been a subject of great interest to policy and decision makers for the past 40 years.
Recent research indicates that while there exist specific shortages in specific disciplines
and areas of expertise in the private sector and the federal government, there is no
noticeable shortage in any STEM academic discipline, but rather a surplus of PhDs
vying for increasingly scarce tenure track positions. Despite the seeming availability
of industry and private sector jobs, recent PhDs still struggle to find employment in
those areas. I argue that the decades old narrative suggesting a shortage of STEM
PhDs in the US poses a threat to the value of the natural science PhD, and that
this narrative contributes significantly to why so many PhDs struggle to find career
employment in their fields. This study aims to address the following question: what is
the value of a STEM PhD outside academia? I begin with a critical review of existing
literature, and then analyze programmatic documents for STEM PhD programs at
ASU, interviews with industry employers, and an examination the public face of value
for these degrees. I then uncover the nature of the value alignment, value disconnect,
and value erosion in the ecosystem which produces and then employs STEM PhDs,
concluding with specific areas which merit special consideration in an effort to increase
the value of these degrees for all stakeholders involved.
relaxation, and gamification to help patients alleviate their misophonic reflexes.
This thesis first examines the history and contemporary landscape of school mental health, offering evidence for schools as an essential component of the child and adolescent system of care. It then provides contemporary discussion around the importance of design in public administration, as well as analyzes the current design model of school-based mental health services, including key actors, normative assumptions, and underlying conceptual models to demonstrate the outdated presumptions that have led to a model that is not designed to adapt to the unique needs of students, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on contemporary theory of design in public administration, I argue that the largely fragmented, decentralized, bureaucratic, complex, and underdeveloped design of school-based mental health services mainly developed in the 1970s and 1980s has reached its limits and cannot adapt to new societal variables. Lastly, I discuss said limitations of this model to argue for a conceptual and practical re-design of the current system of school-based mental health systems in the United States.
Through a qualitative, grounded theory analysis, this dissertation examines the phenomena of the students engaging in Luminosity’s model, who have demonstrated their ability to serve as the principal investigators and innovators in conducting substantial discovery, research, and innovation work through full project life cycles. This study supports a theory that highly talented students often feel limited by the pace and scope of their college educations, and yearn for experiences that motivate them with agency, achievement, mastery, affinity for colleagues, and a desire to impact society. Through the cumulative effect of these motivators and an organizational design that facilitates a bottom-up approach to student-driven innovation, Luminosity has established itself as a novel model of research and development in the collegiate space.
number of youth becoming politically active and civically engaged. Many of whom are active
and engaged are college students, seeking change not only within politics and society, but within
their institution. At Arizona State University (ASU), the institution is spread across four unique
campuses in which each of the campuses holds its own undergraduate student government.
Within the Associated Students of Arizona State University (ASASU), each Undergraduate
Student Government (USG) experiences low voter turnout every year in their elections and high
turnover rates. Understanding why students chose to be involved in the first place is a major
question.