The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of customer service in higher education. Student perceptions of customer service were collected and examined through a survey instrument developed for this study. Two-hundred and seven participants completed the survey resulting in a 23% return rate.Freshmen students at Ball State perceive themselves to be customers entitled to a high quality service through both service areas and academic departments of a university. Results from the survey showed that a majority of the students believe they are the most important group of people at a university. In addition, over 90% believe a university's purpose is to serve students. Students reported they have experienced courteous and personalized service in both academic departments and service areas of a university. They also stated that customer service wasequally important in both academic and service areas of a university.When describing positive and negative interactions between faculty and staff, students' responses varied greatly. About half of the respondents reported experiencing positive interactions with both faculty and staff, while the other half, experienced negative interactions with both faculty and staff. When discussing negative interactions with both faculty and staff, some of the common themes included: rudeness, being treated like a child, individuals not knowing their names, and not having time to help them. On the contrary, the common themes with positive interactions included: politeness, being treated with respect, knowing names of the students and helpfulness. / Department of Secondary, Higher, and Foundations of Education

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe and report the relationship between teaching and research as experienced by twelve faculty members at a medium sized, doctoral granting, state assisted university in the Midwest. Research review revealed that the relationship between research and teaching in higher education was supportive, conflicting, or neutral (Marsh & Hattie, 1996).Twelve faculty members from five different departments at Teachers College participated in this study. Evidence was gathered using semi-structured interviews. Analysis of evidence revealed several findings.Faculty members in this study described activities needed to produce publishable research, which included participating in professional meetings (conferences, workshops, and seminars), contributing to professional associations, reading publications, and writing activities. Faculty members engaged in research projects, and worked with students on their dissertations and research papers. Many of faculty members' research ideas came from their reading and their participation in learning activities needed to produce quality teaching.In this study, faculty members reported that research and teaching were intertwined activities that produced two different products. Faculty members reported that some of the activities in both teaching and research were similar and overlapping. They found ways to make progress in both activities at the same time. The activities used to produce quality teaching were influenced by the demands of producing publishable research and vice versa.For faculty members, many of their activities as scholars produced both research and teaching. While teaching was identified as the highest form of scholarship, research was considered also an important form of scholarship. Scholarship includes discovery of new knowledge, looking for connections, and building bridges between theory and practice. Teaching is scholarship applied. / Department of Educational Leadership

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand how pre-tenure female faculty members perceived their socialization experiences into the culture of higher education. This study viewed higher education as a distinct culture where members underwent socialization processes such as enculturation and acculturation throughout the pre-tenure years. Participants were eight pre-tenure female faculty members from Midwestern land grant institutions. Women were interviewed for 90-120 minutes on one occasion. Data was analyzed using the Constant Comparative Method (CCM).The women's perceptions resulted in four emergent themes: Balance, Place, Support, and Trust. Balance contained the themes of Workload, including promotion and tenure and time, and Roles, including sub-themes of personal and professional roles. Place described women's feelings of fit regarding age, sex, their student response and their personal response to their culture. Support highlighted people, groups and mentoring perceived as influential in their socialization. Lastly, the theme of Trust emerged as a key element of their cultural understanding regarding higher education. These pre-tenure female faculty members perceived socialization as filled with incongruency, uncertainty and rejection, and political astuteness. The women felt incongruence in terms of their personal values and those values rewarded professionally. The women's socialization was shaped by uncertainty in the promotion and tenure process and in where to put their time and energy. In addition, the women described the need for political astuteness in their professional communications and actions during their pre-tenure years. These perceptions werefurther examined through post-colonial feminist theory. The emphasis post-colonial feminist theory places on power and voice in the historically male-dominated system of higher education informed the analysis. This led to the argument for Boyer's (1990) reconstruction of scholarship as an opportunity for women to become co-creators of an environment which better promotes congruency between their personal values with elements evaluated for professional success.Embracing Boyer's (1990) concepts for re-conceptualizing scholarship may offer a potential solution which would allow the women to experience more integrated lives instead of disparate circles of personal and professional activity. Integrated lives would ease their adjustment in these pivotal pre-tenure years. / Department of Educational Studies

This study is based on survey responses of 224 general chemistry instructors at United States (U.S.) community colleges and universities representing 46 states. The mean values of General Chemistry Topic Coverage (GCTC) score, developed by this researcher specifically for this dissertation study as a measure of course content, were statistically analyzed. The aim of this study is to answer five research questions: (a) Is there a difference in mean GCTC scores between U.S. community colleges and four-year colleges and universities? (b) If there is a difference in mean GCTC score between the two study groups, what are the observed differences in subtopics covered between community colleges and four-year colleges and universities? (c) Considering both community colleges and universities, is there a difference in mean GCTC score between the different designated U.S. regions? (d) Considering both community college and university professors, is there a difference in GCTC score for professors with a master's degree compared to those with a doctorate?, and (e) Is there a correlation between GCTC score and the percentage of students that major in science? Results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference in course content between community colleges and universities, there is a statistically significant difference between different U.S. regions, there is no statistically significant difference between professors with an earned master's versus those with an earned doctorate degree, and there is no statistically significant correlation between general chemistry course content and the percentage of a professor's students majoring in science. Details of the observed differences between community college and university course content are discussed, and recommendations for future research are presented.

This study employed a qualitative case study method to evaluate the efforts of one university to conduct hazard mitigation and disaster preparedness planning activities and used the Federal Emergency Management Agency framework and selected writings of sociologist and disaster researcher E.L. Quarantelli as models for evaluating the institution's approach. The institution studied was assigned a fictitious name and the identities of the study participants withheld in order to protect the integrity of the institution's planning efforts and its personnel. The study utilized a 92-item questionnaire, field interviews, and review and analysis of documentary materials provided by the institution for data collection purposes. Pattern-matching techniques were applied to identify themes and trends that emerged through the course of data collection. The results indicate the institution has developed an organizational culture that is broadly responsive to and engaged in disaster preparedness planning at multiple levels in a manner generally consistent with principles identified in select writings of Quarantelli. Results further indicate the institution has engaged in identifying hazard mitigation priorities but not in a manner consistent with that advocated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in its publication entitled Building a Disaster-Resistant University.

The purpose of this study was to determine international students satisfaction with regards to the education, services, and facilities at an institution of higher education. Results showed that most of the students were satisfied with the quality of programs at their institution.

The objective of this research was to describe the extent to which Gift Annuity Agreements were used by United States higher education institutions in raising private philanthropic support during the period 1988-93.

The first purpose of this study was to describe collegiate band members' preferred teacher interpersonal behaviors and perceptions of self-efficacy based on the gender, year in college, instrument, and major. The second purpose of the study was to measure the relationship between preferences of interpersonal teacher behavior and self-efficacy scores. The non-probability purposive sample (N = 1020) was composed of band members representing 12 universities from different regions of the United States. There were 4 large public, 4 small public, and 4 private universities that participated in the study. Participants completed 2 questionnaires, the Teacher Interaction Preference Questionnaire (TIPQ) and the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (SEQ). Descriptive statistics were calculated for each of the questionnaires. Results for the TIPQ showed that all sub-groups most preferred the dominant-cooperative behaviors, followed by submissive-cooperative behaviors, and least preferred the dominant-oppositional behaviors. Results for the SEQ showed subtle variations for all subgroups. Three Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were calculated to measure the relationship between the three teacher interaction styles (dominant-cooperative, submissive-cooperative, dominant-oppositional) and students' perceived self-efficacy. Due to the possible over-use of the data with multiple correlations, a Bonferroni adjustment was made to avoid a Type I error (.05/3 = .016). A significant positive relationship was found between self-efficacy and dominant-cooperative with 22% shared variance. A significant positive relationship was found between self-efficacy and submissive-cooperative with 7% shared variance. Finally, a significant positive relationship was found between self-efficacy and dominant-oppositional with 5% shared variance. This study's results indicate that it may be beneficial for band directors to measure students' preferences and perceptions of teacher interpersonal teacher behavior in order to find ways to interact better with the students. In addition, due to the relationship between students' preferences of teacher interpersonal behavior and perceived self-efficacy, collegiate band directors may wish to examine their own behaviors to determine how they align with the students' preferences.

Using case study methods, four crises that were reported in the past 36 months were examined to see if university officials modified established crisis communication plans to better respond to messages and rumors on social networking. Two of the crises dealt with safety issues and two were reputational crises designed to discredit the institution. Four communication professionals were also interviewed for their opinions about social networking use during crises. The study concludes that universities should adopt a social networking aspect into crisis communication plans, including preauthorizing specific types of messages to be released during the first few minutes of a crisis without review from higher administrators. A model of this new crisis communication plan is included. Social media use is also recommended during other stages of a crisis to better inform the community of what is happening on a campus.

Gendered organizational conditions create the context for persisting differences between men and women in the workplace. Within, higher education, this manifests as a salary gap between male and female faculty members. The academic capitalistic policy environment creates the conditions for increasing competition for external funding, especially in the areas of research and science and engineering. The change in the academic climate may sustain or intensify the gendering of universities as organizations. Universities with the highest level of research activity were chosen for this study and formed the 130 public institution sample. This study used fixed effects panel regression analysis to explore the relationship between the faculty gender salary gap and institutional emphasis on research as well as science and engineering. In addition, the relationship between institutional emphasis and the faculty gender salary gap was explored over time with the inclusion of a time trend and temporal interaction terms. Results showed that the higher the percentage of female faculty members, the greater the faculty gender salary gap for assistant professors. In addition, science and engineering emphasis over time had a significant impact on the professor salary gap with a decreasing effect both at the mean and one standard deviation above the mean, but with an increasing effect on the salary gap for institutions one standard deviation below the mean. When taking action to increase gender equity, it is important for universities to recognize that the faculty gender salary gap occurs in an organizational context impacted by institutional-level conditions.