Before looking at these, have you read the manual? Most of these answers are explained in more detail in there.
Use the \degdate{} macro before calling \maketitlepage.
For example:
\degdate{April 2020}
\maketitleUse the preface environment. By default the section is titled "Preface". You can change it using the
\begin{preface}
This work includes many special things...
\end{preface}Add nonatbib to the document class options at the beginning of your document
and use a bibliographystyle{apacite} for your bibliography.
example: \documentclass[final,nonatbib]{nddiss2e}
Use the longtable envrionment. The class defines its own that conforms to the Graduate School requirements. Make sure you do not have any \usepackages for longtable or caption. Format your captions analogous to the following:
\begin{longtable}{lll}
\caption{MY VERY LONG TABLE\label{tab:long}}\\
Name & X & Y \\
\hline
\endfirsthead
\caption{} \\
Name & X & Y \\
\hline
\endhead
First data point & 0 & 0 \\
Second & 0 & 1 \\
...
\end{longtable}Usually this is because you are using a package that conflicts with the style. The main offenders is the caption package, but there can be others.
(The nddiss2e style is pretty old, and could be updated to use the many packages that have been developed over the last 20 years. If you have the time and ability, I would love to accept updates for it.)
By default the bibliography is sorted by auther last name so it is easier for others to scan your bibliography.
But you can sort the bibliography by the order you first used each citation using the command \bibliographystyle{nddiss2enosort}.
Doing this will have the first citation you use to have number 1, and so on.
It is recommended to use the notoccite package to start the numbering after the frontmatter sections.