PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION GOVERNANCE: AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION

Public higher education is a large enterprise in the United States. Total state expenditures for higher education totaled nearly $152 billion dollars in FY2008, accounting for over ten percent of total state expenditures and representing the single largest category of discretionary spending in most states (NASBO, 2009). The last three decades have witnessed the introduction of hundreds of pieces of legislation across states which make structural changes to state higher education governance systems (Marcus, 1997; McLendon, Deaton, and Hearn, 2007). Despite the ubiquity of state higher education governance change much remains unknown, both in terms of why states choose to enact reforms as well as the implications of state governance arrangements for institutional performance. This dissertation attempts to fill these critical gaps in knowledge. First, it surveys the historical development of state higher education governance structures and reviews the limited empirical literature regarding the antecedents and impacts of various state approaches to higher education management. Drawing on this literature, the first empirical chapter, utilizing hazard modeling, seeks to uncover the factors associated with state enactment of legislation decentralizing higher education governance. It finds that state fiscal characteristics emerge as strong predictors of decentralization. Specifically, states with greater tax efforts are much less likely to decentralize, while states experiencing real dollar declines in tax revenues are much more likely to decentralize, all else constant. The second empirical chapter explores the implications of state management of public higher education for institutional degree completion rates. Utilizing a unique, institutional-level dataset comprising 518 public, four-year institutions of higher education in the United States, it finds that, controlling for relevant institutional-level characteristics such as institutional selectivity, mission, and per-FTE student expenditures, inter-institutional competition emerges as a powerful predictor of student degree completion. Institutions operating in more competitive environments—defined as states with less concentrated undergraduate enrollments and states with weaker higher education governance structures—graduate students at higher rates than institutions operating in less competitive environments. The dissertation concludes by discussing the implications for these empirical findings for policy makers seeking to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of public higher education

University Rankings: Evidence and a Conceptual Framework

University ranking has high public visibility, the ranking business has flourished, and institutions of higher education have not been able to ignore it. This study of university ranking presents general considerations of ranking and institutional responses to it, particularly considering reactions to ranking, ranking as a self-fulfilling prophecy, and ranking as a means of transforming qualities into quantities. The authors present a conceptual framework of university ranking based on three propositions and carry out a descriptive statistical analysis of U.S. and international ranking data to evaluate those propositions. The first proposition of university ranking is that ranking systems are demarcated by a high degree of stability, equilibrium, and path dependence. The second proposition links ranking to institutional identity. The third proposition posits that rankings function as a catalyst for institutional isomorphism. The conclusion reviews some important new developments in university ranking

Competition and Sensegiving: Nonprofit Markets and Organizational Signaling

In this paper, we investigate how an organization’s position within its nonprofit marketplace influences how nonprofits convey images about themselves to their stakeholders. We discuss the nature of competition in the nonprofit sector and explore the different competitive positions that nonprofits find themselves in. We assess how this positionality affects the ways that nonprofits attempt to convey images, or senses, of themselves to external audiences. We find that these sensegiving approaches are affected by competition, particularly when considered together with the stage of the organization’s lifecycle

School Finance Reform: Do Equalized Expenditures Imply Equalized Teacher Salaries?

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from "http://www.mitpressjournals.org".Kentucky is a poor, relatively rural state that contrasts greatly with the relatively urban and wealthy states typically the subject of education studies employing large-scale administrative data. For this reason, Kentucky's experience of major school finance and curricular reform is highly salient for understanding teacher labor market dynamics. This study examines the time path of teacher salaries in Appalachian and non-Appalachian Kentucky using a novel teacher-level administrative data set. Our results suggest that the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) provided a salary boost for all Appalachian teachers, resulting in a wage premium for teachers of low and medium experience and equalizing pay across Appalachian and non-Appalachian districts for teachers of high experience. However, we find that Appalachian salaries fell back to the level of non-Appalachian teachers roughly a decade following reform, at which point the pre-KERA remuneration patterns re-emerge

Influence of oxygen tension on myocardial performance. Evaluation by tissue Doppler imaging

BACKGROUND: Low O(2 )tension dilates coronary arteries and high O(2 )tension is a coronary vasoconstrictor but reports on O(2)-dependent effects on ventricular performance diverge. Yet oxygen supplementation remains first line treatment in cardiovascular disease. We hypothesized that hypoxia improves and hyperoxia worsens myocardial performance. METHODS: Seven male volunteers (mean age 38 ± 3 years) were examined with echocardiography at respiratory equilibrium during: 1) normoxia (≈21% O(2), 79% N(2)), 2) while inhaling a hypoxic gas mixture (≈11% O(2), 89% N(2)), and 3) while inhaling 100% O(2). Tissue Doppler recordings were acquired in the apical 4-chamber, 2-chamber, and long-axis views. Strain rate and tissue tracking displacement analyses were carried out in each segment of the 16-segment left ventricular model and in the basal, middle and apical portions of the right ventricle. RESULTS: Heart rate increased with hypoxia (68 ± 4 bpm at normoxia vs. 79 ± 5 bpm, P < 0.001) and decreased with hyperoxia (59 ± 5 bpm, P < 0.001 vs. normoxia). Hypoxia increased strain rate in four left ventricular segments and global systolic contraction amplitude was increased (normoxia: 9.76 ± 0.41 vs hypoxia: 10.87 ± 0.42, P < 0.001). Tissue tracking displacement was reduced in the right ventricular segments and tricuspid regurgitation increased with hypoxia (7.5 ± 1.9 mmHg vs. 33.5 ± 1.8 mmHg, P < 0.001). The TEI index and E/E' did not change with hypoxia. Hyperoxia reduced strain rate in 10 left ventricular segments, global systolic contraction amplitude was decreased (8.83 ± 0.38, P < 0.001 vs. normoxia) while right ventricular function was unchanged. The spectral and tissue Doppler TEI indexes were significantly increased but E/E' did not change with hyperoxia. CONCLUSION: Hypoxia improves and hyperoxia worsens systolic myocardial performance in healthy male volunteers. Tissue Doppler measures of diastolic function are unaffected by hypoxia/hyperoxia which support that the changes in myocardial performance are secondary to changes in vascular tone. It remains to be settled whether oxygen therapy to patients with heart disease is a consistent rational treatment

Vaping THC-O acetate: potential for another EVALI epidemic

This brief report is to alert the public health community to the confirmed presence of Δ8-THC-O acetate in commercially available vaping products and the potential risk of pulmonary toxicity from vaping THC-O. The impetus for this study was the presence of the aryl acetate moiety in THC-O. Mass spectrometry (MS) evidence and activation energy (AE) calculations indicating that vaping of THC-O is likely to generate ketene, a suspected cause of lung injury, are provided. </p

Vaping THC-O acetate: potential for another EVALI epidemic

This brief report is to alert the public health community to the confirmed presence of Δ8-THC-O acetate in commercially available vaping products and the potential risk of pulmonary toxicity from vaping THC-O. The impetus for this study was the presence of the aryl acetate moiety in THC-O. Mass spectrometry (MS) evidence and activation energy (AE) calculations indicating that vaping of THC-O is likely to generate ketene, a suspected cause of lung injury, are provided. </p