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The intercollegiate athletic program for women at the University of Arizona evolved from a rich heritage of activities of dedicated sportswomen. The first provision for physical pursuits on the University of Arizona campus was made in 1895 when President Howard Billman hired Gertrude Hughes to teach physical culture. From that foundation in 1895, a fully developed intercollegiate athletic program for women has developed. This study focuses on the people and events which have shaped that program. Chapter Two provides a survey of the development of women's athletics programs in both institutions of higher education and the society at large with some attention to the history of women in America in order to form a context and comparative format for the Arizona program. Chapters Three and Four center on the administrative leadership of physical education and athletics for women at the University of Arizona. The influences of Ina Gittings, Marguerite Chesney, Mary Pilgrim, and Donna Miller are presented. Chapter Five focuses on the transition period from women's club sports to an intercollegiate athletic program for women, the impact ot Title IX on the development of that program, the merging of women's athletics with men's, and the role that Mary Roby has played in the development of the University of Arizona's women's intercollegiate athletic program. From its fledgling beginning, due to the contribution of people and events, the program has developed into one of the nation's finest from which highly successful individuals and teams have emerged. The present program offers to current highly skilled female athletes at the University of Arizona the opportunity for a qualitative athletic experience in which they can maximize their capabilities both as students and athletes.

This study identified factors contributing to Mexican-American student persistence in higher education. Tinto's model of student withdrawal was blended with Astin's theory of involvement in a theoretical framework that also gave special focus to hispanic and Mexican-American student concerns. The data consisted of unstructured interviews with a small sample of Mexican-American students at the University of Arizona. Content analysis was used to categorize the data and symbolic interaction theory was used for its interpretation. Findings about personal and institutional factors, were combined to understand persistence in the context of person/environment interaction. The personal factors influencing student persistence were "self," human support, financial adversity, commitment, acculturation, and gender differences; none of these factors stood alone, and each was present to some degree in each of the successful students. Commitment was the most important overriding theme in these personal factors. The institutional factors influencing persistence were academic preparation, use of student services, student/instructor interaction, and academic experiences. Symbolic interaction theory was the analytic framework used to interpret these factors of student persistence in the light of the meanings students attached to events in their college experiences. Empowering students to succeed is proposed as the organizing model for institutions to influence persistence.

The study, using a quasi-experimental design, examined the relationship between participation in a comprehensive pulmonary rehabilitation program, locus of control, and the psychological and social concomitants of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The study investigated the following questions. To what degree participation in a comprehensive pulmonary rehabilitation program emphasizing a psychosocial component would: (1) generally produce a shift in persons from an external locus of control toward an internal locus of control, (2) specifically decrease the perception of chance, fate, or powerful others to influence and determine personal health; and (3) will result in the lessening of perceived negative effects of the psychological and social concomitants of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Two sample groups were evaluated in the study: (1) a group of 35 moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients enrolled in a 96-hour comprehensive pulmonary rehabilitation program with a 32-hour psychosocial instructional component, and (2) a group of 35 moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients receiving standard medical care at a Veterans Administration Hospital. Research instruments used for the study were the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale and the Sickness Impact Profile. The research instruments were administered to each study group at approximately 16-week intervals. Results of the study indicated that participation in a comprehensive pulmonary rehabilitation program emphasizing a psychosocial component did not produce a significant shift in program participants from an external locus of control toward an internal locus of control, nor did it produce a significant decrease in the perception of chance, fate, or powerful others to influence and determine personal health. However, the study results indicated that participation in a comprehensive pulmonary rehabilitation program did produce a significant (P < .05) lessening of perceived negative physical and psychosocial effects of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as measured by the physical scale, psychosocial scale, and total score of the Sickness Impact Profile.

According to the five functions of academic advising as outlined by Morris (1973), this study investigates the specific academic advising needs of elementary education majors as perceived by elementary education students and faculty advisors at The University of Arizona. In addition, the unique advising needs of elementary education majors, those advising needs which are currently being met, and those advising needs which are not being met, are identified. Lastly, suggestions for improving the quality of academic advising for elementary education majors are examined. Twenty-five elementary education majors of senior standing admitted to the College of Education and twelve elementary education faculty advisors are individually administered an oral semi-structured questionnaire. Interview responses are categorized according to the five functions of academic advising, the unique advising needs of elementary education majors, advising needs which are currently being met, advising needs which are not being met, and suggestions for improving the quality of academic advising. The findings indicate that those advising needs which are specific to elementary education majors are contained within the functions of providing accurate information and long-range program planning. The advising needs identified within the functions of discerning the purpose of the institution, short-term course selection, and facilitating student development are generic in nature with no specific referent to teacher education. The unique advising needs of elementary education majors are identified as: (1) helping students to determine their suitability to the profession, (2) developing interpersonal skills, (3) developing communicative competence, (4) making decisions concerning program options, and (5) facilitating professional development. Advising needs which are being met are those related to program planning. Advising needs which are not being met are those related to determining suitability to the profession and facilitating professional development. Suggestions for improving the quality of academic advising for elementary education majors include the recognition of advising as a faculty priority and facilitating students' professional development needs. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI

The purpose of this research was to construct instruments to measure two personality variables that might explain individual differences in preventive behaviors for heart disease and to test the instruments for reliability and validity. The instruments were constructed to measure three concepts: health value orientations and perceived barriers and benefits to undertaking preventive behaviors believed to reduce one's risk for coronary artery disease. The concepts were components of the Preventive Behavior Model which was derived from social learning theory. Seventy-six subjects who had undergone a health screening program were tested. The testing session consisted of completing a Demographic Data Form which obtained information on smoking and exercise behaviors, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale, the Likert Barrier/Benefit scale (BASBES), and Likert Value Orientation scale (VOS), and five magnitude estimation scales. Reliability testing included both stability and internal consistency. Test-retest coefficients for the Barrier/Benefit subscales were .52 and .71, and ranged from .32 to .68 for the Value Orientation subscale variations. Test-retest coefficients for the magnitude subscales ranged from .67 to .90, indicating the scaling technique obtained more stable results. Both alpha and theta coefficients were calculated to estimate internal consistency of the Likert scales. Alpha coefficients were .81 and .80 for the Barrier and Benefit subscales respectively and theta was .82 and .81 respectively. Theta coefficients ranged from .46 to .72 for the Value Orientation subscale variations while alphas were much lower, evidence that the items were not parallel. Construct validity was estimated by principal components factor analysis and predictive modeling. The orthogonal solution for the Barrier subscale revealed two components of the concept were being tapped. One factor resulted from rotation of the Benefit subscale. Factor analysis results suggested that many of the items on the VOS were not tapping the concepts as theoretically predicted. Although rotation of the factors resulted in one meaningful factor for each subscale variation, only 40 to 80 percent of the items were loading on the factors as hypothesized. Predictive modeling using stepwise regression analysis indicated that six of the 12 variables tested were impacting on one preventive behavior (exercise) as theorized.

With a dwindling college-age population and a need to attract academically talented students, postsecondary institutions search for factors that influence college choice. The educational plans of two comparable groups of high ability Arizona secondary students were examined and compared using the Higher Education Orientation Inventory and personal interviews. One group of students consisted of high school juniors who participated in the University of Arizona Precollege Program for Gifted and Talented Students in the summers of 1981 and 1982. The Comparison Group students were selected from a group of the top ten percent of Arizona high school juniors from those same years. Factor analysis was utilized to answer major research questions about factors that affect a student's choice of a higher education institution. To examine the differences between the two groups, discriminant analysis was used. An open-ended question approach provided supplementary data from both groups. The majority of both groups of students favored the choice of a four-year university. It was found that students who participated in the University of Arizona Precollege Program rated that experience as more important in their institutional choice than did those students who did not attend this program. In a separate factor analysis, it was shown that the two groups appeared to differ on several choice factors. Only one pair of factors entitled "Academic Quality of the Institution" was found to be similar within the groups. Other important factors for both groups included "Social Components of the Institution", "Expenses and Financial Aid", and "Institutional Image". The largest discriminant difference between the two groups was with reference to the institution's precollege program. This supported the finding that there was a significant mean difference on which students rated the importance of a precollege program in institutional selection. The open-ended question approach indicated that important reasons for postsecondary choices were (1) location, reputation and size of the institution, (2) cost, and (3) program quality. Personal interviews emphasized the value of a precollege program in providing an introduction to college life and in building confidence about the forthcoming postsecondary experience.

Changes in retirement policy in the United States have affected management policies and practices in higher education. As a result of the 1978 amendments to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, mandatory retirement prior to age seventy is prohibited. The significance of this policy change has stimulated the development of innovative personnel and retirement policies in an effort to increase the number of "elective" early retirements. The purpose of this study was to assess whether particular departmental and individual characteristics had predictive power with respect to faculty decisions to retire early. Data sources were existing university administrative data files, combined with interviews from a random sample of seventy-two early retirees and eligible nonretirees. Results of the study are summarized below: (1) In general, demographic characteristics studied (age, sex, marital and health status, etc.) were not strong predictors of early retirement decisions among the respondents. (2) Faculty salary was not a strong predictor of early retirement behavior. (3) Self reported faculty productivity was a strong predictor of early retirement decision-making. (4) Job satisfaction variables were moderate predictors of early retirement decisions. (5) Departmental characteristics (governance, fit in the department, recognition and rewards, etc.) were strong predictors of faculty early retirement decisions. In the present study, multiple discriminant analysis identified thirteen variables that strongly discriminated between the early retiree and non-retiree groups. Analysis of the prediction function assisted in assessing the relative importance of these variables in distinguishing between the two groups, and may serve as a useful management tool in understanding motives for early retirement as well as identifying faculty who may be most (or least) likely to choose an early retirement option. The present study, by examining the joint influences of a wide variety of variables on the propensity to elect early retirement, helped reveal the complexity of the relationships, while seeking to parsimoniously characterize the key factors influencing these decisions.

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