What does it mean to be “smart?” Being identified as intelligent, gifted, or high achieving affords students stimulating experiences, motivating social environments, and advanced educational and career opportunities. However, research has also identified potential negative psychological and social costs to being labeled smart. These are particularly apparent during transitions. Many “smart” students begin college while expecting to continue to achieve highly. But, the first-year of college is a time of intense change, with new peers, different requirements, and unfamiliar standards for success that can raise questions about how smart one really is. Students respond differently to such challenging experiences and questions; some are intimidated, some prevail, others even thrive. Why? The current study investigated the meaning of being labeled smart as part of the identity and experiences of honors students in the first year of college. Twenty-four first year Honors students at a large, urban university were interviewed about the meaning of being smart and their experiences in the first year in college. Data analysis was framed deductively by an emerging identity model—the Dynamic Systems Method of Role Identity (DSMRI)—and inductively by an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The dissertation presents six cases that were purposively selected to display variability in students’ meaning-making about being smart, identity, and experiences. The results demonstrate how each student’s meaning of smartness has been incorporated into her or his identity system within the particular educational context, and how it framed their experiences, decisions, and coping with challenging situations. The findings further demonstrate the differences in the ways individual students made meaning of the smart label, the multiple values of being smart particularly in regards to peer relations, complex negative psychosocial implications, and the important role of educational contexts in these meaning-making and identity formation processes. The findings can inform educators and researchers who aim to investigate and address students’ maladaptive beliefs and behaviors and to support their healthy identity development. / Educational Psychology

abstract: Honors colleges have offered an academically rigorous option for growing numbers of diverse students. This study took place at a large, public university that required undergraduate students to complete a thesis to graduate from the honors college. In 2017, 97% of students who began the honors thesis prior to senior year completed it. Thus, the aim of this study was to help more students begin the honors thesis process early. Thesis Launch was a six-week intervention that was designed to provide support for students in the critical early steps of thesis work such as brainstorming topics, examining professors’ research interests, reaching out to professors, preparing for meetings with potential thesis committee members, and writing a thesis prospectus. Thesis Launch offered web-based resources, weekly emails and text message reminders, and was supplemented by in-person advising options. A mixed methods action research study was conducted to examine: (a) students’ perceptions of barriers that prevented beginning thesis work; (b) self-efficacy towards thesis work; (c) how to scale the intervention using technology; and (d) whether participants began the thesis early. Quantitative data was collected via pre- and post-intervention surveys, journals, and prospectus submissions. Qualitative data came from student interviews, journals, and open-ended questions on the surveys. Quantitative data showed that after students participated in Thesis Launch, they had higher self-efficacy to work with professors, perceived fewer barriers to thesis work, and greater proportions of students began thesis work early. The qualitative data were complementary and showed that participants overcame barriers to thesis initiation, built self-efficacy, preferred an online intervention, and began thesis work early. Findings also showed that a primarily technology-based intervention was preferred by students and showed promise for scaling to a larger audience. Thesis Launch provided a framework for students to begin work on the honors thesis and have mastery experiences to build self-efficacy. Strategies that fostered “small wins” and reflective efforts also assisted in this aim. Participants accomplished tasks tied to thesis work and customized their personal thesis timelines based on work begun during Thesis Launch. Finally, a discussion of limitations, implications for practice and research, and personal reflection was included. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2019

This research sought to discover whether minority and economically disadvantaged students are underrepresented in gifted and honors programs. Another goal was to ascertain attitudes of students and teachers currently participating in gifted and honors programs regarding: admission criteria; adequacy of teacher preparation to meet special needs of gifted and honors students; levels of needs satisfaction of gifted and honors students; perceptions of students and teachers about program modification.

Thesis advisor: Karen Arnold / Colleges and universities in the United States are currently in the midst of a debate on how to integrate students' academic and social lives in a manner similar to the centuries old model of Oxford and Cambridge. One of the major initiatives by colleges and universities is the re-establishment of residentially-based learning communities whose use has ebbed and flowed throughout the history of American higher education. The fundamental purpose of these communities is to facilitate intentional interactions with faculty and peers within the residence halls. The purpose of this study was to determine quantitatively if first year honors students at Boston College who participated in a residentially-based learning community exhibited greater psychosocial development versus first year honors students who reside in traditional residence halls. The Student Developmental Task and Lifestyle Assessment (SDTLA), based on Chickering's theory of development, was employed to measure the psychosocial growth of the students. The experimental group consisted of 32 first year honors students who resided in the Honors House and the control group was comprised of 64 first year honors students who resided in the traditional residence halls. Results of the study revealed that residing in a residentially based learning community was not the sole contributing factor affecting the participants' psychosocial development. Male and female honors students who resided in the Honors House and the traditional halls experienced similar patterns of developmental growth over the course of their fall semester. It was also found that the mean scores of the participants in this study were consistently higher than the normative data on all tasks, subtasks and scales of the SDTLA. Despite the small sample size, the results appear to indicate that multiple factors, including the intentionality of Boston Colleges' Honors program and institutional value for student formation, contributed to the participant's psychosocial development. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: Pheme Perkins / Psalm 110:1 was not a Second Temple messianic proof-text. Yet, it became the early Christian text par excellence for articulating exaltation Christology: Jesus was exalted to God’s right hand (Acts 2:33, 34-35; 5:31; 7:55-56; Rom 8:34; Col 3:1; Eph 1:20; 1 Pet 3:22; Heb 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2) and κύριος of the cosmos (Phil 2:9-11). Therefore, this unprecedented and singular use of Ps 110:1 by early Christians requires an explanation. This dissertation argues that the unparalleled Christian use of Ps 110:1 is indebted to a Greco-Roman royal ideological concept: rulers as sharers of divine/sacred space, which consisted of three elements: temple sharing, throne sharing, and joint temples of imperials and gods. Greek cities and Roman period provinces made autocrats sharers of sacred space to show appreciation for concrete royal benefactions and to acknowledge the piety of monarchs and divine approval of their regimes. Early Christians adopted two of these practices—temple sharing and throne sharing—for similar purposes, creating a unique variant of the Greco-Roman royal practice and using scripture to justify it (Ps 110:1). Consequently, early Christian use of Ps 110:1, exaltation Christology, and Jesus’s Lordship are indebted to royal messianism. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

My creative thesis, titled, The Recognition of Micro Poetry as a Literary Art Form across Time and Culture, is on micro poetry and its prevalence in the literary world of today and throughout history with examples of writings from past authors, like Emily Dickinson and William Carlos Williams and even as far back as Ancient Greece’s Sappho. Examples of my own micro poetry are included in the thesis. The period followed by two dashes, or .//, mark the beginning of each micro poem I have written. The poems end with one single dash, or /, and each poem is separated by two asterisks and a tilde, or *~*. I have also separated the poems in my thesis by themes. These poems show the relevance of micro poetry and the innovation one can achieve in writing such small works in today’s literature.

Undergraduate honors theses represent an intellectual asset that a university should recognize and manage as such. However, when theses were submitted exclusively in print copies, the work often faded into obscurity, forgotten by all but the student and mentor. While theses for advanced degrees have been accessible for many years via interlibrary loan or abstract services, similar access options have been unavailable for undergraduate theses because these works are most often associated with and maintained by the institutional honors program without involvement or support from the institution’s library system. At best, an index of undergraduate theses might be available to the public, but print copies—often the only versions of theses—are traditionally housed in honors and are difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. As undergraduate honors theses have become more commonplace and as online access to research has become virtually universal, honors programs do a disservice to their students, faculty, and the public if they do not provide access to the original scholarship produced by undergraduates. Furthermore, introducing undergraduates to electronic publication provides educational value by exposing them to the publishing demands they will likely encounter in their future education and professional careers. Two additional benefits to students are that an electronic publication saves the student time and expense in producing their final work and, most importantly, makes their work available worldwide to potential research partners and employers. An electronic thesis repository provides several instruction-based opportunities to advance learning. For example, courses within an honors college often enroll students from a variety of disciplines. In research methods courses, students can easily examine examples of theses to familiarize themselves with the writing styles and formatting in their discipline. Similarly, in a colloquium-style course that addresses diverse topics, students can use the repository to become familiar with research approaches and writing styles outside of their discipline; this is a particular advantage for undergraduates because, as they progress in their course of study and certainly once they begin graduate or professional programs, they rarely have time for this type of cross-disciplinary interaction. In addition, faculty in diverse disciplines can assign repository reviews, either in courses or when mentoring honors students, to demonstrate the level of scholarship expected in honors thesis work. Although these goals could be accomplished using hard copies, our current students are more comfortable with and more likely to access electronically available materials. East Tennessee State University (ETSU) has made undergraduate theses available to the campus community and general public through an electronic repository and catalog maintained by the university library. The electronic system we implemented and others of similar quality provide a user interface developed for manuscript submission, review, and approvals. This type of system takes students’ research experience to a final level of completion and assures that they learn how to navigate a process analogous to manuscript submission. Because adapting our institution’s system for graduate theses and dissertations was not a feasible option and we could find no general guidelines to direct our efforts, we developed our own undergraduate honors thesis repository, and we hope that our efforts in this process will provide insights and guidelines for other institutions.

Honors programs (HP) play an important role in defining the organizational culture of colleges and universities. In the college selected for this study, 30% of its honors students attrite to nonhonors programs, usually due to subpar grade point averages (GPAs). Using Sternberg's augmented theory of successful intelligence, a mixed-methods approach was employed to better understand how selection metrics related to HP student success. The ex post facto design included a 5-year (2009-2014) census sample of 375 HP students. Correlation and regression analyses were used to examine the relationship between college GPA and HP admissions metrics such as standardized test scores and measures of high school quality, schedule strength, rank, and GPA. The quantitative results indicated that only ACT test scores and high school GPA were weakly predictive of college GPA. The qualitative component focused on Sternberg's creative and practical intelligences to guide an exploration of HP admissions criteria with 2 admissions officers and 5 HP faculty members who were chosen for participation because of their direct involvement with selecting and teaching HP students. The qualitative results indicated the participants were interested in adding 3 components to the HP admissions criteria: art and music grades from high school, advanced epistemological thinking, and the ability to connect to faculty and resources. A white paper is included at the end of this study to help guide the process of revisiting admissions criteria to improve HP student completion. Positive social change is achieved, and both students and colleges benefit, when colleges more accurately enroll students into the academic programs they are most likely to complete.

abstract: Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University (ASU) serves as a universal role model for organizing the resources of an institution to support highly motivated and prepared students. In 2009, Barrett, The Honors College (Barrett) opened the nation's first purposefully designed undergraduate honors residential college campus. Given the current demand by other American higher education institutions who wish to better understand how Barrett emerged as a distinct and singular model for an honors residential college experience, this action research study explores the effectiveness of the decisions, execution and outcomes central to Barrett's development. Five senior administrators of college units or universities were interviewed and provided insight for constructing a design for how other honors programs and colleges can learn from the challenges and accomplishments presented in developing an honors college for the 21st century while replicating Barrett's success. The study is framed in the overall context of how Barrett actualizes the New American University at ASU in meeting the demand for producing students that can compete in a global marketplace. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Higher and Postsecondary Education 2011

abstract: Colleges and universities have goals and strategies in place to fill their on-campus housing facilities with students. At Arizona State University (ASU), the goal is to fill every bedspace on campus. All first-year students are expected to live on campus their first year at ASU. In Barrett, the Honors College (BHC), students are expected to live on-campus their first and second year at ASU. This study explores the BHC upperdivision communities to better understand why students are not returning to live on campus beyond the two-year live-on expectation. In this study, the researcher created a website to better inform students of the renewal process and the benefits of living on-campus. More than 200 BHC upperdivision students participated in this study through interviews and surveys. Quantitative results of the study indicated a positive and significant correlation between students who believe it costs less to live on campus, enjoy living on campus, interact with faculty and staff outside of the classroom with intent to live on campus the next academic year. Students who felt their currently living situation had a positive impact on their overall emotional/mental wellbeing, feel a sense of community or connection to others, and feel more connected because they live on campus are more likely to intend to live on campus. Students who were surveyed after the implementation of the renewal website believed it cost less to live on campus than off campus, felt that it was easier to navigate the application, and felt that they had a better understanding of the renewal process. Qualitative results of the study indicated students were deciding to live off campus due to the limited room options and the cost of on-campus housing. Students did not feel that there was a sense of community in BHC upperdivision housing, but they did feel like living on-campus was convenient and opened opportunities to get involved. The renewal website did not have an effect on students’ behavior, knowledge and intent to renew housing, and the renewal process was easy to navigate for some of the participants and difficult to navigate for the other participants. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2020