Timothy M. Diette

• CEO at Washington and Lee University

Greek-letter student social groups, better known as fraternities and sororities, are a ubiquitous feature on many American higher education campuses. These organizations, especially fraternities, have a reputation for encouraging unruly and improper behaviour among both members and non-members. This paper investigates the effect of the degree of pr...

W.E.B. Du Bois asserted that black students are better served by attending predominantly black schools than hostile integrated schools in a context of racial discrimination. The conventional assumption is that black students benefit educationally by attending schools with more white peers, which have access to greater resources. However, the theory...

Social scientists from a range of disciplines have provided evidence of a connection between unemployment and mental health. However, researchers recognize that poor mental health can lead to joblessness, highlighting the challenge of generating an accurate estimate of the impact of unemployment on mental health. In addition, virtually all of these...

A large share of the American population suffers from traumatic experiences early in life. Many adults are also victims of trauma. Using data drawn from the National Comorbidity Survey–Replication, we examine the link between self-reported happiness, a broad gauge of subjective well-being, and four types of traumatic victimization that may occur at...

This study uses national longitudinal data from the Journeys Home survey to examine how violence and housing insecurity in one period affect disadvantaged Australians' chances of experiencing violence and housing insecurity in subsequent periods. Men experience much higher rates of violence and housing insecurity than do women. Our analyses show th...

Colleges and universities offer classes that meet for different lengths of time and different numbers of days per week, such as classes that meet 2 days and those that meet 3 days. Traditionally triweekly classes that met for a shorter duration were more common than classes that met biweekly for a longer duration. Biweekly classes are becoming more...

The significant increase in immigration has altered the ethnic composition of public schools in many states. Given the perceived negative impact of immigrant students by some, we are interested in investigating whether higher concentrations of students with limited English (LE) skills in a school affect the academic performance of native students....

The significant increase in immigration has altered the ethnic composition of public schools in many states. Given the perceived negative impact of immigrant students by some, we are interested in investigating whether higher concentrations of students with limited English skills in a school affect the academic performance of native students. To ad...

There is a perception among native born parents in the U.S. that the increasing number of immigrant students in schools creates negative peer effects on their children. In North Carolina there has been a significant increase in immigrants, especially those with limited English language skills. Recent data suggests that North Carolina has the 8th la...

Research in psychology has shown that early morning classes are not conducive to learning because of the peculiar sleep cycles of adolescents and young adults that cause them to be especially groggy in the morning. Our study examines the relationship between the times that classes are offered and the grades that students in these classes earn at a...

In this paper, we explore whether there is a relationship between average grades earned in a course and the national average salaries of graduates of the major associated with the course. Using student-level data from a selective private liberal arts college, we find an inverse relationship. The result suggests that students face a trade-off betwee...

There is a perception among native born parents in the U.S. that the increasing number of immigrant students in schools creates negative peer effects on their children. In North Carolina there has been a significant increase in immigrants especially those with limited English language skills and recent data suggest that North Carolina has the 8th l...

There is a rich literature on charitable giving which considers incentives applied to existing and potential donors. We contribute to current field experiment research in two important ways. First, we establish results for the impact of incentives on acquisition of new donors for organizations that do not have clearly partisan appeal, unlike much o...

Colleges want to increase retention and graduation rates, but they are also under pressure to control costs. Increasing class size is a common method to reduce per student costs. This paper examines the relationship between class size and student achievement. Using data from a selective liberal arts college, we show that grades of students decrease...

Approximately half of the states in the United States have some form of high school exit exam. One purpose of the exit exams is to create a clear bar which students must pass in order to graduate. Effective exit exams may encourage marginal students to spend additional time on schooling in order to pass the exam. This study exploits state-level var...

The purpose of this paper is to formally evaluate whether the deleterious impact of unemployment on mental health increases as skin shade darkens for black women in the U.S. Using data drawn from the National Survey of American Life, we find strong evidence of a gradient on depression between skin shade and unemployment for black women. These findi...

Recent evidence suggests that exposure to a larger share of Limited English (LE) students is associated with a slight decline in performance for students at the top of the achievement distribution. In this paper we explore whether LE peer effects differ by gender and race. Utilizing school-by-year fixed effect methods that allow us to address possi...

Objectives This article offers new evidence on whether stalking damages the mental health of female victims. This study advances the literature by accounting for age of initial stalking victimization, mental health status prior to being stalked, and exposure to other forms of traumatic victimization. Methods Using logistical analysis, we utilize da...

Rigorous courses are an important resource, distributed within schools, that merit attention as a central determinant of student achievement and future outcomes (Cook and Evans, J Labor Econ. 18(4):729–754, 2000; Rose and Betts, Rev Econ Stat. 86(2):497–513, 2004). Yet, black students are less likely to be enrolled in advanced courses in general (e...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2005. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-173). Microfiche. s