The development and contributions of Professor Ruth Eckert are presented in this autobiographical essay. Focus is on higher education as a field of graduate study and changes in higher education throughout this century. The author's experiences are set in the context of wider happenings in higher education. (Author/JMD)

Improving the quality of classroom, academic, and management decisions through more intelligent and systematic use of student data is addressed. Kinds of student-data users are classified, variables of student attitudes and behavior relevant to each user are identified, and relevant published instruments are listed. (Author/JMD)

Instructional cost data are analyzed to determine whether Washington state public higher education tuition levels based on educational costs represent significant cost differences between four-year and two-year institutions. The results indicate nonsignificant cost differences among institutional types. (Author/JMD)

The widespread emergence of organized programs of environmental studies in American universities is discussed. Drawing on a national overview, the major problems and opportunities of these academic units and the diversity of their styles and organizational patterns are examined, and speculations about the future of environmental studies are…

The effects of collective bargaining on faculty salaries are examined. Thirty institutions with collective bargaining agreements are matched with similar institutions without such agreements, and faculty salaries are compared prior to and following unionization. Collective bargaining agreements are found to have little effect upon salary…

Reliance on enrollment trend models for revenue projections has led to a scenario of alternating overbudgeted and underbudgeted years. A study of a large, public university indicates that time series analysis should be used instead to anticipate the orderly seasonal and cyclical patterns that are visible in a period of moderate trend growth.…

An income-specific economic impact model is presented that is applicable for analyzing local income generation and redistribution within a system of public higher education. The model is outlined and the results of its application to the State University of New York are reported. (Author/JMD)

Higher educational institutions can produce quality work only to the degree that they simultaneously encourage the development of self-direction and shared purpose among their members. Eight characteristics of a "liberating structure" are developed and a case analysis of a business school course is presented. (Author/LBH)

The parallel efforts of one individual to develop as a person and as a teacher are traced in this case study. The author worked with her as a teaching development consultant and as a psychotherapist, and discusses how these two activities influenced each other. (Author/LBH)

Identified are four groups of faculty development practices based on their use among 756 colleges and universities: traditional practices; instructional assistance practices; those that emphasized the assessment of faculty; and those involving many faculty in improvement activities. Practices judged effective, and the organization and funding are…

Faculty members' support for teaching performance as a means of faculty evaluation is analyzed. Change in faculty attitudes toward the importance of teaching is demonstrated with time-series data from a national sample of college and university faculty members. Two alternative explanations of faculty support for evaluation are tested. (Author/LBH)

In order to study the effect of student ratings of teaching effectiveness upon personnel decisions, six promotions documents were created varying in research productivity, teaching excellence, and whether a report of student ratings was included. Research and teaching ability both affected the judgments; student ratings had relatively small…

Turning points in the author's career are highlighted. It is suggested that the task faced by both British and American higher education is to assure the development of a comprehensive, diversified, reasonably economical higher educational system in the face of inherent tendencies toward imitation, convergence, and conformity. (LBH)

In the two studies reported, students who wrote the CLEP and students who did not were compared in grade point average, graduate rate, and rate of progress. For both studies, the CLEP students performed at least as well as non-CLEP on all but one measure. (Author/LBH)

A learning experiment at a West Coast cluster college is reported that involved curricular devices designed to modify student-faculty interactions, change the basis of student motivation, and develop new insights into subject matter on the part of both faculty and students. (Author/LBH)