Kategoria BISAC: Education >> Administration - Higher

The recent trend of trying to measure higher education's return on investment misses a fundamental point, argue Charity Johansson and Peter Felten. The central purpose of a college or university is to transform the lives of students--not to merely change them or help them mature. This transformation is an ongoing process of intentionally aligning one's behavior with one's core sense of personal identity. It is the university's central role to lead students in this transformation, a process that shapes students into intentional, critical, and engaged individuals.

Recognizing the...

The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance is the first history of shared governance in American higher education. Drawing on archival materials and extensive published sources, Larry G. Gerber shows how the professionalization of college teachers coincided with the rise of the modern university in the late nineteenth century and was the principal justification for granting teachers power in making educational decisions. In the twentieth century, the efforts of these governing faculties were directly responsible for molding American higher education into the finest academic system...

Admissions and financial aid policies at liberal arts colleges have changed dramatically since 1955. Through the 1950s, most colleges in the United States enrolled fewer than 1000 students, nearly all of whom were white. Few colleges were truly selective in their admissions; they accepted most students who applied. In the 1960s, as the children of the baby boom reached college age and both federal and institutional financial aid programs expanded, many more students began to apply to college. For the first time, liberal arts colleges were faced with an abundance of applicants, which raised...

In the United States, 1,200 community colleges enroll over ten million students each year--nearly half of the nation's undergraduates. Yet fewer than 40 percent of entrants complete an undergraduate degree within six years. This fact has put pressure on community colleges to improve academic outcomes for their students. Redesigning America's Community Colleges is a concise, evidence-based guide for educational leaders whose institutions typically receive short shrift in academic and policy discussions. It makes a compelling case that two-year colleges can substantially increase...