CHANGE IN A WOMEN'S COLLEGE AND ITS SCHOOL OF NURSING, 1940-1980: A SYSTEMS ANALYSIS (BARRY UNIVERSITY, FLORIDA).
Contributors: University of Florida.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 312
Subjects: Education, History of.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: A systems approach was used to describe and analyze the history of Barry College and its School of Nursing from the time the College was founded in 1940 until it was renamed Barry University in 1980. The research questions address participants in the change process, factors facilitating and inhibiting change, strategies used to facilitate or inhibit the change process, and generalizations to be drawn by applying general systems theory to the analysis of the history of Barry College and its School of Nursing.

The theoretical framework includes general systems theory, historical and change processes, and curriculum development. Primary data sources include official records and minutes, financial and administrative reports, letters and oral history interviews of selected administrators, faculty, and alumnae.

When Barry was founded, it was a small, Roman Catholic, women's college owned and operated by the Adrian Dominican sisters, quite similar to many other small women's colleges in the United States. As postsecondary education grew throughout the country during the 1940s and 1950s, Barry College also grew. The School of Nursing was founded in 1953. During the late 1960s and early 1970s deficit financing was among the trustees' and administrators' most pressing concerns. During a time period when many other small colleges were forced to close, institution of a long-range planning process, including careful fiscal management, enabled Barry to survive.

Change-facilitating factors included the College's growth in size and complexity, federal education-related laws, adequate financial support, and effective leadership. Change-inhibiting factors included centralized administrative and communication styles, conservatism, intermittent ineffective leadership, and financial difficulties.

"Normative-reeducative" strategy was the predominant change-facilitating strategy, while overcentralization and legal and professional requirements were the most frequently identified change-inhibiting strategies.

The systems analysis is represented by a series of models which depict Barry College at ten-year intervals. The models suggest that Barry College began as a small, undifferentiated system with recognizable values, goals, norms, and control mechanisms. As it grew into a complex system, Barry had difficulty with inappropriate control mechanisms. Long-range planning, a systems approach to planned change implemented during the 1970s, appears to have helped Barry College become a self-renewing university.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-04, Section: A, page: 0748.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, 1987.

School code: 0070.