The present dissertation investigates elements of domain formalization, resource allocation, and student success in higher education to conceptually design a university-wide system to assist in strategic planning efforts. The proposed system is a program-level tool with a modular design to allow scalability and generalizability across the entire university. Higher education strategic planning decisions are under investigation by stakeholders and transparency is needed. University resources allocation models are often outdated lack to adequately support program-level decisions. Further, with the dynamic nature of technology, domain knowledge components are evolving rapidly. This complicates the situation as updating curriculum takes additional time and resources. Using the University of Central Florida's (UCF) School of Modeling, Simulation, and Training (SMST) as a case study to build and validate the system, I investigate Modeling and Simulation (M&S) domain knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) using a series of natural language, text mining, and machine learning techniques to model topics within domain-specific texts including publication abstracts, job postings, and graduate course descriptions. From there, I use this information to identify and enumerate terms used to develop M&S ontology and expert models for the future university-wide system. This investigation benefits both the M&S field of study, clarifying ill-defined domain components and it helps inform the design of university-wide strategic planning systems.

This thesis examined the potential literacy practices, of students who self-identify as multiracial, that occur in the composition classroom within higher education. Because literacy by nature is contextualized and ideological it is important that we understand how identity plays a crucial role in literacy practices. Race is a social construct that has influences on identity as well as the literacy narratives of students in higher education, and although there has been research on literacy as it relates to monoracial students there is a lack of scholarship on what it means for a student to identify with more than one race in higher education and how this identity influences their literacy practices. This thesis employs both New Literacy Studies and Critical Race Theory as a lens to identify how space is, or is not, created for the multifaceted identities of multiracial students to come forth. In order to identify how space is created for multiracial students I collected course syllabi and major assignments utilized in second semester composition courses at the Universtiy of Central Florida I also conducted interviews with three students who self-identify as multiracial. I found that although space is created for multiracial student agency within the composition classroom this is problematized by the existence of multiracial microaggressions. I argue that multiracial microaggressions are an allusion to systemic racism in institutions of higher education; they are an example of how institutions of higher education can continue to perpetuate disparities even though they seek to promote diversity and inclusion. In order to continue to move towards inclusion, instructors need to know more about multiracial student experiences and the implications of these experiences within the composition classroom.

According to my literature review and my reflection of its meaning, few studies have been conducted that explore the adjustment and acculturation experiences of female international students in US colleges and universities specifically on Saudi female students. Therefore, this study explored the academic and socio-cultural experiences of Saudi female students before and after arriving in the US. Furthermore, this study identified the sources of acculturative stress and Saudi female students' successful strategies for coping with these stressors. Eight Saudi female students participated in one-on-one semi-structured interviews and Moustakas' (1994) transcendental phenomenology was utilized in analyzing students' voices. During the data analysis process, there were five themes that emerged from the data, including sociocultural expectations and issues, motivation for studying abroad, challenges, coping strategies, and adaptation. The results of this study provided recommendations for American and Saudi higher education administrators and faculty concerning how to help Saudi female students adjust to American culture and campus life and provide appropriate academic environments for this growing population.

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