From First Steps To First Stories: The Power Of Being The First, Samuel Osuna

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

Abstract

This action research project centers on empowering first-generation college students (FGCS) through storytelling and reflection to identify better ways to support them and expand resources. The guiding question of my research is: How can I better empower first-generation college students? To explore this, I will incorporate two cycles, one involving visual art representations and another consisting of individual interviews. These methods were intentionally chosen to provide FGCS with creative and personal avenues to express their experiences. Through this project, I anticipate that students will feel more empowered by sharing their stories and gain a stronger sense of agency in …

Engaging The Educators: Enhancing Faculty Support In Online Graduate Programs, Alexandra Constant

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

In this action research study, I explored how the University of San Diego’s Division of Professional and Continuing Education can better support faculty in increasing their presence in online graduate programs. Drawing from the literature on faculty engagement and student satisfaction in online education, I investigated two guiding questions: How do online graduate students perceive faculty engagement, and what support do faculty need to sustain high levels of engagement? Guided by Kemmis and McTaggart’s (2000) action research spiral, the four-phase study began with an analysis of student evaluations (n = 592), derived from 58 course sections, followed by a student …

Understanding First-Generation Students’ Needs And Sense Of Belonging In Online Graduate Programs, Jessica Guerrero

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

The purpose of this study is to explore first-generation graduate students’ needs and perception of their sense of belonging in online programs. This data can guide the development of effective practices for supporting and retaining these students. The research question driving this study is: how can I support first-generation students as they navigate challenges, achieve academic success, and strengthen a sense of belonging in online graduate programs? Through a mixed-methods approach, three cycles were used consisting of a focus group, individual interviews, and an online webinar to collect data. The themes that emerged in this study were the need for …

Beyond Brotherhood And Sisterhood: Leading With Awareness To Forge Inclusive Relationships In Fsl, Natalie O'Neal

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

The purpose of my study was to explore strategies that enhance fraternity and sorority members’ capacity to build relationships across identity differences at the University of San Diego (USD). The research question that guided my study was: How can I help USD’s Fraternity and Sorority Life Office provide a capacity-building model for fraternity and sorority members to cultivate relationships across identity differences? My research utilized three cycles of workshops, surveys, and interviews. Key findings highlight the essential role of identity work in fostering self-awareness and social awareness, the challenges of discussing identity in FSL, and the need for dedicated spaces …

Spirituality And Outdoor Recreation In Higher Education, Sierra G. Hilton

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

The purpose of my project is to explore the role of spirituality in an outdoor recreation office called Outdoor Adventures at the University of San Diego. My project question is: How can I integrate spiritually focused activities in outdoor recreation to foster students’ faith and increase well-being? Themes that emerged included the perceived positivity of engaging with spirituality, the value of art in doing so, and the relevance of Catholic spirituality in the lives of college students and staff. Recommendations include the development of stronger partnerships with campus partners, the creation of a database for Catholic resources for student affairs …

Enhancing Peer Coach Learning Outcomes: Integrating Alumni Insights For Future Development, Kari Adams

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

My research aimed to enhance learning outcomes for the coaches participating in a peer coaching internship program. The research question was: how can I work and engage peer coach alumni to better support the professional development of future peer coaches? I incorporated the perspectives of alumni coaches to identify key areas for improvement to support the professional development of future peer coaches. I conducted three cycles: alumni reflections, workshops, and a roundtable resume discussion. A theme that emerged from alumni peer coach reflections were to provide opportunities to engage with more psychology professionals and integrate career readiness into the internship …

Improving Interconnectedness Among Student Affairs Conduct Processes On The University Of San Diego’S Campus, Oliver H. Kushen

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

The purpose of my research was to learn how student conduct systems within The Division of Student Affairs at the University of San Diego (USD) could be improved by staff and students learning from one another. My research involved guiding staff and students from various conduct processes across campus to learn from each other through improved communication and restorative practices, while ensuring USD’s Mission was emphasized. Research cycles included restorative justice circles, interviews, and a survey. Common themes were the importance of the restorative mission, a focus on student wellness, and a desire to learn from one another through joint …

La Cultura Cura: Implementing Culturally-Relevant Wellness Programs For Latinx College Students, Valentina Valenzuela

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

Latinx college students are the fastest growing demographic on college campuses. As this population continues to rise, institutions must adapt their programming to meet their unique needs. One key factor influencing Latinx success and retention is wellness. The purpose of this action research project was to investigate the relationship between culture and wellness and use this information to implement culturally-relevant wellness initiatives for Latinx students. The main research question that guided this study was: How can I incorporate culturally-relevant wellness events into United Front Multicultural Commons’ programming for Latinx students? I conducted three cycles that included a wellness event, plática …

An Integrated Approach To Supporting Undergraduate Students Through Wellness And Community, Nicole Manning

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

Students experience mounting levels of stress due to the demands of balancing academics and social relationships. These influences can cause negative effects on the mind and body. Empowering students with resources for holistic wellbeing could relieve stress, create a nurturing environment, and impact their overall success at University of San Diego (USD). My project assisted in a course where undergraduate students develop skills to thrive personally beyond their time at USD. The research question that drove my study was: How can I help develop a successful holistic wellness course to support students in relieving stress? I completed three cycles which …

Ua35/7 Class Of 2025 Commencement, Wku Gatton Academy Of Mathematics & Science

WKU Administration Documents

Commencement program for the WKU Gatton Academy of Mathematics & Science with list of graduates.

Science Of Reading Professional Development: The Perceptions Of Secondary Teachers In Arkansas, Teresa R. Moka

ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present

ABSTRACT SCIENCE OF READING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: THE PERCEPTIONS OF SECONDARY TEACHERS IN ARKANSAS

Teresa R. Moka

The study addresses the critical issue of low literacy proficiency among secondary students in Arkansas, where National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data reveals declining reading scores. Despite scientific consensus on reading instruction, many teachers lack professional development in evidence-based reading strategies, particularly at the secondary level. Although Arkansas secondary teachers have received initial Science of Reading (SoR) professional development from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), the perceptions of secondary teachers regarding SoR professional development is not well documented. The purpose …

Empowering Student Leaders: A Collaborative Approach To Professional Development In Higher Education, Kasandra J. Vela

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

The purpose of my research was to explore how integrating students as partners in professional development enhances student leader training. The study addressed gaps in student participation in training session planning, guided by two research questions: How can integrating students as partners in student leader professional development initiatives contribute to training success? And, what insights can be gained from including undergraduate student leaders in curriculum development for professional training? Research cycles included a survey, workshops, and reflective journaling. Themes that emerged were the importance of staff–student collaboration, student empowerment as co-creators, and the value of diverse perspectives. Findings showed that …

Empowering Voices: The Impact Of Collective Storytelling Within College Support Programs, Sara Rock

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

The Torero Renaissance Scholars Program (TRSP) supports undergraduate and graduate students who have experienced foster care, homelessness, or who are emancipated minors or in legal guardianship. My action research aimed to explore and improve TRSP practices related to sharing personal narratives, community building, and fostering mutual understanding between students, campus, and community partners. Using an action research model focused on community engagement, I conducted three research cycles involving narrative inquiry-based individual interviews and surveys to evaluate group activities. Findings revealed a tension around sharing personal stories and highlighted the importance of self-authorship and holistic mentorship. Interviews showed students prioritize resources …

An Autoethnography Of My Experience Navigating The United States Educational System As An Immigrant: Intercultural Communication Challenges And Cultural Asynchronization, Anuti Ngangana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to share experiences as an immigrant student and answer the following question: What does my personal life history reveal about the importance of intercultural communication in the U.S. educational system? Immigrants leave their countries of origin and migrate to the United States for various reasons. Many are traumatized when they enter the country due to civil unrest in their native countries. Immigrants arrive with their children, who join a school system that is generally unprepared to meet their needs. In order to document immigrant experiences, the researcher utilized an autoethnographic approach using counter-storytelling from …

The Art Of Dreaming: A Surrealist Approach To Dream Analysis, Shelby Wright

Honors Thesis

Over the past two years, I created a series of paintings to explore the meaning of my nightmares. This study analyzes the themes and symbols in these dreams through the psychological frameworks of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Freud’s causal approach focuses on repressed desires, while Jung’s method relies on mythological symbols and archetypes in the collective unconscious. Drawing on the ideas of André Breton and the Surrealist movement, I examine how art can bridge dreams and waking life. By painting my dreams, I aim to better understand my unconscious and invite viewers to question their perception of reality. This …

Identifying The Trends Of K-12 Funding Formula Reforms In Red States: A Comparative Case Study Of Texas, Tennessee And Mississippi., Hannah E. Watts

Honors Theses

Following the decade after K-12 public education funding cuts brought on by the Great Recession, some states are addressing these funding cuts with changes to their funding formulas. This comparative case study identifies trends of significant changes in education funding formulas since the end of the Great Recession in states with majority Republican legislatures—red states. The states analyzed in this study are Texas, Tennessee, and Mississippi. The research analyzes what caused the states to change their education funding formulas as well as trends regarding the changes of the actual education funding formula. With other red states looking to change their …

Storytelling: A Natural Mnemonic, Hailey Stephens

Honors Theses

The present study explored the effectiveness of storytelling as a teaching method in enhancing memory performance for educational material compared to traditional lecture-based instruction. Memory plays a crucial role in learning, and effective teaching strategies should facilitate information encoding, retention, and retrieval. Storytelling, an ancient yet often overlooked pedagogical tool, has been shown to engage students emotionally and cognitively, making presented content more memorable. In the present study, participants were randomly assigned to either a storytelling-based instruction group or a traditional lecture group. Both groups received instruction on the ASSURE Model and were tested immediately after the lesson and again …

“The School Pretty Much Doesn’T Care . . . But I Do” Syllabus, Leconte J. Dill, Shavaun S. Sutton

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

Our “The School Pretty Much Doesn ’t Care . . . But I Do ” Syllabus frames school pushout as a structural determinant of health and one that disproportionately impacts Black girls. Therefore, we are calling in scholars, practitioners, and policymakers who do not operate solely in the field of education to recognize school pushout as a health inequity. Created through Black feminist and Black girlhood studies lenses and popular education approaches, our syllabus includes relevant transdisciplinary and cross-genre concepts, source material, and engaging activities. Overall, our syllabus seeks to guide those who educate, support, nurture, and love Black girls …

The Rapsody Syllabus: Rescripting The Erasure Of Black Women And Black Women Educators Through Rapsody’S Album Eve, Eghosa Obaizamomwan-Hamilton

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This syllabus explores the connections between Rapsody’s album and the experiences of Black women, with an emphasis on education. Much like Black women in education, Rapsody 's talents are often obscured and minimized. Her album “Eve ” is a love letter to Black women and serves as a mirror for Black women educators. This syllabus centers on Black women and highlights the beauty and magic of our presence within oppressive institutions. It works to amplify and extend the nonfungible existence of Black women, the humanization of our voices and words as sacred texts, and illuminate our ever-evolving contributions. Black women’s …

Spare Change, Giavanna Deperio

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

No abstract provided.

Cal High’S March Towards Equity: A Documentation Of Strength And Empowerment At California High, Hailey Godin, Mehr Goel, Isabella Grima, Emma Black, Brooke Johnson, Amane Lee, Yukta Chutturi

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This first edition, composed by nine co-authors and one talented illustrator, is not the first, nor the last, to seek something more from our community. We hope this book will be expanded by passionate students who come long after us, as they record, examine, and lend their voices to the social issues of their age. It’s hard work changing a system, whether it be a mechanical wonder or our society as a whole, but such work is never meant to be done alone and must be tackled with the utmost determination. For this, our book also aims to show the …

Why Would An Employee Quiet Quit?, Donika Gibson

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

As an African American woman with a career in a white-male-dominated environment, I experience quiet quitting daily. I am forced to feel as if I were hired to satisfy diversity, equity, and inclusion needs. To study organizational culture, work–life balance, and employee happiness, I synthesized, critically appraised, and examined 15 scholarly articles through the lens of Maslow’s 1943 hierarchy of needs, a psychology-based motivational theory. This study’s results may persuade leadership to self-examine leadership style, which can influence organizational culture, communication with project teams, prioritizing time and tasks, employee health, and ultimately, turnover rate. In addition, I interviewed an African …

Untitled, Unmastered., Simple Ant

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

From one writer to another:

Writing is often a therapeutic release for me. Being able to encounter my own words, as well as the words of others, has helped form the contours of my thinking and my ability to name. When I write, I am able to describe my experiences and my truths, but these words alone cannot help me live my convictions. In this sense, as a writer, the act of writing fails me. When we write, we dis-embody our beliefs. That is, we must take our beliefs from our body and bind them to the page. No longer …

Data Rap Research: Using Hip Hop For Critical Inquiry, Jonathan Tunstall

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This track introduces a culturally relevant methodology that can aid qualitative researchers in analyzing hip-hop data while maintaining cultural integrity. The author employs a self-designed hip-hop methodology called Blackout Rap Transcription (BRT) to critically examine rap songs written by 300 middle school student participants. This methodology was designed by employing the hip-hop aesthetic of sampling and draws from: Poetic Transcription, Critical Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Grounded Theory, and Blackout Poetic Transcription. The track details how Blackout Rap Transcription is a culturally relevant way to conduct hip-hop-based research.

The Naked Soul Of A Dreamer, Abdou Kaba

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

No abstract provided.

Inferior To Who?, De’Jshon Maxwell-Garcia

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This poem confronts the enduring impact of systemic racism and the internalized notions of inferiority imposed on Black folks in education and beyond. It reflects the lived experience of navigating microaggressions, stereotypes, and assumptions in academic spaces where Black excellence is often questioned or undermined. The speaker challenges perceptions of worth and rejects biases cloaked in "white saviorism. " The poem critiques historical and contemporary narratives that equate intelligence or achievement with whiteness and calls for self-recognition and pride, urging Black youth to reject internalized oppression and societal constraints. The poem culminates in a powerful reclamation of agency, asking the …

Maroon Science: A Counterstory Of Apocalypse, Abolition, And Abandonment, Kenjus Watson

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This Critical Race Counterstory explores "Maroon Science," covert and adaptive knowledge systems rooted in African Sacred Sciences, as a means of navigating the dystopic polycrisis of anti-Blackness, Black youth suicide, and climate destruction. Framed through Apocalyptic Education, the work begins at the end, the inevitable collapse of western schooling and broader state systems it supports, to foreground fugitivity as essential to Black autonomy. The track maps connections between Black Indigeneity, ecological adaptation, and the concealment necessary for maroon communities to evade capture. The layered counterstory portrays Maroon Science as contingencies for African epistemologies of survival, flourishing in ungovernable pockets of …

A Place To Belong: Abolitionist Storywork Through The Experience Of An Unhoused Black Girl, Nichole Murray, Taryrn T.C. Brown, Deandra West

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

Black females experiencing homelessness face significant barriers in transitioning from secondary to postsecondary education (Government Accountability Office, 2016). Previous scholarship has often overlooked the complexities of intersectional identities and the nonmaterial aspects of being unhoused, such as social exclusion, stigma, and social legitimacy issues exacerbated by neoliberal conditions. This track employs endarkened storywork (Toliver, 2021), abolitionist pedagogy (Love, 2019), and critical race feminism (Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010) to uplift the voice and complexity of a Black girl negotiating with her experience of being unhoused during her postsecondary educational journey. From these frameworks and through her story, we posit elements of …

“I Have To Say That The Struggle Was On The Wrong Focus”: Examining Past Transgressions To Reposition Our Futures For Black Education, Noah Nelson

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

Brown v. Board of Education (1954) opened new possibilities for Black education, but what many perceived as a victory for racial equality led to increased violence against Black communities. In response, Black communities pushed to establish independent educational institutions and programs that better reflected their cultural values, needs, and aspirations. These efforts embodied the dreams of Black educators who envisioned an education system rooted in community empowerment, anticolonial values, and self-determination. Juanita Wade, a Boston teacher and community organizer, exemplifies this transformative shift. In this track, I analyze Wade ’ s archival materials to document her critical contributions to Black …

(Re)Storying Our Education: Black School Counselors Engaging And Cultivating Black Joy And Resistance In P–12 Schooling, Renae D. Mayes, Riley Drake, Adrianne C. Robertson, Carla B. Cheatham, Betsy M. Perez

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

With the rise of national anti-DEI and anti-CRT legislation, public school continues to be unsafe for Black youth, their families, and Black educators. Yet Black people still find themselves in P–12 schools working to create fugitive spaces that resist the carceral nature of schooling while promoting abolitionist principles of healing, community, and joy. Toward this end, the authors interviewed 10 Black school counselors to understand their role in creating these spaces of Black joy and resistance. Findings from this study will help to expand the approaches Black counselors take in creating Black joy and resistance across educational spaces.