The Relationship Between Intercultural Communication Experience and College Persistence Among First Generation Appalachian Students

This study seeks to explore the relationship between intercultural communication experiences and college persistence in first-generation college students from the Central Appalachian region. Because Appalachia has a rich and unique culture, which is often misunderstood, the literature review seeks to establish a basis for studying this relationship as a way to understand the multi-dimensional nature of low-educational attainment in the Appalachian region, particularly Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Using a survey-based quantitative method this study examines Appalachian first generation students attending college as an intercultural communication process through the frame of acculturation theory. Specifically, the study seeks information about the students’ previous intercultural communication experiences, cultural identity, intercultural sensitivity, and college persistence. This study attempts to predict first generation, Appalachian students’ college persistence with their previous intercultural communication experiences, cultural identity, and intercultural sensitivity

Large-scale educational telecommunications systems for the US: An analysis of educational needs and technological opportunities

The needs to be served, the subsectors in which the system might be used, the technology employed, and the prospects for future utilization of an educational telecommunications delivery system are described and analyzed. Educational subsectors are analyzed with emphasis on the current status and trends within each subsector. Issues which affect future development, and prospects for future use of media, technology, and large-scale electronic delivery within each subsector are included. Information on technology utilization is presented. Educational telecommunications services are identified and grouped into categories: public television and radio, instructional television, computer aided instruction, computer resource sharing, and information resource sharing. Technology based services, their current utilization, and factors which affect future development are stressed. The role of communications satellites in providing these services is discussed. Efforts to analyze and estimate future utilization of large-scale educational telecommunications are summarized. Factors which affect future utilization are identified. Conclusions are presented

APPALACHIAN BRIDGES TO THE BACCALAUREATE: HOW COMMUNITY COLLEGES AFFECT TRANSFER SUCCESS

Statement of the problem. Too few community college students who intend to transfer and earn a baccalaureate degree actually do. This is a problem because postsecondary education is a key factor in economic mobility, and community colleges enroll a disproportionate number of nontraditional, part-time and low-income students. Although individual factors must be considered by community colleges, they often are out of the control of the institution. This study focused on the institutional factors, including the ways that organizational structures contribute to the success of a community college’s transfer program. Design. This companion study was conducted by a four-member research team. In order to describe the transfer population and institutional characteristics, a quantitative analysis was conducted for the student population, which included 338 spring and summer 2009 Associate in Arts and/or Associate in Science (AA/AS) graduates from four Appalachian community colleges. This analysis indicated that individual student characteristics did not explain the differences in institutional transfer rates. Two of the institutions were identified as statistically significant institutions promoting transfer success. Students from these high-impact community colleges were found to be at least two times more likely to transfer than students attending the low-impact institutions. Each member of the research team looked at a different aspect of the transfer experiences of the cohort. Two components explored institutional perspectives by interviewing 27 faculty, staff, and leaders from the four community colleges. The other two components examined student perceptions of their community college transfer experiences. Major conclusions. One component of the companion study examined the interplay of informal and formal organizational structures of community colleges in the context of successful transfer. A typology model was created to illustrate the interface of structural elements that plays a role in the differentiation between high-impact and low-impact institutions. Findings indicated that two elements seem to make a difference in a community college’s ability to impact successful transfer: (a) the existence of strong internal and external ties, and (b) the level of integration of transfer services

Untangling Neoliberalism’s Gordian Knot: Cancer Prevention and Control Services for Rural Appalachian Populations

In eastern Kentucky, as in much of central Appalachia, current local storylines narrate the frictions and contradictions involved in the structural transition from a post-WWII Fordist industrial economy and a Keynesian welfare state to a Post-Fordist service economy and Neoliberal hollow state, starving for energy to sustain consumer indulgence (Jessop, 1993; Harvey, 2003; 2005). Neoliberalism is the ideological force redefining the “societal infrastructure of language” that legitimates this transition, in part by redefining the key terms of democracy and citizenship, as well as valorizing the market, the individual, and technocratic innovation (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; Harvey, 2005). This project develops a perspective that understands cancer prevention and control in Appalachiaas part of the structural transition that is realigning community social ties in relation to ideological forces deployed as “commonsense” storylines that “lubricate” frictions that complicates the transition

Appalachia on the Airwaves: A History of Public and Educational Television in the Southern Mountains

Through a series of historical case studies of individual states within the multi-state region of the Appalachian mountain range, as well as the region as a whole, this dissertation examines educational television (ETV) operations, both at the network level and that of individual stations. Though mostly thought of as “public television”—an educational and noncommercial alternative to mainstream broadcast media—these ETV networks offered, I argue, something more analogous to present-day understandings of distance education and the use of instructional media and technology. Station directors, philanthropic benefactors, and school administrators took different approaches to providing the service of ETV, but all were motivated by the prospect of ETV as an instrument of educational equity and a compensatory resource for regions with unequal educational outcomes. Appalachia as a region has historically experienced under-resourced public schooling systems and educational opportunities for working adults. Through television programs, available either in formal classrooms and other schooling spaces, or at home, ETV networks sought to provide some redress to the struggling region. Educators, working within the medium of educational television, and in consultation with the teachers they endeavored to serve, envisioned new technological spaces for interaction and learning, believing that if it were it to be offered astutely, then students at all walks of life, regardless of the endowment of their local schools and communities, could receive through ETV, at little or no cost to them, some of the best resources available in the state and nation to complete an education

Annual Report Of Research and Creative Productions, January to December, 2010

2010 Annual Report of Research and Creative Productions, Morehead State University, Division of Academic Affairs, Research and Creative Productions Committee

College was a slap in the face: examining the transition of Kentucky Appalachian students studying STEM at an urban institution.

This phenomenological qualitative study examines the lived experience of fourteen rural Appalachian Kentucky (AKY) students studying STEM at an urban university. This study seeks to investigate the unique experiences of AKY students transitioning to STEM majors in college and examines the common factors between their transitional experience into college while addressing compounding factors of a rigorous STEM major and a new cultural setting at an urban institution. This study utilizes Schlossberg’s transitional theory as the framework for analysis. Four key themes emerged from this data: a need for a strong support system, academic preparation, university focus on support and interventions, as well as individual adaptation. Key findings include a strong emphasis for support from both family and university is needed to enhance the adaptation throughout the transitional experience

Annual Report Of Research and Creative Productions, January to December, 2008

2008 Annual Report of Research and Creative Productions, Morehead State University, Division of Academic Affairs, Research and Creative Productions Committee

APPALACHIAN BRIDGES TO THE BACCALAUREATE: THE INFLUENCE OF MULTIPLE ROLES AND CULTURAL NORMS ON THE BACCALAUREATE PERSISTENCE OF LOCATION-BOUND APPALACHIAN WOMEN

Too few Kentucky community college students transfer and persist to earn baccalaureate degrees. This is particularly true in Appalachia Kentucky which has a high rate of poverty and a low rate of baccalaureate attainment. Scholars and economists agree that the fastest way to decrease poverty within a geographical region is to increase the educational level of the citizens. Policy makers in the Commonwealth have established a goal of doubling the number of baccalaureate holders within the state by 2020. This study is framed by a collaborative study which examined the ways in which institutional and student characteristics impact the pathway to the baccalaureate degree for Appalachian community college students in Kentucky. Quantitative analysis was conducted for the student populations who graduated in the summer and spring 2009 from four Appalachian community colleges. A framework was developed that identified two of the colleges as high-impact. The graduates of these colleges were twice as likely to transfer as the students from the two low-impact institutions. The two high performing colleges had partnership arrangements with baccalaureate-granting institutions that offered multiple degree options in or near the community college campus. Four companion studies that examined institutional and student characteristics were conducted. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the ways in which nontraditional-aged Appalachian women attending college as location-bound adults perceive the supports and challenges to baccalaureate attainment. Twenty-four women were interviewed to explore the ways in which they balance their multiple life roles with the demands of their postsecondary studies, to understand their perceptions how Appalachian culture impacts them as students, and their perceptions of the ways in which educational institutions provide them with baccalaureate access. Narrative was used both as the method of inquiry and the object of interpretation. Major themes that emerged from this study included: (1) Adult Appalachian female students are both challenged and supported by their major life roles and (2) Postsecondary institutions provide both support and challenges to this population

ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION, COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS, AND NONPROFIT PERFORMANCE

In this mixed-method study, I explore the idea that an entrepreneurial orientation serves as a key driver of nonprofit organizational performance, and that a focal nonprofit’s set of collaborative ties moderates that relationship. I theorize that for nonprofits operating in an environment characterized by resource scarcity, possessing an EO is vital. More specifically, I theorize that organizations with smaller and less heterogeneous sets of collaborative ties benefit more from an EO than those with larger and more heterogeneous sets. I also explore the possibility that a focal nonprofit’s pattern of collaborative ties may be a function of that nonprofit’s EO. These ideas are tested using an original data set collected from a sample of the estimated 200 economic development organizations operating in eastern Kentucky. This is an area where economic growth has been particularly elusive, and where a deeper understanding of the entrepreneurial and collaborative practices of nonprofits might be especially valuable. The results reveal some significant empirical support for these ideas, and point to a promising research program aiming to uncover the interactive effects of EO, collaborative networks, and nonprofit performance across a range of organizational contexts