In this article, Robert Golden envisions the current trends in practice at State University of New York (SUNY) in Plattsburgh, being so firmly entrenched as to still be the same practices in place 60 years into the future. He notes the decline of full-time faculty, the rise in the numbers of contingent faculty, the increasing use of massive open…

Argues that higher education's response to change is resulting in the disappearance of tenure, and provides a bibliography of actual institutional and faculty decisions in relation to tenure since the mid-1970s. Focus is on six issues: changes in the meaning of tenure; management of tenure decisions; financial exigency or discomfort; faculty…

In an interview, the president of the National Education Association (NEA) discusses issues in higher education, including the NEA's role, relationships between higher education and elementary-secondary education, professionalism and the union, technological advancement, the role of postsecondary education, allocation of educational resources,…

The real challenge to higher education in America is coming to terms with the fragmented and contested terrain of learning resulting from profound social and cultural change. Teaching anything has become difficult in a culture that has devalued learning. Once the public acknowledges this, reforming the system will be seen in a new light. (MSE)

A new budgeting concept currently popular in colleges and universities, Responsibility Centered Management (RCM) holds that unit heads, who understand their operations best, should be given greater budgetary authority and responsibility. Experience with the system at Indiana University and several hypothetical cases suggest that RCM would place…

Planning for higher education in Washington State is described, including the structure of higher education, the state board's master plan, and progress to date in implementing that plan in a context of rapid and unforeseen economic and political change. Issues discussed include tuition trends, student financial aid, and task force recommendations…

A new climate of racism on college and university campuses is seen as mirroring dominant patterns in society as a whole, which in turn reflects frustration, confusion, and anger over pervasive economic difficulties. Suggestions for campus response that is transformative rather than reactive are offered, including study of cultural identity through…

Unless the higher education community itself, primarily students and faculty, responds immediately and forcefully to the issue of underfunding and widespread retrenchment, higher education as we know it will cease to exist. Problems include shrinking state financial and political support and absence of a compelling national security need.…

The progressive gains of college faculty since the 1960s (affirmative action, ethnic studies, expansion of access to higher education, emergence of faculty unions) are threatened by social and political shifts toward conservatism. Senior, tenured faculty are challenged to use their privileged positions and the gains made in recent decades to…

Drawing on longitudinal data from federal surveys for 1974-75 and 1992 and other studies, tenure patterns and trends are examined in 3 groups of college faculty: full-time faculty with at least 50% teaching responsibility; women faculty; and all faculty. Conclusions are drawn about the meaning of tenure, and steps to be taken in clarifying its…

Using data on degree completion among black and white community college students, a study investigated how rates in different postsecondary programs vary for blacks and whites, changes over the course of the 1980s, and institutional characteristics encouraging program completion for the two groups. The most striking result was a decline in…

Shifts in attitudes toward the academy is a product of changes in the American political economy, especially the rapid expansion of the white-collar sector and corporate takeover, and social movements of the post-war era in which people previously without power began to assert themselves. (MSE)

Ohio University's development and implementation of an early retirement incentive program is described and discussed in the context of faculty demographics and faculty attitudes. (MSE)

The increasing numbers of independent scholars, individuals doing scholarly work outside academe, suggests three needs: a comprehensive study of this phenomenon, development of a means of communicating within and outside this group, and discussion of what independence means. (MSE)

A study analyzed the administrative costs of a research university of 35,000 students by examining departmental budgets from 1987-88 to 1991-92. Focus of the analysis is on rates of growth and decline in central administrative, instructional, and academic college expenditures rather than on absolute levels of expenditure. (MSE)