Thesis advisor: Betty Leask / Thesis advisor: Laura Rumbley / A record number of incoming international students from China are studying in universities in the United States today. It is important to understand this group for several reasons. Chinese students compose the largest group of international population in the U.S. Higher Education and learning about them assists with a better institutional practice including internationalization strategies. It is also important to assess their well-being in a foreign environment to improve student services. This research explores students’ perceptions and feelings in residence halls. It investigated factors that affect first-year undergraduate Chinese international students’ sense of belonging by exploring their experiences at Boston College. Using a qualitative and phenomenological approach, this study examined feedbacks from international Chinese students and provides important insights into their daily experiences. This study focused on exploring Chinese international students’ relationships with their roommates, and residential staff, to find out if these relationships influenced their sense of belonging to the community. As a partial replicate, partial follow-up study of Yao’s (2014) research, both guided by Hurtado (2013)’s framework, findings suggested that multiple elements serve as barriers and bridges to Chinese international students’ adaptation process, which include the influences of language, cultural difference, staff professionalism, and institutional internationalization plan. The study concluded with implications for practice at Boston College which may potentially be of interest to other institutions. Suggestions for future research are also identified. The study indicated a critical need for university staff to assess, examine, and explore the diverse campus culture by paying more attention to a sense of belonging to continue with the facilitation of internationalization for the overall success of international students. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

This study explores the implementation of Restorative Practices (Costello, Wachtel, & Wachtel, 2009) in a residential life program at a small public university. Narrative inquiry is used to explore the perspectives of eleven resident advisors (RAs) who have been trained in Restorative Practices (RP) and are using them in their residential communities. Participants were interviewed three times over the course of one academic year. The study illuminates the RAs' perspectives, growth and experiences with RP over that year. The findings demonstrate that RP may not only provide a structure for RAs to succeed within their challenging position, but may also encourage growth in a RAs' leadership capacity and abilities. This research also addresses how RAs conceptualize their position and role, including how they negotiate their dual, and sometime conflicting, roles of serving simultaneously as an authority figure and peer within the residence hall community, and how RAs benefit from and are challenged by implementing RP in their hall. In addition to examining the RA role specifically, the study also addresses how RP can serve as a theoretical framework for preparing RAs for their work in residence halls and for supporting them throughout the year. Further, the research suggests that RP, as a framework for the RAs' work in the residence halls, can potentially transform the residential experience for both the residents and the RA. The result may be the creation of the kind of community experience that the research has shown contributes to the retention of students. Finally, this study concludes with identifying some of the issues that are important for Residential Life departments in a process of successfully implementing RP in college residential settings.

abstract: Colleges and universities have continued to refine their understanding of engagement, affinity, and retention. At Arizona State University (ASU), the goal has been to continually retain first-year students at a 90%+ retention rate. At ASU, two key aspects of the first-year experience have been employed to foster retention. First, ASU has grouped on-campus students so they lived in residential colleges, housing students with others in the same college, to aid retention of first-year students. Second, ASU has required first-year students to take a 101 class, an orientation to ASU resources (library, advising, etc.) and its community (student organizations, clubs, etc.). The residential college living experience has afforded students opportunities to intentionally engage in campus events, connect with other students, and develop a vision for success. The 101 class has provided students with opportunities to learn about resources and community that have enriched their first-year experiences. Together, these two key approaches have offered students pathways to building initial engagement at the institution. The current research study was conducted to examine the ways in which students became engaged during their initial semester at ASU. Student participants in this study all lived in the W. P. Carey (WPC) Residential College Community in Hassayampa Academic Village (HAV) and were enrolled in WPC 101—Student Success in Business. WPC 101 was focused on helping students navigate college and learn about campus resources. In the study, the researcher infused three Engagement Workshops into the WPC 101 curriculum alongside pre-existing assignments to afford students learning opportunities for a richer, deeper exploration and reflection on their first-semester experience. Students participated in a pre- and post-intervention survey, contributed written narratives and reflections, and six students completed individual interviews. Results of the study, particularly the qualitative results, indicated (a) quality of relationships, (b) ASU community, and (c) campus environment emerged as variables that served as the ‘roots of engagement’ for these first-semester students Thus, the current work extended previous research on engagement by identifying the initial developmental aspects of engagement among first-semester, university students. The discussion included detailed explanations of the results, limitations, implications for research and practice, lessons learned, and conclusions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2019

The residential sector is recognized as a major energy consumer and thus a significant contributor to climate change. Rather than focus only on current energy consumption and the associated emissions, there is a need to broaden sustainability research to include full life cycle contributions and impacts. This thesis looks at houses from the perspective of the Ecological Footprint (EF), a well-known sustainability indicator. The research objective is to integrate EF and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) measures to provide an enhanced tool to measure the sustainability implications of residential energy retrofit decisions. Exemplifying single-detached houses of the early 20th century, the century-old REEP House (downtown Kitchener, Canada), together with its high performance energy retrofits, is examined in detail. This research combines material, energy and carbon emission studies. Its scope covers the life cycle of the house, including the direct and indirect consumption of material and energy, and concomitant carbon emissions during its stages of material extraction, transportation, construction, operation, and demolition. The results show that the REEP House had a significant embodied impact on the environment when it was built and high operating energy and EF requirements because of the low levels of insulation. Even though the renovations to improve energy efficiency by 80% introduce additional embodied environmental impacts, they are environmentally sound activities because the environmental payback period is less than two years.

The residential sector is recognized as a major energy consumer and thus a significant contributor to climate change. Rather than focus only on current energy consumption and the associated emissions, there is a need to broaden sustainability research to include full life cycle contributions and impacts. This thesis looks at houses from the perspective of the Ecological Footprint (EF), a well-known sustainability indicator. The research objective is to integrate EF and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) measures to provide an enhanced tool to measure the sustainability implications of residential energy retrofit decisions. Exemplifying single-detached houses of the early 20th century, the century-old REEP House (downtown Kitchener, Canada), together with its high performance energy retrofits, is examined in detail. This research combines material, energy and carbon emission studies. Its scope covers the life cycle of the house, including the direct and indirect consumption of material and energy, and concomitant carbon emissions during its stages of material extraction, transportation, construction, operation, and demolition. The results show that the REEP House had a significant embodied impact on the environment when it was built and high operating energy and EF requirements because of the low levels of insulation. Even though the renovations to improve energy efficiency by 80% introduce additional embodied environmental impacts, they are environmentally sound activities because the environmental payback period is less than two years.

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

This study was designed to assess a PWIs residential life department's initiative to provide their Resident Assistants (RAs) an opportunity to discuss race through an inter-group dialogue session. I argue that any activity that focuses on race needs to be grounded in a social justice framework. This is because this framework educates individuals about systematic social, political, and economic issues that plague our society. A social justice grounding also fosters a disposition that desires to eliminate institutionalized discrimination. As such, this study sought to answer the following research questions: how did this inter-group dialogue impact the RAs ability to recognize race-related issues in the United States and did this inter-group dialogue foster a social justice perspective among the RAs that participated? Through a content analysis of ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews with RAs who participated in the dialogue the findings suggest that RAs did gain an understanding of how different lived experiences effect how someone views societal race issues, but the inter-group dialogue did not foster a transformative perspective among RAs that were not already grounded in social justice. Recommendations to improve future sessions are provided. / African American Studies

In a time of increased admissions at State Colleges and Universities students are at risk for various concerning factors including decreased academic performance, feelings of isolation and alienation from faculty, staff and their peers, and other issues of mental health. Intentional architectural programming, primarily the public spaces within residence halls, can help to alleviate these issues for students and ensure that they are connected to their residential community not only academically but personally. This thesis will discuss how the increase in college admissions has affected residence hall communities and the personal development of students attending large academic institutions. It will analyze current residence hall spaces and propose a renovation for the Southwest Residential Area towers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst which house at least 580 students per tower. Issues of crowding, stress and over stimulation as a result of the built environment will be assessed and discussed to illuminate the need for renovation in the Southwest Residential Area towers, the largest halls on the UMass campus. The proposed renovation focuses on providing students who live in towers with public spaces that connect the community. This renovation reflects the original design intent of Hugh Stubbins, the complex’s architect, who designed the towers to consist of three vertically stacked houses. Each house, consisting of seven floors in the tower will be connected with a series of atria that feature small study and social spaces along their main circulation. The main public space floor of the residence hall, located at the center of the 7-floor vertically stacked house, will undergo the largest renovation of all the floors and will feature centralized service spaces such as mail, laundry and cooking facilities in addition to a large community gathering space and study spaces. The students’ personal spaces have also been renovated to maximize sunlight, reduce roommate viii conflicts, and provide personalized intermediary space that will architecturally draw students towards their public spaces.

This qualitative case study describes how first year students perceived the impact of living within a living learning community by giving voice to students who wished to not only describe their living experience, but also have this description heard. While living learning communities are not new to Residential Life departments on college campuses, the studies of such programs have predominantly been large scale quantitative studies conducted to assess the overall satisfaction that students feel with living in such a program or to ask one very specific question, typically related to drinking patterns or academic successes. Through the studying of one particular academic living learning community at a specific mid-Atlantic, urban university, I was able to delve deeper into the lives of students and develop a detailed holistic picture of the student experience specifically through the use of student interviews. My small sample, and immersion in the field, permitted an in depth understanding of all aspects of their residential and academic life related to their living learning community experience. The residents took advantage of the research as an opportunity to speak freely about issues that more macro researchers had not considered as potential impacts of student life within a living learning community. The research took place in one residential hall over an entire year. The data was gathered from a series of in-depth interviews and almost daily observations. Studying a select number of students within the community for a full academic year provided the opportunity to ask the same questions on numerous occasions and study how the students' responses changed or remained the same over time. This year long endeavor also permitted my immersion into the community and attendance at programs and events held within the living learning community allowing me to discover five themes relating to the student perspective of living learning communities: The Importance of Family, Social Activities as Opportunities to Bond, Accountability with Regards to Academics, Sense of Exclusivity, and the Importance of Personality on Perception of LLC Success. Through these themes, this study provides one of the few rigorous insights into life in a living learning community from the student perspective directly through the use of student voice, allowing for higher educational leaders and planners to take this individualized perspective into account in the organization, implementation, funding, and assessment of future living learning community endeavors. / Educational Administration