The University of Rochester has developed a third-year medical school clerkship in which students spend the second half of the clerkship in the offices of practicing internists. Participating faculty are carefully chosen and trained. Experience indicates the approach is feasible, academically effective, and acceptable to students and faculty.…

The use of the Absence Registration System (ARS), a computer-assisted system that supports registration of absent students, and its effects on truancy were studied in 30 Dutch urban secondary schools. Reasons why results do not show a significant reduction in absenteeism are discussed. (SLD)

A university president emeritus offers lessons on effective leadership, focusing on five areas presidents often neglect: personal exhaustion; muddled or lack of priorities; relationships with family members and friends; personal isolation; and intellectual starvation. Suggested antidotes include serious reading, continued teaching, participation…

In the new health care environment, academic health center (AHC) faculty must transcend the outdated view that the roles of scholar, scientist, and healer are in opposition to those of leader and manager. If AHCs are to survive and prosper through their current cultural transition, faculty must understand all these roles as part of their…

Presents an analysis of the Internet Public Library (IPL) from an economic perspective, using the model of the cost-minimizing firm. Highlights include application of the model to the IPL, analysis of revenue and cost in the reference department, analysis of reference statistics, and unit cost of reference service. (AEF)

Describes steps followed by Western Carolina University's College of Business (North Carolina) in changing a traditional on-campus graduate program to a distance-learning environment: evaluating current mission, customer needs, and program to determine goals; forming a cross-disciplinary team; developing a program structure, including…

Explores teachers' reactions to changing management cultures and argues for a complex reading of their responses. Utilizes data from several ethnographic studies that examined primary school teachers' reactions to the fact that the strictures and obligations of their vocation have become more professional. Many older teachers left whereas younger…

Analyzes the discourse on individual schools' autonomy in developing their own profiles, and the withdrawal of the state, to the point of privatizing the school system against the background trend of increasing social and economic segregation. Defends the school system's equalizing function against neo-liberal trends in school policy and theory.…

A survey of 692 business-administration graduate students in four countries (Canada, Poland, Latvia, Philippines) indicates that students from different countries assign different rankings to the importance of business-administration courses in the curriculum, group courses into different thematic groups, and prefer different instructional…

The president of a historically black college provides his personal perspective on the evolution of race and affirmative action issues in higher education in the United States within the context of broader social change and activism. Continuing problems and successes in the movement toward cultural diversity in higher education are examined. (MSE)

Describes the exchange program between the Virginia Council for International Education (VaCIE) and Cheshire Education Management Programme (CEMP). The program pairs teaching and professional faculty and administrators within the Virginia Community College System with their counterparts in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland for two-week study…

Gives an overview of the Ball State University (Indiana) academic assessment program, from its origins through present and future efforts. Several current assessment activities are described--university-wide, in general education, and discipline-specific. Areas of strength in the program and challenges to conducting successful assessment are…

The president of California State University, Northridge, at the time of the 1994 earthquake reflects on the decisions she made following the disaster, concluding that leadership in such a crisis is dependent on an individual's value system and that leadership is seen in performance, not position. Specific examples are discussed, including…

The role of the college athletic coach has changed substantially in recent decades, with the ideal of the coach as an educator obsolescent. Institutions must work with the National Collegiate Athletic Association and coaches' associations for reform, addressing three major issues: need for a better hiring process, provision of meaningful…

It is argued that colleges and universities can become more productive by enhancing the efficiency of student learning. This requires both acceleration of learning through individually paced mastery learning, better academic focus, year-round schooling, and an earlier start to graduate and professional education. Eight strategies for enhancing…