acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

In 1990, two-year colleges nationwide reported that approximately 38% of their faculty were part-time. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics' (NCES) 1999 National Study of Post-Secondary Faculty (NSOPF), this percentage continues to rise, and currently exists at 40% or more in some two-year and four-year institutions. To retain competent, qualified, and successful teachers, it is critical for higher education administrators to determine factors that may contribute to part-time faculty's job satisfaction. This study investigated whether the use of instructional technology for curriculum delivery affected part-time faculty job satisfaction by investigating four specific areas that may be affected. The first component explored whether the use of a technology-based educational delivery system in higher education contributed to overall part-time faculty job satisfaction in and four- year institutions. The second examined whether the use of a technology-based educational delivery system in higher education contributed to the overall job satisfaction of part-time faculty in their first year of teaching. Third, it was the intent of the researcher to determine whether the use of a technology-based educational delivery system in higher education contributed to the overall job satisfaction of part-time male and female faculty. In the fourth component, by applying an adaptation of the Center for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC) curriculum classification scheme to group teaching fields, the researcher observed whether the use of a technology-based educational delivery system in higher education influenced the overall job satisfaction of part-time faculty in each teaching discipline. The results of this study confirmed in eight of the research questions the notion that the use of instructional technology when teaching had no effect on the overall job satisfaction of part-time faculty. Two areas of statistical significance evolve around the Computer Science and Social Sciences disciplines. Although both null hypotheses were statistically rejected, a closer look at both of these areas demonstrates the need for further understanding of their statistical significance. The results of this study demonstrate that during the moment in time when the 1999 NSOPF survey was conducted, instructional technology may not have been a large enough component in the total package of teaching deliverables to make a measurable difference in job satisfaction (NCES, 2005). This observation applies to most liberal arts teaching disciplines and affects the variables of gender, years of teaching experience, and type of institution equally with little exception.

This dissertation examines a curricular approach at an institution that claims to maintain a liberal arts focus – that of the canon of Great Books as implemented as a formal curriculum at St. John’s College. My research question is: what enabled the Great Books program at St. John’s College to survive for over seventy years? The significance of this question can be seen by noticing that St. John’s College is the only college in the United States to have exclusively adopted reading the Great Books as its four-year curriculum. Other institutions that have experimented with a Great Books program prior to and since its introduction at St. John’s College have continued their existing programs as well, but many have limited their Great Books efforts to an honors course or general core requirement, if their Great Books effort survives at all. My dissertation is historical starting with the influencing factors leading to this curriculum’s introduction at St. John’s College in 1937. I then outline the implementation and document the changes to the list of Great Books comprising the program as it was updated over the subsequent seventy years as documented in St. John’s College’s academic catalogs from 1937 through 2008. I show that the list of Great Books required to be read by every student over the years has contained a consistent core while making slight adjustments.

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 Negro's Place" examines the relationship between public education and urban development in twentieth-century New Orleans, arguing that the expansion of segregated public schooling eroded two centuries of residential integration and contributed to the disparate development of white and black neighborhoods. The study challenges the popular concept of "white flight" as an explanation for metropolitan change by demonstrating that school segregation, as well as reaction to desegregation, divided urban and suburban space along racial lines. It also inverts prevailing scholarly interpretations of this transformation, which emphasize that public and private manipulation of the housing market created the racially distinct communities that promoted and sustained segregated schools. Additionally, the dissertation's examination of schools, race, and space underscores the extent to which Jim Crow continued to evolve through a dynamic, oftentimes improvisational process during the twentieth century. Finally, it demonstrates that, even as public schools became the sites of courtroom and neighborhood battles over desegregation, they continued to tighten racial inequality in ways that contemporary activists and observers did not always recognize. Most significantly, in the decades before and after World War II, segregated schools created structural inequalities in housing that impeded desegregation's capacity to promote racial justice. / acase@tulane.edu

>Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Leadership Studies Program. James P. Hopkins, 2013. Applied Dissertation, Nova Southeastern University, Abraham S. Fischler School of Education. ERIC Descriptors: Undergraduate Study, Student Experience, Program Effectiveness, Program Evaluation, Leadership. This case study reported on the effectiveness of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies program of instruction at the University of Richmond. The research extended and replicates research of a similar nature completed by Brungardt (1997) at Fort Hays State University and Funk (2005) at Kansas State University. The study investigated if the academic programming was an effective change agent were the attitudes, behaviors, or knowledge of the graduating seniors affected, and, if so, how. The study also reviewed which curriculum components pedagogy, course content, or service learning were most effective. This mixed-methods study focused on the perennial question surrounding academically based leadership studies programs are they effective? While effectiveness and causation are the main themes of this research, the study also addressed the utility of mixed-methods research on leadership topics and the need for further research into programs offering leadership studies degrees. The results suggested that students changed by growing in leadership capacity and efficacy through their Jepson School academic experiences. Quantitative instruments reflect growth in leadership behaviors from the sophomore to senior years and an overall satisfaction with the Jepson academic programming. The qualitative instruments added weight and meaning to quantitative results by explaining program impacts and benefits from a student, alumni, and key staff perspective. The results of this study matched the results of previous research and suggested that academic leadership studies programs are effective change agents.

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.