Pilar Mendoza

Academic Capitalism and Doctoral Student Socialization: A Case Study

This case study investigated the effects of industry-academia collaborations on the socialization of doctoral students. The cultural knowledge that students acquire reflects an integration of traditional academic values with new perspectives brought by academic capitalism. Academic capitalism might bring opportunities that are known as strong predictors of retention.

Financial Aid and Persistence in Community Colleges: Assessing the Effectiveness of Federal and State Financial Aid Programs in Oklahoma

Using a longitudinal, state-wide dataset, this study assessed the effect of financial aid on the persistence of full-time students in associate’s degree programs at the Oklahoma community colleges. Three financial-aid sources were examined: the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program (OHLAP), Pell grants, and Stafford loans. Results indicate that these forms of financial aid, alone and in combination, were predictors of persistence measured in terms of the student progressing from 1styear status to 2nd-year status.The effect of financial aid, however, was moderated by ethnicity and income.

Missions, Values, and “Flying Monkeys”: Critical Issues for Community Colleges Today and in 2019

A focus group (N = 36) consisting of board of trustee members, community college presidents, senior administrators, administrators, and faculty members from community colleges around the United States developed the top six critical issues faced with respect to instructional planning and services; planning, governance, and finance; and workforce development. Thereafter, the delegation of more than 100 voted on various aspects of these issues. The findings detail a shift away from pragmatic problems or opportunities of today, such as K–20 alignment, retention, and sustainability, to more life-long learning, globalization, and focus upon innovation and partnerships.

Academic capitalism in the Pasteur’s quadrant

Based on previous empirical studies, in this work the author presents an analysis of the role of context in academic capitalism. In particular, she argues that the literature on academic capitalism fails to properly acknowledge disciplinary and institutional differences, which results in an oversimplification of the effects of industry‐academia collaborations on the academic profession in science and engineering.

Critical Issues Facing America's Community Colleges: A Summary of the Community College Futures Assembly 2008.

Three focus groups consisting of board of trustee members, community college presidents, senior administrators, administrators, and faculty members developed critical issues facing community colleges with respect to instructional planning and services; planning, governance, and finance; and workforce development. Thereafter, the delegation of more than 200 voted on various aspects of the most critical issue divulged in the 2008 Community College Futures Assembly: general education assessment is coming. The findings, including opportunities and challenges, potential implications for community college administrators, and future research topics are also discussed, mostly in the context of workforce development opportunities.

Afro-Caribbean International Students' Ethnic Identity Development: Fluidity, Intersectionality, Agency, and Performativity

Afro-Caribbean international students (ACIS) often become engrossed in a complex racial and ethnic dialogue wherein they are thrust into homogenous categorizations forcing them to negotiate their Afro-Caribbean self with other identities perceived by others such as African American, first- and second-generation Caribbean immigrant, African, and Latin American. This tendency to homogenize ACIS overlooks their experiences and development, and so their issues become essentially invisible for administrations and in the literature on student identity development. Therefore, higher education stakeholders are unaware of the needs unique to these students (Lacina, 2002; Szelényi & Chang, 2002). This is particularly problematic given that ACIS students are less likely to have high-quality educational and social experiences impacting their development (Anderson, Carmichael, Harper, & Huang, 2009). The purpose of this study is to investigate the ethnic identity development of ACIS at a public research-intensive university in the US Southeast with particular attention on how these students negotiate their identities given the current homogenized discourse on ACIS.

The Relationship Between the Employment of Part-Time Faculty and Student Degree and/or Certificate Completion in Two-Year Community Colleges

Prior research studies associated the employment of part-time faculty with student degree and/or certificate completion (Benjamin, 2002; Ehrenberg & Zhang, 2005; Jacoby, 2006; Leslie & Gappa, 2002; Umbach, 2008; Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005). To date, institutional-level data have been utilized to investigate whether such employment adversely associated with student degree and/or certificate completion in two-year community colleges. Little research, however, has been conducted to study such association utilizing both student and institutional-level data (e.g., Eagan & Jaeger, 2009; Jacoby, 2006). In this study, we draw data from Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and The Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS: 04/09), and employ a multilevel logistic regression model to investigate whether the proportion of part-time faculty is negatively associated with individual student’s likelihood of degree and/or certificate completion. Analytical results indicate the proportion of part-time faculty in community colleges is not negatively associated with student’s likelihood of degree and/ or certificate completion.

Industry-Academia Linkages: Lessons from Empirical Studies and Recommendations for Future Inquiry

This chapter offers a critical review of the literature primarily published since 2000 on industry-academia linkages with particular attention to conceptualizations for future investigations. It starts with a brief overview of the historical developments leading to the knowledge economy. Then it describes various frameworks commonly found in the literature to describe the role of higher education in the knowledge economy such as academic capitalism, the triple-helix model, networks of knowledge, and hybrid organizations. Then, it reviews in depth seven themes commonly found in previous studies on industry-academia linkages: Benefits of Industry-Academia Linkages; Mertonian versus Business Values; Academic Freedom; Basic versus Applied Research; Dissemination of Knowledge vs Patenting; Technology Transfer Offices and Intellectual Property Polices; and Impact on Students. Based on these studies, this chapter continues with a critical discussion of the overgeneralized discourse found in the literature masking the significant influence of contextual differences within disciplinary hierarchies and across disciplines. It concludes with areas of inquiry for future investigations.

The Oklahoma's Promise Program: A National Model to Promote College Persistence

Using a multi-method approach involving fixed effects and logistic regressions, this study examined the effect of the Oklahomas Promise Program on student persistence in relation to the Pell and Stafford federal programs and according to socio-economic characteristics and class level. The Oklahomas Promise is a hybrid state program that pays in-state college tuition for students that have completed a series of academic and disciplinary benchmarks in high school and demonstrated financial need. Results indicate that the Promise program alone or in combination with Pell grants and Stafford loans is a predictor of persistence; however, this effect varies by income and race/ethnicity.

Predicting the Nexus between Post-Secondary Education Affordability and Student Success: An Application of Network-Based Approaches

The cost of postsecondary education in the U. S. continues to grow faster than salaries and inflation. In fact, the real cost of a college education has climbed almost 30 in the past 10 years and shows no sign of stabilizing in the near future. The economic competitiveness of the country increasingly depends on a skilled workforce with a postsecondary education capable of dealing with the demands of the global market. Thus, college attainment is at the center of producing a skilled workforce, and so it is, postsecondary education affordability. Using the National Postsecondary Student Aid Surveyor the year 2003- 2004, which is representative of the entire undergraduate population in the U.S., this study examines the various ways students and families pay for postsecondary education and its subsequent effect on persistence and performance for all groups of students across racial/ethnic and social-economic status lines.We use a spectral clustering algorithm based on Normalized cuts to classify students based on their similarities. More specifically, we construct a social network with the students as the nodes of the graph and edge between pair of the students is weighted based on their similarity in attributes. We then obtain three non-trivial smallest of the laplacian matrix. We use these to perform a k-means clustering in the eigenspace. We were able to establish meaningful clusters by this approach that helps in classifying students based on the relation between their persistence level and conditions of living.