Kevin J. Dougherty – författare

This book systematically analyzes the evidence on four key issues that have divided commentators on the community college: The community college's impact on students, business, and the universities; the factors behind its rise since 1900; the causes of its swift vocationalization after 1960; and what direction the community college should take in the future.

Performance funding ties state support of colleges and universities directly to institutional performance on specific outcomes, including retention, number of credits accrued, graduation, and job placement. The theory is that introducing market-like forces will prod institutions to become more efficient and effective. In The Politics of Performance Funding for Higher Education, Kevin J. Dougherty and Rebecca S. Natow explore the sometimes puzzling evolution of this mode of funding higher education. Drawing on an eight-state study of performance funding in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington, Dougherty and Natow shed light on the social and political factors affecting the origins, evolution, and demise of these programs. Their findings uncover patterns of frequent adoption, discontinuation, and re-adoption. Of the thirty-six states that have ever adopted performance funding, two-thirds discontinued it, although many of those later re-adopted it. Even when performance funding programs persist over time, they can undergo considerable changes in both the amount of state funding and in the indicators used to allocate funding.Yet performance funding continues to attract interest from federal and state officials, state policy associations, and major foundations as a way of improving educational outcomes. The authors explore the various forces, actors, and motives behind the adoption, discontinuation, and transformation of performance funding programs. They compare U.S. programs to international models, and they gauge the likely future of performance funding, given the volatility of the political forces driving it. Aimed at educators, sociologists, political scientists, and policy makers, this book will be hailed as the definitive assessment of the origins and evolution of performance funding.

Long relegated to a secondary position behind Gettysburg, Vicksburg has more recently earned consideration by historians as the truly decisive battle of the Civil War. Indeed, Vicksburg is fascinating on many levels. A focal point of both western armies, the Federal campaign of maneuver that finally isolated the Confederates in the city was masterful. The Navy’s contribution to the Federal victory was significant. The science of the fortifications and siege tactics are rich in detail. The human drama of Vicksburg’s beleaguered civilian population is compelling, and the Confederate cavalry dashes that first denied the Union victory were thrilling. But perhaps more than any other factor, the key to the Federal victory at Vicksburg was simply better leadership. It is this aspect of the campaign that Leadership Lessons: The Campaigns for Vicksburg, 1862–1863 seeks to explore.The first section of this book familiarizes the reader with the challenges, characteristics, and styles associated with leadership during the Civil War in general. It also outlines the Vicksburg Campaign by explaining the strategic significance of the Mississippi River and Vicksburg, detailing the opposing forces and the terrain, discussing the failed attempts to capture Vicksburg over the winter of 1862–63, and tracing the brilliant campaign of maneuver and logistics that allowed Grant to ultimately lay siege and win a Federal victory. The second section of the book contains 30 “leadership vignettes” that span the actions of the most senior leaders down to those of individual soldiers. Each vignette focuses the campaign overview to the specific situation in order to provide appropriate context, explains the action in terms of leadership lessons learned, and concludes with a short list of “take-aways” to crystallize the lessons for the reader.The human drama of Vicksburg involved such traits as daring, persistence, hesitation, raw courage, vascillation, self-confidence, and over-reliance—all with a great prize at stake. This study of many of the Civil War’s most famous commanders who vied for the Rebel “Gibraltar on the Mississippi” reveals combat on a wide scale, but more importantly lessons on decision-making that still apply to this day.Kevin Dougherty, a career Army officer and more recently a university history instructor and tactical officer at the Citadel, is the author of six previous books on the Civil War.

Who were the greatest commanders of the American Civil War, and what made them so? In The Great Commanders of the American Civil War, the best military leaders of both sides are pitted against each other and their strengths and weaknesses examined – Robert E. Lee versus George Meade at Gettysburg, Ulysses S. Grant versus Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh, William Tecumseh Sherman versus John Bell Hood in the March to the Sea, along with eight other pairs. The book also explores a decisive battle between each pair of adversaries, highlighting the decisions made and why the battle was won. Each featured battle includes a contextual introduction, a description of the action, and an analysis of the aftermath. A specially commissioned colour map illustrating the dispositions and movement of forces brings the subject to life and helps the reader grasp the course of each battle. Featuring full-colour illustrations, paintings and photographs alongside the battle maps, The Great Commanders of the American Civil War is a fascinating comparison of the greatest Confederate and Union military leaders.

A selection of the Military Book ClubWhile the Civil War is mainly remembered for its epic battles between the Northern and Southern armies, the Union was simultaneously waging another campaign—dubbed “Anaconda”—that was gradually depriving the South of industry and commerce, thus rendering the exploits of its field armies moot. When an independent Dixie finally met the dustbin of history, it was the North’s coastal campaign, as much as the achievements of its main forces, that was primarily responsible.Strangling the Confederacy examines the various naval actions and land incursions the Union waged from Virginia down the Atlantic Coast and through the Gulf of Mexico to methodically close down every Confederate port that could bring in weapons or supplies. The Rebels responded with fast ships—blockade runners—that tried to evade the Yankee fleets, while at the same time constructing formidable fortifications that could protect the ports themselves. While Union troopships floated offshore, able to strike anywhere, mobile Confederate forces were kept at hand near crucial points, albeit in smaller numbers, to resist Federal irruptions into their homeland.In the final analysis, the Union’s Navy Board, a unique institution at the time, undertook the correct strategy. Its original decision to focus on ten seaports that had rail or water connections with the Confederate interior—from Norfolk to Charleston to Mobile to New Orleans—shows that the Navy Board understood the concept of decisive points. In a number of battles the Federals were able to leverage their superior technology, including steam power and rifled artillery, in a way that made the Confederate coastal defenses highly vulnerable, if not obsolete. On the other hand, when the Federals encountered Confederate resistance at close-quarters they often experienced difficulties, as in the failures at Fort Fisher, the debacle at Battery Wagner, the Battle of Olustee, and in other clashes.What makes this book particularly unique is its use of modern military doctrine to assess and analyze the campaigns. Kevin Dougherty, an accomplished historian and former career Army officer, concludes that, without knowing it, the Navy Board did an excellent job at following modern strategic doctrine. While the multitude of small battles that flared along the Rebel coast throughout the Civil War have heretofore not been as well known as the more titanic inland battles, in a cumulative sense, Anaconda—the most prolonged of the Union campaigns—spelled doom for the Confederacy.

Seeking greater accountability in higher education, many states have adopted performance funding, tying state financial support of colleges and universities directly to institutional performance based on specific outcomes such as student retention, progression, and graduation. Now in place in over thirty states, performance funding for higher education has been endorsed by the US Department of Education and major funders like the Gates and Lumina foundations. Focusing on three states that are regarded as leaders in the movement-Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee- Performance Funding for Higher Education presents the findings of a three-year research study on its implementation and impacts.Written by leading authorities and drawing on extensive interviews with government officials and college and university staff members, this book * describes the policy instruments states use to implement performance funding; * explores the organizational processes colleges rely on to determine how to respond to performance funding; * analyzes the influence of performance funding on institutional policies and programs; * reviews the impacts of performance funding on student outcomes; * examines the obstacles institutions encounter in responding to performance funding demands;* investigates the unintended impacts of performance funding. The authors conclude that, while performance funding clearly grabs the attention of colleges and leads them to change their policies and practices, it also encounters major obstacles and has unintended impacts. Colleges subject to performance funding are hindered in posting good results by inappropriate performance measures, insufficient organizational infrastructure, and the commitment to enroll many students who are poorly prepared or not interested in degrees.These obstacles help explain why multivariate statistical studies have failed to date to find a significant impact of performance funding on student outcomes, and why colleges are tempted to resort to weakening academic quality and restricting the admission of less-prepared and less-advantaged students in order to improve their apparent performance. These findings have wide-ranging implications for policy and research. Ultimately, the authors recommend that states create new ways of helping colleges with many at-risk students, define performance indicators and measures better tailored to institutional missions, and improve the capacity of colleges to engage in organizational learning.