The authors wrote this article to share a message of hope to change agents working in higher education. Even if change cannot happen right away, assembling a foundation of interested collaborators, waiting for the right time to act, and thinking of past failures as opportunities to build the groundwork can result in productive changes. Acting once…

Creating meaningful professional development opportunities for general education faculty can be particularly challenging at professionally-focused institutions where teaching liberal arts courses is sometimes viewed merely as a service requirement. Committing to sustained professional development for general education faculty can lead to…

U.S. colleges and universities are facing the challenges of eroding public confidence and financial support, along with high failure rates, especially at a time when increasing numbers of students are matriculating. The demographic profile of students going to college is also more diverse, with students coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.…

One strength of liberal arts and sciences colleges is their emphasis on so-called "high-impact practices" (HIPs), which are known to be associated with student success. These practices include first-year seminars, learning communities, and study abroad, among others. What all of these HIPs share is a deeper level of engagement and active…

Spontaneity, embodied learning, active engagement in the community, boundary pushing--this is what the author could always count on when coming to Reclaiming Democracy as a student. As it was taught in the fall 2009 semester, the class was a multi-university and multi-community experience that included facilitators and students from Elon…

Discoveries in the learning sciences (especially in neuroscience) have yielded a rich and growing body of knowledge about how students learn, yet this knowledge is only half of the story. The other half is "know how," i.e. the application of this knowledge. For faculty members, that means applying the discoveries of the learning sciences…

In 2013, with a 30% state budget cut after the Great Recession, many of the 450,000 California State University (CSU) students across the 23-campus system were unable to enroll in courses they needed to move closer to graduation; there was a lack of available course sections. In addition to a reduced number of seats available for students, 30% to…

If educators want students to practice and prepare for challenges they might eventually face, there are a number of useful strategies to connect academic learning to the "real world." One is to ask students to complete what are variously called "performance tasks," "case studies," "simulations," or "project- or problem-based learning units."…

This article presents a new model of education that works with employers to help their employees gain the skills and credentials needed for promotions and career mobility. Southern New Hampshire University's College for America, a competency-based education model for working adults, increases their access to, and the convenience of higher…

Thirteen years ago, 276 bachelor's-granting colleges and universities inaugurated a new approach to assessing college quality by participating in the first national administration of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). This report summarizes what was learned over the NSSE's first 13 years, why the survey is being updated, and new…

In the late 1990s, the physics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had a problem. The department was responsible for teaching the two required physics courses that are part of the General Institute Requirements (GIRs), MIT's core curriculum--Physics I (mechanics, or in MIT parlance, 8.01) and Physics II (electricity and…

College students' success in a course depends on many factors, including their ability and previous knowledge of the subject, the effectiveness of the instruction, and their motivation to work hard enough to succeed. Introductory courses, including many that satisfy general-education requirements, often pose a particular problem for students who…

Today's students are comfortable satisfying their immense curiosity on their own. This capacity for independent learning is essential to their future well-being, since they are likely to have multiple careers and will need to continually learn new skills they were not taught in college. Students will need to feel comfortable working in…