Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2024, Educational Administration

Many school districts in the United States struggle to retain assistant principals (APs), thus losing the opportunity to prepare and promote quality internal candidates for the principalship. The purpose of the critical participatory action research study was to add to the limited research on AP experiences and how to support their professional development in a way that successfully leads APs to the principalship. The research aimed to add qualitative data from APs employed in public school districts in Ohio to provide much-needed insight into how to better retain school administrators and create an internal candidate pool of highly qualified school principals. The research questions centered around providing insights into AP on-the-job socialization and experiences that impacted their career path decisions and gathered their recommendations for school districts when creating a principal pipeline program or other intentional supportive professional development opportunities for APs. Purposive, stratified/cell sampling was used to collect data from homogeneous participants who share a geographic location (state) and the same biographical background of making lateral career moves as APs of one school district to another, but are considered representative of various demographic groups. The APs shared their experiences through semi-structured interviews and made recommendations for how school districts could better support APs and prepare them for a future principalship. The questions encouraged interviewees to employ a systems thinking approach and DSRP metacognitive process to reflect. I used a critical constructivist grounded theory methodology to analyze the data collected through an iterative inductive process of initial and focused coding and memoing combined with input from participants to uncover, compare, and synthesize common themes. Four APs were interviewed, which provided insights into their on-the-job socialization and experiences. Two (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Greg Smith (Committee Chair); Ricardo Garcia (Committee Member); Andrea Townsend (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Education Policy; Educational Leadership; Organizational Behavior; School Administration; Social Psychology; Systems Design

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2023, Educational Administration

The study examined the high turnover rate of academic advisors at The University and focused on potential growth areas and strategies to slow down employee turnover. The study focused on conducting qualitative research around areas that may cause academic advisers to leave the field, such as pay, connection to work, relatable professional development, job satisfaction, and career mobility, to see if those play significant factors in turnover. Findings show that these factors are a major cause of employee turnover. I have generated a professional development opportunity that promotes career progression in my action research. As an English academic advisor at The University, my action plan consists of engaging the academic advisors in being a part of their professional development that can help build their resume for potential career growth or growth in their current role. Academic advisors will have the opportunity to measure their levels of transferable skills with a list generated by the research and a focus group. Academic advisors will build their learning plan on the transferable skills they must include. I hope academic advisors take pride and accountability in building their professional development plan to further their career development. Overall, this action plan is designed to bridge the gap between qualified employees and meaningful professional development, promote connection with the university, and provide an opportunity for the administration to communicate with academic advisors.

Committee: Dr. Aaliyah Baker (Advisor) Subjects: Organization Theory; Organizational Behavior

Doctor of Organization Development & Change (D.O.D.C.), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Organization Development

African American women are actively advancing to senior leadership across various business sectors in the United States. Many extraordinary Black women have strategically navigated and overcome barriers to occupy influential positions in some of the country's most well-known companies. Although increasing numbers of African American women and other minority females are breaking through the proverbial glass ceiling or concrete wall, literature on African American women leaders primarily focuses on organizational and institutional barriers. This qualitive, phenomenological study focuses on 13 African American women leaders who successfully climbed the corporate ladder to senior or executive positions within their fields' professional leadership contexts. By learning from their unique, lived experiences, this study identified facilitators that contributed to their successful ascension. These facilitators were categorized by contextual and individual factors, and key themes that emerged from this study included (a) race and gender barrier and asset, (b) career success and motivation, (c) family influences, (d) cultivating a community, (e) investment in professional development, (f) personal brand management, and (g) personal board of directors and advocates.

Committee: Deborah O'Neil Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Margaret Brooks Ph.D. (Committee Member); David Jamieson Ph.D. (Committee Member); Chris Willis Ph.D. (Other) Subjects: African Americans; Management

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2011, Leadership and Change

For this research, I explored contemporary resistance strategies that Black women executives in the corporate world use to oppose negative behaviors by others associated with their race and gender. The dissertation reviews scholarship about the major role the convergence of race and gender play in the day-to-day existence of Black women. Historically, negative images and beliefs have influenced the treatment of Black women in society. These same thoughts and images affect Black women executives in today's workplace. African-American women continue to see limited advancement to senior levels within the corporate organization, even though diversity programs abound. As leaders in the corporation jump higher hurdles to achieve executive level positions, Black women continue to be invisible in corporations. Using biographical inquiry, I explored resistance by Black women corporate executives to negative images. I identified specific acts and motifs of resistance in the workplace through questions designed to elicit career life histories through their personal stories. A final purpose was to connect the worlds of the corporate and the academic by sharing the career life history motifs from the interviews with Black women professors whose scholarly pursuits and interests are in the area of critical race and gender studies. I wanted to hear their suggestions for the practical application of this information toward further development and transference of knowledge in this area. The electronic version of this dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd.

Committee: Philomena Essed PhD (Committee Chair); Laurien Alexandre PhD (Committee Member); Lize Booysen DBL (Committee Member); Stella Nkomo PhD (Other) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Black Studies; Business Administration; Ethnic Studies; Gender; Gender Studies; Management; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Organizational Behavior; Personal Relationships; Social Psychology; Womens Studies