Higher Education and Peacebuilding: A Comparative Case Study of Peace and Conflict Studies Programs in Kenyan Universities

Sikenyi, Maurice Makhanu ProQuest Dissertations & Theses University of Minn 2019 해외박사(DDOD)

This study aimed to understand the role of higher education and peacebuilding in Kenya. In particular, the study explored how university administrators, faculty, students and national officials understand peace, and how university-level peace and conflict studies programs were designed and implemented for peacebuilding in Kenya. The study entailed a year-long period of fieldwork that focused on two Kenyan universities, Amani University and Umoja University , and their PCS programs. It was structured as a comparative case study utilizing semi-structured interviewing, document review and participant observations. The primary findings of this study are as follows: First, participants viewed higher education institutions (universities) as critical actors in the consolidation of peace, and peace and conflict studies (PCS) programs as critical for peacebuilding. However, participants also viewed universities as enablers of ethnic divisions and a culture of violence, a problematic role which participants felt needed to be addressed in order to generate meaningful efforts of peacebuilding through higher education. Secondly, participants understood peace as an outcome of the practice of uwazi and undugu, sustainable development, freedom from corruption, ethnic inclusivity and cohesiveness, absence of physical violence, good leadership and dialogue and reconciliation. I argue that these participants' constructions of peace, reflected their tacit knowledge, aspirations and lived experiences of conflict and peace that were particular to Kenya and therefore constituted a peace knowledge. Thirdly, faculty utilized peace knowledge and critical pedagogy to design PCS curricula and drew on local knowledge and resources to develop students' knowledge, skills and agency for peace and justice. Additionally, students' perspectives revealed transformative experiences in PCS programs. These formations of new perspectives and awareness of peace illustrate the transformative element of a university learning experience and confirmed the critical role of university actors and programs in shaping actions and values for peace and sustainability. This study contributes to understandings of peace and the role of education in peacebuilding. It reveals the relational nature of peace, particularly the role of individual lived experiences as well as context-level factors in shaping perspectives on peace and conflict which differ from one region to another. Subsequently, findings of this research illustrate limitations and promises of higher education institutions (HEIs) as avenues for peacebuilding. In Kenya, HEIs were constrained by competing demands for institutional survival amidst diminishing state financing and the high demand for university level-education and certifications. Similarly, broader social and historical issues within universities and beyond inhibit institutional efforts for peacebuilding. For example, negative ethnicity, electoral malpractice, corruption and inequality in resource allocations are issues that are imbedded in the structural and social fabric of the society in Kenya and require system-wide approaches in addition to peace education. This study concludes that there is a need for governments and educators to advocate for and implement policies and practices that incorporate local knowledge in peace education curriculum. It also suggests the need for a system-wide policy that address social and structural practices that exacerbate tensions and violence within all institutions.

The Black Worker and the Knowledge Economy in Philadelphia: University-Led Displacement vs. Homeowner Democracy

Chandra, Meghna ProQuest Dissertations & Theses University of Penn 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation investigates the consequences of university-driven development in Philadelphia, especially for the African American communities that surround the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and Drexel University. It uses the theoretical contributions of W.E.B. Du Bois and David Harvey to conceptualize Philadelphia’s high rate of low-income homeownership as a product of the struggle of black workers and communities for democracy and the Right to the City. Thirty-three qualitative interviews with long-time residents, political activists, university administrators, and community institutions were conducted. Quantitative analysis including logistic regression analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data comparing outcomes in gentrifying and non-gentrifying neighborhoods and spatial K-cluster analysis were also conducted. Results show that university-driven development is leading to the conversion of single-family homes into apartment buildings and multifamily rentals, and a vision of the city in which developers, city officials, and university administrators wish to (in the words of one interviewee) “bring Manhattan to Philadelphia”. For homeowners, density is a shorthand for social, economic, and political displacement of the black working class and the disappearance of affordable homeownership opportunities. Density and affordable housing—and an ideology of urbanism—as conceptualized by city planners, university officials, developers, and new residents, clash with communities’ definitions of what the urban fabric of Philadelphia should be, as well as what truly affordable housing looks like. Furthermore, the influx of a student and professional population and its definition of progressivism has led to the political displacement of constituencies that have been shaped by black liberation movements. Resistance to university-driven development, whether it is the movement against the building of Temple’s Stadium, or the drive to “save-zone” neighborhoods by rezoning them from mixed residential to single family, are led by black homeowners to preserve homeownership and black electorates. They are rooted in the historic struggles of the black worker in Philadelphia. I conclude with a discussion of the context of decreasing rates of homeownership in the country as a threat to a truly democratic society.

Settling for Less: How Organizations Shape Survivors’ Legal Ideologies around College Sexual Assault

Bedera, Nicole ProQuest Dissertations & Theses University of Mich 2021 해외박사(DDOD)

It is well-established fact that sexual assault survivors who report the violence they endured to their universities are traumatized by the process, but there is little research on how these institutional betrayals are enacted or how they impact survivors’ legal and gender ideologies more broadly. This dissertation draws on twelve months of ethnographic observation of one university’s Title IX-affiliated offices and 76 interviews with survivors, perpetrators, and the administrators who oversaw their cases. I use these data to explore the organizational mechanisms of institutional betrayal and how survivors came to view betrayals as rational, inevitable, and, ultimately, their fault. The second chapter of my dissertation explores why there are so few Title IX investigations, even when survivors originally intended to report. Identified in my fieldwork as one of the most common institutional betrayals, I describe the power universities hold by creating and administering their own Title IX procedures, which makes survivors dependent on the organization to navigate Title IX proceedings. Accordingly, university administrators can subtly and overtly discourage survivors from engaging in Title IX processes that pose risk to the institution. Survivors quickly lose control over the trajectory of their cases, but lack the institutional knowledge to understand how their case took a different form from their original intentions or resist administrators’ efforts to neutralize their complaints. The third chapter of my dissertation examines how these power disparities lead survivors to blame themselves for the betrayals in their cases. Instead of holding their university accountable for denying their Title IX rights, survivors blame themselves for failing to overcome barriers to reporting, struggling to understand convoluted university policies and procedures, or for expecting too much of a process known to habitually fail survivors. As a result, survivors experience an institutional distortion of their legal rights that leads them to believe they have fewer options for recourse than the law guarantees them. This distortion creates new barriers in holding their university accountable for institutional betrayal or engaging in activist efforts. The fourth chapter of my dissertation investigates how Title IX administrators justify their roles in institutional betrayal. Specifically, I identify gendered rationalization frames of himpathy and hysteria that allow university administrators to reinterpret their primary goal as the protection of young men’s futures and consider inaction as the ideal outcome for a Title IX case. To defend this view from critique, they cast the Title IX process as irrelevant for survivors by claiming they were either mistaken in labeling an experience as violent or suffering from a trauma too severe for a Title IX process to repair. This chapter demonstrates that institutional betrayal in sexual assault cases is a gendered process, exposing (particularly women) survivors to more discrimination from the very office tasked with combatting gender inequality in education. Taken together, this dissertation provides evidence that universities’ management of sexual violence reinforces gender inequality. The ideological shifts survivors (and others involved in Title IX processes) experience during institutional betrayal likely extend beyond university campuses, contributing to the way sexual violence and the betrayal of survivors is normal and acceptable in broader society.

Individual Merit or Institutional Strategy? Examining the Merit Scholarship Practices at a Public Flagship University

Barnes, Malerie Beth ProQuest Dissertations & Theses University of Colo 2024 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation study examines the ways that a large, public flagship university uses automatic-consideration merit scholarships to meet the goals of the institution, particularly as they relate to enrollment, university prestige, nonresident-to-resident balancing, and funding. Employing a mixed-methods design, the author uses qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate (1) how university enrollment management leaders define and operationalize merit by way of the automatic merit scholarship policies that they develop and oversee to meet university goals; (2) how expanded models of merit scholarships have impacted student outcomes around enrollment, retention, and academic performance in the past at the university; and (3) how, given the findings, leaders at the university ought to think about and operationalize merit, and policy recommendations that might offer a more expanded recognition of merit while not neglecting the university's political and financial reality.

The Effects of Resource Dependency on Decisions by University Public Service Administrators for Service to the State through Local Government Training

Jones, Stacy Bishop ProQuest Dissertations & Theses University of Geor 2019 해외박사(DDOD)

University public service administrators consider a range of factors in their decisions to revise or implement local government training programs in service to their state. Major among these factors are the influence of external stakeholders, university mission, metrics, labor and financial resources, and university location. Resource dependency also impacts the administrator’s decisions as revealed in organizational effectiveness, environmental awareness, and environmental constraints. The decline in state government dollars to support training local government officials affects the public service administrators' decisions as they experience external and internal forces in their environment.Interviews of public service organization senior administrators, directors, and managers at three research universities, combined with document analysis from the universities' websites and document analysis from training profiles from the Consortium of University Public Service Organizations, uncovered that administrators experience the influence of external stakeholders. These external actors interact with the administrators' awareness of university mission, metrics of effectiveness, labor and financial resource availability, and their own organizational placement in the university infrastructure for public service. This study concludes that university public service organization administrators make decisions on local government training within a metaphorical box of influences that is impacted by strong external influences from the state legislature and local government associations.

Academic Business: Professionalization and the University Business Officer

McWhorter, Lynn Price Auburn University ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 2014 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation examines the place of the college and university business officer in institutions of higher education across the U.S. South. In 1927, George Howell Mew, newly minted business officer at Emory University, was the driving force behind the creation of the Southern Association of College and University Business Officers [SACUBO]. Over the next fifty years members of SACUBO succeeded in creating an institution which transformed the business officer from a functionary who reported bookkeeping numbers to the board of trustees into an administrator and vice-president of the university. In the process, business officers helped transformed the college and university from an individual institution working with hundreds of students into campuses enrolling tens of thousands students and managing billions of dollars. A number of forces pushed college and university business officers into a position of responding to external pressures: philanthropy in the 1920s, research grants in the 1930s and 1940s, the need to train military personnel for wars from World War I into the 1980s and the accompanying regulations, the alliance of research universities with industry, and social pressures such as race relations and student protests. Though sometimes better than others, SACUBO helped college and university business officers navigate the complexities of the modern university.

The Origination and Utilization of Titled Professorships at Indiana University, 1890s-1970s: A Historical Study

Broderick, Cynthia F Indiana University ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 2024 해외박사(DDOD)

Titled professorships have existed within higher education since the creation of the first endowed professorship at Harvard College in 1721. Yet, only in the last one hundred years have titled professorships become a regular part of higher education nomenclature on a national scale. Neither the total number of titled professorships nor the total amount of money endowing titled professorships is tracked by any known higher education or philanthropical institution despite the proliferation of titled professorships within American higher education. Historical and philanthropic literature has not explored the impact of titled professorships on an institution or on those appointed to such titles in any comprehensive way outside of a limited number of studies exploring titled professorships within specific racial or gender identity groups or within academic disciplines like nursing, accounting, or various medical disciplines. This study offers a glimpse into the historical development and use of titled professorships within one American higher education institution, Indiana University.This historical study explores the origination and utilization of titled professorships at Indiana University (IU), a midwestern public university founded in 1820, from the establishment of its first titled professorships in 1915, through growth in the number of titled professorships and the faculty appointed to those professorships, to the establishment of criteria for consideration, nomination, and evaluation of nominees in the early 1970s. This study sets the stage by examining the evolution of the IU faculty from its earliest days, focusing on the growth of the institution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the acquisition of its first endowed professorship in 1915. It explores the growth of the faculty along with the challenges university leadership faced in their efforts to increase the number and prestige of the institution's faculty. The study then presents the origination and appointment of titled professorships as one tool the university used to expand and retain its faculty. The study examines two distinct forms of titled professorships at IU-named, also known as endowed, professorships and university-established titled professorships-along with how the university cultivated and distributed these unique titles.

Guided Reflective Writing and Student Clinical Judgment Development: A Descriptive Study of Nursing Student and Faculty Perspectives

Smith, Tanya ProQuest Dissertations & Theses University of Kans 2019 해외박사(DDOD)

Literature supports guided reflection and clinical judgment development as key components to enhancing students’ knowledge and preparation for complex nursing care. Faculty are challenged to prepare new nurses to enter the complex health care arena and often note problems in helping students transition classroom learning to clinical application. The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) recognizes and supports teaching clinical judgment in nursing curricula to better prepare nursing students for professional practice (2018).Guided reflective writing provides opportunities for nursing students to synthesize and evaluate evidence related to clinical experiences and may support clinical judgment development.The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to examine student and faculty perspectives of the benefits and challenges of guided reflective writing for clinical judgment development following clinical experiences. A convenience sample of Junior (n = 28) and Senior (n = 19) nursing students and faculty (n = 4) were recruited from a baccalaureate degree nursing program at a small Midwestern university. These students used the Guided Reflective Writing Assignment organized by Tanner’s Clinical Judgment Model (2006).Student participants were asked to participate in an open-ended survey regarding their experience of the Guided Reflective Writing Assignment post-clinical. A focus group gained faculty perspectives of the assignment. Methods to assure trustworthiness included follow-up participant interviews and artifact analysis. Qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis to identify themes from the responses. An organizing frame relevant to reflective writing and clinical judgment for patient care emerged from the group descriptors. Since different student levels provided different perspectives of the assignment, a final theme for each student group was developed: 1) Organizes basic nursing care (Junior One students) and 2) Sense of wholeness (Senior Two students). Progression in clinical judgment from Junior One to Senior Two students was supported with participant comments. Faculty concurred with students’ perspectives with their final theme, Encourages deep thinking. Study findings reflect support and value of the Guided Reflective Writing Assignment for assisting students gain clinical judgment skills. The study helps advance the science of learning and leads to further research opportunities and implications for nursing students, faculty, graduates, and patient care.

Narratives of successful navigation: A sociocultural study of self-identified Latin undergraduate students

Haro, Zelda Lopez ProQuest Dissertations & Theses University of Oreg 2016 해외박사(DDOD)

Narratives of successful navigation are the personal stories of 13 Latin undergraduate students who navigated the public school system and completed high school in the United States. Their words recount their individual journeys resulting in their enrollment at a 4-year research university in the Pacific Northwest as opposed to a 2-year community college. More than half of the study respondents begun their postsecondary studies at a community college. The navigation of these particular individuals were experienced differently than those respondents whose trajectory led them straight into the university. Three categories corresponding to the study's three research questions were analyzed. First, common challenges produced two themes, low social economics status (SES) and ethnic identity. Second, the category on persistence characteristics formulated only one construct, academic self-efficacy. Third, three interlocking themes of supportive factors fostering academic success were identified, the support of parents/ family members/peers, non-familial agents in the form of teachers, and lastly college readiness including AP or honors coursework. The thematic analysis of the respondents' stories was influenced by the literature that documents challenges historically impeding Latin academic achievement and by the research on both persistence and supportive factors. The analyses of the individual navigational experience of the study participants found similarities within their experiences, but it also revealed the complexity of their own singular stories. The study centered more on the aspirations of Latin students rather than the damaging effects of their schooling experiences. While some of the respondents' stories contain examples of challenges, the premise was in representing examples of successful navigation of the Chican/Latin education pipeline (Solorzano, 1998).

Constrained Surface Design for Projection Stereolithography

He, Haiyang ProQuest Dissertations & Theses University of Illi 2019 해외박사(DDOD)

In Constrained Surface Projection Stereolithography (CSP-SL) processes, the separation of a newly cured layer from the constrained surface is a historical technical barrier and greatly limits its printable size, process reliability and print speed. Moreover, over-large separation force leads to adhesion failures in manufacturing processes, causing broken constrained surface and part defects. One of the objectives of this thesis is to characterize the separation process and identify various factors that affect the separation process in CSP-SL systems. Mathematical models for separation forces with conventional smooth constrained surface are constructed by considering the liquid resin filling process. Effects of manufacturing factors on the separation force are revealed, including resin viscosity, separation speed, the cross section of the printing object, and the initial gap between the constrained surface and the printing surface. Additionally, various factors including constrained surface thickness, printing geometry, and the oxygen inhibition layer thickness are also experimentally studied and characterized. This lays the foundation for constrained surface design, which is another objective of this research, with the goal of separation force reduction and manufacturing capability enhancement.Based on the analytical model of separation force, two novel constrained surface designs are investigated. One design is characterized by radial microgroove textured constrained surface. The effectiveness of this microgroove surface texture on reducing separation force is validated both analytically and experimentally. Test cases show that with the help of the proposed textured surface, parts with wide solid cross sections that could not be printed using conventional methods can be manufactured successfully. The influence of the microgroove texture on the printed part surface roughness is also studied. A gray scale projection approach is proposed to address the resulted surface finish problem. The other constrained surface design is characterized by air-diffusion channels made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), which allows for continuous and sufficient air permeation to enhance the oxygen inhibition in CSP-SL systems. The influences of the air-diffusion-channel design on the robustness of the constrained surface and the light transmission rate are studied. It is found that the proposed air-diffusion-channel design is effective in maintaining and enhancing the oxygen inhibition effect, and thus can increase the solid cross section size of printable parts.The above two constrained surface designs, microgroove texture and air-diffusion-channel, are found effective for reducing separation force and enlarging printable size in layer-by-layer printing process. As a step further, this thesis also investigates the combination of the microgroove texture and air-diffusion-channel, which we named it as textured constrained (TC) surface, and another air permeable surface, island constrained (IC) surface, for layerless continuous printing in CSP-SL systems. The IC surface is based on a polymerization kernel surrounded with four large oxygen diffusion windows. The diffusion of oxygen in the IC surface enables the formation of a thin uncured liquid layer for continuous printing. Experiments are conducted to validate and compare the effectiveness of IC and TC surface designs for continuous printing. In addition, the surface roughness of printed parts by both approaches is characterized and analyzed. A continuous printing speed ranging from 45 mm/h to 477 mm/h has been demonstrated with our newly designed constrained surfaces. To identify the optimum continuous printing speed, machine learning techniques for modeling and predicting the proper continuous printing speed in the CSP-SL are investigated in this thesis. A synthetic dataset is generated by physics-based simulations. An experimental dataset is constructed for training the machine learning models to find the appropriate speed range and the optimum speed. Conventional machine learning techniques including Decision Tree, Naive Bayes, K Nearest Neighbors, and Support Vector Machine (SVM), ensemble methods including Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, and Adaboosting, and the deep learning approach Siamese Network are tested and compared. Experimental results validate the effectiveness of these machine learning models and show that the Siamese Network model gives the highest accuracy on predicting the optimum continuous printing speed.