<p> Recognizing that the percentage of females in NCAA Division I athletic department leadership positions lag far behind their male counterparts, this study sought to learn about the lived experiences of females who have reached a senior level, defined as associate athletic director and athletic director using narrative inquiry. </p><p> The purpose of this study was to record the lived experiences of senior-level women administrators in intercollegiate athletics. Data was gathered through in-person interviews. Participants were asked to describe the paths their careers have followed, including the factors, issues, and circumstances that they feel have shaped the process by which they made career decisions. </p><p> Four primary themes from the participants&rsquo; backgrounds and life stories emerged that influenced the paths of the participants&rsquo; careers. They were: (1) the willingness and desire to take on challenges and opportunities; (2) the importance of family considerations, (3) influence of support they received from colleagues and people they came in contact within athletics; and (4) the impact of lack of support they received from colleagues and people they came in contact within athletics during their careers. This study revealed the presence of a strong sense of efficacy within the participants, which influenced the persistence of the participants in pursuing this particular career path, even when faced with obstacles. Finally, these participants offered advice, based on their career experiences to other current and future female athletic administrators. Policy implications and recommendations for institutions and athletic departments are provided.</p><p>

<p> The issue of guns and gun control is very complex especially since the passage of Campus Carry Law in the state of Texas. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore how decision-making administrators at four nonresidential community colleges in South Texas implemented Campus Carry Law. This study further seeks to examine how 10 decision making college administrators at four nonresidential community colleges in South Texas found a balance between following the state law, respecting individual rights, and at the same time maintaining a safe and secure campus community. Using qualitative research methods, the collections of data was conducted through an in-depth, unstructured interview. Analysis of the data presented three super ordinate themes supported by eight subthemes. </p><p> The study, ultimately, concluded that participants found balance and made meaning of the law by being self-aware of the influential and conflicting inner perspectives. The study also found that one&rsquo;s positionality can bias one&rsquo;s epistemology and to remain neutral one must remain open minded. The study also found that participant&rsquo;s rationale to remain neutral helped make sense of the implications of the law and not have their personal feelings influence their decisions. Lastly, the study found that participant&rsquo;s knowledge, experiences, beliefs, and values as professionals constructed meaning to the challenges faced by the ambiguity of the law. While the findings of the study added to the literature on Campus Carry, Sensemaking, and Framing further qualitative studies are warranted. To gain an insight into the multifaceted perspectives of Campus Carry, sensemaking, and framing theory, the following recommendations for future studies include qualitative methods to inquire and uncover the perspectives of students, faculty, and staff regarding campus carry law; qualitative methods to inquire how institutional leaders make sense of reform demands and adapt them to their institutional environments, and qualitative research which will look at the mobilization of people into action through frame analysis.</p><p>

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy necessitated transformation within all sectors to ensure their appropriateness for the new democratic era. In line with the national transformation agenda and the transformation and restructuring of the higher education sector, the Minister of Education in 2002 announced that the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) would be the only enrolling institutions for undergraduate nursing education in the Western Cape. This decision meant that the University of Stellenbosch and the University Cape Town would no longer enrol undergraduate nurses, but would combine their strengths in a collaborative manner with UWC to train nurses for the region. The Cape Higher Education Consortium (CHEC), however, proposed the establishment of a Common Teaching Platform (CTP) for undergraduate nursing education in the region, requiring collaboration between all higher education institutions in the Western Cape. The Common Teaching Platform came into effect in 2005. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the regional collaboration on the Common Teaching Platform for B Cur Nursing in the Western Cape. An evaluation research design using qualitative methods was adopted for the study. Stufflebeam’s decision-oriented evaluation model, which caters for the evaluation of the context, input, process and product components of programmes, was used to guide the research process. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and a record review were used to collect data from the Chief Executive Officers of CHEC; Deputy Vice-Chancellors of the participating universities; Deans of the Health Science Faculties; Heads of Departments, Lecturers and Students of the Nursing Departments of the participating universities. The study adopted an inductive approach to data analysis. The inductive analysis procedure described by Thomas (2003) was adapted and used. The results evinced a general lack of application of the basic tenets of change management and a systems approach to the planning and implementation of the Common Teaching Platform. Transformation of nursing education in the Western Cape, according to the results, was in line with the national transformation agenda. Participants, however, felt that people were not yet ready to collaborate and needed enough time to accept the change, given that transformation was relatively new in the country. A critical finding was that important stakeholders were excluded from the planning phase, which led to challenges during the implementation of the Common Teaching Platform. The results further highlighted that a top-down approach was adopted. Numerous challenges with regards to the implementation of the Common Teaching Platform, including inter alia, poor communication, lack of commitment to the collaboration process, lack of adequate resources and challenges with the delivery of the curriculum, were shared by all the participants. Despite all these challenges the results showed that the student throughput rates were not compromised, and that the number of reported complaints from lecturers and students decreased over the years. On the whole, however, participants felt that the goals of the collaboration were not met due to the unresolved challenges which included inadequate resources, lack of sharing of resources and expertise across institutions, lack of commitment to participation on the CTP and failure to produce sufficient graduates to address the nurse shortage in the province. / National Research Foundation (NRF) and The Atlantic Philanthropies

<p> Contemporary higher education is becoming more diversified, both in student populations and the ranks of faculty and staff. However, that same level of diversification does not extend to the upper echelon of higher education administration. The following research examines African Americans in positions of higher education administrative leadership and the obstacles that prevent advancement to those positions. The study utilizes a qualitative ethnographic approach and examines the experiences and perceptions of 10 African American leaders in higher education. Their experiences and perceptions are analyzed with five themes ultimately emerging. These themes of 1) insufficient representation of African Americans in higher education administration, 2) insufficient opportunities for mentorship of African American administrators, 3) overall isolation of African American Administrators, 4) various socio-economic barriers that impede educational obtainment and career advancement, and 5) institutionalized cronyism and elitism that hinders promotion of African American administrators represent barriers or obstacles that hinder African Americans from ascending the ivory tower of higher education administrative ranks. The recommendations in this study include further research about African Americans in higher education administrative leadership. Further study may potentially aid in the creation of programs aimed at increasing the advancement of minorities in leadership roles at higher education institutions.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to investigate Historically Black College and University (HBCU) presidents&rsquo; perceptions of their role in preserving and promoting civic engagement at their institutions. HBCU presidents from six institutions with exemplary civic engagement initiatives responded to semi-structured interview questions. These questions were centered on identifying key factors and variables associated with how their institutions categorize civic engagement, and the degree to which civic engagement is integrated with their missions. A review of research confirmed a dearth of empirical studies about the leadership attributes of HBCU presidents and the extremely limited research on HBCU civic engagement. Because the phenomenon of HBCU civic engagement can be defined with complexity and contextualization, the study utilized a qualitative research design with two central research questions guiding data collection and analysis. The study examined the role HBCU presidents provide in the preservation and promotion of their HBCU's civic engagement mission. It also examined their perception of the value and impact civic engagement has on the overall success of students at these institutions. Coding analysis yielded three leadership strategies that HBCU presidents implement: presidential community presence; leveraged presidential influence; and community messaging congruence. The result of these three leadership strategies is a distinctive HBCU institutional responsiveness to Black communities. New terminology, liberation engagement, and a theoretical paradigm are offered to explain the unique civic engagement of HBCUs based upon presidents&rsquo; perspectives. Keywords: HBCUs, presidential leadership, civic engagement, HBCU students, HBCU community engagement, liberation engagement</p><p>

<p> Intercollegiate athletics have received considerable attention by scholars in higher education. Despite this wide treatment by scholars, there is little examination of the athletics director. Most of the published research on athletics directors disproportionately focuses on the responsibilities of the athletics director, the pressures of the leadership position, the characteristics and behaviors of these leaders, and the organizational culture of athletics departments. The purpose of this study was to investigate and gain insight into the environmental forces that disrupted and influenced athletics director leadership. This study explored how the participants understood, acknowledged, and reacted to forces that unavoidably influenced their choices. Particular attention was placed on comprehending how these individuals led change in their organizations while at the same time balanced the intersecting demands on their positions. </p><p> Qualitative research methods were used to explore the forces that influenced athletics directors at large, public and private research universities that were part of the NCAA and sponsor Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) or Division I-AAA (no football) athletics. A grounded theory methodological approach was used in the design and execution of this study. Using this method built theories through systematic stages of data analysis and conceptual development. The development of these concepts became the building blocks of theory,which explained the participants&rsquo; experiences as athletics directors. These findings offer insight into the forces that influenced athletics directors as they led change in their organizations.</p><p>

After almost two semesters as a graduate student at the University of Vermont, I decided that I wanted to do more in my second year of graduate school. It was through conversations with my colleagues that I determined that stepping out of my comfort zone of student affairs and looking into academic affairs would help develop me as not only a student affairs professional but as an educator as well. During the fall semester of 2016, I participated in an independent study where I served as a Teaching Assistant for a university diversity requirement course titled “The Political Economy of Race”. For this course I worked directly with a faculty member in the Department of Economics to cultivate a holistic classroom experience for the students in the course. Throughout the course of the semester, I was able to witness many different dynamics that were helpful to not only the students but to the professionals in the room as well. Upon completing the semester, I determined that I wanted to do more research and explore the benefits of collaborative partnerships between faculty and staff on college campuses; my focus for this research was to be around partnerships between professionals in student affairs and academic affairs. Although there has not been a lot of research around this particular topic in Higher Education, it is beginning to be studied as colleges and universities are expected to produce more valuable experiences for students. Through both research and experiential learning, I have found that there are benefits to collaborative partnerships between academic and student affairs in Higher Education as well as drawbacks to these partnerships. I have also made recommendations for future collaborative projects between faculty and staff as well as recommendations for future research in this area. Overall, there is value in the collaboration of student and academic affairs; however, it is the duty of Higher Education professionals to understand that value and work more collaboratively to ensure that students are served holistically.

This research study was designed to examine the relationship between globalization as measured by the KOF index, its related forces (economic, political, cultural and technological) and the public provision of higher education. This study is important since globalization is increasingly being associated with changes in critical aspects of higher education. The public provision of education was measured by government expenditure and educational outcomes; that is participation, gender equity and attainment. The study utilized a non-experimental quantitative research design. Data collected from secondary sources for 139 selected countries was analyzed. The countries were geographically distributed and included both developed and developing countries. The choice of countries for inclusion in the study was based on data availability. The data, which was sourced from international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank, were examined for different time periods using five year averages. The period covered was 1970 to 2009. The relationship between globalization and the higher education variables was examined using cross sectional regression analysis while controlling for economic, political and demographic factors. The major findings of the study are as follows. For the two spending models, only one revealed a significant relationship between globalization and education with the R2 s ranging from .222 to .448 over the period. This relationship was however negative indicating that as globalization increased, spending on higher education declined. However, for the education outcomes models, this relationship was not significant. For the sub-indices of globalization, only the political dimension showed significance as shown in the spending model. Political globalization was significant for six periods with R2 s ranging from .31 to .52. The study concluded that the results are mixed for both the spending and outcome models. It also found no robust effects of globalization on government education provision. This finding is not surprising given the existing literature which sees mixed results on the social impact of globalization.

For the past several years, U.S. colleges and universities have faced increased pressure to improve retention and graduation rates. At the same time, educational institutions have placed a greater emphasis on the importance of enrolling more students in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) programs and producing more STEM graduates. The resulting problem faced by educators involves finding new ways to support the success of STEM majors, regardless of their pre-college academic preparation. The purpose of my research study involved utilizing first-year STEM majors’ math SAT scores, unweighted high school GPA, math placement test scores, and the highest level of math taken in high school to develop models for predicting those who were likely to pass their first math and science courses. In doing so, the study aimed to provide a strategy to address the challenge of improving the passing rates of those first-year students attempting STEM-related courses. The study sample included 1018 first-year STEM majors who had entered the same large, public, urban, Hispanic-serving, research university in the Southeastern U.S. between 2010 and 2012. The research design involved the use of hierarchical logistic regression to determine the significance of utilizing the four independent variables to develop models for predicting success in math and science. The resulting data indicated that the overall model of predictors (which included all four predictor variables) was statistically significant for predicting those students who passed their first math course and for predicting those students who passed their first science course. Individually, all four predictor variables were found to be statistically significant for predicting those who had passed math, with the unweighted high school GPA and the highest math taken in high school accounting for the largest amount of unique variance. Those two variables also improved the regression model’s percentage of correctly predicting that dependent variable. The only variable that was found to be statistically significant for predicting those who had passed science was the students’ unweighted high school GPA. Overall, the results of my study have been offered as my contribution to the literature on predicting first-year student success, especially within the STEM disciplines.

abstract: Organizational classifications are critical to a wide variety of stakeholders. Within the domain of higher education, researchers use established classifications for sample selection or within empirical models to account for unobserved organizational characteristics. Colleges and universities, as well as their political principals, often use classifications to form peer-groups and reference sets through which organizational performance is assessed. More broadly, classifications provide aspirational archetypes to an organizational field. Using American higher education as the empirical context, this dissertation introduces Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) as a method to identify the structure of an organizational field and to classify organizations within this structure. Using measures of model fit and concerns for interpretability, this investigation determined that 13 distinctive organizational designs are present in the field of American higher education. Derived groupings are compared to the 2018 Basic Classification from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Opportunities and challenges for operationalizing this derived classification are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Public Administration and Policy 2020