During recent decades master's studies have mainly become professional, but in some countries, like Israel, they still are a stepping stone toward doctorate studies. Changes in that respect may however occur due to recent university marketization processes. Using Tel Aviv University as a case study, we focus on the executive master's programmes…

This study focuses on the differences in college student dropout behavior among racial/ethnic groups. We employ event history methods and data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) and National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) surveys to investigate how financial aid may differentially influence dropout risks among these student…

"The Still Divided Academy" is a wonderful examination of the academic community that shows their inner workings by addressing a broad range of issues including: academic politics, tenure, perceived and real political imbalance, academic freedom, and diversity. Administrators, professors, and students have very different priorities, values, and…

"A Guide to Fundraising at Historically Black Colleges and Universities" is a comprehensive, research-based work that brings the best practices and expertise of seminal professionals to the larger Black college environment and beyond. Drawing on data-driven advice from interviews with successful Black college fundraisers and private sector…

Until very recently, American universities were led mainly by their faculties, which viewed intellectual production and pedagogy as the core missions of higher education. Today, as Benjamin Ginsberg warns in this eye-opening, controversial book, "deanlets"--administrators and staffers often without serious academic backgrounds or experience--are…

This research project focused on the perceptions of students from remote rural communities as they told of their transition experiences to a mid-size, research-intensive university. During the spring of 2008, thirteen students from North Dakota remote rural counties agreed to be interviewed for this study. Ten females and three males from seven…

This article presents a case study at Oakmont University where a presidential debate will be held on campus. Oakmont University is a large public research institution located in the Southeastern United States. This Carnegie Doctoral/Research I institution enrolls more than 35,000, 75% undergraduate and 25% graduate students. Located in somewhat of…

Today it can be said with full justification that there is a social mandate to educate the kind of individual who is well trained for the needs of the present day, who is moral, resourceful, and prepared to make decisions in any situation, who is capable of cooperation and intercultural interaction, and who possesses a sense of responsibility for…

This paper offers an emerging interpretive framework for understanding the active role instructional designers play in the transformation of learning systems in higher education. A 3-year study of instructional designers in Canadian universities revealed how, through reflexive critical practice, designers are active, moral, political, and…

Multiple studies explore the issue of the absence of teachers of color in the profession at large. Few studies, however, address the issue from the angle of the teacher candidate of color. With so many competing professions, why do they ultimately make the decision to join the profession? What are the contexts that influence and support that…

While some may view college drinking as a "rite of passage" for students, the consequences of underage and high-risk drinking leave no room for doubt--excessive alcohol use is harmful, affecting both students and the institution as a whole. Not only do heavy drinkers negatively affect their own health and academic potential but also the physical,…

In this study, Nancy Schlossberg's (1989) theory of college students' mattering to others was revisited. Mattering is the experience of others depending on us, being interested in us, and being concerned with our fate. The relationships of gender, mattering to college friends and the college environment, and friend and family social support with…

The University of Minnesota is helping provide greater college access for students from immigrant families who must learn to negotiate a new culture and language as well as manage lives often marked by poverty and under-funded urban schools. In the University's Commanding English program, immigrant high school students study both at their high…

In this essay, Simon Marginson focuses on self-determining academic freedom in universities, and especially the conditions and drivers of the radical-creative imagination that is manifest in sudden intellectual breaks in knowledge. Marginson's objective is to establish foundations in political philosophy for a sociological study of the effects of…

College seniors participated in an ethnographic interview study about their academic motivations. It was found that grades and graduation are 2 primary distal target goals that motivate their academic efforts during the senior year. A variety of proximal factors were also reported to affect the seniors' motivation. These factors can be divided…