This article features Paul Robeson Cultural Center (PRCC) at Pennsylvania State University, which uses a model of cultural education and engagement to design and deliver programs and services committed to enhancing the university's cultural climate. This article shares a cultural programming framework that was used to steward change and growth in…

In higher education, convergences occur when academic affairs and student affairs find common ground and partner to promote student learning. Such a moment occurred at North Georgia College and State University (NGCSU) when the associate dean of students made an appointment with the new executive director of institutional effectiveness to discuss…

The major premise of this article is inspired by Viktor Frankl's words: "The truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged--survival for what? Ever more people today have the "means" to live, but no "meaning" to live for." Thousands of students who have come through the author's college courses during the last…

"Who is responsible for developing, ensuring, and assessing learning outcomes--student affairs, academic affairs, or both?" This question yielded a spirited debate between faculty members and student affairs professionals in the author's course Disability in Higher Education and Society. The author was prompted to learn more about this issue at…

The authors interviewed two dozen educators at several institutions who were responsible for administration of the survey on their campus to better understand how data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) were (or were not) being used. The project managers they interviewed had successfully used strategies to make sense of NSSE…

Recognizing the mismatch between a philosophy of holistic development and evaluation focused on external, quantitative criteria led Miami University's Honors and Scholars Program to revise its curriculum in accordance with student development theory. (Contains 1 table.)

In 2003, the California State University, Northridge (CSUN) undertook the challenge of becoming a learning-centered institution. In a 2005 article, the authors discussed how the learning-centered model at CSUN has renewed its previous, scattered efforts at student retention. In this article, the authors describe the transformation that occurred at…

Many institutions are currently using the senior year to explicitly reinforce abilities that students will need beyond graduation, in their first paid position, and throughout their lifetime. On campuses that organize the curriculum and cocurriculum of the senior year around learning outcomes important to those within and outside the academy,…

Academe has traditionally tended to polarize college employees into two camps: (1) the faculty, who educate; and (2) the staff, who provide services and entertainment. At Colby-Sawyer College, a small private liberal arts institution of 950 students in rural New Hampshire, the us-versus-them mentality was rejected in order to re-envision its…

Learning communities can trace their origins to the 1920s and the experimental College at the University of Wisconsin, but the widespread use of learning communities to improve undergraduate education is a relatively new phenomenon. The early learning communities of the late 1980s and early 1990s consisted of groups of new freshmen co-enrolled in…

After attending a session at a conference and experiencing transformative learning, educator often attempt to use those same activities to replicate that learning for others in their own educational environment. They tend to remember and rely on "that great activity" and lose sight of the complexities of why or how that learning occurred. The…

This article offers a brief discussion on the Assessment Skills and Knowledge (ASK) Standards. The ASK Standards provide a consistent framework that outlines the skills and knowledge that should be advanced in educational sessions. It also recognizes the critical importance of assessment in the roles and responsibilities of student affairs…

Student affairs educators and academic faculty continue to respond to demands that they become more accountable; conduct better assessments of learning outcomes; and demonstrate, through evaluation, the contributions they make to institutional missions. In this article, the authors bring together multiple resources selected for their potential to…

In this article, the author relates one of the experiences in his teaching career that made him assess his perceptions about racism. In his first year of teaching in a graduate program in college student personnel, he approached his class on multiculturalism with hope that his course would somehow be different. One day, four participants of the…

As any reader of "About Campus" knows, binary oppositions contribute to the definitions of institutional types--the trade school versus the liberal arts college, for example. They help define disciplines and subdisciplines and the status differentials among them: consider the difference in intellectual cachet as one moves from linguistics to…