In a professional world characterized by change, uncertainty, and increased pressure to demonstrate that what they do really matters, community college student affairs professionals need clear definitions, a shared understanding of critical professional issues, and professional values that are consistent and congruent. This chapter provides those…

This quantitative study was based on the survey results of 216 chief student affairs officers' (CSAOs) at United States' colleges and universities whose enrollments were between 500 and 3,000 students. In the spring of 2001, 58% of the CSAOs returned the 42-item Survey of Student Learning Principles, based on the seven "Principles of Good…

The mission of the liberal arts institution is to educate the whole student; this parallels the aims of student affairs administration. How does this mission affect what student affairs professionals employed at these institutions do? For this study, researchers examined the nature of work for student affairs administrators at liberal arts…

This article investigates the signs that modernizing agendas in contemporary UK universities have not only reduced autonomy and marketized practices but have also stimulated the crystallization of a ramifying academic worldview, structurally consonant with neo-liberal horizons and new organizational vistas. Ethnographically, the account focuses…

What are colleges for? What are they supposed to do? Are educators teaching their students how to grub for grades or how to learn in deep lasting ways? These are just some of the questions that the author attempts to explore in this article. An unbiased observer, looking at any organization, would look to its core processes, what its members do,…

A multiyear effort to understand and improve the practice of learning communities across North America has revealed encouraging trends and areas in which work should continue. The authors asked fifty-six educators involved in the work to write and talk about the state of learning communities. The authors wanted to learn how learning community…

Research into the critical period of Chinese pupils' moral development is one of the most important parts in the field of moral psychological study. This paper reviews 20-year literature available on the critical period of pupils' moral development and its instruments to measure it. It also gives details of its inadequate research into pupils'…

This paper is about Ph.Ds, practitioner-centred research and action learning. The aim of this paper is to help develop a framework for those completing doctorates based on action learning. The paper explores relationships between the personal learning of action learning participants and the public knowledge associated with conventional research.…

A problem sometimes called Moser's circle problem where a circular region has to be partitioned with chords without any three chords intersecting at one point, is discussed. It is shown that Moser's circle problem makes the students to use a variety of mathematical tools to find correct solutions to problems and gives an opportunity to think about…

Since its founding in 1875, Brigham Young University (BYU) has served a mission defined by its sponsoring institution which includes elements of character and spirituality (affective domain) in addition to the intellectual (cognitive domain). However, it is only since the establishment of the Office of Institutional Assessment and Analysis…

This "snapshot" illustrates how one school is managing to make a positive difference for ninth graders. It describes the Ninth Grade Success Academy, a school-within-a-school at Thomas A. Edison High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which has a number of features specifically designed to help ninth-graders make successful…

The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education (CTE) Improvement Act was recently passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush. Past and present Perkins legislation is examined in this paper in order to identify the roles and responsibilities of CTE teachers in meeting the current and future needs of the profession. This paper…

In the chapters presented in this volume, leading experts describe some of the assessment challenges in greater detail and provide federal recommendations on how to address them. In "College and Work Readiness as a Goal of High Schools: The Role of Standards, Assessments, and Accountability," John Tanner of the Center for Innovative Measures at…

This study looked at the instructional and assessment effects of using learning journals in three distance asynchronous computer conferencing courses (n = 18, n = 16, n = 17). The instructor used a design-research methodology: each iteration of the course involved modifications to how learning journals were used based on analyses of the responses…

One of the greatest challenges facing today's district-level policymakers and educational leaders is helping America's youth avoid adverse outcomes such as school failure, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and delinquency. This document describes an alternative policy approach to address these problems--the building of resiliency in youth. Rather…