Warnings of an impending leadership crisis in community colleges are raising interest in the role of chief academic officer (CAO). Despite the centrality of the position, the CAO is largely neglected in the academic research literature. Information from CAOs about their perceptions and experiences as leaders is needed to create and develop supports for their expanding leadership role. Factors that affect collaboration among CAOs must be identified to determine the extent to which CAOs are interested and able to collaborate to solve common problems. This qualitative study ultimately probes the potential benefit of developing a network of chief academic officers in community colleges to confront and resolve shared challenges and opportunities, particularly at the regional level. CAOs serving in 40 public community colleges in the six New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont were sent an original written survey probing their views of CAO leadership, collaboration and demographic characteristics. Twenty-five surveys were completed and returned for a response rate of 62.5%. Five CAOs, selected by geography, size of institution, and views on collaboration were selected for hour-long interviews to explore in depth their survey answers. The study findings indicate that the CAO is a critical leadership role in New England community colleges faced with expanding demands and shrinking resources. CAOs are also active collaborators who value the knowledge and experience of their peers in formulating responses to common problems. A model of collaboration as a function of engagement and concerns is used to clarify collaboration among CAOs. The model suggests that collaboration reaches its full potential when engagement between CAOs becomes more personal and there is recognition of mutual concerns. Collaboration among CAOs could be facilitated by providing additional time and resources to support communication and travel. A higher percentage of CAOs in New England are female, white, slightly older, and have served, on average, fewer years in their position when compared with national studies. Recommendations for supporting collaboration among CAOs, especially within geographic regions, are presented, along with a call for more research on the role of the CAO in community colleges.

Major decisions for public universities are often shaped by the political dynamics which function continuously inside the institution and within the larger external community. A persistent problem in the study of higher education is the need to better understand this complex external environment and to build adequate consideration of it into the planning and decision making process. This study examined a particular instance of planning and decision making for an urban public university; the site selection process for the Boston campus of The University of Massachusetts. It identified the major components and dynamics of this prolonged search and developed recommendations which can be generalized to similar institutions. Study methods included review of University archives and contemporary news media, interviews, and review of public records. The researcher first sought to describe the broader context in which Massachusetts public higher education developed during the decades prior to the sudden decision to create a Boston campus for the University of Massachusetts in 1964. Then a chronology was constructed describing major events and decisions reached during the site selection process. A particular effort was made to determine the nature and methodology of the University's planning process. The study then examined the internal organizational structure and political environment within the university and the broader political and economic environment in the external community in order to assess their impact on the final outcome. A key finding was that the immediate local political and economic context surrounding an urban public university will have a profound impact upon policy decision making for the university. Since the near neighbors of such an institution will tend to view its presence in terms of its immediate impact on their daily lives and not in terms of its broader long term benefit to society, this local context must be known and understood by the university's decision makers. Lack of adequate state-wide coordination of the development of public higher education in Massachusetts during the 1960's and the lack of an adequate public relations effort on the part of the University were major contributing factors which hampered the site selection process.

Research has indicated that the first year of college is more stressful for the college student than the three remaining years. A descriptive, exploratory study was conducted which assessed the general freshman population of a large public university in Puerto Rico, a Spanish-speaking country. Freshmen (N = 1665) completed, in the Fall of 1993, a 73-item survey which collected data on demographics, academic and financial backgrounds, employment patterns, and academic, career, and personal needs. Students were asked to rate the intensity of the needs they were experiencing as they entered the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. Results indicated that participants, as a group, rated academic-career related items stronger than personal items. In general terms, higher need levels were associated also with specific sub-populations of freshmen: females, students coming from public schools in Puerto Rico, and students enrolled in the Colleges of Business Administration, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences. The findings of this study are valuable for planning college counseling services at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus and for clarifying student development theory. The identification of these needs should enable administrators, orientation planners, counselors, and policy makers of this University to design programs to better meet the academic, career, and personal needs of the freshman population as well as the individualized needs of specifically designated subgroups of incoming freshmen. The planning of such interventions must be followed by systematic evaluation of the effects of the programs that are developed.

The purpose of this study was to explore: (a) how and to what extent teachers experience and express trust in relation to individual students and groups of students; (b) how and to what extent teachers value and focus on specific attributes of trust over others; and (c) how and to what extent the levels of teacher trust in students and the various attributes of trust impact the teachers’ behaviors and choices in the classroom. Data were collected from teacher interviews, teacher questionnaires, classroom and school artifacts, and descriptive field notes from observations. Data were analyzed using content analysis and open, axial, and selective coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Results indicated that participants valued specific attributes of trust over other attributes of trust. Participants were aware that individual students expressed different levels of one or more attributes of trust and made specific behavioral and pedagogical decisions for students who demonstrated very low levels or very high levels of specific attributes of trust. Results also indicated that participants valued particular attributes of trust because those attributes facilitated and reinforced other attributes of trust. One attribute of trust could be facilitated and reinforced by several other attributes of trust. Participants used pedagogical and behavioral means to attempt to increase students’ expression of particular attributes of trust. Results suggested that teachers who adjust the classroom environment and use several alternative teaching strategies may be making choices that increase students’ abilities to demonstrate attributes of trust. Teachers who use fewer teaching strategies and who do not adjust the environment adequately may be less able to increase the students’ abilities to demonstrate attributes of trust. A clear understanding of teacher-student trust may help teachers to chart the degree to which particular teaching methods and behavioral practices work or do not work to increase attributes of trust.

This dissertation research is a study of the dynamics of continuous change in Florida's public higher education system between 1998 and 2009. There are three subsidiary questions used to explore these events in greater detail: What is the impetus for changes in the structure of Florida's education system? What are the key dynamics of social change outlining this period of history of governance in the higher education system? How have these changes affected the ability of the individuals and boards responsible for education to be effective, legitimate, accountable, autonomous and authoritative? Since the Florida Legislature abolished the Board of Regents (the board statutorily directed to oversee the public state university system) in 2000, three separate entities were at one point or another charged with the task of overseeing the system before the Board of Governors and university boards of trustees were constitutionally created in 2002. Since that time, the myriad stakeholder groups have struggled to clearly define their own powers within the confines of constitutional and statutory law. Moreover, these groups have been unsuccessful in defining their own powers in such a way where agreement with other stakeholder groups is achieved. Through the use of semi-structured interviews, the perspectives of representatives of the various stakeholder groups on the historical changes of the system during this time period, their feelings about the changes and the results of these changes on the relationships between the stakeholder groups will be explored. Additionally, historical information outlining the events that have taken place in Florida will be obtained through the review and examination of documents, such as state laws, proposed and approved legislation, task force meeting minutes, relevant court cases and news articles. This study will employ grounded analysis and pattern matching as tools to inductively identify emergent patterns and relationships as identified by the examination of the behaviors and reactions of those individuals intimately involved in this issue. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2010. / March 22, 2010. / Board of Regents, Board of Governors, Autonomy, Authority, Accountability, Governance, Higher Education, Florida / Includes bibliographical references. / Ralph Brower, Professor Directing Dissertation; Robert A. Schwartz, University Representative; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member; Richard Feiock, Committee Member.

In 2014, Florida formally adopted a performance funding model for its State University System of higher education. The case study provides a qualitative analysis of the policy's implementation at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, a historically black institution (HBI). Using the lens of coercive and normative isomorphism, this study identifies how institutional relationships between higher education administrators have changed in response to performance funding. Participants, though supportive of the policy as an accountability tool, disliked the specific metric items policymakers use to measure institutional performance. Participants perceived the metric items and policy goals as contradictory to the mission of their institution. The article identifies recommendations for policymakers to increase institutional buy-in and areas of future research. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the Master of Science. / Spring Semester 2016. / April 13, 2016. / Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, HBCU funding, HBI, higher education, performance funding, public policy / Includes bibliographical references. / Lara Perez-Felkner, Professor Directing Thesis; David Tandberg, Committee Member; Bradley E. Cox, Committee Member.

All 28 colleges of the Florida College System (FCS) have made space in their budgets and on their campuses in order to attract upper-division partners, colleges and universities that represent the State University System (SUS), Independent Colleges and Schools of Florida, and other higher education institutions nationwide. Partnership relationships such as the ones negotiated between FCS institutions and upper division schools are defined as academic strategic alliances in higher education literature. Scholars have taken this terminology from business management lexicon wherein organizations respond to a competitive market by joining forces (Das & Teng, 1997). Accordingly, scholars from both fields emphasize the concept of collaboration packed inside the strategic decision of campus leaders to pool their resources partnerships (Adegbesan & Higgins, 2011; Eckel, Hartley, & Affolter-Caine, 2004). This study explored both sides of the state college-university partnership dynamic through the eyes of the administrators using themes from Gulati’s (1998) network embeddedness framework. I employed a qualitative research design to determine the influence of alliance initiatives on the social networks involved in their implementation. I used a collective-case study approach employing data triangulation (interviews, documents, and observation) to seek out any emerging themes. I also sought out institutional data to support this study. A majority of these FCS concurrent-use arrangements have persisted while others have failed. This study contributes to higher education literature by offering a means to expand the scope of previous academic strategic alliance studies. Instead of focusing on partnership dyads, this study explored how host and partner institution administrators operate within a social network embedded at the study sites. I propose fresh perspectives to explain how each member involved within a state college’s university partnership program can assert its own needs while working in concert to define common goals and objectives. My two key findings identified the perception of lack as the primary barrier and effective communication as the most influential aid to partnership creation and maintenance. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2016. / October 14, 2016. / College, Florida, Partnerships, State, System, University / Includes bibliographical references. / Shouping Hu, Professor Directing Dissertation; Gerald Ferris, University Representative; Tamara Bertrand Jones, Committee Member; Robert Schwartz, Committee Member.

Teachers have long struggled to be recognized as professionals and to achieve autonomy. Key obstacles that influenced their perception of powerlessness, such as professional isolation of teaching staff, low teacher participation in decision making, and systems of supervision irrelevant to instructional improvement, were even scrutinized in national reports. The criteria suggested for the selection of a teacher supervision training model was based on a sound theory of education supported by research. It provided teachers the latitude for decision making that was congruous with the professional treatment of inservice teachers and that was acceptable to teachers receiving supervision. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of peer clinical supervision on teacher empowerment. The participants were 21 urban elementary school teachers located in southeast Washington, D.C. They along with their principal volunteered to be trained in clinical supervision using an adaptation of Cogan and Goldhammer's Five-Step Clinical Supervision Model. Pre- and post program questionnaires, a perceptual inventory, interviews and field notes were used to report the study's findings. The study concluded that training in peer clinical supervision had a positive impact on teacher empowerment when the results were associated with the six Empowerment Indicators: (1) increased receptivity toward supervision, (2) increased receptivity toward change, (3) decreased feelings of isolation, (4) increased evidence of collegiality, (5) increased participation in the decision-making process at the building level, and (6) increased peer classroom observations. Appendices present an outline of the training model used for this study with sample instruments.

The purpose of this study was to examine and describe the influence of mentors in dyadic relationships on the leadership development of women college presidents. To fully understand the influence of mentoring on leadership development, a case study approach was used to originate empirical data to provide additional knowledge about women's leadership development. The case study was conducted through in-depth interviews with three women college presidents, their mentor(s), and their protégés. A process model of cross-generational leader development was generated from the empirical findings of the study and the model includes three specific mentoring strategies—Modeling, Challenging, and Supporting as well as two key bonding stages—Developmental and Peer Bonding.

This paper presents a model of capacity development for public organizations in post-conflict settings. The paper reveals the challenges faced by the author as a `change agent' who tried to understand and develop the basic capacity of the Literacy Department of the Ministry of Education in Afghanistan. The author used an action-research approach and has actively followed events and actions to explore the `how can' of capacity development efforts. The review of organizational change literature provided background knowledge for the author's day-to-day work in a public organization and helped him to develop a Foundational Capacity Development Framework (FCDF). The FCDF offers four complementing components of infrastructure, technical competence, social and organizational participation, and strategic alignment . The framework also recognizes the importance of underlying components of capacity development which are based on the beliefs, values, behavior, ownership, sustainment and institutionalization. The four components in the framework are utilized in ways that address the underlying causes to change individual beliefs and values, creating ownership and empowerment for the sustainment and institutionalization of capacity development efforts in public organizations.