This address focuses on the topic of open admissions and its implications for policies and procedures. A discussion, defining terms like excellence, equality, and open admissions, initiates a brief examination of issues such as institution-based and individual-based barriers to posesecondary schooling, the organization of college admissions--its…

In order to help underprepared students entering college in an open admissions program learn to write original research papers, a method was devised which relates the students' experiences in the nonacademic world to their academic assignments. Students first visit a local business, store, or institution with which they are familiar and write an…

Presents Mina Shaughnessy's 1976 speech, given at a time when great financial crisis threatened to result in the wholesale disestablishment of basic writing programs. Notes grave perils, and outlines some of the truths uncovered through the experience of Open Admissions in higher education, truths that are indestructible despite retrenchments and…

Nontraditional students in the community college can profit from their composition courses if these courses give them the chance to discover what words can do and to use that discovery to best serve their own interests and ambitions. To serve these aims, composition courses should be based on the following assumptions: students are to be accepted…

In order to meet the needs of the heterogeneous student body resulting from an open admissions policy, an audiotutorial system is recommended for the City University of New York. The proposal would combine the efforts of the three distinct units offering instruction on each campus: (1) traditional academic departments, (2) a remedial academic…

This document presents the testimony of the Chancellor of the City of New York Board of Education, for the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Opening remarks address the issue of racial integration and the Board of Education's commitment to its adoption as official policy. Six recent actions taken by the Chancellor to promote integration…

This paper presents findings of a study that analyzed participation patterns and the movement of students and state funds in Ohio during the 1993-94 school year, the first year during which Ohio's interdistrict open-enrollment law was fully implemented. The theoretical framework for the study was drawn from economics and business theories of…

The many problems connected with successful implementation of community college open enrollment involve students, faculty, college resources and basic processes. Together they constitute the challenge posed by open enrollment to administrators. Problems relative to students include low reading and writing abilities, low levels of preparedness and…

The Open University offers part-time courses for adults by means of a multimedia distance teaching system. By adopting an open admissions policy and offering undergraduate courses, it is aiming for excellence and equality on a cost-effective basis. The university does appear to have achieved a high academic standard, both in its courses and its…

The concept of barrier-free transfer from two-year to four-year colleges is an important element in planning for student access to the baccalaureate. While it seems clear that transfer works reasonably well for most students most of the time, evidence suggests that transfer may be a qualitatively and quantitatively different experience at the…

The British Open University (OU) offers university degree programs to adults who are employed and study at home. It does so through a nationwide universal access (open admission) policy. A key feature of this program is that it imposes traditional university standards of excellence. Access is not limited by formal entry requirements, geography,…