Throughout the United States, colleges and universities are faced with an increasing need for financial funding, while at the same time resources continue to diminish. With the limitations of available funds, community colleges must exhibit efficiencies in the operations of their institutions. External interests, such as governing boards and legislatures, require demonstration of efficient financial management. This evidence is then used to make decisions concerning future financial support for the community college. This study determined if community college chief executive officers use financial performance indicators as provided by the State Auditor's Office and if the chief executive officers of the community colleges value the compilation and the distribution of the financial performance indicators. In the selected colleges, many of the chief executive officers depend on their chief financial officer for understanding and application of financial performance indicators. The performance indicators distributed by the Auditor's Office captured only a snapshot of the college's performance, and failed to fully describe the whole college performance or specific financial events captured by the indicators. Though the indicators had flaws, either through incorrect data or lack of explanation, the CEOs did value their compilation because they provided a means for ‘getting the community college story' …

Student-run public relations firms are part of collegiate public relations pedagogy, and this study used a mixed-method approach to analyze such firms on U.S. campuses. A listing of campuses with student-run firms was created as part of this study. Through an online survey questionnaire, advisers from 55 of the 119 student-run firms provided data about firm characteristics and observations about student learning and career development. Multiple correspondence analyses was used to see if the firms grouped into clusters and somewhat aligned with previous research by Lee Bush in 2009. Firms clustered into four groups, with the fourth group representing a mix of the other three. One additional finding was that firm characteristics are more similar than dissimilar even when comparing firms of varying years in operation. Analysis of variance to compare characteristics between different types of firms revealed that one type of firm tended to employ students at a higher average number of hours per week (F = 6.61, eta squared=0.16) and one was more likely to be accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (F = 3.71, eta squared=0.13). Advisers reported mostly positive reflections on observed transformations they see in their student workers and …

Online education is the fastest growing form of course delivery of higher education in the United States. It has revolutionized how students and instructors interact in the educational process. Yet students in online courses continue to experience higher attrition rates than their counterparts in traditional face-to-face classes despite the advantages offered by the technology. This study examined the impact that institutional policies and practices at community colleges in the state of Texas have had on student persistence in online courses. It also examined how institutions collect and use data in addressing students' attrition. The findings were used to identify the most effective institutional practices to share with community college systems in Texas in an effort to improve student persistence in online courses across the state. The population for the study consisted of the 50 public two-year community college and the technical college systems in the state of Texas. The study used a mixed method. A theoretical model of institutional impact on online persistence was drawn from the literature review. This model's five categories were then used to construct a survey to collect data on institutional practices and measure the effectiveness in addressing student persistence. Four college systems were identified using …

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is that of providing research on the development of the Coordinating Board, Texas College and University System, and to describe the manner in which it presently functions.

The purposes of this study were (1) to describe through the technique of content analysis the board of trustees meeting in Texas public junior colleges, (2) to determine relationships which might exist between aspects of the board of trustees meeting and various characteristics of public junior colleges, and (3) to measure differences which might exist between board proceedings of junior colleges.

The percentage of women who receive doctorates has increased by over 300 percent during the past three decades. The consequences of pursuing the Ph.D. degree have always been far reaching and profound, serving as an impetus and springboard for the reconfiguration of one's beliefs, values, and professional life. The purposes of this national study were to ascertain and describe marital and social changes that occurred in the lives of women who were awarded the Ph.D. degree at midlife. A questionnaire was distributed to a sample of three-hundred women who hold the Ph.D. degree and were employed in institutions of higher education in the United States. The study sought to identify the effects of the Ph.D. experience upon the marital relationships, friendships, and social activities of women who completed the degree between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five. Demographic data were collected which were related to their marital status before, during, and after the Ph.D. experience. Both closed and open-ended questions were posed which solicited information pertaining to their post Ph.D. experience. This research reports both quantitative and qualitative findings. The majority of women who complete the Ph.D. experience at midlife undergo and initiate changes in their lives which impact their …

The Bill J. Priest Institute for Economic Development is an entity created in the Dallas County Community College District to serve the community in workforce and economic development. The history of the Priest Institute over the last ten years parallels and illustrates the commitment of community colleges nationally to workforce and economic development. The history also reflects similar goals and trends within the state of Texas and, particularly, in the city of Dallas. The Priest Institute is made up of three distinct entities. One entity is the Edmund J. Kahn Job Training Center; another is the Business and Professional Institute, which provides consulting and training services to business clients. The final service area is the complex made up of the regional North Texas Small Business Development Center and its several related local service operations. This study provides an analytical history of each of these components and the process by which they came together in a model facility in Dallas. This study also describes perceptions of persons within the Institute regarding its present mission and purposes and the efficacy of the current organizational structure both internally and within the district operation as an appropriate structure enabling the Institute to meet its …

This study examines the association between the attitudes of students toward computers and their knowledge of the ethical uses of computers. The focus for this research was undergraduate students in the Colleges of Arts and Sciences (Department of Computer Science), Business and Education at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas.

This study chronicles the contributions of Bill J. Priest under the headings of Board of Trustees governance model, multi-college district, quality first: facilities and staff, curriculum, counseling, public relations, telecourses and the Bill J. Priest Institute for Economic Development. Data were gathered from personal interviews, primary sources and secondary sources. The study includes an overview of the emergence and evolution of the junior college with specific focus on the conceptual beginnings of the Dallas County Community College District and the selection of its founding president, Bill Priest. Professional and personal profiles of Priest are documented as background for the study. Conclusions are that Bill Priest established the Dallas County Community College District as a national model of a multi-college district, was instrumental in affecting the change from junior college to comprehensive community college as the standard for two-year higher education institutions, played a significant role in setting the national agenda for the community college movement through his long-term participation in a leadership capacity in the American Association of Junior and Community Colleges and through the establishment and selection of leadership of the League for Innovation, was instrumental in the creation of the Associate Degree of Nursing, was a national leader …

The problems with which this study was concerned were threefold: (a) to design a computer-based graphics presentation on the topics of functions and graphing, (b) to develop the presentation, and (c) to determine the instructional effectiveness of this computer-based graphics instruction. The computerized presentation was written in Authorware for the Macintosh computer. The population of this study consisted of three intermediate algebra classes at Collin County Community College (n = 51). A standardized examination, the Descriptive Tests of Mathematics Skills for Functions and Graphs, was used for pretest and posttest purposes. Means were calculated on these scores and compared using a t-test for correlated means. The level of significance was set at .01. The results of the data analysis indicated: 1. There was a significant difference between the pretest and posttest performance after exposure to the computer-based graphics presentation. 2. There was no significant gender difference between the pretest and posttest performance after exposure to the computer-based graphics presentation. 3. There was no significant difference between the pretest and posttest performance of the traditional and nontraditional age students after exposure to the computer-based graphics presentation. Females had a lower posttest score than the mean male posttest score, but an analysis …

The objective of this research was to describe the extent to which Gift Annuity Agreements were used by United States higher education institutions in raising private philanthropic support during the period 1988-93.

The researcher examined a relatively unexplored and limited territory dealing with higher education organizational pluralism pertaining to particalized substance abuse programs in private sectarian institutions of higher learning with student populations of under five thousand. The conceptual framework, which was a recapitulation of Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal's (1984) "multifaceted lens," applied to the human resource framework, the structural framework, the symbolic/cultural framework and the political framework in the administration of these selected substance abuse programs. The frames under which the respective substance abuse programs operate were identified by utilizing a semi-structured interview protocol. The study found usage of management frames by substance abuse program administrators to be in agreement with Bolman and Deal's "four frames theory," with the preferred management style consistent across the frames. The administrators of the substance abuse programs prefer the human resource frame almost categorically. Each institution places a strong emphasis on recruitment of an ideal type of student, modeled after a very clear and concise institutional mission statement. The pervasive theme of the mission message seeks potential Christian leaders only. Almost exclusively, the institutions studied do not tolerate substances of any sort. The administrators interviewed were knowledgeable about the various organizational frames …

The primary purpose of this study was to identify and secure perceptions of what personal and institutional factors influenced and attracted adult students to enroll in four year institutions in Oklahoma. The secondary purpose was to compare student responses by institution. The more notable findings include: (1) dominant personal factors as to why adult students in this study returned to college were reportedly to improve/advance themselves, especially as it relates to their career; (2) flexible class scheduling was reported to be the most important institutional function for recruiting adult students, with academic quality and institutional costs of education next in importance; (3) almost 90% of respondents reported being under 45 years of age; (4) almost 85% reported commuting fewer than 50 miles to class; (5) approximately 90% reported enrolling each fall and spring (6) approximately twice as many respondents who returned to college reported they did so because it was more important to them to complete an unfinished degree than to begin a degree. Conclusions drawn from this study are as follows: (1) adult students appear to be unlikely to enroll in classes meeting more than three times a week; (2) adult students in Oklahoma may no longer be described …

The purpose of this study was to investigate the level of job satisfaction among full-time faculty members at historically black colleges and universities in Texas with respect to gender, age, marital status, salary, academic rank, level of education, teaching experience, institution of employment, and race/ethnic origin. The investigation was based on the six variables of job satisfaction: work on present job, present pay, supervision, co-workers, promotion, and job in general.

The fact that girls and women suffer a loss of self-esteem disproportionate to boys and men is without argument. There are an increasing number of books, magazine articles, and resource kits being made available to begin to comprehensively address the issue with young girls. However, less effort is being directed toward the older adolescent, the college-age woman. The problem with which this study was concerned was that of determining the impact of a mentoring program on the self-esteem of college-age women. The Multidimensional Self-Esteem Inventory (MSEI) was administered as a pre- and posttest, to 40 sophomore women, 20 of whom were in a control group and 20 who participated in the structured mentoring program. Using the MSEI, it was possible to gain statistically significant data which indicated that the self-esteem of the women could be positively impacted as a result of the mentoring experience. In addition to the instrument, the participants kept journals about their mentoring experience. Therefore, this research was able to report both qualitative and quantitative findings. The findings regarding the control group were not statistically significant for any of the 11 characteristics on the inventory. The findings from the mentored group however, were determined to be statistically …

The problem of this study involved identifying and ranking perceptions of the attributes of exemplary teaching of adjunct faculty of the Dallas County Community College District. Data was collected by a 75 item opinionnaire and a demographic data sheet which was sent to a population of 3,000 employees of the Dallas County Community College District and 100 exemplary faculty from 39 of the 50 United States. The five chapters were titled Introduction, Review of Literature, Methods, Presentation and Analysis of Findings, and Summary, Discussion, Conclusions, and Recommendations. Revealed through the findings of Chapter 4 was the order of attributes as a Grand grand rank found through the combining of the grand rank order of the Dallas County Community Colleges' employees and the rank order of the nationally recognized exemplary faculty. Findings disclosed that a rank ordering of items represented by Kendall's W at .9654 with a chi-square of 142.8815 at the .001 level of significance. These findings led to the rejection of three null hypotheses and the following related conclusions: (1) perceptions of importance of teaching attributes, can be rank ordered, (2) while a high level of significant values of W may be interpreted as meaning that the observers and …

Within the last decade, continuous quality improvement (CQI) has been embraced by higher education management. An important component of the quality philosophy is to institute training for everyone: faculty, administrators, staff and students—in order to achieve a cultural transformation. The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the implementation characteristics of CQI training programs and to determine whether or not and to what degree relationships exist between these characteristics and training program effectiveness, as perceived by selected individuals at two- and four-year colleges in the United States. A survey instrument was designed to elicit the perceptions of both the chief administrators and those quality professionals who are charged with the training process as they relate to specific implementation characteristics such as training content needed to convey the appropriate philosophy, program implementation processes, and the perceived effectiveness of the respondents' quality training program. A 21-item questionnaire was used to gather the data from a sample of 524 individuals at two- and four-year colleges in the United States. The dependent variables in the study related to items addressing program effectiveness based on four types of program evaluation, and the independent variables related to specific implementation characteristics. Spearman correlation matrices were …

Previous research suggests that careproviders' attitudes and perceptions significantly influence the type and quality of services received by institutionalized adults with developmental disabilities (IADD). This study explored attitudes careproviders hold concerning training needs of the IADD and their service model orientation. It traced the history of training people with developmental disabilities and provided a brief review of the medical, developmental, and normalization models of service delivery. The conceptual framework upon which this study was based proposed that staff perceptions and orientation concerning service delivery to the IADD can be conceptually related to five factors in a research model. They were identified as: (a) careprovider's characteristics; (b) working environment; (c) previous careprovider experience; (d) developmental disability history within the careprovider's family; and (e) self-reporting of a service delivery orientation. This study examined only a portion of this model (factors a, b, and e). The response sample included 370 professionals and paraprofessionals, aged 17 to 72 years, who were employed at a large residential facility serving individuals with developmental disabilities in Denton, Texas. The respondents were predominantly female (76.5%), Caucasian (72.2%) with slightly less than 75% having more than a high school diploma. The instrument, a self-administered questionnaire, consisted of three parts; …

The purpose of this study was to analyze the dissertations in Higher Education Administration at the University of North Texas from 1971 to 1991.

This study examined international education programs in Texas 4-year colleges and universities to determine how they compare to models found in the literature. A second purpose of the study was to compare Texas 4-year colleges and universities with out-of state benchmark institutions with a history of international education programs for over a decade. Areas examined in the study were: (a) administration of international education; (b) instructional activities of international education; (c) international student support services; and (d) outreach both in the community and abroad.

The purpose of this study was to provide both businesses and institutions of higher education with a descriptive analysis of the programs of five companies that have utilized community colleges in their basic skills programs. The five companies represented included Texas Instruments Defense Systems Corporation and SGS-Thomson Microelectronics (electronics companies), Abbott Laboratories (a pharmaceutical company), J & E Die Casting (a small die casting firm), and Company X, a semiconductor company that requested anonymity. The community colleges included were Richland College, Brookhaven College, and North Lake College. Modified case studies were used to obtain data collected through individual interviews with representatives from the community colleges and the companies. The syntheses of documentaries provided details of how the five community college-directed workplace literacy programs met, or failed to meet, their literacy challenges. Descriptions of the curriculum and structure of each program were also included. Numerous factors contributed to the success or demise of the programs studied. Elements that served as powerful assets when adequately supported were detrimental when neglected. Factors common to all of the programs were financial support, management philosophical support, confidentiality, adequate testing instruments, class schedule flexibility, instructor capability, physical classroom facilities, and work-related documentation integrated into the curriculum. …

The study analyzed burnout of nursing faculty to determine the frequency, intensity, and predictors of burnout. Christian Maslach's burnout questionnaire, Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), and a demographic data survey were used to measure burnout. A random selection of 250 nursing faculty was mailed both a burnout questionnaire and a demographic data survey. There were 192 useable responses that were used in the study. Each questionnaire and demographic data survey were reviewed for completeness and rechecked for accurate data entry. The results were presented in summary tables. Data analysis included frequency, means, Pearson r, and downward, stepwise regression analyses. There was a high frequency and intensity of burnout in all nursing faculty, as measured in the three MBI subscales (depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and personal accomplishment). There was a significant relationship between the number of hours nursing faculty spend with academic advising and the intensity of emotional exhaustion. None of the demographic data, except hours spent in academic advising, were a predictor of burnout.

Geriatric board-certified specialists (GCSs) address health care needs of the growing geriatric population. The study's purposes were to: examine career paths of GCSs, identify influencing factors, and explore implications for higher education. Twelve of 14 original 1992 GCSs participated. Data included document collection and interviews. Using a qualitative methodology, commonalities were sought among individuals and HyperRESEARCH software was used for data management. The participants were adventurous, valued education, and were enthusiastic about physical therapy (PT), geriatrics, and specialization. Their career path began with choosing PT as a career, professional education, and their first job. One GCS moved directly into geriatrics. Others went to different settings before geriatrics. As participants recognized they "fit" in geriatrics, they pursued postprofessional education to increase knowledge before choosing board certification. In choosing PT, volunteer experience and personal research were common influences. In choosing to work with elders, influences throughout life gradually built a social context supporting the decision. GCSs chose specialist certification to assist in professionalization of geriatric PT, because they were highly skilled, for career advancement, and for self professionalization. Specialist certification had few financial consequences. Participants gained friends and professional networks. They experienced improved patient care, increased educational opportunities, and/or increased professional service. …

Increasing globalization and transnational trends in business have resulted in greater contact with people from different cultures. However, in any cross-cultural encounter, miscommunication and misunderstandings are likely to occur. In a workplace setting, these can seriously undermine job performance and employee relations. The Intercultural Sensitizer is a cross-cultural training tool that is designed to increase the likelihood that trained individuals will make accurate interpretations concerning behavior observed in individuals from other cultural groups (Albert, 1983) . The purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) to identify cultural differences between Americans and Japanese that can lead to misunderstandings in the workplace and hinder communication, and (2) to construct an intercultural sensitizer that will enable the two cultural groups to interact more effectively with each other. The study's five-phase research design was based on Albert's (1983) delineation of the construction of an intercultural sensitizer. Twenty-four episodes were constructed and statistically analyzed to determine if there was a difference in the way the two cultural groups responded to a given situation. Nine episodes yielded critical values significant at the .05 level. The study concluded that there while there are differences in the cultural perspectives of American and Japanese business professionals, the two groups …