“What Don’t We Do?”: The Experiences of School Counseling Directors in Relation to Leadership and Job Satisfaction

Limited research has explored the experiences of school counseling directors, defined in this study as school counselors who are the designated department leaders and school counseling supervisors at middle or high schools. In this phenomenological study, we sought to better understand the experiences of those directors, specifically in relation to leadership and job satisfaction. Four themes emerged from the data collected from the 10 participants. We discuss these themes and offer implications for training, support, and role clarification for school counseling directors.

Undergraduate Enrollments and Faculty Resources in Kinesiology at Selected U.S. Public Universities: 2008–2017

Undergraduate enrollments in kinesiology have grown over the past 20 years as the popularity of this major increased among students interested in the health professions. A panel discussion at the 2018 American Kinesiology Association workshop provided an overview of challenges facing kinesiology departments. Department leaders at four public universities discussed enrollment trends, faculty resources for teaching undergraduates, and budget models used at their universities. Comparisons were made with kinesiology departments at Big Ten universities to reflect more broadly on what is happening at U.S. public research institutions. At several universities, undergraduate kinesiology enrollments grew between 2008 and 2017, but at others, they leveled off or declined. In many cases, faculty resources have not kept pace with enrollments, leading to unhealthy student-to-faculty ratios. The panel discussed methods of coping with scarce resources for teaching undergraduates and how department leaders can use comparison data to stress the importance of adequate resources.

Policy through Practice: How Tribal Education Department Leaders View Educational Policy Problems

This article examines how tribal education department leaders perceive the process of educational policy problem recognition and definition in their governments. This piece presents the perspectives of two education department directors working in two different federally recognized tribal governments located in Northern California. The data presented in this article was gathered through multiple interviews with the education department directors. The interviews were recorded, then transcribed and analyzed for themes sentence-by-sentence with the use of open coding methodology. The study argues that policy problem recognition and definition processes are, in part, shaped by (1) the expertise and ideologies of the department leadership within tribal governments; (2) the hands-on work of department leadership in the community; and (3) the flow of policy problem indicators from departments to council.