No abstract

Writing support is one facet of doctoral education with implications on student retention, persistence, and completion. Previous research suggests focus has been given to undergraduate writing, while little attention has been paid to support graduate writing overall and even less at the doctoral level (Rose & McClafferty, 2001). After observing student struggles with doctoral-level academic writing, members of the faculty determined a need to better support writing development from coursework through the final dissertation in an online Global Leadership PhD program. In this article, we describe the development and implementation of a multi-day, interactive, and synchronous online writing workshop collaboratively offered by faculty and staff to address challenges experienced by pre-dissertation students, as well as those in the dissertation stage of the program. Students had demonstrated a wide variety of challenges, including trouble writing using conventional standards, difficulty organizing their thoughts, understanding and applying appropriate APA formatting, and minor proofreading errors in their writing. These challenges are often exacerbated by differences in priorities from instructors, creating confusion for the student on how to best address these challenges and become more proficient in their writing. Following a description of the practice, we include a discussion on student evaluations of the workshop and make recommendations for the application of similar support initiatives.

No abstract

Student learning outcomes assessment, when done right, is an ongoing and systematic process. Faculty and staff for leadership education programs often struggle to develop a comprehensive approach to assess the effectiveness of their programs, especially when those programs are offered through multiple modes of instruction. One department at a Midwestern public university has developed a thorough, five-stage process which any leadership education program can follow, regardless of size or method of delivery. This department considers three modes of instruction, including face-to-face on a traditional American campus, asynchronous online, and face-to-face at foreign universities via international partnerships. This manuscript describes the comprehensive process and offers readers considerations for implementation at their own institution.

The internationalization of United States higher education has been described as a "two-way street" where students arrive at knowledge transfer. That transfer occurs through a curriculum deemed "unidirectional" with no relevance to local issues or needs and results in limited application and educational colonialism perceptions. Specific to leadership education, the extant literature presents implications of neglect to cultural contexts traditionally reflected in the curriculum within a host nation. We used an explanatory mixed methods design for this study to investigate the degree to which undergraduate Western-based leadership studies courses taught in China reflect the notion of "neocolonialism" by prioritizing Western interests and values.While the study's quantitative results reveal cultural differences in leadership education concepts, the qualitative follow-up phase finds students' appreciation in the utility of leadership concepts and knowledge gained from the leadership curriculum. Students could cite specific situations in which they employed leadership concepts acquired from their respective leadership courses. Background of the StudyThe internationalization of United States higher education has been described as a "two-way street"where students arrive at the transfer of knowledge (Altbach & Knight, 2007: 291). The curriculum that facilitates that transfer has been deemed "unidirectional," with no relevance to local issues or needs (Nguyen, Elliott, Terlouw, & Pilot, 2009), resulting in a limited application or unwanted perceptions of educational colonialism (Altbach, 2003). The current study will investigate the degree to which undergraduate Western-based leadership studies courses taught in China may reflect the notion of being "elitist," described by Crossley and Tikly (2004) as "lacking relevance to local realities and are often at variance with indigenous knowledge systems, values, and beliefs" (p. 149).