Navigating the Murky Middle: Understanding How Career Aspirations and Experiences Influence the Career Progression of Women Identifying, Student Affairs, Middle Managers

Even though women have made tremendous strides in many facets of education, ascending the administrative and leadership ranks within universities at a proportionate ratio to the number of women who peak as middle managers is not one of them. In the past 40 years, the number of women serving as presidents of universities across the nation has increased less than 10% from 21.1% in 1975 to 30.1% in 2016 (ACE, 2018). If a woman does find herself serving at the helm of an institution, it is more than likely at a “private, liberal arts schools rather than at doctoral granting, research, and comprehensive institution” due to the perceived male characteristics required for successful leading such institutions (Collins, 2009, p. 6). Therefore, an examination of those women serving in middle manager roles must be conducted. The purpose of this dissertation research is to dive into the lived experiences of women identifying, student affairs, middle managers in the hopes of gaining an enhanced understanding of their career aspirations and experiences. This phenomenological study is grounded in a modern feminist approach as well as motivational theory related to industrial organizational psychology. The study consists of 15 women identifying, student affairs, middle managers with terminal degrees. One interview lasting from one to two hours was conducted with each participant via Zoom. The interviews were recorded with permission and then transcribed. Two phases of coding emerged from the transcription data in order for themes to emerge. The hope is for this study to assist universities as well as senior level administrators in creating a more supportive environment and individually encouraging middle manager women, especially those with such aspirations, to seek advancement within the field

Why Do (We Think) They Hate Us: Anti-Americanism, Patriotic Messages, and Attributions of Blame

This study explores how news coverage about anti-American sentiment interacts with U.S. adults’ sense of national identity and affects their understandings and interpretations of such negative attitudes. We build on scholarship on patriotism and social identity to conduct an experiment in which participants read one of two news stories focused on anti-American impressions. The findings suggest that news content influences both (a) how Americans interpret anti-American sentiment in general and (b) how Americans draw upon their identification with the nation in formulating attributions of blame for such sentiments and in deciding on what foreign policies to support

High-Redshift Starbursting Dwarf Galaxies Revealed by GRB Afterglows

We present a study of 15 long-duration gamma-ray burst (GRB) host galaxies at z>2. The GRBs are selected with available early-time afterglow spectra in order to compare interstellar medium (ISM) absorption-line properties with stellar properties of the host galaxies. In addition to five previously studied hosts, we consider new detections for the host galaxies of GRB050820 and GRB060206 and place 2-sigma upper limits to the luminosities of the remaining unidentified hosts. We examine the nature of the host galaxy population and find that (1) the UV luminosity distribution of GRB host galaxies is consistent with expectations from a UV luminosity weighted random galaxy population with a median luminosity of =0.1 L*; (2) there exists a moderate correlation between UV luminosity and SiII 1526 absorption width, which together with the observed large line widths of W(1526)>1.5 Ang for a large fraction of the objects suggests a galactic outflow driven velocity field in the host galaxies; (3) there is tentative evidence for a trend of declining ISM metallicity with decreasing galaxy luminosity in the star-forming galaxy population at z=2-4; (4) the interstellar UV radiation field is found ~ 35-350 times higher in GRB hosts than the Galactic mean value; and (5) additional galaxies are found at < 2" from the GRB host in all fields with known presence of strong MgII absorbers, but no additional faint galaxies are found at < 2" in fields without strong MgII absorbers. Our study confirms that the GRB host galaxies (with known optical afterglows) are representative of unobscured star-forming galaxies at z>2, and demonstrates that high spatial resolution images are necessary for an accurate identification of GRB host galaxies in the presence of strong intervening absorbers.Comment: 24 emulateapj pages, 24 figures, ApJ in press; full-resolution version available at http://lambda.uchicago.edu/public/tmp/ghost.pd

Constraints on the χ_(c1) versus χ_(c2) polarizations in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV

The polarizations of promptly produced χ_(c1) and χ_(c2) mesons are studied using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, in proton-proton collisions at √s=8  TeV. The χ_c states are reconstructed via their radiative decays χ_c → J/ψγ, with the photons being measured through conversions to e⁺e⁻, which allows the two states to be well resolved. The polarizations are measured in the helicity frame, through the analysis of the χ_(c2) to χ_(c1) yield ratio as a function of the polar or azimuthal angle of the positive muon emitted in the J/ψ → μ⁺μ⁻ decay, in three bins of J/ψ transverse momentum. While no differences are seen between the two states in terms of azimuthal decay angle distributions, they are observed to have significantly different polar anisotropies. The measurement favors a scenario where at least one of the two states is strongly polarized along the helicity quantization axis, in agreement with nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics predictions. This is the first measurement of significantly polarized quarkonia produced at high transverse momentum