Higher Education Commons^™

Investigating The Relationship Between Equity And Graduate Outcomes In Australia, Sarah Richardson, Dawn Bennett, Lynne Roberts

Dr Sarah Richardson

Australian higher education equity policy focusses mostly on access and participation with the implicit assumption that disadvantage will be ameliorated through educational achievement. Less is known as to whether patterns of disadvantage continue post-completion. In a context in which graduate employability is becoming an important yardstick against which to measure institutional effectiveness, this question is of fundamental importance to higher education equity practitioners and policymakers. This study employed Commonwealth graduate outcome data to investigate relationships between disadvantage and graduate outcomes in Australia, with disadvantage defined as a graduate belonging to one or more of the following groups – low SES, …

The Role Of The University In Development Planning In Malaysia, David Lim

Prof. David Lim

No abstract provided.

Promise Nation: Transforming Communities Through Place-Based Scholarships, Michelle Miller-Adams

Michelle Miller-Adams

Miller-Adams describes how the various "Promise-type" place-based scholarship programs impact college access, financial aid, and community transformation.

Working Students’ Perceptions Of Paying For College: Understanding The Connections Between Financial Aid And Work, Mary Ziskin, Mary Ann Fischer, Vasti Torres, Beth Pellicciotti, Jacquelyn Player-Sanders

Mary B. Ziskin

For many students at urban commuter colleges, the process of financial aid is unknown or mysterious; and so they work—often many hours a week—to pay expenses that financial aid might have covered. Missteps, unforeseen events, and limited resources can have severe consequences for the academic progress of these students. The broader study, of which this paper is a part, represents an effort to explore and describe students’ college-going, working, family responsibilities, and academic success at three commuter institutions in a metropolitan region in the Midwest. The encompassing project aims to introduce new qualitative data and situated description into the study …

Constructive Alignment And The Curriculum: A Call For Improved Pedagogical Practices In Higher Education, Kerwin A. Livingstone

Kerwin A. Livingstone

From the turn of the century, there have been fervent calls to reform the curriculum in such a way that all students benefit. In light of heated debates, ‘constructivism’ was embraced as the new learning theory that would cause an improvement in student learning outcomes. Much later, ‘constructive alignment’ emerged, which sought to revolutionise the curriculum, significantly modifying pedagogical practices. Consequently, this article seeks to address constructive alignment in the curriculum and the urgent need to improve didactic practices in higher education. To this end, a discussion ensues on the curriculum and its necessity in pedagogy. The different approaches to …

Improving Curriculum Design And Development: A Case Study From The University Of Guyana, Kerwin A. Livingstone

Kerwin A. Livingstone

The curriculum is a very important document which details how learning and teaching is to be done. Since this document is a guide for learning, it must be properly planned, designed and developed, if it is to achieve success in its implementation stage. Bearing this in mind, this case study centres its attention on the analysis and evaluation of a Spanish course curriculum document from the University of Guyana. The aim of this paper is to highlight those areas that are deficient in the current course curriculum, analyse and revise them, and make recommendations for improvements. Information about the University …

Redefining Pedagogy: Dialogues On Transformative Immersion, Praxis, And Reflection, William H. Robertson, Judith Munter

William H. Robertson

This article examines transformative teaching and learning in higher education today, with a focus on faculty member as change agent. Developed from fourteen months of ongoing, critical dialogue, the article describes and deconstructs faculty members’ lived experiences as scholars-practitioners in three nations and their corresponding roles in institutions of higher learning in the U.S. As multi-culturally situated practitioners, each one describes the role of diverse international/intercultural lived experiences, including Fulbright exchanges, community based research, and service-learning in and with diverse communities. The voice of an emerging scholar, (graduate student) as discussant is interspersed throughout the dialogue, connecting faculty members’ experiences …

Supported Student Success: Communities Of Practice In Higher Education, Aimee Dechambeau

Aimée L. deChambeau

This research tells a story about how students form communities of practice that help them succeed in graduate school. Told within the context of individual and collective experiences, it holds valuable lessons for how student success can be supported across the higher education landscape. Communities of practice can develop spontaneously when individuals involved in a common activity or with a sense of shared identity come together to deal with organizational complexities or establish a forum for continued learning. The practice of becoming an accomplished and successful student who is able to develop scholarly abilities and deepen disciplinary understanding, experience personal …

Truth, Rhetoric, And Critical Thinking, Lajos L. Brons

Lajos Brons

Despite the extraordinary amount of attention critical thinking has received in the last few decades, the teaching and fostering of critical thinking in higher education is largely failing, and critical thinking has become an empty buzzword. However, given its importance as an aim of education, it needs to be “refilled”, but that is possible only after identifying the causes of the current failure, i.e. the obstacles to fostering critical thinking. Three such obstacles are identified in this paper, two actual and one hypothetical: (1) the lack of clarity and agreement about what critical thinking is, (2) current teaching practice, and …

Review Of The Book In Pursuit Of The Ph.D., Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] When William Bowen, the President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (formerly the President of Princeton University), and Neil Rudenstine, the President of Harvard University (formerly Executive Vice President of Mellon), combine to write a book on doctoral study in the arts and sciences, the academic profession must take notice. And well it should. Building on Bowen and Julie Ann Sosa's (1989) predictions of forthcoming shortages of Ph.D.'s in the arts and sciences, In Pursuit of the Ph.D. provides a detailed analysis of the propensity of American college graduates to enter doctoral programs in the arts and sciences and …

Using Mixed Methods To Create A Culture Of Assessment, Demetri L. Morgan, John Zilvinskis

Demetri L. Morgan, Ph.D.

Using a mix method approach, a pair of new professionals spent the summer on an assessment project

examining what factors lead to creating a culture of assessment within their Residential Operations

department. By reviewing the literature; interviewing higher education faculty, departmental partners,

and staff members; and surveying the department; the new professionals were able to create an effective

assessment training and provide departmental strategies that led to a standing workgroup to interweave assessment, evaluation, and research into the practice of departmental professionals. This project in

assessment provides several examples of how departmental stakeholders can begin creating a culture of

assessment …

Crafting A Class: The Trade-Off Between Merit Scholarships And Enrolling Lower-Income Students, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Liang Zhang, Jared M. Levin

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] It is well known that test scores are correlated with students’ socio-economic backgrounds. Hence, to the extent that colleges are successful in “buying” higher test-score students, one should expect that their enrollment of students from families in the lower tails of the family income distribution should decline. However, somewhat surprisingly, there have been no efforts to test if this is occurring. Our paper presents such a test. While institutional-level data on the dollar amounts of merit scholarships offered by colleges and universities are not available, data are available on the number of National Merit Scholarship (NMS) winners attending an …

Do Historically Black Colleges And Universities Enhance The College Attendance Of African American Youths?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Donna S. Rothstein, Robert B. Olsen

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Recently, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have become the center of intense policy debates. Do HBCUs enhance the college attendance of African American youths? Previous research has been inconclusive. Among other improvements, our study adjusts for the relative availability of HBCU enrollment opportunities in each state. We find that African Americans are more likely to choose HBCUs over other colleges if more HBCU openings are available. However, more HBCU openings don't increase overall African American enrollment. As we have shown elsewhere, attendance at an HBCU does enhance African American students' college graduation rates.

Institutional Environments And Resource Dependence: Sources Of Administrative Structure In Institutions Of Higher Education, Pamela S. Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

Two theoretical perspectives are combined to explain the pattern of administrative offices in public and private institutions of higher education. The first perspective, resource dependence, is used to show that the need to ensure a stable flow of resources from external sources of support partially determines administrative differentiation. The second perspective, institutionalization, emphasizes the common understandings and social definitions of organizational behavior and structure considered appropriate and nonproblematic and suggests conditions under which dependency will and will not predict the number of administrative offices that manage funding relations. The results of the analyses indicate that dependence on nontraditional sources of …