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.

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No description available.

The subject of dance and injury has become an increasingly important area of study for sports medicine, education, and dance studies. However, the majority of current research focuses on professional dancers or pre-professional dancers in a conservatory training context. The research typically overlooks dancers in a university setting who pursue baccalaureate-level dance programs. This small-scale research study therefore focuses on collegiate dancers in their first year of study in a liberal arts dance program. As this population often sustains injuries, the thesis project seeks to examine the management of injury strategies and to create injury prevention guidelines for the liberal arts dance department, its dance classes, and a hypothetical syllabus for a first-year injury prevention course. The research methodology adopts three approaches: a survey of the incoming freshman dance class at Temple University; a detailed study of six previously or currently injured dance students through interview; and a critical assessment of the research on dance injury. The injury prevention guidelines developed from the student injury surveys, interviews, and assessments will focus on basic, yet essential, information regarding injury management and misconceptions, and the guidelines will prepare collegiate-level dancers for future injury challenges they may face. / Dance

Accreditors and administrators have begun to focus on general education with an eye to improvement. One of the most valued, but difficult to assess, learning outcomes in general education is critical thinking. Critical thinking is thought to play a role in student engagement and positive student learning outcomes. This study examined students' acquisition of critical thinking skills in a required general education great books course at a large, mid-Atlantic, Research I university with a high transfer-in population. Student interviews, class observations and document analysis were employed in the study. Specific attention was paid to dialogic learning, as Vygotsky's theory of social learning and the theory of student engagement underpinned the study. This study found that critical thinking learning goals were not communicated to the students explicitly through the syllabus. Only 20 percent of the students in the class reported acquiring critical thinking skills. All of those students were female transfer students. Many students described the class as outside their primary educational interests. Those who acquired critical thinking skills were more likely to be active participants in the class, value professor-student conferences and have a strong academic support network. Social interaction contributed to students' acquisition of critical thinking skills in this class. Future assessment of critical thinking will depend on a clearer definition of the concept. General education programs and courses that link social interaction and the acquisition of critical thinking skills are worthy of further study. / Educational Leadership

Transition from the college classroom to the workplace requires certain job knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs). How and where the New Employee acquires these KSAs is mired in the transition between education and the world-of-work. This dissertation informs the college-to-work transition process through the experiences of college graduate liberal arts majors and of those responsible for integrating the new employees into the organization. Three new employees and two managers working on information technology products and services in a major corporation were interviewed. A grounded theory approach was used to discover patterns in the data. This method allowed the researcher to inform the complexity of the college-to-work transition process. The researcher discovered a naturally evolving process dominated by informal learning that new employees used to learn about the culture and the specific job skills need in the corporation. In many ways, the participants had evolved a process similar to the apprenticeship system of the middle ages. / Ed. D.

Thesis advisor: Stephen Pfohl / This thesis aims to answer the question: How does a student decide on which major they declare? Can their major and the reasons for choosing it lead to feelings of regret? The survey and interviews use the reasons of passion, financial stability/job opportunity, parental influence, societal/friend influence, representation in the media, and pursuit of higher education to discover why students declare their major, and what majors lead to the highest regret rates. This research is written from the perspective of Boston College seniors because they are on the precipice of graduation, about to start their first entry-level job or pursue higher education, and have fully completed their curriculum at BC. The research was conducted using a multitude of sociological theories including decision-making theory, career choice theory, gender socialization theory, and cultural capital theory. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. Morrissey School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology. / Discipline: Departmental Honors.

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.

This is a case study of the historical development of a private Christian faith-based school of higher education in post-Soviet Russia from its conception in 1990 until 2006. This bi-national school was founded as the Russian-American Christian University (RACU) in 1996. In 2003, RACU was accredited by the Russian Ministry of Education under the name Russko-Americansky Christiansky Institute. RACU offers two state-accredited undergraduate academic programs: 1) business and economics, and 2) social work. RACU also offers a major in English language and literature. The academic model of RACU was designed according to the traditional American Christian liberal arts model and adapted to Russian higher education system. The study documents the founding, vision, and growth of RACU. It provides insight into the academic, organizational, and campus life of RACU. The study led to the creation of an operational framework of the historical development of RACU. The study also provides recommendations for the development of new Christian liberal arts colleges and universities based on the experience and the underlying structure of RACU.

The purpose of this study was to identify indicators of quality for liberal arts colleges and universities as defined by internal and external constituents, and to compare the results of this study with those of two-year public institutions. The internal constituents included college and university presidents and faculty, and the external constituents consisted of officers of Chambers of Commerce and the Kiwanis International, representing business and industry. A survey instrument of 70 items was sent to the constituents of 148 institutions accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. A total of 592 surveys were sent with an average response rate of 56.93%. The study was limited to Baccalaureate (Liberal Arts) Colleges I and Baccalaureate (Liberal Arts) Colleges II according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. There were 57 survey items identified as indicators of quality by agreement of all respondent group means. The highest ranked indicator of quality was faculty commitment to teaching. The Analysis of Variance revealed close agreement by constituents on 17 of the quality indicators. There was close agreement also that three of the survey items were not indicators of quality. Fisher's Multiple Comparison test revealed that various constituents rated some survey items significantly higher than all other groups. The items that presidents, faculty representatives, and Chamber of Commerce officers each rated significantly high indicated the unique perspective of each constituent group. The Kiwanis officers responded similarly to the Chamber officers but did not rate any survey items significantly higher than other groups. Internal constituents rated seven items significantly higher than external constituents. These items centered mainly on faculty characteristics. External constituents rated three items higher than internal constituents. These survey items focused mainly on curriculum issues that related to the community and real-world problems. Seventeen conclusions were drawn from the study and implications for practice were formulated in areas such as faculty teaching, student interaction, learning outcomes, institutional effectiveness, external constituents, goal setting, advertising, and recruiting.