This study was designed to analyze the sources of revenue, revenue variability, program and personnel changes, and the fiscal soundness of six Latino nonprofit organizations (LNPOs) in three major cities in Western Massachusetts, for the period 1989 to 1992. Income variability was assessed for the period 1985 to 1992. Contingency or adaptive theory formed the basis of the study, with emphasis on organizational uncertainty, and the concepts of complexity and chaos. Contingency theory holds that there is no best way to organize, and that any way of organizing is not equally effective. The review of the literature was exhaustive and presented an analysis of the history, economic impact, and relationship of both LNPOs and non-LNPOs with the modern welfare state. IRS Form 990 and Form PC, filed by the six LNPOs with the Public Charities Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General, was the source of the data for this study. The study concluded that the aggregate reliance of LNPOs on government sources of revenue was 79.5 percent. Diversity of the funding base of these LNPOs was very limited. The average rate of revenue increase for 67 percent of these LNPOs ranged from 14 percent to 72.3 percent. The influence of revenue variability on the program mix and primary personnel was not as conclusive. Revenue increases correlated more with salary increases of primary personnel than with increases in the number of programs. Revenue increases correlated with salary increases of the rank and file for four of the six LNPOs. Fifty percent of the LNPOs in the study were rated as fiscally sound. None of the six LNPOs had contingency reserves and endowment funds. The most compelling recommendations for improving the infrastructures of these LNPOs include: the expansion of their funding base; the establishment of contingency reserves and endowment funds; effect changes in management and in governance; improve technology; and develop partnership with area colleges and universities for developing degree programs for managers of NPOs, and programs and workshops aimed at providing technological assistance to LNPOs.

As the number of students entering college declines, or levels off, and competition for these students intensifies, retaining the students they recruit will be the path to survival for many schools. When the retention effort is not successful with individual students, they withdraw from college and become an attrition statistic. This represents a cost to the institution (resources allocated to recruit that student) and lost revenue (tuition and fees). Many withdrawing students, maybe because of the emotional stress of the situation, cite reasons that will make the exit interview process as short and painless as possible. This leaves the institution in possession of withdrawal data that may not be entirely accurate or complete. Many decisions are made by institutions, particularly operational changes, relying on this data. There are two main avenues to sustaining adequate enrollments: recruit a larger class every year to compensate for those who leave; or, concentrate on retaining those recruited. At four-year institutions, retention activities benefit three classes of students, whereas recruitment efforts affect only one (Astin, 1975). Given the reality of declining enrollments and increasing competition, the greatest influence colleges and universities have over enrollment patterns is internal in nature. If the admissions effort has failed to accurately portray the institution's educational and social environment, those responsible for retaining students--in many cases, all non-admissions personnel--start from a negative position. This study will involve five phases. Phase One, already completed and presented in chapter Two, involved reviewing relevant dropout and retention literature. Phase Two will involve the proposal of an enrollment enhancement plan designed to increase retention. Phase Three will involve an interview with the Dean of Students at each institution to obtain an institutional perspective on the reasons they feel students leave their institution, establish a profile of the type(s) of student(s) they feel their institution serves best, and review current retention practices. This information will be used to frame an additional question to be asked each group of interviewees. Phase Four will involve the interviews mentioned above. Phase Five will involve the analysis of the data.

The perceived challenges for Seventh-day Adventist higher education in the 21st century according to its future leaders, the leadership necessary to meet these challenges, and the system's development of leaders were examined using a two-phase process of sample identification/selection and data collection. The sample identification and selection phase involved "expert identification" by individuals holding current positions in SDA higher education. The data collection phase involved elaborated, semi-structured interviewing. According to the paticipants, Seventh-day Adventist higher education is different from mainstream higher education in mission, culture, and understanding of its 21st century challenges. SDA higher education may seemingly face many of the same challenges as mainstream higher education, but the cultural differences change the nature of the overlapping challenges. They make many of the standard leadership suggestions, available in the higher education leadership literature, unworkable. There are also challenges to the system which are unique to SDA higher education. Almost all of these involve the church which sponsors these colleges. The SDA church is currently examining itself and redefining its mission in terms of the 21st century. The purpose of the SDA colleges and the role they play in the church's mission is one aspect of this redefinition. Proposals concerning the future of these colleges range from maintaining the status quo to closing the schools. These proposals must be discussed and understood at the local church level. The perceived leaders find it difficult to prepare themselves for their leadership roles. The unique subculture contains factors which discourage openly identifying future leaders and providing resources for their continued education. Even though the participants are not well acquainted with the literature of higher education leadership, two categories may be useful to the future of the system. Transformation theory, especially the concept of "trans-vigorational leadership," would be helpful to a system with a deeply ingrained church subculture and distinctive academic cultures. Cultural or symbolic theory would help the system define itself, the priorities of its constituency, and the changes needed to accomplish its 21st century mission.

Education Reform has legislated school governance councils to promote site-based decision making. School teams have been suggested in special education as a pre-referral resource and assistance to teachers working with special needs students. Cross-constituent groups must be brought together to restructure schools and provide instructional support. The site-based teams require evaluation. Several performance activities, variables, and levels of training and support have been suggested in studies from states where there have been attempts to implement site-based decision making. Few of these reports have attempted to quantify the activities and variables suggested for team functioning. Through a thorough literature review of the subject and an extensive survey of site teams in the public schools in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a set of team activities and variables was identified and quantified by the author. The collected data was utilized to develop an evaluation instrument. The resulting questionnaire was administrated to evaluators and team members of school site teams. A statistical analysis was performed to assess the significance of these performance descriptors in estimating the overall functioning of school site teams. The results of the statistical analysis and literature review provide the immediate supervisor with a set of variables to gain insight in the assessment of team functioning. These results can also be used to develop a self-assessment instrument to enhance team functioning. The model developed by the author can be generalized to management settings other than education. Customization of the evaluation tool is suggested as a means for future application of this study. The results of the research focus on the importance of team process and group dynamics, as well as specific product variables germane to the organization in the development of an evaluation instrument that can be used to assess overall team functioning.

Education reform efforts in the last fifteen to twenty years at the state and federal levels have provisions for family/community involvement in the schools based on beliefs that partnerships lead to higher student achievement and better outcomes for students, parents and teachers. These requirements have embraced the concept of parent and community involvement in various forms including some aspects of school governance. The Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 included this concept of participatory governance with the establishment of local school councils (LSC). The purpose of this qualitative case study was to describe the function and influence of local school councils on school improvement and to provide a better understanding of the role of parent/family and community involvement in those efforts. Data was gathered over a nine month period in three elementary schools in different communities through observation of school council meetings; interviews with various members of the school community, and review of relevant materials. Results of data analysis showed that the function and influence of local school councils on school improvement, and the impact of parent and community involvement on school council function were related to the overall culture of the school. Parent involvement in the school and parent influence on the work of the school council was strengthened by the relationship with the parent organization and other parent involvement activities in the school. The attitude and commitment to parent involvement present in the school culture, as well as, the efforts to recruit parent and community members with the resulting parity in membership also influenced the work of the school council. The results mirrored previous research that showed inconsistencies in the implementation of school councils across the country, that the evidence of their influence on school improvement has been limited, and that schools with existing parent involvement activities before the initiation of school councils had more positive influence on school improvement. Recommendations for further research in family-school relationships, training and oversight of school councils, training for educators, and the allocation of more state and local resources to support school improvement efforts are discussed.

Women are facing increasing financial responsibility, while at the same time, the consumer financial world is evolving at an extraordinary pace. These trends make a imperative that we better understand the evolving nature of gender-based inequities across our current socio-economic systems and intentionally examine those areas that are most essential in accelerating the narrowing of these gaps. The results of the study indicate that the assumption can on longer be made that women simply need better financial knowledge in order to reach a certain level of financial behavior, without increased access to capital. This study shows that the re-examination of a key component of financial literacy is necessary: the idea that financial knowledge leads to responsible financial behavior, and that responsible financial behavior is a result of financial knowledge. This finding may indicate that women have different dispositions regarding how they use the financial resources, knowledge, and skills that they have acquired.

Principal leadership is one of the most heavily researched topics in the field of education and is a key to increasing school effectiveness and stimulating school change. One of the most important principal roles that have emerged in the literature is the facilitation of a collaborative culture. Teacher collaboration has been linked to a variety of positive outcomes such as improved instruction and student learning. Research indicates that collaboration is most effective when it is part of a district's professional development. Using a theory-driven approach, the present study evaluated a four-year collaboration initiative aimed to increase student learning in one Connecticut school district. More specifically, the study investigated whether principals' actions in support of teacher teams and the quality of teacher collaboration changed over time. Of particular interest was an examination of how principals influenced a collaborative shift in school culture and what specific strategies had the most impact on the quality of collaboration in teacher teams. Data were collected from a sample of 400 teachers, beginning in 2008 and ending in 2011, although sample sizes varied across time according to response rate. Items from the Teacher Collaboration Survey were used to measure teachers' perceptions of principals' actions in support of teacher teams and the quality of teacher collaboration. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was utilized to measure change across time, accounting for repeated measures. No statistically significant changes were found for either principals' actions in support of teacher times or the quality of teacher collaboration. However, statistically significant correlations were found between these two variables in each of the four years, indicating a moderate to strong relationship. In addition, qualitative responses on the survey were used to investigate the high leverage behaviors that principals employed to create a cultural shift in this district and provided insight into the types of change that occurred during this initiative. Finally, implications and limitations of the present study were discussed, and future research in this area was suggested.

Since the late 1980s, a growing number of higher educational institutions have adopted the philosophy of Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI), commonly known in industry as Total Quality Management (TQM). Thousands of industrial organizations worldwide have practiced TQM for decades, and many have succeeded in improving quality, productivity and profitability with it. Nonetheless, reaping the benefits of this promising quality management approach presents a challenge to higher education since the academic culture differs dramatically from that of industry. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the optimal implementation characteristics of CQI in colleges and universities, and in particular, the most and least successful quality practices thus far implemented in academia. The underlying model used for testing the efficacy of TQM derives from six elements of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria, and consists of Leadership, Information and Analysis, Strategic Quality Planning, Faculty and Staff Involvement, Process Improvement, and Improvement Results. This dissertation comprised two stages. The first stage involved two field studies. The preliminary findings from these two studies were used to guide the development of a broader-based survey instrument. The second stage was a nationwide survey of colleges and universities that have been implementing CQI. The survey data were analyzed to examine the characteristics and effect of individual quality practices such as leadership, quality planning, faculty and staff involvement, teamwork, training, business and peer partnership, union support, reward and recognition, improvement measures, and quality system assessment, and to explore the relationship between success with CQI and these quality practices. Further, the most and least successful quality practices were identified by dividing the surveyed institutions that had implemented CQI into three groups: the Beginning Implementers, the Somewhat-experienced Implementers, and the Experienced Implementers. The findings of the study supported the hypothesis that the success of CQI in higher education depends on having a quality model for higher education that is well-developed and well-validated.

The dissertation research focused on how executive level administrators perceive external forces, environmental conditions and resource dependency as components in a new economy that shape entrepreneurial decision making in their community colleges. The objectives of the research examined an expansion from public-supported resource allocations, formulas and funding, tied to specific parts of a community college's mission, i.e., open access, to a decision-making model where the attainment other identified external resources may have become more competitive to fund less clear aspects of an institution's mission. The case studies reviewed reduction or elimination of past revenue streams that may have positioned executive level administrators into a decision-making posture where they reallocated institutional resources to areas of increased demand. Additionally, interviews, research documents and other materials also identified external environmental conditions and resource dependency as some of the forces that community college executive level administrators reported to have influenced their decision-making processes regarding institutional policy, strategies, identifying new revenue streams, and program initiatives in a new economy. To what extent have executive level administrators potentially shaped or reshaped institutional identification by focusing upon externally driven resources as funding opportunities through active pursuit of workforce development grants, partnerships, contracts or other revenue streams? In addition, the research also addressed the thinking, perspectives and "mind maps" of executive level administrators who make decisions about potential entrepreneurial opportunities for their community colleges. For community college administrators and other institutional stakeholders contemplating expanding the college's mission, this study provides foundational theory, options, concerns, implications and recommendations that should be carefully considered. Additionally, my goal was to shed light on two distinctly different community colleges where environmental forces and decision-making strategies can inform future practice at other community colleges across the nation. I hope that this research study will assist all internal and external constituents to understand the founding values of community colleges, their evolution, tradition, values and future roles in American higher education.

This study focuses on the topic of campus rape within the organization of a comprehensive public university. Media attention, student movements and federal legislation have focused on the issue of rape on college and university campuses. The public has become increasingly concerned about this issue and campuses have been forced to mount a response by implementing policies and procedures which respond to rape within their communities. This study looks at how one institution defines and combats rape. This investigation interviews a variety of participants (administrators, student service providers, faculty and students) within the university to see if those who share this community similarly identify and perceive efforts to eradicate rape. Conclusions from this study reveal that there is much disparity among members on how they perceive rape and the university's anti-rape policies and programs. Much of the disparity is attributable to gender and some to position within the institution. Also examined was the impact of federal legislation on members' perceptions of campus rape and institutional liability. Environmental, victim support, education and administrative considerations are examined in how members' view anti-rape policies. The academic environment and its distinctiveness is also explored in how it may obscure efforts to come to a consensus on defining and ameliorating rape. Several specific recommendations are offered, but this research does not put forth sweeping or simple solutions. Understanding that rape is a contentious, and at time, ambiguous, event may be the first step in responding effectively to the issue of rape on campus.