Each year, thousands of undergraduates in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields conduct research in US university and college laboratories. Such undergraduate research (UR) experiences are common practice in US higher education, with nearly a century of history at research universities and liberal arts colleges.…

In the era of globalization, accountability, and benchmarking, university rankings have achieved a kind of iconic status. The major ones--the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU, or the "Shanghai rankings"), the QS (Quacquarelli Symonds Limited) World University Rankings, and the "Times Higher Education" World University Rankings…

Underprepared students come to community colleges and many four-year colleges because they have hope for a better life and the courage to attempt something difficult. But having dreams and aspirations is not enough: Without some sort of intervention and support, a student's chances of completing college are poor. Many challenged students…

Educating college students to navigate the complexities of contemporary adult life is an increasingly complex task. Many entering collegians come from highly structured and protective environments and are socialized to depend on authorities for guidance. In a few short years, the college experience must help them learn to take personal…

In recent years, when a university may earn well over $10 million per year from fees for sports-broadcast rights, half of the teams still lose. Collegiate athletic competition is a zero sum game: The number of winners equals the number of losers. So why do universities spend growing sums of scarce resources on an activity when the odds of winning…

Faculty members who led change initiatives often express frustration at the roadblocks created by other faculty members or groups. In 2009 George Kuh and Stanley Ikenberry undertook a survey of provosts for the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment to explore the state of student learning assessment. They found that "Gaining faculty…

By the fall of 1988, the population of high school graduates had begun to plummet. Six more years of demographic famine were ahead, with a slow recovery to follow. The pressure on higher education leaders grew as enrollments declined. Budgets were slashed. Forecasts of mass college failures were common. The need for strategic planning--as…

This article recounts the authors' experiences in being in a Posse and how it enriches the college experience and changes an individual's perspective and goals. The authors offer their stories on how the program has changed them.

Many major funding organizations, policymakers, government agencies, and other higher education stakeholders want higher education to encourage interdisciplinary learning so that students graduate with the requisite skills to take on complex jobs in science, policy, business, and industry. Calls for this kind of change have been most urgent within…

Developmental courses in English, math, and reading have an important purpose in higher education, especially in the open-access world of community colleges. These classes--also referred to as "remedial"--are intended to give less-prepared students a chance to catch up and meet the challenges of college-level coursework. However, nationwide…

This study focuses on aspects of the Changing Academic Profession survey of 2007-08 that describe the place of faculty in their institutions. The authors examine the following aspects of institutional life: (1) the faculty role in institutional governance; (2) who evaluates their teaching and research; (3) the locus of their loyalties as between…

This study takes a step back from the undergraduate classroom to address faculty development, a phenomenon that ranges from general orientation sessions for new teachers to occasional brown bag lunches; reading groups; informal and program-based workshops; and more formal ones on pedagogy, assessment, and more. The tacit assumption underlying them…

Greater accountability in public higher education systems is a fact of life in the current political climate. Increasingly, one form this accountability takes is performance funding, which arises from elected officials' need for assurance that taxpayer funds are not only being invested and used properly but are resulting in desired outcomes at…

If one expects students to become stewards of social justice and proponents of cultural diversity, they need to be properly armed with the language to articulate the experiences and realities of their past, present, and future. The author argues that all those who are involved with students' development, most centrally student affairs staff and…

Over the past year, in a process to select the winner of the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, the Aspen Institute has convened national experts to define and determine how to measure "excellence," to identify community colleges with high levels of student success, and to help more community colleges understand what can be done to…