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The Three Component Model of Organizational Commitment and Superintendent Turnover Intent: A Quantitative Study
No full textThis doctoral dissertation examines the relationship among the three components of organizational commitment: affective, continuance and normative, job satisfaction, and turnover intent of New Jerey superintendents. Additionally, it examines the interplay between job satisfaction and organizational commitment, exploring whether job satisfaction plays a mediating role in their intention to leave their positions. Furthermore, the study aims to ascertain whether differences in organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover intention exist across various demographic factors, including age, gender, salary levels, educational background, tenure within a district, and the geographical location of the district.Recommendations for future research encompasses conducting a longitudinal mixed-methods approach to examine turnover intention for an extended period. Furthermore, providing a more comprehensive understanding of how the complex relationship between organization commitment, job satisfaction, and job performance may lead to voluntary or involuntary turnover for superintendents
Empowering Learning and Restoring Hope: Creating Customized Programs for Medically Fragile Children
No full textChildren in medical facilities encounter systemic barriers to education despite legal mandates. This study aimed to enhance educational opportunities by addressing inconsistencies through research-based strategies. The study adopted a dual strategy, positing that proactive organizational readiness measures alongside the implementation of an in-house program would cultivate a supportive educational environment. It utilized two PDSA cycles, each concentrating on organizational readiness and program quality, respectively. Using a mixed methods design, improvements in both were revealed. Key themes emerged, including a focus on student health, organizational adaptability, and improved communication. The first cycle addressed readiness, implementing strategies aligned with research a leadership readiness assessment. The attendance data indicated significant improvements following the intervention. The second cycle focused on program quality, utilizing a Quality Indicator Rubric. Results showcased increased quality, with notable progress in assessing student responsiveness and increased scores on the rubric. Overall, the study emphasizes data-driven approaches to enhance educational opportunities for medical facility students, empowering families and school districts to make informed decisions
Improving Workplace Interdepartmental Collaboration Through Organizational Learning, Transformational Leadership, and Meeting Science
No full textThere is an education debt in the United States. Coaching and Learning Consulting (CLC), a pseudonym, strives to advance educational equity for all students, especially those from historically underserved populations, so that outcome disparities between demographic groups close. However, collaboration across departments at CLC is not optimal and does not foster cohesive work. Using an Improvement Science approach, this mixed methods study aimed to apply and learn from researched-based leadership behaviors that improve interdepartmental workplace collaboration. Two concurrent PDSA cycles implemented transformational leadership practices to facilitate more effective meetings so that employees would develop increased collective commitment, trust, and shared responsibility, leading to more optimal interdepartmental collaboration. As seen from participant surveys, formal observations, and researcher notes and reflections, team satisfaction and interdepartmental collaboration became more optimal as employees clarified their roles and responsibilities, collaborated on bi-weekly agendas, and engaged in problem-solving work together. Further, when employees integrated their work with the work of others across the team, and the overall project’s goals, productivity and satisfaction flourished. These learnings can be applied to school system departments to end the long-standing education debt in the United States
Interactions Between Quality, Affordability, and Income Groups at Private Colleges and Universities
No full textThe purpose of this non-experimental study was to utilize a resource dependence theory (RDT) conceptual framework to examine differences between quality, affordability, and undergraduate enrollment based on private nonprofit four-year colleges and universities’ (PCUs) institutional characteristics from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) database. The results demonstrated that admission selectivity has the largest effect on variations in average undergraduate tuition, expenditures per student (EPS), six-year graduation rates, the percentage of Pell grantees, and the percentage of nonresident alien (NRAL) undergraduate students. From the perspective of RDT, these findings indicate that powerful PCUs utilize their market power to influence the supply of academically well-prepared students in the PCU enrollment market. The results also indicated there was an inverse relationship between quality and affordability—for students and institutions. An increase in quality costs students more in tuition, and it also costs institutions more in institutional aid. Further analysis showed that the inverse relationship between quality and affordability persists even when moderated by high- and low-income enrollment groups. Of note, PCUs with high rates of low-income enrollment and high EPS had lower student share of the cost (SSC) than PCUs with low or moderate low-income enrollment levels; however, there were few PCUs in the sample that met this condition. High-income enrollment is concentrated in large, more selective, secular, doctoral institutions, which also have higher SSC than other institutional categories. This suggests high-income students were willing to pay a premium for the benefits of quality, which conforms with previous literature
Pandemic Pathways: An Integrated Approach to Studying the Pandemic’s Employment Impacts on Paid and Unpaid Care of Children 0 to 11 Years Old
No full textThe pandemic adversely affected the employment of child caregivers, exacerbating already existing inequalities. The authors offer an integrated framework that considers the interdependencies between unpaid and paid child caregiving and the construction of the childcare sector as a devalued and fractionalized group. The authors outline the prepandemic positioning of mothers, childcare teachers, preschool teachers, and primary school teachers. Then, using cross-sectional and panel data from the Current Population Survey, the authors describe how the pandemic affected these four groups of child caregivers’ employment between January 2018 and December 2022. Black, Brown, and non-college-educated mothers were hit particularly hard during the pandemic. Primary school teachers were in a better position prior to the pandemic and fared much better than childcare teachers during it. The authors argue that an integrated framework helps us understand the disparities in the impact of the pandemic between child caregivers as partly a by-product of the fragmented and devalued organization of child caregiving
Neal Matticks
No full textNeal Matticks is an Elder and Co-Clerk of Session at Good Shepherd Faith Presbyterian Church in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Manhattan. Good Shepherd was first constructed in the 1880\u27s, and it is the only remaining building in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts complex which was built before the Lincoln Square Urban Renewal Project.
In this oral history recorded by Fordham students Morgan Mueller and Tanvi Shah, Matticks discusses the history of the church, and how it has evolved with the Lincoln Square community
“We, as Parents, Do Have a Voice”: Learning from Community-Based Programs Effectively Engaging Parents in Urban Communities
No full textUtilizing Yosso’s community cultural wealth framework as a theoretical lens, we sought to examine how nontraditional, community-based family engagement programs impacted adult family members’ thoughts and actions about engagement with their children\u27s schools. The study drew primarily from the interviews, observations, and document analysis of two nontraditional family engagement programs in urban communities. Findings indicate that program approaches built upon and extended families’ social and navigational capitals. Educational leaders can more meaningfully engage urban families by learning from and incorporating practices implemented by the programs we examine and discuss in this article
Pafundi, Barbara
No full textSummarizer: Sophia Maier
Barbara Pafundi, born 1952, grew up in Parkchester in the East Bronx. Her grandparents immigrated from Ukraine and Romania, and her father was born in Charleston, South Carolina. Pafundi describes Parkchester as primarily Jewish and Irish and a really beautiful place to grow up, with green areas around the apartment buildings. She would go with her family to the local Chinese restaurant, grocery stores, and library. Reading is a continued love. In the summers, they would go up to Putnam Valley.
Pafundi explains they never felt antisemitism, except she is not sure if St Helena’s would purposefully have a parade every year on Yom Kippur or if it was coincidental. She grew up believing Jews to be the majority, as they were in her schools. Pafundi says she had a great education, going through the SPs and to Bronx High School of Science. Education was an important value in her family, with many members graduating from college, including her father. Her sister and brother-in-law led teachers strikes during 1967-1968, and Pafundi herself became an American history teacher in Florida for 30 years, including teaching Holocaust courses.
In her teenage years, Pafundi was involved with Bronx House. She continues to enjoy watching New York sports and shares the importance of the New York Giants (baseball) to her family. She was much younger than all her family members, but grew up with a profound sense of family community with them all living nearby. Pafundi went on to attend City College, witnessing and participating in some of the anti-war protests, including a March on Washington. She describes the 60s as a great time to grow up, with the Beatles and the social change. Her family was not kosher and attended a Conservative synagogue, Temple Emanuel of Parkchester, on the major holidays. Pafundi explains her connection to Judaism is more ethnic and social than religious.
Pafundi and her husband left New York in 1977 for Florida, thinking it was a good idea at the time because of the state of the city, but they eventually tired of the heat and politics and moved back up north once they retired. She says Parkchester still looks beautiful and there are still nice areas of the Bronx. Pafundi considers the ethnic changes in the Bronx to be part of the circle of life and smiles thinking back on the happy, family-centered life she had there.
Keywords: Parkchester, library, Putnam Valley, antisemitism, Bronx High School of Science, family, college, education, Teachers Strikes 1967-1968, Vietnam War, Bronx House, New York Giants (baseball), World War Two, Florida, quota system, race, the Holocaus
Covid-19 Stress, Adaptation, and Coping Among Male and Female U.S. College Students
No full textThe present study explored the relationship between binary gender, stress, adaptation, and coping in college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study participants were college students, ages 18+, attending an institute of higher education in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because male and female students have been known to experience stress, adaptation, and coping differently, this study randomly selected males (n = 91) and females (n = 102) and analyzed their responses to validated scale items focusing on the effect of gender, coping, and school adjustment to stress and adaptation to COVID-19 across various domains. Students’ adjustment to college accounted for 28% of the overall variance in scores, with academic adjustment (28%) and school attachment (11%) impacting specific aspects of stress and COVID adjustment significantly. Coping also contributed to specific aspects of stress and COVID-19 adjustment, with escape avoidance (13%), planful problem-solving (8%) and positive reappraisal (9%) accounting for variance in specific domains. No significant overall effect of gender on stress and COVID-19 adaptation was found, although gender did play a significant role discriminatory impact adjustment. Findings can inform systemic interventions used by institutions during times of abrupt, high magnitude changes to education and students’ lifestyles
Shabsigh, Dr.Ridwan
No full textAbstract
INTERVIEWER: Grace Schmidt, Allison Leche
INTERVIEWEE: Ridwan Shabsigh (Dr. Shabsigh)
SUMMARY BY: Christine Rong
Originally from Syria, Dr. Ridwan Shabsigh, Chairman of Surgery at St. Barnabas Hospital, discussed his role, hardships, and experience working during the extreme surges of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, he led a hospital serving one of the most socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in New York City. The hospital, known for its critical care services, had to adapt to the overwhelming patient surge rapidly. The book Dr. Shabsigh co-authored documents this adaptation process, offering a detailed account of the hospital’s response. It covers mobilizing essential resources, such as ventilators and ICU equipment, and establishing new ICU-ready areas within the hospital.
Although Dr. Shabsigh and his team were accustomed to high-pressure situations, the scale and severity of the pandemic presented unprecedented challenges. Dr Shabsigh explores how the hospital managed to
]integrate hard skills—such as medical equipment and staffing—with soft skills, including developing a collaborative and supportive culture among the staff. This culture proved vital in coping with the intense demands of the crisis and maintaining a high level of patient care.
The innovative cross-training program implemented to prepare surgical residents for critical care duties was also discussed heavily to emphasize the dynamics and experiences of the team. This initiative involved training around 15 to 18 physicians, ensuring they could handle severe respiratory and multi-organ failures competently. The book illustrates how this training was carried out under careful supervision to create a safe and effective environment for both patients and medical staff.
Throughout the narrative, Dr. Shabsigh reflects on the emotional impact of the pandemic, including the profound loss of a senior colleague and moments of hope, such as creating a celebratory announcement system for patient recovery. Dr. Shabsigh underscores the critical need for continued support and philanthropy, particularly for hospitals serving high-need communities. He highlights how donations can significantly impact institutions like St. Barnabas, which provide essential care to low-income communities. Through detailed accounts of their response and improvements made between surges, his department\u27s hard work serves as a testament to the resilience and dedication of healthcare workers during one of the most challenging times in recent history