Self-reported perceptions of the impact of acceleration through an early college entrance program at the University of Iowa National Academy of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering (NAASE), revealed the program's contribution to students' overall development. Responses from a sample of 76-gifted participants to a 64-item survey offered insights about…

Most first-year seminars exist to ensure that incoming students achieve what is commonly described as "academic success." While definitions of this term vary widely, it most often means socializing students into an academic culture so that they will remain at the institution, achieve a strong GPA, and graduate on time. Most first-year…

This comparative case study describes and evaluates programs designed to assist students with the first year transition into postsecondary education. Rather than focusing on quantitative measures of student completion, retention, or graduation, this case study uses qualitative methods to examine the ways faculty incorporate principles of…

Common Time (CT) was a structured programme designed to enhance the social and academic engagement of a growingly diverse student body on a new campus that draws its population from a low-socioeconomic area. As a voluntary and non-remedial programme, it incorporated a range of formal and informal activities and processes to engage students. CT…

College educators share a common goal: to guide college students as they develop mature ways of making informed judgments. Moving away from uncritical acceptance of knowledge to critically constructing one's own perspective, however, is more complex than learning a skill set. The evolution from viewing knowledge as certain and possessed by…