With a growing concern that society's needs are not being met, there are heightened expectations for accountability for public purposes. At the same time higher education institutions are experiencing increasing competition, as well as decreasing state support for public higher education. The concern is that competition for resources is overtaking…

The Turkish education system has confronted radical changes over the last few years, as well as problems associated with it. In this context, the Turkish teacher education system attracts a lot of attention due to its role as the main teacher provider. Specifically, the quality of the teachers and the programs used to train them are being…

The tragic series of events that took place on September 11, 2001, changed the course of this nation and became the catalyst for wars that have spanned for more than a decade. As a result, over 2 million veterans have been deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), and Operation New Dawn. In 2008,…

Systemic diversity, historically a driver of U.S. preeminence in higher education, has decreased over the past four decades (Morphew, 2009). Isomorphism in the field results from rising environmental pressures-such as for legitimacy, efficiency, comportment with industry standards, legal compliance, and accountability--amid conditions of…

Much has been written about two-year education in Alabama during the governorships of George C. Wallace, but little about two-year education prior to his first inauguration in 1963. Yet nearly a third of the forty-three junior, technical, and community college institutions that eventually formed the Alabama Community College System had been…

Institutions of higher education are seen by the public as having unique resources to identify and solve complex societal problems. Public universities, in particular, were originally established to be of service to communities and the nation to advance public good and solve problems. However, community engagement is not an easy task for…

Factors that contribute to college student success are multiple. Career exploration as a student success strategy was explored in this study. The purpose of this exploratory mixed-methods study was to explore whether there was a relationship between career exploration and the success of underrepresented students in higher education. Quantitative…

This descriptive study employed a survey to examine the perspectives of developmental education faculty members at public community colleges regarding instructional practices that have been identified in the literature as effective for developmental education. The study focused on two major areas related to the instructional practices surveyed:…

What is the social construction of the faculty assessment system at Unival University, and how can it be explained? This dissertation used interview data from thirty members of faculty from a commercialized non-profit public university in Ghana to induct a substantive theory to describe and explain the particular social construction. The findings…

Improving retention remains a major objective of institutions of higher education. Retaining at-risk students has proved particularly challenging and increasingly important because often these students are members of underrepresented populations, such as first generation and minority students, among others. Undeclared students may be at increased…

The purpose of this study was to explore the utility and application of the framing devices identified by Fairhurst (1993) and Fairhurst and Sarr (1996) in the college/university setting as evidenced through college/university presidents' speeches. Fifty-seven college/university presidents' speeches were collected from institution…

This dissertation describes two studies, based on data collection within a pre-existing collegiate course for pre-service teachers in a children's dance setting at a northwest public university. The overall purpose of these experimental studies was to compare traditional movement/dance with the influence of a relevance-based instructional model,…

Historically universities have been academically focused institutions; however, in recent years they have begun to resemble a corporate business. The purpose of this dissertation was to determine the faculty senate's perceptions of the budget decision-making process at a public institution of higher education in Texas. The institution under study…

This qualitative study examines U. S. international branch campus (IBC) administrative leadership structures and the interconnections they have to their respective host countries. While several factors concerning the sustainability of IBCs have been cited, this study introduces "leadership networks" to the discourse on IBC…

With six-year degree completion rates for undergraduate students at a dismal 50% nationally (Weddle-West & Bingham, 2010), many institutions of higher education strive to develop programming to increase student retention rates. Summer bridge programs, an example of commonly used retention programs, seek to increase retention rates by…