Proposes an alternative approach to preoccupation with "in-puts" and "out-puts" that focuses on the distinctive character and images of schools, how they treat constituents and how constituents view them. As a supplement to survey research, nonreactive and unobtrusive measures are suggested: artifacts, signs, clues found in architecture, spacial…

Attitudes of students who transferred from a college prior to the sophomore year were found to be similar to those who remained on dimensions of educational purpose, peer relationship, and public position, but differed significantly regarding process of education and faculty-student power relationship. Implications are discussed and extended…

An investigation of the relationship between informal interaction with students and the accuracy with which faculty members project students' perceptions of the institutional climate showed that "high" interactors consistently projected more accurate student ratings of the climate on a bureaucracy factor and less consistently predicted more…

Using questionnaires, it was found that there are differences in perception of academic pressures and university environment between academically least-successful (ALS) and academically most-successful (AMS) black freshman students. ALS students perceived environment more nonintellectual and providing for social interaction than AMS students;…

This investigation compared levels of organizational alienation among black students in three educational settings: a large urban university, a medium-sized urban college, and a small urban center. Students from the urban center were found to be significantly less alienated from their educational setting than were those from the college and…

A recent reevaluation of physical teaching arrangements at New Mexico State University has produced a new program attuned to the "new" home economics and has altered some faculty teaching styles. (Author)

Academic freedom may be defined as the right to do that which a faculty member finds appropriate to scholarly inquiry and instruction, so long as it is not legally proscribed, does not constitute an explicit violation of institutional policy or a prior agreement to perform designated responsibilities and observe specified standards of conduct, and…

Curriculum may be more adequately explained as the work of an organization than as a plan for individual learning. Research is reported based upon case studies of four allied health programs in one university with the intent to employ concepts from the organizational literature to describe a group of curriculums, and to determine if relationships…

In some communities, commercial activity by the local university is perceived as a threat to the reciprocity of the "town-gown" exchange relationship. This study was designed to provide an information base from which negotiations in this area could proceed. Students (N=200) and faculty/staff (N=100) at the University of Maryland, College…

Given that for the past eight years women have constituted the majority of students enrolled in college journalism programs, a study investigated whether women hold the majority of staff and management positions on campus newspapers. Twenty-one schools in five southern and southwestern states were surveyed in 1986 about information concerning…

A study investigated whether college environments known to provide unusually rich out-of-class learning opportunities are associated with different patterns of student learning and personal development. Data were gathered during a year-long examination of institutional conditions associated with student involvement in out-of-class learning…

An overview is provided of the demographic and economic characteristics of the geographical area defined by the Peralta Community College District's boundaries in Northern Alameda County, California. In addition, projections are presented concerning the population and economy of the county until the year 2005. Highlighted findings of the…

Differences between declining colleges and colleges not experiencing decline were investigated, along with dysfunctional organizational consequences that may be associated with decline. Attention is directed to 12 negative attributes resulting from conditions of decline, seven of which were found to be significant: no innovation, scapegoating,…

Birnbaum's 1982 study of diversity in higher education is reviewed, and the development of an indicator series on institutional diversity is evaluated. Birnbaum studied diversity in higher education in the framework of a natural selection or population ecology model, which emphasizes the importance of environmental factors in shaping populations…

Boundary spanning in colleges as evidenced through the activity of offices of institutional research was studied. Literature in organization theory suggests that those institutions that adapt most rapidly to changes in their external environment are those that establish formal structures (boundary spanning roles) for monitoring that environment.…