A study of institutions of further education (FE) and higher education (HE) in Scotland evaluated the content and presentation of their current charters; assessed the reactions of students, employers and members of local communities to varying examples of local charters; identified the steps that institutions have taken to monitor the impact of…

This paper explores the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) influence on higher education policy development in Canada and examines the impact its free-market philosophy exacts on more traditional aesthetic, humanistic, and moral educational objectives. The OECD is an international body whose primary objective is to…

This study investigated stress levels and the sources of stress upon students enrolled at American River College (California), a community college of 20,000 students. Participants responded to a questionnaire measuring degrees of stress experienced in 43 life events within the past 12 months. Each individual's stress weights were then summed to…

This paper traces the Colorado Legislature's House Bill 1187, Article 13 from its inception through to its present implementation and addresses various pertinent issues in regard to accountability. The legislation mandates accountability in higher education within Colorado. The issues discussed are the rationale and underlying concepts, schools of…

The purpose of this study was to determine the contributions of student effort, campus environments and institutional culture to student learning in three types of institutions: small residential colleges; large residential universities; and universities located in metropolitan areas. Data sources were qualitative assessments of 13 campus cultures…

This paper describes an effort to find ways to respond to the challenges of supporting student and faculty diversity by providing data about the experiences of Latino undergraduates at the University of Michigan. Data were collected from a random sample of 73 Latino undergraduates and a comparison group of 24 non-Latinos. The Latino group…

This book is designed to help college students (and prospective college students) prepare themselves to meet and complete the requirements of their college or university and obtain a bachelor's degree. Individual chapters offer advice on: (1) the enhanced earning power of a college degree; (2) deciding whether to attend a four-year college or a…

The issue of alcohol use, with occasional reference to other drug use, by college students is reviewed in this report: which (1) summarizes what is known about the influence of collegiate environments on college student use of alcohol; and (2) suggests how campus policies and practices can be modified to create environmental conditions that have a…

A study compared perceptions of institutional climate among four categories of female education students at the University of Utah: traditional age students (age 24 and under) who are Latter Day Saints (Mormons) or non-Latter Day Saints (non-LDS); and older students (age 25 and over) who are LDS or non-LDS. It was hypothesized that older students…

The evolution of the University of Minnesota's program of student volunteers in the college union is described. The program draws on developmental theories, and suggest ways of integrating union program production and specific educational goals for the volunteers engaged in that production: individual autonomy, commitment of values, integration of…

How the nature of the campus culture helps determine the levels of enrollment and retention of African-American students is examined in this study conducted at Oberlin College, Ohio, a college that has shown relative success in enrolling and retaining African-American students. The study provides excerpts from numerous interviews with students,…

In 1988, a survey was conducted at Compton Community College to ascertain whether the needs and priorities of its students were primarily campus-related or external. The study was also structured to identify students who planned to transfer to another college before completing their degree requirements. The survey solicited information on…

A design for improving the quality of information available for continuous operational study of student retention at the University of Hartford in Connecticut was examined involving a microcomputer based decision support system for student retention research. The system, an interactive modeling approach to conduct longitudinal and comparative…

Five hundred incoming students attending Mount Saint Vincent University (Nova Scotia) were selected to participate in a study designed to compare the expectations and experiences of traditional students (who entered immediately after high school or transferred from another university or college) and nontraditional students (who entered part-time…

The validity and reliability of the Institutional Performance Survey (IPS) as an institutional self-study instrument were assessed, with a focus on four types of validity (content, face, construct, and concurrent) and three types of reliability (test-retest, internal consistency, and rater reliability). It was found that IPS appears to reasonably…