Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify and assess the waste management strategies that should be priorities for higher education institutions. The role of policy instruments (i.e. purchasing policies and recycling initiatives) in implementing sustainable zero-waste management programs at higher education institutions was investigated…

Teaching students with severe disabilities is a complex endeavor, and the skills and qualities of expert teachers for students with severe disabilities are not well understood. A lack of understanding about the unique roles and expertise of teachers of students with severe disabilities can influence the quality of education students with severe…

Students with severe disabilities often experience limited social participation and few friendships at school. We describe a project to equip school teams to implement peer support arrangements and peer networks focused on friendships, inclusion, and learning. We adopted a phenomenological qualitative approach to learn how participants viewed…

Objective: Traditional-age students attending a rural community college in Kentucky's Appalachian region were interviewed, along with faculty members and administrators, to identify phenomena serving as sources of encouragement or as barriers to retention from the point of entry to the point of transfer. Method: Students' perspectives were…

Parent-teacher collaboration for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) has become increasingly important due to the rise of students being diagnosed with ASDs. Today's schools are being challenged with creating educational programs to best meet the need of this rising special needs population. This paper explores parent and special…

Many layers of education governance press upon U.S. schools, so we separated state actors into those internal to and those external to the system. In the process, we unpacked the traditional state-local dichotomy. Using interview data (n = 45) from six case-study states, we analyzed local leaders', state-internal actors', and state-external…

This phenomenological study explores the dimensions of youth-adult partnerships (YAPs) in agricultural mechanics classrooms in three rural schools. YAPs presume a positive learning collaboration between young people and adults who work together to achieve meaningful community-based change. Previous research on the development of YAPs has focused…

This study describes core dispositions of school district superintendents who have been identified as technology savvy leaders by a prominent educational technology newspaper. The superintendents in this study described how they accomplished their technology initiatives and offered suggestions for other superintendents who aspire to be more…

This study describes the communication-specific soft skills that recent engineering graduates from Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accredited universities in the state of Kentucky report they use at work. Utilizing a basic interpretive qualitative approach in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted to obtain the…

This study is an examination of the state of the liberal arts curriculum in community colleges in three geographic regions of the United States. From a constructivist paradigm and using globalization theory as a theoretical framework, this multiple case study examined faculty work life and administrative processes related to curriculum change in…

This study supports the work of Black and Wiliam (1998), who demonstrated that when teachers effectively utilize formative assessment strategies, student learning increases significantly. However, the researchers also found a "poverty of practice" among teachers, in that few fully understood how to implement classroom formative…

Place-based mathematics education (PBME) has the potential to engage students with the mathematics inherent in the local land, culture, and community. However, research has identified daunting barriers to this pedagogy, especially in abstract mathematics courses such as algebra and beyond. In this study, 15 graduates of a doctoral program in rural…

Therapeutic horseback riding can be recommended as a useful health promotion intervention for individuals with disabilities who face challenges to optimal health and wellness. This qualitative study examined the perceived benefits of a therapeutic riding program for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), with particular focus on aspects…