A balancing act: An exploration of how a public flagship institution responds to pressures for racial equity and institutional excellence

Lewis, Cassandra Carol University of Maryland, College Park 2007 해외박사(DDOD)

The purpose of this study was to explore how a public flagship institution responds to pressures for racial equity and institutional excellence in higher education. In particular, the study relied on an exploratory case study methodology to investigate the University of Maryland, College Park's responses to pressures for racial equity and institutional excellence from 1988, when the University was designated the flagship institution of the State of Maryland, to 2006. This study was informed by two streams of literature. The first stream examines how broad notions of equity and excellence are defined and measured and discusses whether these ideals are in tension within the broader context of American higher education. The second body of literature explores how institutions respond to external pressures, how contextual forces and human agents interact to shape institutional responses and how these responses affect the manner in which equity and excellence ideals are realized. The streams of literature are tied together through a conceptual model which suggests how demands for racial equity and institutional excellence are mediated by the strategic choices of key actors within the institution. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with nineteen informants and document analysis. Data suggest that specific strategies to mediate the demands for racial equity were conditioned and arguably constrained by the University's responses to pressures for institutional excellence. The data also suggest that the University's longstanding efforts to link racial equity with institutional excellence through broader notions of diversity which celebrate a broad range of individual differences are perceived to have diluted the social justice focus of racial equity. The University's resistance to addressing issues of racial equity in favor of promoting diversity and its tendency to embrace traditional, status-based indicators of excellence may have contributed to divergent perspectives concerning the University's commitment to racial equity and may have undermined the ability of the University to advance this value. Taken together, these and other case findings indicate that the orienting framework was a valid and useful theoretical orientation.

In search of educational leadership: A case study of the founding and transitional presidents' leadership of the educational program at Hagerstown Junior-Community College (Maryland)

May, Melinda Belle University of Maryland College Park 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

This study was designed to describe by means of a detailed case study the nature of leadership exerted by the founding president and his successor whose combined service spanned the entire fifty-four year existence of the oldest community college in western Maryland. An examination of critical leadership incidents in the college's life-span and in-depth interviews illuminate the role these presidents played as institutional leaders, and, more important, document the extent of their leadership of the educational program in the context of their multiple institutional responsibilities. Their leadership behaviors are subsequently examined for conformity to the five orientations of transformational leadership defined by Roueche, Baker, and Rose (1989) as critical to community college leadership: vision, influence, people, motivation, and values. The literature review focuses on leadership theory and its applicability to institutions of higher education, leadership in community colleges and the role of the president, and, more specifically, the community college president as educational leader. The researcher employs a detailed case study as described by Creswell (1998) to investigate the multidimensional social phenomena of educational leadership and to describe their holistic nature within the context of a single institution. As the instrument of data collection and analysis, the researcher triangulates methodological techniques. The study revealed that the founding president and the succeeding president exhibited actions and behaviors which would identify them as educational leaders within the context of their presidencies. However, neither president consistently demonstrated the five orientations of transformational leadership identified by Roueche et al. (1989). Most clearly and consistently demonstrated were orientations to vision, influence, people, and values, while motivation appeared to vary with situations and followers. Data revealed that the accomplishments of both presidents emanated from their clearly articulated vision. Both were presidents for their times. Research findings provide a better understanding of the multiple institutional responsibilities of the community college president and expand the base of knowledge available to current and aspiring leaders. Recommendations for further research are made, and implications for educational leadership are suggested.

A case study of the transfer process of a selected group of students from a community college to a four-year teacher education program

McDonough, Maureen Lucy University of Maryland College Park 2000 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation examined the transfer experience of a purposefully-selected group of students who exited the Community College of Baltimore County, Catonsville, and transferred to Towson University during 1999. The research questions addressed the issues of the role of the community college in teacher preparation and how the institutions help or hinder the transfer of prospective teacher education majors who begin their pre-service training at the community college. The researcher used the particularistic descriptive case study method, interviewing fourteen transfer students and six higher education professionals from both the two- and four-year institutions. The study traced the history of the community college movement nationwide and in the state of Maryland, and cited a sample of efforts to improve transfer conditions for community college students who express an interest in majoring in teacher education at the baccalaureate level. The narratives of the student interviews were analyzed and interpreted through the lenses of three sociologically-based theoretical perspectives: the conflict theory; the structural-functional theory; and the institutional barriers theory. The findings revealed five dominant themes that emerged from the data. These were: transfer tension, the ambiguous role of the community college in teacher preparation, the role of the student in the management of his/her transfer, the erection and maintenance of institutional barriers, and feelings of alienation, especially for non-traditional students. Analysis of the dialogs with the higher education professional respondents validated the transfer accounts of the students. The transfer process for this population varied depending upon the students' proaction and planning; nevertheless, transfer tension to some degree was reported by all of the student participants, and all had encountered some institutional barriers precluding a truly seamless transfer. Recommendations from the study were both for policy and practice and for further research, Significant recommendations included encouraging the university and community college teacher education professionals to conduct substantive dialog about their respective philosophies of preparing teachers, clarification of the role of the community college in teacher education, and providing transfer students with more timely and concise information to guide their transition. It was also recommended that the student participants be followed throughout their university years in a longitudinal study and that the research be expanded to include other higher education institutions and transfer students in other disciplines. The study is significant for teacher education students, education policy makers, and practitioners, especially in light of the shortage of qualified teachers.

A case study of the influence of family on first-generation college students' educational aspirations post high school

Acker-Ball, Shawna L University of Maryland, College Park 2007 해외박사(DDOD)

The purpose of this study is to examine how factors in the home environment (hereby referred to as habitus) (Bourdieu, 1977) impact the educational aspirations of first-generation college students who are participants in an academic achievement program designed to meet the needs of first-generation and underrepresented students (Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program). This study examined family characteristics such as educational and cultural practices, academic awareness, social class position and parental expectations to determine if they have an impact on student aspirations. The primary research question to guide this study is, "What is the influence of family on first-generation college students' educational aspirations post high school?". This study sought to determine how families that were from traditionally underrepresented populations (low SES, ethnic minorities, single parent home, etc.) in post-secondary education were able to influence the aspirations of their children to attend college. Put differently, the study sought to understand the amount of exposure that each student had to the collegiate experience, the arts, financial information, and other cultural and social events. This study focused on what happened in the homes of the participants that provided the requisite skills, attitudes and behaviors that would serve as a source of motivation to aspire to college.

The relationship of demographic, aspirational, situational, employment, and commuting factors to commuter students' perceptions of mattering at a large public university

Wicker, Adrienne Hamcke University of Maryland, College Park 2004 해외박사(DDOD)

The purpose of this study was to explore the predictive ability of demographic, aspirational, situational, employment, and commuting blocks of variables to commuters' feelings of mattering at a large, public university. The relationship of these variables and mattering to GPA and overall satisfaction were also explored. Finally, this research developed psychometrically sound scales from the Student Satisfaction Inventory to measure aspects of the mattering construct. Data for this study came from the 1999 administration of the Student Satisfaction Inventory to upperclass students in Professional Writing classes at the University of Maryland. Only students who indicated that they commuted to campus were included in the analyses. Exploratory factor analyses (N = 646) were employed to create three mattering scales: Positive Attention, Institutional Commitment to Diverse Populations, and Personalized Academic Advising. Blocked hierarchical regression (N = 524) was performed to assess the relationship between race, gender, educational goal, institutional choice, class load, class level, resident life experience, college, employment status, location of employment, commute status, and commute distance to mattering. As secondary analyses, blocked hierarchical regression was again employed to examine the relationship between these variables and the mattering scales to GPA and overall satisfaction. Significance was set at p < .05. Overall equations were significant for the Positive Attention and Personalized Academic Advising scales. Commute distance and type of commuter did not emerge in any of the analyses as significant predictors of mattering, GPA, or overall satisfaction. For the Positive Attention scale, the aspirational and situational blocks were significant. The only block with significant predictive capacity for the Institutional Commitment to Diverse Populations scale was the demographic one. For the Personalized Academic Advising scale, the aspirational and situational blocks were significant predictors. Overall equations were significant for GPA and overall satisfaction. For GPA, the demographic, aspirational, situational, and employment blocks of variables were significant predictors. For overall satisfaction, the aspirational and mattering blocks were significant predictors. Implications from this research suggest that certain aspects of mattering are important in understanding commuter students' feelings of satisfaction with the university. Commuting specific aspects of students' experience, however, may not be as salient as attention to other variables.

Combatting White Supremacy on Campus: Racialized Counter-Memory and Student Protests in the 21st Century

Farzad-Phillips, Alyson Beata University of Maryland, College Park ProQuest Diss 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

Over the past two decades, we have witnessed an abundance of student protests at colleges and universities in the United States. Many of these protests cluster around the issues of white supremacy and anti-Black racism as they function in higher education settings—issues that have historically and contemporarily plagued United States colleges and universities. In this project, I analyze the arguments produced by college student protestors during race-based controversies at the University of Missouri, the University of Maryland, and the University of Georgia between 2015 and 2020. In each of these cases, college student activists have addressed racist cultures, actions, and policies upheld by their white peers, faculty, and university leadership. The student protest discourses developed during these controversies illuminate a theory of racialized counter-memory, which I define and elaborate throughout each chapter. Racialized counter-memory, as a rhetorical concept, brings together scholarship concerned with race, memory, and place/space, and it is best understood as public memory that centers race and racialized experiences in a way that counters dominant or institutional memory and promotes an anti-racist perspective. This study shows how racialized counter-memories—and the students that create, negotiate and circulate them—can combat the challenges of hegemonic white supremacy on college campuses by making white supremacy known, by marking racism’s existence on campus, and by envisioning anti-racist solutions. I also illustrate the ways in which students’ use of racialized counter-memory re-constituted the places and spaces of campus towards anti-racist ends, such as redistributing campus resources, constructing memory sites, and altering town-and-gown relations. Overall, this dissertation analyzes specifically how and in what way college students demonstrated the power of racialized counter-memory, in theory and in practice. I posit that rhetorical scholars should further develop and study racialized counter-memory, enacted in anti-racist protests and social change, as a rhetorical lens that can address and combat the assumed white standpoint and white supremacist systems imbedded in U.S. institutions and landscapes, including higher education institutions and their campuses.

An examination of the influence of institutional context on persistence at four-year colleges and universities: A multilevel approach

Titus, Marvin Albert University of Maryland College Park 2003 해외박사(DDOD)

This study contributes to our understanding of the most appropriate theoretical and methodological approaches to examining differences between institutions in college student persistence. Using constructs from Bean's (1990) student attrition model and the Berger-Milem (2000) college impact model, national data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) surveys, and hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) techniques, this study addresses the limitations of prior research by exploring the extent to which persistence is influenced by institution-level variables after taking student-level variables into account. The analytical sample is limited to first-time, full-time, degree-seeking undergraduates attending four-year colleges and universities nationwide. Five conclusions may be drawn from this study. First, several student-level constructs from Bean's (1990) student attrition model help to explain persistence within a four-year college or university. This study supports Bean's (1990) claims that student academic background and such measures of experiences as college academic performance, involvement, satisfaction, and institutional commitment positively influence persistence. Aspects of environmental pull, specifically a student's plan to transfer and working off campus, are validated as negative predictors of persistence. Second, even after controlling for student-level variables, differences in persistence between four-year colleges and universities exist. Third, this study finds that the two student-level constructs from the student attrition model, satisfaction and plan to transfer, that are aggregated to the institutional level reflect student-level rather than institutional-level effects. Fourth, this study finds that selectivity, as measured by the average student academic ability at an institution, has a contextual effect on college student persistence that reflects a positive increment to the chance of persistence that accrues to a student beyond a student's individual academic ability as a result of attending a more, rather than a less, selective institution. Fifth, this study demonstrates that multilevel statistical techniques can be used to examine persistence utilizing the student and the institution as units of analysis and simultaneously take into account the effects of variables that operate within an institution and between institutions to influence persistence.

Exploring the relationship between moral reasoning and students' understanding of the honor code at the University of Maryland

Goodwin, Andrea J. Corradini University of Maryland, College Park 2007 해외박사(DDOD)

This mixed methods study explored the relationship between moral reasoning and students' understanding of the honor code at the University of Maryland. The Defining Issues Test, version 2 (DIT2) was administered to 400 students residing in University housing in order to assess students' level of moral reasoning. Based on their scores on the DIT2, students were divided into three groups; those who scored high, medium, and low. Fifteen students were purposefully selected to participate in qualitative interviews to explore their understanding of the honor code. Data from the individual interviews illustrated that students understood the honor code in various ways including how they made meaning of the honor code, how they interpreted the honor code, and their attitudes towards the honor code. Specifically students at the highest level of moral reasoning believed that the honor code was common sense and therefore did not differentiate between the honor code and the honor pledge because the principle of academic dishonesty is evident in both. Students who scored in the middle of the other two groups believed that students' behavior was influenced by their values and judged the morality of actions by comparing their actions to actions that were socially acceptable. They focused on the importance of following the honor code because of its importance to the community. Finally, students who scored lowest on the DIT2 believed that the honor code was necessary so that students would not cheat. The meaning they made of the honor code was based on the honor code as a set of rules. They defined right behavior, in this case following the honor code, by what was in their own best interest. Students' attitudes toward cheating also emerged as a result of the analysis of the interview with students. Despite the differences found between students in this study, there were several findings that were consistent across all three groups of students. Students in the study had a favorable attitude toward the honor code and reported that they did not engage in academic dishonesty while in college. However, students in all three groups reported that they did not believe that the honor code directly impacted their behavior or the behavior of their peers at the University. They believed that faculty and peer behavior were more influential in their decisions regarding academic integrity than the honor code. Students in the study were reluctant to report their peers for academic dishonesty and many of the students focused on the importance of grades.

Attachment, conflict management and adjustment to college

Quinonez, Carolina University of Maryland College Park 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

The college years are a time when individuals are trying to explore and establish their own identity and independence, form meaningful relationships, and meet the academic and social demands of the environment. The college experience, with its new social situations and novel ideologies, provides potential sources of interpersonal conflict that could stimulate developmental crises of late adolescence. The ways in which individuals handle interpersonal conflict situations may facilitate or hinder their adjustment and development. Research has shown that both attachment and conflict variables have been associated with adjustment of college student populations, and attachment style has been found to be predictive of conflict management strategies. The purpose of this study was to examine the relations among attachment, conflict style and college adjustment to further our understanding of and improve interventions with college students. Specifically, the study was intended to assist in identifying which students would be most at risk for academic and career problems, poor mental health, and difficulties relating to others. Participants were 229 predominantly White undergraduate students enrolled in a large Mid-Atlantic state university. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses. The current findings could help identify and target students for interventions and determine which interventions might be best suited for particular students. Overall, the results of this study suggested that attachment was associated with adjustment to college and that in some areas conflict management may add to the prediction of college adjustment. More specifically, attachment was predictive of anxiety, depression, interpersonal problems, family problems, academic problems, and career problems. Conflict management style contributed to the prediction of anxiety, depression, and academic problems. Given the increasing concern for budgetary restrictions in institutions across the country, the option of intervening with students experiencing difficulties by means of psychoeducational groups focusing on facilitating healthy attachment and enhancing conflict management and resolution, might be feasible and cost-efficient. More research should be conducted to more fully explicate the role of attachment and conflict management style on psychological health.

Giving up their place in the walls: The lived experience of community college nursing faculty who leave the profession of teaching

Karl, Cherry Ann Caldwell University of Maryland, College Park 2007 해외박사(DDOD)

Community college nursing faculty members are essential to the continuation and growth of the profession of nursing. Every loss of a nursing faculty member represents an even greater loss to the practice of nursing within the health care system. Previous research has documented the serious and inter-related shortage of both nursing professionals and nursing faculty. This phenomenological study explores the underlying themes leading to the decisions made by nursing educators to leave the practice of teaching, and presents strategies for preserving and strengthening the position of nursing faculty within the community college. The guiding question for this inquiry is: "What is the lived experience of community college nursing faculty who leave the profession of teaching?". Text for this study comes from narrative sources such as reflective writings and one-on-one conversations with six former full-time community college nursing faculty members. In chapters two and three, I turn to the literature and am guided by the phenomenological philosophers such as Heidegger, Gadamer, and Casey. Nursing leaders and their work provide me with grounding for the study and to help me to draw out the phenomenon for investigation. The six research activities of van Manen provide the methodological framework for the research. Chapter four is a meeting place for those who tell their stories. The nursing faculty members who offer up their stories journey with me as I explore the meanings of their experiences. These conversations help to unravel the experiences of being a teacher of nurses and offer a place for their voices to be heard. Several themes that were uncovered showed a lack of a welcoming into teaching, unrealistic workload expectations and work-family conflict. Using the metaphor of sheltering walls, the study explores the needs of nursing faculty members to find, claim and maintain an appropriate dwelling place in order to sustain professional growth and well-bring. Pedagogical insights serve as a challenge to nurse educators to fortify the bonds of community within nursing education programs. Program administrators and faculty alike must accept the responsibility to look beyond what is most apparent, communicating awareness of individual and common needs and strengths in order to continue to enrich the lives of their students and of each other.