Size is the big unspoken problem in UK higher education. Small providers are stifled. Large universities enjoy oligopolistic advantage at the cost of agility. This damages institutional diversity and dynamism: the sector's ability to absorb new concepts, to grow and renew itself. For the first time, this report provides a full picture of small and…

Higher education, or more strictly higher education studies, is sometimes referred to as a discipline, though it is more often referred to as a field, sector or area for study. But what is a discipline and does higher education studies, at its current state of development, qualify as one? This article re-considers these matters and comes to some…

Humanizing Higher Education was the 2022 conference theme for the Association for the Study of Higher Education. This presidential address takes a forward look back on higher education within a global context and in the aftermath of a global health pandemic, making an argument for the need to humanize higher education. The address offers a…

This study focuses on the problem of 'teachers' teaching' and 'students' learning' in college education courses. It aims to introduce the Deep Learning theory into the teaching of ideological and political theory courses in universities; deepen the theoretical framework of education courses and the associated learning, maintenance, promotion, and…

In this article, taken from the 2019 ASHE Presidential address, Kristen A. Renn argues that to stay relevant and also to influence the direction of postsecondary education, there must be engagement in the will to reimagine the study of higher education. She discusses the challenges and opportunities for the future bound up in the fact that higher…

In the United States, the academic discipline of higher education has emerged as a site in which transgender scholars have begun to engage. Transgender scholars have begun to disrupt the normative logics of epistemological trans oppression, forcing those in higher education to contend with us, our work, and the possibilities therein. And yet, the…

In this dissertation I examine four critical monographs on the history of higher education. This type of monograph represents an unacknowledged source of value for the field of higher education studies, which has typically relied on survey level texts that provide coverage and historical background. In contrast, critical monographs offer a narrow,…

Professional development offerings for current and aspiring educational developers can be sparse and neither fully contextually appropriate nor personally relevant given the range of experiences people bring to the field. In the absence of suitable professionalization programs, we created a self-defined professional development approach to support…

The PhD is the highest formal qualification and signifies a scholar's rite of passage as a legitimate contributor of new knowledge in a field. Examiner reports make claims about what is legitimate in a thesis and what is not and thus articulate the organising principles through which participation in a field is measured. The authors analysed 39…

Published annually since 1985, the Handbook series provides a compendium of thorough and integrative literature reviews on a diverse array of topics of interest to the higher education scholarly and policy communities. Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of research findings on a selected topic, critiques the research literature in terms…

This chapter examines how the scholarship of practice is being used within applied disciplines and offers recommendations for colleges and universities regarding the implementation of the scholarship of practice for the discipline of higher education.

Quality control mechanism that allows long term improvements of a study field or a study program is necessary for good functioning of educational institution or department in actual nature of competitive universities' environment. This paper focuses on quality control mechanisms in general and more closely on professional study fields. The…

Higher Education as a Field of Study is multi-disciplinary in its origin. Given the relative youth of the field, as it was only founded less than 130 years ago, it does not yet have standalone theories or philosophies as the scholarship in the field frequently borrows from its epistemological, methodological, and philosophical ideas from more…

As a white assistant professor of mostly white graduate students who will become higher education leaders, I work to dismantle whiteness in my curriculum, assignments and pedagogy. I make meaning of my own white identity through my commitment to reflexivity as a constant activity. Equally salient are my identities as a queer, able-bodied,…

The curriculum is a critical element in the transformation of higher education, and as a result, I argue for the inclusion of what I refer to as an African epistemic in higher education curricula in South Africa. In so doing, attention is directed at the decolonisation of the curriculum in higher education in South Africa, which aims to give…