Criminal justice scholars and practitioners have sought to identify strategies to increase and improve diversity in police agencies since the 1960s Civil Rights era. Moreover, the difficulties recruiting racial and ethnic minority police officers indicated there is distrust and fear of the police, which includes police culture/practices that…

Employee engagement, or the extent to which an employee is fully immersed in their work can lead toward higher retention, greater productivity, and increasing profits in a workplace environment. Engagement is driven by a variety of conditions, and when met has the ability to provide many positives in a work environment. Conversely, a lack of…

The Grow Your Own Teacher (GYOT) program addresses the shortage of qualified teachers by recruiting and training community residents to become qualified teachers. These programs look and feel like community-building strategies instead of teacher pipeline strategies. The GYOT initiative is not new, but the mainstream absorption of the GYOT…

Counselors play a critical role in U.S. schools and provide a range of services to students, from academic guidance to mental health supports. Yet, the profession remains vastly understudied. This three-paper dissertation aims to contribute to the existing literature on school counselors, particularly on the experiences of Black school counselors,…

Advocates of charter schools hold that the marketization of education compels all schools to be innovative in raising student achievement outcomes. Opponents of charter schools dispute whether the impact of charter schools on student achievement is statistically sufficient to justify taking resources from traditional public schools. Another…

This descriptive qualitative study explored the perceptions of central office administrators regarding the benefits and challenges experienced supporting teacher professional learning since the COVID-19 pandemic. Through semi-structured interviews with eight administrators, the study uncovered two themes regarding benefits and three themes…

Through a Critical Action Research (Hesse-Biber, 2017) study utilizing the sequential mixed method to examine the experiences of Black women leaders in corporate spaces in the U.S. by situating their experiences in national and local Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) data and delving into the nuanced experiences of four Black women previously…

This work used mixed methods to understand the enrollment of historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) high schools. Grounded in previous work that described and recommended school practices for recruitment, admission, and retention of students from historically…

"The Laboring Scholar: Community College Geographies and the Politics of Care" is an institutional ethnography that investigates the personal, political, and economic costs to student caregivers seeking a college degree. Through a critical analysis of student interviews and a close examination of community college structures and…

This dissertation concerns the experiences of international teachers working in North Carolina public schools. As I began exploring this unique population's literature, I realized my limited knowledge about their personal and pedagogical acclimation to American schools. School districts across the nation struggle to locate, recruit, and retain…

Sustainability is integrated into the higher education institutions as a new culture. Since the emergence of various declarations and policies, higher education institutions have integrated, implemented and practiced sustainability in the form of campus operations, community engagement and academic programs. As a result, some institutions have…

There is a teacher shortage in South Georgia school districts inhibiting the hiring of teachers for many subject areas. School districts are partnering with universities to identify teacher candidates who can serve as the teacher of record in their districts during their final semester or year of teacher preparation through the "intern as…

This study aimed to widen the understanding of the need for Black males in public schools, the critical factors related to their underrepresentation, and the reasons they stay in the teaching profession. The study explored what attracts Black male teachers to the teaching profession, what keeps them in the profession, what strategies can be…

Introduction: The physical therapy (PT) profession has a tradition of growth driven by interest and societal needs. Recent discrepancies in workforce modeling suggest looming issues impacted by declining application rates. Modern facilitators and barriers for entering the PT profession need exploration to assist key stakeholders in making informed…

In October 2022, the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) dashboard reported 5,266 full-time White faculty and 714 Black faculty. Only 10% of full-time curriculum instructors were Black, whereas 82% were White (Admin, 2019). Since Black faculty are underrepresented, their voices are often unheard. This qualitative research described the…