This dissertation is composed of three essays dealing with renewable energy generation and the demand-side management (DSM) of electric utilities. The first two essays tackle small-scale and large-scale supply of electricity from renewable sources. The third one looks into the implications of context and ownership form of electric utilities for DSM. Understanding the politics and policy of renewable energy generation and the performance of DSM programs is the overall theme of this dissertation. The first essay highlights the role of local governments in institutionalizing distributed renewable energy generation by leveraging their authority on land use to permit small-scale systems located at customer site. It examines the factors shaping policy adoption on distributed renewable energy generation through the lens of transaction-cost politics. It teases out the political exchanges and the attendant transaction costs arising from adopting a policy on distributed renewable energy generation. It examines the transaction resources that enable actors to overcome these barriers. The second essay focuses on renewable energy generated by investor-owned utilities. It examines the transaction costs salient to large-scale renewable energy generation in regulated and deregulated states. It contends that renewable energy generation varies in the way the policy environment shapes the transactions of actors and the way they deal with transaction costs. Transactions are specific to the characteristics and location of large-scale systems, the community being served, the political institutions present, and the policies being implemented. Geographic Information System (GIS) is used to delineate the service areas of investor-owned utilities as spatial units of analysis. Spatial regression analysis is applied to account for the idiosyncratic nature of electricity supply and the legacy system of vertically integrated utilities. The third essay examines the contextual drivers that affect the performance of DSM programs, that is, the energy efficiency gains of municipal-owned utilities (MOUs) and electric cooperatives. These factors include the demographic profile and housing stock that characterize the utilities' service territories, and the environmental constituencies, political support, and energy-related polices operating in those areas. This essay complements existing literature on DSM and energy use, which has largely focused on rationalist models and pro-environmental behavior of individual consumers. It also looks into how the ownership form of electric utilities affects the relationship between these contextual drivers and energy efficiency gains. Focus is on MOUs and electric cooperatives since DSM programs generally reside in these utilities and are not implemented by third-party entities. MOUs and electric cooperatives are similar in size and scope but differ in ownership form, governance structure, and internal controls. / A Dissertation submitted to the Reubin O'D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2014. / June 23, 2014. / Demand-Side Management, Electric Utilities, Land Use, Regulation and Deregulation, Renewable Energy, Transaction Costs / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Tingting Zhao, University Representative; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.

The rapid growth of magnet schools in the 1980s introduced the first widely adopted form of public school choice in the United States. Magnet-based choice was supported as a way to expand school choice options for parents, to bring innovation through specialty schools and programs, and to promote racial integration voluntarily. Prior to studying the impact of magnet school choice, I examined the role of racial and economic segregation issues in Florida public school systems to understand the background of magnet school policy adoption, to recognize how the impact of magnet school policy has changed, and to discern what role magnet school policy has played in the public school system. Thus, this dissertation examines the impact of magnet schools on the K-12 public school system in Florida as well as the impact that magnet schools have on two important goals in public education reform--higher student academic performance and racial desegregation--using the lens of school choice theory on a market competition approach to public policy. In order to investigate policy impacts more precisely, this study measures school choice policy impact in three ways 1) by policy adoption, 2) by degree of school choice availability, and 3) by degree of policy involvement. Specifically, to assess racial desegregation, this study uses several measurements such as the dissimilarity index (DI), standard deviation and the interracial exposure index (EI) to examine magnet school impact on racial desegregation at the level of both school and school district. To study student academic performance, this study uses Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) scores to examine magnet school impact on student achievement. In addition to studying magnet schools by themselves, this study also examines the combined impact of charter and magnet school policy adoption on these two outcomes in Florida public school districts. I use four data sets for this study. The Common Core Data (CCD) is from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The lsat three datasets-- the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) data; the Florida School/District Indicators Report Data (FSID/FDID); and the Master School Identification (MSID) Data--are all from the Florida Department of Education (FLDoE). The study covers the years 2005-2011, and examines elementary, middle and high school levels. First of all, this study shows demographic trends in magnet, charter and TPSs, by school levels. In Florida, the numbers of students enrolled in magnet schools are increasing steadily, but student enrollment in TPSs is decreasing at all school levels. Generally White students decreased in all districts at all school levels, but Hispanic students increased in all districts at all school levels. The percentage of White students shows the highest percentages in districts without any school choice policies, while the percentages of Black and Hispanic students show the highest percentages in districts with both school choice policies. Student test scores in reading are the highest in districts with magnet school choice policy at all school levels, and student test scores in reading are the lowest in districts without school choice policy at all school levels. Student test scores in mathematics show the same results as the reading test results. However, after controlling for student characteristics, school and teacher characteristics, and district characteristics, the adoption of school choice policy has a negative influence on student performance at all school levels and in both of the subject fields of reading and mathematics, except for the reading score at the elementary level. This study shows the impacts from both magnet and charter school choice policies by utilizing a greater number of measures than prior research. Overall, school choice policy does not have a positive impact on either student performance or racial segregation. Rather, school choice policy has a negative impact on student performance, and charter school policy exacerbates racial segregation in school districts. This study also found that charter school policy exacerbates racial segregation in school districts, and magnet school policy has a significant positive impact on school segregation after controlling for district income inequality, economic status, demographic characteristics and district size. When considering that the use of magnet school policy has the purpose of racial desegregation, however, the impacts from magnet school policy are slight and marginal in Florida school districts. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2014. / March 21, 2014. / Charter School, Magnet School, Racial Segregation, School Choice, Socio-Economic Segregation, Student Performance / Includes bibliographical references. / Frances Stokes Berry, Professor Directing Dissertation; Koji Ueno, University Representative; Richard C. Feiock, Committee Member; Keon-Hyung Lee, Committee Member.

Procurement is a vital activity of all levels of government. Technological innovations in public procurement such as purchasing cards (P-cards) and e-technology have made public procurement more efficient and have been oft-studied. However, social innovations, like environmentally preferable procurement (EPP), have not been widely examined for either their antecedents or outcomes. The purpose of this study is to assess how prevalent green procurement practices are in American counties and to try to identify some of the antecedents associated with environmentally preferable purchasing. One hundred and seventy four American counties were randomly selected based upon population and their websites were reviewed according to an index that recorded evidence of green purchasing practices, including having a written green purchasing policy, using eco-labels and/or green specifications in their bids, and whether or not they communicate a preference for green products to their vendors. This information was regressed against factors such as population, wealth, environmental interest group presence, membership in professional organizations, and whether or not the county has a sustainability office. The findings indicate that population, wealth, interest group presence, and having a sustainability office are all significantly and positively associated with green purchasing practices. The study also revealed that, while antecedents could be identified, the average county in this study had less than one item on the index. The implication is that there are still barriers to green purchasing practices that may only be fully understood through qualitative methods. / A Dissertation submitted to Reubin O'D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2014. / March 19, 2014. / Includes bibliographical references. / W. Earle Klay, Professor Directing Dissertation; Larry Giunipero, University Representative; Frances Berry, Committee Member; Ralph Brower, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.

In a recent conception, Frumkin (2002) identified expressive and instrumental activities as distinct functions of nonprofit/voluntary organizations, employing them as one component of a two-dimensional classificatory scheme to frame the conceptual universe of nonprofit/voluntary sector activities. The first dimension in this model is "supply" versus "demand." The second dimension in this model is "expressive" versus "instrumental." (Frumkin, 2002, p. 22). At one end of this dimension is the notion that nonprofit/voluntary organizations serve an instrumental purpose in meeting needs that the community values. At the other end of this dimension is a justification for these organizations in that they provide an expressive outlet for participants' commitment to particular values and beliefs. Our study extends and elucidates the expressive-instrumental dimension. This study explores three research questions. (1) What are the expressive and instrumental dimensions in nonprofit and voluntary organizations, and what forms do these activities take in nonprofit and voluntary organizations? (2) What is the relationship between the expressive and instrumental dimensions? (3) How do nonprofit and voluntary organizations manage the expressive and instrumental dimensions in order to survive and grow? How are these two dimensions managed in successful practices? Qualitative grounded analysis is adopted. Data are collected through long interviews. The data reveal tension between the expressive energy and various instrumental features across levels of analysis among different actors. First is a tension between individuals' expression and individual self-interested needs. Individual expression is demonstrated by volunteering, lower financial compensation, and contribution to the community, which is in contrast with individuals' actions to satisfy self-interests that are rational, purposive, transactional and instrumental. A second tension is demonstrated between organizations' expressive institutional features, defined as localism, autonomy, and a growth dynamic, and the instrumental institutional features of the government funders, including public accountability and procedures. A third tension is between the inner need to thrive driven by organizational expression and external private resource suppliers' instrumental, self-interested, rational, and limited support. Fourth, we describe tension at an inter-organizational level and a macro environmental level. Organizations compete with each other for limited resources in order to avoid elimination. Organizations also cooperate to maximize capacity and consolidate resources and achieve shared expressive ends – serving the community and values and beliefs. Finally, the study illustrates exogenous forces from macro environmental factors including popular culture, government policy orientation, and changing demographics, which also impose instrumental force on organizations. These four tensions share a common theme -- that is, how organizations' expressive nature accommodates the instrumental features from various sources: individuals, government, private resources, the "market," and macro external factors. Upon this common theme, we induce the theory of adapted origin of nonprofit and voluntary organizations, which states that the life of nonprofit and voluntary organizations are determined by the level of adaptation of the expressive dimension to the instrumental dimension. The theory suggests that, in contrast to Mark Granovetter's notion of embeddedness, refering to economic actions as embedded in social relationships (1985), we discover "adaptiveness," which describes how expressive actions are adapted to instrumental relationships. Also associated with social origins theory, the adapted origin theory takes a micro organizational analysis approach, while the social origins theory takes a national level approach. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Reubin O’D Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2008. / May 5, 2008. / Chinese Ethnic Organizations, Expressive Dimension, Instrumental Dimension, Voluntary Organizations, Nonprofit Organizations, Adapted Origin Theory / Includes bibliographical references. / Ralph S. Brower, Professor Directing Dissertation; Petra Doan, Outside Committee Member; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member; Mary E. Guy, Committee Member.

This study explores the relationship between social capital and police performance. Since substantial academic interest in social capital emerged, many studies demonstrate that social capital has a significant influence on social and political outcomes. Despite the renewed interest in examining the role of social capital in the field of public safety, critics have pointed to several limitations: (1) the ways in which social capital variables are defined and measured; (2) the ways in which police performance variables are defined and measured; (3) the lack of specific theoretical propositions linking these two constructs; and (4) the lack of empirical work at the city level. This dissertation addresses these limitations by modeling causal mechanisms linking eleven dimensions of social capital and four types of police performance using two competing explanations: citizen demand and citizen supply. According to citizen demand explanations, communities with high social capital are more likely to demand that their police departments do the job more efficiently and more effectively. Citizen supply explanations, however, suggest that social capital may facilitate informal social control mechanisms to reduce crime and delinquency. The divergence lies in the way the two explanations see citizens' roles in police duties, as demanders or co-producers of public goods and services. Based on these two streams of explanations, this study proposes eight testable hypotheses regarding the relationships between social capital and police performance and employs ordinary regression analysis (OLS). In addition, in order to take into account potential endogeneity problems between social capital and outcome-related police performance, this study also proposes four non-recursive models and employs a two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression analysis. To measure each of the constructs of social capital and police performance, this study uses the data of the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey by Harvard University, the Uniform Crime Reports of the FBI, and the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, yielding a cross-sectional data set with 44 U.S. cities in the year 2000. This study presents theoretically and practically significant implications regarding the causal relationships between social capital and police performance. First, the findings support the multi-dimensionality of social capital and show that the results of the analyses are mixed with regard to each of the four types of police performance. These findings are contrary to the traditional wisdom that social capital is equally positively related to any type of government performance in general and police performance in specific. Second, the results of the analyses with the disaggregated four types of police performance variables show that social capital is a useful concept for explaining the different levels of outcome for police performance across local police departments, yet less useful a concept for explaining the efficiency within government bureaucracy. Third, with regard to causal mechanisms, there are no overarching theories which account for every performance practice in police administration. For outcome-related police performance, social capital may work; for output-related police performance, it may not. Lastly, the non-recursive analyses further underscore the complexities of the interrelationships between the dimensions of social capital and police performance. The results of the study also have some important implications. First, the findings, in general, suggest that police administrators should think more about their relationship with citizens and consider citizens as consumers as well as co-producers of public safety. Second, this study also reinforces the basic tenet of community policing strategies, suggesting collaborative partnership between police and citizens. Third, this study provides an opportunity to rethink the criteria for the success of police service effectiveness or performance, and suggests that there is no one explanation for the effect of social capital on police performance. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Public Administration and Policy in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2010. / March 22, 2010. / social capital, police performance, crime rate, clearance rate, citizen complaints, citizen trust / Includes bibliographical references. / Frances Stokes Berry, Professor Directing Dissertation; Charles J. Barrilleaux, University Representative; Robert J. Eger, III, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.

One hundred and one American counties were selected randomly within predetermined strata and used to study the extent of use of e-government technologies. The study design was cross-sectional and the time period of the study was a single year, 2006. Each website was analyzed to obtain an e-government utilization score. The research objective of this dissertation was twofold: First, to develop an up-to date and comprehensive index of e-government utilization, to be used to evaluate the extent of e-government utilization in county governments. The second objective was to identify the characteristics of those counties that are associated with more extensive utilization of e-government technologies. Counties' use of e-government technology was evaluated using four different levels of utilization; publish, interact, transact, and integrate. This study found that most of the sampled U.S. counties used the web only to publish information and to provide basic unsophisticated services. It was found that counties with larger populations, those in which employees were more professionally oriented toward communicating with citizens, and those that did Information Technology (IT) planning make greater use of e-government technology. This study found that neither population size nor local per capita wealth is an impediment for extensive use of e-government technology. It seems that within every county that utilizes e-government technology well there is a story as to why that has happened. The most important implication of this study is that the story seems to be related to professionalism. To tell the stories as to how e-government utilization emerges especially in local governments, the quantitative analysis of this study needs to be followed by good qualitative research. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2007. / April 6, 2007. / IT, American Counties, E-Government Index, Social Capital, Local Government, County, E-Government / Includes bibliographical references. / William Earle Klay, Professor Directing Dissertation; J. Anthony Stallins, Outside Committee Member; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member; Samuel M. McCreary, Committee Member.

This research draws from new institutionalism and organizational behavior to address questions regarding how self-managed work teams (SMWTs) are diffused among jurisdictions and how effective they are when adopted. This work first reviews a diverse set of public management literature that comprises the state of knowledge about the diffusion and effectiveness of self-managed work teams. On this foundation, a conceptual model of the combination of self-managed work team diffusion and effectiveness is developed that includes the diffusion model of self-managed work teams and the effectiveness model of self-managed work teams. National survey data from a sample of 204 municipal governments are analyzed from the institutionalism perspective. The question, "why do organizations use self-managed work teams?" is explored using the logit regression method. Another set of national survey data from a sample of 176 participants in self-managed work teams is analyzed from the organizational behavior perspective. This analysis explores how workers perceive the effectiveness of self-managed work teams by using the structural equation modeling method. The key findings of this dissertation include the following: professional networks and city employees' shared belief in service quality increases the likelihood of using self-managed work teams. Also, the empirical findings reveal that the level of teamwork has a positive direct effect on all three dimensions of effectiveness (i.e., job satisfaction, resource attainment, and team performance). The level of self-management, however, is positively directly related only to resource attainment. This work contributes to public sector scholarship and practice. In the realm of new institutionalism, the key gap this effort helps to fill is the empirical specification of the diffusion of organizational practice. From the perspective of organizational behavior, the contribution of this work is the development of a key aspect of a more realistic model of the effectiveness of self-managed work teams. Further, the findings of this project imply that sophisticated, professional management can improve the effectiveness of organizational practice. The teamwork factor, better described as 'esprit d'corps', is a more powerful tool to increase organizational effectiveness than the self-management factor. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Reubin O’D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2006. / March 1, 2006. / Organizational Effectiveness, Organizational Behavior, SMWT, Self-Managed Work Teams, Team Effectiveness, Diffusion / Includes bibliographical references. / Mary E. Guy, Professor Directing Dissertation; John K. Mayo, Outside Committee Member; Ralph S. Brower, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.

This dissertation examines the process of informal situated learning and conscientization in a Florida coastal community that faced rapid environmental change from 1989 to 2003. By examining this poorly understood process of learning in the face of sudden and sporadic (lurching) change, and transformational change, I clarify those conditions and characteristics that fostered learning and the process of individual and collective conscientization. The study period encompassed the closure of local oyster harvesting areas, the decline of the oyster industry, the Florida net ban and decline of commercial net fishing, the collapse of wild clam harvesting in the state, and the emergence of clam farming. Two theories, panarchy developed by the Resilience Alliance (1999) and Gunderson and Holling (2002) and communities of practice developed by Lave and Wenger (1991), provided a conceptual framework for the study. I used an ethnographic approach, conducted life-learning interviews, and shared transcriptions with participants to foster conscientization. Direct and participant observations were made, and documents were collected. I used the constant comparative method to analyze data, mapped social ties and stakeholder characteristics. Data were plotted spatially and temporally to determine conditions and characteristics affecting learning and conscientization. Interaction, communication and collaboration increased during the adaptive phase of reorganization, fostering intense learning and innovation. Individuals – primarily women – denied ready access to resources by cultural structures and/or environmental events were involved in conscientization first. The participation of greater numbers of women and outsiders in clam farming during the adaptive phase of reorganization modified cultural structures and patterns of interaction with the social and bio/physical environment. Women (many former oysterers) and outsiders were able to play an influential role in collective conscientization through the retelling of their personal experiences. As the community of practice moved into the adaptive phase of utilization, cultural structures and patterns rigidified and learning slowed. Decreased access to resources due to steeper hierarchical structures perpetuated the process of conscientization. A series of crises accelerated the process. I found that individual conscientization occurred when individuals perceived action was in their best interest. I also confirmed that individual conscientization is a prerequisite for collective conscientization. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Education Foundations and Policy Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2003. / October 6, 2003. / Panarchy, Environmental Change, Communities Of Practice, Conscientization, Informal And Nonformal Learning, Aquaculture / Includes bibliographical references. / Vandra Masemann, Professor Directing Dissertation; Rebecca Miles, Outside Committee Member; Peter Easton, Committee Member; Steven Klees, Committee Member; Karen Monkman, Committee Member.

A nursing home includes a mixture of for-profit, nonprofit, and government-owned organizations as service providers. These organizations compete with each other to provide a better service quality. Thus, the nursing home service provides a good domain in which to compare the relative quality of services provided by these three different organizational ownerships. The existing empirical literature on the effect of ownership type on nursing home quality has suffered from lack of a theoretical framework and a systematic comparison of their relationship. This study addresses these gaps in the literature by providing a structure, process, and environment (SPE) framework and by comparing the relative influences of different organizational ownerships on nursing home quality. The data for this study was obtained from the Online Survey Certification Reporting (OSCAR) system database, the Minimum Data Set (MDS) repository, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Thirteen thousand six hundred eleven nursing homes were finally used for analysis after the data was cleaned. Based on theoretical knowledge of organizational ownership and literature reviews on the relationships between ownership type and nursing home quality, I developed 16 hypotheses and tested them with multiple regression models and linear structural equation models. The key findings of this study are that the SPE framework provides a useful tool for explaining nursing home quality, and nonprofit nursing homes have a higher quality than for-profit nursing homes in a regression analysis measured by a dummy variable. In particular, nonprofit nursing homes have a stronger influence on environmental factors than for-profit nursing homes. But, the nonprofit nursing homes do not have superiority to the for-profit nursing homes in process factors measured by nursing care deficiencies and physical restraints. Considering that these process factors lead to improve service quality through adequate nursing care, effective strategies of nonprofit nursing homes for improving the process factors are required. This study also examines the influence of nonprofit nursing homes on for-profit and overall nursing home quality by investigating an increase in nonprofit market share. As a result, the study finds that the increase in the nonprofit market share has a positive effect on both for-profit and overall nursing home quality. This result implies that a competitive spillover effect from the nonprofits leads to higher quality by encouraging the service improvement of for-profit nursing homes. As another significant finding, this study concludes that there are positive and negative effects of intersectoral competition among different organizational ownerships. While such competition has a beneficial effect on service quality by facilitating a profit motive in for-profit nursing homes, excessive competition may weaken nonprofits' ability to serve a socially-beneficial role in nursing home services. As a result, market competition does not always have a positive effect on service quality. Its effect is varied by different organizational ownerships and different service types provided. This study has some limitations. First, the study measures nursing home quality with three quality measures: pressure sores, bladder or bowel incontinence, and urinary tract infections. But, it does not seem that they provide a comprehensive set of quality measures. Considering that the effect of organizational ownership on service quality produces different results with different quality measures, the selection of such comprehensive quality measures by some clear criteria would be necessary to understand fully the relationship between organizational ownership and nursing home quality. Second, this study examines the relationship between organizational ownership and quality with a nursing home service. While major findings of the study have important implications, it does not seem appropriate to apply these findings to all health care services. The nursing home industry may be less relevant for understanding broader trends in the health-care sector. Thus, future research needs to explore how the effect of organizational ownership is varied by different service areas such as economic services, social services, and health care services. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2006. / April 25, 2006. / Service Quality, Market Competition, Health Care Service, Organizational Ownership, Nursing Home, Nonprofit Organization / Includes bibliographical references. / Frances S. Berry, Professor Directing Dissertation; William G. Weissert, Outside Committee Member; Mary E. Guy, Committee Member; Samuel M. McCreary, Committee Member.

Distance learning components are being added to many undergraduate and graduate curricula in various academic fields. Nurse-midwifery has been a pioneering field in distance learning and the experiences of faculty and administrators with adding DL components to master's degree curricula provide insight for other administrators and faculty pursuing DL components for traditional master's degree programs. Through this study the researcher examined the conditions that facilitate the implementation of DL components into three master's degree programs in nursing. Faculty and administrator interviews were conducted and documents were analyzed through using NVivo 2.0 as a tool. Donald Ely's theoretical framework was employed, and findings indicate that the two most important conditions for implementing curricular change are Resources and Funding and Knowledge and Skills. The least important of the conditions was Incentives and Rewards for Participants. The study results show that there are similarities with the public universities which are divergent from the private university, which the researcher asserts relates to the differences in institutional missions. More research should be done with larger samples to determine the generalizability of these results across all specialty areas of nursing education as well as other academic fields. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring semester, 2004. / March 5, 2004. / Nursing Education, Organizational Change, Organizational Culture, Higher Education, Curriculum Change / Includes bibliographical references. / Dale. W. Lick, Professor Directing Dissertation; Anne E. Rowe, Outside Committee Member; Hollie B. Thomas, Jr., Committee Member; Beverly L. Bower, Committee Member.