The purpose of the study was to examine the economic, institutional, and human impact of athletic programs at community colleges in the Tennessee Board of Regents community college system to determine how the athletic programs affects the benefits, or lack of benefits, for students, the institutions, and the communities. Sixteen participants were interviewed: two presidents, two athletic directors, four coaches, and eight student-athletes. The student-athletes represented four different sports and came from a variety of educational backgrounds and academic standing. The primary benefits perceived for the institutions and the student-athletes were the impact on missions, enrollment, educational and athletic opportunities, and retention. The primary negative impacts perceived were the lack of preparation for college work by high school graduates inside and outside the athletic programs and the difficulties in recruiting the best academic student-athletes. Some administrative and athletic participants perceived the lack of preparation of high school graduates to do college work as a great obstacle for some student-athletes and others in the community colleges. Emergent themes included time management, the stress of maintaining dual paths in academics and athletics, and the need of good housing environment. Mentoring by coaches, motivation to progress in academics, the assistance of student development services, and faculty and staff were perceived by the student-athletes as being beneficial to their success and progress. The implication from this study is that student-athletes represent a variety of socioeconomic and diverse backgrounds that may impact educational backgrounds. They also represent a variety of academic levels that vary from year to year. Student-athletes are successful, with planning and assistance, in reaching their educational and career goals. The problem of remedial education is an obstacle for some of them, for the institution, and for the state. To become successful in increasing the number of Tennesseans who attain higher education levels, the obstacle needs to be addressed in the community college system and, more importantly, in the elementary and secondary schools.

Excerpt:This quantitative study examined the perceptions of selected university administrators and legislators concerning levels of support for Tennessee public higher education.

Grantsmanship; seeking external funding for research, personnel preparation, systems change efforts, conference attendance; “Centers” versus projects; early career funding.

The purpose of my thesis is to demonstrate the economic development of China and Latin America. My reason for choosing these two regions for my study is because they are both Third World Nations. My intention on writing this thesis is to prove that culture and the informal business networks of China are the major forces of what is driving the Chinese economy ahead of Latin America. I will explain how the definition of culture ties in with the economic society of both regions. In writing about culture, I will attempt to explain if there really is a difference between trust in each society. To better interpret this thesis, I came up with several variables of economy that will help explain each region's development. These variables are federal direct investment (FDI), labor, and funding of businesses in each region. In my study, I present the different approaches that are taken by each region to attract FDI. In addition, I will explain how and if informal networking is beneficial to the work force and the funding of businesses in each region. The majority of my research for this thesis consisted on reviewing past articles of scholarly journals. From these journals I drew conclusions of my own and compared them to other scholars' work. I also analyzed such websites like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and various others to be able to come up with my own findings necessary to complete my thesis. To anticipate the conclusion, this thesis notes how important it is for each region to find its own unique way to attract FDI and how culture can impact the development of an economy. In my thesis, I am including the importance of trust in the society and the significance of the informal business networks on the Chinese economy.

In the first essay, I create a hedge fund informed trading measure (ITM) that separates information related trades from liquidity driven trades. The results indicate that ITM predicts future stock returns at the trade level, thus is associated with information. By aggregating the most informed trades at the stock level, I find that stocks heavily purchased by informed hedge funds earn a significant alpha. The results indicate that the ITM performs better than some previously documented measures and is robust to two different versions of the measure. The second essay exploits the expiring nature of hedge fund lockups to create a new, within-fund proxy of funding liquidity risk. When funds have lower funding liquidity risk, risk-adjusted performance improves and exposure to tail risk increases. We use fund fixed-effect, a placebo approach, and a regression discontinuity design to establish a link between funding liquidity risk and the ability of funds to capitalize on risky mispricing. The third essay explores hedge fund managers ability to identify and trade on stock mispricing opportunity. We refer to the amount of capital that are is locked up and refrained from redemption as the stable capital, and study how it affects stock mispricing. We find that when funds have more lockup capital, they are more likely to take mispricing risks. Taking all funds together, more stable capital in the industry is driving the reduction or even correction of market-wide stock mispricing. Underpriced stocks benefit more than overpriced stock from hedge funds stable capital.

Public higher education increasingly relies on performance-based funding (PBF) policies to enhance accountability. These policies attempt to steer institutions towards successful outcomes via performance indicators, such as graduation rates. Nationally, PBF policies continue to grow in popularity despite limited evidence that they are effective (Hillman, Tandberg, and Gross, 2014). Motivated by the apparent conflict between the widespread adoption of PBF policies and the lack of evidence that they actually improve outcomes in higher education, this dissertation investigates the perceived impacts of PBF policies. Florida’s public university system serves as the setting for the study due to its uniquely punitive PBF policy design and the model’s non-standardized performance indicators. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

More than 30 states currently implement some form of outcomes or performancebased funding for public two-year and/or four-year institutions of higher education. Thirteen of these states have public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Every state’s higher education governance and power relationships are a unique compilation of internal and external entities such as the governor, governing boards, policymakers, higher education staff and advisors, and the institution’s administration, faculty, students, and alumni. Each entity holds power over the HBCU or its state policy context. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The Adult Protective Services Program is tasked with enforcing the standards and policies created at the federal level relating to how provider agencies should respond to elder abuse. What has yet to be explored is whether the Adult Protective Services Program is efficiently responding to the issue of elder abuse through its monitoring and evaluation protocols, which are based on the current policies. The purpose of this study was to explore the role of the 13 planning and service areas in their response to elder abuse. The response to elder abuse is guided by the current policies and funding strategies and has determined that there is a need for a policy change. The primary research questions sought to determine if the current policies were effective in every aspect, from planning to execution of the policies as well as the funding in guiding the level of response to elder abuse. The narrative policy framework was used to assess the feelings and opinions of the 13 directors of the planning and service areas regarding the current policies and response strategies to elder abuse. The study utilized a qualitative methodology that procured data through methods such as interviews and secondary data. Content analysis and coding were the two main strategies for analyzing the data for this study. Key results indicated that the directors felt restricted in term of the current policies, while funding has remained stagnant despite an increase in new programs. A change of policy that allows more freedom for investigating elder abuse is needed, as well as a reinvigoration of funding in the area of elder abuse.

Thesis (M.Dev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2013 / The study aims to provide insights into the nature and extent of development funding provided to various poverty eradication projects by the National Development Agency (NDA) and its subsequent impact on reducing poverty in the predominantly rural communities of the Makhuduthamaga Municipality in the Limpopo Province. It examines in detail the impact made by the NDA on community development through the disbursement of funds to poverty eradication projects. It also provides insights into the total number of the NDA-funded projects and the total proportion of the NDA-funds allocated to them in the Makhuduthamaga Municipality. The study further examines the nature of the NDA support regarding the design of the interventions, relevance, participation of communities, delivery modalities and sustainability. The effectiveness of the NDA-funded projects in community development is determined using employment opportunities created, income generated, skills transferred, assets accumulated, sustainability mechanisms and community empowerment indicators. Although all of these indicators are found to be tightly linked to the NDA’s mandate of poverty eradication, the extent to which the NDA has achieved its objectives in disbursing development funding earmarked for poverty eradication and strengthening of CSOs was yet to be determined, hence the relevance of this study. The study, therefore, highlights key issues regarding the types of employment opportunities created and levels of income emanating from the NDA-funded projects. The study further highlights various areas of community empowerment, financial and sustainability measures put in place for the sustainability of the NDA-funded projects. Using a combined method of research, that is the qualitative and quantitative case study approach, the study highlights in detail insights into the impact made by the NDA on community development, particularly on Makhuduthamaga Municipality. The study highlights that while the NDA made some strides in the creation of employment opportunities, income generation, food security and community empowerment, both financial and institutional sustainability proved to be a daunting challenge for the NDA-funded projects Tailor-made and accredited training interventions coupled with the introduction of market-driven products to the NDA-funded projects as opposed to heavy reliance on donor funding will go a long way in bringing about productivity and, most probably, positive balance sheets and the maximum impact on the NDA funded projects.

Since 1985, there have been major fundamental policy changes in the governance and funding of higher education in China - general devolution ( decentralisation) in resource allocation and utilisation, diversification of the funding base, and imposition of fee charges on most higher education students. This thesis examines the impact of the changes on the function of higher education, and on quality, efficiency and effectiveness of the system. This thesis formulated some overall conclusions, extrapolated from current trends in China and in other countries of the world, on the prospects of higher education governance and funding in a global perspective. This country study has identified current patterns in China strikingly similar to those found globally despite great diversity in international experience. Based on this material, the researcher predicts that the future directions of higher education governance and funding will be characterised by counter-balance of government regulation by market forces; greater efforts for cost-efficiency and funding linked to performance; further diversion of government financial priority from higher education to other sectors and greater reliance on private and more diversified funding / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)