Student-Faculty Interactions as Predictors of Retention and Satisfaction among Generation Z College Students

Student retention has historically been an important discussion in higher education. While the importance of student retention remains, a new generation of students have filled colleges and universities. This study examines how interactions with faculty influence Generation Z college students’ overall satisfaction and student retention. The quantitative study used the NSSE survey instrument at a public land-grant institution in the Midwest. The results of a Mann-Whitney U analysis indicated a significant difference in student satisfaction reported between students who returned to the same institution the following year and students who did not return. A multiple linear regression analysis indicated that student-faculty interactions significantly predicted student satisfaction. The results provide clear support of the correlation between student-faculty interactions, student satisfaction, and student retention. The study also provides discussion for recommendations for professionals and suggestions for further research

Peripheral Vision: Exploring Newcomers’ Perceptions of their Teacher- Learner Relationships in a Medical Community of Practice

The purpose of this study was to explore third-year medical students’ perceptions of their teacher-learner relationships with their clinical educators

Coupling Soil Oxygen and Greenhouse Gas Dynamics

Dynamic soil hydrology triggers important shifts in soil biogeochemical and physical processes that control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Soil oxygen (O2), a direct control on biogenic GHG production (e.g. nitrous oxide-N2O, carbon dioxide-CO2 and methane-CH4), may serve as both an important proxy for determining sudden shifts in subsurface biogenic GHG production as well as the physical transport of soil GHG to the atmosphere. Recent technological advancements offer opportunities to link in-situ, near-continuous measurements of soil O2 concentration to soil biogeochemical processes and soil gas transport. Using high frequency data, this study asked: Do soil O2 dynamics correspond to soil GHG concentration and GHG surface flux? Change in subsurface CO2 and N2O concentrations were inversely related to short-term (\u3c 48 hrs) change in soil O2 concentration at 10 and 20 cm whereas CH4 concentrations did not change in response to soil O2 dynamics. Although soil O2 dynamics at 10 cm did not correspond with change in surface N2O and CH4 flux, change soil O2 concentration at 10 cm had a significant positive linear relationship with change in surface CO2­ flux. Our study suggests that coupling near-continuous soil O2 concentration and soil gas flux under dynamic soil hydrology may lead to greater understanding of climate change feedbacks and serve as a relevant predictive tool for future climate change mitigation. Advisers: Amy J. Burgin and Terrence D. Loeck

Exposing Medical Education’s Hidden Curriculum through an Exploration of Teacher-Learner Relationships

The purpose of this study was to explore third-year medical students’ perceptions of their teacher-learner relationships with their clinical educators

Medical Students’ Preparedness for Apprenticeship Learning

This research investigated medical student and clinical faculty perceptions of preparedness for learning in the clinical setting. It also explored their beliefs about the ways in which the curriculum promotes or fails to promote preparedness for apprenticeship learning

A Case Study of National Financial Literacy Programs for Women

The purpose of this research study is to explore (case study) in-depth the pedagogy of financial literacy programs for women and how these programs address their educational needs

The Use of Arts Based Projects in Clinical Education

The purpose of this research roundtable is to explore the use of arts-based pedagogies in the clinical post-conference setting

Spatial Patterns of Soil Moisture and the Relative Importance of Atmospheric Water Demand Versus Soil Moisture Availability in Limiting Late-summer Growth of Douglas-fir Under a Changing Climate

The rapid pace of climate change is increasing tree mortality and highlighting the need to improve the mechanistic understanding of plant function under increased water stress. However, the processes that control soil moisture availability in steep mountainous terrain are poorly understood, as are the relative effects of atmospheric and soil conditions that regulate tree water stress. This dissertation describes the factors controlling the spatial patterns and temporal persistence in soil moisture distributions at hillslope scales and how interactions between climate, soils, and hydrology influenced Douglas-fir (Psuedotsuga menziesii) water stress in the Pacific Northwest’s seasonally dry climate. In Chapter 2, I tested the influence of topography on soil moisture across steep, highly dissected terrain of an even-aged Douglas-fir forest in the western Cascade Mountains of Oregon. I found that terrain-based metrics were poor predictors of shallow soil moisture whereas soil properties were stronger predictors. These results suggest that the horizontal redistribution of water along topographic gradients is unlikely to influence shallow soil moisture in areas with steep, quick-draining, and deep (> 2 m) soils. Chapter 3 examined how interannual climate variability affects seasonal growth of Douglas-fir. We found that latewood growth decreased with increasing vapor pressure deficit (VPD) in early summer. In contrast, latewood growth did not appear to be sensitive to the timing of rainfall. Chapter 4 complements Chapter 3 by disentangling the relative effects of VPD and precipitation on Douglas-fir gross primarily productivity and transpiration. I found that gross primary productivity showed greater decline with increased VPD than decreased rainfall when varying VPD and rainfall over ranges expected from climate projections for the Pacific Northwest. However, transpiration over the growing season declined significantly with decreased rainfall while cumulative transpiration increased with elevated VPD. My work has important implications for forest management practices aimed at improving drought resilience in forests. Management choices such as thinning need to be evaluated for their impact both to increased atmospheric aridity and to soil moisture availability. Simply put, thinning forests to reduce competition for soil moisture may not increase drought resilience if either soil moisture is not limiting or if thinning increases canopy exposure to a hotter and drier atmosphere

Deliberations

The purpose of these three pieces is to show the problems of youth coming to basic decisions about life. As the title indicates, these basic decisions are not come to without great hesitation and painful thought. The pieces are arranged chronologically; the main character of the first is a high school senior, of the second a college freshman, and of the third a young woman two years out of college. In "Wasted Decisions", a young man must choose between obeying the wishes of his father, which are for him to quit baseball and to go to college, and his own professional baseball aspirations. In this short story it is shown that even great deliberation over a decision can go to waste in an emotional situation. In the first chapter of a novel in progress, Beaches Last Forever, a young man must decide whether to adhere to old traditions which are strange to him, or to remain an outcast throughout his college life

Nonperturbative QCD Phenomenology and Light Quark Physics

Recent progress in modeling QCD for hadron physics through truncated Dyson-Schwinger equations is reviewed. Special emphasis is put upon comparison of dressed quark propagators and the dressed quark-gluon vertex with lattice-QCD results.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures. Invited talk at the QCD Down Under workshop at the CSSM/University of Adelaide, March 200