In California, the combination of budget cuts and high unemployment from the Great Recession has resulted in "overcrowded" conditions, with more students attempting to enroll in fewer available classes. State-level policy recommendations have focused on altering registration priorities to mitigate the impact of overcrowding, but it is…

This research identifies 22 fields that declined in absolute numbers and/or prevalence over a 35-year period. Most were basic fields in the arts and sciences. Steep declines were evident only in a few fields, notably European languages and literatures. Larger, higher status, and historically liberal arts oriented institutions were less likely to…

Analysis of the relationship between performance data and changes in faculty size of 40 departments in a College of Arts and Sciences during a time of financial stress found that the rational choice model was applied to decision making. There was a systematic relationship between objective, evaluative data and policy decisions. (MLW)

The characteristics of the environment in which colleges and universities exist--enrollment trends, financial exigencies, federal policy changes, unexpected disaster--are creating conditions of decline that require a new set of administrative and organizational responses. Flexibility, innovation, and pro-activity are suggested for effective…

The peculiar nature of the academic market is examined in the face of a bleak demographic situation in higher education. The benefits and risks that the marketing movement may carry for the system, the intellectual tradition, and the students, are discussed. (Author/PHR)

Three small private colleges are examined during periods of growth, decline, and revitalization and why these events may have occurred are analyzed. The case studies occurred at three Carnegie category II colleges. (Author/MLW)

By terminating 26 degree programs, 3 departments, and 3 schools and colleges, the State University of New York at Albany generated a pool of resource for reallocation to programs with greater need and priority. The difficulties of accomplishing this and the lessons for other campuses are described. (Author/MLW)

The balance between college teaching and faculty scholarship is examined in the context of growing economic concern over the education of an internationally competitive workforce. "Aggregative scholarship," the effort to integrate and interpret highly specialized research findings for interconnections and trends, for both specialists and…

A process for the management of reductions in the number of faculty positions available to a university is described. It considers staffing by projections, the evolution of personnel planning, and the balance of reductions in faculty and administration, along with coping strategies and advice growing out of five years of enrollment decline…

A discussion of college and university retrenchment based on interviews with 40 faculty and 20 administrators at 2 research universities looks at programs threatened with termination as terrains contested among academic fields, where wide divergences in professional/discipline-based power become evident. Results appeared to have less to do with…

Contract clauses on tenure, promotion, salaries, faculty workload, and retrenchment are compared with the national stances of the American Federation of Teachers, American Association of University Professors, and the National Education Association. Conclusion is that national organizational positions are not reliable predictors of individual…

The development and outcomes of recent state efforts in California to limit adult education growth in the community colleges are examined. Although the resulting legislation curtailed further expansion of adult education, institutional pressure and continued public support prevented substantial reductions. (Author/LBH)

The use of a faculty flow model is expanded to include simulation of the indirect effects on a university's faculty of institutional policies that directly affect enrollments. Based on data from the University of Minnesota, the results have implications for faculty size and personnel policy. (Editor/LBH)

The behaviors and subsequent situations of two sets of colleges that experienced severe financial difficulties in the mid-1970s were examined. One set made a dramatic recovery; the other set did not. The more resilient group pursued a combination of adaptive and interpretive strategies. (MLW)

The relationships within the Pennsylvania postsecondary education system are examined with a focus on planning for resource and enrollment decline, the relationship between private colleges and state government, and the state-level structure for enrollment and resource decision making. (MLW)