Education Commons^™

Exploring The Status Of Learning Outcome Focused Initiatives In Four-Year Public Higher Education, Andrew Quentin Morse

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the present status of efforts to assess student-learning outcomes within the bachelor’s degree granting institutions of the campuses in one system of public higher education. Further, the purpose of this study was also to understand what challenges and criticisms academic leaders report about the call to provide learning outcome evidence. The study was guided by the following research questions:

• What efforts, if any, are institutions presently taking to assess and report student-learning outcomes and why?
• What types of learning outcomes, if any, are colleges and universities trying to measure?
• What challenges and …

An Analysis Of The Factors That Influence Global Mindedness In First-Year College Students, Kristie Broadbent Guffey

Dissertations

This non-experimental, quantitative descriptive study was designed to determine what factors influence a first-year college students’ global mindedness and if any of those factors were predictors of the five subscales of global mindedness. Surveys were used to measure students’ global mindedness and their type of personality (N=424). Demographic questions were administered that included gender, county population, Pell grant eligibility, and first generation college student. Results indicated that first-year college students at a four-year public Master’s Large institution were moderately global minded. To predict global mindedness and its subscales, a regression model was developed using the Myers Briggs scores for extravert, …

Exploring The Relationship Between First Year First Generation College Students And Their Parents, Jerica L. Turek

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The first year of college is one that is crucial for all students entering higher education due to the major transition issues that must be successfully navigated in order to persist to the sophomore year. Parental support has been shown to have a positive effect during this transition by providing positive coping mechanisms and allowing children to develop higher level of autonomy. The level of parental support is at a high level for members of the Millennial Generation, which is characterized by a close parent-child relationship, as well as a high level of parental involvement in the education process. While …

Crafting A Class: The Trade-Off Between Merit Scholarships And Enrolling Lower-Income Students, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Liang Zhang, Jared M. Levin

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] It is well known that test scores are correlated with students’ socio-economic backgrounds. Hence, to the extent that colleges are successful in “buying” higher test-score students, one should expect that their enrollment of students from families in the lower tails of the family income distribution should decline. However, somewhat surprisingly, there have been no efforts to test if this is occurring. Our paper presents such a test. While institutional-level data on the dollar amounts of merit scholarships offered by colleges and universities are not available, data are available on the number of National Merit Scholarship (NMS) winners attending an …

The Impact Of U.S. News & World Report College Rankings On Admissions Outcomes And Pricing Policies At Selective Private Institutions, James Monks, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Despite the widespread popularity of the U.S. News & World Report College rankings there has been no empirical analysis of the impact of these rankings on applications, admissions, and enrollment decisions, as well as on institutions' pricing policies. Our analyses indicate that a less favorable rank leads an institution to accept a greater percentage of its applicants, a smaller percentage of its admitted applicants matriculate, and the resulting entering class is of lower quality, as measured by its average SAT scores. While tuition levels are not responsive to less favorable rankings, institutions offer less visible price discounts in the form …

Faculty Turnover At American Colleges And Universities: Analyses Of Aaup Data, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Hirschel Kasper, Daniel Rees

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

This paper uses institutional level data collected by the American Association of University Professors as part of their annual survey of faculty members' compensation to analyze faculty turnover. Analyses of aggregate data over almost a twenty-year period highlight how remarkably stable faculty retention rates have been nationwide and how little they vary across broad categories of institutions. Analyses of variations in faculty retention rates across individual institutions stress the role that faculty compensation levels play. Higher levels of compensation appear to increase retention rates for assistant and associate professors (but not for full professors) and the magnitude of this effect …

Governance In Nigerian Universities: The Position Of The University Internal Auditor, Professor Ben C Osisioma

Prof Ben Chuka Osisioma

The University system is committed to the principles of good governance which ensure that the Institution is ‚fit for its purpose‛ as an organization put in place for teaching, research and consultancy and professional services to the community. The principles demand a response to the challenge of operational dexterity, technical ingenuity, strategic relevance, African persona and political deftness as part of the task of modernization of the governance of higher education. The task of the Internal Auditor is five-fold – to provide transparency and act as an advisory body to senior management, to identify underperforming areas and opportunities for improvement …

Attempting Preventing Reinventing The Wheel: Establishing Chicano/A-Latino/A Studies At A Midwest Urban University, Joseph A. Valades, Theresa Barron-Mckeagney, Michael Carroll, Lourdes Gouveia, Lucy Garza

Michael W. Carroll

“This session will focus on the personal observations of three faculty who sought to establish a minor in Chicano/a-Latino/a Studies . . . Follow our graphic accounts as we wrestle with the decision of actually embarking on such a quest amidst our thencurrent demands of doctoral coursework, research, teaching and tenure.” In the fall semester of 1995, Chicano/a Studies was formally recognized as a "minor" at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Two years previously, three faculty members from the College of Public Affairs and Community Service at UNO diligently worked to gather student and faculty support and put the …

Financial Forecasts For The Next Decade, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Harold Hovey pointed out that the outlook for state funding of public higher education institutions during the first decade of the 21st century might not be as rosy as it has been during the last five years. The pictures I have painted of the financial futures for American public and private higher education echo his concerns. If sustained economic growth continues, academic institutions' financial prospects will be somewhat brighter. However, it is clear that the well-being of colleges and universities nationwide depends upon their diversifying their sources of revenues. Through their efforts to do so, the publics will end …

Introduction To Doctoral Education And The Faculty Of The Future, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Concern has been expressed, however, that the growing enrollment of foreign students in American PhD programs "crowds out" potential American citizen PhD holders and discourages them from pursuing PhD study. On the other hand, the aftermath of 9/11, the growth of research infrastructure and research support in other nations, and the growth of other nations' higher education systems all cast doubt on the ability of the United States to continue to rely on foreign PhD holders to meet our nation's need for scientific researchers and to fill future faculty positions. Given all of these issues, in October 2006 the …

Changing The Education Of Scholars: An Introduction To The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’S Graduate Education Initiative, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Harriet Zuckerman, Jeffrey A. Groen, Sharon M. Brucker

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] In 1991 the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation launched the Graduate Education Initiative (GEI) to improve the structure and organization of PhD programs in the humanities and social sciences and to combat the high rates of student attrition and long time to degree completion prevailing in these fields. While attrition and time to completion were deemed to be important in and of themselves, and of great significance to degree seekers, they were also seen more broadly as indicators of the effectiveness of graduate programs. An array of characteristics of doctoral programs was earmarked as likely contributors to high attrition and …

Method Or Madness? Inside The U.S. News & World Report College Rankings, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] The rankings exacerbate, but are not the major cause of the increased competition in American higher education that has taken place over the last few decades. The real shame is that this competition has institutions focusing on improving the selectivity of their entering first-year classes. Institutions appear to be increasingly valued for the test scores of the students they attract, not for their value added to their students and to society.

Phd Attainment Of Graduates Of Selective Private Academic Institutions, Jeffrey A. Groen, Matthew P. Nagowski, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] It is therefore important to understand the forces that have caused a decline in the PhD attainment rate of American college graduates. The fraction of bachelor's recipients who go on to receive PhDs nationwide is influenced by many factors, including high school graduation rates, college enrollment rates of high school graduates, college graduation rates for college enrollees, the distribution of undergraduate majors, and the academic backgrounds of college students. PhD attainment also depends upon changes in the economic rewards to pursuing PhD study relative to entering the workforce or pursuing study for other professional occupations, such as law, medicine, …

The American University: Dilemmas And Directions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] American research universities clearly are national treasures. Over the past decade, however, these institutions have increasingly come under attack for a wide variety of alleged sins. Further, their economic bases are increasingly being eroded because of budget problems at federal and state levels, coupled with increased demand for resources to meet competing social needs, such as health care. Thus, although American universities are national treasures, many fear they are entering a period of decline and may well prove to be an endangered species. Why are research universities being attacked, and why are their supporters in both the private and …

Understanding The Meaning African-American Men Give To Their Student Leadership Involvement And Engagement Activities In College, Karl A. Brooks

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore and gain a deeper understanding of the lived experiences and perceptions of African-American (A-A) men who are persisting in college and who demonstrate participation in co-curricular activities defined as student leadership involvement and engagement activities (SLIEA). The study was designed to gain a better understanding of the meaning actively engaged A-A men make of their college experiences and how these experiences serve to guide their actions toward persistence in college. Ten A-A men from three different institutions participated in individual open-ended interviews. Results and findings indicate that regardless of students’ …

Introduction: Choices In Education, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Society has high expectations for our educational system, and social science research should contribute to helping meet these expectations. Research on the choices that participants in the system make, and on the consequences of these choices, is particularly useful and often provides information that is directly relevant to the policy debate. Thus the four chapters in this volume all address the choices, and the consequences of choices, made by students, teachers, and school administrators. They are grouped together in this book in the belief that providing them this way will increase their influence on public policy.

American Higher Education In Transition, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] In public higher education, tuition increases in recent decades have barely offset a long-run decline in state appropriations per full-time equivalent student. State appropriations per full-time equivalent student at public higher educational institutions averaged $6,454 in fiscal year 2010; at its peak in fiscal year 1987, the comparable number (in constant dollars) was $7,993 (State Higher Education Executive Officers 2011, figure 3), translating into a decline of 19 percent over the period. Even if one leaves out the "Great Recession," real state appropriations per full-time equivalent student were still lower in fiscal year 2008 than they were 20 years …

Financial Forces And The Future Of American Higher Education, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Michael J. Rizzo

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Recent shifts in state funding are altering the most basic realities of American higher education, from student access to faculty research.

A Critical Examination Of Student Affairs Research: 75 Years Of “Progress”?, Kathleen Gillon, Cameron Beatty, Lori Patton Davis

Cameron C. Beatty, Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Maximizing The Learning Outcomes Of Cocurricular Civic Engagement In Higher Education, Jeremy Poehnert

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

My experience as an undergraduate college student was marked by many challenges. A constant source of support throughout that time was my participation in cocurricular community service activities – without those experiences I would never have completed my degree. After graduating I pursued a career in which I could continue my involvement with such programs, which, for the purposes of this paper, I will refer to as higher education civic engagement (HECE). There has been one issue that I have been particularly drawn to in HECE work — how to maximize what students learn when they participate in cocurricular civic …

Adam Smith Goes To College: An Economist Becomes An Academic Administrator, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] I have conducted research and taught classes on the economics of higher education for almost 20 years. I spent the last three years as a senior central administrator and executive officer of Cornell University. ... My experiences in this position opened my eyes to the use and uselessness of economic analysis in trying to help guide a major university and what I have learned is the focus of this essay. I begin by asking whether it is useful to view universities in a utility-maximizing framework, as I and others have done in the past. I show that the way …

Are Black Colleges Producing Today's African-American Lawyers?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

In past years, almost all of America's black lawyers came from historically black colleges and universities because these schools were the only ones that would admit black students. Today, it appears that black colleges are producing increasingly fewer of the nation's black lawyers.

My Life And Economics, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Age 51 is a bit early to be writing a retrospective about one's career as an economist and one's life. This is especially true for me since I am not on track to win a Nobel Prize, to be admitted to the National Academy of Science, or even to be elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Nonetheless, as I write this essay during the fall of 1997, I look back on the 28 years I have spent as a PhD economist and see a record of accomplishment of which I am proud and a number of messages worth …

The Flow Of New Doctorates, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] As noted by Bowen and Sosa, their projections of the supply side of the academic labor market, which are typical of those used in other studies, are based on a number of simplifying assumptions. Similarly, their proposed policy remedies to increase the flow of new doctorates, such as increasing financial support for graduate students and shortening the time it takes students to receive degrees, are made presenting only scanty evidence on the likely magnitude of supply responses to these changes. This essay, which draws heavily from my study (Ehrenberg 1991), reviews the academic literature and available data (from a …

The Underrepresentation Of Minority Faculty In Higher Education: Panel Discussion, John Brooks Slaughter, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Eric Hanushek

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] The 3 July 2002 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education described the matter we are discussing today in these words: "Taken together. African-Americans and persons of Hispanic origin represent only 8 percent of full-time faculty nation-wide, and while 5 percent are African-American, half of them work at historically black institutions. The proportion of black faculty members at white institutions is 2.3 percent, virtually the same as it was 20 years ago." We are privileged to have the opportunity to explore this issue from two different perspectives. The first contends that unless major changes occur, the number of minority …

Involving Undergraduates In Research To Encourage Them To Undertake Ph.D. Study In Economics, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Recent evidence suggests that the growing use of part-time and full-time non-tenure-track faculty nationwide adversely influences American college students’ graduation rates (Ehrenberg and Liang Zhang, 2005). I have become concerned that the increased usage of non-tenure track faculty members also likely adversely influences the propensity of undergraduate students to go on for Ph.D.s in economics for two reasons. First, many students enter college with the expressed intent of becoming doctors or lawyers, getting an MBA, or going on for advanced degrees in the sciences or humanities. However, with the exception perhaps of the small number of high-school students who …

Stories Of Persistence: Filipina/O American Undergraduate Students In A Private, Catholic, And Predominantly White University, Angelica M. Bailon

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

At more than three million, Filipina/o Americans are one of the largest ethnic minority groups in the United States. Yet, few studies have focused on the experiences of Filipina/o Americans in institutions of U.S. higher education. Given the increasing disparity in degree achievement between first and second generation Filipina/o Americans, this qualitative study investigated the challenges to persistence that Filipina/o American undergraduates have faced in college and identified resources and strategies that have facilitated their survival in higher education. Through individual interviews and a focus group, participants shared their experiences in a private, Catholic, and predominantly White institution. This study …

Conceptual Framework For Mentoring Doctoral Students, Iris M. Yob, Linda Crawford

Center for Faculty Excellence Publications

In the research and professional literature, there are at least four lines of inquiry around mentoring: perceptions of successful mentoring in general, mentoring of doctoral dissertations in particular, mentoring specific to the online environment, and relative importance of mentoring behaviors. In each case, particular qualities that make for successful mentoring are identified and described but not coalesced into a conceptual model of mentoring. In examining this literature, the authors identified 94 mentor behaviors and characteristics of effective mentors, which were reduced for redundancies to 55. These were clustered into a conceptual model of mentoring with two domains, academic and psychosocial …

Managing From The Middle, Lisa Williams

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

How can middle managers successfully improve work conditions and performance of their staff as part of becoming a better manager? This synthesis reviews relevant literature to develop five key principles in my argument: Motivation is the key, the change process begins with me, change is an ongoing and fluid process, middle managers have a need for team and middle managers play different roles during team building. I have also developed a handy booklet for the middle manager to use in changing their management style, which is included as Appendix. The booklet first briefly explains the principles. It then discusses four …

Letter From The Persian Gulf: Faculty Development In Dubai, Anna Lisa Ohm

Headwaters

No abstract provided.