomes from the fall, winter, and spring MAP® assessments. The vision behind the Enhancement program is to lessen the achievement gap while utilizing student results to assign individual learning paths and curriculum to specific students …

Working Towards School Goals At Lion Elementary: A Phenomenological Study, Benjamin Butcher

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutical phenomenological study was to understand the perspectives of educators regarding school goals at Lion Elementary. Perspectives concerning school goals were generally defined as the importance of competing priorities as described by participants. This research can inform educators about whether perspectives regarding school goals were aligned, and provide insight regarding the reasons behind similarities and differences by having considered several questions: (a) What were the perceptions of the principal and teachers regarding school goal priorities? (b) What were the main challenges they perceived for meeting school goals? (c) What factors contributed toward schools successfully meeting goals? …

Effects Of Positive Behavior Interventions And Supports On Middle School Student Achievement, Chad Knowles

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Today's teachers face more frequent and more severe challenges than perhaps any generation of teachers that have come before them. Administrators attempt to support teaching in an environment of ever-increasing accountability and dwindling financial resources with new and innovative strategies. One such strategy employed by modern educators has been the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) model for clear behavioral expectations and pyramids of intervention for targeted support for students. This study compared a middle school that employs PBIS with a middle school that does not, to determine if there was any statistical improvement realized on academic achievement. Two diverse …

Meeting Minutes, Wku Graduate Council

Graduate School

Meeting minutes.

March Agenda, Wku Graduate Council

Graduate School

Meeting agenda.

An Explanatory Mixed-Methods Approach To Tracing “Career Pathways” Policy In Virginia: How School Counselors And Student Demographics Influence Implementation Fidelity, Michael Ormsmith

Theses and Dissertations

This explanatory mixed-methods policy analysis describes how school counselors' thoughts and attitudes contribute to the implementation fidelity of the Academic and Career Plan (ACP) policy in a suburban Virginia school division. A quantitative survey investigated counselor thoughts about the policy, implementation behaviors, and counselor ideas about equity issues related to providing college and career planning services to at risk students. Counselor interviews were conducted to provide deeper insight about the street level implementation practices and beliefs of counselors. Findings reveal that counselors place substantial value in the ACP policy and think the process is useful for connecting student interests and …

Student Perspectives On How Trauma Experiences Manifest In The Classroom: Engaging Court-Involved Youth In The Development Of A Trauma-Informed Teaching Curriculum, Shantel D. West, Angelique G. Day, Cheryl L. Somers, Beverly A. Baroni

Social Work Faculty Publications

This study explores how the lived experience of court-involved youth impacts learning and school culture, and solicits youth voice in creating a trauma-informed intervention to improve student educational well-being. Thirty-nine female students, ages 14 to 18, participated in focus groups to describe externalizing behaviors that they have both witnessed and personally struggled with in the classroom, discuss the perceived causes of these behaviors, and their suggestions for improving school culture to reduce these behavior manifestations in the classroom. Two major categories of behavior were identified, including: “anger emotions” and “aggressive actions.” Students described the causes of behavior as, “environmental influences” …

Creating 21st Century Classrooms: What District Level Instructional Leaders Know About Leading 21st Century Learning, Jeff Arrington

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Common Core standards and 21st century instruction are topics at the forefront of current educational literature (Greenstein, 2012; Long, 2012; Sheninger & Larkin, 2012; Wilson, 2006). Though Common Core standards may provide a foundation for the literacy and numeracy that has been identified in preparation for college and career, even Common Core agrees that this preparation and readiness is complex and more than the standards address. “The reality is that students must develop a complex skill set that prepares them for both the rigor of college and the demands of the workplace” (Greenstein, 2012). Twenty-first century skills have been described …

The Community College As Entrepreneur: Developing And Sustaining Effective Noncredit Workforce Training Partnerships, Kristine Michele Condon

Dissertations

In an era of increasingly tight community college budgets, noncredit workforce training partnerships with local business and industry are becoming critical sources of revenue. These partnerships can underwrite otherwise unaffordable projects and build effective bridges from non-credit to credit-bearing coursework for students. However, little research exists on the nature of community college noncredit workforce training partnerships or how those partnerships are built and maintained.

The purpose of this study is to identify how and in what ways Illinois single-campus community colleges develop and sustain effective noncredit workforce training partnerships. This qualitative case study of Illinois’ single-campus community colleges and their …

Identification Of Current Proficiency Level Of Extension Competencies And The Competencies Needed For Extension Agents To Be Successful In The 21st Century, Dona Lakai, K. S. U. Jayaratne, Gary E. Moore, Mark J. Kistler

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

In this era of globalization, competency is an issue of concern to any field of professionals and their clients. Competency is an integrated set of skills, knowledge, and attitudes that allow one to effectively carry out the activities of a given work to the standards expected in the employment context. The purpose of this descriptive survey study was to determine the current proficiency level of North Carolina Cooperative Extension agents’ competencies and the other competencies they need to develop to be successful in Cooperative Extension. Findings indicate that the current proficiency level of competency for Extension agents in North Carolina …

An Analysis Of Principal Preparation Programs At Pennsylvania State Schools, Karlin Burks

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

In this era of data-driven accountability for school success and high student achievement, successful school leadership has been hailed as one of the most import tools in creating effective schools. Principal preparation programs have an ever-demanding job of producing high-quality principals capable of effective school leadership, as the failure or success of a school can be directly attributed to the training and preparation of the school principal. It is the desire of the researcher that the findings of this study will add to the research on school leadership and perhaps encourage university principal preparation programs to examine their practices and …

A Collaborative Model For Implementing State Common Core School Standards, Ann Larson, Maggie Mcgatha, Sue Peters, Penny Howell, Jean Wolph, Joanne Webb, Starr Lewis, Seth Hunter

Journal of Excellence in College Teaching and Learning

In this early part of the 21st century, education leaders are increasingly challenged to improve P-12 teaching and learning to increase student achievement and to prepare all students for college and career success. Education reforms such as the adoption of the Common Core Standards within existing policies and practices of state department, district and school bureaucracies requires the repurposing and refocusing of existing resources and structures. This article describes the efforts in one state to employ collaboration to meet the requirements of legislated mandates for implementation of the Common Core Standards in English language arts and mathematics and the implications …

Wsu Board Of Trustees Meeting Minutes, February 13-14, 2014

Board of Trustees Minutes

Minutes from the Wright State University Board of Trustees Meeting held on February 13-14, 2014.

University Of Northern Iowa Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes, February 10, 2014, University Of Northern Iowa. Faculty Senate.

Documents - Faculty Senate

Meeting minutes from the Faculty Senate of the University of Northern Iowa.

Understanding Leadership: An Experimental-Experiential Model, George T. Hole Ph.D

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

Books about leadership are dangerous to readers who fantasize about being leaders or apply leadership ideas as if they were proven formulas. As an antidote, I offer an experimental framework in which any leadership-management model can be tested to gain experiential understanding of the model. As a result one can gain reality-based insights about leadership and oneself. The experiment is described; resistances to engaging it are considered; and examples from a leadership group implementing Covey’s “Seven Principles are summarized. In the course of discussing individual’s experiments objections were voiced against this Socratic approach to understanding leadership. Finally, I sketch a …

Deep Impact: How A Job-Embedded Formative Assessment Professional Development Model Affected Teacher Practice, Thomas A. Stewart, Gary Houchens

School of Leadership & Professional Studies Faculty Publications

This study supports the work of Black and Wiliam (1998), who demonstrated that when teachers effectively utilize formative assessment strategies, student learning increases significantly. However, the researchers also found a “poverty of practice” among teachers, in that few fully understood how to implement classroom formative assessment. This qualitative case study examined a series of voluntary workshops offered at one middle school designed to address this poverty of practice. Data were gathered via semi-structured interviews. These research questions framed the study: (1) What role did a professional learning community structure play in shaping workshop participants’ perceived effectiveness of a voluntary formative …

Full Issue 6(1) 2014

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Science And Higher Education Policy And Scientific Inquiry: Chilean And Colombian Private Universities Compared, Pedro Pineda

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Air Force Institute Of Technology Research Report 2013, Office Of Research And Sponsored Programs, Graduate School Of Engineering And Management, Afit

AFIT Documents

This report summarizes the research activities of the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. It describes research interests and faculty expertise; lists student theses/dissertations; identifies research sponsors and contributions; and outlines the procedures for contacting the school. Included in the report are: faculty publications, conference presentations, consultations, and funded research projects. Research was conducted in the areas of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electro-Optics, Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Systems Engineering and Management, Operational Sciences, Mathematics, Statistics and Engineering Physics.

Organizational Culture, Knowledge Structures, And Relational Messages In Organizational Negotiation: A Systems Approach, Vincent P. Cavataio, Robert S. Hinck

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

This study examines a recent bargaining process between the Faculty Association and Central Michigan University. Taking a systems approach, we began with the assumption that a healthy organizational culture produces negative feedback which can help keep participants at the bargaining table despite disagreement. However, if organizational members’ relationships are threatened, organizational culture unravels as destructive messages provide positive feedback to disrupt the system and make impasse more likely. To understand how an university’s culture is impacted during contract negotiations we examined messages published in a university student newspaper, transcripts from the local NPR station, CMU’s press releases, a Facebook page, …

Institutional Response To The Changing Legal Environment Regarding Student Safety: A Multi-Campus Case Study, Joy Blanchard

Kentucky Journal of Higher Education Policy and Practice

Confusion regarding liability for student safety and whether federal regulations prohibit information sharing have become a concern on campuses. Do current policies mitigate liability yet still serve the best interest of students? Based on interviews of nearly 30 administrators at three campuses in 2008 and 2011, this case study examines the legal considerations used when responding to such concerns, particularly alcohol and mental health. Organizational capacity and culture structure are discussed; recommendations for practice are provided.

Foreword: Special Issue Dedicated To Legal Issues In Higher Education, Joy Blanchard

Kentucky Journal of Higher Education Policy and Practice

It is undeniable that legal issues are becoming more prevalent in the day-to-day operations of colleges and universities, as well as among policymakers and lawmakers. The manuscripts in this special issue illustrate the need for all those in higher education to become more aware of the changing legal environment and concomitant regulatory requirements, to educate top-down among those working with students, and for the higher education legal community to begin examining these issues from a broader lens and incorporate the scholarship of policy and organizational change to study the influence of the law on a broader level. This special issue …

2013-2014 Financial Summary, Morehead State University. Budget & Financial Planning Office.

Morehead State University Financial Summaries Archive

2013-2014 Financial Summary of Morehead State University.

Shedding Gender Stigmas: Work-Life Balance Equity In The 21st Century, Erica M. Southworth

Faculty Creative and Scholarly Works

The gender stigma of work-life balance (WLB) policies as concessions for mothers and female caregivers originated with the push by the Women’s Movement for gender workplace equity in the late 20th century. Unfortunately, this perception continues in the 21st century and retains the additional stigma of employee participation in these policies–—regardless of gender–—as a detrimental career move. Thus, home and work responsibilities for professionals of all genders who desire more occupational flexibility remain unreconciled. Despite this dominant national and international outlook, this article encourages new century organizations and profes- sionals to reject the traditional perception of occupational inequity through gender- …

A Multidisciplinary Examination Of The Decision-Making Process Used By Designers, Jill E. Stefaniak, Monica W. Tracey

Administrative and Organizational Studies

Design-thinking is an abductive and participatory process in which designers are required to manage constraints, generate solutions, and follow project timelines in order to complete project goals. This exploration study sought to look at how designers in various disciplinary fields approach design projects. Designers were asked to describe a project and a decision that they had to make. Decisions were analyzed to determine whether they were ready-made versus custommade solutions and the process by which the designers arrived at the decisions was categorized as idea-imposition or discovery. Results indicated that designers work with multiple constraints while designing and the majority …

Impact Of Teacher Attitude And Urbanicity Through The Implementation Of Positive Behavior Support Programming, Theodore Caleris

ETD Archive

One of the major questions that both urban and non-urban public school districts are faced with is the relationship between the predictors of school climate, student behavior, staff perceptions and the influence these variables have on school climate. School districts are under public scrutiny to produce positive achievement results for all students. Much research suggests that schools that are considered urban are generally considered unsafe, unproductive and unable to produce students that are competitive in a 21st century global economy. In the major urban centers, student populations are decreasing, flooding the first-ring school districts. First-ring school districts are the individual …

University Update - July 2, 2014, Academic Affairs

University Updates & Communications from the University President

Included this update are:

• Organizational Structure Changes
• IT Services Update
• Enrollment Update
• Welcome Back Celebration

The Triple Bottom Line: Portable Applications And Best Practices For Sustainability In Academic Libraries, Anne M. Casey, Jon E. Cawthorne, Kathleen Delong, Irene M.H. Herold, Adriene Lim

Staff Works - Hunt Library

Triple Bottom Line Accounting (TBLA) refers to a method of measuring the economic, environmental, and community service impacts of an organization rather than the traditional practice of measuring just the financial bottom line. This chapter explores TBLA from a historical point-of-view; offers examples in higher education and discusses the implications for academic libraries. It concludes with ideas for the implementation of TBLA in libraries.

Barriers In Meeting The Needs Of Special Education Students: A Qualitative Case Study, Zoee Bartholomew

Education | Faculty Authored Dissertations and Theses

Special education students’ needs are not consistently being met in special education programs. This qualitative single case study explored special education programs based on a county education program serving multiple school districts in Northern California. The qualitative approach was selected to explore and identify potential themes in special education programs affecting special education students’ needs not being met consistently. There were 14 themes found in this study, which appeared to be potential barriers impacting students’ needs from being met consistently. The study utilized both a theoretical and conceptual framework for the study. There were 8 recommendations provided to help this …