Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1915, Graduate School

Doctor of Business Administration (D.B.A.), Franklin University, 2021, Business Administration

The accounting profession is one of the most under-represented industries in hiring, retaining, and promoting minorities (Ross et al., 2014). The lack of representation of African Americans in the accounting profession has been reported for decades (Harris et al., 2020). Using a quantitative approach, this research study's data reflected how the African American population affiliated with and identified to the field of accounting. This research study investigated participant perspectives on influences that hinder African Americans from entering the accounting profession. This research analyzed African American student opinions and attitudes towards student success, retention, wrap-around services (i.e., mentoring, tutoring, counseling, transportation, and other non-instructional services), and degree completion at Columbus State Community College, Columbus, Ohio. Existing literature indicated that accounting is not an active choice for many African Americans due to college readiness, peer expectations (Harris et al., 2020), family values/influences, and a general lack of understanding of the accounting field (Green et al., 2017). This research answered why African Americans are under-represented in the accounting profession by gaining insight from the perspective of current African American students pursuing an accounting associate degree and entering the accounting profession. Results indicated that a student's gender is associated with their persistence and progression towards a degree in accounting. Student interaction with faculty and with peers were also associated with a students' persistence and progression. Family influence and interactions, and student family backgrounds and upbringings proved to influence students striving to earn an associate degree in accounting. Lastly, African Americans' geographical background characteristics were associated with student success, sense of retention, and degree completion.

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Education, Cleveland State University, 2016, College of Education and Human Services

This interpretive qualitative study explored African American urban public high school graduates' experiences concerning mathematics, how these experiences may play a role in the choice to further their mathematics education, and how the Model of Academic Choice (MAC) may facilitate in the understanding of the experiences. It examined the lived experiences of seven African American urban public high school graduates concerning their mathematics education. Through criterion-based sampling, the seven participants selected had graduated from a public high school located in Northeast Ohio school districts having similar characteristics. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews that explored participants' kindergarten through post-secondary mathematics experiences. Vignettes chronicled each of the participants' mathematics experiences and an analysis of emerging themes from within and across vignettes were presented. The emerging themes were tediousness in learning mathematics, student engagement in the classroom, educational trajectory, reality check regarding the effectiveness of one's kindergarten through grade twelve experiences in preparation for college, persistence, classroom environmental conditions, feelings about learning mathematics, behaviors resulting from feelings about learning mathematics, expectations of self and others, attributions of success and/or failure, one's sense of self as a student and one's self-concept of ability in mathematics. These themes parallel with the MAC constructs of cost, participant's task specific beliefs, participant's goals and general self-schemata, past events and related experiences, persistence, cultural milieu, affective reactions and memories, expectancies, participant's interpretation of past events, and self-concept of ability, respectively. The MAC proved to be a good theoretical framework for explaining the participants' experiences. The results of this study may be instrumental in having (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1936, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1946, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1997, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1985, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1976, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1974, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1972, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1971, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1963, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1960, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2008, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1970, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2008, Graduate School

MFIS, Kent State University, 2020, College of the Arts / School of Fashion

Afrofuturism is a cultural and aesthetic movement within the African Diaspora that draws on the present and historical experiences of Black people and reimagines a future filtered through a Black cultural lens. There has been a growing number of fashion creatives and enthusiasts throughout the African Diaspora who are adopting this aesthetic in order to celebrate Black culture and identity. However, the role of Africa in Afrofuturism continues to be debated as many believe the term to be inherently centered on Black American experiences and cultures and not necessarily on the African experience. The purpose of this research is to explore the connection between Afrofuturism, fashion, and cultural identity in the African Diaspora. A qualitative approach using interviews and an arts-based creative online collage exercise was used to uncover the role and signification of cultural identity in the Afrofuturistic expressions of West Africans in Africa, West Africans living in America (Diasporic Africans) and African Americans. Because fashion has been likened to a form of symbolic language, this study also aims to uncover the “codes” involved in each group's communication of their cultural identities. Through the data gathered, a 3- look capsule collection was created to represent a visual summary of the views of each group on Afrofuturistic fashion expressions.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2017, Leadership and Change

The dissertation is a deep study of an iconic 20th century female, African American leader whose acclaim developed not only from her remarkable first generation post-Reconstruction Era beginnings, but also from her mid-century visibility among Negroes and some Whites as a principal spokesperson for her people. Mary Jane McLeod Bethune arose from the Nadir- the darkest period for Negroes after the Civil War and three subsequent US Constitutional Amendments. She led thousands of Negro women, despite social adversity, to organize around their own aspirations for improved social and material lives among America's diverse citizens., i.e. “the melting pot.” The subject of no fewer than thirty-two dissertation studies, numerable biographies, innumerable awards, and namesake educational institutions, Bethune ascended to public leadership roles. Her renown of the first five decades of the 20th century is reconstructed to be less enigmatic for people of African descent, and more visible for other mainstream Americans. Remarkably, she employed a uniquely crafted philosophy of interactional destiny for the world's “races” anchored in her brand of Christian evangelism. Bethune's uniquely early feminist worldview and strategies for inter-racial cooperation, different than the worldviews of some of her contemporaries, achieved much social capital and opened doors of opportunity for herself and countless others through a brief federal government position, and organized women's work before 1955. Since much of her meta-narrative was riddled with hagiography and myth, this study has fettered out some myths and eradicated some of the hagiography. The study combines primary sources, secondary sources, photo-ethnography, and hermeneutics to illuminate another pathway for future leadership students and organization developers to appropriate aspects of Bethune's 20th century leadership performance as their own. Unintended to merely applaud Dr. Bethune's leadership performance, this stud (open full item for complete abstract)

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2017, Leadership and Change

The purpose of this study is to examine the lived experiences of 18 African American women who went to Kenya, East Africa as part of a Cultural Reconnection delegation. A qualitative narrative inquiry method was used for data collection. This was an optimal approach to honoring the authentic voices of African American women. Eighteen African American women shared their stories, revelations, feelings and thoughts on reconnecting in their ancestral homeland of Africa. The literature discussed includes diasporic returns as a subject of study, barriers to the return including the causes of historic trauma, and how Black women as culture bearers have practiced overcoming these barriers by returning to the ancestral homeland. The data revealed that Cultural Reconnection delegations created an enhanced sense of purpose and a greater understanding of their roots and themselves. Participants further experienced a need to give back, participated in womanism, and gained a greater spiritual connection to their ancestors. Stereotypes and myths were dispelled. Leadership skills were improved. Participants gained a clear vision of the next step in their personal lives, an overall greater understanding of themselves. This dissertation offers significant insights into the nature and benefit of ancestral returns, and the cultural components of leadership and change, especially for diasporas who were involuntarily stolen from their native lands. The electronic version of this dissertation is available in open access at AURA, Antioch University Repository and Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu/ , and OhioLINK ETD Center, http://etd.ohiolink.edu

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1996, Graduate School