In chemistry, a catalyst accelerates change without being depleted. As we seek school improvement, we need sustainable, scalable changes, and therefore catalytic structures are ideal. From communities of practice to professional learning communities to Networked Improvement Communities (NICs) much has been made in the scholarly and consultancy…

This handbook provides a global overview of the design, implementation and assessment of academic development centers within higher education institutions. The current nature of our complex, rapidly changing world makes it imperative that colleges and universities worldwide find ways to educate their students in new and better ways: this is…

"Between Public and Private" examines an innovative approach to school district management that has been adopted by a number of urban districts in recent years: a portfolio management model, in which "a central office oversees a portfolio of schools offering diverse organizational and curricular themes, including traditional public…

This monograph, dealing with some current issues in educational administration, points out some of the dilemmas and problems that accompany the educational changes that administrators face. The papers included in the publication outline important challenges with which educational leaders must cope, such as changing public policy and concomitant…

Innovative financial strategies for higher education institutions are considered in three articles based on presentations to a national conference at the University of Arizona. In "Innovations in State Level Formulas: Established and Emerging Trends," Dennis P. Jones discusses both the general (multi-purpose) and the special purpose components of…

Creative actions toward preventing global unemployment seek to (1) uncover the painful realities of joblessness, (2) design better models for fruitful discourse and action, (3) climb the "commanding policy heights" of moral vision, (4) move from autocratic to democratic corporatism, (5) uncover the kind of information that may hold power…

Conventional wisdom on the nature of leadership in higher education is challenged in this collection of 12 essays. They are divided into three sections: (1) The Context; (2) New Leaders and New Models; and (3) Strategies and Resources. Chapters and authors include: "Leaders and Their Development" (Madeleine F. Green); "Toward a New Leadership…

This monograph on learning communities and the first-year college experience presents 12 chapters which combine theory with examples of good practice and recommendations for building and sustaining effective learning communities. Following an introduction by the editor, the included chapters are: (1) "What Are Learning Communities?"…

The eight papers in this book summarize discussions and recommendations by participants in a 1977 conference that focused on three topics: definitions of linking functions and roles; coordination of dissemination and linking activities; and support needs of linking agents, including options for providing support. Each of the chapters provides…

The six chapters of this volume address issues related to emerging technologies and competition as higher education leaders plan for their institutions' development. A preface identifies common themes of the individual papers, including changes in higher education enabled by or driven by information technology, the authors' shared belief that the…

Eleven papers address issues in the alignment of standards-based education and individualized transition planning and service development for students with disabilities including differences in assumptions and principles, the transition planning model as a framework for achieving this alignment, and educational practices resulting from this…

This collection presents 91 papers or summaries presented at a 1997 conference on self-study and institutional improvement for institutions of higher education. Papers are grouped in the following chapters (with sample topics in parentheses): (1) "Institutional Mission and Institutional Change" (vision statements; balancing quality and change);…

This book is a collection of nine papers presented at a 1996 symposium that addressed issues and models for strategic thinking about higher education, especially the economics of higher education, institutional mission as it affects positive change and accountability, and technology. The included papers are: (1) "Why Can't a College Be More Like a…

This document contains three papers from a symposium on change and the consultant that was conducted during a conference on human resource development (HRD). "A Theory of Consultancy" (Daniel R. Boroto, Douglas A. Zahn, Darren C. Short) presents an emerging theory of consultancy that is based on an analysis of thousands of videotaped…

This volume contains six essays on higher education which provide lessons and successful techniques for meeting the challenges of the future. The first essay, "Academic Renewal at Michigan" (James Duderstadt), describes the modern research university as a complex corporate conglomerate in danger of diluting its core business. The…