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Trust in Educational Leadership in Times of Crisis: The Superintendent-Teacher Union Leader Trust Dynamic
Get PDFThesis advisor: Raquel MuñizThis qualitative case study explores the role that trust plays between the superintendent and the teacher union leader of a public school district in the Northeast United States during the COVID-19 pandemic using the framework of interpersonal trust-building (Zand, 1972). Further, it uses the five facets of trust (Tschannen-Moran, 2001) to identify the leadership practices that have the greatest impact on perceptions of trust in this relationship. Specifically, this study addresses the following research question: How, if at all, does trust influence the relationships and practices of educational stakeholders during times of crisis? Based on semi-structured interviews, document reviews, and observations, findings support previous research indicating that trust develops only with the benefit of time and, once established, allows for more direct communication and more efficient and collaborative problem-solving. Data also indicate that the facet of benevolence exerts the greatest impact on perceptions of trust in the superintendent’s and teacher union leader’s working relationship. Finally, the accumulation of shared experiences over time help develop a shared sense of identity between the superintendent and teacher union leader, resulting in stronger perceptions of trust and a greater sense of shared purpose. This shared sense of identity may also serve as a proxy for time, allowing parties to make assumptions about the other’s future behavior based on perceived group memberships, thereby jump-starting the development of trust in the relationship. Recommendations include purposefully demonstrating benevolent behaviors in order to more effectively develop trust in a relationship and, whenever possible, communicating a shared sense of identity based on common values and beliefs. These findings have implications for district and school leaders who want to more intentionally establish trusting relationships and can inform the preparation, induction, and learning of district leaders.Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education
Capital Improvements to Principal Leadership: The Influence of Relationships on Principals' Perceptions of Self-Efficacy
Get PDFThesis advisor: Vincent ChoThis individual case study is part of a larger group study examining how principals benefit from and shape professional capital to improve schools. Principals play a critical role in supporting student learning, while also structuring the culture of the school and mediating external demands. Despite the importance of the school principal, principal dissatisfaction is high and retention rates are low. The job of the principal is intensifying in terms of its complexity and volume of responsibilities. While extant research on teacher social networks makes a strong connection to perceptions of self-efficacy, little research exists regarding principals. This qualitative case study explored how district leaders in one Massachusetts school district focused on principal retention and whether their actions influenced a principal's feelings of self-efficacy. This study is part of a larger study that investigated how principals benefit from and shape professional capital to improve schools. Data were gathered from fourteen semi-structured interviews with district level leaders and principals. Data supported the literature that relationships based in work and friendship with district leaders and colleagues positively influenced principal feelings of self-efficacy. Recommendations include examining the impact of top-down district reforms on principal persistence and innovation. Further investigation needs to be done examining the influence of relationships on specific antecedents of principal self-efficacy.Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education
Essays in Macroeconomics:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Peter IrelandMy doctoral research focuses, first, on the effect of central bank transparency on people's expectation formation and, second, on the relationship between financial frictions and the macroeconomy. In Chapter 1, I study how the central bank transparency affects disagreement in inflation expectations. In Chapter 2, I investigate the optimal degree of transparency about inflation target for a central bank. In Chapter 3, I examine the impact of financial factors on the growth of total factor productivity. Chapter 1: In this analysis I measures the transparency of the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) regarding its target inflation rate before its adoption of inflation targeting using data on the disagreement in inflation expectations among U.S. consumers. We construct a model of inflation forecasters employing the frameworks of both an unobserved components model and a noisy information model. We estimate the model and extract the transparency of the FRB regarding the target as the standard deviation of the heterogeneous noise in the inflation trend signal, where the trend proxies the FRB's inflation target. The results show a great improvement in transparency after the mid-1990s as well as its significant contribution to the decline in the disagreement in long-horizon inflation expectations. Chapter 2: We examined the optimal degree of transparency for a central bank about its inflation target. We construct a new Keynesian model with dispersed information in which policy rate signals information about underlying shocks. We have shown that a transparent inflation target is not always optimal in the presence of the signaling effects of the policy rate. In addition, it is shown that the optimal degree of transparency depends on the relative size and the persistence of the underlying shocks. Chapter 3: After the global financial crisis, slowdowns of total factor productivity (TFP), often measured as the Solow residual, have been observed across major countries. This study offers an explanation for this by focusing on Japan’s financial crises during the 1990s. We first incorporate credit constraints, for financial intermediaries (FIs) and firms, and input–output structure into the standard New Keynesian model, and show that the model delivers multiple channels through which damaged balance sheets reduce measured TFP. We then estimate the model using Japanese data, and show that adverse shocks to FIs’ balance sheets played a substantial role in lowering measured TFP.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics
Talking About Autism and Exploring Autistic Identities:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Kristen Bottema-BeutelAutism is often framed using a deficit lens with ableist beliefs and medical model perspectives promoting the curing, treatment, or camouflaging of autistic characteristics. This contributes to poor outcomes experienced by many within the autistic community, including but not limited to victimization at higher rates (Fisher & Lounds Taylor, 2016; Nansel et al., 2001), lower satisfaction with quality of life in work, education, and relationships (Barneveld et al., 2014), suicidal ideation at higher frequencies (Mayes et al., 2013), and low self-esteem and high depression and anxiety (Cooper et al., 2017). Increased efforts are necessary to better understand how to support positive autistic identity development. This dissertation is comprised of three papers outlined below, aimed at exploring autistic identity. Paper 1 sought to analyze how autistic adults without a formal autism diagnosis construct autistic identities in the narratives they tell about disclosure or talking to other about being autistic. Through interviewing using participant-preferred modalities, narratives were elicited from 15 self-identified autistic adults. Narratives were thematically and then discursively examined using Bamberg’s 3-level model of positioning (Bamberg, 1997). Analysis showed that positioning techniques like reported speech, double-voiced discourse, and juxtaposition of characters were used by participants to reveal doubt experienced in self-identifying, claim autistic membership, and assert autism expertise. For autistic adults without formal diagnosis, discussing autism and sharing their autistic identification can be a challenging experience. Understanding how these exchanges are narrated can offer insight on how to better support and affirm self-identified autistic adults. Paper 2 examined the experiences of autistic adolescents and their caregivers of engaging in talk about autism. Adopting a multiperspectival interpretative phenomenological analytic (IPA) approach, 3 parent-child dyads were recruited and individually interviewed. Parents and adolescents were treated as separate participant groups and analysis of individual interviews was followed by cross-case analysis to identify group experiential themes. Adolescents found that conversations with their mothers impacted their autistic identity by strengthening perceived areas of difficulty related to autism and helping them to better understand themselves and conceptualizing autism. Caregivers noted that conversations about autism with their child felt natural, were spaces to frame autism in particular ways, and were opportunities to guide them through challenging social situations and offer support. This IPA study contributes to autism research in describing the psychosocial experience of autism-related talk between parent and child, appreciating the multiple perspectives involved in these interactions. Using hierarchical regression and mediation models, Paper 3 identified the relationships between (a) awareness and knowledge about autism, (b) orientation to neurodiversity perspectives, (c) level of outness, (d) autism-related stigma consciousness, (e) autistic identity, and (f) mental well-being of autistic adults. A sample of 169 participants completed an online survey comprised of measures indexing these constructs. Autism awareness and knowledge, alignment with neurodiversity perspectives, outness, and stigma consciousness were predictive of autistic identity when controlling for gender, sexuality, and number of years knowing about autistic status. When entered into the regression model together, only orientation to neurodiversity perspectives uniquely predicted autistic identity. Additionally, results showed that autistic identity mediated the relationship between stigma-related consciousness and mental wellbeing. This work offers direction for promoting positive autistic identity development.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction
Computation Aided Investigation of Radical Amination and Hydroxylation via Co(II)- Based Metalloradical Catalysis:
No full textThesis advisor: X. Peter ZhangThesis advisor: Shih-Yuan LiuRecent advancements have witnessed the deployment of radical chemistry for the construction of diverse vital molecular structures. Among these advances, metalloradical catalysis (MRC) has been continuously demonstrated as a practical and unique approach whereby open-shell metal-centered catalysts are exploited to initiate and regulate homolytic radical processes. As stable 15e-metalloradicals, Co(II) porphyrin complexes have been proven effective in activating multifarious precursors to forge unprecedented metal-stabilized organic radicals and are capable of conducting various homolytic processes with well-confined reactivity and selectivity thanks to the support of D2-symmetric chiral porphyrin ligands. Nevertheless, the detailed mechanistic studies of the metalloradical activation of precursors, H atom abstraction (HAA), radical addition, and asymmetric induction have been largely underdeveloped. Therefore, this dissertation mainly focuses on the mechanistic investigations of radical amination and hydroxylation reactions via Co(II)-based MRC with routine experimental methods and powerful computational tools.
Chapter 1: Developments on Asymmetric N-Heterobicyclization Reactions of Alkenes via Enantioselective Transition Metal Catalysis. We have viewed recent developments of asymmetric N-heterobicyclization of alkenes rendered by enantioselective transition metal catalysis incorporating first-row, second-row, and third-row transition metals.
Chapter 2: Enantioselective Radical N-Heterobicyclization with A New Mode of Asymmetric Induction. We have developed asymmetric radical N-heterobicyclization of allyl sulfamoyl azides with the support of a D2-symmetric chiral bridged amidoporphyrin HuPhyrin ligand. We also revealed a new mode of asymmetric induction that the chirality of a kinetically stable chiral radical center directs the enantioselectivity of the resulting aziridines. The stable chiral radical center was formed from highly challenging enantiofacial selective radical addition and underwent subsequent stereospecific ring closure.
Chapter 3: Catalytic Radical N-Heterocyclization by Metalloradical C–H Amination involving 1,7-Hydrogen Atom Abstraction. We have examined intramolecular HAA reaction and pushed its boundary from well-explored 1,5-HAA and 1,6-HAA to unusual 1,7-HAA executed by α-Co(III)-aminyl radicals, which led to the discovery of 1,7-C–H amination and 1,7-HAA triggered indirect 1,5-C–H amination with sulfamoyl azides.
Chapter 4: Metalloradical Activation of Alkyl Hydroperoxides for Catalytic Radical C−H Hydroxylation. We have presented comprehensive studies on the metalloradical activation of oxidants, especially cumene hydroperoxide. We have identified ∞-Co(III)-hydroxide cumyloxyl radical species and utilized it for the development of radical C–H hydroxylation with cumyl alcohol as the byproduct.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Chemistry
Co-responsibility in the relation between the lay and the ordained faithful: A case study of the catechetical ministry in the South Eastern Church of Nigeria
Get PDFThesis advisor: Richard LennanThesis advisor: Rafael LucianiThesis (STL) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry.Discipline: Sacred Theology
Children Will Listen: A Structural Model of Family Relationships and Positive Youth Development Outcomes in Sexual and Gender Minority Youth
Get PDFThesis advisor: Paul PoteatResearch examining the health of sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth has expanded recently from a focus on how social contexts are linked to health risk to ways they promote wellbeing. The positive youth development (PYD) framework has been increasingly used to conceptualize how various social contexts may promote SGM youth wellbeing, as well as help them engage in community-level change through contribution efforts. There is limited research examining how the family context may promote PYD outcomes and contribution for SGM youth, despite the setting’s association with positive development for heterosexual/cisgender youth. Furthermore, there is a paucity of literature contextualizing family support for SGM identities alongside other measures of family relationships.Parent-child attachment and family cohesion are two measures of family-child relationships that have historically been linked to positive development in youth. They have been linked to various markers of positive development in youth, including confidence, care for others, hope, and gratitude, which in turn may promote greater advocacy and community engagement. This study examined a structural model testing the role of several measures of family relationships in predicting PYD qualities and contribution behaviors for SGM youth.
Among 270 SGM youth, structural equation modeling analyses tested the relationship between family relationships with SGM youth (parent-child attachment, family cohesion, and SGM-specific support) and PYD qualities (confidence, care for others, hope, and gratitude) as well as contribution behaviors (advocacy beliefs and community engagement), as mediated by PYD qualities over a six month period.
Results indicated that each measure of family relationships was uniquely associated with various PYD qualities and contribution in participants. Furthermore, care for others acted as an indirect pathway through which parent-child attachment was associated with greater advocacy and community engagement for participants. These findings position families as having a role in promoting SGM youth wellbeing within the larger community and contextualize how various markers of family relationships promote select PYD qualities and behaviors. Future research should continue to investigate the longitudinal role of positive family relationships in SGM youth development and how a more nuanced understanding of these relationships may have clinical applications for practitioners and youth wellbeing.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology
The Relationship Between Academic Self-Concept and Academic Achievement in College Students: An Examination of Gender Differences
Get PDFThesis advisor: Henry I. BraunAcademic self-concept is considered central to the identity and development of college students. Previous studies of academic self-concept of college students have largely relied on only two time points to study changes that occur during college. Additionally, prior studies have found a positive association between academic self-concept and academic achievement, but have employed data techniques that limit the conclusions drawn to correlational associations. This study investigated the changes in academic self-concept over the four years of undergraduate education using a large but non-random sample of students at a highly selective institution. Additionally, using auto-regressive cross-lagged models, it explored the causal ordering of academic self-concept and academic achievement. Finally, the study explored whether changes in academic self-concept, and its relationship to academic achievement, were different for men and women.
The results suggested an initial decline in academic self-concept during the first year of college, consistent with the Big-Fish-Little-Pond-Effect, followed by an increase in academic self-concept at graduation. The study found men and women experienced similar patterns of change in academic self-concept through the college years, but that women’s academic self-concept was consistently lower than men’s academic self-concept. For men, higher academic achievement was followed by higher academic self-concept at all time points. Among women, however, there was evidence of reciprocal effects between academic self-concept and academic achievement, especially in the first year of college. These findings indicate that lower academic self-concept in women could be academically disadvantaging them compared to men, particularly early in their collegiate experience.
The study also examines the measurement properties of CIRPs Academic Self-Concept scale and the adequacy of auto-regressive cross-lagged models in place of multi-level auto-regressive cross-lagged models. Policy and research implications, as well as future directions for research, are discussed.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Educational Research, Measurement and Evaluation
On the Construction of Supercuspidal Representations: New Examples from Shallow Characters
Get PDFThesis advisor: Mark ReederThis thesis contributes to the construction of supercuspidal representations in small residual characteristics. Let G be a connected, quasi-split, semisimple reductive algebraic group defined and quasi-split over a non-archimedean local field k and splitting over a tamely, totally ramified extension of k. To each parahoric subgroup of G(k), Moy and Prasad have attached a natural filtration by compact open subgroups, the first of which is called the pro-unipotent radical of the parahoric subgroup. The first main result of this thesis is to characterize shallow characters of a pro-unipotent radical, those being complex characters that vanish on the smallest Moy-Prasad subgroup containing all commutators of linearly-dependent affine k-root groups. Through low-rank examples, we illustrate how this characterization can be used to explicitly construct all shallow characters. Next, we provide a natural sufficient condition under which a shallow character compactly induces as a direct sum of supercuspidal representations of G(k). Through examples, however, we show that this sufficient condition need not be necessary, all while constructing new supercuspidal representations of Sp_4(k) when p = 2 and the split form of G_2 over k when p = 3. This work extends the construction of the simple supercuspidal representations given by Gross and Reeder and the epipelagic supercuspidal representations given by Reeder and Yu.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Mathematics
Characterization of Putative Mammalian Adenylyl Cyclase Inhibitors Using the Fission Yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe
Get PDFThesis advisor: Charles HoffmanIn both mammals and fission yeast, control of cAMP levels is maintained by adenylyl cyclases (ACs), which synthesize cyclic nucleotide, and by cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDEs), which are responsible for its degradation. AC activity is regulated by G proteins, which respond to signals from G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that detect extracellular signaling factors such as hormones. cAMP is a second messenger that has several effectors, with protein kinase A (PKA) being a primary target of activation that phosphorylates several downstream targets and results in modulation of pathways such as cell growth and gluconeogenesis. Aberrant cAMP regulation has been linked to several human disease states, such as McCune-Albright Syndrome, which is the result of elevated cAMP levels. Whereas the targeting of PDEs with drugs and selective inhibitors has been very successful, the AC-inhibiting compounds identified to date are unfavorable for clinical use. Inhibitors may not necessarily bind to and inhibit a given AC directly but instead act on a regulatory pathway such as calmodulin signaling. Theoretically, they also may bind to the G protein, interfere with the AC-G protein stimulatory complex, or regulate a factor of AC transcription. Since more than one AC species is expressed in many human cell types, it is difficult to selectively reduce cAMP levels. Therefore, for an AC inhibitor to be favored as a candidate for drug development, it is likely that the compound should directly bind to and inhibit the AC. This thesis describes my studies on a scaffold of 41 structurally related BCAC compounds, called the BCAC51 scaffold, that was identified in a high-throughput screen (HTS) with Schizosaccharomyces pombe strains transformed with GNAS and either mammalian AC4 or AC7. I carried out a series of experiments to examine whether the compounds bind to and inhibit mammalian ACs directly. The most active compounds were further characterized for potency and specificity against a panel of ACs. Several compounds significantly reduced cAMP production, but it could not be determined if the compounds directly or indirectly altered AC activity. I also cloned and constructed strains expressing the human wild-type AC5 gene and the AC5 R418W mutant, which has shown an increased sensitivity to GNAS. cAMP assays on these strains using various BCAC compounds showed that while most compounds had similar effects on both forms of AC5, BCAC62 was significantly more effective on the wild-type enzyme than on the mutant AC5, although the reason for this is unclear. To test whether the compounds could reduce AC activity in the absence of GNAS (basal activity), a flow cytometry study was carried out using a PKA-repressed GFP reporter. Results suggested that BCAC compounds do reduce basal-AC activity and therefore do not act by binding to and inhibiting GNAS, by interfering with the AC-GNAS stimulatory complex, nor by stimulating PDE. Finally, I developed a molecular genetic screen for mutant alleles of an AC gene that confer compound-resistance. One cycle of the screen is near completion, and the screen provides a foundation for future examination of compound-resistant AC candidates. The results presented in this thesis serve as a basis for further research into members of the BCAC51 compound series being putative direct inhibitors of mammalian ACs.Thesis (BS) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Scholar of the College.Discipline: Biology