Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Leadership and Change

In today's mainline Protestant churches, young women clergy navigate a precarious leadership space. While women's ordination is well-established in American Protestantism (Burnett, 2017), Gen-X/Millennial clergy women find themselves at the crosshairs of conflicting gender narratives and unsustainable expectations of what it means to be both a woman and an ordained pastoral leader. Through the use of feminist constructivist grounded theory methodology, this study explored the lived experiences of Gen-X/Millennial clergy women who have left active ministry or a specific pastoral position due to concerns over their own interpersonal boundaries and psychological safety. Through dimensional analysis of in-depth interviews with 20 clergy women representing eight mainline Protestant denominations, this study identified the co-core dimensions of experiencing feminized servanthood as dehumanizing and experiencing feminized servanthood as abusive. The social processes within these co-core dimensions severely compromised the clergy women's physical and psychological safety and informed their decisions to leave their respective ministry contexts. Extending from these co-core dimensions were five primary dimensions: 1) developing a sense of call; 2) differentiating self from system; 3) exposing vs. protecting toxic leaders and harmful systems; 4) nail in the coffin; and 5) reconstituting self. As a result of these findings, this study presents five theoretical propositions that address 1) the shadow side of servant leadership in the context of feminized servanthood; 2) reclaiming Gen-X/Millennial women's leadership strengths; 3) perceptions of self-differentiated women leaders as a “dissident daughter” and an “emasculating disruptor”; 4) gendered scapegoating and the disappearance of Gen-X/Millennial clergy women; and 5) reconstituting self beyond “reckoning” and “resilience.” This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD cent (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Harriet Schwartz PhD (Committee Chair); Lemuel Watson EdD (Committee Member); Martha Reineke PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Gender; Gender Studies; Organization Theory; Organizational Behavior; Psychology; Religion; Religious Congregations; Religious History; Social Psychology; Social Research; Sociology; Spirituality; Theology; Womens Studies

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2021, Leadership and Change

The U.S. intelligence community is a critical mission industry responsible for protecting lives and safety in ways that impact the global security environment. Research on the deleterious impact of toxic workplace behavior on other critical mission fields, such as health care and the U.S. military, is robust. However, intelligence scholars publishing within the unclassified arena have been silent on the phenomenon, how personnel respond to it, and how it may impact the intelligence function. This lack of scholarship has afforded an opportunity to understand what constitutes toxic behavior in the intelligence environment and how it may affect U.S. national security objectives. This study presents a theoretical model of response to toxic workplace behavior among intelligence officers in the U.S. intelligence community that centers on a single goal: Holding Self. Using grounded theory methodology and situational analysis in two segments, the study examines how intelligence officers responded and the role that efforts to hold onto self-concepts played in those responses. The findings included three psychological dimensions, three action dimensions, and two inter-dimensions of response. The findings also included identification of the broader ecological situation conditioning response and how those choices operationalized into the business of being intelligence officers. The final model serves as a foundation for future empirical research on the topic. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, https://aura.antioch.edu/, and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/.

Committee: Elizabeth Holloway Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Aqeel Tirmizi Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jan Goldman Ed.D (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; Cognitive Psychology; Gender; Personal Relationships; Political Science; Psychology; Social Research

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2014, Arts and Sciences: History

This dissertation establishes the existence of organizational dysfunction within a socialist army. It then posits a cause and outlines the tragic effects of that dysfunction on the average East German soldier. The East German Army (NVA) of the German Democratic Republic was a representation of the state in many different ways. Its demographic closely matched that of the general population, not only in terms of class, but also in educational levels. The army also closely paralleled the larger state in structure and in political ideology. As the state was militarized in the broadest sense of the word, the NVA represented in the development of its political-ideological discourse and its socialist consciousness. There were surprising continuities between state organs and its army, including its politicization, its training, and its structure. Like the army, the GDR closely paralleled the operational hierarchies of industry, business, and education with its national security equivalents. Like the political committees on the factory floor, the army also had formal and informal structures of political operatives who oversaw operational and managerial leaders, as well as the political development of the lowest workers and soldiers. Because of this sharp parallel, the records of the NVA provide a unique view into the effect of politicization and ideology on the lowest soldiers. Army records are detailed and filled with its own analysis for the causes of special incidents, including accidents, disciplinary problems, training problems, desertions, and suicides. These records also provide rare insight into the operations and functions of a socialist bureaucracy. Clearly, Marxist-Leninist ideology had an impact on the progress of Soviet client states. What is new here is the ability to watch the ideology evolve into a political-military discourse that adversely affected the training and function of East German army officers. In turn, the reduction in effective (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Martin Francis Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Edward Ross Dickinson Ph.D. (Committee Member); Katherine Sorrels Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: History