Students' life circumstances need not marginalize them. The author's students--Margot and Steve--missed out on her full support because she assumed they had lots of support of their own, given their race and the socioeconomic status she assigned to them. She focused on their papers, not their lives. The complicated areas of students' lives don't…

Many competing factors are now affecting how students think about higher education. One primary factor is the use of a business model for education--highlighting profit, patents, commercial investments, and the use of market competition, for example--appears to have become commonplace. Boards of education and university presidents now include a…

The world is changing in dramatic and complex ways. There can be little doubt that if the twentieth century was "The American Century," the twenty-first century has already become a Global Century, framed by new power dynamics, new economic realities, and new quests for self-determination and freedom across all parts of the globe. In this context,…

In January 2005, when this author became president of Washington & Jefferson College (W&J), one of her first initiatives was to expand the international program. A private, residential liberal arts college about 25 miles outside of Pittsburgh, W&J had undergone a period of significant growth, with enrollment increasing from 1,000 to 1,500…

Like higher education itself, student affairs is a dynamic enterprise grounded in paradigms that have shifted over its history. This article frames the role of higher education at large, with a look at the role of student affairs in particular, to advance integrative learning. Portfolio pedagogy is described as one strategy for advancing…

Alternative breaks (ABs) often bring a smattering of images to mind: college students in matching T-shirts, cramped vans, well-used work gloves, physical labor, and, perhaps, way too much peanut butter. All of these images are at least in part accurate for the AB program at the College of William and Mary. Add to them a strong sense that sending…

Day in and day out the author invests her energy in keeping students safe by reducing alcohol consumption on campus, developing innovative alcohol and drug educational programming, collecting and analyzing data to better understand the drinking culture of the campus, and scouring the literature for best practices and evidence-based success. Day in…

This article discusses the emergence of a "postsecular age" in American higher education: an age in which the academic study and practice of spirituality is alive and well. This emerging age stands in contrast to the centuries-old secular age with its origins in the empirical revolution of seventeenth-century Europe. In the secular age, objective…

The focus on educational attainment has taken on a renewed sense of national urgency. It is now commonly accepted that educational achievement is correlated with higher individual lifetime earnings and a better quality of life. Increasing the general level of education is also seen as important for the well-being of society and the economic…

Throughout many ethnic communities, culture, place, and education have always been important to each other. There are countless creative strategies and approaches to education, inclusion, and personal development that can be derived from studying cultural spaces within any culture. In this article, the author looks specifically at the African…

Students making the transition into college typically come face to face with increased independence and decreased external structure. This may be especially problematic for students with learning disabilities who may be less capable of managing in times of change than others. The outcome is often chronic procrastination, absenteeism, and…

Concern over the transition to postsecondary education for students with disabilities led Ball State University personnel to create the Faculty Mentorship Program (FMP ) in the summer of 2006. The program is a model for collaboration between the disability services office, the faculty members of Ball State, and the Learning Center. The purpose of…

In this article, the author shares her "When pigs fly" story to initiate a discussion about how educators might broaden their understanding of "learning." She shares the lessons she has learned from her son who has Asperger's syndrome. As professionals in higher education, educators adjust organizational and educational structures to accommodate…

As the increasing racial diversity of the United States continues to be reflected in colleges and universities across the country, academics who think and write about their teaching philosophy remain more comfortable arguing for a curriculum that deals with race and gender than for one that centers on class and social mobility. Some academics feel…

Over the past several decades, college-student retention has arguably been the most intensely studied issue in academe. Though the body of retention literature grows ever larger, no one model adequately explains the process by which college students make a decision to leave an institution or to persist to graduation. And while no magic bullet…