Digital Commons Network^™

An Exploration Of The Use Of Data, Analysis And Research Among College Admission Professionals In The Context Of Data-Driven Decision Making, Kimberly Ann Chaffer Schroeder

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Increasing demands for accountability from both the public and the government have resulted in increasing pressure for higher education professionals to use data to support their choices. There is significant speculation that professionals at all levels of education lack the knowledge to implement data-driven decision making. However, empirical studies regarding whether or not professionals at four-year postsecondary institutions are utilizing data to guide programmatic and policy decisions are lacking. The purpose of this exploratory study was to explore the knowledge and habits of undergraduate admission professionals at four-year colleges and universities regarding their use of data in decision making. A …

Adherence To Appropriate Instructional Practice Guidelines In American College And University Physical Activity Programs, Drue T. Stapleton

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Background/Purpose: Higher education physical activity programs (HEPAP) in physical education have existed in American college and universities for over 100 years. Initially used to teach physical education and promote physical activity to prepare students for potential wartime conflicts, they have evolved in response to changes in societal and educational purposes and needs. In 2008, NASPE published its updated Guidelines for Appropriate Instructional Practice in Higher Education Physical Activity Programs. The guidelines educate professionals about effective physical education for post-secondary students, but knowledge of their use is limited. The purpose of the study was to examine familiarity and adherence to these …

Academic Freedom, Intellectual Diversity, And The Place Of Politics In Geography, Reecia Orzeck

Faculty Publications - Geography, Geology, and the Environment

This paper examines the conservative critique of higher education in the USA. I argue, first, that the right's call for greater “intellectual diversity” in American higher education should be understood as an attack on the professional self-regulation and disciplinary autonomy that are central to academic freedom in this country. Second, I suggest that the right's politicization of politics in the academy brings to light the importance of our developing a vision of the university that accounts for rather than disavows the political nature of the work we do.

Affirmative Action In Higher Education And The Talented Twenty Program In Florida, Miguel Ubiles

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Affirmative action in higher education is a necessary component for ethnic minorities to be afforded postsecondary educational access and opportunities to improve their socioeconomic status. The ban of affirmative action in undergraduate admissions, wherever instituted, has decreased the undergraduate enrollment of ethnic minorities. The broad objective of this research is to demonstrate how the elimination of affirmative action has lessened postsecondary educational access for minorities, who presently account for the majority or near-majority population in several states and will soon account for a much larger segment of the national population. This study will use two series of multiple regression models …

Background Or Experience? Using Logistic Regression To Predict College Retention, Tracee M. Synco

All ETDs from UAB

Tinto, Astin and countless others have researched the retention and attrition of students from college for more than thirty years. However, the six year graduation rate for all first-time full-time freshmen for the 2002 cohort was 57%. This study sought to determine the retention variables that predicted continued enrollment of entering freshmen at a large urban, four-year, public institution. Logistic regression was utilized to analyze the data collected over a four-year period. The population studied was 1,346 first-time full-time freshmen entering fall 2007. The variables chosen for analysis were ACT composite, cumulative GPA and high school GPA, ethnicity, gender, Pell …

Antisemitism In The Academic Voice: Confronting Bigotry Under The First Amendment, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

The romanticized vision of life in the Ivory Tower - a peaceful haven where learned professors ponder higher thoughts and where students roam orderly quadrangles in quest of truth and other pleasures - has long been relegated to yesteryear. While universities like to nurture the perception that they are protectors of reasoned discourse, and indeed often perceive themselves as sacrosanct places of culture in a chaotic world, the modern campus, of course, is not quite so wonderful.

This chapter examines the relationship between antisemitic and anti-Zionist speech and conduct, how they both play out on contemporary university campuses - and …

Traditional And Nontraditional Dean's Multi Level Multi Dimensional Complexity Leadership, Nicholas Spezza

Student Scholarship

The higher education leadership literature has little to say about nontraditional candidates (executives who have never held a full time faculty post) and their ability to perform in senior leadership roles in higher education administration. We conducted a qualitative research design to capture the lived experiences of participants in higher education administration. We interviewed 21 deans in higher educational institutions. Our findings show that deans operate within what we label as a Multi Level Multi Dimensional System (MLMDS). We view this MLMDS through the lens and disciplines emerging from Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT). We also find the higher education environment …

The Learning Alliance Inventory: Instrument Development And Initial Validation, Daniel T. Rogers

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

Despite potential applications to educational contexts, the working alliance concept has largely been confined to psychotherapy intervention research. Some have explored theoretically related concepts (e.g., immediacy, rapport), but no measure currently exists of the working alliance between a teacher and student within an academic course. The aim of this study was to develop such a measure. Results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses led to the creation of the Learning Alliance Inventory (LAI), which contained three factors (Collaborative Bond, Teacher Competency, and Student Investment). Reliability and validity analyses indicated that the LAI has temporal stability, distinguishes between instructors, and correlates …

Developing A Recognition Program To Boost Teaching Faculty Morale At A University In Belize, Bernard Kelvin Watler

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

This study investigated the level of morale and the nature of the current recognition program/policies at the Faculty of Management and Social Sciences (FMSS) at a major university in Belize. The main objective of the study was to answer the following research questions:

1. What is the overall level of lecturer morale at the FMSS as well as the components of morale?

2. How adequate is the current level of recognition received by lecturers for their contributions to the FMSS?

3. What is the relationship between lecturers‘ recognition and morale?

4. To what extent do lecturers believe that a comprehensive …

Forced Options : Faculty Identity Development And Institutional Culture, Eileen Kogl Camfield

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Many faculty enter the professoriate with high ideals. They have identity conceptions of themselves as potential change-agents, expanding human knowledge and contributing to the greater good. Over time, for many, this idealism fades and is replaced with job dissatisfaction and bitterness. This study uses intersectionality as a theoretical frame to explore faculty identity development by examining the ways academic socialization into a competitive, hierarchical system privileges certain aspects of an individual's identity while imperiling others. In presenting data based on hour-long qualitative interviews with six mid-career university faculty members in the social sciences or humanities, the specific mechanisms that trigger …

Five Year Follow-Up Evaluation Of A Faculty Development Program: A Qualitative Study, Marcia Tennill

Dissertations

This qualitative follow-up evaluation explored the long-term impact of a faculty development program on participants who were five years post program. This study focused on 12 faculty members who participated in the University of Missouri’s New Faculty Teaching Scholars program. The nine month program focused on creating a culture of teaching within the university and enhancing peer networking among participants. Data was collected through the review of existing program documents, interviews with program participants, classroom observations, and the review of participants’ syllabi and curriculum vitae. The primary purpose of this study was to learn how a faculty development program affected …

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes Dec 2, 2011, A-State Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Minutes

No abstract provided.

Legal Discourse, Conceptual Metaphors, And Basic Writing Programming: A Study Of Ayers V. Fordice, Joyce Olewski Inman

Dissertations

In what ways does legal discourse influence our perceptions of students labeled as basic writers and these students’ perceptions of themselves? How does standards-based discourse affect student writers’ abilities to define themselves in academe? This dissertation involves an examination of legal and public discourse surrounding Ayers v. Fordice, one of the most prominent desegregation cases in higher education, in an attempt to answer these questions. Its intent is to explore how conceptual metaphors prevalent in these discourses affect our understandings of basic writing programming in the state of Mississippi but also in the field of composition more globally.

My …

2011 November 29 - Graduate Council Minutes, College Of Graduate And Continuing Studies, East Tennessee State University

Graduate Council Agendas and Minutes

No abstract provided.

Gec Meeting Minutes For Nov 29, 2011, General Education Committee

General Education Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

Developing Faculty To Provide University Students With Improved Learning Experiences, Águeda Benito, Neal A. Green, Deborah R. Popely, Phuong M. Thai-Garcia, Art T. Schneiderheinze

Higher Learning Research Communications

The article addresses the importance of incorporating faculty development as a key priority of higher education institutions. A literature review and some face-to-face and online interviews were conducted at various U.S. institutions, to identify common and best practices regarding this important matter. The article offers some ideas about what is done, and how it is done, to help faculty be ready for the challenging role they need to play: to be effective developers of a diverse student body that meets the evolving needs of industry and that utilizes technological tools that never existed before.

Need Exceeds Space: A Serials Withdrawal Project At The University Of Rhode Island University Libraries, Brian T. Gallagher, Andrée J. Rathemacher

Public Services Faculty Publications

In 2009, the University of Rhode Island’s main library, the Robert L. Carothers Library and Learning Commons in Kingston, initiated a pilot serials withdrawal project when the need for space for new services exceeded the space available in the library. A joint venture between Acquisitions and Access Services, the successful pilot led to a subsequent withdrawal project in summer 2010 to free additional space in the library. The print journals targeted for withdrawal were ones to which the library had online access through licensed journal archives. Considerations on what to withdraw, the process of identifying titles for withdrawal, and the …

Gec Meeting Minutes For Nov 15, 2011, General Education Committee

General Education Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

V. 79, Issue 8, November 11, 2011

Archway (1946-2020)

No abstract provided.

Gec Meeting Minutes For Nov 8, 2011, General Education Committee

General Education Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes Nov 4, 2011, A-State Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Minutes

No abstract provided.

Professor Gender, Age, And “Hotness” In Influencing College Students’ Generation And Interpretation Of Professor Ratings, Sara L. Sohr-Preston, Stefanie S. Boswell, Kayla Mccaleb, Deanna Robertson

Higher Learning Research Communications

Undergraduate psychology students rated expectations of a bogus professor (randomly designated a man or woman and hot versus not hot) based on an online rating and sample comments as found on RateMyProfessors.com (RMP). Five professor qualities were derived using principal components analysis (PCA): dedication, attractiveness, enhancement, fairness, and clarity. Participants rated current psychology professors on the same qualities. Current professors were divided based on gender (man or woman), age (under 35 or 35 and older), and attractiveness (at or below the median or above the median). Using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), students expected hot professors to be more attractive …

Gec Meeting Minutes For Nov 1, 2011, General Education Committee

General Education Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

2011 October 31 - Graduate Council Minutes, College Of Graduate And Continuing Studies, East Tennessee State University

Graduate Council Agendas and Minutes

No abstract provided.

Cultural Perspectives On Social Responsibility In Higher Education, Iris M Yob

Higher Learning Research Communications

The writers of the UNESCO document, Rethinking education: Towards a global common good? challenge educators to address their efforts to meet the current threats to sustainable life for all who share this planet. One way that higher education has been attempting to do this is through campus-community partnerships working to solve social problems locally or further afield. In this exploratory study, answers were sought to the question of why faculty members and administrators participate in these service partnerships, both in terms of what motivates them to do so and what they hope to accomplish, and how cultural context may influence …

V. 79, Issue 5, October 21, 2011

Archway (1946-2020)

No abstract provided.

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes Oct 21, 2011, A-State Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Minutes

No abstract provided.

2011 Fall Farquhar Forum, Farquhar College Of Arts And Sciences

The Farquhar Forum College Magazine

No abstract provided.

Teachers’ Perceptions Of The Leadership Styles Of Middle School Principals And Instructional Leaders, Jessica Devine, Gary Alger

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Grade inflation has been a “hot topic” in the higher education literature for some time now, due primarily to conflicting interpretations of grade-change data. While definitions of grade inflation vary, most seem to indicate that inflation has occurred if a higher grade is awarded without a co-occurring increase in student achievement, and is the outcome of decreased rigor in the assessment of student learning (see Boretz 2004; Young and ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education 2003). Thus, the controversy is in regard to whether or not reported changes in GPA and grade distributions reflect instructor leniency.

Clark Magazine, Fall 2011, Clark University

Clark Magazine

The Fall 2011 edition of Clark Magazine. Clark Magazine is a twice-yearly publication primarily geared towards Clark University Alumni.

The cover story is 'From Clark to the moon: Edwin Aldrin '15 helped a nation look skyward alongside Goddard, Lindbergh, and a son named Buzz'.