This study was an exploration of the levels of computer literacy among two and four year college faculty. The purposes of this study were to (a) develop a valid and reliable instrument for assessing the levels of computer literacy among two and four year college faculty (b) determine whether or not levels of computer literacy exist among these faculty, and (c) investigate differences between demographic variables and the levels of computer literacy among these faculty.

The purpose of this case study is to explore how tenured women with children describe their experiences; to discuss what institutional structures and policies they identify as influencing their advancement; and to see what they identify as the benefits, rewards, challenges, and/or sacrifices related to having tenure. Ultimately, a collection of sensitizing themes and descriptions emerged. The intent was to better describe the specific experiences of women using an adult education theory that has a core emphasis on personal wellbeing and theoretical parameters for successful work-life negotiations. The journey for mothers who seek tenure is an arduous one. The benefits, rewards, challenges and sacrifices are multidimensional and have complex implications for the lived experiences described it his study. The word balance may not accurately describe the association between the roles a mother-scholar plays. The mothers in this study described negotiation between responsibilities and deadlines and the integration of work at home as well as the integration of home at work in such a way that the two sides were inseparable. Acclimating to the fact that the role of mother and scholar are inseparable suggests theoretical movement toward a position that values the merit of the transformational learning that occurs as a result of motherhood as a positive occurrence. / Dept. of Educational Studies

This study explored attitudes of occupational therapy faculty toward tenure and selected alternatives to tenure. A survey method was employed, and the Tenure Attitude Survey Instrument, (TASI), was created for use in the study. Additionally, a questionnaire sought information regarding respondents' rank, tenure and administrative status, institutional type, and years in academia. Participants were accredited occupational therapy professional program faculty who identified their primary work setting as "Academic" on the 2000-2001 American Occupational Therapy Association membership survey. Factor analysis of 577 surveys examined the structure of scores on the TASI, and the instrument consisted of 4 scales, and 18 items, as follows: Scale One: Attitude toward academic freedom and job security protection, 7 items; Scale Two: Attitude toward tenure in general, 6 items; Scale Three: Attitude toward stop-the-tenure clock provisions, 2 items; and Scale Four: Attitude toward post-tenure review, 3 items. Cronbach's alpha was conducted, as follows: TASI overall alpha = .7915; Scale 1 alpha = .7884; Scale 2 alpha = .8420; Scale 3 alpha = .7020; Scale 4 alpha = .4229. Proportional analysis showed that most respondents were full time faculty (88.1%); taught full time at public institutions (52.8%); were tenured or tenure-track (55.5%); had no administrative duties (70.5%); with a rank of instructor or lecturer (17.5%), or assistant professor (45.7%). Time in academia ranged from 1-40 years, with a mean of 11.27 years, median of 9.25 years, and mode of 4 years. Attitudes toward, and support for, the continuation of tenure and for selected proposed alternatives to tenure were analyzed according to the following: faculty rank, administrative status, and tenure status. Respondents held generally favorable attitudes toward tenure as measured by Scales 1 and 2 of the TASI, and the best predictors of faculty attitude toward tenure were tenure status and rank. Due to low reliability scores on Scales 3 and 4, no conclusions can be drawn regarding respondents' attitudes toward alternatives to tenure.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether training had an impact on the information technology attitudes of university faculty. The study was twofold. First, it sought to determine whether training changed attitudes toward information technology among faculty at a small, liberal arts university. Secondly, a group of faculty at a similar university was used to compare the differences in attitudes toward information technology among faculty who had received training and those who had not. The research population consisted of 218 faculty from these two universities. The literature review focused on obstacles to information technology use by faculty, instruments currently available for measuring faculty attitude, methods used in training faculty to use information technology, and integration of information technology by faculty.

This thesis examined the relationships among immediacy of dress factors and affective learning factors as they pertain to relational communication. College students (N = 482) completed questionnaires indicating perceptions of selected nonverbal immediacy behaviors associated with their teacher's attire. The research predicted that there would be relationships between and among power and affinity of dress, dress immediacy and nonverbal immediacy. Further predictions were made concerning the associations among these variables, affective learning outcomes, and other teacher criteria. Analysis indicated that power of dress, affinity of dress and dress immediacy were viable nonverbal immediacy concepts which related to affective learning outcomes. Research findings indicated that certain instructor variables may also influence these relationships.

Considering the vita an important vehicle for self-presentation in the process of applying for post-secondary academic positions, this study examined how vita contents are valued by readers of vitae in different academic disciplines.

How do teachers affect students’ academic and labor market outcomes? Research into teacher quality has been thoroughly scrutinized for the K-12 sector, while there is a requirement for examining these questions at post-secondary education level. In the past few decades, several important trends of faculty employment among higher education institutions have emerged. First, faculty employment in higher education in the United States has gradually transformed from a bifurcated system based on tenure status into a trifurcated system, constituting three types of faculty: those which are tenure eligible, fulltime but not tenure eligible, and part-time faculty. Second, due to aging of the American professoriate, particularly those faculty members hired in the 1960s and 1970s, colleges and universities have been recruiting more diverse candidates, such as female faculty, to fill positions. My dissertation examines the implications behind these two important trends. In the first chapter, I provide a detailed portrait of non-tenure-track faculty in terms of their demographic information, personal attributes, and employment trajectory across institutional sectors and academic subjects. Based on unique datasets linking college administrative information on student transcripts to Unemployment Insurance (UI) data on faculty employment history, I find that there is significant variation in individual characteristics and employment patterns across non-tenure-track faculty who were hired through different types of contracts with the colleges. In the second chapter (co-authored with Di Xu), we examine the impact of non-tenure track faculty by types of employment on students’ academic outcomes in two- and four-year colleges using a two-way fixed effects model and an instrumental variable approach. We also analyze how the estimated effects on student outcomes can be explained by observable instructor characteristics and employment features. We find that non-tenure track faculty have positive impacts on current course grades but negative impacts on subsequent course outcomes. These negative impacts are stronger for non-tenure track faculty hired through temporary appointments than those hired with long-term contracts, which can be explained partly by observable instructor characteristics. In the third chapter, I document the existence of long-term effects of faculty gender on female students’ occupational choices, likelihood of employment, and earnings six years after the initial term of college enrollment, based on a novel dataset that links college administrative data with Unemployment Insurance (UI) records from a state college system for both public two- and four-year colleges. To minimize bias from student systematic sorting by the gender of instructors, I use an instrumental variable (IV) approach which exploits term-by-term variations in total course enrollments with female faculty in each college-department, after controlling for fixed effects of the course set students took during the first term. I find that female students in four-year colleges who take more course credits with female faculty in their initial semester are more likely to be employed overall, be employed in industries with more Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math occupations (STEM), and have higher annual earnings six years after; no effect is detected in two-year colleges.

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The current data (Otuya, 1994) show that African-Americans represent less than two percent of the male full professors and less than seven percent of the female full professors. "Demographicchanges provide compelling reasons for increasing concern about the continuing under-representation of ethnic and racial minorities in adult and continuing education programs"(Ross-Gordon, 1990; p. 13).The purpose of my research was to investigate the frustrations and rewards of African-American faculty (AAF) in Adult Education programs of graduate study. Adult educators were defined as fulltime graduate faculty teaching in adult education programs. Individual semi-structured telephone interviews were used to gather the evidence from the total population of eight individuals. Resumes served as further sources of evidence. Domain analysis was used to organize the evidence. The information serves to aid in the retention and tenuring of more African-Americans and informing non-African-American faculty. The evidence collected showed the experience of AAF to have important themes on frustrations and rewards:1.Lack of senior faculty who share their research interests or as specific role models within the field and institution,2.Committee and student involvement expectations that were perceived as different for AAF then their White peers3.Daily challenges to their knowledge by students and peers were presented in the conversation as events during which "people tried to dismiss or diminish them." Success in meeting these challenges was often a validating experience for AAF4. The positive feelings of seeing their students succeed5. Being true to the African-American community, their family, their personal values and God was important to AAF.The research indicated that African-Americans as faculty experienced a wide range of frustrations and rewards. For these AAF the frustrations and rewards did not cause them to leave the profession. Many of the frustrations presented were items that could be address by the employing universities. Many of the rewards were perceived as not receiving sufficient recognition in the tenure or professional development processes and both internal and external frustrations and rewards were important to these AAF. / Department of Educational Leadership