This conference was designed to assist educators and administrators at small colleges in the planning, implementing, and refining of programs designed to enhance students' first-year experience. The conference addressed the special environments, challenges, and opportunities for success in the first-year experience. Conference presentations were…

Since magazine faculty must compress learning objectives into tightly packed syllabi, it is important for these syllabi to be effectively organized to focus on process and not on product. Some characteristics of the "perfect" syllabus are: (1) it is devised within a curricular context; (2) it reflects awareness of the capabilities and…

This study compares the perceptions of social control among Black students at large universities with those at small, less complex educational settings. Findings indicate that student perceptions of social control are based on the size of the organization, the racial composition of administrators, and the span of control. (EB)

Student and alumnae groups have mobilized to preserve Wheaton College as one of a dwindling number of single-sex women's institutions and are taking legal action to fight what they believe is a breach of faith. (MSE)

Information management has taken on more meaning for the small to medium-sized college and university in recent years. Advances in hardware and software have brought improved performances to campuses at a lower cost. Some of the planning methods used by Regis College are outlined. (MLW)

Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, used strategic planning to affirm its size and mission. Size alone is not seen as an adequate measure of the flow of institutional resources and commitments. The price of being small and the price of expansion are discussed. (MLW)

The planning assumptions on which Oberlin College's computer support staff encouraged incorporation of microcomputer use on campus are outlined and discussed, including computers as a higher education resource, networks, institutional planning considerations, encouraging staff and faculty participation, and computer staff support efforts. (MSE)

The entrepreneurial small college president exercises leadership in the use of highly refined intuitive judgment, has a high degree of commitment to the institution's mission, and can discern opportunities in unpromising circumstances. (Author/MSE)

Discussion of professional status of the college librarian includes a definition of "colleges," decline of status of college library in American Library Association and Association of College and Research Libraries, crisis in higher education and implications for colleges, bias against "small" in academic librarianship,…

Computers have a great number of potential uses at the small college. A survey of the role of software in the effective use of computers is described. Hardware characteristics, spreadsheets, purchasing or developing software, and software information are discussed. (Author/MLW)

Presents an ideology of student affairs in small colleges, based on a sociological model of community, which includes synergy, an educational role, the centrality of values, personalism, and organic change. Commentaries and response to the commentaries on the ideology are given. (Author/ABB)

The conversion of liberal arts institutions into comprehensive institutions primarily engaged in vocational and occupational programs is discussed. The liberal arts college is seen as an endangered species that needs to be preserved at all costs. A history of the liberal arts college in America is provided. (MLW)

Reviews findings of a National Center for Higher Education Management Systems study, which investigated the effects of enrollment and revenue declines on small independent four-year colleges, and discusses implications for two-year colleges facing similar problems. Looks at strategies that helped more resilient colleges meet financial problems…

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)

Reports on a national study conducted to determine to what extent computers are being used effectively in the small two-year college. Provides profiles that reflect the continuum of sophistication in computer use along which individual colleges can place themselves. Looks at national trends. (DMM)