Teaching has long since been understood as a moral and ethical endeavor (e.g., hooks, 1994; Hansen, 2021). It is also widely understood that to be a "good" teacher, teachers must "learn." Teaching requires exquisite responsiveness to students, relationships, content, and the social and political world (e.g., Ball & Cohen,…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine humility as a component of servant leadership by describing the perceptions and experiences of presidents and senior administrators at member institutions across the Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE). To accomplish this purpose, the researcher conducted interviews with a sample of…

This study aimed to explore the intricate relationship between burnout, moral distress, and self-care practices among school psychologists, marking the first attempt to examine these constructs within this professional domain. A total of 192 school psychologists were recruited at the NJASP Spring Conference in May 2023 and online through social…

Society has grown out of touch with moral character and virtues. The effect of this disregard for virtue is a departure in the collective of our societal moral values. As individuals, without upholding virtuous ways of being, our character can regress and therefore prevent us from reaching our best potential as individuals participating in…

In this three-paper dissertation, I examine three seemingly unconnected historical philosophers--Locke, Cockburn, and Kant--on questions concerning moral knowledge, human nature, and moral development. In the first chapter, my focus is on Locke's peculiar claim that a demonstrative science of morality is possible, and I address an interpretive…

The purpose of this quantitative, correlational-predictive study was to examine if and to what extent the organizational culture trait of involvement (OC-I) predicted authentic leadership behaviors among leaders in higher education in the United States. The theoretical foundation to support the variables and the relationships between them included…

Supporting faculty and students in crisis response on higher education campuses is of growing importance in light of the rising mental health issues that students are experiencing. The focus of this dissertation is to gain an understanding of the experiences of counselor educators due to their unique identities: those of a counselor and educator.…

Although scholarship has shown that new teachers struggle to make the transition to in-service teaching and enact the progressive practices that they learned during pre-service preparation, little research has explored how first-year teachers develop a justice-oriented practice during this transition. This project centers on a critical learning…

In public discourse around higher education, diversity based on socioeconomic status (SES) is often presented as an alternative to diversity based on race/ethnicity. In particular, the Supreme Court's 2023 ban on race-based affirmative action gave new energy to calls for SES-based diversity efforts. This dissertation seeks to uncover people's…

For many years, traditional public schools were the dominant publicly funded institutions for educating children. However, in recent years, parents selected from various school-choice educational options. The problem in one local school district in southeastern United States is that stakeholders of the traditional theme schools were unable to…

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to examine the decision-making skills of senior management leaders in the higher education sector and how those leaders drew on their moral and ethical skills when making decisions that presented ethical dilemmas. This examination was conducted among several public universities within the…

This study investigated teachers' and parents' perspectives on the impact of Catholic education on non-Catholic Chinese immigrant students. The research attempted to answer three questions: How did teachers and parents perceive the impact of Catholic education on non-Catholic Chinese immigrant students' academic achievement? How did teachers and…

Bullying, a complex phenomenon impacting virtually every school, can be damaging both in the short term and long term (Nansel et al., 2001; Solomontos-Kountouri et al., 2017; Wolke et al., 2013). About 20% of students aged 12 to 18 years old report having experienced bullying while 20-25% of college students report having experienced bullying…

This study aimed to explore the experience of moral distress in pre-licensure student nurse's during their clinical placement experience. Nurses and student nurses are susceptible to moral distress when faced with ethical dilemmas in nursing practice. For nurses, this may impact their personal and professional relationships, and in some instances…

Discipline inequities across racial, gender, and socioeconomic barriers are a constant in the United States, persisting long after the desegregation of schools in the last century. School divisions and schools across the United States have implemented restorative justice as an alternative to traditional punitive discipline as a potential remedy…