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Early career attrition in student affairs is a topic of interest for hiring and supervising managers, graduate preparation programs, as well as new professionals. Contributions to the growing body of research on the topic potentially informs bets practices in curriculum development, hiring, onboarding, and professional development for new student affairs employees. This study involved 352 new student affairs professionals in the field's largest professional association. With Rhodes and Doering's integrated model of career change as a framework, the research study was designed to identify individual and environmental factors influencing new student affairs professionals' person-environment fit and, subsequently, career commitment. The result was an eight-factor structural equation model that included graduate curriculum, pay satisfaction, mentoring, student interaction, connection to institutional mission/vision, collegiality, and person-environment fit as independent variables, and career commitment as the dependent variable. The study suggests that these eight variables, to varying degrees, indirectly and directly influence career commitment in new student affairs professionals.

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.

Thesis advisor: Rebecca Schendel / The number of international students has risen in the United States for the past twenty years. In order to better understand the role of this population in the U.S. higher education system, many studies have explored the cultural integration of international students, seeking to establish a comprehensive understanding of this commonly identified issue. However, integration difficulties remain integral to many international students’ college life in the U.S. and impact both their in-college experience as well as their post-graduation transitions. Previous studies of international students’ experience in the U.S. context have rarely focused on the endpoint of international students' learning process at college, which encompasses the graduation and post-graduation period. The significant and probably influential outcomes of the long journey international students went through in American Higher Education Institutions have been largely neglected, especially for the international population who attended mission-driven institutions whose educational purpose and focus are individual formation. Therefore, this study used college student development theories and a specific college influential model to understand the potential influence that a mission based American institution has exerted upon international students' perspectives and values and individual future planning. The study surveyed 27 international students and interviewed 11 international students at Boston College with the aim of gaining a solid understanding of the graduating international students’ college experience in an effort to validate and interpret their development during college life. The study result indicates that most participants have developed a better understanding of themselves. This consolidated self-perception has become a basis in forming their future plans and facilitating their decision-making after graduation. However, the relationship between institutional influence and individual changes are difficult to determine due to lack of persuasive evidence. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The research for this dissertation is a study of one case example of programs and classes put into place for African American males at community colleges around the United States with a focus on how these programs were successful or not in assisting in the persistence, retention, and graduation of these students. The purpose of using Cross’ (1991) Black Identity Development Theory as a framework for exploring the students’ experiences in racial ‘awakening’ was to track the patterns in how these experiences aligned with Cross’ concepts.

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This two-phase, sequential mixed methods study explored how student affairs professionals resolved professional ethical dilemmas. A student affairs professional was defined as an individual whose educational background and work experience are in student affairs. An ethical dilemma is defined as a situation in which two ethical principles are at odds rather than a simple matter of right versus wrong (Kitchener, 1985). A professional ethical dilemma is an ethical dilemma in the context of a person's work-related experience. The first phase of the study was a qualitative exploration of how representatives of the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) resolve professional ethical dilemmas by interviewing the representatives. The second phase of this study was confirmatory. An online questionnaire was designed and administered to members of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) who held positions similar to those held by the phase one sample. The questionnaire was designed to confirm the findings from phase one about ethical dilemma resolution. The study found that professional ethical dilemmas are very complex, involving multiple ethical principles, multiple roles of the person facing the dilemma, and multiple constituent groups involved in the dilemma. Despite this complexity, student affairs professionals use a relatively simple resolution process of serious reflection and conferring with others. Considerations of self (e.g. role in dilemma and impact on self) and the wider organization (e.g. legal implications and political implications) were used in the resolution process. The study also found that student affairs professionals' personal values helped them prioritize the vying ethical principles involved in the dilemma so that they could make a decision that they believed was ethical. / Ph. D.