The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has highlighted the risk of non-users among college students using illegal prescription stimulants due to misinformation and incorrect assumptions. This qualitative study aimed to explore the perspectives of college students who do not use stimulants on perceived risks, social…

This practice-based research is a qualitative interpretive phenomenological study in the context of educational policy. Specifically, this research focused on educators' perceptions of year-round school calendars and the unclear policy about year-round single-track schooling. This qualitative interpretive phenomenological study aimed to…

Faculty job satisfaction, which is a contributor to faculty retention, develops from the complex interaction of a faculty member's experiences, identities, and work-life situations. Among these things are interactions with administrators. Previous research has demonstrated that faculty job satisfaction is impacted by relationship with…

Health messaging can be a successful tool in encouraging pro-social behavior, such as bystander intervention in sexual violence situations. This dissertation explored the development of a social media message to encourage bystander intervention among college students using multiple theoretical frameworks: social norms approach and bystander…

This qualitative study investigated the success strategies of Lebanese women leaders in higher education, a sector where they have historically faced underrepresentation. It examined the evolution of women's roles in this field, highlighting the progress and ongoing challenges related to gender biases and societal constraints in Lebanon. The…

This dissertation offers an ethnographic exploration of higher education sexual violence prevention initiatives through the perspectives of professional staff whose mission is to counter what many call a pandemic of sexual violence. Central to my examination are the emic theories and language ideologies underlying prevention professionals'…

Gender inequality limits women's ability to make decisions in their best interest and behave independently of the male patriarch in the home. These inequalities can result in limited access to healthcare, support, services, and positive outcomes from receiving medical care. In addition, women deemed to have a lower social status than men do not…

This phenomenological study aimed to explore the lived experiences of African American staff administrators who hold non-academic administrative positions at a Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) situated in the southwestern region of the United States. Employing a phenomenological approach and purposeful sampling, the study involved conducting…

Classrooms on college campuses reflect the heteronormative assumptions of society which leaves queer students to navigate learning in a mostly heterosexual and cisgender world. This can influence students' ability to see themselves reflected in course content and it can negatively impact interactions with faculty and peers. Despite research in…

Childhood trauma is a worldwide issue impacting children as young as toddlers and infants. Children exposed to traumatic events are at a greater risk of having cognitive and academic concerns. Additionally, children impacted by trauma are more likely to exhibit internalizing and externalizing behaviors than their peers who have not been exposed to…

Tikal, notably conservative in culture among its peer polities, maintains that tendency in the case of monumental texts. In this dissertation I draw on a corpus of Late Classic monuments (ca. AD 600-900) to argue, through analysis of morphological forms, that scribal tradition at Tikal was not only conservative but intentionally so. Literacy…

Social influence from society holds the key to social norms that influence students and their future aspirations. Gender bias is considered one of the influencing factors that affects the decisions of female high school students on participating in STEM education. This descriptive study describes the key factors that STEM educators perceived as…

Sexual assault against women is a pervasive problem on college campuses in the United States (Canan, Jozkowski, & Crawford, 2018). Interventions to prevent sexual violence have been developed to target men. However, they generally lack a specific guiding theory and show mixed results (Caver, 2013). Factors such as adherence to traditional…

Background: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified Human Papillomavirus (HPV) as the most prevalent sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the United States, with approximately 24 million Americans currently infected. In 2018, men, ages 15-59, had higher HPV infection rates and HPV high-risk type infections compared to…

Consensual Non-Monogamy (CNM) is an umbrella term for relationships in which all partners explicitly consent to engage in romantic, intimate, or sexual relationships with multiple people. In a recent study on polyamory, one form of CNM, data from a nationally representative sample of 3,438 single adults in the U.S. from a range of backgrounds…