The Educational Administration Department is pleased to present a compilation of dissertation abstracts from the HALE Ph.D. program.
These abstracts represent our rich and dynamic community of scholars. The research presented reflects the wide range topics that emerge from a local as well as global perspective on postsecondary education and educational leadership.
Megumi Akehi
Advisor: Dr. Ann Austin
This study highlights the experiences of doctoral students who worked for at least seven years in a professional capacity before starting in graduate school full time, or “returning professionals” as they are called for the purposes of this study. Returning professionals come back to school with an established sense of professional identity, meaning that they have some level of skills and knowledge that inform their expectations of themselves. My study looked at how having an established professional identity impacted their experience of graduate school and was informed theoretically by graduate socialization, identity development and role theory. I selected twelve participants from a large Midwestern public university from a range of programs
and disciplines for a qualitative inquiry using narrative-inspired semi-structured interviews and a photo-elicitation exercise. My interviews explored the following three research questions.
Participants experienced the shift from being a worker to being a graduate student as existing in a liminal space. At times, the liminal space felt positive, like a break from the pressures of their previous careers and a time to invest in learning and research. At other times, it felt like a place of uncertainty and loss, where they no longer felt confident in themselves as the professionals they once were nor as the scholars they were trying to become. Participants also felt many sources of tension, which could be meaningfully grouped into two categories: 1. Student vs. Professional: returning professionals felt a conflict between the expectations of being a doctoral student and their previously shaped expectations of themselves as professionals. 2. Academy vs. Industry: returning professionals noted a difference in the way work was done in their previous jobs and in academia and felt frustrated that the rules of their program were not spelled out like a contract as in other jobs. And finally, some participants experienced contrasting socializations where their previous socialization was different than but not in conflict with academia. Other participants experienced conflicting socializations where their previous socialization was at odds with academic socialization. Some of these participants felt that they were being asked to abandon their previous identity, and that felt very threatening to their overall sense of self.
The discussion addresses these themes, breaking down how returning professionals experienced their professional identities in the liminal space of their programs. The clash of expectations in how work should be done created an intra-role conflict for some participants that made it hard to know how to operate in the academic space. Being in a liminal space could also create a sense of dissonance depending on the type of job that a participant held previously and how cohesive their professional identity was. The study ends with implications for practice, including better orientations and mentoring that keep returning professionals in mind and more institutionalized supports to validate and equip students looking for jobs outside of academia.
Paolo Artale
Advisor: Dr. Marilyn Amey
Attrition amongst new professionals in student affairs has been cited as high as sixty percent Holmes, Verrier, & Chisholm 1983; Ward, 1995). High rates of employee turnover are problematic for institutions and result in work inefficiencies, costly rehiring processes, and overburdening current employees with increased load (Kantor, 2016). Studies of attrition within student affairs have found several factors that contribute to these high rates of departure including but not limited to heavy workloads, working long and unusual hours, lack of opportunities for advancement, low levels of pay compared to the private sector, difficulty keeping tasks and emotions that originated at work with those at home (and vice versa), and emotional stress due to being personally invested in the lives of students (Evans, 1988; Lorden, 1998; Marshall, Gardner, Hughes, & Lowery, 2016; Ward, 1995).
Within the discussion of meeting combating turnover, the topic of workplace flexibility has emerged. Employees are requiring more latitude to deal with issues such as childcare, elder care, as well as other day-to-day needs. While studies have often referred to policies and formal mechanisms regarding workplace flexibility and the impact it has on retention, there has been a lack of discussion around the role flexstyle plays in employee performance and satisfaction. Flexstyle refers to a way of thinking about the relationships between work and personal life (Kossek & Lautsch, 2008).
The purpose of this study was to understand the potential relationship between work-life flexstyle amongst new student affairs professionals and the variables of job satisfaction and turnover intention. To examine the relationship between flexstyle, job satisfaction, and turnover intention, an electronic survey utilizing Kossek, Ruderman, Braddy, and Hannum’s (2012) work-nonwork boundary management assessment, Judge, Locke, Durham, and Kluger’s (1998) shortened version of Brayfield and Rothe’s (1951) Job Satisfaction Schedule, and Bothma and
Roodt’s (2013) Turnover Intention Scale – 6 (TIS-6) was administered to those who identified as new professionals to members of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) Knowledge Community for Graduate Students and New Professionals, the American College Personnel Association (ACPA), and the Southern Association of College Student Affairs (SACSA). A total of 287 members provided usable data for use in analysis.
Results from the data that utilized ANCOVA showed that significant differences in means existed for behavior factor groups in relation to both job satisfaction and turnover intention. Results from the data that utilized multiple regression showed that significant positive relationships existed between the flexstyle factors of boundary control and work identity with job satisfaction. In addition, data that utilized multiple regression showed that a significant negative relationship existed between the flexstyle factor of boundary control and turnover intention. Implications for student affairs practitioners and researchers and recommendations for future research are also discussed.
Sara Bano
Advisor: Dr. John Dirkx
Despite the increasing number of visiting scholars at U.S. higher education institutions, limited research exists about the experiences and learning process of these visiting scholars. This research study explored the meaning making process of Chinese visiting scholars during their visiting scholars’ program at a U.S. university. I used Mezirow’s (1991) Transformative Learning Theory to understand the meaning making process of Chinese visiting scholars. A socioconstructivist qualitative approach helped me to understand the lived experiences of Chinese visiting scholars at a U.S. campus. I employed multi-case study as a research method and applied triangulation techniques for data analysis and interpretations of findings.
The findings of this study suggest that making meaning of cross-cultural learning experiences is a complex process. Although this study used Transformative Learning Theory as the lens to understand these cross-cultural learning experiences, the participants of this study made
meaning of their visiting scholars’ experiences through economic, social, and cultural perspectives. The participants used their sense of self, relationships, language, reflection, and agency to make meaning of their experiences. Their meaning making process was of a developmental nature. Their sense of self was deeply rooted in Chinese socio-cultural values and was affected by globalization and market forces. Their conceptualization of learning was relational and moralistic. They used language as a context and as a tool for self-development and meaning making simultaneously. Agency helped to shape their experiences to achieve their goals and attain their desired levels of self-development. They employed reflection to constantly refer back to their existing meaning frames and to give meanings to their new experiences. This experience helped Chinese visiting scholars expand their perspectives, however, it is hard to claim based on the findings of this study that Chinese visiting scholars considered this experience transformative, since they did not report any significant change in their meaning frames and behaviors after their return to China. Overall, they considered this experience an opportunity for self-development which included professional growth, perspective expansion, and claims to global citizenship.
The implications from this study indicate need for further exploration of learning and the meaning making process in cross-cultural contexts, particularly, there is a need for better understanding of the underlying socio-cultural frameworks which shape these experiences. Also, there is a need to further explore the concepts and phenomenon of transformation in relation to cross-cultural experiences in order to better facilitate and create more meaningful and deeper learning experiences in international and cross-cultural settings.
Christopher Davis
Advisor: Dr. Kristen Renn
This qualitative study investigated doctoral student teacher development from the perspective of doctoral students. Participants were current doctoral students with teaching responsibilities. The findings cover three categories of participant responses: Affect, Technique, and Relationships. Discussion focuses on systematic development for doctoral students as teachers.
Benjamin D. Espinoza
Advisor: Dr. Leslie D. Gonzales
This counternarrative study illuminates the experiences of Latinx theological faculty in evangelical seminaries. While a number of scholars have explored the experiences of Latinx faculty in theological institutions broadly, very few have shed light onto the experiences of Latinx faculty in evangelical theological institutions specifically. Drawing on Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Latinx Critical Race Theory (LatCrit), and employing a counternarrative methodology, I sought to understand the challenges of eight Latinx theological faculty in evangelical seminaries as well the ways these faculty created spaces for enduring such challenges. Latinx theological faculty in Evangelical seminaries experienced unfair labor expectations, difficulty working with White allies, and microaggressions. Despite these challenges, these faculty were able to create new spaces for thriving by leaning into their sense of calling and vocation, developing scholarship for the benefit of Latinx and Christian communities, and building community with other Latinx scholars outside their institutions. These findings affirm that while the experiences of Latinx faculty in evangelical seminaries often mirror those of racially minoritized faculty in higher education broadly, they developed spaces for thriving based on their theological and social locations. This study draws attention to how racial/ethnic and religious identities intersect in the lives of faculty, and provides implications for how evangelical seminaries and evangelical churches can create hospitable spaces for all.
Paul Garton
Advisor: Dr. Matthew Wawrzynski
Universities, as anchor institutions and keystones of the post-industrial economy, are assuming leading roles in cities’ economic and social development, often leveraging university capital directly for purposes of neighborhood revitalization in projects referred to herein as anchor
institution initiatives. Such initiatives, however, may be attracting higher income individuals and displacing lower income residents rather than building community capacity. This dissertation utilizes decennial United States census data from 1970 to 2010 to examine the effects on
gentrification of anchor institution initiatives in multiple cities across the country. Using a difference-in-differences approach, a gentrification composite variable for census tracts targeted by anchor institution initiatives is compared to the composite for similar tracts within the same core-based statistical area, providing plausibly causal estimates of the relationship between gentrification and the initiatives. Further research questions explore how the nature of the initiative differentially affects gentrification and whether treatment assignment is determined by the vulnerability of the targeted neighborhood to be gentrified. There is evidence anchor initiatives have a negative effect on gentrification, though the negative effect is not large enough to override the larger, positive trends in gentrification across time. Additionally, financial strategies tend to slow gentrification the most, while physical strategies may accelerate gentrification. Finally, the vulnerability of a tract to be gentrified does predict whether a tract is targeted by an initiative. These results in part answer the call for quantitative analyses of the community outcomes of university community engagement, and the research can inform and guide university community engagement in efforts to build community wealth without displacement.
Joy Renee Hannibal
Advisor: Dr. Riyad Shahjahan
Little research exists on the specific ways that Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing are integrated in institutions of higher education across Micronesia. This research study illuminates through case study the position of Palauan Knowledge within Palau Community College. An Indigenous methodology set within a broader Indigenous research paradigm (Wilson, 2008) is utilized to align with Palauan values of respect (omenguul) and responsibility (ngerachel). Through interviews (chelededuch) with nine collaborators, in addition to field notes, observations, and archival documents, this study aimed to answer the following research questions: How is Indigenous Knowledge incorporated within Palau Community College (PCC)? Secondly, how do stories from Indigenous teachers and Indigenous learning environments inform PCC?
Findings from this study reveal experiences of separation from Palauan Knowledge and the actions some collaborators took to preserve Palauan Knowledge. Collaborators’ narratives highlight several instances where Palauan knowledge is honored within the college through visual and oral representations as well as with academic and community programming. Continuity of Palauan Knowledge through ongoing opportunities to sustain practices in and outside of the college is explored in the final reflections of collaborators who continue to challenge perspectives that Indigenous Knowledge is in the past. Ultimately, this study lays a foundation for the argument that Palauan Knowledge is demonstrated as resilient, dynamic and adaptive to the needs of community. Recommendations concerning the elevation of Indigenous Knowledge at Palau Community College and other institutions of higher education that reside on Indigenous land are offered.
John Albert Vasquez
Advisor: Dr. Brendan Cantwell
The purpose of this study is to explore the messages and experiences described by postdocs during their education and training and how these messages influenced their respective career trajectories. Of additional interest is whether postdocs have access to resources that assist them in their career and professional development. Postdocs want more information on career development strategies and pathways (Chen, McAlpine & Amundsen, 2015; Gibbs, McGready, & Griffin, 2015; Miller & Feldman, 2015) and higher education institutions want to find ways to support and help postdocs with more career and professional development programming (CGS, 2017). In order to support postdocs, qualitative research is needed to help understand postdocs’
perceptions of a career (e.g., work-life balance, work responsibilities, and other job attributes) and examine the factors that they encounter that affects their attempts to transition out of the postdoc into their chosen career path.
This research project involved open, semi-structured, in-person interviews with four purposefully selected participants in the biological sciences who were currently engaged in a postdoc position, had been in their positions for less than two years, and were currently in the process of looking for a full-time position. Participants were interviewed twice about their educational and postdoc training experiences, followed by a third interview to identify critical moments in their educational and postdoctoral experiences. Individual narratives were then constructed to represent these moments as major common themes in their lives.
This study found that participants transitioned into postdoctoral training immediately after completing their doctoral degrees to 1) acquire research experience and access information about faculty life, and test whether being a faculty member is right for them. Some took postdoc positions 2) because no other work was available to them in their chosen career path or in the case of international scholars, 3) transitioned into a postdoc to buy more time to deal with immigration issues. This study also found that 1) visa issues still hindered international postdocs transitions out of the postdoc and limited their ability to find jobs. Also, postdocs wanting to transition to careers outside the academy, 2) had a harder time transitioning out due to lack of resources. Finally, only postdocs who 3) asserted their agency and utilized an identity-trajectory framework, were able to transition out of their positions.
From this study, three themes also emerged that illustrate how postdocs interpret their education and training experiences, and the decisions they made about their career during that training: 1) faculty could only provide career advice on faculty careers, and 2) faculty were viewed as role-models for what work-life balance would be like working in academia and; 3)postdocs not wanting to pursue a career as a tenure-track faculty member, had to look outside their department for career support and advice, especially those looking for careers outside of academia.
Findings from this study fill in the gap in the literature, by providing a better understanding of postdoctoral career motivations and how postdocs find and use information to make decisions about their careers. Results can also be used to directly develop and enhance programs and strategies that institutions are developing to help not only postdocs, but graduate students in general, prepare for careers outside the academy or to develop alternative paths to tenure-track faculty positions.
Jeyran Aghayeva
Advisor: Dr. Matthew Wawrzynski
This study employed qualitative interview approach to explore faculty teaching motivation for engaging in innovative teaching methods in Azerbaijani higher education context. Despite the ongoing reforms in Azerbaijani higher education system, many faculty at higher education institutions still resist the change in teaching and learning processes encouraged my many institutions. Therefore, traditional teaching methods that are arguably less effective in developing students’ critical thinking and analysis skills are a dominant practice characterizing the nature of teaching and learning in Azerbaijani undergraduate classes. This study explored one overarching research question: What factors influence faculty motivation in Azerbaijani higher education institutions for engaging in innovative teaching methods? The sub-questions embedded in this study were: (1) What motivational factors are more common among faculty in Azerbaijan?, (2) What are the most common inhibitors of teaching motivation?, and (3) How do these faculty overcome inhibiting factors?
To address the above-stated questions, faculty who are known to engage in innovative teaching methods in Azerbaijani higher education institutions were selected and recruited. Ten faculty members were interviewed twice, which resulted in approximately 20 hours of interviews. The first cycle of the interviews took place in late June and early July 2018. After the data were transcribed and the first cycle data analysis was done, the second cycle interviews followed in late July and August 2018. Data triangulation was done through document analysis and memoing.
Data analysis resulted in three overarching categories: (a) faculty teaching beliefs, skills, and knowledge, (b) faculty well-being, and (c) faculty personality traits. The findings suggest participants’ teaching beliefs, skills, and knowledge promoted their engagement in innovative
teaching methods. In addition, faculty well-being and their personality traits were among the most influential categories of factors influencing faculty teaching behavior. The data also suggest a number of environmental, institutional, and individual-level factors can either promote or obstruct faculty engagement in a particular method of teaching. The data are consistent with the conceptual framework, the Faculty Teaching Motivation Model, I developed for this study. The
model posits embedded in the environment, a number of individual and institutional-level factors influence faculty teaching motivation. The model highlights the role of faculty self-control strength in faculty teaching behavior. After the discussion of the emerged themes, implications for practice and research are presented.
MaryJo D. Banasik
Advisor: Dr. Roger Baldwin
Over the past several decades, tenure has been on the decline in institutions of higher education. In lieu of tenure-eligible positions, alternative faculty appointments have emerged such as contract-based appointments to teach or to do research. Although the presence of faculty appointed primarily to do research has increased in recent years, little is known about how these faculty members experience their work.
Through this dissertation study I sought to understand how faculty members, appointed on an established research track with existing policies and practices regarding promotion and participation in governance activities, within a medical school at an institution with a Carnegie classification of highest research activity, experience their work. Data collection for this qualitative study consisted of two face-to-face interviews, document analysis, and website review. The theoretical framework that guided this study included six dimensions of work
defined by Kalleberg’s (1977) theory of job satisfaction and three components of organizational justice, including distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice defined by Cropanzano, Bowen, and Gilliland (2007). I developed a conceptual model incorporating the six dimensions of work and three components of organizational justice, which I revised based on the findings in this study.
Through the six themes and eighteen subthemes that emerged, the participants unveiled their experiences and perceptions working as research-track faculty members. All participants in the study expressed deriving satisfaction from the work itself. The participants also described having access to resources to do their work. However, they overwhelmingly identified the lack of job security as a negative factor when assessing their job satisfaction.
The research-track faculty members in this study still expressed having an opportunity to build a career at MedU, though there were some constraints to achieving promotion due to the requirement to obtain funding in a funding environment that can be disadvantageous to research-track faculty who frequently do not have dedicated space or discretionary funds with which to develop an independent research program. Even though there was consensus that the environment at MedU was collegial, interactions outside of MedU with colleagues through conferences and through feedback received from grant reviewers were less positive.
For some research-track faculty who participated in this study, an additional detraction from job satisfaction was the limited opportunity to participate meaningfully in governance activities, which for these individuals, brought about a feeling of second-class status.
Although not generalizable to all institutions of higher education, the results of this study provide insights that are both timely and relevant. I provide a list of ten suggested practices that institutions of higher education can implement to develop or maintain a track for research faculty at their institution with an end goal of working toward enhancing job satisfaction and organizational justice for these members of the faculty.
Alisha Emiko Blalock
Advisor: Dr. Brendan Cantwell
This critical narrative study illuminates the teaching practices of women in fixed-term faculty positions. While a groundswell of research has been presented on fixed-term or nontenure track faculty, very few provide in-depth descriptions of their teaching as it is shaped by their experiences in graduate school. I drew from the theoretical work of Bourdieu to highlight how access to and accrual of social, economic, and cultural capital informed future careers and workplace performance for women in fixed-term position. From the narratives of 16 women at a
comprehensive university in the Midwest, I described 1) two pathways into and through graduate school and 2) three archetypes to describe their teaching practices. Findings from this study suggested having a spouse and/or communities ties created a sense of stability for the women in my study, thereby giving them greater agency in the classroom. These findings draw attention to the important ways personal lives, or lives lived outside academia, shape the teaching work of faculty in fixed-term positions. Furthermore, my findings draw attention to how the fixed-term or non-tenure track faculty is stratified within itself, and this stratification is ordered through the institution of marriage or ties to local community.
Roberto R. Casarez
Advisor: Dr. Steven Weiland
American higher education is experiencing a time of extraordinary change where traditional practices that have remained relatively unchanged for decades are being questioned and altered in the face of declining public confidence in higher education. Higher education
institutions are turning to technological innovations to address numerous concerns, essentially remaking processes and practices at various levels of higher education such as instruction, learning, and administration. Adaptive learning is one of the latest forms of innovation in teaching and learning, and it is currently receiving a great deal of attention across higher education. This study brings together the historical context, current environment of higher education, and the business market, and presents problems and dilemmas that may well affect the future of adaptive learning with the hope that it aids administrators, faculty, and staff in decision-making about this innovation in postsecondary education.
Bradley D. Custer
Advisor: Dr. John Dirkx
The collateral consequences of a criminal conviction have long-lasting and devastating effects on people involved in the criminal justice system. From losing the ability to find employment, to being banned from public housing, to losing access to most federal benefits, “justice-involved” people face a life of punishment, even after their sentences are completed. One rarely discussed collateral consequence is the inability of justice-involved people to get state financial aid grants for college. It is well known that incarcerated people cannot get federal Pell
Grants for college, but some states impose even more restrictive barriers on state-funded scholarships for students who were previously convicted of crimes or who are currently incarcerated. Through statutory or regulatory eligibility rules, policymakers in over half of states deny aid eligibility to one or more populations of justice-involved student, according to this study’s findings. The eligibility rules of these programs, often decades old, have never been investigated, leaving researchers without an understanding of the scope of the disenfranchisement of justice-involved students from state financial aid.
This two-phase dissertation explores this policy issue. Because there was no existing research on this topic to build on, this dissertation begins with a descriptive study that illustrates the financial aid policy landscape for justice-involved students (Phase I). For the first time, I identified all the state grant programs that currently deny eligibility to incarcerated students and students with criminal convictions. The descriptive analysis also identifies when the policies were adopted and explores patterns in where the policies exist across the country. This accounting of policies unveils how commonly states deny aid to justice-involved students, something that policy researchers and advocates should scrutinize.
Results from Phase I raised questions about the policymaking process, chiefly: how and why did state legislators adopt these eligibility rules to deny aid to justice-involved students. This is the pursuit of the policy adoption study (Phase II). Using qualitative case study methodology and framed in a conceptual model of state policy innovation and diffusion in higher education, I interviewed state policymakers and studied historical documents to understand the rationales for denying state grant aid to justice-involved students. Findings have implications for
the study of state policy adoption as well as for policymakers and advocates seeking to restore state financial aid to justice-involved students.
Jennifer L. Dean
Advisor: Dr. Brendan Cantwell
The academic library, affectionately referred to as the heart of the campus due to its physical and metaphorical centrality to academic life, has undergone significant change since the 1990s. The advent of the internet and rapid advances in technology have wrought wide-ranging
change in academic libraries. Although the library literature confirms the changing environment surrounding academic libraries and librarians, many library papers are individual accounts of processes and best practices with little connection to the literature on organizational change.
This dissertation study focuses on changes in academic library collections and collection development and acquisitions (CDA) practices. The collection is perceived by administrators, faculty, students, and librarians themselves as centrally important to the library and the institution. Although the library collection is essential to teaching, learning, and research, it has received little attention in the higher education literature. I interviewed 14 librarians at two regional, public, research institutions in Michigan. Using Resource Dependence Theory (RDT) to frame this study and analyze the results, I examined the role of the external environment and its influence on the strategies academic librarians used to perform CDA work. Participants identified funding, curriculum, faculty, students, administrators, and vendors and publishers as environmental influences, indicating that the library functioned as a separate organization within its institution. Librarians employed a variety of strategies to manage environmental constraints, maintain balance, and preserve library and academic culture, including information gathering, communication, budgetary management, and relying on collection use data.
Alexander C. Gardner
Advisor: Dr. Steven Weiland
This study examines manufacturing employer perceptions of postsecondary credentials, the ways in which they find them valuable, and explores the barriers employers identify which prevent employees from enrolling in employer sponsored continuing education programs. In total, 14 staff members were interviewed representing five manufacturing employers and one manufacturing association in Michigan. The results of this study yield seven themes related to the questions under study: (1) Credentials are valuable for advanced technical and professional positions, (2) Postsecondary degrees are often required for leadership and supervisory positions, (3) Postsecondary credentials are not essential for the majority of entry and mid-level manufacturing positions now or in the near future, (4) Most employers are willing to support employee training if is directly related to work, (5) The majority of manufacturing employers do offer some form of tuition reimbursement, (6) The lack of employee participation in tuition reimbursement programs is multi-faceted, and (7) Education is not a priority among adults without a postsecondary degree. Associated implications related to Lumina Foundation’s Goal 2025 and the completion agenda are discussed along with potential opportunities to improve experienced adult postsecondary credential attainment.
Nabih Haddad
Advisor: Dr. Brendan Cantwell
This dissertation investigates the policy strategies of major foundations in higher education, with a focus on the college completion agenda. Recently, researchers have begun documenting the pronounced role of philanthropic foundations in higher education policymaking. Philanthropists have long exercised influence in higher education, working to promote an array of social and political agendas throughout the sector. However, journalistic accounts and recent empirical research suggest that philanthropists’ approaches to higher education have shifted drastically in recent years. Contemporary foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation, have introduced a high-leverage, policy-focused strategy called “advocacy philanthropy.” The newer foundations not only adopt an activist approach to higher education philanthropy but also stimulate grant recipients around college completion initiatives. Advocacy philanthropy is closely linked to the college completion agenda, a powerful reform movement that includes policymakers, private foundations, business interests, educational nonprofits, think tanks, consultants, and membership entities. These groups have coalesced around the goal of increasing degree productivity nationally. One aspect of advocacy-focused philanthropy is a reliance on intermediary organizations, which are translational entities that operate between funding agencies and the systems that they are attempting to influence.
Despite the growing significance of philanthropic foundations in public policymaking, little is known regarding how this is operationalized. In fact, such processes are rarely examined in an empirical and robust manner, with many researchers simply taking the influence of philanthropy for granted or failing to notice philanthropists’ active presence in the public policymaking process. This motivates the basic question of this dissertation: How do major philanthropic foundations interact with public colleges and universities, state and federal governments, and political and economic elites in raising awareness of completion and implementing their social agendas? This study utilizes a mixed-method research design, drawing on an original dataset of nearly 7,000 grants representing nearly $3 billion in higher education filtered dollars. Moreover, 40 semi-structured interviews were conducted with high-powered officials from the philanthropic, public policy, and higher education sectors that contextualize the grant analysis.
This study demonstrates that philanthropic foundations regularly work to shape and influence public policies and organizational practices in higher education. In particular, this study finds that philanthropic organizations regularly mobilize policymakers, business representatives, and institutional leaders around college completion. In fact, over the course of a decade, the field of higher education philanthropy has shifted, with a decrease in traditional forms of philanthropic grantmaking and an increase in field-building efforts. Indeed, philanthropic dollars are elevating a network of intermediaries that now influence the field of higher education toward completion. My analysis reveals that philanthropic foundations are becoming not only more strategic in their grantmaking efforts but also influential coalition builders. More generally, this study extends postsecondary policy analysis from a state-centric approach to one that considers the role of non-state actors in policy advocacy and educational reform.
Robert L. Hill
Advisor: Dr. Kristen Renn
Given the contemporary context in which scholars debate the “crisis in the humanities,” this study addressed how and why arts and humanities fields in higher education are changing. An overarching theme to much of these debates, crisis or no crisis, is neoliberalism, a political and economic philosophy that is pervasive to higher education in the United States. Changes in arts and humanities that manifest neoliberal effects may serve as a bellwether for broader changes in higher education and threaten the positive qualities of arts and humanities education. Thus, this study takes up the following questions: 1) how and why do arts and humanities curricular changes proceed in a neoliberal higher education context, and 2) how do individuals understand and enact agency in arts and humanities curriculum change processes? To address these questions, this study considered three cases of significant curriculum change (e.g., development of a new major) in arts and humanities at public regional universities that occurred in the last five years. Neo-institutional theory (i.e., organizational theory suggesting that institutions within a field become more alike over time) undergirded the conceptual approach to the study, which specifically brought to bear the concepts of sensemaking and institutional logics to emphasize agency in organizational change.
The three cases presented in this study considered each the development of the Artistic Media Technologies (a pseudonym) major at Snowy Valley University, the development of the digital humanities minor at University of Northern Waters, and the development of the writing major at Little Falls State University (all university names are pseudonyms). For each case, data included semi-structured interviews, documents, and additional information collected during the time the researcher spent on site. Manifestations of academic, democratic, family, and neoliberal (i.e., managerial and market) logics emerged as salient in arts and humanities curriculum changes. These logics were evident in three categories: collaboration and hierarchy; doing what’s
“cool and good for students;” and advancing academic fields, scholarship, and arts and humanities. Within these three categories, evidence of coexisting and combined (i.e., hybrid) logics emerged, suggesting that faculty and academic staff strategically combine aspects of multiple, competing institutions to manage disparate pressures on arts and humanities curriculum. These findings suggest arts and humanities programs take various paths through curriculum change, including aggressively asserting the value of arts and humanities, passively accepting changes, adapting to neoliberal pressures, developing grassroots resistance to neoliberal norms, and collaborating with other fields outside the scope of arts and humanities.
Marvin C. Hunsaker
Advisor: Dr. John Dirkx
For more than a decade, over 50% of workers in the U.S. have reported feeling dissatisfied and disengaged from their work (Conference Board, 2016; Gallup, 2015), including growing numbers of workers who identify as Christian (Miller, 2007). While many Christian workers claim that connecting their faith and work is an important way of infusing their work with meaning and purpose (Miller, 2007), many also lament experiencing a “Sunday-Monday Gap” (Nash & McLennan, 2001 p. 7), where their faith has little to no meaningful connection to their work. Recently, the concepts of vocation and calling have experienced a resurgence (Duffy & Dik, 2013), partly as a reflection of Christian workers’ desire and attempts to integrate their faith and work in more meaningful and comprehensive ways (Duffy & Dik, 2009, Miller, 2007).
The phenomenon of vocational formation describes a developmental process wherein a Christian learns to explore and articulate meaningful connections between their faith and the rest of life, with particular focus on the integration of faith and work (Chandler, Kiple, & Hagenberg, 2014). While emerging adulthood has been shown to be an ideal time of life for young adults to explore life’s “big questions” of meaning, purpose, and vocation (Parks, 2000), Christian young adults often lack the necessary resources from social institutions (e.g., church, college, and the workplace) to effectively support their vocational formation (Clydesdale, 2015; Kinnaman & Hawkins, 2011; Miller, 2007). In response, a number of Christian groups have created programs to foster the vocational formation of young adults; however, due to a lack of research, little is known about the efficacy of these programs, or about the process of vocational formation itself.
Therefore, the purpose of this appreciative qualitative inquiry was to uncover more about the vocational formation process and experiences of Christian young adults who have learned to integrate their faith and work in meaningful ways. To this end, 10 ‘vocational exemplars’ were
selected from a group of young adults who had participated in The Fellows Initiative (TFI), a 10-month long vocational formation “Fellows” program for recent college graduates. Data was collected in the fall of 2017 and primarily focused on a series of in-depth narrative-based
interviews which were augmented by field observations and a wide range of vocational artifacts.
Findings from this study include evidence that participants engaged in a form of transformative learning during their Fellows year, a vocational transformation which resulted in a more expansive faith, a more satisfying relationship with work, and a less compartmentalized life overall. This study also found that the primary catalyst within participants’ vocational transformation was a series of theological concepts which were introduced in, and reinforced throughout, their Fellows program. Participants often summarized these concepts through the frameworks of “God’s story” and/or the “4-Chapter Gospel”, and discussed how these ideas helped to transform their prior assumptions about the world, work, faith, and the relationships between them. Participants’ new perspectives also helped them to discover more meaning, purpose, and value in their lay (i.e., non-ministry) work; specifically, their experiences were transformed from: a) professional ambiguity into clarity about how God was calling them to a lay profession, b) spiritual anxiety into confidence about the value of their lay work within God’s mission, and c) vocational apathy into creativity about a wider range of ways their faith and lay work could be meaningfully connected. Since this study provides groundbreaking evidence about how vocational formation occurs for Christian young adults, a new conceptual model for vocational transformation is offered and implications for related theory and praxis are discussed.
Graham F. Hunter
Advisor: Dr. Matthew Warzynski
Student affairs work requires the complex interplay of specialized knowledge and skills within a rapidly changing context. Although the profession has increasingly relied on graduate training programs to provide new practitioners with foundation in these knowledge and skills, perennial concerns arise regarding the preparation and effectiveness of recent graduates. Whereas previous literature has examined graduate preparation as a socialization process, by which individuals adjust to new organizational contexts and construct professional identity, I center the learning that occurs within and between coursework and fieldwork contexts. Specifically, I wanted to explore how learning was distributed across and mediated by multiple learning environments; the tools students accessed, used, and adapted during their graduate training; and the tensions within and across learning environments that spurred student transformation.
In order to answer these questions, I conducted a qualitative case study and activity system analysis of four students enrolled in the Student Affairs Preparation (SAP) program (pseudonym), a master’s-level graduate training program at Brady University (pseudonym). I
conducted semi-structured interviews with each of the participants during the fall and spring semesters of their second year in the SAP program. These conversations focused on students’ learning and experiences in coursework contexts, in fieldwork contexts, and between these two environments. Participants also provided supplemental written materials (e.g., reflection papers, course assignments) that demonstrated their learning throughout their graduate training.
Analysis of the data revealed that, although learning occurred in both fieldwork and coursework contexts, students’ experiences in fieldwork greatly mediated how they responded to and made meaning of content from their coursework. Indeed, students used their fieldwork experiences and messages from their fieldwork supervisors to determine the nature of student affairs work and, consequently, the utility of particular knowledge and skills for doing that work. Students sought out, used, and adapted those tools—conceptual and material—immediately applicable to their current work or the work they envisioned doing after graduation. Additionally, students spoke to a variety of tensions within and across learning environments requiring them to think differently about the nature of their own professional practice or the nature of the student affairs profession.
Wayne Richard Hutchinson
Advisor: Dr. Brendan Cantwell
Many student veterans have experienced challenges in their college careers. To date, most academic literature on student veterans has focused on aspects of their transition to college, including financial and administrative needs, pursuing connections to other student veterans as an ideal peer group, high-risk behavior, hypervigilance and combat-related injuries (Ackerman, DiRamio, & Mitchell, 2009; Barry, Whiteman, & MacDermid Wadsworth, 2012; Bauman, 2013). Less research, however, has focused on how student veterans experience college post-transition, to include potential impacts of their past military experiences on their journeys as college students.
Impressions vary in current literature as to how salient military experience is to student veterans as they progress through college. While some scholars suggest that these experiences erode over time (Naphan & Elliott, 2015), others believe these behaviors shape veterans well after their transition from service to college (DiRamio & Jarvis, 2011; Jones & Abes, 2013). Given the uniqueness of their backgrounds, student veterans require specific programming to serve their needs in college (Barry, Whiteman, & Wadsworth, 2014; McCaslin, Leach, Herbst, & Armstrong, 2013). Despite these acknowledgements, academic literature still largely summarizes military backgrounds, with no identified differences between individuals. An increasing lack of civilian understanding of these experiences (Jones, 2013) creates additional support challenges for this population, as faculty and staff are not being trained to understand the diversity of student veteran experiences (Osbourne, 2014).
This study sought to expand the knowledge of student veteran experiences through a thematic analysis of military and college experiences. To accomplish this, qualitative research practices informed by narrative inquiry were used (Claindinin & Connelly, 2000; Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016) to guide questions to student veterans about their military and college lives. Participants were a sample of student veterans attending a large, midwestern institution, with defined student veteran support resources. This study offers thirteen participant narratives of military and college experiences. These narrative sketches largely connected to four themes that depict transactional educational experiences for adult learners, comprised of experience gaps with non-veteran stakeholders, college social and cultural challenges, reflections on past military experiences as well as thoughts on the utility of relationships with other student veterans. This work is valuable for practitioners seeking to improve their understanding of student veterans through their military and college experiences.
Michael Duane Kitsko
Advisor: Dr. John Dirkx
This study explored the early-career attrition of 17 seminary graduates. A high rate of seminary graduates leave ministry within five years of graduation. Teachers, nurses, lawyers, mental health workers, student affairs professionals also leave at high rates during the beginning years of a career. The present study is an attempt to understand some of the influences on decisions to persist or quit. Using the construct of perceived fit (Kristoff-Brown & Billsberry, 2013), I explored the career trajectories of nine graduates who persisted in ministry and eight
graduates who left ministry. Perceived fit was complex but influenced decisions about whether or not to accept an initial assignment. Persistence in an assignment was shaped by the meaningfulness of work.
The goal was to discover how life experiences contributed to the ways seminary graduates thought about ministry during an at-risk career phase. Key life experiences included mentoring, seminary faculty relationships, laboratories, self-care strategies, and managing student loan debt. Other important findings included the role of early church experiences, college leader interaction, the need for supportive organizational cultures, and a re-imagination of the ministry license process.
There were key differences between graduates who persisted in ministry and graduates who left ministry. Two key differences were the early clarification of call and personal initiative. Furthermore, this study provides a context for future discussions related to the cost of a graduate education, future career decisions available to seminary graduates, and the burden of school debt on the decision-making processes of ministers.
This study suggests seminaries should consider providing financial literacy training to all students, include a more realistic picture of potential income as a pastor, and give greater attention to encouraging personal initiative in ministry training and development. Additionally,
seminaries should consider broadening the scope of theological education to include persons who are not pursuing pastoral ministry.
Jianyang Mei
Advisor: Dr. John Dirkx
In recent years, the number of Chinese international undergraduate students sharply increased in higher education institutions in the U.S. Meanwhile, this student population experiences challenges in their transition in U.S. colleges, and academic probation is one challenge that Chinese international undergraduate students have. Being on academic probation has negative impacts on students’ persistence and retention rates and 4,5,6-year graduation rates, and the increasing number and percentage of Chinese international students also bring challenges
to U.S. higher education institutions.
To explore the reasons for being on academic probation of Chinese international undergraduate students, this research studied the experiences of the first-year Chinese international undergraduate students who are on academic probation after their first semester in a
Research 1 (R1), public university. This mix-method study collected data of students’ educational records, survey, and interview, in order to explore the trends among first-year Chinese international undergraduate students who are on academic probation after their first semester, the
correlations between their TOEFL, SAT, ACT scores and first semester GPAs, their academic performance in each course they enrolled in their first semester, and how those students perceived and made sense of being on academic probation.
The data analysis demonstrated that the most reasons for being on academic probation after their first semester are in socio-emotional engagement, not in academic proficiency. The top 2 main reasons for being on academic probation identified by interviewees are not taking their study seriously and not studying (hard). Different from many studies about (Chinese) international students, the language barrier was not identified as one top reason for being on academic probation by survey respondents and interviewees. The main finding of this study is
the goal of participants was to get an admission letter from a U.S. college. Participants actually only prepared for the study abroad tests, such as TOEFL, SAT, and ACT, and did not prepare for knowledge, skills, and abilities that are essential to survive and thrive in the academic learning at U.S. colleges.
This study also found being on academic probation is actually an issue caused by the study abroad craze that driven by policy and capital, and it needs the effort and input from Chinese international students, Chinese parents, and U.S. higher education institutions in order to solve this problem. Therefore, this study provided recommendations to Chinese international students and Chinese parents, as well as faculty, staff, and administrators in U.S. colleges at the individual level, institutional level, and policy level, in order to support the academic learning and transition of Chinese international undergraduate students.
Brett H. Say
Advisor: Dr. Matthew Wawrzynski
Office and administrative support staff can be found throughout almost every work environment within higher education institutions. While inherently tied to the success of higher education programs, faculty, and students, the contributions of this small but important group of employees is often overlooked by higher education institutions and researchers alike. This study explored the work and roles of 24 office and administrative support staff working within a public research university and how these staff believed their work related to the operations, missions, and personnel of their institution.
This dissertation serves to broaden the understanding of the work of Office and Administrative Support (OAS) staff within public research universities and determine how they believe their work relates to institutional missions. OAS staff provide operational support to colleges and universities via everyday interactions with faculty, management, and students. This study shows how these employees hold unique institutional expertise and occupy positions that are important for institutional success, though their value is often overlooked, underutilized, or misunderstood. Using an instrumental case study approach, guided by the theoretical framework of Argyris and Schon’s Theory of Action, this study illustrates how misperceptions and lack of definition around support staff work obscure employee contributions. The study findings also show how support staff may hold more sway over institutional success than expected and provides implications for theory, practice, policy, and future research.
Heather D. Shea
Advisor: Dr. Kristen A. Renn
In this qualitative feminist narrative analysis of eight women’s reflections on their co-curricular involvement as cast members in Eve Ensler’s iconic feminist play The Vagina Monologues, I seek to understand the ways that participants ascribe meaning to these experiences five or more years later. While evidence in the literature suggests that interpersonal, intrapersonal, and cognitive growth evidenced in college will continue to influence students after graduation, there is little evidence suggesting specific student involvement experiences play a role in former students’ lives years later. I studied lasting influences and associated meaning-making by conducting individual and collective interviews with individuals who, during their time in college, engaged in a particularly provocative co-curricular experience—a production of The Vagina Monologues. Prior research shows it is apparent the play affects students; this study
examined the extent to which the play influenced these individuals over time by exploring the stories women share about their involvement experience today. Findings from this study indicate that the play was a catalyst for further engagement, a location of connection, and an influence on these women over time. This study also shows how feminist narrative methodology can enrich the study of and praxis within higher education.
Nathaniel Smith-Tyge
Advisor: Dr. Steven Weiland
This qualitative study explored the experiences of professional academic advisors at three broad access regional public universities as they worked in the policy environment of the completion agenda. Employing a narrative inquiry approach through single-session semi-structured interviews, I gathered the stories of the nine participants about their professional experiences.
This dissertation includes an in-depth discussion of the state of the completion agenda when the study was conducted. The existing literature related to policy issues in higher education and academic advising is also presented. The study employs three theoretical frameworks to guide the analysis of the collected data. The first framework is the agency and structure theory as presented by Coburn et al. (2016). The second framework is based on the work of Cohen (1990) and is rooted in his foundational work on policy implementation from Mrs. Oublier’s classroom. The final framework is the community of practice theory as presented by Coburn & Stein (2006).
The key findings of this study are that the advisors lack agency in their
professional roles and often times find themselves constrained by the structure and systems in their offices and universities. This manifests into three overarching themes that were found in the data. The first is that the participants are disconnected from the policy process at all levels. The frustration with this lack of agency leads to the second theme which is the advisors view themselves as student focused and not policy focused, which allows them to reclaim a level of professional agency. The third theme finds that often times the participants find themselves at odds with professional staff members in other departments on their campus that have different missions and purposes.
Through the stories of the participants this study provides a context rich and empirical view of the experiences of academic advisors as they contend with the policy environment created by the completion agenda. The dissertation also provides implications for practice, research, theory, and policy. The key implication is the need for the involvement of advisors (and all student-facing professional staff) in the policy creation process at all levels. The advisors understand their work the best and should have a role in shaping the systems and structures that effect their ability to successfully work with students.
Gregory John Steele
Advisor: Dr. Kristen Renn
The intent of this study was to understand professors at a research university, and how the environments and individuals they interact with influenced them and their teaching. The primary research question for this study was, “How do professors at a research university understand and explain the factors that have influenced their teaching?” The secondary research question was intended to focus on the institutional factors that had the most influence on a professor and their teaching: “What are the most influential factors that affect a professor’s teaching at a research institution?”
I interviewed 15 award-winning professors from Michigan State University (MSU) about how they had been prepared, supported, and recognized for their work as teachers. My analysis showed how little preparation the professors received about teaching at a research university, how they relieved more on experience and trusted peers than any of the available campus resources, and how they tended to find personal student recognition more rewarding than their prestigious teaching awards. My results showed how institutional deficiencies (the lack teaching preparation, applicable resources, and sufficient recognition) created obstacles for the professors to overcome as they progressed and developed as teachers. To lessen or remove the institutional obstacles, I recommend research universities better assess and recognize a professor’s teaching, faculty developers localize their available resources to the individual colleges and departments, and professors utilize their peers and self-reflection as a way to meet their needs and expectations as teachers. Professors at research universities are expected to prioritize their teaching and scholarship, but the importance of the former can become complicated when institutions place a greater emphasis on the latter (via the tenure process, promotions, raises, and rewards). This study extends previous scholarship which shows that professors at research universities are not sufficiently prepared, supported, or recognized for their work as teachers. If the individual institutions do not properly prepare their professors as teachers, then there is uncertainty as to how, where, and why the individual professors succeed and develop as teachers.
Brian Charles Ulrich
Advisor: Dr. John Dirkx
Current literature examining how students experience emotion in the clinical settings of the third year of medical school is lacking. To address the gap in scholarly literature, my study examined how medical students experience, respond to, and uncover meaning related to their
emotions in the clinical settings of medical school. My investigation utilized a phenomenological methodology to identify thematic manifestations of my phenomenon of interest. I interviewed 12 medical students through purposeful sampling. My findings revealed three themes relating to emotions as a pop-up storm, emotions a state of becoming, and emotions as situated for students in third-year clinical settings of medical school. A conceptual framework based on my research findings is also examined. The thematic manifestations of the phenomenon of emotions in the clinical years of medical school are used to both establish how medical students experience emotion in clinical settings and contribute to existing literature on medical student emotionality in medical school.
Michelle L. Allmendinger
Advisor: Dr. Marilyn Amey
Given the sheer number of decisions made by administrators in higher education and the often significant impact of those decisions, one might think that research into how these decisions are made would be extensive. However, that has not been the case. This study was an
attempt to address that hole in the literature. Specifically, I was interested in understanding what factors influence the decision-making of higher education administrators in student affairs and intercollegiate athletics, how these administrators handle conflicts between the influential factors, and if/how the administrators engage their personal ethics during their decision-making process.
To answer these questions, semi-structured interviews were conducted with higher education administrators in student affairs and intercollegiate athletics. Participants were asked to describe a tough decision, and then they completed a hands-on activity designed to help them reflect on the factors that influenced that decision and how those factors interacted. Next, they answered questions about their general decision-making and ethics. Finally, they listened to two case studies and answered questions about the decision-making they would undertake in each situation.
Analysis of the data revealed eight categories of factors that influence administrative decision-making. Those categories were: students, institution, people, process/regulations, money/other resources, professional identity, the situation, and the right thing to do/personal
ethics. Participants identified numerous conflicts between these influential factors. Resolving those conflicts typically meant prioritizing one factor over others. Often, though not always, participants prioritized students, and in particular students’ best interests, when attempting to resolve conflicts between influences and make their final decision. The frameworks of the four ethics (Shapiro & Stefkovich, 2000) and moral intensity (Jones, 1991) provided helpful guidance in understanding how the various factors interact and how they influence decision-making.
Jennifer Jerusha Mercy
Advisor: Dr. Matthew Wawrzynski
This research study explores the doctoral socialization and transnational experiences of sub-Saharan African doctoral students whose education is sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This study is designed to explore the convergence of the international student experience, doctoral student socialization, and the influences of the USAID scholarship program. Using a qualitative inquiry research design, the study aims to give a voice to the scholarship students, providing a greater descriptive understanding of their experiences participating in the scholarship program, and their academic lives in the United States. The lived experiences of USAID scholarship students while they are obtaining their degrees in the United States is generally unknown and unexplored in the literature. Therefore, this study investigates
how the students progressed through their academic programs and met their professional development goals while adhering to the rules and regulations of the USAID scholarship program.
This study is guided by theories of graduate student socialization (Gardner, 2007, 2008b; Weidman et al., 2001) and the framework of the transnational social field (Fouron & Schiller, 2001; Gargano, 2009). This research advances scholarship on the socialization of doctoral
students from sub-Saharan Africa, adding to the understanding of the specific challenges international students face while studying in the United States, in order to better understand what leads to success and satisfaction in a doctoral program (Gardner, 2007). In addition, the research provides evidence to support changing or improving practices to promote international graduate student success, which is critical for U.S. universities.
The findings of this study illustrate how international doctoral students maneuver the challenges of their doctoral program, maintain multiple identities, and navigate transnational social fields between their host and home countries, as they pursue their degrees in the United States. Family separation and the restrictive program timeline enforced by USAID were the most salient issues affecting the USAID scholarship participants while they were studying in the United States. For some of the students, the rules and regulations of the scholarship program impacted specific socialization milestones such as attending conferences, publishing in journals, and learning advanced research techniques. However, even with the USAID restrictions, the study found the students were thriving in their academic departments and successfully progressing through their doctoral programs. The students also reported developing strong relationships with their advisors and other faculty who supported them personally and academically as they advanced through their programs.
Recommendations are presented to USAID and other international education scholarship programs on altering certain policies allowing for greater program flexibility, leading to improved student satisfaction, well-being, and academic achievements. Considerations for future research are explored and include the development of a longitudinal research study for the scholarship students, the extension of the study to include a comparative analysis of various international scholarship programs, further research on the lived experiences of African students,
investigation of the issues of family separation in graduate school, additional research on cost-effective sandwich training programs, and a more nuanced investigation of neo-racism and racial bias occurring on college campuses in the United States.
Patricia A. Matthews
Advisor: Dr. John Dirkx
Since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, significant research has been conducted regarding the risks which firefighters take while working in their profession and the consequences of ill-health which they can experience. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the reasons why firefighters do not wear appropriate respiratory protection when they are involved in overhaul at residential fire scenes. For this research, I made observation at 21 residential fire scenes and interviewed eight fire chiefs and eight firefighters. I discussed formal, informal, and non-formal adult learning opportunities and the Health Belief Model as frameworks within which I situated the activities, behaviors, and health choices of firefighters. The collective data of my research was situated within an extensive review of current literature and a review of the current research on firefighters. Based upon my interviews and fire ground observations, I developed suggestions for fire service personnel in an effort for them to align their academy training and other adult learning opportunities with their fire ground behaviors. This was done in an effort to improve the respiratory health risks of firefighters as they engage in overhaul activities at residential fire scenes.
Karen E. Mcgregor
Advisor: Dr. Marilyn Amey
Student swirl is a complex enrollment pattern that includes multiple (three or more) transfers and interruptions in college enrollment, which lengthens time to degree. Higher education scholars and practitioners began noticing and writing about this increased mobility in the 1990s.
This phenomenon continues to confound degree attainment, especially among non-traditional students in the adult learner population.
The purpose of this qualitative study was to add to the overall literature about swirling enrollment to help individuals at colleges and universities develop policies and practices to support this population of students in their educational journeys. To gain an understanding of the lived experience of students who exhibited a swirling enrollment pattern, I used Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) human ecology framework to explore issues that prevent students from achieving their educational goals, as well as earning the social benefits, personal growth, and earning potential that accompanies degree attainment.
The findings and the implications for practice from this study can guide those who work in higher education who wish to disrupt cycles of student swirl in the adult learner population. Three new patterns were identified which include career swirl, path-changing swirl, and strategic swirl. These typologies along with the recommendations to assist students who exhibit them can help registrars, transfer credit evaluators, admissions officers, and academic advisors recognize and tailor their approach to help these students succeed.
Joy A. Milano
Advisor: Dr. Kristen Renn
In this embedded case study, instructors reflected on their own intentions and practices in the creation and administration of their asynchronous fully online courses to provide new insight into teaching presence as encapsulated in the Community of Inquiry framework and a fresh perspective on teaching in online environments. I interviewed five instructors and one graduate assistant teaching asynchronous fully online courses at a large Midwestern research university using a protocol derived from the Community of Inquiry questionnaire to determine whether and how they engaged in the practices identified by the C of I framework as comprising teaching presence. In addition, the interviews delved into what inspired their choices. The findings provide new insights for those teaching or preparing to teach in online environments, for those responsible for professional development of instructors of asynchronous fully online courses, and for future research into teaching presence.
The Community of Inquiry framework was first established by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000) as a methodology and heuristic to describe learning in a computer-based class. The framework is comprised of three overlapping circles, representing teaching, social, and cognitive presence, which work together in worthwhile educational experiences. Teaching presence plays a key mediating role between the other two presences; studies have shown a link between teaching presence and student perceptions of learning, of instructor performance, and of cognitive and affective learning.
Julie Marie Wilson Rojewski
Advisor: Dr. Roger Baldwin
This study explored a question being asked by many current higher education leaders: Who will serve as future leaders in U.S. institutions of higher education? There is an anticipated leadership crisis (Anft, 2018; Appadurai, 2009; McDade et al., 2017; Selingo, Chheng, & Clark,
2017) which suggests an inadequate number of people, in particular those with faculty training and experience, who are willing to serve as campus administrative leaders for modern U.S. universities. To inform this concern, this study explored perceptions of academic leadership held by 12 mid-career faculty in STEM and STEM-related Social Science fields at a research intensive university and explored the degree to which Cultural, Disciplinary, Institutional, and Demographic Factors shaped their views. Asking faculty members at mid-career—those who represent individuals who have established themselves as scholars and who represent the cohort of future leaders—what they think of academic leadership and how they articulate their views of it, can help inform questions about what will be needed to recruit, train, and support leaders as they negotiate their careers.
The study found that faculty perceptions of leadership are shaped primarily by Institutional Factors: the policies, procedures, and institutional bureaucratic structures that shape the conditions in which faculty members work. These factors had the strongest influence on their perception of academic leadership and its suitability for their career goals. Other important factors were the degree to which leadership aligned with scholarly interests, the ability to integrate scholarly productivity with formal leadership opportunities, and the timing of leadership opportunities and where they were within the tenure and promotion process, which illustrate concerns about leadership derailing one’s promotion to full professor.
This study provides a helpful context for discussions about leadership development, faculty development, and how higher education leaders can proactively plan for institutional change by enlisting the support of faculty leaders and aspiring leaders.
Jeffrey M. Tabone
Advisor: Dr. Steven Weiland
The purpose of higher education is under scrutiny. With skyrocketing costs, conflated missions, and murky student-learning outcomes, critics are calling into question what college is ultimately for. One sector uniquely challenged by higher education’s crisis of purpose is the private Christian college and university. Often, Christian institutions of higher education respond to these critiques of purpose through promoting the integration of faith and learning as the paramount feature of their curriculum. Simply put, the integration of faith and learning draws connections between faith and the academic disciplines. Though espoused as a value, the mission of integration of faith and learning does not ultimately satisfy scholarly criticism for Christian higher education. Research indicates the notion of integrating faith and learning lacks substance as the concept is identified merely as a buzzword, lacks specific measurable outcomes, and conflates institutional priorities. This dissertation studies the phenomenon of the integration of faith and learning by carefully attending to a faculty’s role within the integration process.
Spring Arbor University (SAU) is a small, Christian liberal arts college located in the Midwest. The institution identifies the priority of faith and learning integration through various expressions of their mission as seen within SAU’s stated values, mission statement, and intended
student learning outcomes described in the student handbook. As the university espouses their value for the integration of faith and learning through numerous facets, SAU offers an ideal location of observe how this educational practice may be enacted.
In order to analyze the phenomenon of integrating faith and learning, this dissertation utilizes case study methodology and studies a senior level general education course at SAU, Community of Learners 400 (COL 400). COL 400 remains a prime location to observe the phenomenon of this inquiry as integration is listed as a learning objective within the course. Through interviews with the COL 400 faculty member, a document analysis of the syllabus, and observation of each class session, this research discovered three avenues in which faith and learning where integrated throughout the course.
First, integration was achieved through intentional and organized in-class prayer. Second, integration was incorporated through lectures. Third, integration was achieved through textual analysis of required COL 400 books. The COL 400 faculty member used these instructional practices to intentionally make connections between faith and academic disciplines. Additionally, this study demonstrates how integral the instructor’s charismatic personality was to the successful implementation of the integrative instructional practices.
Research findings illustrate a necessity for general education to align with an institution’s mission along with the significance of faculty fitting an institutional ethos. Both of these components influence an institution’s ability to successfully meet the intended goal of integrating
faith and learning. Furthermore, significant attention is directed towards the lone faculty member whose charisma and idiosyncratic teaching style were crucial to integrating faith and learning within COL 400. The study displays a case wherein the integration of faith and learning is implicitly connected to the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Kathleen Melinda Wilbur
Advisor: Dr. Marilyn Amey
Higher education governing boards have existed at colleges and universities since the first institutions opened during the 1600s in the U.S. Despite all the major changes that have occurred in higher education resulting in very different institutions being developed and opened governance has remained much the same since the first colleges and universities were opened. Yet during the past few decades many events and influences on campuses have required governing boards to be more involved and engaged. Therefore, having a better understanding of how boards reach decisions is very important to appreciate and understand.
Governing board decisions are made about a large variety of topics and may be small, perfunctory, or have significant impact and have long term effects on an institution. Identifying and understanding how board members are able to interact with each other and then with the
university they serve, to discuss, debate and make any of those decisions is a challenge.
This study focused on governing board decision-making that led to the establishment of a college of medicine at a comprehensive university. Governing board members and administrators were interviewed and board documents were reviewed to gain insight into how the board studied, deliberated and ultimately reached a decision about establishing a new college and the initial steps followed to begin implementation once the decision was made. This specific case study allows for some conclusions to be made about governing board decision-making in general.
Erin Hundley Carter
Advisor: Dr. Matthew Wawrzynski
The current study emerged from the need to address student behavior issues in town-gown communities and the practical need to know more about off-campus students as central actors in these behaviors. Off-campus students have long been labeled as commuter students because of limited recognition of the known diversity within the commuter population (Dugan, Garland, Jacoby, & Gasiorski, 2008) and an absence of town-gown scholarship focused on college student residents of the local community (Kemp, 2013). The current study sought to remedy the little attention given to off-campus students through the exploration of their sense of belonging to the local community, and in turn, how sense of belonging influenced behavior in the town-gown context.
An American college town was the town-gown context chosen for the current study because of its capacity to showcase the unique influence the university has on the character of the town (Gumprecht, 2008). Using a stratified random sampling, the sample (n = 645) was drawn from the population of undergraduate students living off campus in the City of East Lansing, Michigan. Strata were determined based on residential density levels due to an interest in assessing how residential environments of varying densities influenced sense of belonging in off-campus students.
The current study utilized sense of belonging and town-gown literature to guide the selection of exogenous and intervening predictor variables relevant in the town-gown context. These predictor variables included demographic characteristics (e.g., age, sex, race, year in school) and density categorization along with intervening variables such as environmental perceptions, social interactions, and behavior participation. Criterion variables included sense of belonging and positive and negative behavior participation. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to determine the extent these demographic and community factors influenced sense of belonging, as well as how sense of belonging influenced participation in positive and negative behaviors in the town-gown context.
The study concluded off-campus students were a unique cohort in the student population, warranting future attention from scholars and practitioners. Sense of belonging was not predicted by demographic and density characteristics, but was positively influenced by perceptions of community (e.g., reliability, friendliness) and positive behavior participation (e.g., attending community events, utilizing city services). Number of roommates, semesters lived off campus, and residential density associated with houses were positive predictors of behavior
participation, both positive and negative. Environmental and social relations constructs were positive predictors of both positive and negative behavior participation. Sense of belonging was a positive predictor of positive behavior participation, but was not a predictor of negative behaviors. The discussion offers insights and direction for town-gown administrators tasked with creating policy and practical interventions aimed at supporting off-campus students, while also addressing the unique challenges stemming from student behaviors in the local community.
Nathaniel Wade Cradit
Advisor: Dr. Marilyn Amey
The 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech is one part of a decades-long increase in the frequency of gun violence on U.S. college and university campuses (Drysdale, Modzeleski, & Simons, 2010; Ferraro, 2015). The events at Virginia Tech also served as a catalyst for the spread of so-called “campus-carry” laws, or acts of state policy which permit concealed firearms on postsecondary campuses (Aronowitz & Vaughn, 2013; Birnbaum, 2013; Grayson & Meilman, 2013). Despite opposition from the higher education sector, and evidence demonstrating that
increasing the number of firearms in a public space increases the likelihood of future gun violence (e.g., Ayres & Donohue, 2003, 2009; Cummings et al., 1997; Duggan, 2001; Helland & Tabarrok, 2004; National Research Council, 2005), Texas became the eighth state to enact
campus carry on August 1, 2016.
As a relatively new policy area, limited empirical data exist regarding the effects of campus carry on higher education. This study’s purpose was to identify whether the new campus-carry law in Texas had any educative influence upon the postsecondary learning environment by examining the ways faculty made sense of the new law before and during its enactment. Data were collected during the final three weeks of the fall, 2016 term at one university to explore whether and how the first semester of legal concealed weapons influenced faculty teaching and research decisions. Thirteen participants took part in narrative interviews, which were complemented by field observations and artifact analysis to more fully depict faculty life on a potentially armed campus for the reader.
Findings included evidence of changes occurring to faculty teaching decisions and faculty-student interaction behaviors on two sense-making dimensions: a conscious-active response and a subconscious-reactive response. A new conceptual model of faculty sense-making in response to controversial state policy is included to depict the complex, nuanced process observed in the study. Through the campus-carry sense-making response, this study provides what is believed to be the first known evidence to suggest campus-carry policy may influence faculty teaching and student interaction in ways that could be detrimental to student success and faculty academic freedom for those in the study. Implications for future researchers, policymakers, faculty, institutional leaders, and student affairs and administrative staff are also discussed.
Stavroula A. Erfourth
Advisor: Dr. Steven Weiland
Most empirical work on dual enrollment has been quantitative and concerned with issues of demographic participation (minority, first-generation, etc.) and college persistence (Carey, 2015; Cowan, & Goldhaber, 2015; D’Amico, Morgan, Robertson, & Rivers, 2013; Habersham, 2013; McCormick, 2010). Less research, however, has focused on the perspective of the students and how they perceive both their experience in dual enrollment programs and in their schooling
and lives leading to the decision to participate. Fewer studies have concentrated on discovering student motivations for participating and to better understand their experiences (Hudson, 2016; Kanny, 2015; Wallace, 2015; Smith, 2015).
As a group, rural students from economically depressed regions have not had the same academic opportunities as their urban and even suburban counterparts (Wallace, 2015; Koricich, 2013; Berg, 2010). By offering early college options, a particular type of dual enrollment program, to these students, school districts and their postsecondary partners can increase the college-going of their communities’ children, and perhaps positively impact the trajectories of lives. However, success of these early college programs is influenced by many things including the foundational development–academic, personal, and social–of the students that attend.
To situate my work in this space, using the portraiture method, I sought to expand the limited use of work images and extend it by intersecting the idea with secondary students’ postsecondary choices, specifically as they apply to early college program enrollment. To accomplish this, I employed Emirbayer and Mische’s (1998) theory on human agency and
Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) social ecology as a framework to guide questions to students about their decisions to participate in an early college program.
I made use of Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis’ (1997) approach to producing a portrait, which is the product of the aesthetic whole. They believe,
In developing the aesthetic whole we come face to face with the tensions inherent in blending art and science, analysis and narrative, description and interpretation, structure and texture. We are reminded of the dual motivations guiding portraiture: to inform and inspire, to document and transform, to speak to the head and to the heart (p. 243).
In this work, I offer the portraits of four early college students from a rural, economically disadvantaged area who made the decision to attend college while still in high school and why that decision is valuable for them and the institution they attend.
Amy E. Finley
Advisor: Dr. Matthew Wawrzynski
Adult learners represent a significant, and growing, portion of enrollment at higher education institutions. Despite their growing enrollment, adult learners are not retained at nearly the rate of their “traditional” peers, leaving colleges and universities with the need to identify programs and services that specifically address the needs and interests of this group.
Adult learner scholarship identifies pedagogical strategies that are beneficial for adult learners. The pedagogical strategies identified in adult learner research significantly overlap with the strategies used in the delivery of academic serving learning courses. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of adult learners enrolled in academic service learning courses to determine if this practice was a positive experience for students.
This study utilizes qualitative research strategies, including personal interviews, to understand that students’ experiences in these courses. The study concludes with a summary, including implications for future research and practice.
Sarah Rose Fitzgerald
Advisor: Dr. Steven Weiland
This study examines the information seeking of scholars in the field of Higher Education. I interviewed Higher Education scholars about their use of the web, library resources, and interpersonal networking for their research. I also spoke with them about how the faculty reward
system shapes their information seeking habits. I drew on information behavior concepts to describe their behaviors. Because Higher Education is an interdisciplinary field, there is a broad swath of literature Higher Education scholars might draw from. This study examined how these scholars seek information in an information rich environment with limited time.
The findings of this study describe how the career expectations for Higher Education scholars shapes their information seeking choices, how scholars change their information seeking over time, how emotional and interpersonal factors influence their choices, and how the tools available for information seeking influence their research. Many of the findings appear to apply to faculty engaged in research across disciplines, particularly other applied social sciences.
Scholars publish work that advances their careers, but this doesn’t include all the work that could enhance the body of knowledge about Higher Education. Events in society and changes in educational policy which have a great impact on Higher Education do not necessarily
get addressed by scholarship in the field. Keeping up with the scholarly literature in Higher Education will not keep one abreast of all the developments in Higher Education.
Scholars’ professional confidence, passion, and relationships effect their ambition in searching for information, branching out to new topics, and sharing their expertise. Information seeking and sharing is influenced by the supportiveness of the community of scholars they work in. This includes senior scholars in the field, scholars outside the field, and librarians. An individual’s disposition may determine how willing they are to seek information and help, which can determine how successful they will be as a scholar.
The technologies for information seeking are constantly and rapidly changing. It’s important to keep faculty up to date with new developments and changes to library resources so they do not develop a static view of tools that are constantly in flux. Scholars should be aware
that tools change and they should be on alert for new developments.
Qiana Monet Green
Advisor: Dr. Riyad Shahjahan
This qualitative research study illuminates the lived experiences of Black graduate student women who study abroad. I provide insights on how these students made meaning of themselves through study abroad. I utilized sista circle methodology, a culturally responsive methodology, to examine the study abroad experiences of 23 Black graduate student women. A critical lens was used to analyze and examine how relationships and interactions influenced participants’ meaning making of themselves through study abroad. Drawing on Black Feminist Epistemology (Collins, 2009), Endarkened Feminist Epistemology (Dillard, 2000), experiential learning, (Michelson, 1998), and participants’ narratives, I created a heuristic representation of
meaning making through study abroad. I focused my analysis of participants’ narratives through three braided areas of inquiry: (a) influences of relationships and interactions with faculty, trip leaders, and peers; (b) interactions with Blackness in study abroad contexts; and (c) healing through relationships and interactions during study abroad.
Findings revealed the importance of returning to one’s body as a site of knowledge production. Relationships and interactions during study abroad triggered emotional and physical responses experienced in their bodies. As adult learners, “trigger events” are necessary for learning and re-negotiating new identities (Biniecki & Conceição, 2014, p. 39). These events challenged former knowledge and prompted the Black women in this study to expand their knowledge of self. Thus, participants’ narratives challenge the Western notion of meaning-making that emphasizes cognitive learning. Instead, the Black women in this study utilized their bodies as sites of cultural knowledge production. Triggering events prompted physical and emotional responses during study abroad and influenced participants (re)membering of Black womanhood.
These findings contribute to the academic dialogue on Black graduate student women’s study abroad experiences (as one aspect of higher education). This study can inform future inquiry into examining intersecting identities in transnational contexts, embodied nature of
knowledge, and transformative learning in study abroad. I expand on these notions, and others, as I conclude this dissertation with recommendations for practice, and implications for research and theory.
Robert Sean Kniss
Advisor: Dr. Steven Weiland
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the manner in which it governs intercollegiate athletics has come under intense scrutiny in its recent history. The area within the NCAA’s policy’s and legislation that has come under fire the most is its regulation on student athlete amateurism. Within the past few decades the NCAA has faced an ever growing demand for it to move away from the amateurism model of college athletics, and embrace a model of pay for play. During this time the NCAA has faced numerous lawsuits that challenge the manner in
which it operates. For its part, the NCAA has responded to the lawsuits, win or lose, with legislative changes that have satisfied their critics to a degree, keeping them content until the next legal confrontation arises. The NCAA has shown reluctance in scrapping its amateurism model and instead has attempted to fend off the argument of pay for play by adopting new policies as tools of mitigation for the debate.
This study is an historical analysis of the court battles the NCAA has faced, and the strategic manner in which the NCAA has adopted new policies to quell the argument of pay for play in college athletics. This analysis takes a look at the cases and examines the mechanisms the
NCAA uses to respond to and appease their critics, the institutions it represents, and the student athletes. A major focus of this study is to examine how the NCAA has been able to make slight adaptions to their policies, along with introducing new programs that border on the concept of amateurism. This study shows that the policy changes made by the NCAA have been reactions to the legal conflicts they have faced and have pushed the limits of pay for play allowing the NCAA to still proclaim that student-athlete amateurism is a sacrosanct concept within intercollegiate athletics.
Jay Bradley Larson
Advisor: Dr. Riyad Shahjahan
As China increasingly internationalizes its higher education system, growing numbers of Chinese learners and expatriate instructors meet in the classroom, engaging one another from their disparate cultural and pedagogical standpoints. Despite its widespread occurrence, the phenomenon of Chinese learners and Western instructors engaging one another in pedagogically and culturally Chinese institutions is largely neglected in research. Scholarly literature on Chinese learners is dominated by studies of their experiences as international students on Western campuses. In Chinese environments, authors most often examine perspectives of expatriate instructors on their cultural adjustments. The voice of the Chinese learner in China is rarely heard in research.
In this study, I turned a phenomenological lens toward 17 Chinese learners’ lived experiences of intercultural classroom engagement at China’s Southwest University. Drawing on works of Hall (1997a, 1997b), Said (1978), and Simmel (1971), I devised a Progression Model of Intercultural Engagement to frame participants’ evolving perceptions of expatriate instructors as culturally foreign Others. I focused my analysis of learners’ perceptions through three overlapping areas of inquiry: (a) learners’ sense-making processes and management of intercultural teaching and learning; (b) their perceptions of the expatriate instructor as a physical, social, and cultural presence; and, (c) perceptions of expatriate instructor’s course design and teaching. I collected data over a two-month period at Southwest University through methods including classroom observations, Chinese language participant essays, and English language interviews.
Findings revealed learners exercised ownership and agency in interpreting and managing intercultural engagement with their instructors. Participants expressed ownership of a perceived physically, linguistically, and academically Chinese environment. Within that environment, they initially characterized expatriate instructor by foreign-ness. Learners made further sense of intercultural experience by situating their instructors’ foreign-ness in constructed social, pedagogical, linguistic, and cultural roles. These roles assigned purpose to the expatriate instructor’s foreign presence, and framed the meanings learners constructed from intercultural engagement. Finally, participants interpreted their relationships with written and spoken English through engagement with expatriate instructors perceived as social, pedagogical, and cultural embodiments of language. In sum, findings indicate perceived cultural context of the environment, and senses of ownership and agency learners exercised in this environment.
These findings contribute to the academic dialogue on intercultural teaching and learning, not only in Chinese institutional contexts, but anywhere knowledge construction must bridge cultural assumptions, epistemologies, and pedagogies. This study can inform further inquiry into international learners on Western campuses, multinational classes in education hubs, and Western learners studying abroad. I address these applications, and others, as I conclude this dissertation with recommendations for practice, and implications for research and theory.
Karla Gene Loebick
Advisor: Dr. John Dirkx
Internationalization efforts within higher education have been increasingly prioritized over the past few decades as a response to the growing demands of the changing globalized world. Short-term education abroad has emerged as a common strategy that institutions implement to help internationalize their campuses, students, and faculty. Faculty are central to curricular decisions for their institutions and this responsibility permeates their roles as faculty leaders of short-term, faculty-led education abroad. While considerable research exists on undergraduate experiences, few studies have focused on graduate education programs that are faculty led.
The purpose of this study was to develop understanding of the perspectives of faculty members as leaders of short-term, faculty-led, education abroad at the graduate level (henceforth graduate education abroad). Within this study, short-term is used to denote programs of one to five weeks in duration. Framed by Clark and Peterson’s (1986) Teacher Thought Process Model and Pratt’s (1992) General Model of Teaching, I studied how faculty members perceive, understand, make sense of, and enact their role as leaders of graduate education abroad including: Three major research questions guided this research: (1) What do faculty leaders want to accomplish when leading graduate education abroad?; (2) What beliefs, assumptions, and values guide the work of faculty members in their role as a faculty leader of graduate education abroad?; and (3) What do faculty leaders do in their role as a faculty leader of graduate education abroad? These questions were investigated using qualitative research methods with 21 faculty leaders representing early, mid, and late career positions from five disciplinary areas at two doctorate granting universities. Each faculty leader had led between two and nine short term, graduate level education abroad experiences. The analysis of this study led to the creation of a model of the Pedagogy of Graduate Education Abroad which illustrates the process that 21 faculty leaders in this study experienced in their participation as faculty leaders of graduate education abroad.
This study illuminated findings that provided insight into how faculty leaders pedagogically approach graduate education abroad including their motivations for involvement, defined purposes for short-term programming at the graduate level, responsibilities and liabilities of faculty leaders, qualities of graduate education abroad, highlights and challenges of being a faculty leader, types of graduate education abroad, pedagogical components of short-term programs, outcomes (for faculty, students, and institutions), and the role of graduate education abroad in the internationalization of graduate education.
John Evan Lowry
Advisor: Dr. Kris Renn
Many pre-medical students look for work experience in the medical field that will help them gain some medical knowledge and give a boost to their medical school applications. Today, many are finding employment as medical scribes as they prepare to apply to medical
schools. Medical scribes are relatively new in medicine, but the number of medical scribe jobs is increasing rapidly. To date, there is no reported literature about the experiences of medical scribes, or about how this unique work experience relates to what they do in medical school.
The purpose of this study was to learn about the pre-medical experiences of medical students who worked as medical scribes, and how the medical students made meaning of their experiences. I used qualitative research methods to interview 16 medical students who worked as medical scribes before entering medical school. I used thematic analysis to identify the themes in how they described their experiences, and how they relate their experiences to what
they are doing in medical school.
My study showed that medical scribe work experience can give medical students a rich framework for learning, provide them with an informed commitment to the profession of a physician, and confidence in their abilities and career choices. By taking an active role in documenting many patient encounters, and by being a part of the medical team in the clinical setting, medical scribes can develop their knowledge, grow as professionals, and develop a positive outlook about medical school and their professional future.
Yeukai Angela Miambo
Advisor: Dr. Brendan Cantwell
Black African women are grossly underrepresented as academic staff in engineering programs at South African universities. The problem is exacerbated at historically White institutions (HWI) where Black women are simply absent as engineering research and teaching staff. The absence of Black African women in the academy occurs despite Black African women enrolling and graduating with engineering postgraduate degrees making them eligible for academic jobs. Furthermore, despite Black African women representing the largest population in South Africa at 41% of the population overall, and affirmative action policies in place, engineering academic spaces remain predominantly White and male, not representative of the country’s population. In fact White women are overrepresented in engineering academe and in some cases White women are the only female presence in engineering higher education employment. If Black African women are graduating with engineering degrees why are they not equally represented in engineering academe as their White female counterparts? How can the absence of Black African women engineering academics be explained?
I use Charmaz’s constructivist grounded theory (CGT) to understand the career choice processes of Black African engineering alumni women in South Africa to explain why their career choices thus far have not included the academy. Approaching the research from a social constructivist paradigm, loosely guided by a conceptual framework of African feminism(s) and CGT, and borrowing from life history interview methods this study addresses the underrepresentation of Black African women in engineering academe.
Findings indicate Black African women’s career choices in engineering are driven by prospects of socio-economic mobility and family/community responsibilities, a product of historical circumstances during apartheid that created social inequalities with Black families relegated to lower socio-economic statuses. In this study career choices were heavily influenced by teachers in pre-tertiary schooling, student academic competencies in mathematics and science, and industry practices that included providing bursary funds to only support engineering higher education endeavors, thereby dictating to students from low income households which careers to pursue especially in cases where the absence of such funding meant one would not be able to afford university costs. The academy was not viewed as a place of work seen instead as a transitory space. The image of the academy as made up of older White males also created the perception that it was not a place for Black women. The combination of the factors influencing career choices in school and the image of the academy as an unwelcoming space for Black women explains Black women’s absence in South African engineering academia.
Postsecondary institutional leaders should work on changing the image of the academy and marketing it as a career option for students in pre-tertiary and postsecondary education.
Institutional culture and representation needs to reflect the diverse student population while actively working to ensure all students, academic and administrative staff feels welcome and valued. More importantly financial resources need to be made available and leveraged to support Black African women’s education in a bursary-style format to encourage more Black women to follow academic career pathways.
Renata Lucyna Opoczynski
Advisor: Dr. Brendan Cantwell
While accountability in higher education has been a topic of debate for decades, in recent years the discussions have shifted to emphasize efficiency and economic measures of success. A prominent example of this accountability movement is the increase in popularity of performance funding policies. These policies connect specific outcomes on state selected metrics to increased state funding (Goldstein, 2012). Performance funding policies purport to increase efficiency by rewarding reductions in cost and increases in specific economic outcomes. However, many of these policies neglect a similar emphasis on maintaining access, which may lead to undesirable consequences including reducing the enrollment of traditionally underserved students (students from low socioeconomic status (SES) families and historically underserved students of color) (Dougherty et al., 2014). Therefore, this study explored whether performance funding policies have an effect on underrepresented students’ enrollment.
Through a fixed effects panel analysis covering the years 2000 to 2014, this study explored any changes in enrollment of underserved minority students and Pell Grant receiving students in public four-year institutions. Findings from this study demonstrate that performance funding does have the potential to influence enrollment profiles at U.S. public four-year institutions. Specifically, this study found it changed the enrollment of underserved minority students. Further, these influences may not be equitable across all institutions, and instead may effect lower status institutions in a different manner than higher status institutions.
Specifically, those with more flexibility in their enrollment profile may be more likely to change their enrollment of both Pell Grant students and underserved minority students. These findings have profound implications for higher education institutions, policy formation, and social equity.
Qiana Perrean Smith
Advisor: Dr. Steven Weiland
The percentage of African Americans who pursue bachelor’s degrees and graduate is dismal with less than 40% of the 2009 cohort earning a degree within six-years. For decades’ researchers have explored why a disproportionate number of minorities do not graduate. In this study, I take an anti-deficit approach to understandings bachelor’s degree attainment among African Americans at a predominantly White institution by looking to those who have graduated or are successfully persisting towards earning a degree.
This research study is an interpretive qualitative design. Data was gathered through indepth interviews with eight African Americans who earned a bachelor’s degree or will soon earn their degree from a predominately White, Midwest institution. The data collected was used to identify themes that arose amongst the participants. The participants’ family, K through 16 experiences, and what they believe led to their success in earning a degree was examined. There were five primary themes that were salient amongst the participants in this study: self-efficacy, support, resilience, student group involvement, and engagement with faculty and staff. There were three additional themes that arose amongst at least half of them: precollege program
participation, on-campus employment, and spiritual and/or religious participation.
The study was conceptually guided by common factors that came out of selected research that took an anti-deficit approach to understanding academic success among minority students in college. The common factors identified in the research were precollege experiences, support
systems, personal attributes, involvement, and engagement. The findings from this study are aligned with the research that conceptually guided it. The recommendations made for practice and suggestions for future research came out of the findings from the study.
The research informing this study was conducted at Urban Research University a predominately White institution located in a Midwestern city with a significant history of racial conflict and economic decline. This study adds to the existing body of literature concerning non-cognitive strengths in regard to student success and the unique challenges faced by African American male students in urban research university environments. The study may provide policymakers, administrators, student affairs professionals, faculty members and others with an enhanced ability to develop policies and programs to increase African American male student success at urban universities.
Brianna K. Becker
Advisor: Dr. Steven Weiland
This qualitative study explored the role of Christian privilege in the college experiences of Jewish and Muslim undergraduates at one large public, land grant, research intensive university, a predominantly white institution (PWI) in the Midwest. I interviewed 13 participants, seven Muslims (four women, three men) and six Jews (three women, three men), about their experiences in college, how Christian privilege appeared (or did not) in those experiences, and how and if they defined Christian privilege for themselves. Through narrative inquiry, in single session, semi-structured interviews, I gathered the stories of these 13 participants and the role of Christian privilege in their college experiences at Midwest University (MU).
This study provides an in depth exploration of what was in the current news when this study was conducted and written up regarding Jews and Muslims in the United States and particularly in higher education. A full chapter is dedicated to a history of religion, particularly Christianity and especially Protestantism, in the United States (and colonial America) and its higher education using Roger Geiger’s (2005) “The Ten Generations of American Higher Education” and Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen’s (2012) No Longer Invisible: Religion in University Education as guideposts for understanding that history. I use the existing literature to define Christian privilege and provide seven major categories of Christian privilege on college campuses as seen in the literature: the calendar and time off; food; holidays, celebration, and worship; space; curriculum and language; the secularization of Christianity; safety.
Twelve of the 13 participants provided their own definition of Christian privilege, and all of the participants experienced Christian privilege as having a role in their college experiences, whether or not they identified it that way. The manifestations of Christian privilege in the college experiences of the participants fell into two major categories: living a (minority) religious life and interacting with others. Each of the two major categories had four subcategories. The calendar and time off, food, holidays, celebration, and worship, and space and structure were all salient aspects of living a (minority) religious life; religious literacy and language, the secularization of Christianity, safety, and social isolation and intergroup relationships were all important parts of interacting with others as Jews and Muslims in an environment saturated by Christian privilege. Race is also accounted for as part of how Christian privilege might be experienced.
Through the stories of my participants, this study offers a rich, nuanced, empirical look at the experiences of Jewish and Muslim undergraduates and the role of Christian privilege in those stories and experiences. Implications for practice, theory, and research are offered. Ahmadi and Cole’s (2015) campus climate model for understanding campus climate for religious minority students was identified as a useful and viable framework, and further studies could use this framework from the outset. There are a range of research implications that could take research in many directions including studying other religious minority populations, other geographic regions, and other institutional types as well as quantitative studies on this subject. Additionally, there are implications for practice for faculty, staff, students, and administrators – the foremost of which is the need for greater religious literacy in all roles and at all levels of higher education.
Grady Blue Brazelton
Advisor: Dr. Kristen Renn
Adult learners represent a population of students in community colleges who may be underserved or marginalized by digital technology. Because community colleges have implemented significant digital technologies to improve efficiency, communication, and overall operations, interacting with platforms (such as course management systems, student information systems, email clients, touch screen kiosks, and virtual/videoconferencing) is unavoidable for the adult learner currently enrolled. The purpose of the study was to examine and understand how technology made adult learners feel in their overall educational experiences at community colleges. I used qualitative research methods to interview 24 adult learners at 2 community colleges in the Midwestern region of the United States. I also interviewed individuals involved with the decision and implementation process of technology at both institutions. In the study, I used ethnographic approaches to examine the digital and technological culture at each institution, beginning with the prospective student phase and leading up to the matriculation process of a success student.
My study showed that adult learners are willing and able to learn technology, but they are less likely to teach themselves than younger users how to use all the required technology without experiencing frustration, anxiety, and fear. Frustration often arose from changes in educational technology since previous enrollments, and how technology had changed participation expectations. Also, as course content was often held in digital platforms, adult learners shared frustrations of having to learn first the technology medium before course content, evidence of technology being an implied prerequisite for educational success. Anxiety arose from significant assumptions having been made about adult learners, including computer ownership, internet access, available time for remote participation, and ability to navigate the dozens of systems implemented in higher education. Study participants often reported fear of breaking technology in a way that would be irreparable, expensive, and damaging to their academic progress, describing that fear as deeply rooted in previous experiences when they were first exposed to computers.
In my study I identify the ways in which forced technological interactions marginalize adult learners through a framework of marginality and mattering. In addition, I argue for support mechanisms to benefit adult learners, and all students, through reconsidering the role of technology in the overall experience, curriculum, institutional research agenda, as a necessary literacy for success at community college. The study does not set out to argue against using technology in education, only to filter expectations through nuanced understanding of the students who will be using and interacting with such technology in their lives as community college students.
Trace Camacho
Advisor: Dr. Kristen Renn
Despite the growing focus on Latino students within higher education little research has been done to explore how various subsets of the Latino student population experience the college environment. This study explores the experiences of gay Latino men in college and the barriers and success they encounter. This study was grounded in layering multiple theoretical perspectives, Ecological Perspective (Bronfenbrenner, 1993), Borderlands Theory (Anzaldúa, 1999), and the Reconceptualized Model of Multiple Identities (Abes, Jones, & McEwen, 2007).
This layered perspective guided the qualitative approach of this study. Ten gay Latino men who attended college in the southwestern United States were each interviewed twice for this study. Participants shared about their experiences as gay Latino men in college which resulted in the creation of a new theoretical perspective to view the experiences of gay Latino men in college.
Through this new theoretical perspective gay Latino men experience multiple borderlands between various identities, cultures, and worlds across various environmental levels. This perspective is illustrated by showing ways students experience the borderlands between gay and Latino as well as college. These multiple borderlands provided both barriers and opportunities for success for participants.
Participants employed various methods to navigate the multiple borderlands they experienced. These methods occurred both within and outside of the academic environment. Students used ethnic studies courses as a way to better understand their various identities and how the related to one another. In addition, students used involvement with identity-based organizations and fraternities as another method for navigating borderlands.
Finally, I provide recommendations on future directions for practice, research, and theory. The goal of these recommendations is to create more inclusive campus environments for gay Latino students and students with multiple marginalized identities. In addition, opportunities for ways to combine and layer theories are discussed.
Aaron Michael-Breuker Einfeld
Advisor: Dr. Steven Weiland
Recent massive growth in online learning and the proliferation of new digital tools have changed the landscape of teaching and learning in higher education. Enrollment in online learning has continued to grow despite disagreement and uncertainty regarding its educational value. It is likely that online learning will have a differentiated impact on the various institution types and sectors within the larger system of higher education in the United States. This study focuses on a sector of education that is highly valuable and increasingly vulnerable: liberal arts education. Despite a strong record of offering robust undergraduate education, some liberal arts colleges are beginning to move some of their essential core courses online, potentially undermining the quality of education. This study employed an embedded case study design to examine how key stakeholder groups at a liberal arts college perceived the degree of compatibility between traditional liberal arts education and online learning. By interviewing key stakeholder groups of a liberal arts college, this study uncovered key issues, tensions, and trade-offs related to moving the core courses of a traditional liberal education, such as literature, philosophy, and history to online formats.
The consensus between stakeholder groups in this study was that a traditional liberal arts education is not compatible with a fully online degree. Simply put, every stakeholder group agreed that moving a degree entirely online would undermine the essential nature and core purposes of a liberal arts education. Administrators believed that an all online liberal arts education would undermine essential elements of liberal arts education, such as student vocational discernment, community life, and interactive learning. Faculty participants said that a purely online degree would undermine each of the essential elements of liberal arts education identified by faculty participants: a) multi-disciplinary approach, b) liberal arts skills, c) embodied learning, d) faculty to student interaction, and e) student to student interaction. According to the faculty, the essential nature of liberal arts education is embodied learning that addresses the whole person; mind, body, heart, and spirit. In order to achieve truly embodied learning, full human bodies must be physically present together. Students believed online learning was less personal, and that it would undermine the opportunity to develop close relationships and to pursue wholistic formation.
Although each stakeholder group expressed ways in which online learning would undermine liberal arts education, there was also openness to online learning. Administrators said that incorporating a limited number of online courses would not undermine liberal arts education. Faculty expressed optimism that hybrid formats could leverage the best of online and face to face formats in ways that could truly improve liberal arts education. By providing the right mix of experiences, instructors could take advantage of the unique opportunities in both online environments and face to face settings. According to the participants in this study, online learning has the potential to seriously undermine long-held and valuable features of liberal arts education. At the same time, each stakeholder group identified ways that online and hybrid learning might be incorporated in ways that are compatible with the essential nature and core purposes of liberal arts education.
Stefan Fletcher
Advisor: Dr. Marilyn Amey
This dissertation explores and analyzes the nature of the service on external boards performed by presidents at twelve research universities. This qualitative study examines why presidents choose to serve on some boards and decline other opportunities to do so, provides insight as to the relationship between a president’s role and objectives and external board service, and illustrates various components of such board service. The dissertation then uses two theoretical frameworks to investigate how such service is both managed and perceived by a president.
Claire P. Gonyo
Advisor: Dr. Kristen Renn
This qualitative study utilized Harper and Hurtado’s (1997) Sense of Belonging Model as a conceptual framework and intersectionality and a processes similar to ground theory as theoretical frameworks to answer two research questions: 1. Do Black gay men feel a sense of belonging at predominantly White institutions? 2. If Black gay men do feel a sense of belonging, what processes contribute to sense of belonging? Given that the graduation rate of Black men is lower than any other group of students in higher education (Harper, Berhanu, Davis III, & McGuire, 2015) and that Black gay men are likely to experience homophobia, heterosexism, sexism, and racism at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) (e.g., Jaggers & Iverson, 2015; Mitchell & Means, 2014; Strayhorn & Tillman-Kelly, 2013a; Woodford & Kulick, 2015), Hurtado and Carter’s (1997) Sense of Belonging was a fitting conceptual framework because sense of belonging is known to lead to higher rates of persistence for all students and specifically, minoritized students (e.g., Harper & Hurtado, 1997, Strayhorn, 2012).
Social constructivist, anti-deficit, and intersectional lenses were used to explore the sense of belonging of 16 self-identified Black gay men who were at least completing their first year of college at three different PWIs in the Midwest. I conducted two interviews with each participant using a semi-structured interview protocol informed by Strayhorn’s (2012) definition of sense of belonging, Harper and Hurtado’s (1997) Sense of Belonging Model, and other relevant literature. I used intersectionality as a theoretical framework in addition to a process similar to grounded theory to analyze interview data including the processes of open, axial, and selective coding.
Though participants identified examples of homophobia, heterosexism, sexism, and racism they experienced, they all reported feeling a sense of belonging both within specific groups at their institutions and within their institutions as a whole. The analysis of this study led to the creation of a sense of belonging model that illustrates the process that the 16 Black gay men in this study went through to feel a sense of belonging. The factors identified in the model that led to sense of belonging include identities, cognitive mapping and perception of campus climate, learning appropriate behavior, expression of identities, and developing relationships and finding fit/place. Two participants noted feeling a sense of belonging at some point during their time attending their institution, but did not feel a sense of belonging at the time of their interviews. I describe the sense of belonging model and then the process that three individual participants, Greg, Timothy, and JJ, went through within the sense of belonging model.
The discussion situates the factors in the sense of belonging model in existing literature and addresses the contradiction of participants sometimes having negative experiences on campus and yet still experiencing a sense of belonging. Implications for practice include recommendations for institutions based on university programs, student workplaces, faculty, and student organizations. Future uses of anti-deficit and intersectional research lenses are discussed in relation to implications for theory. Finally, implications for future research include recommendations for studying the sense of belonging of Black gay men at historically Black colleges and universities, applying the sense of belonging model identified in this study to students with other minoritized identities, Black masculinities, and sense of belonging and persistence.
Lucas Benjamin Hill
Advisor: Dr. Ann Austin
Multi-institutional STEM reform networks have become a popular way to address the challenges facing undergraduate STEM education. Despite an intuitive sense that networks are effective educational reform pathways, few empirical research studies investigate their impact. Many have argued that institutional representatives, serving as boundary spanners, are key to securing the benefits of interorganizational membership. Boundary spanners are individuals who connect their organizations to the external environment and gain valuable external knowledge and resources to support local organizational performance.
The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the inter- and intra-organizational boundary-spanning roles of institutional representatives at one multi-institutional higher education STEM reform network. The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) is a network of 43 universities that seeks to prepare graduate students to be effective teachers so they can go on to positively affect undergraduate STEM education.
Using a case study design involving qualitative social network maps and semi-structured interviews, this qualitative study addressed three primary research questions: (1) what inter- and intra-organizational connections do formal, institutional representatives of a multi-institutional STEM reform network have (in relation to the network) and for what purposes, (2) how, if at all, do these formal institutional representatives engage in and make sense of inter- and intra-organizational boundary-spanning roles to help advance the network’s reform agenda locally, and (3) what individual and organizational attributes help or hinder their boundary-spanning activities?
Institutional representatives maintained several types of inter-organizational connections related to network operations, network contributions, collaboration, and knowledge exchange. Due to these connections, they found numerous individual and institutional benefits and worked with their local teams to translate network gains for local implementation. They diffused network-related information to and gained institutional support from administrative and academic units and stakeholders. There were multiple individual and institutional attributes that influenced boundary-spanning behaviors. At the individual level, factors such as commitment, institutional role, role alignment, and managerial skills shaped how local CIRTL leaders engaged in boundary-spanning roles. Organizational factors such as institutional alignment with the purposes of CIRTL, programmatic infrastructure, and a decentralized organizational structure likewise played a major influencing role on boundary-spanning activities. In summary, this study demonstrated the complexity and integration of four primary boundary-spanning activities of institutional representatives in service to local STEM reform. They were able to inform campus groups and units, advance a dialogue of the importance of preparing future faculty, and influence local policies and practices.
Jasmine Antoinette Lee
Advisor: Dr. Matthew Wawrzynski
The purpose of the current study was to explore the academic resilience of Black, first generation, low-income college students at a particular Predominantly White Institution (PWI). Through an exploration of lived experiences of Black, first generation, low-income college students, the current study sought to understand, from student perspectives, the institutional, communal, and personal factors contributing to academic resilience in ways leading to continued persistence. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as the macro theoretical lens and critical race methodology, the study elicited counter-stories that focused on academic resilience in the face of daily and historical challenges. The study employed purposeful sampling to select 10 participants who identified as Black, first generation, and low-income. Each participant engaged in a single semi-structured interview and follow-up participant focus group; both of which lasted no more than two hours.
Based on thematic analysis, I identified three primary themes that arose from patterns in the data. To honor CRT and participants’ voices, I used participants’ quotes to assist in the naming of the themes. The themes include (a) “Do whatever needs to be done to get the goal accomplished. That’s really all it is.” — Intrinsic motivation, grit, and academic resilience; (b) “It kinda just puts you in a situation where you just feel like failure’s not an option; even after you fail, you gotta get back up.” — Academic resilience and the sense of obligation to family and the broader Black community; and (c) “They raised a doctor” — The village model and academic resilience. The themes represent students’ lived experiences of remaining academically resilient while navigating an institution and society rife with classed and raced oppression. Student experiences were taken into consideration to develop recommendations and conclusions for theory, research, and, most importantly, future practice.
Lucian Anthony Leone
Advisor: Dr. Marilyn Amey
Community colleges in the United States are faced with several challenges, one of which is increasing the percentage of students that earn an associate degree. Research (American Association of Community Colleges, 2012; Amey, 2005; Eddy, 2010; Roueche, 2008) suggests that community college administrators need to think, act, manage, and lead in ways not required or expected in earlier generations. Significantly increasing the percentage of community college students that earn an associate degree may require a change in the dominant general management logic (Bettis & Prahalad, 1986) of American community colleges. The dominant coalition is the group that creates and revises an organization’s dominant general management logic. This study described the shared mental models of members of the dominant coalition at one community college, and the relationship between those shared mental models and the college’s performance as measured by the percentage of students who earn an associate degree. The research explored the relationships between the dominant coalition’s shared mental models, the community college’s dominant logic, and the college’s focus on associate degree completion.
The research found that the Foundations Studies Committee, a group comprised of faculty, staff, and senior leaders at the College, had a leading role in determining what the College would do to improve the associate degree completion rate. This group has many of the attributes of a Professional Learning Community (Lenning, et al, 2013). Understanding the influence of Professional Learning Communities on organizational development may be helpful as community college work to improve performance on a range of outcomes metrics.
Dalinda Lou Martinez
Advisor: Dr. Marilyn J. Amey
Transfer students are a growing undergraduate population in higher education. Large numbers of underserved students, low-income, first-generation college students and students of color tend to begin their postsecondary education in community colleges. Yet, many studies show that while students may have intentions to transfer and obtain a bachelor’s degree, many do not. It is important to know what transfer students draw upon as resources to be successful in their degree attainment. The purpose of this study was to understand the post-transfer experiences of underserved transfer students related to transitioning after they enrolled at the new institution when existing in a native student paradigm, meaning in an environment normed on native students who began at the institution.
This qualitative study is guided by transition theory. This exploratory holistic case study was conducted to gain an understanding of the factors that contributed to the post-transfer experience of students, with a special interest in aspects of the institution. Respondents filled out an online demographic questionnaire and 27 individuals were selected to participate in one round of interviews (45-60 minutes). The findings show that the participants encountered both academic and social challenges. Through transitioning capital, the participants mitigated these challenges and contributed to their continuous transitioning at the senior institution. Implications for practice, policy, theory and suggestions for future research are presented.
Michael John McCue
Advisor: Dr. Kristen Renn
Students who matriculate law school bring with them their mental illness which influences their law school experience. Although research in this area exists, it is limited and dated. This study is the first nationwide, multi-institutional, qualitative study that investigates the lived experiences of law students with mental illness. The study reveals that students with mental illness face unique challenges in law school beyond the traditional challenges encountered by law students. This study’s research question was: What are the lived experiences of law students with mental illness? Understanding these individuals’ lived experiences offers a glimpse into how they interacted in their various environments and how these interactions influenced them.
Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach this study gathered data from eleven law students from across the United States. Participants engaged in three interviews which focused on their lived experiences. These data were then analyzed using the Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory.
This study reveals the ways law students with mental illness navigate their law school experience. Law students with mental illness encountered stigma, micro-aggressions, and other obstacles in their journey to becoming a lawyer. Because of the competitive nature of law school, students with mental illness feared speaking publicly about their mental illness. The stigma further distressed students based on mental health questions asked as part of the character and fitness application for entry into the bar.
Students reported that the micro-systems of family, romantic partners, friends, other law students with mental illness, and faculty influenced their development. In the exosystem, the results yield the influences of isolation, lack of institutional understanding of mental illness, the law school milieu, legal pedagogy, the legal profession, and the character and fitness portion of bar admission. This study reveals the high level of resilience that law students with mental illness possess and their ambition exhibited by the participants helped them succeed in law school.
Participants offered suggestions to prospective law students, law schools, and the legal field. In addition, creating programs to reduce stigma and increase education about mental illness reflected the opinions of most of the students. Students also urged law schools to make available more services for students and to actively inform students of those opportunities.
Through the course of this research several thought questions arose that are not yet ripe for further research. These questions address the future of legal education and the legal profession. This applies to not only persons with mental illness, but also the generational and global changes in the legal profession.
Graham McKeague
Advisor: Dr. Steven Weiland
This research study examined how faculty understand the term global citizenship, and the ways in which their understanding of this term provides meaning for their work. Higher education institutions in the U.S. are increasingly shaped by a globalized perspective. College graduates are now expected to have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to enter a workplace shaped by globalization. Colleges and universities have responded to this need through a process of internationalization, however these efforts are often sporadic and uncoordinated in practice (Hudzik, 2015).
A growing number of colleges and universities have started using the term global citizenship to help provide direction for campus internationalization. Rather than having a fixed or stable meaning, global citizenship is a contested term that is understood in many different ways (Gaudelli, 2016; Lapayese, 2003; Schattle, 2009). This presents a challenge for college campuses who are appropriating the term for institutional practice even while the meaning is debated.
Deardorff (2009) has argued that faculty play a crucial, yet overlooked, role in the development of internationalization and global learning on college campuses. She states that faculty across academic disciplines must be given the opportunity to contribute to institutional questions of internationalization. This is especially important in the process of internationalizing the curriculum.
This research used a case study methodology to explore faculty understanding of global citizenship at a single institution in the U.S. The setting was a faith-based liberal arts college with a long established tradition of global learning and preparing students for engaged citizenship in the world. Tully’s (2014) framework for understanding global citizenship was used as a basis for examining how faculty understood global citizenship. The findings from this study affirm the wide range of understanding attributed to the concept of global citizenship. The faculty participants understood global citizenship along a continuum of meaning rather than within fixed categories. Some faculty fully embraced global citizenship, while others were skeptical of the term or rejected it entirely. As a result, the ways in which global citizenship had meaning for faculty work also varied.
Themes emerged regarding the ways in which global citizenship had meaning in the areas of curriculum, as part of shaping institutional identity, and the position of global citizenship as a disputed term in this particular case. The ways in which faculty came to understand global citizenship was also examined, with their personal background, their academic department, and colleagues within the college emerging as most influential. The study concludes with implications for practice, including recommendations for integrating global citizenship within a liberal arts college.
David J. Nguyen
Advisor: Dr. Roger Baldwin
Doctoral student socialization is the most popular theoretical lens for understanding doctoral education. Socialization perspectives have illuminated the complex processes doctoral students undergo within their doctoral programs. Very little attention has focused on forces external to doctoral education. This study highlighted the ways in which 35 advanced doctoral student’s financial considerations exerts influence on their financial decision-making as they navigate the series of socialization decisions confronting them throughout their doctoral education journey.
This dissertation study offers insight into a series of decisions involving financial implications doctoral students make about their education. I utilized rational choice and socialization theory to explore how these decisions made by doctoral students shaped aspects of their educational trajectories. Study participants demonstrated that they conducted cost-benefit analyses about their doctoral program with particular emphasis on activities known to foster socialization. Guided by these theoretical perspectives, participants evaluated financial considerations in decisions concerning: (1) going to graduate school, (2) selecting a graduate program, (3) financing doctoral education, (4) participating in professional aspects of doctoral education, and (5) factoring a doctoral student’s family finances into their decision-making process. Study findings illuminated complex calculations participants evaluated as they navigated their doctoral education. I conclude by offering suggestions for practice, policy, theory and future research on doctoral student financial decision-making and doctoral student socialization.
Erich N. Pitcher
Advisor: Dr. Kristen A. Renn
Transgender or trans* individuals are now more visible within higher education contexts than ever before, signaled by campuses hosting speakers on trans issues, trans* inclusion within women’s colleges, and the initiation of trans* studies programs, among many other positive trends. While trans* issues are more discussed, college environments remain unfriendly, and in some cases, overtly hostile. Further, despite a robust body of research about gender equity for faculty, and faculty diversity more broadly, transgender faculty voices have yet to be explicitly included within this research. Moreover, scholars and activists alike agree that trans* people face intense workplace discrimination, yet, with the exception of my pilot study, there have not yet been systematic investigations of the academic workplace experiences of trans* people. Given the increased visibility and widespread discrimination, as well as the noted gap in the literature, this study focused on how higher education organizations shape the experiences of transgender faculty.
Drawing on institutional logics, inequality regimes, and critical trans* politics, in this study I sought to understand how inter- and intra-organizational practices shaped the experiences of 39 transgender academics from diverse personal histories, disciplinary backgrounds, institutional affiliations, and personal identities. I used a transformative research paradigm, qualitative interviews, and narrative responses to elucidate the experiences of trans academics.
Findings indicate that the salient institutional logics shaping transgender academics’ experiences are the corporation and the market amidst a declining state logic. Each of these logics converged to create the academic market/workplace. The presence of these intra-organizational logics created a series of tensions for participants. The converging institutional logics created tensions for participants between producing good workers or good citizens, as well as challenges associated with increasing international enrollment. I also identified specific tensions within academic libraries and across institutional types (e.g., community college, private research university). With respect to inter-organizational processes, participants described a variety of experiences with genderism including being misgendered interpersonally and digitally, being hyper-visible and invisible, and exercising agency over disclosures about trans identity/history/status. The intra- and inter-organizational processes created four key tensions for participants’ experiences wherein they experienced isolation, alienation, precarity, and silence but yearned for community, familiarity, security, and voice. Based on the assentation that trans* academics are and/or become professionally other, I argue trans* academics must engage in coalition building with other minoritized scholars, while institutional leaders engage in substantial organizational change efforts that make trans* identities possible.
Henry L. Robinson
Advisor: Dr. Marilyn J. Amey
Like its K-12 predecessor, higher education has presented a major stumbling block for many African American males and is great cause for concern (Bonner & Bailey, 2006). Black male completion rates are lowest among both genders and racial/ethnic groups in U.S. higher education (Harper, 2006a; Strayhorn, 2010). African American males are less likely to enroll in graduate programs at rates comparable to Whites or other persons of color (Harrell, Myers & Smedley, 1993), limiting access into certain professions altogether. Attrition is often not due to lack of ability, but to the failure of institutional systems to engage positively with and embrace African American male college students (Wright & McCreary, 1997).
Wood (2010) states that while similarities may exist among Black males in different institutional contexts, researchers should be cautious about assuming the uniformity of their experiences. African American male students confront myriad obstacles to their satisfaction with the college experience that may account for their high attrition rates in these institutions (Bennett & Okinaka, 1990). The literature is replete with unanswered questions about African American men’s participation, student success and graduation from college (Cuyjet, 2006; Polite & Davis, 1999). In particular, there is a dearth of research on successful African American males attending urban research universities. The purpose of this study was to provide instructive insights from African American male students who did well academically, maximized their college experiences and successfully earned baccalaureate degrees. Study participants interpreted their understandings of institutional barriers as they perceived and experienced them, and strategies they used to reduce or eliminate these barriers.
The research informing this study was conducted at Urban Research University a predominately White institution located in a Midwestern city with a significant history of racial conflict and economic decline. This study adds to the existing body of literature concerning non-cognitive strengths in regard to student success and the unique challenges faced by African American male students in urban research university environments. The study may provide policymakers, administrators, student affairs professionals, faculty members and others with an enhanced ability to develop policies and programs to increase African American male student success at urban universities.
Mary Kathryn Smith
Advisor: Dr. John Dirkx
This descriptive qualitative study investigates perceptions of students regarding the use of SocialSim, a tool designed to deliver simulation in a virtual environment using social media as a platform to facilitate inter-professional education.
There have been exponential changes in U.S. healthcare system in recent years, prompting the need for institutions in higher education to prepare students to function effectively as members of an inter-professional team. Coinciding with this is advancement in the field of healthcare simulation and virtual methodologies. The incorporation of these three into a learning experience for IPE has not been previously explored and became the impetus for my study.
I developed SocialSim as a novel tool using social media as a platform to deliver a simulation facilitating inter-professional education. I examine the use of this tool and experiences of twenty healthcare professional students at a major public university. Through the analysis of semi-structured interviews, this study examines student perspectives related to the use of SocialSim as a new tool for IPE. The results can inform administrators and faculty decisions in addition to expanding the field of healthcare simulation.
To access abstracts from earlier years, contact a member of our team.