Key institutional, social, and psychological factors that may be visible or invisible barriers to women and ethnic minorities seeking academic careers are examined, drawing on recent literature. Recommendations for change at the elementary, secondary, postsecondary, and graduate levels are offered. (MSE)

Issues concerning the increasing use of part-time and adjunct faculty in higher education that must be addressed include the need for research on faculty work, jobs, and careers, and on the institutional setting for part-time employment; faculty career patterns, incentives and disincentives; role of this group in the academic community; and…

Faculty incentives are skewed away from the collegiate ideal, particularly at research universities. It is not inevitable that research-oriented faculty divorce themselves from students and campus life, but active participation requires changes in faculty culture, evaluation/reward structures, and types of conversation in which faculty engage on…

Connecticut State University has achieved success in recruiting and retaining information technology (IT) workers through six strategies: modifying the administrative structure to make positions and salaries more attractive; grooming students for IT positions; promoting benefits of university employment; transferring state civil-service employees;…

Describes a visit to the Harvard University (Massachusetts) business school to examine how its curriculum and instruction have responded to economic, social, and technological changes in the business world. Focus is on the use of the case method and classroom discussion as central teaching techniques and the value of program participation to…

An author who comes from the German higher education system offers insights into how it differs from the American higher education system and how certain undesirable characteristics may be avoided in the United States. Topics discussed include student independence, lack of extracurricular activities and campus community, tendency toward…

Urban and metropolitan college students often experience a traditionally organized curriculum as a series of disconnected course requirements. Portland State University (Oregon) has found that integrating attention to community-building as a central element of the core curriculum strengthened student and faculty affiliations and improved…

Reluctance of college faculty to teach critical thinking may be due to many factors. Proactive strategies for reducing resistance include creating a positive context for change, communicating expertness and credibility, creating a sense of safety and trust, countering sources of student resistance, and creating high hopes and expectations for…

A survey of 498 undergraduate students withdrawing from a Canadian university was used to develop a model of student attrition. Students frequently attributed withdrawal to personal characteristics, institutional factors, and societal variables. Student academic performance was a causal factor for university-initiated withdrawal, and student…

A study using both quantitative and qualitative techniques investigated the role of institutional culture in socialization of newly-recruited faculty in social sciences/ humanities departments and compared them with perceptions of current faculty concerning institutional culture and departmental subcultures. Four stages of acculturation are…

A study investigated the development of a culture supporting scholarship in four comprehensive institutions: a merger university, a technical university, a regional state university, and a parochial college. The strategies of each institution and the disciplinary differences reflected in the cultures of the English and mathematics departments are…

A Harvard professor whose relationship with the university began in 1934, as a graduate student, recounts his experience with the institution through a series of anecdotes, looking at the quality of the relationship between students and faculty, the environment for scholarship, changes in student attitudes toward learning over the years, changes…

A study with 72 university students in an introductory psychology course investigated effects of individual learning, cooperative learning, cooperative learning with instruction, and nonattendance on achievement. Effect of learned resourcefulness on attendance at academic self-management workshops was also studied. Students with low…

A scale designed to measure professional attitudes and behaviors associated with the medical education and residency training environment was pilot-tested by 529 medical students and residents in five institutions. The scale's internal reliability was relatively high, and factor analysis revealed three subscales. Results are interpreted as an…

Discussion of quality assurance in colleges and universities looks at theories and definitions of quality; four approaches to quality (traditional peer review, the assessment-and-outcomes movement, the Total Quality Management movement, and accountability and performance indicator reporting); the moral and ethical dimensions of quality; and ideals…