Recent studies reveal that a considerable number of U.S. community college leaders will be retiring in the next several years. The concern is that with the large turnover, history, culture, and important lessons of leadership will be lost. The current research on the lives of presidents, their career paths, and experiences in community college leadership centers on approaches to the study of leadership at the macro level. Limited research exists in the published literature that reports and analyzes the development of individuals as community college leaders at the micro level. This results in a gap regarding understanding leadership development and strategies to prepare leaders. This study addresses this gap by providing a critical description of the leadership development of one individual who became a community college chancellor and who the literature on the community context indicates contributed to the local and national context for community colleges. Biography is gaining prominence as a legitimate and viable tool in the study of leadership. Few biographical studies currently exist which focus on leadership development in context at the micro level. This dissertation is a biographical, qualitative study of the leadership path and legacy of R. Jan LeCroy, a community college leader. The study …

Individuals diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) exhibit patterns of cognitive deficits, neuromotor disturbances, and behavior problems similar to individuals with schizophrenia, and thus SPD is thought to represent one point on the continuum of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs). Deficits in behavior, cognition, and motor functioning have been implicated as childhood precursors of SSDs and appear to also vary as a function of gender and family history of psychopathology. As such, studies of youth may help in further identification of individuals at risk for SSDs. The current study examined the prospective associations between problem behaviors, neuromotor and neurocognitive functioning, as well as SSD symptoms, at baseline and 2-year follow-up in youth meeting criteria for SPD, other personality disorders, or healthy controls. The neuromotor and neurocognitive measures were able to significantly predict SSD symptoms and behavior problems above and beyond baseline predictors. Overall, the findings provide further support for the role of subcortical motor centers operating together with prefrontal cortical areas in the regulation of higher-order cognitive functioning and in producing the psychiatric features of SSDs. Significant correlations between gender, family history of schizophrenia, and history of head injury with symptoms, behavior, cognition, and motor functioning were also found and highlight …

The United States Marine Corps and the United States Navy developed during the interwar period a doctrine that addressed the problems inherent in the substitution of naval gunfire for artillery support in an amphibious assault. The invasion of Betio Islet, Tarawa Atoll, in November of 1943 was the first test of this doctrine. It has been said many times since the war that the doctrine basically passed this test and that lessons learned at Tarawa increased the efficiency with which the Marine Corps and Navy applied the prewar doctrine during the rest of the war. An analysis of the planning and execution of naval bombardments in the Central Pacific Campaign, after the invasion of the Gilberts, does not support this claim. This analysis leads the researcher to three conclusions. First, the Japanese developed defenses against many of the effects of the gunfire support doctrine that blunted much of the force of American firepower. American planners were slow to recognize the implications of these changes and, consequently, were slow to react to them. Second, many naval commanders responsible for providing naval gunfire support for Central Pacific operations still equated tonnage of ordnance to effectiveness of bombardment, regardless of their frequent references …

This mixed-methodology study examined a set of award winning dissertations to determine what factors may have led to their receiving recognition by the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). The study addressed seven specific research questions which were answered via two different research designs: 1) a survey administered to the 27 recipients of the dissertation award, and 2) through the qualitative assessment of a sample of the winning dissertations. The quantitative survey was distributed to recipients of the Association for the Study of Higher Education Dissertation of the Year award from 1979 through 2004. The survey collected specific information on the personal attributes and characteristics of the award recipients, descriptive information about the award winning dissertations, information concerning the quality of the winner's doctoral experiences, the quality of their relationship with their dissertations advisors and the progression of their careers after winning the award. The qualitative assessment involved applying a set of evaluative questions provided by Gall, Gall and Borg to describe a sample of the award winning documents. The results indicated that recipients of the ASHE award were not representative of education doctoral students as indicated by 2004 data. The results of the study also indicated that, …

Recent research found insomnia is a risk factor for psychiatric disorders in adults. To see if the same would be true in adolescents, the current study re-analyzed data from a national longitudinal study collected by ADDHealth that evaluated health behaviors in 4552 adolescents (mean age 14.9 years [SD 1.7]) at baseline and again 7-8 years later (n = 3489) during young adulthood. Insomnia was reported by 9.2% of the adolescents. Cross-sectionally, adolescent insomnia was associated with alcohol, cannabis, non-cannabis drugs, and tobacco use, and depression after controlling for gender and ethnicity. Prospectively, adolescent insomnia was a significant risk factor for depression diagnosis, suicidal ideation, and the use of depression and stress prescription medications in young adulthood after controlling for gender, ethnicity, and significant baseline variable. In addition, a trend was noted for suicidal attempts.

The purpose of this study was to explore the efficacy of using a computer word processing program in the assessment of written expression with college-bound individuals who had been diagnosed with a learning disability (LD) and/or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Fifty-six (35 eleventh and 21 twelfth) graders, attending a private college-preparatory school for students with LD and/or ADHD, were administered the Spontaneous Writing composite of the Test of Written Expression - Third Edition (TOWL-3). The TOWL-3 has equivalent forms, Form A and Form B. One form was administered in accordance with the test manual, using paper and pencil (standard format). The other form (i.e., alternate format) was administered with word processing access. Paired samples tests (repeated measure) and bivariate correlation designs were computed to explore the relationships between measures. Results of the study revealed significant increases (p<.01) in the subtest and composite scores when participants were administered the test in the alternate format. Other components of the research study did not reveal strong meaningful relationships when cognitive ability, graphomotor speed, and keyboarding rate were compared with the standard and/or alternative formats of the writing composite. A high rate of comorbity was exhibited with the majority of participants (75%) having two or …