A transdisciplinary archival project, this dissertation uses counter-institutional student literacies emanating out of the City University of New York (CUNY) in the 1990s--placing them within much bigger political, educational, and geographic contexts--to think through the dynamics of ground-up resistance in the face of profound, institutionally…

What personal challenges and tactical problems arise when a leader attempts to turn around an educational organisation regarded as failing and not given much prestige by the media and wider public? The London Metropolitan University had for several years been designated by its regulator as 'At Higher Risk'. In 2012, it had lost its 'Highly Trusted…

As students transition from one phase of the education pipeline to the next, support programs are often put in place to make the transition and onboarding process as smooth as possible. While support programs for first-year students entering college directly from high school are common place at most institutions, onboarding practices for transfer…

This study compared student engagement and performance in both open educational resources (OER) (n[open textbook users fall 2018] = 72) and traditional textbook (n[traditional textbook users fall 2017] = 66) classes. Data were drawn from the Learning Management System (LMS). Results show (1) final grades in the OER class were on a par with the…

With the increased focus on the use of digital platforms to facilitate teaching and learning comes the challenge of creating connections between international students and their new classmates. The use of social media in higher education may be one avenue that can enable not only learning but also social connections between students to improve the…

Upholding an equity-focused mission can be challenging for administrators, particularly in light of recently implemented policies that center funding based on student performance. Based on interviews with administrators across four universities in the same state, this work examines the ways in which performance-based funding (PBF) requirements are…

The emergence of a global emergency, COVID-19, forced social work programs to shift to virtual teaching, disrupting students' learning abruptly. Social work students reported negative impacts from the pandemic on academic functioning as well as financial and emotional wellbeing. This study examines the relationships between demographic predictors…

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many colleges and universities transitioned their face-to-face courses to emergency remote online courses during the spring of 2020. This study, conducted at a large, urban, diverse public university in the United States, answers the questions of how the sudden switch to emergency remote online instruction and…

Each year, more than 55,000 students graduate from the public high schools run by the New York City Department of Education (DOE); 58,000 did so in school year 2019-20. In percentage terms, the city's cohort graduation rate--that is, the percentage of entering ninth-graders who graduated within four years--has increased steadily from the early…

In this study, researchers at a large, urban, comprehensive minority-serving institution used propensity score matching to identify a unique comparison group to study academic and graduate school outcomes in students served by the National Institutes of Health-funded Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Initiative. Acknowledging…

Grounded in a close partnership between a university, school district, and non-profit organization, this 5-year mathematics professional development project involves 27 elementary teachers prepared and supported as Elementary Mathematics Specialists (EMSs). The project aims to develop EMSs who deliver ambitious mathematics instruction in their…

Purpose: The United Nations (2030 Agenda) recognize the need to work with sustainable urban mobility problems such as traffic jams, pollution, inadequate infrastructure are becoming recurring issues in urban centers, directly affecting the quality of life. Such an unsustainable system is frequently observed at universities, as these houses a large…

This study explored how research-based physics tutorials help students use argumentation in a small group-work activity. The participants were four first-year non-major physics students taking algebra-based introductory physics course in an urban university in the southeastern region of United States (US). The content analysis was conducted to…

The degree to which urban and metropolitan colleges and universities can have a positive impact on their respective communities is heavily influenced by the nature and extent of their connectedness to, and alignment with, civic need. Drawn from the experiences and outcomes of the College of Staten Island's Legacy Trilogy initiative, a…

Service-learning that targets issues of injustice within a community shares the goal with institutions of higher education of helping students become transformational citizens who deeply question and try to change unjust and ineffective social systems. Unfortunately, challenges to growing and sustaining service-learning pedagogy at institutions of…