In this essay I argue that online education, artificial intelligence, and market pressures are driving higher education to adopt the industrial model and to find a new paradigm for delivering education at low costs. In addition, there is tremendous pressure from the federal government to make universities more accountable while making higher…

Although higher education leaders are occupied with important issues such as accessibility, globalization, funding, and innovation, another issue--moral education--must be addressed if we are to equip students to navigate the future. One need not adhere to a particular religious orthodoxy or propound any sectarian dogma to engage students in the…

In a crisis-plagued world looking to higher education for knowledge, wisdom, and solutions, higher education itself is stumbling. Its transformational thinking has frozen up like an overstressed computer program; and we need, in effect, to "push the reset button." In 1953, the renowned and controversial president of the University of Chicago,…

Certain systems analysis techniques can be applied to examinations of program failure in continuing education to locate weaknesses in planning and implementing stages. Questions to guide an analysis and various procedures are recommended. Twelve issues that contribute to failures or discontinuations are identified. (Author/MLW)

Although the goals of critical thinking are to foster critical ability and broad-mindedness, it tends to encourage absolutism, promote passivity, and breed intolerance. The current concentration on critical thinking's reductionism should be balanced with the teaching of alternative approaches to understanding knowledge and reality. (Author/LB)

Changing narrators in a literary passage is a pedagogical technique that can enliven composition, yet still present a challenge to students. The challenge lies in giving a new narrator total awareness of events. For an added novelty, the passage can be narrated from the perspective of an inanimate object. (Author/MLW)

A discussion of the importance of faculty renewal and positive attitudes toward teaching suggests five ways to keep energy and excitement in teaching, including focusing more on students, allowing students more responsibility, using varied teaching methods, taking on teaching challenges, and planning periodic activities away from the classroom.…

Faculty-led advising seminars for advisees are recommended as a way to increase the effectiveness of the academic advising system. Through the seminars, the advising function would be integrated into the course-credit system and provide students with opportunities to systematically reflect on the nature of higher education. (Author/MSE)

As important as teaching processes are in adult learning, it may be even more important to help adults find connections between discipline content and the issues they experience personally as they move through the life cycle. (Author/MSE)

The status of external degree programs in traditional institutions is examined. Basing evaluation on the guidelines set forth by the Carnegie Commission for Non-Traditional Study (l973); it is suggested that external programs have not adequately been integrated into the academic mainstream. (Author/MLW)

Some observations on nontraditional education include programs that can trace their lineage back to the origins of Western universities; they serve adult needs more than adolescent/young adult needs; and learning occurs outside boundaries of grades, semester hours, etc. (Author/MLW)

Higher education institutions are criticized for rewarding faculty and developing organizational processes by criteria unrelated to developing a real university based on values of freedom and responsibility. A model for a creative university based on those values is presented and contrasted with educational bureaucracies. (MSE)

Postsecondary institutions should participate much more in the federal initiative, through their usual functions of teaching, research, and service. Activities could include involving college students in adult literacy education through demonstration programs, tutoring, and student volunteerism. (MSE)

Establishment of an office of state ombudsman to resolve faculty disputes at state-supported institutions is recommended. The education ombudsman would have no decision-making authority but would have strong recommendation power, and would be free of internal institutional politics. (MSE)

Adult educators must establish an emotionally safe learning environment for students to constructively address their fears and empower them to risk change. An atmosphere of mutual respect is the key to adult learning, and teachers can use a variety of attitudes and techniques to create an atmosphere of respect. (MSE)