William G Tierney
Biographic Data
| ID | 80339 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William G Tierney |
| GIVEN NAMES | William G |
| FAMILY NAME | Tierney |
| SIGNATURE | TIERNEY W G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southern California |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 87 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 520 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 85 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Coming Out to the Streets
Successful Global Collaborations in Higher Education Institutions
This open access book provides the current international intellectual debate on the future of higher education in different aspects such as education, research, international cooperation, and the story of King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia and its effort to become a world-class university
Relational Sociology and Research on Schools, Colleges, and Universities
Relational sociology was conceived by theorists frustrated by what they viewed as an incomplete accounting of social reality. Torn between notions of structural rigidity on the one hand and rational choice individualism on the other, relational sociologists have sought new units of analysis. Social reality, they have argued, is manufactured through relationships. People are who they are, and society is what it is, not because of some individual o…
The Role of Ethnography as Ethical and Policy-Relevant Public Scholarship
Amid calls for increased public scholarship, ethnographers occupy precarious positions. They focus on studying underrepresented cultural groups within local contexts and connecting micro and macro levels to understand the impact of social, economic, and political forces. The methodology is particularly well-suited to engage multiple audiences, influence public dialogue, and inform policy issues. And yet, given the current emphasis on experimental…
Inequitable Structures
In India, university students from scheduled castes (SCs) face a number of challenges that not only prevent them from graduating but also prevent them from being strong performers in universities and upon graduation. Utilizing the framework of social capital, this article draws upon life histories, secondary interviews, and document analysis to understand the lived realities of four male Indian adolescents from different SCs who are in their thir…
The Art of Life History
The "Wrong" Side of the Divide
Antar A. Tichavakunda, William G. Tierney, The “Wrong” Side of the Divide: Highlighting Race for Equity’s Sake, The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 87, No. 2, The 38th Annual Charles H. Thompson Lecture Broadening Participation in American Higher Education—A Special Focus on the Underrepresentation of African Americans in STEM Disciplines (Spring 2018), pp. 110-124
Academic corruption
Coming Out and Leaving Home
Each year, it is estimated between 320,000 and 400,000 LGBT youth encounter homelessness. They are at increased risk of victimization and abuse and face stigmatization for being both homeless and a sexual or gender minority. These youth are more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to become homeless after being forced out of their homes. Because of this, it is important to consider the wide array of backgrounds and identities of LGBT home…
The Role of State Policy in Ensuring Access, Achievement, and Attainment in Education
This volume focuses on the importance of state policy for ensuring equity in postsecondary access, achievement, and attainment. America has a federalist system of education that gives states significant autonomy in their governance of schools, colleges, and universities. This system has created significant variation across states; variation that provides opportunities for state governments to learn from one another. This volume underscores the im…
Regulatory Enforcement as Policy
Regulatory enforcement is a policy decision in itself. Given the current federal commitment to deregulate the for-profit college market, state regulations will likely become increasingly important. This study examines the factors contributing to the enforcement of state-level proprietary college regulations. Using event history analysis, the authors test diffusion and innovation theories as potential explanations for patterns of enforcement. The …
Academic responsibility
The authors consider how globalisation has fundamentally reshaped education. The assumption that in a knowledge economy workers need to be better educated has led to the belief that education is a private good. What the authors define as ‘responsibilisation’ frames a radically different vision of public life from that of the past. The pressures of globalisation, privatisation, and changes in communications technology have led to educational refor…
Research Excellence in Indian Higher Education
Bringing it home
In this commentary, the author reflects on a special issue that explores how educational institutions serve homeless and highly mobile students as well as their families. The number of homeless youth continues to rise, leading the author to question why structural constraints have not been removed. In addition to reflecting on the articles, he points toward additional research areas that warrant exploration
Postsecondary Play
The college application processwhich entails multiple forms, essays, test scores, and deadlinescan be intimidating. For students without substantial school and family support, the complexity of this process can become a barrier to access. William G. Tierney and his team at the University of Southern California approach this challenge innovatively. Using the tools of online games and social media, they have developed ways to make applying for coll…
The Question of Academic Freedom
The Changing Nature of Academic Freedom in an Age of Globalization
Completing College
Additional informationNotes on contributorsWilliam G. TierneyUniversity of Southern CaliforniaJenna R. SablanUniversity of Southern California
Examining College Readiness
College readiness has become a growing concern for educational policy makers, practitioners, and researchers. This chapter briefly reviews some of the issues surrounding college readiness and previews the issue that follows
Higher education research, policy, and the challenges of reform
Postsecondary institutions always have been in a state of change. The author discusses four key areas of higher education – systems of tertiary education, privatization, academic work, and technology – that demand careful analysis that have always been of concern but now are entering a new phase of change. The author offers an interpretation of the current state of American higher education in general, and in California in particular.Keywords: fa…
Danny's Fight for Life
This article focuses on Danny, a low-income, first-generation college student living in Los Angeles, California, and the challenges he has faced in preparing for college. The author describes how Danny's identity and "cultural flexibility" have aided him as he applied to college. Four themes dominate Danny's life: his neighborhood, his father and family, school, and boxing and college. The author argues that better understanding such students mig…
Using ethnography to understand twenty-first century college life
Ethnography in the field of postsecondary education has served as a magnifying glass bringing into focus university culture and student life. This paper highlights the ways in which ethnography is especially useful for understanding more recent dynamics and shifts in higher education. The authors utilize existing literature to uphold the relevancy of ethnography, while exploring its opportunities for research on adult students, online education, …
Aera Presidential Address
The author argues that the role of a public intellectual involves a science of knowing as well as the knowledge gained by a researcher’s work and life. Including both, the intellectual moves beyond educational organizations and finds ways to become more involved not only with larger issues of public policy but also with those with whom he or she is engaged. The assumption here is that to help reduce poverty a researcher’s focus needs to move beyo…
Understanding the Writing Habits of Tomorrow's Students
This article reports on a study analyzing the digital skills of 91 low-income students enrolled in writing remediation. Findings suggest that technological demands widen the equity dimensions of the college preparation gap by aggravating the academic challenges remedial writers already face. Suggestions to support the compound literacy needs of 21st-century students are made
Interviewing in Education
Organizational Culture in Higher Education
Within the business community in the last ten years, organizational culture has emerged as a topic of central concern to those who study organizations. Books such as Peters and Waterman's In Search of Excellence [37], Ouchi's Theory Z [33], Deal and Kennedy's Corporate Cultures [20], and Schein's Organizational Culture and Leadership [44] have emerged as major works in the study of managerial and organizational performance. However, growing popul…
An Anthropological Analysis of Student Participation in College
1992). An Anthropological Analysis of Student Participation in College. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 63, No. 6, pp. 603-618
Life History's History
This article considers three different issues that pertain to life history research-where the author, the "I," fits into the text, where the Other fits into the project, and how we represent the Other and our selves in the text. The author suggests that autoethnography and life stories are powerful research tools that ultimately enable a writer to deal with difference and to ensure that, in doing so, people are not all assimilated into one mainst…
Qualitative Research and Institutional Review Boards
Although it is not their intention, institutional review boards (IRBs) often impede the conduct of studies that are not conventional and/or experimental designs. As a consequence, studies that are qualitative, participatory action research, action research, postmodern, and/or critical theorist in orientation often undergo endless revisions as IRBs seek to make them appear more conventional. Among the reasons for this are lack of training in alter…
Organizational Socialization in Higher Education
A fact is like a sack which won't stand up when it is empty. In order that it may stand up, one has to put into it the reason and sentiment which caused it to exist. Luigi Pirandello Six Characters in Search of an Author Socialization is a concept that is much discussed but frequently misunderstood. On the one hand, the research literature is replete with taken-for-granted definitions of socialization; on the other, institutional administrators o…
Get real
In this article I suggest that qualitative researchers broaden the narrative strategies we employ so our texts are built more in relation to fiction and storytelling, rather than in response to logical empiricism. My point is not so much to criticize the work of others, but rather to open up a space in social science texts for a more protean and engaged portrayal of those lives we observe and live. My stimulus is a concern with the defensive post…
Models of Minority College-Going and Retention
This article maintains that Tinto's theory of college student retention misses the mark for minority students. With its implicit suggestions that such students must assimilate into the mainstream and abandon their ethnic identifies to succeed on predominantly White campuses, Tinto's framework is faulted not only for overlooking the history of ethnic oppression and discrimination in the U.S. but also for being theoretically flawed. An alternate mo…
Fictive Kin and Social Capital
In this article, the authors suggest that peers have the potential to create fictive kin networks, and in this role, peers become a social support that helps enable a culture of success. Discussing peer counselors and their role in helping students understand financial aid, the authors' purpose is to suggest that peer groups-as social relationships that cut across classroom connections-create a viable solution that helps youth attain access to co…
Finding Money on the Table
Additional informationNotes on contributorsWilliam G. TierneyWilliam G. Tierney is University Professor and Director of the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis at the University of Southern California.Kristan M. VenegasKristan Venegas is an Assistant Professor and Research Associate in the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis at the University of Southern California
The Art of Life History
The cedar closet1
Disenchanted with traditional portrayals of organizational life, the author uses ethnographic fiction to highlight the background and personalities involved in significant changes undertaken at one institution. Explored are the conflicts and personal struggles related to a university's addition of a sexual orientation clause to its statement of nondiscrimination. Three points are stressed throughout this article: (1) the conflicting nature of rea…
The Tensions Between Academic Freedom and Institutional Review Boards
Academic freedom and the protection of human research subjects are central tenets of American universities. Academic freedom protects the rights of tenured professors to conduct autonomous research; human subject protection ensures that research causes as minimal a risk as possible to study participants. Although the two principles are mutually exclusive, recent trends in Institutional Review Board jurisdiction have placed the two principles in i…
(Re)Presentation and Voice
This article considers the accessibility of language in scholarly work and discusses what makes a work boring and what the implications are for those who have a broad range of inquiry. In particular, the author discusses the development of the text in qualitative research and the struggles authors face as qualitative researchers. The author first considers the role of the author in the text and he then takes up the issue of readership. He subsequ…
Inequitable Structures
In India, university students from scheduled castes (SCs) face a number of challenges that not only prevent them from graduating but also prevent them from being strong performers in universities and upon graduation. Utilizing the framework of social capital, this article draws upon life histories, secondary interviews, and document analysis to understand the lived realities of four male Indian adolescents from different SCs who are in their thir…
The Social Significance of Academic Freedom
Academic freedom remains a central tenet of our nation's colleges and universities. However, recent incidents have spawned debates regarding the merits of academic freedom and the mechanism that protects it, tenure. By way of two contrasting examples, the authors consider how two types of higher education institutions-private for-profit universities and nonprofit public institutions-situate themselves in the public dialogue when controversies ari…
Culture and Ideology in Higher Education
Using ethnography to understand twenty-first century college life
Ethnography in the field of postsecondary education has served as a magnifying glass bringing into focus university culture and student life. This paper highlights the ways in which ethnography is especially useful for understanding more recent dynamics and shifts in higher education. The authors utilize existing literature to uphold the relevancy of ethnography, while exploring its opportunities for research on adult students, online education, …
Writing on the Margins from the Center
Research with homeless youth requires negotiating with Institutional Review Boards (IRB), school districts, and social service agencies. Youth that are homeless live a life different from the researcher, thus issues of trust and caring need to be considered before asking a vulnerable young person to share his or her story. The authors share insight learned from a qualitative study of the educational barriers of homeless youth that highlight these…
Guest Editor's Introduction
willbea“how to” about the ins and outs of writing life histories, I am afraid they willbe disappointed. The seven articles that follow neither prescribe ways torecord and analyze life histories nor delineate a set format for presenting lifehistories. The times are too unsettled for such directions. And yet, those of uswhoattempttoundertakelifestoriesareravenousforsomerulesoftheroad.W. Somerset Maugham is reported to have said that there are three…
The Web of Leadership
The Web of Leadership: The Presidency in Higher Education." The Journal of Higher Education, 61(6), pp. 707–708
Coming Out and Leaving Home
Each year, it is estimated between 320,000 and 400,000 LGBT youth encounter homelessness. They are at increased risk of victimization and abuse and face stigmatization for being both homeless and a sexual or gender minority. These youth are more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to become homeless after being forced out of their homes. Because of this, it is important to consider the wide array of backgrounds and identities of LGBT home…
A University Helps Prepare Low Income Youths for College
William G. Tierney, Alexander Jun, A University Helps Prepare Low Income Youths for College: Tracking School Success, The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 72, No. 2, Special Issue: The Social Role of Higher Education (Mar. - Apr., 2001), pp. 205-225
Aera Presidential Address
The author argues that the role of a public intellectual involves a science of knowing as well as the knowledge gained by a researcher’s work and life. Including both, the intellectual moves beyond educational organizations and finds ways to become more involved not only with larger issues of public policy but also with those with whom he or she is engaged. The assumption here is that to help reduce poverty a researcher’s focus needs to move beyo…
Coming Out to the Streets
Danny's Fight for Life
This article focuses on Danny, a low-income, first-generation college student living in Los Angeles, California, and the challenges he has faced in preparing for college. The author describes how Danny's identity and "cultural flexibility" have aided him as he applied to college. Four themes dominate Danny's life: his neighborhood, his father and family, school, and boxing and college. The author argues that better understanding such students mig…
Facts and Constructs
This paper considers the implications for researchers and administrators if the organizational environment is interpreted as “enacted.” In so doing, the paper demonstrates now supposing that environments are socially constructed implies (different orientations to problem-solving and raises new research questions than if we assume environments are a finite number of objective facts. The essay differentiates between objective and enacted environmen…
Organizational Culture in Higher Education
Within the business community in the last ten years, organizational culture has emerged as a topic of central concern to those who study organizations. Books such as Peters and Waterman's In Search of Excellence [37], Ouchi's Theory Z [33], Deal and Kennedy's Corporate Cultures [20], and Schein's Organizational Culture and Leadership [44] have emerged as major works in the study of managerial and organizational performance. However, growing popul…
Much Ado about Something
Additional informationNotes on contributorsWilliam G. TierneyWilliam G. Tierney is assistant professor and research associate at the Center for the Study of Higher Education, The Pennsylvania State University, 133 Willard Building, University Park, Pa., 16802
Introduction
Educational leadership is an abused concept. More often than not it is seen as synonymous to administration and with the power of office. It has become symbolic of hierarchy, of structure, and of power. It has, in effect, been reduced in its own power and in its scope because it now only replicates other useful terms, such as management and administration. Yet its potential for informing the debate over what formal education should be like, how i…
Advancing democracy
(1989). Advancing democracy: A critical interpretation of leadership. Peabody Journal of Education: Vol. 66, Educational Leadership and the Struggle for Mind, pp. 157-175
The Web of Leadership
The Web of Leadership: The Presidency in Higher Education." The Journal of Higher Education, 61(6), pp. 707–708
The Idea of Higher Education
Culture and Ideology in Higher Education
An Anthropological Analysis of Student Participation in College
1992). An Anthropological Analysis of Student Participation in College. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 63, No. 6, pp. 603-618
Indian College Country
The cedar closet1
Disenchanted with traditional portrayals of organizational life, the author uses ethnographic fiction to highlight the background and personalities involved in significant changes undertaken at one institution. Explored are the conflicts and personal struggles related to a university's addition of a sexual orientation clause to its statement of nondiscrimination. Three points are stressed throughout this article: (1) the conflicting nature of rea…
Refraining the Narrative Voice in Educational Research
Naming Silenced Lives
Travel Writing
(1995). Travel Writing: Narrative and The Black Experience. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies: Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 185-196
(Re)Presentation and Voice
This article considers the accessibility of language in scholarly work and discusses what makes a work boring and what the implications are for those who have a broad range of inquiry. In particular, the author discusses the development of the text in qualitative research and the struggles authors face as qualitative researchers. The author first considers the role of the author in the text and he then takes up the issue of readership. He subsequ…
Affirmative Action in California
This article offers an overview of the context and consequences of affirmative action in California with regard to faculty hiring and student admissions for African Americans and other Californians of color. It first outlines the policy's philosophical framework and basic premises. It next reviews the several criticisms that have been lodged against it in the nearly three decades since its implementation. The discussion highlights data indicating…
Tenure and Community in Academe
he secretary ushers me into the office for my final interview of the day-an upper-level medical school administrator. He is running late. I await him in his quiet office that is resplendent with comfortable furniture and the trappings of what we have come to think of as the richest profession-medicine. The plush carpet, the rich wooden hues of the matching tables and chairs, the fleet of secretaries for one individual are impossible to find when …
The Roles of Institutional Cultures and Decision Approaches in Promoting Organizational Effectiveness in Two-Year Colleges
Additional informationNotes on contributorsJohn C. SmartJohn C. Smart is a professor in the Leadership Department of The University of Memphis; George D. Kuh is a professor at the Center for Postsecondary Research and Planning at Indiana University, Bloomington; and William G. Tierney is a professor at the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.George D. KuhJohn C. Smart is a professor in…
Organizational Socialization in Higher Education
A fact is like a sack which won't stand up when it is empty. In order that it may stand up, one has to put into it the reason and sentiment which caused it to exist. Luigi Pirandello Six Characters in Search of an Author Socialization is a concept that is much discussed but frequently misunderstood. On the one hand, the research literature is replete with taken-for-granted definitions of socialization; on the other, institutional administrators o…
Student Affairs Reconsidered
Leveling Tenure
This article delineates the four most significant areas of potential tenure reform. The author offers the strengths and weaknesses of each proposal and provides examples of why such suggestions have been made and what has occurred. The article concludes with an alternative suggestion about how to solve some of the problems that currently exist in the academy that does not necessitate changing tenure
Announcing a Special Issue of Qualitative Inquiry
Life History's History
This article considers three different issues that pertain to life history research-where the author, the "I," fits into the text, where the Other fits into the project, and how we represent the Other and our selves in the text. The author suggests that autoethnography and life stories are powerful research tools that ultimately enable a writer to deal with difference and to ensure that, in doing so, people are not all assimilated into one mainst…
Introduction
(1999). Introduction: Praxis at the millennium - epistemological authority, voice, and qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education: Vol. 12, No. 5, pp. 451-456
Models of Minority College-Going and Retention
This article maintains that Tinto's theory of college student retention misses the mark for minority students. With its implicit suggestions that such students must assimilate into the mainstream and abandon their ethnic identifies to succeed on predominantly White campuses, Tinto's framework is faulted not only for overlooking the history of ethnic oppression and discrimination in the U.S. but also for being theoretically flawed. An alternate mo…
Sociology (76 works) · Political science (62 works) · Psychology (45 works) · Law (34 works) · Pedagogy (33 works) · Law (32 works) · Higher education (30 works) · Public relations (25 works) · Higher Education Research Studies (21 works) · Higher Education Governance and Development (20 works)