<p> The academic deficits of African American males are sadly well documented. National test data show African American male students falling woefully behind in reading and math. Only 12% of African American males scored proficient in reading on the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress and only 13% scored proficient in Grade 8 math. African American males are also consistently absent from school which further impacts academic performance and the likelihood of graduating from high school. However, research indicates that students who participate in school-sponsored activities were more likely to persist in school. African American male students who participated in sports not only attend school more regularly, but also increased their grade point averages. </p><p> Long Beach Poly High School, the &ldquo;Home of Scholars and Champions,&rdquo; has a long-standing tradition of successfully preparing student athletes to accept athletic scholarships from colleges and universities. Many African American males who participate in high school sports, especially football and basketball, dream of earning athletic scholarships to play their sport in college. In hopes of replicating this experience for student athletes in other urban high schools, this qualitative case study was driven by one central research question: What systems of academic support does Long Beach Poly High School provide for African American male student athletes who aspire to earn Division 1 scholarships? Addressing three sub-questions, this study explored academic structures, co-curricular and extracurricular activities, and the extent of systems implementation. Operationalizing critical race theory as a framework, the researcher interviewed seven academic and athletic staff members and a focus group of five student athletes to understand the systems in place at Poly.</p><p> The findings illustrate how Poly has intentionally constructed an academic system of support for any student athletes&rsquo; aspirations. This system began with the student athlete&rsquo;s undeniable commitment to his academic program, whereby the academic and athletic staff, work collaboratively with teachers, support personnel, and parents to share accountability with the student athlete. With multiple opportunities for tutorials and additional assistance, student athletes delay gratification. They sacrifice today for a dream that will be born tomorrow. The mystique of being a &ldquo;Jackrabbit,&rdquo; and a rich history of academic and athletic excellence merited studying the unique environment of Long Beach Poly High School. Further recommendations for policy, practice, and research are presented and discussed.</p>

The purpose of the project was to encourage and increase the level of Christian Fellowship (Koinonia) and involvement in the Trinity African Episcopal Methodist Church, Atlanta. The church is situated in what was a transitional community. It is now approximately 98% black in the South West section of the city. The project consisted of five (5) consecutive weeks of student input. It involved 24 - 42 members, divided into three (3) groups. Group A, the control group, attended the worship services and took the questionnaire. Group B, the target group, attended the worship services, attended the input sessions, and took the questionnaire. Group C, the super target group, participated in all of the above activities, in addition to engaging in encounter sessions with the student. The worship services were the traditional order of worship of the A. M. E. Church with an emphasis on fellowship, i.e., the call to worship, the scriptures, the prayers, the hymns, and sermons. Five (5) sermons were preached focusing on the need for fellowship, what it is, and how it can be accomplished and maintained. The input sessions were weekly, one to one hour and a half (1-1.1/2) sessions consisting of study sessions, discussions, group interaction, prayers, and the sharing of a repast. The encounter sessions with the student consisted of frank dialogue between the student and participants in Group C. The overall hypothesis was that as a result of the worship and preaching services the participants would show an increase on all positive statements the questionnaire; and that Groups B and C would show more of a significant change than Group A, and Group C would show more of a significant change than either of the other two groups. While there was some positive movement by all of the groups, there was not enough of significant changes to merit any real attention. This does not mean that the project was a failure. For in the ensuing months following the project there was an increase in persons joining the congregation, expressed appreciation for the church by members who participated in the project, increased attendance at most of the church functions, and a much better enthusiasm regarding the local church and the Church in general. For this I am grateful to the Lord. The first-half of this final report consists of the writer's reflections on the Black Church as a unique religious institution; The calling to the Black church to address itself to the historical mission of the Black church and the mission of the Church; the writer's theory of ministry; and a survey of the meaning of Liberation and Koinonia from biblical, theological, and sociological perspectives. The second-half of the report focuses on the actual project involving the writer's understanding of liberation and Koinonia and an amalgamation of the two. Charts, graphs and tables have been inserted to aid the reader in ascertaining the mathematical breakdown of the growth-decline of the project participants. The final chapter focuses on the future aspects of the writer's ministry, goals for the church as well as for the writer.

The ministry of the class leader and a working class leader system are still very much needed in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. This work attempts to show that the class leader system can still be a viable part of the A.M.E. Church, but it must be modified from its original form and shaped into a contemporary mechanism for ministry. The lack of training of the class leaders in Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church, in Northampton County, North Carolina, proved to be the rule, rather than the exception. The church was thereby rendered ineffective in its ministry. This work seeks to find a practical way to equip the class leaders of the Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church for effective ministry. The ministry project was an effort to address this issue by formulating and administering a training program for class leaders. The ministry project shows that positive results are practical and possible, but there must be a continuous program of training to equip class leaders for effective ministry.

This project that was designed to enhance the development of moral character of African-American children, ages nine to twelve (9-12). For purposes of this dissertation, moral development and character development are used interchangeably. A curriculum was developed for children and one for parents to assist them to help young people reach their potential in regard to moral character development. The underlying principles of the study were moral character, spiritual formation, and faith development. The major premise of the project was that if children feel good about themselves and feel a connection to God, then people will behave better, love themselves and God, and they will make better decisions to negotiate life. This pilot study was conducted at two urban churches. There was a total of 35 children participating in the study, and there were 38 parent participants. The training took place over a sixteen-week period. The results of the study indicate that there was a significant increase in self-esteem among the children. Additionally, findings from the behavioral scale demonstrated a significant positive change in behavior among children. There was also a significant improvement of the parents' level of contentment with their children.

This project dissertation, entitled 'Grief Management: Programming for Care in the Local Church', addresses the issue of grief that is caused by the death of a significant other. This work also includes information on the dynamics of grief; grief management resources from psychological, sociological, and theological perspectives. In addition, it gives an overview of the African American church as a resource for grief support. The dissertation provides a model for programming for grief management and grief support for the Ben Hill United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

The purpose of this dissertation was to develop a discipleship training program at New Horizons Church of God in Christ. The model sought to develop this program with a view towards incorporating elements of the tradition of the Church of God in Christ along with Bible study and intercessory prayer. The project was composed of eight weekly sessions. The purpose of this project was to determine whether this style of training, in conjunction with traditional forms of spiritual formation already in place, would promote more committed church members. This project was developed out of the writer's personal concern for retaining new and oriented members. At the heart of this dissertation is the theory that spiritual transformation takes place as a result of intentional and, consistent Bible study and prayer in a small group setting in addition to the Holiness-Pentecostal discipleship uniquely appropriated through its traditions, worship style and community. The result of this study exposed an added dimension necessary to the process of transformation already present in the Pentecostal Church; that is the small group, in-depth study of the Word of God that promotes a hunger for scripture and therefore a hunger for God. The ultimate aim of this study was to find a way to develop commitment to one's faith in the context of the Church of God in Christ. This project was developed in response to a perceived lack of commitment and understanding of the nature and definition of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

<p> Too often, the truth behind a phenomenon is not sought through the perspectives of the people who lived that phenomenon&mdash;&ldquo;the masters of inquiry&rdquo; into their own realities, as Paulo Freire (1982, p. 29) has explained. Voice is the most powerful, reliable medium for collecting data based on lived experiences, if we are to gain genuine insight into the phenomenon (Freire, 1982). Focusing on the lived experiences of four formerly incarcerated young men of color, this study gave each participant the space to not only recall specific events and times, but to critically reflect on their lives&mdash;becoming more critically aware of their individual journeys and constructing new knowledge of the injustices that relate to the school-to-prison pipeline, including recommendations for change. This study sought to answer the following research questions through the voices of the participants: (a) Based on their collective and individual journeys through the juvenile justice system, how do formerly incarcerated youth describe their experiences? (b) What recommendations do formerly incarcerated young men have for reducing youth incarceration and recidivism rates? The participants provided rich narratives that answered each research question with the expert knowledge that can only be derived from firsthand experience. Through careful analysis of the data, several major themes emerged, tying together the experiences of each participant with the findings from the literature. Each participant spoke passionately on not only the need for change, but also specific recommendations for change. It is the power of their poignant insights that ground conclusions offered in this study.</p>

"Displaced Memory: Oscar Micheaux, Carlos Bulosan, and the Process of U.S. Decolonization," uses new applications for existing colonial and postcolonial theories in order to explain common incongruities in ethnic minority autobiographies in early twentieth-century America. Using Carlos Bulosan (1914-1956) and Oscar Micheaux's (1894-1951) "fictional autobiographies" as case studies, I argue that the seemingly contradictory coexistence of assimilationist and subversive narratives can be explained when understood as textual representations of the process of decolonization. Reading these narrators as postcolonial subjects, however, would require both a radical rethinking of colonial and postcolonial theory and careful revaluation of early American mythology. While recognizing the United States as a former (or neo-) colonial power poses no insuperable problem for scholars in Philippine American studies, analyzing other disenfranchised ethnic communities in terms of a U.S. colonial context is more problematic. My project addresses precisely this problem: part one begins with the Philippine context and asks why even this overt example of colonization remains unacknowledged within U.S. cultural memory. The answer to this question is grounded in the literary, political and ideological national foundations emergent during nascent U.S. development. In the second part of my project, I stress the necessity of comparing multi-ethnic experiences within parallel historical trajectories, addressing questions about how a U.S. postcolonial theory would become complicated when applied to slavery and its aftermath. I argue that the unique position of displaced colonials occupied by African slaves and the colonial memory instilled in their offspring suggest the applicability of postcolonial theory to the African American community. Questions of U.S. postcoloniality are invariably tethered to multiple perspectives from early literature, from captivity to emancipation and reconstruction. Thus, understanding the ways in which African Americans have been colonized is important not only for re-reading African American literature like that of Micheaux, but for revising American ideological holdovers from the seventeenth century to the present. Read together within the postcolonial context, Bulosan's and Micheaux's views on nation, race, masculinity and women take on new significance.

This research serves as an attempt to tell the story of student and faculty experiences at three departments in a Land Grant university in the United States, called Aspiring University. The story helps to reveal factors which have attributed to low graduation rates of ethnic minority (African American, Hispanic, and Native American) students at the institution. Background information, including a thorough literature review and discussion of research methodology, is provided. The research utilized data from The University of Arizona's National Graduation Rate Study, and was constructed around the framework of the Retention Assessment Model. Analysis revealed six themes (a surreal community, identity and isolation, diversity and pedagogy, mixed messages, weeding out, and who's responsible?), organized around the factors of environment and expectations, as possible answers to the question of why ethnic minority students are retained and graduate from AU at rates lower than predicted.

Retention, persistence and graduation rates are not new issues in higher education. Early research by Tinto (1975), Bean (1980), and Pascarella (1980) illustrated the importance of retention and the different methods by which it can be analyzed. These theories, although widely cited and read, account for less than 30% of the variance in departure rates (Astin, 1993). Much of the retention research on African American students has focused on utilizing dominant retention theories to investigate Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in attempts to explain or explore the relationship between these students and the institutions (Cabrera, Nora et al., 1999; Person, 1990; Person and Christensen, 1996). The purpose of this study is to push the boundaries of the understanding of African American student retention. The expansion of these boundaries is accomplished in three ways: (1) providing institutions information to help facilitate the graduation of African American students, (2) providing a cross-sectional analysis of demographic characteristics of students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities versus Predominantly White Institutions, and (3) offering new perspectives on retention of African American students utilizing the institution as the unit of analysis. The goals of this project were accomplished by utilizing African American student culture as a lens for viewing the results of this research, a current retention model applied to African American students from a unique set of matched institutions.