Over the last 30 years, the architecture academy and profession have endeavored to increase diversity within its ranks. Conversely, these intentions have yet to be realized, as the field of architecture remains one of the least inclusive of all the STEM disciplines. Many of the undergraduate degree programs in the US, unknowingly or…

Developing transition planning for youth living with severe and persistent mental illness requires the creation, memorialization, and retrieval of appropriate and responsive treatment preferences to meet their needs, especially during a mental health crisis. Regrettably, transition-aged youth at the age of 18 can no longer rely on their support…

Student evaluations of teaching (SET) are commonly used to assess teaching effectiveness and influence personnel decisions in higher education. This quantitative study sought to determine if gender and years of teaching experience were related to SET ratings for collegiate aviation faculty. Constructs evaluated related to gender stereotypes and…

Several factors, including stigma and help-seeking behaviors, create barriers to college males seeking professional mental health services. Previous research has focused on socialization, masculinity ideologies, and attitudes to explain this disparity. However, little is understood about how this population's coping style, race, and psychological…

Through the research conducted, the experiences of African American female principals in their efforts to become principals of K-12 schools in rural Southwest Georgia were revealed. The researcher sought to understand African American female principals' life experiences, perceived barriers, and strategies used on their journey to become…

Hate and bias incidents have been on the rise at college campuses since 2016, with a marked increase in incidents targeting racial identity. As a result, BIPOC undergraduate students are increasingly faced with the kinds of harm and hurt that come along with a bias incident while university administrators negotiate the process of bias response.…

In this dissertation, I complete three studies to evaluate potential reactions to target role congruity, especially gender role congruity, through an examination of Student Evaluations of Instructors (SEIs). Target role congruity refers to assessments an observer makes of whether or not the various roles a target person fills "fit" with…

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are recognized as nurturing environments where marginalized people can address systemic oppression. Yet, HBCUs have held on to the ideal of binary male-female identities which has created a homophobic campus culture intolerant of non-heterosexuality. As a result, conventional HBCU environments…

Mental health is a growing concern faced by college administrators. Self-stigma is a major barrier preventing mental health utilization and recovery on college campuses. The purpose of this research study is to understand how self-stigma influences the mental health experiences of college students. The research study builds upon narrative…

Online schooling was implemented as an emergency, and it may have forever tainted our understanding of what online schooling could be, yet despite this harried, often underfunded, under supported, underdeveloped implementation of online schooling improvement occurred and some, perhaps a very small minority, were better served than in traditional,…

This article reports on a phenomenographic study of Black women undergraduates who were resident assistants in a predominantly White institution (PWI) of higher education. Critical race feminism, namely intersectionality, was used to explore how they navigated the responsibilities of their position and social identities. Findings are that…

Intersectionality--an integrated approach to analyzing the complex, matrix-like interconnections among patterns of discrimination based on race, gender, and other social identities, with the goal of highlighting how resulting inequalities are experienced--has many implications for exploring the relationship between knowledge and experience and for…

8 minutes and 46 seconds. This was the amount of time it took me to watch George Floyd, an unarmed Black man be murdered at the hands of the police. While George Floyd's death was not the first Black murder to happen while in police custody or in 2020, his death served as a catalyst that reignited something in me, millions of around the globe, and…

Research suggests that exposure to stories about Black adults who are contributing positively to their community can reduce implicit pro-White/anti-Black racial bias in older children (ages 9-12). The aim of the current research was to replicate and extend this finding by investigating whether a different child-friendly manipulation exposing…

Limited research has been done to explore parental perception of stigma. The present study developed the Parental Perceptions of Public Attitudes Scale to examine perceived stigma among Serbian parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with physical disabilities (PD). The convenience sample consisted of 82 participants.…