Current Dissertation Projects

• Erica Johnson: "Lifting as We Climb: Experiences of Black Administrators at Three Predominantly White Institutions in Kentucky" (Chair: Jane Jensen)

Recently, many colleges and universities across the country have begun hiring chief diversity officers.  These newly created positions are responsible for institutional diversity, which was previously headed by their predecessors, minority affairs directors.  With the introduction of chief diversity officers at higher education institutions, tensions are beginning to surface between these two groups of administrators.  The tensions are layered and include assumptions and speculations about the reason the new positions were created and the reason the new positions are becoming a trend within the higher education community.   Other issues of contention are the changing qualifications and responsibilities of the chief diversity officers and where these positions are placed within the university’s organizational structure.  Pigeonholing and its relevance to the experience of the administrators are discussed in this study as an attempt to contextualize the administrators’ experiences at predominantly white institutions.  This study presents an analysis of the experiences of administrators, working in positions with a primary responsibility for diversity, using critical race theory and the major tenets.  Counterstories, or stories that challenge majority accounts, are used to elicit the experiences of the black administrators and to begin telling stories that have remained untold.

Despite tensions between the two groups, these administrators share a common interest in racial uplift and this is evident as they share what attracted and continues to attract them to positions responsible for diversity.  In the past, scholars writing on this group of black administrators have suggested that these positions were the result of tokenism; however, administrators holding these positions view themselves and their positions as an opportunity to help others on their educational journey.  Although tensions are more pronounced in this study during conversations about the changing responsibilities of the positions and marginalization, or pigeonholing, in the academy, included in this study are also stories of jubilation and triumph of these black administrators.

• David Long:  "How Does One Learn About Evolution?" (Chair: Jane Jensen)

My dissertation work examines college student understanding and attitudes toward biological evolution.  In my ethnographic work, I followed a cohort of 31 students through their required introductory biology class.  In interviews, students discuss their life history with the concept - in school, at home, at church, and in their communities.  For some Creationist students, confronting evolution in class has meant confronting existential issues regarding both the basis of science and the basis of faith.  For other Creationist students, claims of evolution's theoretical strength are eschewed for it's direct challenge to their worldview.  For most students, science holds minimal interest against other values in their lives.  Faculty and policy makers decry this as poor American science literacy which demands change.  This work illustrates the gap between "ideal science literacy", and the everyday practices which result in half of Americans rejecting evolution as sound science.

• Jared Tippets: "Changing the Way We Do Things Around Here:  Strategies for  Creating Organizational Change in Higher Education" (Chair: John Thelin)

As society changes, so must higher education.  Therefore, colleges and universities and those leading these institutions must adapt in order to survive in today’s competitive marketplace.  What must an institution do to stay abreast of the changes?  Once the necessary changes are identified, what processes are used by a college or university to go about creating change on campus? By understanding how to create change, leaders within higher education will be able to ensure that their institutions will be able to remain relevant in today’s ever-changing environment.  For many colleges and universities, their ability to change will determine their ability to survive.

The purpose of this dissertation study is to tell the story of the transformation of one college and in doing so, identify and describe organizational change strategies that have been utilized to influence those changes.  To conduct this oral history study a qualitative, single-case study of Georgetown College will be executed solely by the researcher.  The process of data collection will consist of interviews, observation, and some document analysis.  A grounded theory approach will then be used to find major emerging themes and to identify strategies, processes, and practices that have led to successful organizational change within higher education.          

• Chris Wright: "Why do they go?Community college students and post-secondary pursuits in Central Appalachia" (Chair: Alan DeYoung)

My dissertation research is on how rural community college students make decisions regarding post-secondary plans.  To understand this decision process, I interviewed students, faculty and administrators at Southeast Community and Technical College in Harlan County, Kentucky.   Most of the literature informing my research comes from studies on college–going patterns in rural communities as well as policy directives related to economic development. Given many of the urban assumptions embedded in development theory, my study is interested in how these rural students, in a place considered underdeveloped partly because of low college attendance rates, attain and then apply their degrees and the rationale they articulate in doing so.