This study investigated student activists' characterizations of administrators at a southern university in the United States. Findings from interviews with 26 activists indicate that they perceive administrators as gatekeepers, antagonists, supporters, and absentee leaders. Activists had limited understandings of the roles and responsibilities of…

Using a nationally representative sample of baccalaureate graduates from 1993, this study examines the effect of college quality and undergraduate majors on a variety of graduate education outcomes including graduate school enrollment, graduate degree attainment, and the quality of graduate programs. Other factors being equal, college quality has…

This article documents the changes in financial status among the top 49 liberal arts colleges between 1996 and 2001 by using Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) financial and enrollment data. These data show large disparities in net assets per student, expenses per student, and the subsidies per full-paying student and the…

Using data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, this paper examines the inflation-adjusted cost per student between 1989 and 1998 for a sample of four-year public colleges and universities. On average, per-student expenditures grew faster than inflation over the period; but expenditures on public service, academic support,…

Post-tenure review has been studied primarily as an administrative issue in higher education; less attention has been given to empirically examining the underlying assumptions of faculty regarding this phenomenon. By surveying a representative sample of over 400 instructional faculty at two research universities, this study contributes to what is…

Using a sample of 522 students at a Lutheran university in the Southwestern United States, researchers examined differences in the predictive strength of high school grades and standardized test scores for student involvement, academic achievement, retention, and satisfaction. Findings indicate that high school grades are stronger predictors of…

This study examined the differential impacts of SAT scores and high school rank, college academic level, motivational variables, and self-regulatory variables in explaining variance in the academic achievement of male and female collegians using structural equation modeling and multiple groups analyses. Significantly, in light of earlier research,…

This study examined the extent to which women and men majoring in science, math, engineering, and technology (SMET) fields engaged in a broad array of effective educational practices. Women in SMET fields were generally as, or more, engaged in educationally fruitful activities as their male counterparts. The results of this study, when combined…

This critical discourse analysis focuses on neoliberal discursive representations of the community college mission. The community college's role in reproducing social inequality is explained as a neoliberal discursive project in which meanings of education are reconstituted to secure the interests of the powerful. As such, the community college…

Although numerous theories have been proffered, to date activist boards are an empirically unexamined force in public higher education governance. Using the concept of institutional entrepreneurship, this case study examines the reciprocal role that board members and staff played in the organizational development of board activism. In the case of…

This study reviews and explores varying effects of college quality caused by different measures of college quality, including Barron's ratings, mean SAT scores of entering freshman class, tuition and fees, and Carnegie Classification. Data for this research come from NCES's Baccalaureate & Beyond study. Results indicate that the estimated effect…

This paper presents a case study of departmental reorganization. Using journals kept by five faculty members, the study traces the difficulties of establishing an organizational identity for and faculty identification with the new unit. The analysis suggests that reorganizations may not produce anticipated advantages. Many of the new department's…

This study provides a methodological critique of major quality assessments in U.S. higher education over the last 70 years, through an examination of their taxonomy, unit of analysis, frame of reference, and definition of quality. Many quantitative indicators currently used in assessments have a weak theoretical link to quality and have serious…

This study analyzes data from the NELS:92/00 to explore sex, racial/ethnic, and socioeconomic group differences in the benefits that high school graduates realize from college. Sex differences in higher education benefits may be a source of observed differences between women and men in college enrollment and degree attainment rates. The findings…

This paper examines the structure and determinants of presidential pay at nationally ranked baccalaureate institutions. This study departs from previous work on president pay in two ways. First, it includes more nationally ranked liberal arts institutions in its sample than previous studies did. Second, it incorporates two additional determinants…