MELODY L. LARK

EDUCATION

1996 Ph.D., Political Science and Education, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA
1994 MA, International Studies (Politics and Policy), Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA
1983 MBA, Finance and Marketing, University of California, Riverside
1978 BA, Economics and Administrative Studies, University of California, Riverside

EDUCATING PROFESSIONALS AND STUDENTS (1984-Present)
(non-profit, for-profit, private, and public organizations)

Arts and Sciences (undergraduate students)
1. Facilitates courses: critical thinking, ethics, lifelong learning skills, mathematics, professional development, and research.

Business Administration/Business Management (undergraduate and graduate students)
1. Facilitates courses: career development, diversity (multicultural and gender), ethics, evaluation, interpersonal competency, leadership, learning skills, management, organizational theory and development, research (quantitative and qualitative), stress management, and time management.
2. Developed and managed the business orientation program.
3. Developed the study skills course.
4. Facilitated focus groups for parents of first generation, new entry, and undergraduate transfer students.
5. Facilitated workshops at conferences.

Education (doctoral students)
1. Facilitates courses: research methods (qualitative and quantitative statistics) and program evaluation methods.

Educational Opportunity Program (new entry and undergraduate transfer students)
1. Facilitated the study skills course during Summer Bridge.

Healthcare Sciences and Nursing (undergraduate students)
1. Facilitates courses: evaluation methodology, healthcare infrastructure, healthcare policy, leadership and organizational management, quality and database management, quality management and outcomes analysis, measuring performance standards, and statistics/research.

Political Science (undergraduate students)
1. Facilitates courses (on-ground and online): political science, U.S. government as well as wealth and power in America.
2. Developed a public policy course (on-ground and online).
3. Developed and facilitated online discussion boards and experiential exercises.

Social and Behavioral Sciences (undergraduate and graduate students)
1. Facilitates courses: dependency and addictions, lifelong learning and professional development, research (critical thinking as well as qualitative and quantitative statistics), program design and proposal writing.

ANALYZING POLICY AND EVALUATING PROGRAMS (1992 - Present)
Summary (additional information on request)

Scholar and Consultant, School of Educational Studies, Claremont Graduate University, CA
1. Employs the scientific method to collect, manage, analyze, evaluate, interpret, and synthesize data: substance abuse policies, programs, and budgets (federal, state, community, and school district).
2. Evaluates substance abuse enforcement, prevention, and treatment programs.

Research/Policy Fellow; Program Manager, WestEd (formerly Southwest Regional Laboratory), Los Alamitos, CA
1. Received funding from the California Department of Education to analyze the substance abuse policies and procedures of 100 California school districts. .

Consultant/Project Evaluator, Duerr Evaluation Resources, Chico, CA
Researcher, Center for Politics and Economics, and the Institute for Social and Applied Policy Research, Claremont Graduate University, CA

RESEARCH SYNOPSIS

Book

Lark, M. L. (2009). Federal drug policy, prevention programs, and treatment for adolescents. Manuscript in Preparation.
The book spans five U.S. presidential administrations, 1989 to 2008, to assess the distance separating policy objectives, program outcomes, and adolescent needs. Methodology entails content and regression analysis.

Conference Papers

Lark, M. L. (1997, March). School drug policy: The disparity between rhetoric, funding, and program implementation. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL.
Examines the relationship between federal requirements for school substance abuse policy, funding related programs, and implementing the programs. A content and budget analysis disclosed that school substance abuse programs receive a lower priority in the federal budget than enforcement programs. In addition, funding constraints impair implementing school substance abuse programs at a level that attains the federal requirements or fulfills student needs.

Lark, M. L. (1996, November). Sense of self workshops for adolescents: Adding volume to voices (overview). Paper presented at the California Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Marina Del Rey, CA.
Shares discoveries in Sense of self workshops for adolescents: Preliminary guide. Refer to Lark (1997, June).

Lark, M. L. (1996, April). Government preference for drug enforcement over school drug prevention programs: A historical exploration. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, NY. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 397382).
Historically compares substance abuse prevention, treatment, and enforcement programs. Through government documents that chronicle substance abuse laws and policies, the study assesses how politics influenced the emphasis on one aspect of substance abuse efforts over another. According to the federal government, it can quantitatively measure enforcement program outcomes and connect them to funding. Substance abuse prevention and treatment programs, however, are more amenable to qualitative rather than quantitative measurement.

Lark, M. L. (1995, April). The Drug-FreeSchools and Communities Act of 1986: Policy formation, causation, and program implementation. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 389994).
Examines the extent to which the law addressed reasons for substance abuse. Policymakers gathered reasons through research and public hearings. The reasons, however, did not receive appropriate attention in the Act of 1986 or in strategies for implementing it. Accordingly, to what extent could the Act curtail substance abuse?

Lark, M. L. (1994, November). Federal drug law and policy: Causality. The crucial next stage: Health  care and human rights (policy track manual). Washington, DC: Drug Policy Foundation. Paper presented at the Eighth International Conference on Drug Policy Reform, Washington, DC.

Lark, M. L. (1993, November). The gross negligence and underlying tactics of the 1992 National Drug Control Strategy. Faces of change: Policy manual for the seventh international conference on drug policy reform. A. S. Trebach and K. B. Zeese (Eds.). Washington, DC: Drug Policy Foundation. Paper presented at the Seventh International Conference on Drug Policy Reform.

Lark, M. L. (1993, Spring). A descriptive analysis of alcohol and other drug policies of institutions of higher education in Southern California. Paper presented at The Claremont Graduate University, Center for Educational Studies.

Contract Reports

Lark, M. L. (1995, January). Neighborhoods in Action alcohol, tobacco, and other drug prevention education: An evaluation of pilot facilitator training sessions. Prepared for the Scott Newman Center, Neighborhoods In Action Program. Chico, CA: Duerr Evaluation Resources.
A private non-profit organization, The Scott Newman Center funded the evaluation under its Neighborhoods In Action Program. Lark improved the substance abuse manual as well as developed, entered, coded, and analyzed a training evaluation instrument. Lark also recommended an approach to substance abuse education for parents.

Lark, M. L. (1993, August). A descriptive analysis of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug policies and procedures of California school districts. Prepared for the California Department of Education, Project Document No. 91-92-YR2-FR. Los Alamitos, CA: Southwest Regional Laboratory.
Reports a content analysis of the substance abuse policies and procedures (N=540) of California school districts (N=100). Roughly, two-thirds of the school districts fashioned policies and procedures similar to the model that the California State Department of Education provided. About one-fourth of the school districts within that group developed the policies and procedures beyond the California State model. Approximately one-third of all the school districts in the stratified random sample had skeletal substance abuse policies and procedures that did not satisfy California State requirements.

Lark, M. L. (1992, December). Methodology for analyzing school district alcohol, tobacco, and other drug policies and procedures. Prepared for the California Department of Education, Project Document No. 91-92-YR2-FR. Los Alamitos, CA: Southwest Regional Laboratory.
Communicates the standards that the California Department of Education established for substance abuse policies and procedures in public school districts. The report also develops the coding for the policies and procedures.

Romero, F., Bailey, J., Carr, C., Flaherty, J., Fleming, T., Gaynor, J., Houle, D., Karam, R., Lark, M., Martino, T., & Thomas, C. (1994, March). California programs to prevent and reduce drug, alcohol, and tobacco use among in-school youth: Annual evaluation report (1992-93). Prepared for the California Department of Education, Project Document No. 92-93-YR3-FR. Los Alamitos, CA: Southwest Regional Laboratory.

Romero, F., Bailey, J., Brown, J., Carr, C., Flaherty, J., Fleming, T., Gaynor, J., Houle, D., Karam, R., Lark, M., Martino, T., & Pollard, J. (1993). California programs to prevent and reduce drug, alcohol, and tobacco use among in-school youth: An interim report about tobacco use. Prepared for the California Department of Education. Los Alamitos, CA: Southwest Regional Laboratory.

Romero, F., Bailey, J., Carr, C., Flaherty, J., Fleming, T., Gaynor, J., Houle, D., Karam, R., Lark, M., Martino, T., & Thomas, C. (1993, January). California programs to prevent and reduce drug, alcohol, and tobacco use among in-school youth: Annual evaluation report (1991-92). Prepared for the California Department of Education, Project Document No. 91-92-YR2-FR. Los Alamitos, CA: Southwest Regional Laboratory.
Lark assisted with administering survey questionnaires to students (N=11,000) in California K-12 schools (N=100), analyzed substance abuse policies and procedures (N=540), wrote the policy report, and presented the policy report to California Department of Education representatives.

Doctoral Contract and Grant Research

Lark, M. L. (1996, January). Schools, drugs, and failed policies: An exploration of the potential of federal and California state drug policies and drug prevention programs to reduce student drug use (Doctoral dissertation, The Claremont Graduate School, 1996). Dissertation Abstracts International, 57(01A), 9617445, p. 446.
Combines a content analysis of the substance abuse policies in six California middle schools with informant interviews. The informants (N=12) were principals and coordinators of Drug, Alcohol and Tobacco Education Programs. The informants developed substance abuse policies and programs that complied with federal and state guidelines. Federal and state funding for DATE Programs, however, did not accommodate program implementation to attenuate student needs.

Lark, M. L. (1992, Spring). Borrowed funds and human resources.
Explores the relationship between human resources, debt amortization, labor’s earning power in the formal sectors, savings, investment, public and private consumption, and fiscal expenditures. Data for 35 countries pooled in a time series multiple regression analysis between 1970, before the onset of the debt crisis, and 1989, after the peak of the crisis. Improving the model entails remedying nonlinear relationships and abnormalities.

Lark, M. L. (1991, Fall). The quality of life of employed women.
Explores family, education, employment, and participation in politics as independent variables. Quality of life is the dependent variable. A random sample represented one-third of the population listed in the Women’s Yellow Pages for Los Angeles and Orange Counties (Southern California). An approximately 50% return rate provided a sample that compared women who are self-employed with women who have employers. The two groups of women indicated equal contentment with their lives and are very educated, have few children, express pleasure with their marital status, participate moderately in politics, and earn a high average income. Employment is a potent avenue for satisfying basic human needs.

Lark, M. L. (1991, Spring). Basic needs: Conceptualization and measurement.
Critiques 22 sources that provide measures and composite indices of basic human needs. The research also determines correlations between measures and indices. Definitions of basic human needs are subjective, measuring human resources can be sensitive, and data for measuring basic human needs can be unreliable. Considering these caveats, education, especially for women, improves health, income, life expectancy, the infant mortality rate, and employment.

Lark, M. L. (1991, Spring). Can basic needs predict exports?
Examines correlations between education, employment, and health. In addition, the study discerns how basic needs influence the level at which Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea participated in the international political economy between 1960 and 1980. School enrollment measured education, the infant mortality rate along with life expectancy at birth measured health, and the labor force participation rate measured employment. Exports of goods and services measured the international political economy, the dependent variable.

 Lark, M. L. (1990, Fall). The dark side of debt: Have human resources deteriorated?
Assesses how debt amortization influenced human resource development in some of the most heavily indebted countries between 1971, before the onset of the crisis, and 1988. The four Latin American countries (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela) were the largest debtors in 1985. Of the four East Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand), the Philippines was the fifth largest borrower in 1985.

Technical Resources

Lark, M. L. (2004). Adolescent substance abuse synopsis, analysis, and synthesis.
Informs adolescents, guardians or parents, policy makers, practitioners, and researchers; stakeholders who can motivate adolescents to nurture their health. To achieve this mission, the ASASAS monitors legislation, laws, policies, programs, and research that influence substance abuse prevention and treatment. As such, the ASASAS encompasses purpose, population (demographics), environment, instruments/ measurements, data analysis, constraints, strengths, outcome, conclusions, implications, prospects, recommendations, connections, contrasts, and citations. As important, the ASASAS shrinks the distance between treatment discoveries, public awareness, and best practices.

Lark, M. L. (2000, August). Sense of self workshops for educators: Discouraging involvement with drugs.
Prior to 2000, the substance abuse resource guide was Sense of self workshops: Educating educators about illegal drugs (Lark, 1999 and 1998). Workshop participants (N=480) received the guide.
Lark has conducted Sense Of Self Workshops: Substance Abuse Policy and Programs since 1992. The Workshops attract multicultural educators, students, parents, practitioners, program administrators, and policymakers. Workshop topics are accessing substance abuse Website resources, addressing reasons for substance use, detecting involvement with substances, executing effective substance abuse policy, and programming to change behavior. Workshops guide participants through individual and team exercises that link decisions with consequences.

Lark, M. L. (1997, June). Sense of self workshops for adolescents: Preliminary guide.
Submitted to the Collaborative for the Advancement of Social and Emotional Learning, University of Illinois at Chicago, in response to a nomination for its national guide. The Preliminary Guide synthesizes research on adolescent development, connects their development with reasons they give for their substance abuse, assembles an annotated bibliography of techniques for strengthening sense of self, and identifies substance abuse resources.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION (1977-Present)

Director, Sense Of Self Workshops, Claremont, CA
Consultant and Associate Director (Resource Data Bank), School of Educational Studies, Claremont Graduate University, CA
Facilitated workshops that strengthened career objectives, interpersonal competency, employee motivation, leadership techniques, management tools, team efforts, and trustee oversight.
Finance Manager, Lockheed Finance Corporation, Burbank, CA (Corporate Fast Track)
Marketing Specialist, Lockheed Aircraft Service Company, Ontario, CA (Corporate Fast Track)
Internal Auditor, Lockheed Corporation, Burbank, CA (Corporate Fast Track)
National Bank Examiner, Comptroller of the Currency, U.S. Treasury Department

RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

Databases
California Postsecondary Education Commission
Education Research and Information Center (ERIC)
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Science Research
National Center for Education Statistics
World BankData Collection Instruments

Software Applications
Microsoft: Word, Excel (including data analysis tools), Access, PowerPoint, and Track Changes
QSR NUD*IST
SPSS

Statistics

Qualitative and quantitative