Significant events such as severe weather, flooding, wildfires, and cyber incidents cause serious interruptions to the capabilities within institutions of higher education (IHEs) to perform established missions and achieve strategic goals and objectives. Previous research has investigated the effects of these significant interruptive events on…

This qualitative study examined how elementary school leaders from K-5 schools in eastern New York addressed contextual factors in implementing and sustaining professional learning communities (PLCs). Senge (1990) posited structures need to be in place to create and facilitate collaborative communities. A complementary position presents…

"Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them. (William Arthur Ward)" The purpose of this article is to facilitate comprehension of key conceptual framework components of serendipitous educational planning using a practical example that was successfully implemented in 2015, replicated in 2016, and scheduled for…

Museums in the past have been static institutions, exhibiting their collections as public displays. Today, the public has come to expect more from these institutions, seeing them as safe havens where conversations can begin. As reproductive rights have moved to the forefront of political and social debate, dialogue seems to be a step in the right…

This dissertation is an ethnographic study of a New York City-based third-sector organization focused on what it calls "food justice." This study concentrates on how this organization, that I call Food Rights, has built a broad multi-sector network made up of a varied set of constituents and collaborators aiming to develop and promote an…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report findings from an exploratory study of New York's Children First Networks (CFNs); to examine what is known about the CFNs thus far, drawing on new empirical research, as well as document review and analysis of secondary sources. Design/methodology/approach: Organizational learning theory guided this…

Over the past two decades, community organizing has emerged as an effective force for school improvement. In the context of shrinking education funding, stubborn opportunity and achievement gaps between low-income and wealthy children and between children of color and White children, and polarizing debate on school reform, community organizing…

Chapin Hall partnered with the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation to host a convening for the Stone Foundation Education Grantees in October of 2008. The purpose of the convening was to gather key leaders in the education field for a discussion of the lessons learned in their work and how these lessons inform future practice and policy…

This article presents a collaborative inquiry analysis of the school improvement experiences of four persistently low-performing schools. It draws on the experiences of three members of the Laboratory for the Design and Redesign of Schools (LDRS) consortium who helped during their planning for restructuring or restructuring phases and one regional…

This paper compares two celebrated studies--New York City Community School District 2 (Elmore & Burney, 1999), and "Good to Great" (Collins, 2001), which examined sustained success in American corporations--to the case of a single high-performing school district. The question of interest concerns how school districts achieve and…

In the US, graduate assistants are an integral part of a university's educational and operational climate. Graduate assistants provide teaching, research or administrative services to the educational enterprise in exchange for professional experience and a financial stipend. Recent strikes of graduate teaching assistants at New York University…

Describes the application of an organization development framework to an innovation effort at a New York community college which drew upon general systems theory and change methods of didactic teaching, training, survey feedback, consultation, and structural change over a period of two and one-half years. (Author/JM)

Why is it that many higher education institutions choose to disregard the student body as one of their most reliable and significant sources of labor? Why do institutions insist on keeping separate the departments of student employment and human resources? How can aligning these two areas improve organizational development and increase labor…

New Visions for Public Schools' New Century High Schools Initiative in New York City highlights a strategy of school-level partnerships between educators from the New York City Department of Education (DoE) and non-profit organizational staff. The strategy aims to support the transformation of chronically low-performing large high schools…

A case study of an organization development intervention in a large New York State school district describes to staff developers the complex process of discovering and responding to organizational needs. The discussion focuses on understanding the problem; frameworks for diagnosis and intervention; and implementing the intervention strategy.…