Student achievement in American schools must improve dramatically if all young people today are to have equal access to the labor markets and be contributing members of society as adults. Currently, only 20 to 25 percent perform proficiently. Standards-based education reform aims to raise that level to at least 75 percent of students mastering the…

Launched in 1994, Smart Start is the statewide early childhood initiative in North Carolina designed to ensure that every child "arrives at school healthy and ready to succeed." This guide provides a practical reference to the lessons learned from Smart Start as the program was developed and experienced from the local county partnership…

Though career plateauing can be put off, it can seldom be entirely avoided. Distinction is made between plateauing of the job content type and plateauing of the structural or organizational type. Primary solutions involve job enrichment, performance goal adjustments, lateral transfers, or modified standards of appraisal. (SSH)

Addresses the subject of organizational termination, suggesting it is an appropriate concern for the field of organization development, and that present methodologies are inadequate to deal with it. Describes a consulting experience with one dying organization and experimental intervention strategies. Describes behavioral reactions of staff to…

Examines, in 13 articles, counseling psychologists' level of interest in business and industrial settings and their interaction with clinical and industrial/organizational specialties. Focuses on specific professional services that psychologists can provide and issues they will face. Discusses the potential contribution psychologists can make in…

Reviewed published studies (N=36) of an organization development and team building strategy, focusing on research designs, sample sizes, dependent variables, and the length of time the intervention was investigated. Results indicated team building appeared to be an intervention with great potential for improving employee attitudes and…

Effective leaders require a state of mind without which skills and information become ineffective. Leading-edge leaders idealize, imagine, and predict; they are sensitive to the cultural environment and attempt to escape mechanistic organizational norms. (RC)

Offers some guidelines for the management of technical professional personnel (scientists, researchers, engineers), emphasizing that these people have different philosophical approaches to their work and identify with their professional orientations rather than with the organization. Research and development management should provide for their…

An important factor in job choice, both at the start of and during one's career, is one's psychological makeup, which must be taken into account in training and development programs. The authors relate the Jungian introvert-extrovert, judgment-perception theories to work and management, presenting data from a management work preferences sampling.…

Reviews the development of community colleges in Missouri into a more integrated system since the first college was established in 1915. Emphasizes four events: enabling legislation in 1961, a shift in state oversight to postsecondary education in 1974, a 1990 change away from funding based on credit hours, and a decision to hire full time…

Broad contextual and cultural influences of reforms on employment and higher education in Lithuania are examined, effects of this transition on higher education administration are considered, and conditions that would encourage administrators to take an entrepreneurial or proactive approach are discussed. A model for training programs to assist…

Describes the importance of obtaining faculty support to ensure success in college reform efforts, and reviews strategies for improving institutional climate. Discusses a survey instrument designed to measure faculty perceptions of college atmosphere and developed as part of the Fourth Paradigm Governance Model. Includes a sample faculty…

As local pressures mount and state resources dwindle, intermediary organizations are emerging throughout Latin America. Although theoretically enabling people at the grass roots to participate in their own development and reap the benefits of their labor, the costs and tensions are often not worth the burden. Explores the quandaries that new…

The Internet and other technological tools are rapidly becoming an expected means of communication for college and university public relations offices. Making this transition requires conquering fears of new technology, building on existing staff public relations skills, reorganizing operations to accommodate new tasks, enjoying the new…

A roundtable discussion involving six professionals in information technology (IT) in higher education is summarized. Topics include key IT changes facing institutions, state and public-system perspectives on IT advancement, the continuing challenge of creating and maintaining an appropriate IT infrastructure, driving forces for IT use, the gap…