This course explores models of governance in higher education, their relative efficiency and the factors that might explain their adoption by particular institutions. The course will provide an overview of some of the demographic, social, legal, financial and planning issues and forces, and examine how they affect the way colleges and universities are governed. Academic and Administrative Unit governance within higher education will be explored, as well as the policy implications as it relates to the college governance.

This course introduces students to the major historical events in the system of American higher education, including the customs, values and traditions that affect students, faculty, administrators and other stakeholders. In addition, the course examines the philosophical mission and purpose of American colleges and universities, and emerging trends and practices that help to shape and define institutional issues and policies, and other distinctive features.

The course explores the structure, theory and governance of community colleges and its relationship to four-year colleges and universities. Students will have the opportunity to diagnose organizational needs, identify challenges, and produce effective solutions by creating a community service project or program on paper.

This course introduces students to the concept of systemic institutional reform and the challenges facing educational change initiatives. It, also, considers methods and issues of planning macro and long-range interventions.

In this course, students will examine the purpose, organization, roles, and functions of student affairs and its relationship to the academic community. Students will explore the historical and philosophical influences and organizational structures that have guided the evolution of higher education and the student affairs profession. The methods by which institutions of higher education admit, register, enroll and manage students through their matriculation to graduation will be discussed. Students also explore the support services provided to assist students through their matriculation and assess the effectiveness of a host of support services for academically diverse students. The course will focus both on practitioner skills and research strategies.

Studies principles and practices needed in recruitment, evaluation, retention, promotion and removal of personnel and maintenance of staff personnel programs. Other key oversight work functions include workforce development, benefits and compensation, and employee relations are reviewed and analyzed. This course looks into the challenge of workplace and workforce diversity as well as best practices and future trends in human resource administration within higher education.

This course provides an analysis of pervasive finance-based equity issues facing higher educational institutions particularly HBCUs and provides an in-depth consideration of economic and financial challenges of ensuring equity for all students.

This course prepares students to examine the social fabric of the higher education system through the lens of social justice, diversity and equity. The focus rests on the role and responsibilities, challenges, and opportunities of higher education administrators for creating and sustaining a truly inclusive campus community of learners.

This course evaluates organizational units and instructional programs in higher education through application of social systems model of organization and assessment instruments.

This course examines methods of researching problems in organizations and develops instruments for measurement of variables in educational organizations.

The course examines the relationship of environment, institutional culture and organizational goals. Students will be able to use leadership and systems theories as tools to analyze organizational behavior and the relationship of organizational behavior to faculty productivity and student achievement.

In the course, students will examine political challenges and discuss alternative solutions of the many competing political web of interest groups at national, state, local, and institutional levels and the resulting implications for primary stakeholders, such as faculty, students, administrators, donors/investors, and employers in higher education.

This course critically examines the development of the most important federal and state policies, legislation and practices impacting public and private colleges and universities in the United States.

This course explores the internationalization and globalization of higher education from a comparative perspective. Topics include the role and dynamics of higher education globally, and the similarities and differences in development access, finance, admission, structure, curriculum, student affairs and academic services internationally.

This course examines the legal and ethical principles that guide the administration of higher education, including but not limited to the social, political, economic, and educational environments in which colleges and universities function. The focus will be on the historical, contemporary, and emerging legal and ethical issues directly impacting administrators, faculty, staff, and students in American colleges and universities. Students will study in higher education; special attention will be given to understanding constitutional, statutory, and contract law with application to issues including, but not limited to institutional and personal liability, torts, academic freedom, FERPA regulations, dispute resolution, discrimination, employment issues, the ADA, and freedom of expression, torts, and access (including Title IX).

This course will examine best practice for recruitment and retention of college students, including those students at risk. Topics include recruitment and retention practices, support programs for first-generation college students, and students with disabilities, proactive advising methods as intervention strategies, transition services, and community outreach. Students will be responsible for identifying strategies employed by community colleges to recruit, retain and sustain students in the academic setting, such as summer bridge programs, first-year seminars, and early warning programs.

This course examines the roles of college and university faculty, including how their work may differ based on the type of institution in which they work, how faculty roles and responsibilities have changed over time, focusing in particular on the origins and purpose of the tenure system and recent trends toward the use of non-tenure line, contract faculty in colleges and universities nationwide.

In this course, students will examine the development and learning theories, past and present, which help to increase our awareness of the growing and changing nature of college students. Students will explore how these theories can help predict student behaviors and attitudes of students, in an effort to better address student needs and encourage student success. Student will be taught to deconstruct these models and epistemologies, in an effort to gain clarity “of the how and why” institutions do what we do, and why the changing student demographics demand a closer look. In addition, the roles and responsibilities of faculty and other student support professionals will be emphasized, and major issues will be explored, while students develop strategies, based on their new perspectives, to address them.

This course will guide students through basic quantitative research skills needed to define problems in terms of variables to be measured, and the utilization of quantitative designs to collect and analyze and interpret data on the selected variables.

This course is designed for students who are at the stage in their planned program of conceptualizing their dissertation prospectus and, thus, need guidance from a designated faculty member to reach this milestone. The goal is to complete the prospective for approval by the dissertation committee to be presented to the faculty.

The purpose of this course is to provide a practical introduction to qualitative research and its application in education and social sciences. Students completing this course should have an understanding of the basic philosophical assumptions of qualitative research, key differences between qualitative and quantitative research, and how these assumptions influence research questions, data collection, data analysis, verification, and the use of theory and literature. In addition, within a qualitative framework, students will learn about five approaches of qualitative inquiry: narrative, case study, ethnography, grounded theory, and phenomenology. The course also will address ethical issues related to conducting qualitative research studies, the role of researcher, and strategies for reporting and evaluating qualitative findings.

Maintains status of students for preparation and writing comprehensive examination and/or prospectus or for making corrections of dissertation after final defense.