The nature of the problem to be dealt with in this present study involves the religious personality. Specifically, it involves the question as to the personality similarities and differences of students from a religious college and students from a state college.

The two-year private college has been recognized as a valuable sector of American higher education; yet, its documented decline has failed to incite substantial research focusing on the how and why. This study explored the plight and potential of one particular set of private institutions, the two-year United Methodist colleges, which exhibit characteristics that both distinguish and closely align them with the broader institutional classification as two-year private colleges. By means of a multi-case approach, this study attempted to identify significant opportunities and threats perceived by chief executive officers that affect the viability of these representative institutions. Ultimately, the study sought to document the strategies employed by these schools to ensure their continued existence. The researcher intended to strengthen the empirical foundation for an informed discussion of the issues affecting this unique sector of higher education and, specifically, to identify relevant variables that may be used in subsequent research efforts. The results of the study indicate that the two-year United Methodist colleges share opportunities and challenges with the small, four-year liberal arts college and the general category of religious colleges. At the same time, the data reflect intra-group differences that contribute to the distinctiveness of the individual institutions. Clearly, the future appears to be questionable for this institutional sector that is small in terms of the number of colleges operating and the volume of students served. However, as the first authentic American contribution to the higher education landscape, the two-year private and church-related college continues to serve a unique purpose with its own particular approach to student development, academic endeavors, communal activities, and organizational operation. These institutions contribute to the diversity of the higher education system in the United States as a body of colleges specifically committed to the needs of freshmen and sophomores in an environment characterized by a strong sense of values and community. The impact of their extinction is inestimable but would undoubtedly diminish the pluralism that is so greatly valued in the American higher education system.

There are few women in the highest levels of leadership in most industries, including higher education. This intrinsic case study provides insight into the leadership journeys of 15 female leaders at Brigham Young University, which is sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Four prevalent themes emerged about their leadership journeys. First, a leadership role was not part of the participant's life plan. The remaining three themes related to acceptance of a leadership role. Participants reported feeling nudged to consider a leadership role, feeling a sense of relational responsibility in accepting a leadership role, and receiving a spiritual confirmation that they should accept a leadership role. Many Latter-day Saint women are not actively thinking about or seeking leadership opportunities. Leaders at Brigham Young University can encourage women to consider and accept leadership roles by intentionally nudging women to recognize their potential, understanding how relational responsibility motivates women, and encouraging them to seek for spiritual confirmation.

This work is a study of the origins, development, and contributions of the black religious colleges of East Texas. The central purpose of the study is to reexamine the role Wiley, Bishop, Texas, and Jarvis colleges have played in black higher education. Although prior to 1960 most studies of Negro institutions of higher education described such schools as total failures in their effort to uplift American Negroes, since that time many scholars have published works which pointed up the achievements as well as the problems of those colleges. In addition to their efforts to provide the Negro community with capable leaders, the black religious colleges of East Texas also directed public service projects. Especially beneficial, these efforts, which included farm demonstration programs and home demonstration classes, were designed to help black people at whatever level needed. Wiley, Bishop, Texas College, and Jarvis have not been total failures. Although always academically weak, they have served the black community well. However, in spite of the valuable service they have rendered, unless these schools can generate new and larger sources of revenue, they stand little chance of remaining viable institutions. Each of these colleges desperately needs more money. Ironically, it may be that black colleges will decline in the future primarily not because their raison d' etre has been eliminated, but because the public and government agencies have concluded that such institutions no longer warrant their support.