This study serves the purpose of understanding presidential leadership and the forces that either restrain or influence their decision-making for change and adaptability at six small, private, liberal arts colleges (SPLACs) in Iowa. By utilizing a qualitative framework to gather knowledge utilizing Kurt Lewin’s Force-Field Analysis, this study provides current and future presidents with evidence of leadership challenges that are relevant to managing dynamic organizations. Three research questions directed this study: 1) What have been college presidents’ experiences leading small, private, liberal arts colleges in the 21st century?; 2) How accurate is Earl Cheit’s 1970s liberal arts assessment for Iowa’s small, four year, highly residential (S4/HR) college presidents in 2012, and what, if any influence, does it have on their decision-making and leadership?; and 3) Which driving and restraining forces impact presidential decision-making at these S4/HR colleges with regard to achieving sustainability of the liberal arts mission in the 21st century? Based on the participants’ responses, six themes emerged that identify the experiences and forces that impact these college presidents relative to their institutional environments: a) 21st century technology; b) curriculum expansion; c) consumer shifts and demands; d) demographic changes; e) affordability and financial constraints; and f) alumni, board, and donor support. Based on the data collected and analyzed, the results of this study show that for these S4/HR institutions in Iowa to stay competitive while addressing the influencing and restraining forces pertaining to their decision-making, presidents will have to develop new initiatives to address the following: an alternative financing formula for sustainable long-term budgeting through peer institutional collaboration and auxiliary services, curriculum expansion in high growth sectors, and endowment development; enhancement of partnerships among fellow undergraduate and graduate programs to institute and support a consortium network, including public/private partnerships among non-sector industries; increase of recruitment efforts to regional and national middle school students in growing demographic regions while enhancing program support for the growing nonwhite majority through specific targeting of high-growth zip codes around the country; working more intentionally among the Iowa Association for Independent Colleges and Universities (IAICU) to overcome the presumed misperception that a private liberal arts education is only for the affluent and highly talented; and being the leaders in renewing our country’s commitment to educational outcomes versus the commodification of the degree. Overall, while working to proactively solve these issues, these presidential participants have deep satisfaction in leading Iowa’s SPLACs. Although budgeting was discussed significantly, all six presidential participants were unable to provide a long-term alternative finance mechanism outside of the current practices of short-term tuition-discounting.

Using panel data from 31 small, liberal arts colleges from three academic years 2014-2017, I explore how the incidence of sexual assault is related to institutional characteristics. I use the number of sexual assaults per 100 students (sexual assault ratio) as my dependent variable and the following as my independent variables: total number of undergraduate students, female to male ratio, majority racial percentage, percent accepted, percent of students awarded financial aid, cost of attendance, religious affiliation, whether Greek life is available and racial percentages. I include racial percentages as additional independent variables in two of my regressions to analyze the relationship between these percentages and the majority racial percentage. Using a linear fixed effects model, it is concluded that increasing the total number of students, majority racial percentage, and cost of attendance decreases the sexual assault ratio of a college campus at a statistically significant level. Furthermore, using an OLS linear regression model to analyze cross-sectional college variation, I find that an increase in the total number of undergraduate students, female to male ratio, and percentage of students on financial aid is correlated with a decrease in the sexual assault ratio while an increase in the cost of attendance and percentage of White students is correlated with an increase the sexual assault ratio. If the impacts can be interpreted as causal, then the results of this study can help academic institutions understand how campus climate can affect the safety of their students and also assist college administrations with improving sexual assault prevention programs.

The problem which forms the basis of this study is one involving an investigation of the curricular offerings in the field of business in the liberal-arts colleges of Arkansas. The purpose of the investigation is to compare the growth of business offerings during the eleven years from 1936 to 1946.

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This study examines the music programs in liberal arts colleges through the historical lens of three Catholic Universities in the state of Florida. Although there are numerous historical dissertations and theses written about individual music schools and departments, and a few that compare music programs in similar types of institutions, none have compared music programs in Catholic universities within the same state. After teaching at Saint Leo University and experiencing the process of rebuilding a music program after it was almost completely lost in the mid-1990s, I wanted to study the histories of Saint Leo and other Florida Catholic institutions that have struggled through similar circumstances, but with very different outcomes. I examined each music program through interviews with past and current faculty, administrators, and students; archival documents; published histories; school newspapers and yearbooks; and local newspapers and magazines. I visited each campus, photographed the physical facilities, and observed faculty and students. Gradually the stories of three music programs emerged. By comparing the data from each institution I was able to address the following research questions: 1. When and how did each music program begin? 2. How did each one develop (i.e., organization, curriculum, faculty, facilities, performing groups)? 3. What are the relationships between the Catholic affiliation of each of these institutions and the development of their respective music programs/departments? 4. What role does music play in the overall vision of the universities and their development? 5. What are the implications of this study for music education in these and other liberal arts colleges?

This study aimed at filling in the gap in the literature by examining the organizational identity (OI) of a group of private not-for-profit liberal arts colleges (LACs) and their change and/or stability over time. The OIs were investigated by employing a qualitative content analysis for the strategic plans of eleven LACs over time. The selected colleges represented the distinctive characteristics of a LAC though they have made a critical organizational change by adding vocational programs to their curriculum. Findings indicated that the colleges have developed more complex dynamic OIs over time where both change and stability were interacting. Internal and external pressures shaped the organizational identities of the colleges. The colleges could remain some of their distinctive features while other markers of distinctiveness were less pronounced. OI, as a means to combine insights from the classic and new versions of institutional theory, could offer a fruitful link between the normative and the intraorganizational elements of this theory.

Thesis advisor: Rebecca Schendel / Over the past several decades, the number of students participating in international academic programming has increased drastically, having quintupled in from the early 1990s to 2017. Many of these students have participated in increasingly popular short-term programming models where students spend less than eight weeks in an international location doing academic coursework. Considerable research exists tying the participation in study abroad experiences to positive institutional and academic outcomes such as increased institutional retention and academic performance. Underrepresented in this literature is the impact these experiences have on smaller institutions, such as private liberal arts colleges, which are increasingly looking for ways to diversify themselves in a crowded educational marketplace. Using the case study of Moon Crest College, this quantitative study uses statistical and regression analysis to determine if participation in short-term study abroad experiences have a relationship with institutional retention and time-to-degree. This analysis finds at Moon Crest College a statistically significant relationship between participation in short-term study abroad experiences and graduating from the institution. This study found no clear relationship between participation in these experiences and time-to-degree rates at Moon Crest College. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between the retention rate and 9 firstyear student programs at Liberal Arts Colleges in the Mountain South, a region in the southern Appalachian Mountains of the United States. Nine first-year programs were studied: Summer Bridge Programs, Preterm Orientation, Outdoor Adventure Orientation, Targeted Seminars, Learning Communities, Early Warning/Early Alert Systems, Service Learning, Undergraduate Research, and Assessment. The data for this study were accessed via the college database of The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2013). Chi Square tests were used for analysis to identify associations between first-year student retention and the presence of each of the 9 programs. The results indicated that the presence of each of the 9 first-year programs was not significantly related to first-year student retention.

This study examined how four provosts dealt with a range of financially related problems to reposition their universities in the current higher education environment. The four provosts agreed to in-depth interviews. A quantitative profile of each institution was developed to provide a meaningful context for the interviews. All four universities benefited from a rising economy at the time, so the findings may not apply in different circumstances. The methods of the provosts fell along a continuum that linked three distinctive styles. Each institution began with an Analytic style that responded in a reactive way to the problems that demanded immediate attention. Two of the institutions exemplified this style. As one provost began to get control of issues, he began to examine how to prepare for the future. The combination of dealing with immediate issues and restructuring administrative decision-making was termed a Transition style. One provost functioned in a Strategic style; i.e., he had used opportunities to professionalize his staff to gather important data, use strategic indicators, and orient decision-making toward consolidating and enhancing the university's position. The role of stakeholders in the university changed as universities moved along the continuum. Faculty were very important and involved in the Analytic style, and critical to the survival of the university. Transitional style faculty objected to the change in mission as professional programs were added to the liberal arts curriculum, but generally supported redirection efforts. In the Strategic style, decisions tended to be data-driven and made by professional staff, with faculty having a limited role, if any, especially in long range planning. Administrators relied heavily on faculty in the Analytic style, and progressively less in the Transitional and Strategic styles. Recent Association of Governing Board positions suggest that trustees will impose mission and direction on administrators, so the balance among stakeholders in the university will continue to shift.