Research on higher education policy in the United States often seeks to understand commonalities across state contexts to understand broader concepts influencing decision-making. However, this minimises the importance of abstract and distinct factors impacting policy processes within a state. While researchers in other fields attribute these…

In response to uncertain times, liberal democracies aspire to develop anticipatory practices that usher in changes in policies and governance. These practices include creating visions and implementing roadmaps, which seek to address, and ultimately preempt, future challenges (Anderson, 2010). While such practices are increasingly implemented today…

In today's higher education landscape, there are numerous conflicting pressures that influence how the mix of academic programs institutions choose to offer will evolve. This article describes: (1) The need to understand better how institutions' program arrays are evolving over time in the face of a variety of student, workforce, competitive,…

This dissertation is about North Dakota's political structures and culture spanning the past 30 years through a case study approach examines the modern identity of politics that derive meaning into how policies are decided upon, and ultimately, the dynamics of those policies for the state's system of higher education. Individual interviews and…

Native Hawaiians have long been underrepresented among Hawai?i's university graduates, yet there is a dearth of studies that explore factors that have contributed to these disparities. My dissertation investigated how multiple factors: prejudices among education administrators, erasures of early advocates from dominant narratives, and failures to…

Researchers have documented the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions in higher education in the United States and across cultures as an attempt to address potential workplace inequalities (Berkinshaw & White, 2017; Hornak & Garza-Mitchell, 2016; Stead, 2013; Tessens et al., 2011). Gender-based inhibition in the advancement…

Considering the rise of implementation of big data analytics (BDA) in Saudi Arabian higher education institutions but with relatively lesser optimal performance, the study investigated the causality of organisational culture (OC) and BDA's social and technical subsystems, following the Socio-Technical Systems theory, with the strategic…

Through an exploratory comparative case study of two U.S. states (Georgia and Nevada), this study investigates how the selection mechanism to state higher education governing agency boards influences the responsiveness of board members to stakeholders and their role in the policy-making process. Framed around the recent national policy agenda to…

In education policy, conservatives have often been more identifiable by what they are against than what they are for. Ronald Reagan ran in 1980 promising to eliminate the Department of Education, and since then, numerous conservative politicians have stated they wish to do the same. At times, conservatives have been known to support school choice…

Background: College-completion policies dominate state higher education policy agendas. Yet we know little about how policy actors make decisions--and what sources of evidence they use--within this policy domain. Focus of Study: This study explores the use of evidence in college-completion policymaking in depth, focusing on Texas. In addition to…

This essay advances discussion of the evolution of student development theory as foundational knowledge for student affairs practice and the role theoretical consensus plays in the application of theory to student affairs practice. We located our discussion within the context of student affairs as a low-consensus field and address 2 related…

Public higher education is a major recipient of state funding and resources. As such, public colleges and universities directly respond to state needs for higher education and are required to provide transparency in decision-making, which is codified in state open-meeting and record laws. These laws, often termed "sunshine laws," present…

Policy makers internationally are increasingly preoccupied with the need for education systems to be developed in ways that mitigate unfairness. What is more contestable is what might need to change. In England this emphasis has informed the development of fair access policies that aim to improve the representation of 'disadvantaged' young people…

In the past two decades, Taiwan has gone through a series of drastic higher education transformations in response to the multi-faceted demands from globalization and domestic social change. Among the driving forces, new public management and neoliberal ideology have reshaped the nature and culture of higher education in Taiwan. The current study…

While research has documented outcomes for students served by promise programs, few studies have considered the behavior of institutions themselves in the promise era. A new source of revenue combined with larger and more diverse cohorts is likely to motivate changes in spending and staffing--decisions instrumental to student access and success.…