First-year university students often encounter challenges related to academic success, with their ability to persist influenced by various factors, including their perception of themselves as leaders and their leadership competencies. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the landscape of higher education has evolved, necessitating a more…

Black staff working at predominately white institutions (PWIs) of higher education experience systemic workplace racism undergirded by higher education's deep connections to and reproduction of White supremacy and antiblackness. This phenomenological qualitative research study entails a literature review with historical, conceptual, and empirical…

This thesis consists of two projects I worked on simultaneously throughout my PhD. Although neither project builds on the other, both investigate social systems as networks, and draw on a common set of statistical tools and methods.In the first project, I analyse the academic employment and doctoral education of tenure- track faculty at all…

Hostile work environments in the U.S. have been long examined, beginning with the pioneering work of Carroll Brodsky (1976), which produced the idea of workplace bullying. Academic bullying, a term that derived from the concept of broader workplace bullying, is situated specifically within the academic work environment. While academic bullying has…

The work of instructional design in community college settings is woefully understudied. This study documents that work in three community colleges in the southeastern United States while placing it in the theoretical context of neoliberalism, and in line with that theoretical context, takes a post-structuralist stance in its methodological…

This study explores how International Higher Education (IHE) practitioners at public universities in the United States perceive interactions with those in the faculty role when working to achieve internationalization aims. Additionally, this study explores the insights these practitioners have for developing and sustaining generative relationships…

Instructors can play an important role in students' transitions to college by explaining academic expectations and offering support. Yet, less is known about college instructors' beliefs about "what" students should do and why. In addition, students' beliefs and experiences regarding what students should do to succeed may not align with…

Community College Written Communication 1 (ENC) instructors encounter complex challenges when attempting to teach writing skills to diverse student populations. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study is to explore the perceptions of full-time community college ENC faculty and determine the instructional strategies they use to…

Department chairs in higher education are leaders charged with the daily administrative functions, visioning, and managing academic units and programs. The purpose of this study was to assess the moderating role of transformational leadership in predicting the relationship between department chairs' personal and positional power on faculty job…

As student-centered classroom practices become more popular, one aspect of the classroom that is increasingly of interest is that of assessment. Lack of student voice in assessment practice has implications for autonomy development, perceptions of power, and motivation, particularly in STEM fields. The current dissertation seeks to bridge the…

This study aimed to explore the internal quality assurance and accreditation (QAA) policy at University X in Afghanistan. A single case study and document review methods were chosen to examine the policy implementation process and its perceived effectiveness at a single university. This case study also explored faculty members' perceptions toward…

This qualitative study explored core and adjunct faculty members' transformational leadership and power usage in relation to students' affective learning in the classroom. Current research has focused on instructors in general and has not distinguished between types of instructors. The literature on transformational leadership, social power bases,…

The purpose of learning analytics is to improve and optimize learning using student data (Siemens, 2013). An early alert warning is learning analytics designed to promote student success (Baneres et al., 2019; Foung, 2019; Lawson et al., 2016; Villano et al., 2018). An early alert has an intervention component that includes, at minimum, an email…

Oppressive social systems are structures and institutions within society that systematically and unjustly restrict the rights, opportunities, and overall well-being of certain groups (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Feagin, 2013). The current program of research aims to investigate how oppressive social systems impact individuals and explore strategies to…

African American faculty continuous experience acts of institutional and systemic racism regardless to their social economic status and educational backgrounds. Consequences of cultural racism are that minorities are encouraged to turn their back on their own culture and to become absorbed by the majority culture (Scott, 2007). The researcher…