It is believed that purposefully constructed learning communities can have academic, social, and motivational advantages for its participants. In an effort to improve graduation and retention of students, some HBCUs have sought new ways to construct learning environments that are conducive to the learning styles of students of color. This study sought to investigate the impact of a learning community on pre-college level students standardized test scores and final grades. The Repeated Measures One-Way ANOVA revealed a statistically significant difference in COMPASS score change between groups with the comparison group demonstrating a greater change than did the learning community group. In addition, Analysis of Covariance test was used to answer the research question regarding differences in final grades between the two groups. After adjusting for the COMPASS pre-test, there was no difference in final grades between groups. Using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), a Likert-type scale based on the Eccles et al. (1983) expectancy-value motivational model, three components of students motivation were investigated: task value, extrinsic value, and test anxiety. The Independent Samples t-Test was used to compare the means. There was a statistically significant mean difference in extrinsic value with the students enrolled in traditionally taught pre-college level English courses demonstrating more extrinsic motivation. There was a statistically significant mean difference in task value with students enrolled in the learning community demonstrating higher task value than the comparison group. Finally, there was a statistically significant mean difference in affect with students in the learning community group demonstrating more test anxiety. Conclusions and recommendations were presented for future research.

No description available.

No description available.

Over the past several decades, the victimization of women on college campuses has not decreased despite an uptick in research and concern surrounding the topic. In this study, I analyzed the victimization prevention messages on the websites of 30 4-year PWIs and 30 4-year HBCUs in the Southeastern United States to investigate how they contextualized such messages. Drawing on a comparative thematic analysis of 132 documents from HBCUs and 138 documents from PWIs, I elaborate on four key themes, with several subthemes: gendered safety messages, rape culture education, racialized safety messages, and collective responsibility. I found that victimization prevention messaging was contextualized by community engagement at HBCUs, and both types of schools engage in victim-centered crime prevention. Additionally, PWIs used language on their webpages that encourages peer-to-peer racialized coveillance. This study contributes to the literature on victimization prevention on college campus, the college-prison nexus, and understandings of sexual assault prevention.

This qualitative inquiry explored the ways in which US-born, Black faculty member participants in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) interact with the National Science Foundation (NSF). Eight Black HBCU STEM faculty members with a range of involvement in NSF-related activities were individually interviewed. Topics of discussion with participants included their prior experiences with NSF, their understanding of the merit review process, and their understanding of their personal and institutional relationships with NSF and the STEM community. Two broad findings emerged from the conversations. The first was that issues of communities and social identity were important to the participants’ work as research scientists. Participants prioritized advancing people and communities over advancing the knowledge of ambiguous, disembodied scientific disciplines, and some participants were motivated by interests in social justice. However, participants maintained strong identities as scientists and the discussions provided no evidence that other social factors influenced their application of the scientific method. The second major finding dealt with the role participants perceived their institutions playing in their involvement with NSF. All participants described challenges associated with pursuing research in HBCU environments and, in some cases, the institutional challenges served as the motivation for participants’ projects, with varying consequences. Finally, this study developed and refined a theoretical framework for explaining the underrepresentation of HBCUs in NSF funding streams. In developing this framework, a brief history of the origination of HBCUs, NSF, and the NSF merit review process is presented.

HAVEN FOR ALL HUNGRY SOULS: THE INFLUENCE OF THE AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS ON MORRIS BROWN COLLEGE By Serena Celeste Wilson Morris Brown College is a small, private historically Black college located near downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The College is the only post-secondary institution in Georgia founded by Blacks for the purpose of educating Blacks. The relationship between Morris Brown College, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools presents an untapped area of research regarding the how external regulatory and fiscal contributing bodies influence the internal mission, culture and management of an institution of higher education. Morris Brown College presents a unique case because, since its founding, it has maintained a close affiliation with the Church that established it. Yet, in recent years, its financial existence has been dependent upon the receipt and use of public funding—which is intricately tied to accrediting standards and oversight. In 2003 the College lost its accreditation. This study employs an ethnographic case-study qualitative research design to explore how the College’s relationship with these bodies influenced the institution’s organizational structure, fiscal management, and administrative culture and identity. The study’s findings indicate that the College’s relationship with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools was largely reflective of the values, ideals, and perspectives of who represented the College at any given time. The College’s relationship with its founding body, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was primarily maintained through the placement of Church members (largely clergy) on the College’s board of trustees, and evidenced in the College’s ideology and mission. Although an autonomous operating body, the College’s relationships with these two bodies are complicated by the institution’s reliance on continued financial support from the Church, and validation (in the form of accreditation) from SACS. While healthy working relationships with both bodies are not mutually exclusive, the internal planning, governance, and evaluation of the College must necessarily consider the values and expectations of these (and other) external entities.

Academic administrators at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are faced with multiple challenges regarding retention of students, funding, and maintaining status as an HBCU, yet little is understood about how and why leaders choose a particular career pathway. This lack of understanding creates opportunities for failure related to turnover in leadership, funding discrepancies, and lower rates of retention and persistence for students. Using Maslow's needs theory as the foundation, the purpose of this descriptive study was to better understand the career pathways of established executive level leaders atin HBCUs in order to determine attributes of success among leaders with the rank of provost and higher. Data were collected using open-ended surveys from 30 HBCU executives at the rank of provost or higher. These data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, inductive coding, and thematic analysis. Findings indicated that academic administrators tend to move between private and public institutions frequently, and over 20 percent began an academic career as a faculty member at an institution of higher education. The other key finding is that executives tend to plot a path to higher level, executive positions and this transition occurs over a period of several years and t and that those who maintain a focus on achieving executive status also participate in a variety of seminars and workshops to build peripheral skill in communication, financial management, and collaboration. The social change implications stemming from this study include recommendations to HBCUs to engage in leadership training opportunities for faculty and academic managers to encourage internal promotion of executive positions as a mechanism to preserve the unique organizational attributes of HBCUs.

Student retention in higher education, specifically after the first year, has long been a focus of institutional strategies, especially among students with financial, academic, and social risk factors. The issue of retention was a priority for administration at the 4-year private Sea Port University, a historically black university in the southern United States, which is the focus of this case study. The university has shown a rapid decline in its retention rate since the period 2008 - 2012. The purpose of this study was to identify students' perceptions of factors in their Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) experience and the influence on retention. The theoretical framework was Chickering and Chickering and Reisser's psychosocial theory of development. Terenzini and Reason's college impact model was the conceptual framework. A qualitative research design using case study methodology was utilized. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 8 African American full-time students who had completed at least one year at Sea Port University. Data analysis included an inductive thematic analysis. The findings indicated students were positively influenced by culturally responsive factors in their HBCU experiences such as developing a sense of lineage in the organizational context, which were reflective of elements of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks. A white paper with suggestions for building organizational contexts was constructed as a project. The findings are central to the provision of an all-encompassing environment for the successful matriculation of African American students, thus influencing positive social change for the students at the institution, in the local area, and at other historically black colleges and universities throughout the nation.

As the 25th president of the National Association of Dramatic and Speech Arts, Inc. (NADSA), it was my goal to develop a plan of action for NADSA in the 21st century. Not only is my responsibility to continue the legacy established by others, but also it was my desire to develop ideas based on a thorough and exhaustive historical analysis of the organization, which laid the foundation for a self study of this sort to happen. The purpose of this study is to thoroughly investigate the history of the NADSA for two reasons: 1) to determine what is the driving force behind this organizational structure that has caused it to be the oldest surviving national educational theatre organization in the country; and 2) to evaluate why this association has not taken the rank of being the "premier" theatre association among theatre practitioners. It has been sixty-four years of struggling and surviving for the oldest Black educational theatre organization in America, and that is a magnitude of history of which to be proud. Founded upon the principle that Blacks needed to be educated in both speech and theatre, NADSA has provided a vehicle for almost sixty-five years. This organization established competitions, publications, symposiums, meetings, and opportunities for minorities who had interests in speech and/or theatre on a national level. It also provided opportunities for professional development and networking when Blacks were still thought of largely as "coons". NADSA acknowledged an art form for Blacks when many thought that pursuing theatre arts was simply a waste of time. What I found is simply that this great organization was built on a strong organizational structure and has a phenomenal legacy. The downfall of the organization, as with any organization I suppose, has been with the people who make momentous decisions, based oftentimes not on thinking in terms of what is best for the organization, but possibly, on what is best for their own political agendas. This research has revealed that the organization has survived because there was a need then and there is a need now for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Speech and Theatre programs to meet and compete in the areas of speech and theatre. It is these largely because of these meetings that HBCU programs receive validity, very similar to that of athletics, which is the model that Edmonds', NADSA's founder, used to develop the structure for NADSA. Also, the research determined that NADSA has not taken the rank of being the "premier" theatre association in the country primarily because that status was never NADSA's goal. NADSA serves a clientele that supports underfunded Speech and Theatre programs primarily at HBCUs. And because it has stayed true to its mission, NADSA has survived the tests of time and maintained its history, mission, and legacy as the oldest surviving educational theatre association in America -- May Its Soul Go Marching On! / Ph. D.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities are institutions that contribute to the higher education of people of African descent. The archives of enslaved and freed people describe their systematic approach to education, highlighting the ways that Black communities in America engaged in teaching and learning. Despite enslavement and forced labor, legalized segregation, race-based economic disenfranchisement, and rampant anti-Black violence, people of African descent curated spaces for learning in their literary societies, fraternal organizations, religious institutions, and schools. Rooted in the Africana ways of knowing that came with them from Africa to the western hemisphere, people of African descent used education to resist the prevailing ideologies of antebellum America. HBCUs emerged as collaborations between existing, Black-led educational efforts, investment from non-Black donors and organizations, and financial support from government entities. Historical records describe the complicated relationship between Black-led educational initiatives and the American infrastructure; the timeline of Black education is saturated with systemic and state-supported racism. Thus, HBCUs served as unique institutional spaces in the landscape of 19th-Century America. This qualitative study uses interviews and open-ended survey responses to investigate how HBCU alumni interpret the pedagogical practices they experienced at predominantly Black institutions. It examines historical documents to uncover the relationship between the Africana intellectual genealogy accumulated in communities of African descent—before the formulation of HBCUs—and the subsequent founding of these institutions. Through a comprehensive exploration of the academic journeys of HBCU alumni of African descent, this study articulates and defines academic success within the context of predominantly Black institutions. Following an Unbroken Genealogy Approach, this investigation uses the Africana Studies Conceptual Categories as a framework to explore academic success at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The findings suggest that students of African descent who matriculate at HBCUs benefit from the intellectual genealogy of these institutions. The accumulated ways of knowing that impact teaching and learning at HBCUs contribute to an evolving intellectual genealogy that precedes the formation of these institutions. This research establishes the need for detailed historical examinations of every HBCU to explore their earliest foundations, chart their intellectual genealogy through previous and contemporary faculty, investigate the academic experiences of their alumni and current students, and establish how the institutional ways of knowing contribute to the collective narrative of people of African descent. / Policy, Organizational and Leadership Studies