A Narrative Exploration of Free Speech Events by New Student Affairs Professionals

Leftin, Adam Z Miami University ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 2020 해외박사(DDOD)

Free speech movements in U.S. Higher Education are as old as the education system itself (Chemerinsky & Gillman, 2017; Hofstadter, 1970; Sun & McClellan, 2020). However, there has been a dearth of literature regarding the role of student affairs practitioners in managing issues of free speech events on campus. Further, recent works by Ben-Porath (2017), Chemerinsky and Gillman (2017), as well as Whittington (2018) highlighted the urgency in protecting free speech on campus as a democratic bedrock in the mission of colleges and universities.The purpose of this narrative inquiry study was to explore how new student affairs professionals engaged in sensemaking (Weick, 1995) about their roles and experiences with free speech events on campus. This study used a narrative approach (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) grounded in a constructivist paradigm which allowed participants the opportunity to name and vocalize their experiences. In total, 10 practitioners from two public institutions of higher education participated in a series of three interviews about their experiences.This study found five emergent themes that contributed to sensemaking about free speech events: 1) Pathways into the profession, 2) Identity salience, 3) Context, 4) Supervision and mentorship, and the 5) Role of higher education and student affairs. These themes offer important considerations when thinking about how new student affairs professionals engage in complex sensemaking. These assemblages extend the body of research on sensemaking (Weick, 1995) and provide insight into the valuable role these professionals play in responding to free speech events on campus. This study has broad applicability for those working as student affairs professionals, generating standards of best practice that support students and promote democratic aims of higher education. These findings also have meaningful implications for senior-level student affairs professionals, graduate preparatory programs that support new practitioner socialization, and policymakers broadly. With the increase in events such as protest movements nationally, and on college campuses over the last five years, this topic remains urgently timely and timeless.

Realizing shared potential through school/university partnerships: Enhanced opportunities in the learning community

Eagle, Jean F Miami University 2005 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation investigates and interprets the implications that PK-12/University partnerships have on various members of a learning community. The College View/Rolling Hills Partnership (a pseudonym) provides the backdrop for this story. Inclusive voice and increased democratic construct provide the lens through which this case is framed. Three research questions comprise the foci of this study: (1) What are the substantive connections and programs established through the partnership? (2) How do students from both the public schools and the university gain from these efforts/programs? (3) How do participants in the wider learning community benefit (or not) from a formalized partnership?. This historical case study chronicles the work of the College View/Rolling Hills Partnership using observational data, archival collections of materials, and semi-structured interviews. These interviews reflect the work of the partnership through the eyes of ten key participants and comprise a thorough record of events resulting in a vicarious experience for the reader. The informants' stories are presented in three broad categories: The Visionaries, those who conceptualized the partnership; The Politicians, those who contextualized the partnership; and The Technicians, those who persist through presentation of programming. Six major themes surfaced as common among these three groups of informants: (1) The need to move forward despite past history. (2) The importance of a partnership structure which encompasses interinsitutional work. (3) The critical nature of persistence and resiliency in partnership work. (4) Quality trumps quantity, meaning not all growth is inherently good. (5) Internal and external community building play an important role in partnership work. (6) Relationships are the key to constructing and maintaining quality partnerships.

Loss and mourning in immigration: Using the assimilation model to assess continuing bonds with native culture

Henry, Hani M Miami University 2006 해외박사(DDOD)

This study used the assimilation model to elaborate the continuing bonds model of mourning. According to the continuing bonds model of mourning, immigrants dealing with the loss of their native culture incorporate elements of this culture (i.e. their families, friends, identity, language, values, and traditions) into their life structure. This model suggests that immigrants need not abandon their emotional attachments to elements of their native cultures; instead, they can benefit from continuing bonds with these elements. These bonds may help them adjust to their new countries, solve problems, and provide solace. The assimilation model, which has previously been used to assess psychotherapeutic progress, was extended to describe a process through which immigrants continue their bonds with their native culture by having an internalized constellation of voices of this culture. These voices are traces of experiences and memories of this culture and are activated or triggered by the immigrant's cultural artifacts and practices. For immigrants who have not fully assimilated the loss of their native culture, their continuing bonds can provide solace (clinging to the lost culture), or may exacerbate conflict with the host culture, or both. For immigrants who have fully assimilated the loss of native culture, the voices of this culture are linked via meaning bridges with the voices of the host culture and the continuing bonds became resources that are called upon by the immigrant when needed. Seven case studies of immigrants from Spain, Mexico, China, India, Uruguay, Iraq and Somalia illustrated the influences of an immigrant's context (i.e. external events influencing his or her life) and her/his worldview (i.e. perceptual aspects of her/his experience in response to losing the culture) on the assimilation of the lost culture and manifestations of the continuing bonds with it. Some of the interviewed immigrants showed differential assimilation of different elements of the lost culture or regression in the stages of assimilating this loss following stress. Case observations also showed influences of collectivism and individualism on the assimilation and mourning of lost culture and a possible link between mourning of lost culture and models of racial identity development and bicultural competence.

Writing a teaching life

Bird, Jennifer Lynne Miami University 2005 해외박사(DDOD)

This qualitative interpretive dissertation consists of five acts. Each act uses the theory of narrative inquiry and the practice of multigenre writing to investigate the stories teachers at the Ohio Writing Project tell as they complete their own writing, as well as the classroom implications when teachers view themselves as writers. Prologue. Provides an overview of the dissertation. Act I. A fictional story based on the author's life and factual research experiences at the Ohio Writing Project. Act II. End notes which illuminate issues introduced in the fiction and elaborate on what is fact and what is fiction in the research. Act III. Writing from the author's past presented in multiple genres to highlight the theoretical foundation of narrative inquiry. Act IV. End notes which examine existing literature and the author's rationale for writing a dissertation from a different methodological approach. Act V. The author's Ohio Writing Project Portfolio that provides additional critique of teaching, writing, and curriculum. While an abstract may provide an initial outline of this dissertation, it cannot effectively capture the creativity and risk of the author's writing style. To learn more, keep reading.

"If You Are Going to Last in This Profession, You Have to Be Yourself": Qualitative Portraits of Critical Educators in Urban Secondary Schools

Sellers, Kathleen Marie Miami University ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 2023 해외박사(DDOD)

This study examines the professional experiences of three teachers in a national network of urban, low-income serving, Catholic high schools. These teacher-participants were chosen to participate in this study because they engaged in experiential, community-based pedagogy within this national network and exemplified a commitment to social justice through their teaching practice. As detailed in Chapter One, such teaching practice resembles critical pedagogy and aligns with best practice in quality civic education. Therefore, by examining the experiences of critical educators, this study aimed to illuminate ways we can enhance civic learning for K-12 students by enhancing support for and removing the barriers to critical educators? distinct pedagogical practice. This is particularly important for Students of Color, who have faced historical exclusion from formal and informal modes of civic learning (Campbell, 2012; Lo, 2019).Critical theory (Freire, 1970/1993; Giroux, 2003; Horkheimer, 1972[1992]) and social reproduction theory (Bourdieu, 2016; Bowles & Gintis, 2016) were used to frame this study, which employed qualitative portraiture methodology (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) to answer two key research questions. The first question- Why do teachers in this Network engage in experiential, community-based pedagogy? -drew attention to the internal and external factors impacting my participants' practice. This set up inquiry into the second key research question: How do these educators exhibit civic and/or critical consciousness about and through their work?Findings from this study revealed that both internal and external factors contributed to the choice teacher-participants made to engage in experiential, community-based pedagogy. Professional ecology, consisting of local school and corporate cultures, were particularly influential on these teachers. That ecology functioned in distinct ways at each study site to both aid and obstruct the critical teaching practices of teacher-participants. Despite the obstacles they faced, these teachers all expressed dimensions of critical and/or civic consciousness through their pedagogical discourse, relationship-building, and professional practices. However, each teacher also expressed struggles with Freireanduality (Freire, 1970/2005) as they recognized and responded, to varying degrees, to the hegemonic forces at play in their professional contexts. Implications for practitioners, school community partners, and policymakers are discussed.

A Meta-Analysis of Sibling-Mediated Interventions for Youth with Autism

Brown, Courtney Arlene Miami University ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 2023 해외박사(DDOD)

Sibling-mediated interventions have been identified as an effective, family-focused intervention approach for improving social and adaptive skills in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Expanding upon the well-established peer-mediated intervention literature and more recent systematic review of sibling-mediated interventions for youth with autism, the present meta-analysis offers initial data on the overall effect of sibling-mediated interventions for youth with ASD. Given recent calls for study of family-focused interventions to better serve youth with ASD and their families, a synthesis of sibling-mediated interventions in relation to family systems theory was conducted. A meta-analysis of 24 single-subject research studies that implemented sibling-mediated interventions for youth with ASD yielded a moderate overall effect. No significant moderators emerged from analyses. Sibling-mediated interventions showed a moderate effect across intervention formats ("sibling as instructor", "sibling as model", "sibling as co-recipient"), target skills (social, academic/functional), and settings (home, school, clinical). Participant characteristics examined, including the gender and relative age of typical sibling participants, did not moderate effects. Implications of study findings for future research as well as practical implications in relation to family systems theory are explored. Limitations of the present study, including possible publication and/or selection bias, are discussed.

GENETIC DIFFERENTIATION AMONG POPULATIONS OF HYALELLA AND THE GENETIC REPONSES OF H. AZTECA TO ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINANTS (HYALELLA AZTECA, HEAVY METALS, HYALELLA MONTEZUMA, BIOINDICATOR)

DUAN, YIHAO MIAMI UNIVERSITY 1997 국내박사

REACTIONS AND INTERACTIONS OF DRINKING WATER TREATMENT BY-PRODUCTS: CHARACTERIZATION OF THE ELECTROCHEMICAL FORMATION OF INORGANIC BY-PRODUCTS OF THE ELECTROLYSIS OF SALT BRINE (DISINFECTION, WATER TREATMENT)

GAUW, RENEE DANIELLE MIAMI UNIVERSITY 1999 국내박사

Bromide and bacterial transport through different porous media: Controlling sediment characteristics and mathematical modeling

Sun, Kerang Miami University 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

Bacterial transport through laboratory columns of natural, intact aquifer sediment is investigated with the overall objective of better understanding bacterial transport and developing a predictive capability based on the sediment characteristics. Most previous bacterial-transport studies used artificial or repacked materials as the transport medium. A second objective is, therefore, to compare bacterial transport in natural-intact, natural-repacked and artificial sediments to evaluate the usefulness of experiments on surrogate materials. As an outgrowth of this work, bromide served as a comparative conservative tracer. A two-region, non-equilibrium model accurately simulated bromide breakthrough, and yet, for the media used in this study, the physical meanings of the model parameters are unclear. This study, therefore, also investigates their meanings by relating the parameter values to sediment properties. The model parameters were found to be highly correlated with sediment heterogeneity and could be estimated based on the sediment's sorting coefficient. Bacterial breakthrough in all three transport media was rapid with a sharp peak and a long tail of relatively constant concentration. Great variability was observed through natural sediments, but not silica sand. Breakthrough data indicate that bacteria move preferentially through the larger pores resulting in a smaller effective porosity and greater average velocity than for bromide. Bacterial breakthrough data can be simulated with a simple model incorporating kinetic sorption. Relationships between bacterial transport and sediment properties were explored with multiple regression analyses. The resulting regression models indicate that when groundwater chemistry and temperature are held constant, most of the variability in bacterial transport can be explained by grain size, degree of sorting and hydraulic conductivity. Statistical techniques were used to detect any difference between the transport of bacteria through the three different types of transport media. Bacterial transport through the intact-natural sediment columns is significantly different from transport through silica-sand columns; most of these differences can be explained by the physical difference of the media. Repacking has some effect on the relationships between bacterial transport parameters and sediment properties. There is a tendency to underestimate bacteria transport if artificial sand or repacked sediments rather than intact-natural sediments are used as the transport medium.

An ecological approach to personal construct psychology

Schlutsmeyer, Mark W Miami University 2005 해외박사(DDOD)

This project is a preliminary exploration of an ecologically-minded interpretation of Personal Construct Psychology (PCP). It consists of two parts. Part I, "Theoretical Aspects of Ecological Personal Construct Psychology," consists of three chapters that focus on two main issues in personal construct theory: the problem of drawing concrete distinctions between knowers and their environments and the problem of how to acknowledge the role that the environment plays in knowing. The last of these three chapters argues that these issues can be dealt with by coupling PCP with ecological perceptual theory. Part II, "A Constructivist Study of Affordance" presents a study in which ecological perceptual theory, particularly the theory of affordances, is used within the context of a traditional personal construct research framework. The aim of Part II is to begin exploration of an empirical framework within which personal constructivism can question the literal distinctions that are drawn between the person and the environment (problem 1 above) and account for the role that "external" structure plays in our construal of it (problem 2 above). Although there is some overlap between these chapters, I have chosen this approach in order to create four separate manuscripts (chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4--7) prepared for independent publication.