Florence A. Hamrick

Diverse Information-Gathering Methods in the Postsecondary Decision-Making Process

This study examined the techniques high school students used to gather information about postsecondary education and institutions. The researchers designated students as “highly diversified” or “less diversified” searchers and identified background characteristics and information-gathering behaviors using factor analysis and discriminant analysis. High diversification was significantly related to, among other things, student certainty about proposed academic major and satisfaction with the student’s chosen postsecondary institution.

Rearticulating the Leadership Experiences of African American Women in Midlevel Student Affairs Administration

This qualitative study of African American women holding midlevel administrative positions sought to broaden and challenge conceptualizations of leadership by focusing on respondents’ descriptions of their leadership experiences. Findings centered principally on the intensely relational qualities associated with leadership and leading, mentoring and supervising, and the off-campus nature of most sources for professional support and validation. Tenets of Black feminist thought (Collins, 2000) were used to analyze aspects of respondents’ experiences in light of controlling images of Black women, resistance strategies, and empowerment for activism. Implications for research and practice include further explorations of culturally informed meanings of leadership and leading, as well as coming to broader understandings of professionals’ myriad definitions and fulfillment of leadership.

Moving On: Voluntary Staff Departures at Small Colleges and Universities

Although voluntary departures are frequent among new professional student affairs staff members at small colleges and universities, there is little systematic study of the processes involved in departing a job at one campus to accept a student affairs position at another. Potentially awkward dynamics surrounding staff departures can complicate professional relationships and reputations, and unanticipated staff departures often result in increased work demands for staff members who remain. This study explored professional and developmental dimensions of voluntary departures of student affairs staff members at small colleges and universities using aspects of the transitions model (Schlossberg, Waters, & Goodman, 1995) and the synergistic supervision model (Winston & Creamer, 1997) as principal theoretical frameworks. Findings indicate that supervisors and graduate faculty members can assist new professionals and junior colleagues to regard voluntary departures as predictable occurrences related to career advancement and/or personal fulfillment that, in cooperation with dedicated supervisors, can be professionally managed. Ideally, supervisors and supervisees should have early discussions about departure expectations and processes.

Principal Considerations: Super Parent or Super Pain?.

This case highlights teacher and family conflict about how best to meet the needs of a 9th-grade student with a disability. The student’s teachers view his highly involved mother as interfering with their work. The student’s mother views her involvement as advocating for her child. Aspiring administrators are invited to consider how best to resolve these competing tensions, especially given their status as a new principal in the school and the long history of educational inequity toward students with disabilities and students of color. Key questions are asked about social justice and social capital as well as ISLCC standards of establishing vision, culture, and community. A brief review of relevant literature introduces discussion questions on these topics.