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The School of Graduate Studies at East Tennessee State University started the first Thesis and Dissertation Boot Camp program in the fall of 2012 by organizing a team of dedicated faculty and staff to help promote the Boot Camp and to run its sessions. Boot Camp at ETSU has since had great success with participation, positive student feedback, and student success. We have had 268 total registrations and 178 unique participants in Boot Camp from all stages of the writing process and of those who were close to finishing, 94 have graduated, many of whom have credited the Boot Camp program with their success. We advertise 21 to all ETSU graduate students, local and regional institutions, and although they were always welcome, we have recently expanded our advertising to Capstone Project students. Students from all of these groups have participated. Boot Camp provides dedicated space and time to write free of distractions, with a variety of resources in the same room or just steps away. In this presentation, I will detail how, what, when, and who is involved in setting up and running our boot camps and provide an overview of our optional mini-workshops that are offered during each session. I will also provide an update on how our boot camp has evolved over the past five years and share some data that I am currently working on correlating boot camp attendance with graduation rates. Boot Camp models at other institutions will also be presented for comparison along with tips for setting up a boot camp at your institution. Another update for this presentation is a personal one. I would like to credit Boot Camp for my own professional growth. Working with boot campers through personal, professional, and academic challenges has tested my ability to be a leader and inspire others to persevere. Boot Camp continues to be a source of pride for me and the School of Graduate Studies at ETSU and I would love the opportunity to share the program again with representatives from other institutions.

East Tennessee State University, Southern Regional Educational Board, Greeneville City Schools, and Kingsport City Schools formed the Greene-King Partnership to redesign principal preparation in Tennessee. This paper tells the story of that redesign and implications for the future of principal preparation.

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This paper provides a history of the standardized testing and accountability movement, the curriculum standards attached to the accountability movement, and the attempted shift to common core. Student poverty and its impact on student achievement the focus of this paper. Recognizing the impact of poverty on student achievement as measured by standardized tests the authors question the explicit practices of teacher preparation programs in preparing teacher candidates to work with students of poverty.

Purpose: Given that a relatively large percentage of college students entering historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are first-generation students and considering the low completion rate among this group in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) discipline, the purpose of this preliminary meta-synthesis study is intended to facilitate a greater understanding of the academic and social adjustment among college students, particularly first-generation college students enrolled in STEM disciplines at HBCUs. Therefore, this meta-synthesis will shed light and offer important recommendations for university administrators and faculty members in supporting the academic and social adjustment of these students in STEM fields at HBCUs. Design/methodology/approach: This review of literature was conducted using a meta-synthesis approach (also referred to as integrative review). A meta-synthesis is based on a process by which findings across multiple studies are organized and presented (Turner et al., 2008; Wood, 2010). This approach is used to provide insight into academicians and practitioners alike on the status of research on a given phenomenon (Bland et al., 1995; Patterson et al., 2001; Wood, 2010). This technique is similar to a meta-analysis and meta-ethnography, where findings from quantitative and qualitative studies are synthesized. In contrast, a meta-synthesis presents thematic findings from studies that are both qualitative and quantitative in nature (Bair and Haworth, 2004). The authors were engaged in a cyclical process of collecting, annotating and synthesizing research over a 45-year time-frame (1970-2015). Findings: Factors present in the literature that affect students enrolled in a STEM program at an HBCU are grouped into three contexts: (a) first-generation academic and social characteristics, (b) first-generation college dropout and transition and (c) first-generation STEM retention. Within these general groupings, four interrelated themes emerged from the literature: prior academic adjustment and STEM discipline, college adjustment and STEM discipline, social integration and STEM discipline and academic integration and STEM discipline. Originality/value: This information may help professors and university professionals in the STEM fields to be more aware of the challenges faced by incoming college students. More empirical work is needed in this area in a way that is useful for understanding and enhancing professors’ and university professionals’ knowledge. To this end, research that carefully describes what HBCU professors and university professionals know or their ideas about teaching college students, especially first-generation students enrolled in the STEM discipline, is needed.