Approaches to systematic transfer: An examination of students who transfer within the Indiana University system

Meadors, Johnnie Wayne, II Indiana University 2011 해외박사(DDOD)

The last several decades have seen dramatic developments in the U.S higher education system. In addition to expansion in enrollments, there is an increasing tendency for students to attend multiple colleges in the course of their higher education careers. Much of what we know about multiple campus attendance is a result of studies conducted on two types of transfer behavior: (1) horizontal transfers and (2) vertical transfers. While understanding the attendance patterns of these students is important, little is known about the attendance patterns of students who decide to attend multiple institutions within a single university system (i.e. Indiana University). This study begins to fill the gap in the literature regarding the characteristics associated with intercampus transfer (ICT). The central research questions were: (1) What are the characteristics of Indiana University ICT students? (2) To what extent are these characteristics associated with ICT? (3) To what extent are pre-enrollment characteristics associated with ICT, and (4) to what extent are enrollment characteristics associated with ICT? A quantitative research methodology (logistic regression) was employed to analyze the data. The major implications from this study are twofold. First, this study provides evidence for the greater ability of certain types of students (academically excelling, full-time, younger and in state residents) to take advantage of educational opportunities, such as ICT. Second, although there is no official coordinated ICT program or policy, ICT patterns echo throughout the system at Indiana University. Specially, patterns echo throughout the system that sustain and maintain a feeder system between the main campus and the regional campuses. The findings show that IU ICT policy is providing greater access mainly for select group of students in addition to creating a feeder system between campuses. Therefore, the regional campuses in some instances lose some of their best students to Indiana University Bloomington. This raises questions about the extent to which campuses of the IU system are trying to enhance educational opportunities and outcomes for students or if the lack of clear, well articulated, and advertised policies for ICTs suggests that institutional self-interest has trumped the needs of students. The findings from this study can inform the professional practice of university administrators and policy makers. Recommendations for future research are also presented. The current study provides much needed insight into college transfer process of students from a multiple campus system.

Monitoring irrigation water quality in horticulture

Meador, Dustin Paul University of Florida 2013 해외박사(DDOD)

The biological quality of water used for horticulture irrigation affects risk of crop losses from waterborne pathogens, algae, and biofilm. Efficacy of treatment technologies such as chlorine used to control biological contaminants in water is affected by other quality parameters including water chemistry, physical particles, and sanitizing agent concentration. The first objective of this research was to determine physical, chemical and biological irrigation quality in horticultural greenhouses and nurseries. The second objective was to determine whether a dehydrated culture media (Petrifilm) was a suitable onsite monitoring tool to quantify colony forming units (cfu) per ml of aerobic bacteria and fungus. The third objective was to determine free chlorine, total chlorine and oxidation reduction potential (ORP) when sodium hypochlorite was added to nutrient solutions that contained different sources of nitrogen. Results from the first objective showed that recirculated irrigation had lower physical and biological irrigation quality than source well or municipal water. Recirculated water had low ultra violet (UV) transmission (68% to 72% compared with recommended 75%) and high concentrations of aerobic bacteria (above the 10,000 cfu˙mL-1 recommended for controlling biofilm clogging of irrigation equipment). For objective 2, the density of aerobic bacteria (cfu˙mL-1) from irrigation water samples estimated on Petrifilm-AC at 3 days was lower than estimates on Reasoner and Goldrich agar (R2A) culture medium by a factor of 2.92. Concentration (cfu˙mL-1) of a single strain culture of Xanthomonas campestris pv. Begoniaceae cultured on Petrifilm-AC were also significantly lower (P<0.05) than counts on R2A culture medium or using a hemocytometer, but was not different from counts on Potato-Dextrose Agar (PDA) culture medium. Zoospores of Phytophthora cactorum did not culture on Petrifilm-YM, whereas PDA and vegetable agar with antibiotics were able to culture Phytophthora. When chlorine from sodium hypochlorite was added at 2.6 mg˙L-1 Cl to nutrient solutions at 100 mg˙L-1 N, there was a rapid decrease of free chlorine to near zero within 2-min, because of complexation of hypochlorous acid with ammonium. Main findings were that improved monitoring and treatment of recirculated water is needed, Petrifilm-AC is a useful onsite monitoring tool for aerobic bacteria in irrigation water, and chlorination efficacy is likely to be affected by interaction with water soluble fertilizer.

The social organization of schools and student identity construction: The practice of becoming a student in middle school among newly immigrated Mexican girls

Meador, Elizabeth Ann University of Colorado at Boulder 2000 해외박사(DDOD)

In this study I examined the relationship between the categories and labels made available in the socially organized environment of two middle schools and the responses of newly immigrated Mexican middle school girls by looking at what I called student identity. I found that student identity was constructed within the boundaries that were produced in the following features of the social organization of the school: (1) decision making about students' placements, (2) types of educational programs, and (3) peer group interactions. While individual students felt varying levels of estrangement from teachers and administrators, this was only one piece of the social construction of student identity. Other influences that emerged in the data were the power of the American peer groups to dominate the classroom discourse and the limited and constrained categories that were available to Mexicana students. Thus schooling for Mexican descent girls offered limited opportunities for achievement due to the lack of status they had as second language learners. Student identity was evidenced by three intertwined categories: conformity, motivation, and engagement. Students had a variety of orientations to these categories that were mediated by ethnicity, socioeconomic class and gender. The cultural ideal of the school promoted the white, middle class athletes who spoke English as “good students,” and others were measured against that standard. Mexican girls were perceived as unable to be good students because they were often reserved, did not participate in extracurricular sports, and they were not “Americans,” according to the other students. The research method used in this study was ethnography. Following standards for ethnographic research design in the field of educational anthropology, the techniques that I used included direct observation during prolonged and regular site visits over a period of one academic year, participant observation, face-to-face interviews conducted on site, and an emphasis on the insiders' natural view of reality. Thus, fieldnotes, interviews, stories of self, detailed descriptions of features of the social organization, and artifacts that were produced within the school setting or were student produced were collected for interpretation and analysis. The data was analyzed by searching for cultural patterns using domain analysis, taxonomic analysis, and componential analysis.

A spatial deconvolution of molecular signals in oceanic dissolved organic matter

Meador, Travis Blake University of California, San Diego 2007 해외박사(DDOD)

This thesis provides chemical characterization data for ultrafiltered dissolved organic matter (UDOM) isolated from multiple depths in the western equatorial Atlantic and subtropical Pacific Oceans, the Southern California Bight, and the Benguela upwelling regime (n = 80). Multiple chemical characterization measurements were performed on this large set of UDOM samples including elemental analysis, stable C and N isotopic composition (delta13C and delta15N), radiocarbon analysis, 1H-NMR spectroscopy, monosaccharide composition, and novel application of several protein quantification methods. Most samples were collected as part of an extensive field program aimed at describing the biocomplexity of ocean ecosystems. Therefore, complementary data collected as part of this field program enabled a uniquely comprehensive assessment of relationships between physical-biological variables and DOM composition. Nitrogen (N) isotope dynamics are a common theme in all chapters and these data were used to study the flow of N within the microbial loop of the upper ocean and through the DOM reservoir. delta15N-UDOM showed remarkable homogeneity over this vast spatial array when compared to the delta15N dynamics of the short-lived particulate N reservoir suggesting that dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) contributed by contemporary processes does not accumulate in the upper ocean. Further isotopic analyses of planktonic nucleic acids (NA) and the protein component of DON provided evidence for the rapid recycling of DON contributed by diazotrophs in these regions characterized by extremely low concentrations of inorganic N. N isotope fractionation effects associated with the biosynthesis of NA by marine phytoplankton were also examined in one chapter to establish the validity of using delta15N-NA of size-fractionated field assemblages to identify biological sinks for dissolved organic nitrogen (DON). Basin-wide comparisons of chemical composition data revealed significant differences in delta15N-UDON between the subtropical N. Atlantic (avg.+/-s.d. = 4.1+/-0.6‰) and Pacific Oceans (5.3+/-0.8‰ and 15.0+/-1.4, p < 0.001). The Atlantic Ocean UDOM samples also exhibited higher C/N ratios (16.1+/-1.5) than those in the Pacific (15.0+/-1.4, p < 0.05), and significant differences in the monosaccharide composition of UDOM were observed both between and within these basins. Principal component analyses allowed preliminary identification of specific biological imprints on DOM composition particularly in regions dominated by diazotrophs. Furthermore, molecular level characterization combined with radiocarbon signatures of UDOM allowed for a novel assessment of UDOM reactivity, and together, these basin-wide observations provided new insights into the flow of C and N through the UDOM reservoir. This thesis has begun to interpret the information recorded in the chemical composition of DOM as it relates to the environmental processing of C and N in the ocean. New observations made in each chapter are the product of analytical approaches that combine a variety of environmental and DOM composition data over large spatial expanses in the ocean. This focus on producing a more complete chemical portrait of DOM through the simultaneous measurement of multiple parameters enabled this study to identify several processes that impart compositional variability to UDOM.

Acting White: Dramatic Representations of Race in Nineteenth-Century Peru

Smith, Andrea Meador University of Virginia 2009 해외박사(DDOD)

Even before theories of "scientific racism" gained prominence in Spanish America, social and racial distinctions greatly preoccupied the Peruvian intellectuals considered in this study, who portrayed whiteness as an essential element of national identity, and who felt an urgency to increase European immigration to Peru. By reviewing the dramatic production of the period between the wars of independence and the War of the Pacific (roughly, 1830-1884), I suggest that the playwrights in question were instrumental in negotiating racial identity at a time when the meanings of race and whiteness were continuously subject to revision. In this dissertation, I utilize various concepts from critical race theory to approach the dramatic production of seven criollo authors in hopes of demonstrating the profound effects they had in creating a national racial imaginary and a shared sense of whiteness. In particular, I examine the dramatic production of Felipe Pardo y Aliaga, Manuel Ascensio Segura, Carlos Augusto Salaverry, Constantino Carrasco, Nicanor Della Rocca de Vergalo, Juan de Arona, and Clorinda Matto de Turner. These criollo playwrights appropriated the power of White hegemony to determine what was transmitted as history, that is, a history free of Blacks and Indians. The works of these dramatists, who were caught between colonial and modern ways of classifying human bodies, speak to the sheer power of whiteness even before the parameters of whiteness had been clearly and consensually defined. Peru's urban criollos emphasized time and again that they were not African, Indian, Chinese, or Jewish, but rather a racially homogenous group in possession of the virtues of whiteness: physical beauty, mental acuity, Christian morality, and the capacity to bring about progress.

Superintendent's impact on the principal's role as teacher evaluator

Callard, Barbara Meador University of Southern California 2003 해외박사(DDOD)

With the drive for excellence in our public schools, superintendents must ensure teachers perform to expected standards in the classroom. Although the responsibility for teacher evaluation is assigned to site principals, it is the superintendent who creates the culture to instill meaning in the teacher evaluation process and how it impacts student learning. This study examines the superintendent's role in influencing principal priorities in teacher evaluation. The focus of the study is 4 top-rated, public school superintendents selected by the Delphi Technique who work with principals to place a high priority on teacher evaluation. The design was a qualitative, descriptive approach in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with these superintendents and their 11 high school principals. Interview data were analyzed to determine (1) the expectations of the superintendent about teacher evaluation, (2) the strategies used by superintendents to support an environment in which principals demonstrate a commitment to teaching and learning through teacher evaluation, and (3) the impact of the superintendent's actions on the principal as teacher evaluator. This analysis was accomplished using the Critical Incidents Technique (Flanagan, 1954) with frequency distribution tables and direct quotations reported to illustrate related concepts. The findings of the study indicated that superintendents play a critical role in establishing expectations for principal performance in instructional improvement and clearly influence the principal's views and reactions to teacher evaluation. This influence is exerted primarily through the superintendent's vision, expectations, support, and priorities that give credence to the importance of teacher evaluation. The results of the study extend research by describing how the superintendents created a culture that impacted principal priorities and providing examples of how the superintendent communicated expectations and demonstrated practices supporting the importance of instructional improvement. The implication for superintendents is the need to recognize and act on their ability to influence their principals by elevating the importance of teacher evaluation as a tool to improve instruction.

The anxiety of appreciation: Virgil Thomson wrestles with a "racket"

Bennett, Rebecca Kathryn Meador Northwestern University 2009 해외박사(DDOD)

As middlebrow music-appreciation books and radio broadcasts increasingly peppered the American landscape of the 1930s, the composer-critic Virgil Thomson decried a commercialized and disingenuous "music appreciation-racket" in his book The State of Music (1939). This "racket," Thomson wrote, had invaded myriad spheres of the American musical world, infecting its educational institutions and reducing its repertoire to accredited "masterworks." Further, he called the appreciation industry "a fake-ecstatic, holier-than-thou thing" and subtly linked figures such as Aaron Copland to its machinery. Because Thomson's charge has the potential to illuminate not just his own musical ideals, but also multiple aspects of the early twentieth-century American landscape and the middlebrow music industry that burgeoned within it, this dissertation unpacks Thomson's critique, using it as a lens through which we can better understand the marketing of high culture in early twentieth-century America and how this marketing affected conceptions of what it meant to "appreciate music.". Based on Thomson's publications, his archived papers, music-appreciation artifacts from the 1930s and 1940s including a number of radio scripts, writings by Thomson's contemporaries in a host of disciplines, and a sociologically minded conceptual framework, the dissertation presents a tripartite analysis of Thomson's "racket" essay. It elucidates various components of Thomson's cryptic critique, demonstrates the indebtedness of Thomson's charge to writers in other fields launching similar critiques, and weighs Thomson's assertions against historical evidence, thus helping us understand both the music-appreciation industry of early twentieth-century America and the cultural anxieties surrounding it. Its most surprising finding shows that---as seen in both their publications and their personal correspondence---Theodor Adorno and Thomson explicitly crusaded together against the "racket." Findings such as this suggest that musicologists should neither dismiss Thomson's critique of the appreciation industry nor overlook that industry's influence during the early twentieth century, especially since they spend much of their time challenging restrictive canons and other musical maladies which Thomson linked to the "racket" in 1939.