As higher education seeks to become more socially responsive, the public agenda is one form that has taken root in explicating the relation of higher education to society. In this paper, we critically analyze two different instantiations of the public agenda for higher education, placing them against the backdrop of what Michael Apple (2006a)…

The number of interdisciplinary, degree-granting fields in American colleges and universities has grown rapidly, with socially incorporative programs (women's studies, ethnic studies, and non-Western area studies) accounting for a large share. These fields have diffused widely over time, while other interdisciplinary fields have not. Variables…

This article investigates the convergent institutional logics driving decision making at an activist governing board in higher education. Through a case study of policymaking by a state-level coordinating board in Massachusetts, the article identifies four primary logics of action: mission differentiation, student opportunity, managerialism, and…

This paper explores affirmative action as a social movement with two goals in mind: (a) to challenge dominant notions of higher education reform, while advancing a social movement perspective; and (b) to advance understanding of the role of collective action in supporting affirmative action in college admissions. The authors highlight ways in…

In 1998-1999, the University of California added a new dimension to its K-12 outreach: partnerships between the university and educationally low-performing high schools. The program aimed to improve the academic performance of targeted high schools and their feeder middle and elementary schools. This paper examines the processes that led to the…

Explores how, by looking at the developing of the position of dean of men (contrasted with dean of women) and tracing the patterns of institutional response to change in and outside of the academy to this position, it is possible to anticipate how current trends in higher education may play out in the future. (EV)

Using a feminist poststructuralist perspective, investigated academic feminism as a case of transformation in higher education. Used narrative analysis to examine the transformative role of feminist scholarship in the contexts of disciplines, departments, and the university, illustrated by the life histories of nine diverse feminists and their…

Examines the quality of the undergraduate experience in the 1990s, using student data that spans the four decades beginning with the 1960s. Two questions are addressed: whether college students in the 1960s and 1970s gained more from their undergraduate experience than subsequent cohorts, and whether reforms are having the desired effects. Data…

Examines the prospects for change in the financing of American higher education in the next decade, looking at current patterns of financing along three dimensions (total resources, cost per unit, apportionment of costs) that may or may not change profoundly and how they may do so. Considers the likelihood that such shifts will be evolutionary or…

Examines the prospects for protecting academic freedom in American higher education, addressing three areas of potential conflict and tension: pressures to divorce the protection of academic freedom from formal tenure systems; increasing regulation of harassment and other forms of incivility in the collegiate community; and academic freedom in…

Comments on seven "propositions" about the future of higher education made by Howard Bowen in 1989, including observations about the capacity to predict change, the value ascribed to higher education by the public, characterization of higher education as a growth industry, need for improvement in higher education's quality, and deterioration of…

A survey of 47 state higher education executive officers about proposals made between 1989 and 1994 to restructure higher education governance patterns investigated actions taken on the proposals, who initiated them, why they were advanced, and the internal, regional, and external factors in the restructuring proposals. The 29 proposals are…

Early deans of women in American higher education shaped the profession of student affairs and college administration through commitment to research, student contact, and strong belief in the worth of women to higher education and of higher education to women. Over time, deans of women lost their positions as deans of students, almost always men,…

Discussion of doctoral education looks at current trends in demand and supply; previous patterns in the nationality of doctoral degree recipients (1985-94); expansion and contraction in master's and doctoral degrees awarded, by discipline group (1976-93); and structural features of doctoral education (competition, departmental control, student…

Discussion of the controversy over freshman composition course requirements looks at the origins and evolution of such courses in American higher education, philosophy underlying rhetoric instruction, criticisms of freshman English courses, the writing-across-the-curriculum movement, attitudes about mechanical correctness in writing instruction,…