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…

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,…

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…

A commonly held assumption is that students should enter college with values and attitudes shared by their parents and, following 4 years of preparation, leave as adults with identical values and attitudes. It is becoming evident that today's students have chosen to depart from these expectations, since growing numbers of them are entering college…

This article presents results of several studies examining differing perceptions of influential factors on gifted children's development. Parents, teachers, and gifted children were asked what factors, behaviors, and attitudes they saw as contributing to "giftedness." Implications for instruction and assessment are explored. (Author/PB)

This speech examines the image of the university as a powerful center of knowledge in the contexts of both the traditional university and the modern research university. The institution's role in thinking and research, personal growth, and social change are discussed, especially as these areas interrelate and can create an exciting intellectual…

Jane Tompkins, a Duke University (North Carolina) English professor, is working to transform the conventional approach to college teaching from combative to communal, focusing on students' personal development as well as their intellect and deemphasizing faculty career development. Critics feel her approach is extreme and unreasonable; supporters…

Many graduate students lack the capacity for self-authorship, the ability to develop one's own perspective. Data from a longitudinal study of sixteen students, begun in their first year of college, illustrates the difficulty of moving from embracing multiple perspectives to constructing self-authored perspectives. The stories of three graduate…

Discusses the value of diagnostic classification systems to counseling professionals. Describes the Ecological Diagnostic Classification Plan, an approach to diagnosis that includes the environment as a possible cause of pathology and target of intervention. (Author/KS)

The impact of the residence hall and commuter living situations on a freshman's intellectual and personal growth is studied. The study affirms previous findings that residence hall freshmen develop more rapidly, but the results suggest that other college experience factors beyond the living situation are important in facilitating student…

Though student-designed programs have been justified by references to humanism, systems theory, and romantic idealism, a more secure foundation lies in developmental theory. When properly advised, it is suggested, student-designed programs resemble the most desirable processes of liberal education. (Author/MLW)

During this period of social and political transformation in the former Soviet Union, there is no typical Russian school. Open-type schools generally emphasize student self-development. Students' intellectual, personal, and spiritual upbringing depends on a school's socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental context. Teaching practices must be…

A compilation of 89 structural frameworks or classifications of outcomes of higher education is presented. Each classification system or model is discussed according to the time it entered the literature. The classifications are grouped into three areas: impacts on individuals, impacts on society, and impacts on individuals and society. Some of…

Spelman College's Living Learning Program is described. The program was developed to integrate classroom cognitive development with affective development acquired through formal and informal learning experiences offered by the student life division. Program activities are designed to expose students to a broad range of ideas through interaction…

Connections between structural-developmental psychology and field experience education are addressed. In addition to summarizing principles of structural-developmental psychology and relevant research findings, a comprehensive view of individual development is related to the philosophical aims of higher education, and developmental and dualistic…