As more students cross the threshold of higher education in Mississippi community and junior colleges, an increase in legal disputes inevitably will occur. Two important skills can help college administrators anticipate legal issues that may occur on their own campuses. The first is the ability of administrators to scan the broad legal environment. The second is their growing awareness of legal issues in all aspects of their own enterprise. In order to prevent causes of action from being initiated in a complaint, proceeding to discovery, and then possibly leading to trial, college administrators must recognize the importance of knowing what the law is and how to spot a potential legal issue before it grows and becomes more problematic. This study utilized a survey instrument to ascertain the levels of legal knowledge, including constitutional legal issues and federal statutory legal matters, held by full-time administrators at Mississippi’s public two-year colleges. The study examined whether there were significant differences in knowledge based on personal characteristics of the administrators, such as educational attainment and years of higher education experience. Additional differences based on whether the administrators had or had not received legal training were measured. The results of this research suggest that community and junior college administrators do not demonstrate a high degree of knowledge of higher education law.

The problem of this study is to describe and analyze faculty attitudes toward administrators in an urban junior college district. The purposes of this study are to ascertain the attitudes of junior college faculty toward campus-level administrative positions and to determine what relationship existed between general and specific measures of faculty attitude.

The purpose of this study was to examine to what extent community college trustees understand student success and the processes they used to prioritize student success practices at their institutions. This study used qualitative and quantitative methods that included several analyses. / text

In 2013, one of the largest community college districts in the nation set forth a set of policies intended to improve the persistence and academic achievement of its sizable student population. Policies such as a new student orientation, course placement testing, and academic advising were now required of all first-time students who had their sights set on a degree or transfer to a four-year institution. One policy, however, was only applicable to those students who failed to demonstrate preparedness in the areas of reading, math, or English. For this cohort of students, an additional student success course was mandated that was intended to give these students the academic skills and confidence to persist that they were presumed to lack. While the student success course had been available in the district since the 1980s, it had never been a required course in the district even though many other higher education institutions had adopted it as such. There was no clear rationale as to why this course needed to be required starting in 2013, or why it was being required only of underprepared students. Further, little in the way of preparation occurred or resources provided to ensure the smooth and complete implementation throughout the ten-college district and there were no plans to evaluate the course's effectiveness other than measure each college's compliance to the policy. Thus the stage was set for a multi-lensed analysis of an entire policy lifecycle rather than the typical summative assessment of a policy's implementation. From formation to implementation to effectiveness, this single policy intervention in a single community college district is evaluated formatively. While each substantive formative analysis' content could stand alone, it is the intent of this dissertation to suggest and demonstrate that all are necessary for a complete evaluation of an educational policy.

Throughout the United States, colleges and universities are faced with an increasing need for financial funding, while at the same time resources continue to diminish. With the limitations of available funds, community colleges must exhibit efficiencies in the operations of their institutions. External interests, such as governing boards and legislatures, require demonstration of efficient financial management. This evidence is then used to make decisions concerning future financial support for the community college. This study determined if community college chief executive officers use financial performance indicators as provided by the State Auditor's Office and if the chief executive officers of the community colleges value the compilation and the distribution of the financial performance indicators. In the selected colleges, many of the chief executive officers depend on their chief financial officer for understanding and application of financial performance indicators. The performance indicators distributed by the Auditor's Office captured only a snapshot of the college's performance, and failed to fully describe the whole college performance or specific financial events captured by the indicators. Though the indicators had flaws, either through incorrect data or lack of explanation, the CEOs did value their compilation because they provided a means for ‘getting the community college story' to decision makers external to the college.The State Auditor's performance indicators were developed using a university model. Because of the distinct difference in mission between the community college and the university, several of the indicators were not applicable to the community colleges. The CEOs suggested that another set of indicators be developed, using community college input, that would better capture the financial performance of the colleges. The new set of indicators should be simplified and measure only those areas, such as revenues and expenditures, that are truly comparable from one institution to another.

Using qualitative methodology and a case study format, this study examines from the inside-out the organizational impact of significant change in leadership at a mature community college during the initial period of that change. The study describes and characterizes the nature of change in the organization during the periods of significant leadership transition, and examines the conceptual links between the new leadership team and the external and internal forces of change impacting the college during that time. The researcher has endeavored to pull significant events, actions, and circumstances of the new top leadership team in the college selected for study through a specific theoretical framework to find links of relationship and connection. That framework defines organizational change as a coalition of interests and a network of activities within a moving structure impacted by a combination of past events, pushes arising from the environment, and pulls from dominant coalitions. / Graduation date: 1998

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The need for knowledge workers is increasing; most jobs of the future will require some post secondary education. Half of the students who enter the open door of the community college are not prepared for college level work and must first enroll in developmental education. Half of those students will not complete remediation. Though institutions of higher education provide developmental education, the effectiveness of developmental education programs - performance in subsequent courses, grade point average, and persistence to graduation - are rarely studied. This case study explored an Achieving the Dream institution's commitment to establishing a "culture of evidence" to guide decision making and facilitate student success in developmental education programs. Research was gathered from interviews, observations, and a review of pertinent documents during the researcher's four-month internship at the institution. This study found a culture of evidence evolving at the institution and the institution's participation in Achieving the Dream contributing to the culture of evidence through its use of data to measure student success and facilitate decision making. Indicators of student success measured at this institution included success rates in developmental courses, fall-to-fall persistence, progression in the developmental course sequence, and graduation rates. The researcher used John P. Kotter's Eight Stage Process of Creating Major Change as a framework to review the institution's progress toward creating institutional change. The researcher identified practices that could bring about institutional change when building a culture of evidence. / text