This study was primarily a multiple-case study that incorporated descriptive statistical analysis to examine the contributions that three niche institutions play in the diverse democracy of the U.S. A "niche institution" is a college or university whose role in U.S. higher education is to meet the needs of a specific group and whose…

This research study solicited the competencies that leaders self-identify as critical to their success within their current college and to the survival of two historically female-centric colleges. These two colleges made decisions that allowed them to continue to exist as colleges: albeit one female and one co-ed. There is relatively limited…

Colorado Women's College (CWC), a private, Baptist college for women in Denver, Colorado, first welcomed students to its campus in 1909, making it one of only a handful of women's colleges in the American West, where coeducation predominated. This dissertation describes and interprets the curriculum offered at CWC in the period from 1909 to 1967.…

My dissertation examines the effectiveness of three policy choices in meeting socio-economic goals. The first analyzes the impact of public health education and poverty relief on child mortality in the early twentieth century, when infant and child mortality rates in the United States were startlingly high. During the 1920s, the rates dropped…