The purpose of this descriptive case study was to understand how authenticity, balance, and challenge were focused upon differently throughout the various stages of women?s careers in intercollegiate athletic administration. Specifically, the research emphasized the career needs of individuals who identified as women in intercollegiate athletic…

Approximately 25% of United States mental health practitioners are employed in private practice settings (BLS Data Viewer, 2021). However, the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, which sets standards for graduate level counseling programs, neither specifies private practice settings as a specialization nor an…

Over the past century, career development centers across the nation have evolved from the vocational and placement centers of the 1920s towards an interdisciplinary operational model of today (Herr, 2013). The interdisciplinary model incorporates clinically certified practitioners (e.g., career counselors, social workers) with non-clinical career…

In today's complex workplace, organizations have implemented mentoring programs to serve the needs of employees by providing career development and personal support. Mentoring relationships provide a variety of vocational, psychosocial and role modeling functions to proteges. Previous educational psychology research has examined the role of…

Research has shown that most STEM doctoral students are not prepared for their future careers. To address this gap, this dissertation explored and made sense of engineering doctoral student experiences related to their development as early career professionals with a variety of future career interests. One consideration embedded throughout the…

Institutions of higher learning generally seek to provide students with experiential learning, professional development, and tools for contributing to a diverse global society. However, many students are not able to connect their learning to their career interest. As a result, graduates do not feel confident that they have acquired the job…

Students in our nation's largest school systems--a majority of whom are students of color from nondominant communities--are unlikely to attend schools with strong, consistent leadership. Those big-city school systems are increasingly adopting principal pipeline initiatives to address the quality and stability of their principal corps. Principal…

This dissertation describes a qualitative research study that grows our understanding of the career development experiences, supports, and barriers of social entrepreneurs who are gifted adults (SEGA) so that we may nurture the career development of future SEGA. Research questions for this study probed the career development experiences, supports,…

To broaden participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education and continue building research capacity, this dissertation focuses on STEM professionals: those who take up education research later in their career and those who facilitate engagement in physics learning outside the formal classroom. Using agency,…

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to develop a model for a career development program for entry-level student affairs (SA) women professionals based on the lived experiences of current mid-level SA professionals and senior-level SA professionals. As new women professionals pursue their careers in SA, they must navigate many barriers…

The underrepresentation of women in executive levels of higher education leadership has been discussed in the literature from a variety of viewpoints. In the context of Christian higher education, the focus of this study, women's underrepresentation has sometimes been compounded by the conservative theological tenets of some denominations…

Heteronormative public schools have created barriers to lesbian educational leaders. This qualitative study examined: How do lesbian educational leaders navigate their professional and private lives? How has their sexual identity affected their career trajectories? Additional questions guiding this study follow: How do gender policies and politics…

This quantitative study examines the correlation between measures of subjective career success using an independent samples t test with the possession of or lack thereof of a boundaryless career attitude with a sample of secondary educators. The shift from traditional, organizational careers has grown tremendously over the last decade. Research…

Students are not succeeding in post-secondary education in California: 52% of community college students and 46% of students in 4-year institutions fail to graduate within 6 years. Traditionally underrepresented students have far higher rates of non-completion. In part this is because they have not been given an opportunity to engage in a…

Community colleges, which are public, two-year institutions of higher education, have become a major provider of education and training that directly leads to a job in a particular occupation. To help community colleges build capacity to provide job training, the federal government has funded several grant programs over the past 15 years. Recent…