Digital Commons Network^™

Values And Power As Levers To Influence Accountability Policy In Virginia: A Case Study, Angela M. Rhett

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The education landscape has been inundated in recent decades with a plethora of accountability measures. New mandates and processes are conceived at the hands of policymakers, and concepts such as power and values are at the core of accountability changes. The purpose of this research study was to uncover the web of unwritten structures and systems in place that influence the educational accountability policy process using complexity theory as the guiding theoretical framework (Shoup & Studer, 2010). Complexity theory dispels the notion of simplistic cause and effect relationships as predictors for accountability trends, and, instead, posits the multiplicity of factors …

Thither The Russian Navy? Putin’S Navalization In A Historical Context, William Emerson Bunn

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The Syrian operation of 2012 was the first successful employment by Russia of expeditionary warfare, narrowly defined as naval support to Russian (or Soviet) ground forces in a war away from their periphery (i.e., in a country that does not border them), from the sea. This was brought about in part by the development of two types of cruise missiles: advanced anti-ship missiles (which protects their expeditionary force from NATO naval units, enabling local sea control) and new land attack cruise missiles (similar in design and capability to the U.S. Tomahawk). In the past geographical, technological and political constraints …

Looking Through Their Lenses: An Analysis Of Virginia Environmental Nonprofits' Roles And Challenges In Shoreline Management For Coastal Resilience, Taiwo C. Olanrewaju Lasisi

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Environmental nonprofit organizations have emerged to attend to the environmental needs of individuals and communities. Some of these needs are usually those that have been neglected, given insufficient attention, or cannot be singularly handled by the government. In advocating for coastal resilience, environmental nonprofits have been identified as actors who address coastal issues like sea-level rise, flooding, and shoreline management.

Shoreline management involves building setbacks and formulating short and long-term defense strategies such as building living shorelines, ripraps, bulkheads, and tree plantings. These strategies formed the basis of coastal defense in coastal zones. Shoreline management is a significant area of …

Active Military Student Persistence In Online Courses At California Community Colleges, Stephanie E. Gernert

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The diversity of higher education institutions is changing, and more post-traditional students, including those associated with the military, are engaging in higher education. Almost every post-secondary institution in the United States has military students. In 2020, $11.5 billion was spent on over 875,000 eligible military students. Military students often prefer online courses at community colleges due to flexibility around their military career, open-access, and affordability.

Yet, few studies examine active military servicemembers alone and, when research is performed, a lack of thorough data collection exists. Therefore, this study focused on active military students in online education in California Community Colleges. …

Acquisition Career Progression Model For Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Officers, Andrew John Heckel

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The United States Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) officer community does not have a dedicated career progression model that is focused on progressively building an acquisition knowledge base which makes it more difficult to be a successful program manager and to promote as an operational leader. This thesis outlines a career progression model that is designed as an acquisition knowledge management strategy for Navy EOD officers. The model utilizes the existing billets manned by Navy EOD officers to gain the knowledge and experience required to attain Acquisition Professional Membership within the Department of Defense. Most importantly, the model is used …

Present At The Creation, A Redux: The Need For Strategic Minded Joint Force Officers In A Rapidly Changing And Dynamic International Security Environment, Thomas Joseph Snukis

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The US Joint Force has an outstanding record over its history of superb performance at the tactical level of war. Inarguably, the United States is currently the best tactical Joint Force in the world a product of a world class tactical education, training, and development program generating and sustaining that tactical proficiency at the individual and organizational level. While tactical education and training programs have been extremely successful, the Professional Military Education (PME) responsible for developing strategic mastery has not been as highly rated. Over the past seventy-five years numerous indictments have been levied against the US PME enterprise, and …

"Quality-Less” Higher Education: Relationship And Neocolonialism In International Development In Afghanistan, Wolayat Tabasum

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

This study aimed to explore the internal quality assurance and accreditation (QAA) policy at University X in Afghanistan. A single case study and document review methods were chosen to examine the policy implementation process and its perceived effectiveness at a single university. This case study also explored faculty members' perceptions toward QAA, the policy's impact on teaching and learning, and the opportunities and challenges it might offer. The findings of the study produced unexpected and expected results. The expected findings were tailored around social relationships, labor division, the hierarchy of labor, incompatibility of the policy, and their impact on the …

Rape, Consent, And The U.S. Military, Siris Fernandez

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The military’s sexual assault prevention and response program is unable to effectively eliminate or even minimize occurrences of sexual assault in the service. This program focuses primarily on the elimination of sexual assault through yearly mandatory education on the current policies and procedures that occur when a victim comes forward. The Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) program is reactionary and unequipped to tackle a culture that continues to promote a climate in which sexual assault and harassment exist without fear of retaliation. This thesis explores these issues and provides suggestions for changes in future revisions of the SAPR program. …

Nonprofit Organizational Performance Measurement And Accountability: Funders Vs. Clients/Missions, Mavis Mansah Agbakpe

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Nonprofit organizations have funders and clients as their stakeholders whose needs, expectations, or demands might vary. A means through which nonprofit organizations portray their accountability to these stakeholders is through performance measurement. The purpose of this research is to examine what performance metrics human services nonprofit organizations use by way of demonstrating accountability and explore the extent to which funders’ demands or clients needs and organizational missions are considered in measuring performance. In this study I sought to understand how human services nonprofits balance the stakeholders’ needs and expectations through their performance measurement. The overarching research question is: To what …

Reflecting Back To Forge The Path Forward, Robert M. Capraro, Mary Margaret Capraro, Chance Lewis, Melva R. Grant, Marlon James, Eduardo Mosqueda, Jamaal Young, Jemimah Young, Ali Bicer, Tarcia Hubert, Alesia Mickle Moldavan, Susan Ophelia Cannon, Michael S. Rugh, Miriam Sanders, Jonas Chang

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

The JUME editorial team provides an update of the journal's health and progress during the 2021 calendar year and discusses coming changes and opportunities for growth.

The Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (Raft) As An Approach For Incorporating Equity Into Coastal Resilience Planning And Project Implementation, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Tanya Denckla Cobb, Elizabeth Andrews, Sierra Gladfelter, Gray Montrose

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

As coastal communities across the U.S. and worldwide undertake efforts to enhance their resilience to coastal hazards, they must do so while ensuring that all voices are heard, addressing and preventing disparate impacts, and, ultimately, increasing resilience in an equitable way. The Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (RAFT) assists coastal communities in incorporating equity into resilience planning and implementation of projects to increase resilience. The RAFT includes social and economic dimensions in assessment of resilience and focuses on how localities can build resilience equitably. The RAFT process has three phases -- a scorecard assessment, development of a resilience action checklist that …

Practice With Feedback Makes Permanent: Ecoaching Through Online Bug-In-Ear During Clinical Experiences, Annemarie L. Horn, Marcia L. Rock

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

Federal mandates (e.g., Every Student Succeeds Act [ESSA], 2015) require special educators to use evidence-based practices (EBP) when working with K-12 students. However, for this expectation to become a reality, teacher educators must make changes in educator preparation program (EPP) curriculum, policy, coursework, and clinical experiences (Kolb et al., 2018). The need for changes
in EPP clinical experiences has been underscored by the Council for Exceptional Children’s (CEC’s) shift from knowledge to practice-based standards for special educators (CEC, 2020). Real-time performance feedback (PF) delivered via online bug-in-ear (BIE) technology is an EBP (Sinclair, 2020) for coaching and supervising during early, …

The "Unite The Right" Rally And Charlottesville City Schools: The Transformation Of A Crisis, Sara Lourdes Epperly, Jay Paredes Scribner, Karen L. Sanzo

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Educational leaders at all levels must be prepared to address crises and their aftermaths. The conventional wisdom on crises and their management suggests that while crisis can originate from myriad sources, they largely proceed according to predictable stages. Our study draws from traditional and more critical literature on crisis and crisis management to understand the case the 2017 Unite the Right rally and its impact on Charlottesville City Schools. Specifically, we unpack the unfolding nature of the crisis and the district superintendent’s leadership through each phase of the crisis. We use the notion of paracrisis and crisis of challenge to …

The Relationship Between Enterprise Risk Management And Cost Of Capital, Muhammad Kashif Shad, Fong-Woon Lai, Amjad Shamim, Michael Mcshane, Sheikh Muhammad Zahid

Finance Faculty Publications

This paper investigates the effect of enterprise risk management (ERM) implementation on the cost of capital (cost of debt, cost of equity, and weighted average cost of capital) for the oil and gas industry. The research is conducted using panel data analysis from 2008-2017 for 41 oil and gas companies publicly listed on the Bursa Malaysia. ERM implementation data is collected from company annual reports, while the cost of capital data is obtained from Thomson Reuters DataStream. The results indicate that an increase in the level of ERM implementation reduces the cost of capital, which we argue is one mechanism …

Firm Resources, Strategies, And Survival And Growth During Covid-19: Evidence From Two-Wave Global Surveys, Sheng Fang, Chorching Goh, Shaomin Li, L. Colin Xu

Management Faculty Publications

This study examines how firms have made strategic choices and performed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the organizational resources and strategic change literature, it uses World Bank Enterprise Surveys and the COVID-19 Follow-up Enterprise Surveys to examine how different endowments in organizational resources affected firm performance as measured by their survival status and sales growth, and how these resources interact with and affect strategic responses in the supply of inputs, response to changing demand, liquidity management, and innovation. The results indicate that larger firms, firms with foreign or state ownership, and subsidiary companies performed better during the pandemic by …

Above-Average Student Loan Debt For Students With Disabilities Attending Postsecondary Institutions, Kim Bullington, Kaycee L. Bills, David J. Thomas, William L. Nuckols

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Black students with disabilities face more hurdles to academic success and completion than do their non-Black non-disabled peers. With an increased reliance on student loans to finance higher education, this double-at-risk population is even more vulnerable than either Black or disabled students individually. This study examines whether there is an additional debt burden to this intersectional population. The Baccalaureate and Beyond public dataset was used to explore student debt for students who graduated in 2017. This analysis found that Black students with disabilities graduated with significantly higher debt burdens than either non-disabled Black students or students with disabilities from other …

A Primer On The Human Readiness Level Scale (Ansi/Hfes 400-2021), Kelly Steelman, Holly Handley, Katie Plant (Ed.), Gesa Praetorius (Ed.)

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

"The Human Readiness Level (HRL) Scale is a simple 9-level scale for evaluating, tracking, and communicating the readiness of a technology for safe and effective human use. It is modeled after the well-established Technology Readiness Level (TRL) framework that is used throughout the government and industry to communicate the maturity of a technology and to support decision making about technology acquisition. Here we (1) introduce the ANSI/HFES 400-2021 Standard that defines the HRL scale and (2) provide concrete examples of evaluation activities to support the application of HRLs in the development of automated driving systems."

Pandemic Repercussions: The Future Of International Education At Us Community Colleges, Heidi Fischer, Melissa Whatley

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

The disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic have both short- and long-term repercussions on higher education. To crystallize these impacts in a sector that was particularly vulnerable to the economic effects of the pandemic, this mixed methods study explores the intersection of international education and community college responses to the pandemic. Findings indicated that due to the pandemic, community college international education programs faced a reallocation of institutional resources, both financial and otherwise, which shapes the educational opportunities available to students and informs the institutional habitus of the US community college. This study’s findings have implications in the areas of international …

Employee Green Behavior: A Meta-Analysis, Ian M. Katz, Rachel S. Rauvola, Cort W. Rudolph, Hannes Zacher

Psychology Faculty Publications

Due to climate change, the need to protect biodiversity and reduce pollution, and governmental regulations, many organizations are aiming to become more environmentally sustainable. In this context, researchers and practitioners are increasingly interested in the construct of employee green behavior (EGB). EGB has been considered by numerous empirical studies over the last two decades and its associations with demographic characteristics, individual differences, workrelated perceptions, and job attitudes. To systematically synthesize the rapidly growing literature on EGB, we conducted a meta-analysis (k = 135 independent samples; total N = 47,442 employees). Results showed positive associations between EGB and, for example, proenvironmental …