The primary purpose of this research was to examine institutional characteristics of four-year, public colleges and universities that closed off-site locations between 2012 and 2019 through the lens of resource dependence theory. As institutions attempt to maximize their available resources and make the best use of existing resources, there will…

This case study of a single campus of a California public university looks at what involvement faculty want in the financial components of the shared governance of their institution. It explores their real involvement on a campus with a particularly strong shared governance culture and systems, where academic senate subcommittees allow faculty to…

Over half of college campuses in the United States can expect their president to step down in the next five years (American Council on Education, 2023). The new leaders who assume these vacant roles will be expected to lead institutions through difficult and unexpected crisis situations. Campus crises can arise from political or financial…

Alcohol use among fraternity affiliated men presents a concerning trend with harmful consequences (DeSimone, 2009; Hingson et al., 2017; McCreary et al., 2021; Nuwer, 2001; Patrick et al., 2022; Ranker & Lipson, 2022). The availability theory of alcohol-related problems suggests alcohol use could be influenced based on the availability and…

Faculty at five universities, three public and two private, participated in this cross-sectional, comparative study. In addition to determining the overall faculty perception of the general education curriculum (GEC), this research determined whether there were statistically significant differences in faculty perceptions of the GEC comparing five…

The problem that was addressed through this study is the declining student degree completion rate for a public state baccalaureate institution in a northwestern state over the six-year period of 2014 to 2020. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if completion of an undergraduate degree within six years could be predicted by the…

This study examined how recently appointed, first-time public university presidents made sense of their new institution and position during their transition into their presidency. The information gained from these interviews is expected to illustrate how first-time public university presidents prepare, collect information, and learn about their…

This dissertation address two significant challenges in the causal inference workflow for Big Observational Data. The first is designing Big Observational Data with high-dimensional and heterogeneous covariates. The second is performing uncertainty quantification for estimates of causal estimands that are obtained from the application of black box…

This phenomenological study explored how senior-level leaders foster psychological safety for employees at public higher education institutions in Texas. The participants in this study consisted of 10 current senior-level leaders who report directly to the president at a public university in Texas. Virtual semi-structured interviews were conducted…

Retaining an employee's knowledge becomes a significant challenge when skilled and experienced employees leave an organization. Human resources (HR) professionals/leaders at public and private universities are particularly concerned about the detrimental impact of knowledge loss in such cases. Grounded in the knowledge management cycle (KMC)…

Purpose: The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to understand and systematically describe the essence of the experience of professional staff members at a public university who received implicit bias training (IBT) that includes the Implicit Association Test (IAT).Theoretical Framework. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) was used,…

Arkansas ranks toward the bottom of the nation in educational degree attainment. Barriers to degree attainment in Arkansas may be identified, in part, by the examination of four-year institution administrator viewpoints toward two-year college education. Examination of administrator attitudes toward two-year college education areas such as…

Higher education institutions over the last half-century have invested in hiring student affairs personnel to administer student recruitment and retention efforts (Schwartz & Stewart, 2017). Mid-level student affairs and services managers play a critical role as leaders in administering programs, supervising staff, and reporting to…

The problem addressed in this comparative case study was to understand the creation and implementation of the medical withdrawal policy and differences of the return from withdrawal policies in the University State System in the context of students with severe and persistent mental illness. This study focused on two specific institutions in the…

In order to better understand how play can be used as a learning tool to teach students in college writing courses, this dissertation examines how play is used in the undergraduate college writing classroom. Using a qualitative case study and narrative inquiry, instructors and students in the University of Minnesota's (UMN) Writing Studies…