Students & Alumni

Recent Doctoral Dissertations

2019

  • Michael Bailey: Disciplinary D/discourses: Navigating and negotiating disciplinary paradigms.
    Major Professor: Zorka Karanxha
  • Jennifer Galbraith Canady: Leadership advocacy, ethical negotiations and resignations to High-Stakes Assessment: A pilgrimage.
    Major Professor: Bill Black

  • David Fisher: Education in the settler colony: Displacement, inequality, and disappearance via charter school.
    Major Professor: Zorka Karanxha

  • Tara Nkruma: Weaved Journeys: Life writings of Leading and Engagement in Science Education.
    Major Professor: Vonzell Agosto
  • Omar J. Salaam: A family history study of parents engaging issues of race and racism.
    Major Professor: Bill Black
  • Shane Silpe: A cross-case analysis of strategies used by novice elementary school principals to understand school culture.
    Major Professor: Judith Ponticell

2018

  • Cynthia Bauman: Exploring the ‘spaces between’: Teachers’ perceptions of teacher leadership within professional networks.
    Major Professor: Judith Ponticell
  • Pakethia Harris: Efficiency paradox: An examination of special education characteristics in efficient and inefficient school districts.
    Major Professor: Bill Black
  • Roderick Jones: Variations in experience and meaning: Accounts of leadership involvement and identities with special education and disability.
    Co-Major Professors: Vonzell Agosto and Bill Black
  • Angela Passero Jones: Enrollment and disenrollment in voluntary prekindergarten: A study of educational leader’s decision-making.
    Major Professor: Vonzell Agosto
  • Jennifer Rinck: Leading and learning: Principal and instructional leadership team implementation of a district Multi-Tiered System of Support initiative.
    Major Professor: Bill Black
  • LaSonja Roberts: Leader self-renewal: Mind, body, spirit connection inherent in sustainable leadership.
    Major Professor: Bill Black
  • Ericka Roland: The power to transform: Teaching in educational leadership preparation programs
    Major Professor: Vonzell Agosto
  • Holly Tabak: Union representatives’ stories: From leading the classroom to leading a district.
    Major Professor: Vonzell Agosto

2016

  • Karen Ramlackhan: The elusiveness of inclusiveness: A discursive analysis of inclusion in a district level exceptional education leadership team.
    Assistant Professor, USF-St. Petersburg
    Major Professor: Bill Black
  • Christen Tonry Gonzalez: A Content Analysis of Teacher Perceptions of the Implementation of Small Learning Communities at a High School.
    Principal, Pinellas County Schools
    Major Professor: Judith Ponticell

2014

  • Carlos J. Diaz: Perceptions of Latino Students Who Enrolled in the Adult Basic Education/Under-aged General Education Development Program: Searching For a Caring High School Experience
    Counselor, Hillsborough County Schools
    Major Professor: Bill Black
  • Claudius B. Effiom: Principal Experiences in a School Consolidation
    Principal, Pinellas County Schools
    Major Professor: Bill Black
  • Bradley Finkbiner: Can a One-Size-Fits All Parental Involvement Framework Be Applied to an Entire School District? A Comparative Case Study of a District Magnet Program.
    Principal, Pinellas County Schools
    Co-Major Professors: Leonard Burrello and Zorka Karanxha
  • Eric Hall: A Portraiture of Leadership as Enacted by School Administrators Working in Alternative Educational Settings
    Superintendent, North Carolina Achievement School District
    Major Professor: Zorka Karanxha 
  • Heather Sadler Jones: I Demand…Sorry, I Apologize: Power, Collaboration, and Technology in the Social Construction of Leadership Across Diversity
    Educational Consultant, Virginia
    Major Professor: Leonard Burrello

2013

  • Lewis Curtwright: A Descriptive Study of Four Principals’ Experiences in Leading
    Administrator, Pinellas County Schools
    Major Professor: Leonard Burrello
  • Lisa Grant: How Does a Principal Use Intention and Strategy in the Enactment of Advocacy Leadership.
    Superintendent, Mossyrock School District, Mossyrock, Washington
    Major Professor: Leonard Burrello
  • James Lane: The Man Behind the Mask: A Principal’s Search for a Moral Leadership Purpose.
    Retired Administrator, Pasco County Schools and Adjunct Professor
    Major Professor: Leonard Burrello
  • Felita Grant Lott: Marginalized African American Grandmothers Raising their School-Aged Grandsons: Perspectives on Parental Involvement
    Director, Title 1 Programs, Pinellas County Schools
    Co-Major Professors: Zorka Karanxha and Vonzell Agosto
  • Amy Samuels: Negotiating Race-Related Tensions: How White Educational Leaders Recognize, Confront, and Dialogue about Race and Racism.
    Assistant Professor, Montevallo University
    Co-Major Professors: Bill Black and Leonard Burrello