The book analyses and evaluates several key community college reform programs that emerged after the Recession of 2008 and as a result of major initiatives in California, New York, Tennessee, Florida, Connecticut and Wisconsin. Because of the economic downturn in the early 21st Century, an already eroding financial base for public higher education…

There are large gaps in educational access and attainment between the rich and poor in the United States. In 2016, there was a 25 percentage-point gap in college enrollment rates for high school graduates in the top and bottom family income quartiles. Reflections on Connecting Research and Practice in College Access and Success Programs is the…

Results of changes to the planning process at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands are described. During the past years, government actions related to retrenchment prompted the Dutch universities to change their planning process in order to increase flexibility and to account for differences in quality. Two important procedures were…

The evaluation system described in this paper represents an attempt to provide objective, current, and course-specific evaluation of liberal education at Marycrest College, Iowa. This evaluation system uses a questionnaire to assess student perceptions of individual courses in relation to a set of general educational objectives determined by the…

Guidelines for conducting departmental reviews are presented to help review panels, departments being reviewed, and administrators. In planning a review, the following considerations are important: the purpose of the review and the terms of reference, the organization of the review and who will conduct it, and the information that will be…

The special nature of remedial programs and the variance in definitions, components, purposes, and structures are discussed to help institutional researchers design program evaluations. The term "remedial program" is used to refer to any combination of courses, support services, testing, placement practices, and institutional policies…

A framework is presented for developing and utilizing interinstitutional comparisons of nonacademic units in the program review process using Northeastern Illinois University of Chicago, Illinois, as an example. The framework is drawn from a review of the literature on organizational effectiveness and the various dimensions of management…

The way that a college can transform its periodic self-study process into an ongoing program is addressed, with a focus on the contribution of the institutional research office. Also considered are data elements that self-studies most often require and the way that data elements relate to judgments and interpretations made through the self-study.…

Through the Problem Solving and Reasoning Skills Cognitive Development Model for Severely Disadvantaged Puerto Rican College Students, the Ana G. Mendez Educational Foundation developed a model for cognitive skills development for disadvantaged, low-achieving Hispanics. The program incorporates cognitive skills into existing remedial courses in…