The Graduate College

Dissertation Defenses

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Listing of current doctoral dissertation defenses below and archives. Information includes candidate name, degree, department, title, committee, date of defense, and abstract

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Candidate: Jeffrey M. Leslie

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology

Title: Correlates of Teachers’ Job Satisfaction: A Hierarchical Linear Modeling Study Using 2003-2004 Schools and Staffing Survey

Date: Wednesday, September 9, 2009 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
3208 Sangren Hall

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Candidate: Annie Tordilla

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Statistics

Title: A Two-Sample Adaptive Procedure Based on the Log-Rank and Peto and Peto’s Wilcoxon Tests

Date: Thursday, September 10, 2009 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
6625 Everett Tower

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Candidate: David Joseph Piacenti

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Sociology

Title: The Ethnic Identity of Returning Immigrants to a Pueblo in Yucatán

Date: Friday, September 11, 2009 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
2526 Sangren Hall

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Candidate: Eileen M. Willits

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology

Title: Can We Get Nurses to Stay? A Qualitative Study to Evaluate the Effectiveness of a Formal Mentoring Program in an Acute Care Health System

Date: Monday, September 21, 2009 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
3208 Sangren Hall

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Candidate: Anne Cullen

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Evaluation

Title: The Politics and Consequences of Stakeholder Participation in International Development Evaluation

Date: Friday, September 25, 2009 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
4410 The Evaluation Center, Ellsworth Hall

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Candidate: Tina K. Head

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Psychology

Title: Evaluation of Medication Effects on Academic Performance, Sleep, and Core ADHD Symptoms in Children

Date: Thursday, October 8, 2009 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
3723 Wood Hall

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Candidate: Charles Pearson

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology

Title: Understanding the Impact of the Kalamazoo Promise from the Perspectives of Parents and Community Group Members

Date: Monday, October 12, 2009 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
3208 Sangren Hall

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Candidate: Tererai Mafukidze Trent

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Evaluation

Title: Metaevaluation of HIV/AIDS Prevention Intervention Evaluations in Sub-Saharan Africa with a Specific Emphasis on Implications for Women and Girls

Date: Thursday, October 15, 2009 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
4410 Ellsworth Hall

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Candidate: Tomislav Bujanovic

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering

Title: Spatial Frequency Localization in Mammograms Using Wavelets

Date: Thursday, October 15, 2009 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
B-122 Parkview Campus

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Candidate: Lori A. Wingate

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Evaluation

Title: The Program Evaluation Standards Applied for Meta-evaluation Purposes: Investigating Interrater Reliability and its Implications for Use

Date: Friday, October 16, 2009 10:00 a.m. - Noon
4405 Ellsworth Hall

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Candidate: Roger W. Apple

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology

Title: Adolescents’ Experience of the Factors Influencing Their Diabetes Treatment Regimen

Date: Friday, October 16, 2009 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
3208 Sangren Hall

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Candidate: Stephanie A. Combs

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Interdisciplinary Health Sciences

Title: Effects of Body Weight Supported Treadmill Training on Motor Performance, Task Accomplishment and Participation in Persons with Chronic Stroke

Date: Friday, October 16, 2009 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
2073 College of Health and Human Services

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Candidate: Jason Paul Olsen

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: English

Title: Neon Allegiance

Date: Friday, October 16, 2009 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
3025 Brown Hall

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Candidate: Laura L. Grow

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Psychology

Title: A Comparison of Methods for Teaching Auditory-Visual Conditional Discriminations to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
1509 Wood Hall

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Candidate: Michelle Ann Bakerson

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology

Title: Persistence and Success: A Study of Cognitive, Social, and Institutional Factors Related to Retention of Kalamazoo Promise Recipients at Western Michigan University

Date: Thursday, October 29, 2009 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
204 Bernhard Center

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Candidate: Richard H. Fowler

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology

Title: Comparing Indigenous and External Rural Teachers: Beliefs, Origins of Beliefs, and Expectations

Date: Monday, November 2, 2009 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
3306 Sangren Hall

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Candidate: Mina Zadeh

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: The Evaluation Center

Title: Evaluating Country, State, and Local Emergency Preparedness Plans through Conducting Exercises

Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
4410 Ellsworth Hall

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Candidate: Breanne K. Hartley

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Psychology

Title: A Molecular Analysis of Training with Multiple versus Single Manipulations to Establish a Generalized Manipulative Imitation Repertoire

Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
2734 Wood Hall

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Candidate: Richard F. Goosen

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology

Title: Longitudinal Study of Factors Impacting the Implementation of Notebook Computer Based CAD Instruction

Date: Friday, November 6, 2009 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
3008 Beltline Campus - Grand Rapids

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Candidate: Kerisa A Myers

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology

Title: Child Care Centers on Higher Education Campuses: Internal and External Roles and Director Leadership

Date: Monday, November 9, 2009 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
3008 Beltline Campus - Grand Rapids

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Candidate: Angela P. Hatcher

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Psychology

Title: An Evaluation of a Sexual Assault Education Program

Date: Monday, November 9, 2009 12:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
3715 Wood Hall

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Candidate: Miki Koyama

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology

Title: The Collective Voices of Asian International Doctoral Students in Counseling Psychology in the U.S.: Recom-mendations for Faculty and Training Programs

Date: Monday, November 9, 2009 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
3306 Sangren Hall

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Candidate: Jon L. Shaffer

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology

Title: Role of Residence Hall Staff in Offering Early Warning Academic Intervention

Date: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Ferris State University FLITE 133

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Candidate: Gretchen Rumohr Voskuil

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: English

Title: Adoption and Integration of Best Practice Methods in Secondary English Teaching

Date: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 2:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
2033 Brown Hall

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Candidate: Wilson Okumu

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Chemistry

Title: The Lipid Acyl-Chain Dynamics in Giant Liposomes and Characterization of Domain 4 of the Wilson Disease Protein

Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
2734 Wood Hall

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Candidate: Ronald Pimentel

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Statistics

Title: Kendall’s Tau and Spearman’s Rho for Zero Inflated Data

Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
6625 Everett Tower

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Candidate: Chaoli Cai

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Computer Science

Title: Anomaly Detection Techniques for Ad Hoc Networks

Date: Friday, November 13, 2009 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
D210 Parkview Campus

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Candidate: Daniel M. Huber

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology

Title: The Scholarly Activity Predictor Model among Counseling Psychology Doctoral Students: A Modification and Extension

Date: Monday, November 23, 2009 4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
3306 Sangren Hall