Increasingly scholarship reveals art museums, their exhibitions, and collections, are instrumental in shaping visitors' larger social and cultural values (Hooper-Greenhill, 2000; Luke, 2002; Sandell, 2002) and identity (Leong, 2005; Rounds, 2006). My qualitative study aimed to understand Black students' experiences within a Historically Black…

This dissertation answers the following research question: How does Christian hegemony influence sense of belonging for students of minoritized religions on a college campus? Institutions of higher education claim to be secular and inclusive spaces for their students (Jacobsen & Jacobsen, 2012; Joshi, 2020; Jun et al., 2018; Lang &…

Rural students' college attendance rates continue to lag behind their non-rural counterparts (Ardoin, 2018; Barr, 2018; Byun et al., 2012; Byun et al., 2015; Byun et al., 2017; Friesen & Purc-Stephenson, 2016; Hlinka et al., 2018; Longhurst, 2014; McDonough et al., 2010; Morton et al., 2018; Tieken, 2016). While the body of research…

Christian colleges and universities offer a unique teaching and learning experience grounded in spiritual formation. However, current scholarship addressing spiritual formation has been mostly isolated to rational epistemologies or narrow applications of practice. A holistic model of pedagogical practice that can be applied across disciplines and…

This dissertation, my scholarly professional narrative (SPN), is a self-reflection of mentoring experiences as a Latina millennial in academia and professional settings. These experiences are told through the art of storytelling using "testimonio," which promotes critical awareness of cultural intersectionality and intercultural…

After responding to decades of external pressures, many higher education institutions (HEIs) in the United States have become stuck in a vicious cycle of declining enrollments, increased discount rates, decreased revenues, and increased debt. This vicious cycle has put these HEIs on an unsustainable path that may drive long-vulnerable HEIs to…

Music education does not look the same in Hawai?i as in other states or parts of the world. This study paints a picture of the range of elementary music teacher positions in O?ahu schools and identifies the current needs of music educators. How are O?ahu elementary music teachers prepared to fulfill their professional roles and responsibilities?…

The purpose of this study was to understand faculty perspectives of institutional change. The context for the institutional change was a shift from a largely traditional student population with a focus on the liberal arts to a range of adult and non-traditional students seeking professional degrees. The three research questions which guided the…

The field of modern counseling is conceptualized through a lens of social justice advocacy with professionals tasked with actively engaging in advocacy efforts. However, counselor education has been slower to make systemic changes needed to decolonize and dismantle the field to prepare future counselors with the skills needed to adequately address…

Critical praxis is an important means of increasing educators' critical consciousness. Culture circles are one avenue for educators to engage in a critical praxis, to dialogue, listen, reflect, and develop direct action steps. Both critical consciousness (Freire) and an ethic of care (Noddings) are essential and require an ongoing critical praxis.…

The dissertation investigates the structural reliability and cross-cultural invariance of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (F-MPS; Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990). Principal components analysis (PCA), Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFAs), single and multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFAs) were conducted with 609…

Higher education institutions can provide a unique environment for helping college students identify their talents and develop their values toward the goal of being competent, conscience-driven individuals who contribute to the common good. Despite skeptics questioning the value of a college education by focusing on an ongoing litany of concerns…

How Latinas experience their racial identity is unique when viewed through the Black and white racial dichotomy that exists in the United States. In Latin America, race is understood to be phenotypical and determined based off the color of your skin, whereas in the United States, race is often understood to be genotypical (Darity et. al, 2005),…

This paper is about leveraging cultural ways of knowing such as ethnobotany in order to increase STEM engagement in Chicanx populations. The novel Community Learning and Ecological Sustainability Paradigm (CLESP) framework utilized in this study combines social justice, Chicana feminist epistemology, land-based pedagogy, critical place-based…

Gifted programs, designed to enhance engagement and rigor for students exhibiting talent or potential beyond their peers in the general education classroom, are not equitably identifying and serving Hispanic/Latino students. This qualitative study explored gifted programming at a Title I elementary school located in a largely Hispanic/Latino…