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M.A. Program Ph.D. Program Areas
of Concentration College Student Personnel
The Center for the Study of Higher Education offers study toward Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. Within these degrees there are six flexible curricular strands. The aim of
the master's program is for students to acquire a basic understanding
of higher education and to develop a solid foundation in a particular
field of higher education upon which they can ground their professional
practice, and if they later choose, their doctoral work.
The master's program prepares graduates for entry level administrative positions in various branches of administration, as well as for teaching positions in community colleges. Our students learn to analyze, inform and enhance state-of-the-art practice with current scholarship and thinking about higher education. The best master's programs offer students a focused foundation of work in higher education and some degree of specialization, with individually tailored courses of study that encourage students to do coursework outside the program and the College of Education. Our master's students may focus their foundational work in higher education in the same areas identified as concentrations in the doctoral program. Of the 32 units required for the master's, at least 17 must be in higher education, including an internship. Internship opportunities complement coursework and provide students with professional experience and the chance to work closely with professional practitioners. In addition to the higher education coursework, students may take up to 15 units in programs outside of higher education. Most of our doctoral students will become administrators or work in various agencies and organizations surrounding higher education, although some will pursue faculty positions. We prepare our graduates to be scholars with a sophisticated understanding of the research literature and strong research skills. We seek to enhance students' abilities to utilize theory and research to inform and guide their professional work. A major feature of the doctoral program is a research sequence that introduces students to a broad spectrum of methods, ranging from inferential statistics to an array of field methods. In our ongoing methods seminar, students are asked to join the faculty in theorizing, designing, and doing research. In the past 10 years, four of our students have won national dissertation awards from professional associations. The best doctoral programs integrate core courses in higher education, an area of concentration and individually tailored courses of study that encourage students to undertake coursework with faculty in a variety of departments. The core coursework in Higher Education in the U.S., Organization and Administration, and Finance provides a foundation enabling students to comprehend the central socio-political, cultural, organizational and economic structures comprising and influencing American higher education. In addition to this nine-unit core, students pursue a concentration in one of following areas:
The aim within each is for students to acquire a comprehensive understanding of concepts, theoretical frameworks, issues and practices in a particular area. Such work is organized to provide a solid foundation for students' doctoral dissertations as well as for their particular field of professional work. In addition to the concentration, doctoral students pursue a minor. The minor may be in higher education, in some other field (e.g. the student's area of master's work) or split between higher education and some other department. Although program faculty are identified with a particular concentration area, the work of our faculty generally cuts across several areas. We are a close-knit group. Our faculty team teach, co-author publications and develop grant proposals with each other on subjects that are relevant to more than one concentration area. In our work with students, in their programs and on their dissertations, we are equally flexible and interdisciplinary. The philosophy of the program is to educate students at the master's and doctoral level on using the different lenses of social, organizational and human development theories to analyze and solve the student personnel issues challenging higher education. Students are encouraged to become well acquainted with the literature and research on student development, retention, organization theory and student outcomes. Students in their second year work closely with administrators in student services and other campus administrative offices or off-campus agencies. The internship provides the student an opportunity to test knowledge and theory in an actual work setting. The program is headed by Dr. Dudley B. Woodard, Jr. and Dr. Jenny J. Lee. Dr. Woodard is a former Vice President for Student Affairs at the University of Arizona, a past president of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators and one of the editors of Student Services: A Handbook for the Profession. Dr. Lee has been recognized as an Emerging Scholar by the American College Personnel Association and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of College Student Development.
Graduate students who want to focus on the community college will select an appropriate array of courses and seminars on such topics as community college organization and management, leadership, employer/ employee relations, teaching and learning and mission and goals. A proposed Community College Institute for Research and Development is affiliated with the Center. The Institute will work closely with community colleges and community college practitioners in fulfilling its mandate of service to community colleges, research, scholarship, communication to improve practice and professional development for practitioners. Graduate students pursuing the community college track will have unique opportunities for collaborative work on research projects, both nationally and internationally. Graduate students in this area take courses that provide them with a grounding in basic theories and concepts of the economics and finance of higher education and non-profit institutions. Courses in higher education are complemented by courses in business school, particularly in economics. Students explore a variety of finance issues in higher education, including student aid policies, student price response, economic impact of higher education, donor behavior and the politics of the budgetary process. The finance strand is headed by Dr. John J. Cheslock. Dr. Cheslock's research focuses on the economics of higher education with a special interest in three areas: state higher education policy, higher education labor markets, and intercollegiate athletics. His research has been published in top journals such as the American Economic Review and the Review of Higher Education. Graduate students in this area take courses on policy-making at the institutional, local, state, national and international levels. Faculty and students engage in research on political, economic, organizational and socio-political factors and forces that shape higher education. We also explore ways in which students, faculty and administrators as social actors influence a wide range of higher education, science and technology policies. Research opportunities are emphasized in this option. The policy strand is headed by Dr. Sheila Slaughter, whose work on academic science and technology policy is funded by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Slaughter has been a Fellow of the UA Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and has a book on policy The Higher Learning and High Technology (SUNY Press, 1990). Organization and Administration Graduate students in this area may choose to specialize in any of a number of fields of research in organization and administration, including decision-making, organizational behavior, organizational change, strategic planning and restructuring, governance, policy implementation, the sociology of organizations, gender in organizations, and culture and the political economy of organizations. Coursework in addition to that in higher education may be pursued in business and various other departments (e.g. sociology, anthropology, women's studies, and political science). Students and faculty will explore the socio-political and political economic dynamics of higher education systems and organizations, and the relationship between those dynamics and various social structures and institutions. They will develop proposals for effecting organizational change as well as for conducting research on organizations. The organization and administration strand is headed by Dr. Gary Rhoades, whose work on academic science and technology policy has been funded by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Rhoades has written extensively on retrenchment, restructuring and administrative cost and has served as a Fellow of the UA Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy. The teaching strand in higher education offers a rich blend of research and practice. Graduate students who want to do research on teaching at the postsecondary level are able to take a variety of courses with persons engaged in such work. Dr. Nancy Koff, assistant director for curriculum programs, Division of Academic Resources in the medical school, facilitates the introductory teaching course. Dr. Teri Riffe, associate director of the University Teaching Center, gives an advanced seminar on issues in teaching, as does Dr. Patricia MacCorquodale, head of the Honors Center. Dr. Philip Callahan, faculty evaluation and development specialist at the University Teaching Center, offers a course on state-of-the-art technology and teaching through the Educational Psychology department. A number of full-time administrators teach as adjunct faculty members. They include Dr. Saundra Taylor, UA the vice president for student affairs, who teaches How College Affects Students; and Dr. Richard Kroc, director of Assessment and Enrollment Research, who teaches Institutional Research and Planning. |
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