"'To Make History the Living Force': The Professionalization of Public History, 1880- 2000" challenges how we often distinguish public history education from "traditional" history education and shows how debates about public history teaching reveal a larger and more dynamic story about all historians' professional identity,…

The American Brass Band Movement (1835-1892) is an important period within music history that is disproportionally and inadequately taught in collegiate music history classrooms. By learning about America's band history and by performing in these ensembles, future music educators will be able to have a more well-rounded understanding of the…

The Executive Functions are a collection of higher order brain functions. Nevertheless, there exists much confusion on what they are and how they function. This dissertation explores the history, theory, and application of the Executive Functions as they apply to school psychologists. Topics such as the current leading theories of the Executive…

Research examining students' historical reasoning has heavily relied on evidence in the form of students' written work to make claims about students' ability to reason historically and have argued that the document-based history essay holds the most promise for assessing students' historical thinking (Nokes & De La Paz, 2018). However,…

Westernization as a historical process of universalizing western cultural and societal norms has, in terms of global education, evolved into a narrative of competition, resource-hoarding, erasure, and general accumulation of capital by the few. Universities and colleges are hubs for the production and reproduction of ideologies and ways of knowing…

This dissertation study utilized an author-researcher-developed multistage university technology transfer capital efficiency model to evaluate university technology transfer relative capital efficiencies and trends via nonparametric and parametric analyses. Five research milestones were achieved. In completing research goal one, the…

This dissertation investigates the nuanced portrayal of higher education in superhero comic books, particularly the 13 years of publication from 1965 to 1978 when Peter Parker/Spider-Man was an undergraduate at Empire State University. Depictions of higher education and how they can influence perceptions of academia and its intersections with…

Considered normative from the second half of the 20th century (Danziger, 1990), null hypothesis statistical testing (NHST) has received consistent, largely unheeded criticism. Critiques have received more attention in recent years with the recognition of the replication crisis in the social sciences and the American Statistical Society's statement…

Rising Autism diagnosis rates have prompted numerous awareness campaigns, treatment programs, social-emotional learning initiatives, research institutes, etc. Developing analogously, the Neurodiversity movement--an activist-led social justice movement focused on equity and justice for neurodivergent people--has presented compelling critiques of…

Many young adults are experiencing human sexuality related issues and disorders. Researchers have found ample evidence linking hindered human sexuality discussions with clients by mental health professionals to low and reduced comfort, lack of willingness, and non-positive attitudes about sex. There is limited research that shows there is a…

The protection and safety of students and staff in American schools are vital because students need to feel secure and nurtured in their environment in order to achieve academic success (Bakioglu & Geyin, 2009). While school shootings have been monitored since the early 1970s, it was not until 1999 that one received widespread media coverage…

Community engagement and service-learning programs have become staples in the curricula of colleges across the United States. While the intentions behind many of these programs are altruistic, they can often unwittingly replicate oppressive power dynamics with the communities they seek to serve. This dissertation explored how feminist community…

The modern college instructor in the United States faces several unique dilemmas due to students' increased access to information via the internet and social media, increased polarization across the nation, and increased unrest resulting in more experiences impacting mental health. As such, modern instructors are faced with the challenge of…

A major focus of policymakers in recent years has been community colleges, which have been viewed as potential engines for economic advancement and student success. I examined the leadership history of Roane State Community College, a two-year institution of higher learning serving a nine-county service area mostly in rural East Tennessee as…

In this three-article dissertation, I explore the history of Western gardens in educational literature as well as the ontologies and epistemologies that underpin contemporary learning in gardens. Through a critical posthumanist and Indigenous scholarship lens, I collaborated with a school garden, a community garden and an indigenous garden to…