The practice and profession of institutional research and the Association for Institutional Research, which emerged in the 1950s and grew and consolidated in the 1970s in response to the changing concerns of higher education, face fragmentation and uncertainty in the 1980s. (Author/MLW)

The implications of the new environmental realities of postsecondary education governance/management and telematics for institutional research as a practice and profession challenge the Association for Institutional Research to take a more proactive leadership strategy. (Author/MLW)

Discussion of the agenda for research and practice in graduate and professional education identifies and discusses five arenas for assessment; demand; admission criteria; program quality; persistence; and student learning outcomes. Specific questions to be addressed and additional considerations are noted for each arena. (MSE)

Four conditions or trends external to higher education that will have a significant impact on the role of college and university faculty are examined, including: changes in governmental financing of the social agenda, global demographic and environmental changes, growth and interest in privatization of public structures, and development of…

Higher education's search for growth in revenues and missions, largely successful to date, may be reaching its limits. If this is true, future attention in college administration will focus more on reducing expenditures, with implications for institutional research opportunities, use of resources, and the institutional research office's…

State policies toward higher education in the twenty-first century are likely to continue in the patterns already established, though conflicts may intensify. State officials will need to be more sensitive to how policies affect institutions. Institutional representatives must recognize the legitimacy and priority of state, societal, and system…

Future college administrators will be responsible for three things: adaptive change, financial controls and strength, and quality of service. Each involves management of change. Increasingly, leaders will be drawn from industry, the professions, government, editing and publishing, and nonacademic areas of higher education. Superior academic…

Advances in computing hardware and software, voice and electronic communications, electronic mail, and the information highway will affect the work environment for institutional researchers. In addition, as teaching, learning, and administrative processes are reengineered, the traditional analytical skills of these professionals will be useful in…

Because of a fundamental shift in the way decisions are being made in colleges and universities, institutional researchers in the twenty-first century will no longer merely collect, analyze, and disseminate information to support decision making. They must also become information architects, change agents, and consultants of choice within their…

Four themes appear consistently in discussions of college and university institutional research in the twenty-first century: accelerating change, need for information access, need for better comparative data, and the dilemma that occurs when institutional research offices are required to provide both policy analysis and technological competence.…

As scrutiny of intercollegiate athletics programs increases, a likely means for evaluating athletics programs is self-study. This method can be valuable in enhancing internal decision making, help assure the institution and others of the integrity of the evaluation process, focus on key issues before they become problems, and improve campus…

Higher education systems in a number of countries are experimenting with programs that measure and enhance educational quality. Experiences suggest that the most successful quality assurance programs are initiated, maintained, and enhanced through the professional commitment of the faculty, not through quality assurance systems, administrative…