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Growing out of research in Technical Communication, Composition Studies, and Writing Program Administration, the articles in this dissertation explicitly seek to address changes in the practices and products of writing and writing studies wrought by the so-called "digital revolution" in communication technology, which has been ongoing in these fields since at least 1982 and the publication of the first Computers and Composition newsletter. After more than three decades of concentrated study, the problems posed by the communication revolution have been brought into clear relief by a succession of scholars, and the complex and semi-coordinated project of remediating ourselves, our discourses, and our disciplines is in many respects well underway. Nevertheless, significant challenges face multimodal pedagogy in the context of Writing Program Administration, challenges that take the form of entrenched conflict regarding the ownership and distribution of personal information and intellectual property. These articles examine problems at the level of the student, the teacher, and the program and argue for a new kind of Writing Program Administrator who uses multiliteracies to rethink how writing programs should produce and practice writing and the teaching of writing in the 21st-century. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how participation in a class on servant leadership influenced the emergency services student's understanding of the role and characteristics of a servant leader. The setting for the study was a state university in the Western United States, with the six participants being declared emergency services majors that were all over the age of 18. The participants of the study underwent a 15-week leadership theory course that focused on servant leadership. The theoretical approach for the dissertation was that of servant leadership through the lens of a social constructivist, stemming from a desire to know how a servant leadership course influenced the individual emergency services student's understanding of the role and characteristics of a leader. The research design utilized multiple sources of evidence in the form of the participant's pre and post coursework questionnaires, student reflective journals, and end-of-course surveys to triangulate data for building a converging line of inquiry in order to explain the phenomena. The findings of the study showed that the experience of undergoing a servant leadership class influenced the students' understanding of the role and characteristics of a leader to more closely align with those of a servant leader, and that the experience left positive impressions on the students, possibly producing future servant leaders. The findings of this study add to the existing body of knowledge associated with servant leadership by expanding the subject into the emergency services field by relating the desire to serve that drives the emergency services responder to the desire to serve that drives one to become a servant leader. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Despite increased access to higher education for previously underrepresented ethnic groups, the graduation rates of African Americans and Latinos in higher education pale in comparison to their Caucasian and Asian peers (Aud, Fox, & KewalRamani, 2010). In contrast, Asians are graduating at rates higher than Caucasians; however, the literature reveals the Asian student college experience as isolated and disconnected from the campus community (Bowman, 2010; Ying, 2001). In the next 40 years, people of color will become the majority within the American population (Passel & Cohn, 2008), yet few interventions seem to be resolving the apparent disparity in success across ethnic groups in higher education (McWhorter, 2005). Researchers have suggested that the psychological experiences of students may provide a new means for understanding why students persist to graduation (Bean & Eaton, 2002). Students' psychological processes have been explored in the literature as they relate to the academic, social, and emotional success of students; that is, the ways students thrive on campus (Schreiner, 2010c). Thriving students demonstrate high levels of interpersonal, intrapersonal, and academic well-being. The purpose of this study was to explore the extent to which student demographic characteristics, campus environmental characteristics, student spirituality, and psychological sense of community explain the variation in thriving among students of color. The "Thriving Quotient," a reliable and valid instrument that measures thriving across five factors (Schreiner, McIntosh, Nelson, & Pothoven, 2009), was utilized to explore the pathways to thriving in a sample of 7,956 students attending 59 institutions. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), unique pathways to thriving for Caucasian, African American, Asian, and Latino students were explored in this study. A psychological sense of community emerged as the primary predictor of thriving among all student groups, and spirituality emerged as the largest single contributor to a sense of community among students of color, yet structural invariance across the four ethnic groups indicated that the pathways to thriving differ by ethnicity. Implications for practice are highlighted that can help students of color thrive in college. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this quantitative study was to discover whether relationships exist between leadership styles and innovation commitment and innovation output at commercial software companies. The leadership styles included transformational and transactional, and the innovation variables included (a) the percentage of expenses allocated to innovation, (b) the alignment tightness between the corporate strategy and innovation strategy, (c) the number of new products or significantly improved products, and (d) the percentage of revenues related to innovation. This study obtained leadership and innovation data through surveys from raters and leaders at 30 different companies. The study used a correlation analysis that revealed two statistically significant relationships between leadership styles and innovation variables: (a) transformational leadership and percent of revenue from innovation; (b) transactional leadership and number of new products. Leadership at commercial software companies may benefit from these discoveries by evaluating their innovation performance and implementing the leadership training and hiring strategies that may result in optimal innovation performance. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]