There is an increasingly popular view of government to shift costs of education formerly borne at the national level to the states, and the states, in turn to shift costs and risks to individuals that has created a "perfect storm" of economic and political trends. The idea of privatizing a portion of Social Security and the continuing press for…

The writer reminds readers that the polemics of reform frequently portray the realm of teaching and learning in more extreme terms than is really necessary. Likening calls for educational reform to scientific revolutions sparked by Kuhn, Darwin and Copernicus, that jettison completely the assumptions and premises of the theories they replace, Bond…

The authors advocate for a shift from the outcry sparked by Harvard University's president that women are innately less qualified than men to succeed in math and science careers to an overdue discourse about educating women to be leaders in their chosen fields, especially in areas like the sciences and engineering. With an economy increasingly…

The writer describes a site visit to the teaching hospital of a major American medical school, part of the Carnegie Foundation's ten-year program of research on how lawyers, engineers, clergy, school teachers, nurses, and physicians are taught and how they learn. Of particular note to Schulman was an exercise known as "M&M" (Morbidity and…

Reflecting upon the previous decade, an advocate for service-learning continues his call for institutional responsibility while taking a look at the progress made. Ehrlich writes that service learning has come of age and suggests three major directions for continued advancement. The first stresses service-learning's value for enhancing academic…

The writer calls attention to the many traps associated with one of the most frequent uses of assessment: the technical difficulties of measuring changes in learning over time. Noting that psychometricians don't like "change" or "difference" scores in statistical analyses because they tend to have lower reliability than the original measures…

A Carnegie Foundation researcher has been exploring the different forums for work on teaching and learning in higher education, and has uncovered an array of such occasions, bringing faculty together by department or discipline, across the campus, and in national networks and scholarly communities. Energetic conversations and communities have…

Like summer football rankings, the college rankings tell something about the potential impact that a college or university may have on a student, based on the resources of campuses on the one hand and their reputations on the other. When a student and that student's parents are looking for "the right campus," resources should be important. What…

Jason Stephens traces the growth of cheating over three decades, noting a disconnect between expressed shock and research that has shown over and over that most students do cheat, at least some of the time. Some students cheat for simple, pragmatic reasons: to get high grades and because they do not have time to do the work carefully. However, the…

In today's environment of unrelenting economic and social pressures, the writer makes the case that the professions need their educational centers more than ever as resources and as rallying points for renewal. Breakdowns in institutional reliability and professional self-policing, as revealed in waves of scandals in business, accounting,…

The writer comments on the issue of high-stakes testing and the pressures on teachers to "teach to the test." Although many view teaching to the test as an all or none issue, in practice it is actually a continuum. At one end, some teachers examine the achievement objectives as described in their curriculum and then design instructional activities…

The writer examines the goals, methods, contexts, and outcomes of liberal education, as seen through the lens of the seminar experience. Originally a forum for advanced graduate students, the seminar has become a central feature of undergraduate education and signature pedagogy of liberal learning. Sometimes described in terms of size,…

The author provides a response to the question of ongoing potential for civic engagement programs such as Carnegie's Political Engagement Project if voting among young adults soars in the upcoming election, and concludes that need for continued efforts will remain strong even if voting among 18-30 year olds shoots up in November. Beaumont…

These days it seems as if nearly everyone in college is receiving A's, making the Dean's List, or graduating with honors. What is more interesting is that college students in general are spending fewer hours studying, while taking more remedial courses and fewer courses in mathematics, history, English, and foreign languages. Students everywhere…

The writer comments on the need for more thoughtful ways to introduce undergraduate students to the world of work. Students want to know how to connect their values and goals, their intellectual passions and capacities, the myriad of learning experiences in which they engage during college, and the work of their lives. They are, however,…