The study examined urban university faculty members’ perceptions of their
presidents’ leadership role in urban school reform. The population for this study
consisted of faculty members from five urban research universities. All of the
universities are members of the Great Cities’ Universities (GCU) coalition, an alliance of
19 public urban research universities that are collaborating to address educational
challenges in their communities. The study entailed a purposive sample with universities
chosen on the basis of their membership in the GCU. The subjects were 245 faculty
members from colleges of education and colleges of arts and sciences at the five urban
research universities.
All participants completed the Urban Faculty Questionnaire (UFQ), a
confidential, web-based questionnaire designed by the researcher. The questionnaire
consisted of five statements about general perceptions of urban school reform, 30
statements about perceptions of the university presidents’ leadership roles in the specific
institutions’ urban school reform initiatives, eight statements regarding personal
characteristics and a section for optional additional comments. The statements corresponded to seven internal scales of analysis. The seven scales were (a) Perceptions
of Urban School Reform, (b) University Structure and Culture, (c) Presidential
Awareness, (d) Internal Relationships, (e) External Relationships, (f) Resources and
Support and (g) Accountability and Recognition.
The data show faculty believe urban schools need reform. Faculty also believe
universities located in urban communities should be involved actively in urban school
reform. Faculty generally do not take personal responsibility, however, for urban school
reform initiatives at their universities. Faculty seem more aware of their presidents’
external relationships than their internal relationships in urban school reform. Faculty
tend to agree that their presidents build strong relationships with the local business
community and with the local political community; however, they tend only somewhat
to agree that their presidents build strong relationships with local public school
representatives and local families and citizens. The study also reveals that no statistically
significant difference exists in faculty perceptions of their presidents’ leadership in urban
school reform by the faculty members’ academic college, academic rank, years of
service at their current institutions, highest academic degree earned, gender and
ethnicity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-1885 |
| Date | 02 June 2009 |
| Creators | McClendon, Rodney Prescott |
| Contributors | Townsend, Christine D. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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