<p> Postsecondary education is constantly changing and the role of the chief student affairs officer must evolve to meet the demands of the shifting social, political, and administrative needs of their student population and institution. The intent of this study was to identify the knowledge, skills, and competencies required of chief student affairs officers to be effective and successful in contemporary and future higher education contexts. To provide clarity to the obligations of the executive-level role, the study offers an understanding the complexity of chief student affairs officers&rsquo; responsibilities in a rapidly shifting postsecondary environment. Participants of the study were current chief student affairs officers who engaged in organized groups based on location, institutional type, athletic conference, or state higher education system. Through a qualitative methodology, with semi-structured, group interviews, the study allowed for data gathering from multiple chief student affairs officers at varied institutional types and locations. Data were collected from 13 focus groups with a total of 68 participants during either during established meetings or via online video conferencing. </p><p> Findings of the study contribute to the knowledge base of effective practice and preparation for successful and effective chief student affairs officers and provide evidence-based data from which to build continuing education and ongoing professional development. Recommendations are offered for individuals currently in the chief student affairs officer position, those aspiring to the role, graduate programs in doctoral education, search firms, and professional associations that provide ongoing educational offerings for executive leaders in postsecondary education.</p><p>

<p> Thanks to the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, veterans are entering American colleges and universities in numbers not seen since World War II. Very few of today's veterans, however, attend our nation's most selective institutions. Military-connected students constitute about 5% of the total college-going population, but make up only 2% or less of the student body at Ivy League and Ivy Plus institutions. The purpose of this narrative study was to understand the experiences of these talented few student veterans, with a focus on undergraduates. The primary research questions were: 1) How do members of the current generation of veterans make the transition from the military to the Ivy League? 2) How are these veterans faring, academically and socially, in what is arguably the most challenging sector of higher education? A series of in-depth interviews with four veterans of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines studying for undergraduate degrees at three different Ivy League schools was undertaken to address these questions. The resulting four biographies were interpreted using Vacchi and Berger's (2014) adaptation of Bronfenbrenner's (1989, 1995) ecological systems theory and from a life course perspective. Findings revealed that the veterans carefully planned their transition from the military to the academy, and eagerly sought and accepted transition support. Academically, the self-discipline learned in the military was most important to the four Ivy League student veterans' success. Social support from other veterans was also important, but to varying degrees. The four student veterans all shared insights gained from their military experience with civilian peers in Ivy League classrooms, though they disclosed their veteran status only selectively in social situations. These exchanges, formal and informal, were mutually beneficial. While some Ivy League institutions are taking steps to attract and better support military-connected students, from a public policy perspective, elite higher education is not doing enough to help close the civil-military gap in American society. To the extent that elite institutions cannot or will not accommodate more veterans as non-traditional undergraduates, a greater focus on ROTC programs could help achieve this goal, as could admitting more family members of long-serving military personnel.</p><p>

<p> This study explores the relationship between state and federal funding policies and the ability of minority-serving institutions (MSIs) to support low-income and minority students. The way US public higher education is financed has changed dramatically since the Great Recession. State appropriations to institutions have declined (SHEEO, 2017), tuition increases have dramatically outpaced growth in household income (College Board, 2016a) and state financial aid has drifted from need-based to merit-based (College Board, 2016b). Many wonder how this policy environment is impacting low-income and minority students and the institutions that serve them. MSIs have risen to the forefront of institutions committed to serving these students, and more should be known about how these institutions are affected by the current fiscal policy environment. </p><p> The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between finance policies and the ability of MSIs to serve their students. Case study methodology was used to provide an in-depth analysis of how three campuses in New Mexico respond to state and federal finance policies and shifting revenue streams, and how these responses impact students. The three campuses include one Native American-serving Nontribal Institution that is a community college, and two Hispanic-Serving Institutions&mdash;a community college and a regional comprehensive university. These campuses share similar geographic and student characteristics, but are funded through different finance polices. The findings suggest that: local appropriations play a critical role in the fiscal stability of community colleges in New Mexico; state funding favors well-resourced institutions and students; and institutional leaders perceive federal funding as providing the most support for low-income student success. This study also reveals that finance policies in the state are not aligned to their full potential for increasing degree attainment.</p><p>

<p> This study asked two primary questions: (1) to what extent do distance learners find value in student support services; and (2) is there a relationship between the value placed on student support services and students&rsquo; sense of belonging in the university&rsquo;s learning community? Value was defined as the frequency of use, importance, and satisfaction with student support services. </p><p> The participants in the study were drawn from undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in one or more online courses in a Catholic University in Pennsylvania&rsquo;s accelerated adult learning program. These students were taking at least 80 percent of their formal instruction online, and were enrolled in the spring and/or summer sessions of 2016. </p><p> The research was conducted using a quantitative correlation research design. The variable of value in student support services was measured using a web-based survey assessing the respondents&rsquo; frequency of use, perceived importance, and satisfaction with 14 student support services. The variable of online students&rsquo; feelings of connection to the wider university community was measured using the Social Connectedness subscale of the Campus Connectedness Scale. To examine the relationships between the perceived value of student support services and respondents&rsquo; sense of belonging, a Pearson correlation coefficient was computed for total use of support services, total perceived importance of support services, and total satisfaction with the total sense of belonging scores. </p><p> The findings revealed a positive correlation between the extent that distance learners used and were satisfied with the student support services and the students&rsquo; sense of belonging in the learning community. However, sense of belonging did not significantly correlate with the perceived importance item. The combined results of this study demonstrate that online learners use and satisfaction with student support services had a positive impact on these students&rsquo; sense of engagement and belonging in the institution as a whole.</p><p>

<p> Nontraditional student enrollment in institutions of higher education has steadily risen in the past twenty years. Studies predict that this trend will continue in the next ten years. With emphasis on retention and competition, universities must focus their attention on their nontraditional students. The overarching research question the guided the research is: What are the institutional factors contributing to the success of nontraditional students? Thus, the purpose of this dissertation was to do the following: identify the college services used by nontraditional students in higher education; determine services nontraditional students express that they desire, but that are not available in higher education institutions; determine how actively engaged nontraditional students are on college campuses; determine to what extent nontraditional students who attend traditional four-year institutions desire different services than those nontraditional students who attend community colleges do; and identify to what extent nontraditional students who attend traditional four-year institutions differ in their degree of campus involvement from those nontraditional students who attend community colleges.</p><p>

<p> Mergers and consolidations within the higher education sector are &ldquo;relatively rare occurrences and each merger has a distinct set of circumstances, actors, and characteristics&rdquo; (Etschmaier, 2010, p. 1). Institutional mergers and consolidations require well-planned and strategic organizational change and include an examination of organizational culture and the process of acculturation. While there has been research on various aspects of higher education mergers, there has been little on the process of integrating institutional cultures. Compounding the challenge is that the degree of assimilation among institutions is variable. This integration of cultures takes time to fully accomplish. Researchers have estimated varying time periods for full integration, as much as ten years or more in some cases. As institutions of higher education undergo reorganization, several components of change management must be addressed, looking particularly at culture as a critical element of the change process. Research in this area is limited, and the purpose of this case study is to examine why two institutions of higher education merged, the role of change management during a merger, conceptual models used in understanding reorganization, and the role that culture plays during a merger. Given the economic conditions in higher education, interest in mergers is growing, and this case study on the merger, change management, and the cultural assimilation of the individuals involved in the merger will be of value to state boards of education, policy-makers within the states, and higher administration in colleges and universities across the nation. </p><p>

<p> This study uses mixed methods research to explore the phenomenon of partnerships between higher education institutions (HEIs) and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) focused on improving college access for diverse populations. Using available quantitative data, interviews and documentary evidence collected from nonprofit, four-year, private and public HEIs in Pennsylvania, this research seeks to understand whether relationships between HEIs and NPOs are a common feature of the college access landscape; how institutions understand relationships with college access nonprofits; how they use relationships to achieve particular goals including and in addition to improving college access for diverse populations; and what motivates institutions to engage in and sustain relationships. This research also considers whether there are relationships between institutional characteristics and undergraduate student diversity. Drawing from theoretical literature on the antecedents to partnership formation developed within the field of business and from organizational learning theory, this study finds that there is little agreement on what constitutes a relationship between HEIs and NPOs and a &ldquo;college access nonprofit&rdquo;; that HEIs rarely articulate specific, measurable goals for the enrollment of diverse populations; that relationships are used to improve direct and indirect access to students, to build trust in HEIs, to fill perceived deficits for students and families, and to address demographic pressures. Furthermore, the study finds that relationships&rsquo; effectiveness is rarely measured and that ties between entities are rarely severed, except in the case of extreme failure to meet expectations. The findings of this study suggest that what HEIs refer to relationships are instead &ldquo;less formal dyadic linkages.&rdquo; HEIs forms ties to NPOs primarily in the pursuit of enhanced institutional legitimacy with respect to the recruitment of diverse students, which is perceived to enhance institutions&rsquo; ability to recruit these students with greater efficiency. Relationships are also perceived to have potential to contribute to HEI&rsquo;s ability to develop a pipeline of students. In addition, this study finds that the exploitation aspect of organizational learning helps explain relationship formation between HEIs and NPOs.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between cultural intelligence, transformational leadership, and team performance in one private Christian higher education institution in Southern California. The study further conducted initial exploration of how student leaders&rsquo; Christian worldview (humility) influences their cultural intelligence, transformational leadership, and team performance. A quantitative research design was used to carry out this study. Data were collected from 174 student leaders from four departments including Resident Life, Spiritual Development, Global Students Development and Student Enrichment and Intercultural Development. The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistic and correlational analysis on SPSS software. </p><p> The finding of this study revealed that there was no significant relationship between overall cultural intelligence and overall team cohesion of student leaders. Analysis on the subscale level revealed that there was a very weak negative relationship between cognitive CQ and task cohesion. In addition, a significant weak relationship was found between transformational leadership and team cohesion. The social cohesion subscale was significantly correlated to all of the five subscales of transformational leadership scale. The individual attraction subscale was significantly correlated with four of the subscales of transformational leadership except for intellectual stimulation. The task cohesion subscale was not related to any of the subscales of transformational leadership. </p><p> An initial exploration of student leaders&rsquo; understanding of humility was conducted using six survey questions developed by the researcher based on five key elements of humility stated by Tangany (2000). Based on the results of the survey data analysis, participants appeared to exhibit certain aspects of cultural intelligence, transformational leadership behaviors and team cohesion. This survey was intended to serve as an initial step for future research to fully explore how student leader&rsquo;s Christian worldview (humility) contributes to their leadership effectiveness and team performance. </p><p> In summary, overall cultural intelligence was not related to overall team cohesion. There was a significant very weak relationship between overall transformational leadership and overall team cohesion. These findings suggest that there are still more underlying factors that influence overall team cohesion of student leaders in a Christian higher education context.</p><p>

Recent research on the relationship between standards and teachers’ practice suggests that teachers are unlikely to make changes to practice without extensive opportunities for learning about standards with colleagues. My dissertation extends this line of research, using a comparative case study of three-high poverty urban schools to examine the nature of teachers’ learning about the Common Core State Standards and the processes and conditions that support this work. I take a situated perspective, exploring how teachers engage in professional learning in their school context. Chapter one explores the potential for collaboration in teacher teams to support this learning. It argues that collaborative practices that encourage joint examination of instruction and student learning against standards support teachers in noticing and attending to differences between their current practice and standards. In addition, it examines the role of teachers’ instructional knowledge and principals’ leadership in supporting teachers’ collaboration around standards. Chapter two examines how principals encourage and constrain professional learning as they frame school improvement efforts. It argues that teachers are more likely to revise their instruction to align with the new standards when principals frame the challenge presented by standards as one that requires learning to work with students and content in new ways rather than simply one that requires teachers to execute specific pedagogical approaches. Finally, chapter three explores the efforts of a professional development network to build both teacher and school capacity for teaching the Common Core State Standards and proposes a set of principles to guide future efforts to design professional development that builds capacity for teaching to ambitious standards in high-poverty schools.

Private elementary schools in Mexico are usually seen by wealthy and middle-class families as an alternative to public education. However, private schools have not been seen until very recently as an academic alternative for the poor. In my dissertation, I used data on students from poor families (beneficiaries of Oportunidades program) attending sixth grade of elementary school, who participated in the Quality and Educational Achievement Test assessment 2009 (EXCALE06-2009), to evaluate if there is a private school advantage for the poor in Mathematics in Mexico. I also investigated the extent to what achievement differential is explained by important features of private schools, such as physical resources, school management, teacher quality, teaching practices and classroom organization, and peer group composition. I used propensity score-matching to correct for bias arising from the self-sorting of students into type of schools. I concluded that private schools in Mexico offer a clear advantage for poor students in elementary education, even after accounting for selection bias. On average, private school students who are beneficiaries of Oportunidades program outperformed their public counterparts by 48 test points in Mathematics, or 48% of a standard deviation. The results passed different robustness checks and are technically reliable. The 0.48 sd effect size of private school is larger relative to much of the existing literature, especially if it is compared to the results of true experiments or quasi-experiments of private schools conducted in the U.S. I hypothesize that these large results might have to do in part with two factors: the use of the right counterfactual for this research: poor students attending private urban schools; and the fact that students in the sample attending private schools are all beneficiaries of Oportunidades, a comprehensive poverty alleviation program. This might mean that the treatment under study is more complex than just private schooling. After statistically accounting for selection bias, all of the remaining private school effect is accounted for by identifiable school factors. Peer group composition, school management, teacher practices and classroom organization, are the most important factors explaining the private school advantage in Mathematics in elementary schools in Mexico.