The value of higher education, and particularly the four-year undergraduate venture influenced from the liberal arts tradition, is largely framed around the impact it has on a broad range of skills and dispositions that serve to enhance human flourishing. Employers and society more broadly can benefit from individuals who are committed to careful…

This article explores students' experiences of intellectual, social, and emotional growth during the first year at university and the extent to which these experiences can be considered transformative (Mezirow, 1981). The study is a qualitative interpretive multiple-case study built on semi-structured interviews with students in two higher…

Service-learning has become deeply embedded in higher education, as both a co-curricular and curricular tool to achieve learning outcomes, promote civic engagement and promote diversity. Yet it has also struggled with the critique that service-learning, unintentionally, reinforces deficit thinking by promoting a dominant narrative centered on the…

This study examined how factors associated with student development and persistence differ between first-generation and continuing-generation students and how participation in a learning community influences development and persistence. The findings show that first-generation students were less involved in academics and had lower gains in…

This article presents case study findings about undeclared student experiences in a two-and-a-half-year interdisciplinary learning-living program that integrates the arts, humanities, and social science disciplines. The study examined how the program helped students make informed decisions about academic majors and vocational choices. Participants…

Three theories from the disciplines college student development and educational psychology of particular relevance to teaching of information literacy are summarized: Perry's (1999) scheme of intellectual and moral development, Renninger's (2009) phases of interest development, and Grow's (1991) stages of self-directed learning. Each theory is…

This article traces the evolution of holistic student development as the centerpiece of the college experience in the 1960s to its current all-too-often overlooked function in postsecondary education, and it explains why students, employers, and the democracy all benefit from educating the whole person. Holistic student development encompasses…

Theories of college student and adult intellectual development have shown that learning to interpret, evaluate, and construct knowledge evolves in a developmentally predictable fashion, and have offered explanations for the difficulties some students face when asked to make their own decisions (Baxter Magolda, 1992; Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger,…

Recent legal challenges to race-conscious college admissions processes have called into question what constitutes a sufficient level of diversity on college campuses. Previous research on the educational benefits of diversity has examined the linear relationship between diversity interactions and student outcomes, but multiple theoretical…

A greater number of campuses have broadened concepts related to student development connecting traditional student affairs and campus auxiliary services. This connection is increasingly evident in the evolution of sustainability concerns and activities. This chapter explores the role of campus auxiliaries in the promotion of campus environmental…

This study uses semi-structured interviews to examine how 33 professors, working at two private liberal arts colleges and identified by their local faculty colleagues as professors who deeply engage with students beyond the classroom, experience such engagements and incorporate them into their work lives. The study defines "deepened…

Emile Durkheim, the sociologist and education professor, said that the personality developed by a form of literary study was contrary to genuinely Christian character. Provoked by this insight, the author explores whether a Christian university's reliance on classical liberal arts education might be working against its desires for the character of…

The ability to coherently assess content knowledge throughout an entire undergraduate career represents a significant advantage for programmatic assessment strategies. Chemistry, as a discipline, has an unusual tool in this regard because of the nationally standardized exams from the ACS Exams Institute. These exams are norm-referenced and allow…

The formative merits of university education are at risk of being reduced from graduateness in the sense of broad academic cultivation to professional training with a strong emphasis on employability. The difficulty in opposing this trend is the absence of a clear framework for academic cultivation. The aim of this study is to construct a model…

Surveys of employers continually highlight the need for better communication skills among recent college graduates. Yet, writing instruction in higher education serves far more than a transactional purpose. Writing facilitates learning, helps students gain skills in analysis and synthesis, and supports a range of other personal and intellectual…