Education Commons^™

Brief 18: Creating A Culture Of Inquiry, New England Resource Center For Higher Education, University Of Massachusetts Boston

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

The Community College Student Success Think Tank, part of the Community College Student Success Project, funded by Lumina Foundation for Education, brings student and academic affairs officers together with institutional researchers to reflect on trends and issues surrounding data-driven decision making in community colleges. Participants consider various forms of accountability data, processes and analyses to bring about institutional transformation. At a recent meeting, Think Tank members discussed ways to create a culture of inquiry at community colleges.

Brief 13: The Critical Connection: Department Chairs' And Associate Deans' Strategies For Involving Faculty In Outcomes Assessment, New England Resource Center For Higher Education, University Of Massachusetts Boston

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Assessment, with a capital “A”, has become in the academy a politically loaded buzzword that closes many more doors than it opens. Assessment, with a small “a”, however, is a necessary part of any attempt to find the best path forward in environments that change. At meetings this spring, Members of NERCHE’s Departments Chairs Think Tank and Associate Academic Deans Think Tank discussed this controversial issue, focusing on ways to foster climates in which faculty and administrators are collaborative partners in assessment with the intention of strengthening teaching and learning.

Brief 8: Graduate Preparation Of Student Affairs Staff: What's Needed, New England Resource Center For Higher Education, University Of Massachusetts Boston

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

The Student Affairs profession has changed significantly. Is graduate training keeping up? Do young Student Affairs professionals know what to expect once they get to campus? Members of NERCHE’s Student Affairs Think Tank met to discuss the relationship between graduate training and the workplace.

Brief 4: Department Chairs Discuss Post-Tenure Review, New England Resource Center For Higher Education, University Of Massachusetts Boston

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Within any college and university, it is in the academic department where most of the work is accomplished in educating students and carrying out the institution's academic mission. Department chairs are at the front lines of policy implementation. At a recent meeting members of NERCHE’s Department Chairs Think Tank weighed in on what they have learned from their experiences with post-tenure review (PTR) policies.

Scholarship Unbound: Assessing Service As Scholarship In Promotion And Tenure Decisions, Kerryann O’Meara

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Scholars of higher education have long recognized that existing reward systems and structures in academic communities do not weight faculty professional service as they do teaching and research. This paper examines how four colleges and universities with exemplary programs for assessing service as scholarship implemented these policies within colleges of education. Case studies suggest that policies to assess service as scholarship can increase consistency among an institution’s service mission, faculty workload, and reward system; expand faculty’s views of scholarship; boost faculty satisfaction; and strengthen the quality of an institution’s service culture.

Brief 3: Making Assessment Work, New England Resource Center For Higher Education, University Of Massachusetts Boston

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Assessment and accountability are embedded in the context in which most colleges and universities operate. In the current climate, one is deeply entwined with the other. Originally, assessment in higher education meant assessing students. The broader appeal of the concept quickly claimed the attention of a multitude of constituents within the academy, each with a different goal in mind – from program review to public relations. Those whose relationship to the academy was once or twice removed, such as trustees, accreditors, and legislators, saw assessment as a simple and cost effective means to report information about the effectiveness of complex …

Reviewing And Renewing General Education: A Practical Guide, Janice S. Green

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

The process of reviewing and renewing a program of general education is complex, challenging, and often frustrating. This paper is presented with the aim of facilitating the process from inception to successful conclusion. Practical guidelines and suggestions, derived from long experience as faculty member, academic administrator, and consultant, are offered to assist those responsible for reviewing, evaluating, developing, and implementing general education curricula. Emphasis is placed on collaborative practices, ongoing open communication, thorough planning, and reliable information. It is assumed throughout, that pitfalls can be avoided, obstacles circumvented, and a climate of civility maintained despite the difficulty and scope of …

An Examination Of Multi-Institutional Networks, Nancy L. Thomas

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

The purpose of this paper is to identify techniques for designing and maintaining effective multi-institutional collaborative projects that will also encourage the success of each individual institution. It contains recommendations regarding the formation and management of the networks. First, it reviews project goals and desired outcomes, with consideration of whether collaboration should be a means or an end. Next, the paper turns to strategies for forming and managing networks, with particular attention to the selection and role of a “project leader.” It then considers the role and responsibility of institutional participants, reviewing criteria for network participation and arguing in favor …

The Institution As A Citizen: How Colleges And Universities Enhance Their Civic Roles, Nancy L. Thomas

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

This paper is premised on the assumption that civic responsibility is the contemporary version of higher education's historical outreach mission. With that as an understanding, it considers how best colleges and universities can fulfill this commitment of service to external communities, broadly defined to include local, national, and international concerns. The paper offers typologies of ways that institutions structure academic outreach, responsive curricula, land-grant and extension school programs, faculty professional service, coordinating student volunteerism and encouraging public access to campus for athletic or cultural events. Institutions interested in enhancing their civic role can take from this paper strategies for enhancing …

The Status Of Faculty Professional Service And Academic Outreach In New England, Sharon Singleton, Cathy Burack, Deborah Hirsch

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

In 1994 the New England Resource Center for Higher Education surveyed New England colleges and universities about the professional service faculty are engaging in, and the policies and structures that support such activities. Information was obtained from 120 institutions. As seen through a wide lens, there is considerable institutional commitment to faculty professional service. A majority of respondents reported that service is both a stated part of their institutional mission and that faculty, administrators and staff supported that commitment. However, a sharper focus reveals a gap between statements and practice: only a third of the respondents were able to demonstrate …

Rewarding Faculty Professional Service, Kerryann O’Meara

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Scholars of higher education have long recognized that existing reward systems and structures in academic communities do not weight faculty professional service as they do teaching and research. In the past five years, however, many colleges and universities have found innovative ways to define, document, and evaluate faculty professional service in traditional promotion and tenure systems. Other institutions have created or expanded alternate faculty reward systems, including faculty profiles in service, merit pay, and post-tenure reviews emphasizing service. Based on data from a nation-wide sample, this paper discusses innovations in rewarding faculty professional service and offers conclusions and recommendations.

Organizational Structures For Community Engagement, Sharon Singleton, Deborah Hirsch, Cathy Burack

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

In a time of public scrutiny of higher education, there is good reason - both for the survival of the campus and the survival of the community around it -- for institutions to promote outreach. Yet even within those institutions with formal structures -- mission statements, faculty handbooks, and presidential leadership that support community service -- the practical considerations -- work assignments, evaluation mechanisms and institutional rewards -- present real challenges. Service-enclaves are structures that exist or are developed within institutions that allow faculty and staff to work collectively as they serve their communities. While individual service work is no …

Does Service-Learning Have A Future?, Edward Zlotkowski

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Until very recently the service-learning movement has had an "ideological" bias; i.e., it has tended to prioritize moral and/or civic questions related to the service experience. Such a focus reflects well the movement's past but will not guarantee its future. What is needed now is a broad-based adjustment that invests far more intellectual energy in specifically academic concerns. Only by paying careful attention to the needs of individual disciplines and by allying itself with other academic interest groups, will the service-learning movement succeed in becoming an established feature of American higher education.

“Knowledge Utilization” Universities: A Paradigm For Applying Academic Expertise To Social And Environmental Problems, Abraham B. Bernstein

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Promoting the utilization of knowledge is an important mission for institutions of higher education. The "knowledge utilization" university should stand alongside the research university, the professional school, the liberal arts college, and the community college as one of the five archetypes of higher education institutions.

Environmental problems typify a class of social problems that require the utilization of existing knowledge in a trans-disciplinary manner just as much as they require the creation of new knowledge through research. These problems are characterized by their multiple dimensions-- they have scientific, technical, social, political, economic, and ethical aspects, all of which must be …

The Characteristics Of Faculty In Comprehensive Institutions, Ted I.K. Youn

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

This paper compares the characteristics of faculty in comprehensive institutions with those of faculty in other college and university categories as identified by the Carnegie Foundation. Its 1987 Carnegie Classification groups institutions on the basis of level of degree offered—per-baccalaureate to doctorate—and the comprehensiveness of their mission. Public and private institutions are included in each category.

This paper will summarize demographic features, working conditions, satisfaction and participation in academic work organizations, mobility and careers, and attitudes and orientations toward the profession and its organization.

The Buck Stops Here: Outside Grants And The General Education Process, Sandra Kanter

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

The Buck Stops Here: Outside Grants and the General Education Curriculum Change Process describes the process of general education curriculum change in six New England institutions. All had received money from foundations or governmental agencies to assist them in reforming their general education curricula. The essay is an examination of the importance of outside funds in the process of designing and implementing major changes in the general education curriculum. It explores when outside funds are most helpful and how institutions and funding agencies can improve the change process.

Case Study #1 - Weservall University, Sandra Kanter

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

In the collegial environment of a mid-sized urban University, faculty and administrators struggle with devising appropriate strategies for developing a set of general education requirements that can meet the multiple needs of a campus with a history of decentralized decision making. While some colleges vie with each other for increased enrollments, other units see general education as an opportunity to reinforce discipline specific goals; in addition, the perception of professional schools influences the ways in which the discussions and decisionmaking process are shaped.

Case Study #3 - Mystic College, Sandra Kanter

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

In an effort to develop a more effective niche in a highly competitive higher education market, a tradition bound mid-sized private college known for its professional schools decides to overhaul its general education requirements. After formulating a bold curricular proposal, the institution is buffeted by the various demands and needs of campus politics and the inevitable challenges to tradition that such innovations bring. The proposal is subject to the contrary interpretations of policy and institutional history by board, faculty, and administration.

Case Study #2 - Littleton State University, Sandra Kanter

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

A small public liberal arts institution receives word that its accreditation is in jeopardy. Though Littleton State is proud of its strong academic and professional majors and its recent institutional efforts to attack a new market of students, it must now decide the best way to examine its general education requirements or risk losing its accreditation. The case study outlines the process which the college follows in its efforts to maintain accreditation while still preserving its traditions and commitment to academic excellence. The case exemplifies the importance of examining possible internal risks as an institution responds to external pressures to …

The Mission Of Metropolitan Universities In The Utilization Of Knowledge: A Policy Analysis, Ernest Lynton

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

In the ecology of knowledge in modern society, efforts to enhance the utilization of knowledge are every bit as essential and as challenging as activities toward the creation of knowledge. An emphasis on the utilization of knowledge provides the defining mission of comprehensive or metropolitan universities. It demands a broadened conception of scholarship, and a high degree of interaction. In order to fulfill their mission, these institutions must develop appropriate internal and external bridging mechanisms, and make appropriate adaptations in the preparation, evaluation, and rewards of their faculty.

The Status Of Black And Hispanic Faculty In Massachusetts Colleges And Universities, Sandra E. Elman

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

To implement policies and programs that facilitate recruitment and retention of minority faculty, educators and policymakers must first determine the status of Blacks and Hispanics in the Commonwealth's colleges and universities. The principal objective of this report is to provide that knowledge.

The study has a dual purpose: to develop a data base on the availability of and demand for Black and Hispanic faculty in Massachusetts institutions of higher education, and to enhance our understanding of the strategies and programs required to foster recruitment and retention of underrepresented faculty. Furthermore, it seeks to identify hiring trends in different types of …

Opportunity Knocked: The Origins Of Contemporary Comprehensive Colleges And Universities, Dorothy E. Finnegan

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Taken together, general statements concerning the nature of the contemporary American comprehensive colleges and universities punctuate the ambiguous state of knowledge about and recent research on this sector. This paper examines the origins of five major institutional types from which contemporary comprehensive institutions have emerged. The institutional types demonstrate that as an aggregate these colleges removed the gender, class, religious and racial barriers of the early higher education system by providing specialized curricula, by serving particular populations, or by combining these two traits. The origins of the five institutional types discussed are: normal schools/teachers colleges, sectarian colleges -- Protestant and …

Implementing General Education: Initial Findings, Sandra Kanter, Howard London, Zelda F. Gamson

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

The article reports on the first year activities of the Project on the Implementation of General Education. The project, conducted by the New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE), is funded by the Exxon Education Foundation. The focus of the research is to examine how general education curricula is actually developed and implemented on college campuses that have limited resources.

New Concepts Of Professional Expertise: Liberal Learning As Part Of A Career-Oriented Education, Ernest Lynton

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

The nature of the expertise needed in most professions and higher level occupations is broadening because of changing organization and content of work. Today, a competent practitioner must be more than a narrow specialist. Curricular reviews aimed at ensuring liberal learning should abandon the false dichotomy between career-oriented and liberal education and begin by reexamining and broadening the major.