Improving Campus Climate Essay

The term "culture" has been used more and more recently but what exactly does it mean? Some have even regarded culture as "the most central problem of all social science" (Malinowski, 1939). According to Merriam Webster (2016), culture is defined as the arts and other manifestations of human achievements. If culture was as simple as Merriam-Webster defines it then the lives of anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists would be much easier. As we know, culture varies greatly across religion, countries, and some cases in just states; the difference between the north and the south. We can conclude that culture is a set of shared thoughts, values, and cognitions (Geertz, 1973). With culture in itself varying tremendously based on values and location, then surely organizational culture is no simple concept either. The term "organizational culture" has just recently become to be used more (Barley, 1988). Though there may be disagreements on defining culture universally, researchers tend to agree that culture is of vital importance in an organizational context, whether that organization is a company or a government (Kilmann, Saxton, & Serpa, 1986).

Organizational culture is the “values and beliefs that people have about an organization and provides expectations to people about the appropriate way to behave” (Kinicki, 2013, slide 3). Corporates can change Changing organizational culture can be a process using one or more of the eleven strategies, (1) formal statements, (2) slogans & sayings, (3) stories, legend, & myths, (4) leader reactions crises, (5) role modeling, training, & coaching, (6) physical design, (7) rewards, titles, promotions, & bonuses, (8) organizational goals & performance criteria, (9) measurable & controllable activities, (10) organizational structure, and (11) organizational systems & procedures (Kinicki & Williams, 2013, p. 236-137). Like stated before organizations

Schools must have a positive climate and supportive culture in place. Creating a clear mission for all to follow

Assessing Culture Higher education institutions must continually change to adapt to environmental trends, and the SWOT analysis can help administrators to plan and act quickly to stop potential problems (Pucciarelli & Kaplan, 2016). The SWOT analysis is based on strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats of the internal and external environment (Addams & Allred, 2013). By conducting a SWOT analysis, the institution can design strategies and policies for the institution (Verboncu & Condurache, 2016). SWOT analysis provides information that is effective and efficient at the time for the institution and identifies areas for improvement (Verboncu & Condurache, 2016). This paper discusses the SWOT analysis for Florida State University, identifies

“Our main goal is to create a space that brings together all kinds of students to help them raise awareness and celebrate differences in our inclusive school climate.”

and relationships within the school. It has been found that student perceptions of school climate

As defined by Susan M Heathfield culture are the “values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors shared a group of people (Healthfield, 2015). Therefore, the culture in the university can be characterize as people oriented. Pacific places a high value on how decisions will affect students, faculty and staff. Since Pacific’s mission statement rests on a student-centered platform, the culture circles around a set of behaviors to support what is ultimately best for the students, and where faculty and staff are treated with respect and dignity.

Organizational culture- the values, norms, guiding beliefs, and understanding shared by members of an organization and is taught

The principal understands the educational needs of the community and has structured the school around that concept. According to the article, Preparing and Supporting Diverse, Culturally Competent Leaders, “Educational leaders who are not culturally competent cannot be fully effective”

Top of the priority list for success at Hayes Elementary is school culture and climate. Creating an environment that is welcoming, supportive, safe, believes in its students, and has high expectations for its stakeholders is vital. Leadership who communicates a clear-shared vision and depends on its stakeholders to achieve it through collaboration and communication is what helps to create this type of culture and climate. Curriculum, instruction, and assessment must be aligned and guided by state standards. This includes making sure teachers and staff understand the importance of assessment in general and why and how assessment measures are required by the

There are multiple stakeholders that may be impacted by the collisions over campus climate. Faculty and staff witness the direct impacts of the climate on students and see firsthand how students may be contributing to the hostile feeling. Due to the quantity of student interactions with students, they have the opportunity to role-model processing thoughts and emotions regarding difference. Lazarus Stewart argues, “When students wrestle with how their personal values intersect with the concept of multicultural competence, educators can use the opportunity to help them reflect on and openly discuss the thoughts and feelings that arise” (2008, pg. 12). Faculty and staff members are impacted by the need to role-model behavior but also balancing

Randy Sprick, Ph.D. purports that “school climate is the collective behavior of all the adults” in a school (personal communication, October 26, 2015). School climate also alludes to the quality and character of school life created by those adults. The overall school climate depends on the experiences of people’s personal encounters of school life and reflects the standards, objectives, relationships, teaching and learning practices, and organizational structures (Cohen, McCabe, Michelli, & Pickeral, 2009). According to Cohen et al., a positive school climate encourages youth advancement and learning fundamental for a beneficial, contributive, and fulfilling life in a democratic society. The positive school climate incorporates experiences that bolster the feeling of individual safety in a social, emotional, and physical context. Conversely, a negative school climate would reinforce feelings of unsafety in those same

Over the past two decades, the issue of diversity has gained growing share and momentum in the overall literature of postsecondary education. The expansion and diversification of the total make-up of students across US colleges and universities has brought about new dimensions to the pool of subjects tackled under the umbrella of diversity. Relevant studies show that the environment on campus have an impact on students’ learning outcome (Astin, 1984), their academic performance (Tieu et al, 2009) and sense of belonging and engagement (Thompson and Caseo 2012, Zuniga et al. 2005, Bowman 2012). Creating an inclusive climate that accommodate the diverse sociocultural orientations of students empowers the institution in the first place and provides one of the core causes of success.

Study in organizational culture began in the early 1980s. Organizational culture is “work group culture” and involves organization’s personality. Organizational culture includes shared philosophies, ideologies, beliefs, feelings, assumptions, expectations, attitudes, norms and values (Fred Lunenburg, Allan Ornstein, 2012, p. 55). Most organizational cultures include observed behavioral regularities, norms, dominant values, philosophy, rules, and feelings. Organizational cultures includes certain input such as the energy imported by organizations from the environment in the form of information, people, and materials (Fred Lunenburg, Allan Ornstein, 2012, p. 55). This input energy must guide organizational behavior toward shared goals and process. Organizations produce an output because of the input into the

The purpose of this study is to identify the students’ profile in terms of age, gender, family income, parents’ educational attainment, and grades for the last school year attended. It also needs to identify the school climate condition that provides school to understand the working condition and leadership, instructional focus and physical environment.