Higher Education Administration Commons^™

Iranian Students’ Experience Of K-12 And Higher Education: Use Of Drawings To Convey The Difference Between Ideals And Reality, Iman Tohidian, Abbas Abbaspour, Ali Khorsandi Taskoh

The Qualitative Report

The focus of education during K-12 and Higher Education (HE) in Iran is on theoretical empowerment of students; therefore, our students get an illusion of knowing. In fact, what happens is not learning and understanding; rather, it is verbatim transfer of available information in the textbooks into the students’ minds. It might be because the students and teachers (as the main stakeholders of the education) are the least powerful parties within the pyramid of power amongst educational practitioners and policymakers. It means their voice, feedback, needs, and ideologies have no place in the educational decisions and policies. In alignment with …

Proximity To Power: The Challenges And Strategies Of Interviewing Elites In Higher Education Research, Kevin Mcclure, Jon L. Mcnaughtan

The Qualitative Report

Presidents, provosts, deans, and other upper-level administrators in higher education fit common definitions of “elites” in the context of qualitative research. Scholarship on methods specific to the field of higher education has not identified or described the unique challenges of interviewing these and other elites. The purpose of this paper is to examine challenges and share strategies for elite interviewing, with specific application to qualitative research in the field of higher education. We provide three examples of empirical studies involving elite interviewing and, using literature from other fields, highlight challenges and strategies. By anticipating challenges and implementing these strategies, researchers …

Factors Affecting Successful Quality Assurance Implementation In Vietnamese Higher Education: A Qualitative Study, Loc Thi My Nguyen, Trung Tran, Thuan Van Pham, Tien-Trung Nguyen, Hien Thi Thu Le, Thao Thi Phuong Trinh, Thanh Thi Nghiem

The Qualitative Report

Quality assurance and accreditation was officially introduced into the higher education system in Vietnam over ten years ago. It is evident that quality assurance has resulted in positive impacts on university management, teaching, learning and research activities. This paper aims to explore factors that aid the successful implementation of higher education quality assurance and accreditation in Vietnam. Through semi-structured interviews with 32 participants, this study identified a number of factors that contributed to quality assurance processes, including awareness of the importance of quality assurance, better institutional manager leadership, support of university lecturers, staff, and students, and the vital responsibility of …

Social Dimensions Of Student Debt: A Data Mining Analysis, Dirk Witteveen, Paul Attewell

Journal of Student Financial Aid

Media commentary on undergraduates' loan debt portrays a crisis in which many students are unable to pay back their loans, having borrowed large sums and lacking sufficient post-college income to repay. Several scholars have questioned the media accounts, noting that indebtedness is highest among students from high income families, while defaults predominate among low debt students. Using a data mining technique known as CART, we analyze national data on the indebtedness of recent baccalaureate graduates, to uncover combinations of social characteristics that are associated with loan pressure: the ratio of indebtedness to post-college earnings. We find that students from lower …

Intentional Leadership For More Just Experiences: Supporting Black Males On College Campuses, John D. Egan

Georgia Journal of College Student Affairs

This essay explores the unjust experiences of Black males and minority faculty on college campuses that perpetuate inequality in higher education. The literature shows Black male undergraduates experienced both overt racism and more subtle insults on some college campuses, which serve as a barrier to integration into the college system. This essay also connects the underrepresentation of minority faculty as a contributing factor to the climate that inhibits the integration of Black male students into the college system. Through intentional leadership, educators should create or support existing Black male initiative programs on their campuses as this evidence-based practice contributes to …

“Undocumented” Ways Of Navigating Complex Sociopolitical Realities In Higher Education: A Critical Race Counterstory, Alonso R. Reyna Rivarola

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

In the United States, undocumented students must navigate complex sociopolitical realities to access and succeed in higher education. These complex sociopolitical realities are shaped by federal policies on education and immigration, state-specific legislation on education and public policy, as well as general attitudes regarding race, immigration, and nationalism in the U.S. In this manuscript, I weave in counter-storytelling to document some of the ways one undocumented student accessed and navigated U.S. higher education. I begin by reviewing the national and state policy contexts that affect undocumented students in the U.S. I focus a state policy analysis in Utah, as one …

What's In An Ally? Closing Gaps In Lgbtq+ Support, Laura Gentner

Journal of Research, Assessment, and Practice in Higher Education

This study will explore the relationship between LGBTQ+ identifying students’ expectations of and experiences with allies, and their perceptions of campus climate. LGBTQ+ ally training programs and visibility of LGBTQ+ allies contribute to both campus climate and LGBTQ+ students’ perceptions of that climate, leading to more positive and healthy college experiences. However, it is not clear that current practice in training and educating allies truly reflects the needs of LGBTQ+ identifying students.

While research is available for the design and implementation of ally training programs, there is little to no research on what LGBTQ+ identifying students expect of allies, nor …

Diversification Of A University Faculty: Women Faculty In The Mit Schools Of Science And Engineering, Nancy Hopkins

New England Journal of Public Policy

A broadly diverse faculty is critical to MIT’s educational mission, and significant efforts have been made to achieve a faculty whose diversity reflects that of the students we train. To assess the success of some of these efforts, I examined the percentage of women faculty in the Schools of Science and Engineering over time. In Science, the increased number (and percentage) of women faculty today is the consequence of: pressures associated with the civil rights movement in the early 1970s; unusual efforts between 1996 and 2000 by former Dean of Science Bob Birgeneau in response to the 1996 Report on …

Women In Power, Margaret A. Mckenna

New England Journal of Public Policy

The country is filled with powerful women, but women in power remain significantly underrepresented across a variety of professional fields, in business, academe, politics, and the media. With more women enrolled in colleges today than men, continued underrepresentation of women in leadership roles throughout society is not just morally unacceptable, it is economically damaging. The nation needs to maximize all human capital, in order to meet our own challenges and stay competitive in this global economy. Young women need to be supported in developing the knowledge and skills necessary for being leaders and catalysts for change. Reflecting on a career …

Numbers Are Not Enough: Women In Higher Education In The 21st Century, Sherry H. Penney, Jennifer Brown, Laura Mcphie Oliveria

New England Journal of Public Policy

Women are now the majority of students in institutions of higher education in the United States, and in many ways women as students and faculty have seen significant progress. But numbers do not tell the whole story. Subtle forms of discrimination continue to exist, and the higher up the pyramid you go, the fewer women are to be found, whether among tenured faculty, as presidents and provosts or as board members and board chairs. Many steps can be taken to improve the situation. Some institutions are recognizing that. We note some positive changes and discuss areas where improvement is needed. …

Leadership For Diversity: Effectively Managing For A Transformation, Adrian K. Haugabrook

Trotter Review

Diversity has become a contentious theme woven throughout many different aspects of higher education. Multiculturalism, ethnic studies, women's studies, curriculum reform, strategies for increasing access and opportunity to the under-represented and under-served and improving campus climate have all been vehicles to promote and further diversity initiatives. Diversity stands to challenge much of what has been the traditional views of higher education. The efforts to promote multiculturalism and diversity have caused the academy and the enterprise of higher learning to introspectively examine and reexamine its values, beliefs and relationships to a much larger society. American higher education now sees itself in …

Introduction, James Jennings

Trotter Review

This issue of the Trotter Institute Review is devoted to a two-part proposition. The first is that institutions, agencies, businesses, and schools must begin to reflect the increasingly diverse ethnic and racial characteristics of American society. America is in the midst of a demographic revolution. It is unfortunate that some educators have chosen to ignore the social, economic, and intellectual implications of this change and that others have even become angry and attacked efforts to create an appreciation of multiculturalism.

This unfortunate resistance to the implications of America's unfolding demography leads to the second proposition reflected in this issue of …

Are Today's Teachers Being Prepared For Diversity? An Analysis Of School Catalogues, James Jennings, Illene Carver

Trotter Review

A recent content analysis study shows that while leading educators in Massachusetts stress the importance of preparing teachers for an increasingly diverse world, most teacher preparation schools virtually ignore the issue of racial and ethnic diversity in catalogues recruiting new students. This not only discourages people from diverse backgrounds from becoming teachers, but could also create a lack of understanding in the classroom of the black, Latino, and Asian students being taught.

A summary of A Content Analysis of Racial and Ethnic Themes in Catalogues Distributed by Teacher Preparation Schools in Massachusetts, 1989 and 1990, a report issued by …