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"The NILIE team could not have been more helpful to us. They worked closely with us to provide an instrument that helped us learn more about the climate at our college. The reliable information provided through the PACE Survey gave us a snapshot of employee attitudes that enabled us to put in place effective strategies to address important issues."

Rhonda Gabovitch
Bristol Community College, MA

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Administrative, Faculty, and Staff Perceptions of Organizational Climate and Commitment in Christian Higher Education
John Charles Thomas, 2008
Findings of 957 surveyed employees from four evangelical higher education institutions found a negative correlation for climate and commitment and staff members. Administrators were found to have a more favorable view of their institutional climate than staff. Employee age, tenure, and classification had predictive value for organizational climate, whereas only employee age and tenure predicted organizational commitment.

Open Ended Comments: To Require or Not To Require?
Poncheri & Thompson, 2007
This study explores reactions and responses to open-ended questions on Web-based surveys. An experimental design is used to examine the effects of requiring participants to answer open-ended questions. Findings show that requiring these responses increases perceptions of item importance and the number of usable comments without increasing negative affective reactions.

Administrative, Faculty, and Staff Perceptions of Organizational Climate and Commitment in Christian Higher Education
John Charles Thomas, 2006
Although organizational climate research has focused on nearly every aspect of education, Christian institutions of higher learning have been virtually ignored. To address this gap, this study seeks to map Christian college/university administrative, faculty, and staff perceptions of their organizational climate and their organizational commitment. Four evangelical higher education institutions with a census of 2076 employees agreed to participate in a survey that included the Personal Assessment of College Environment, a 46-item instrument comprised of four factors: institutional structure, supervisory relationship, teamwork, and student focus and the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire, an 18-item inventory that assessed three different types of commitment: affective (i.e., want to stay), continuance (i.e., need to stay), and normative (i.e., obligated to stay). Nine hundred fifty seven employees responded to the survey with useable data, representing a 46% response rate. Data was analyzed using several statistical procedures including Pearson Product Moment Correlation, stepwise multiple regression, MANOVA, and ANOVA. Interestingly, a statistically significance negative correlation was found for total climate and commitment scores on the aggregate sample. Likewise, a statistically significant negative relationship was also found for staff members who comprised nearly 67% of the total respondents, but no level of significant correlations were noted for either administrators or faculty. Administrators were found to have a more favorable view of their institutional climate than staff. Employee age, tenure, and employee classification had predictive value for organizational climate whereas only employee age and tenure predicted organizational commitment.

Institutional Effectiveness in Higher Education: Factor Analysis of The Personal Assessment of College Environment Survey Instrument
Tiu, 2001
The purpose of this study is to identify the factor structure of the underlying organizational conditions that are responsible for the perception of campus climate as measured by the PACE instrument. The factor analysis study indicates that a five-factor model emerges. The central themes of these five constructs are managerial behavior, institutional structure, student needs and development, team work, and meaningful work and task control.

Selected Presentations

Raising the Temperature: How to Improve Community College Organizational Climate
Presented at the 2010 American Association of Community Colleges conference

Understanding and Assessing the Organizational Climate of Community Colleges
Presented at the 2010 Association for Institutional Research

One Size Does NOT Fit All: Situational Leadership in the 21st Century
Presented at the 2009 LEAD conference at Meredith College

Best Practices for Improving Community College Climate: The Role of Leadership

Presented at the 2009 North Carolina State University Graduate Student Research Symposium and the Department of Adult and Higher Education Research Symposium

The Female Advantage: Playing to Your Strengths

Presented at the 2009 Women in Leadership Development conference at Duke University






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