This collection of 12 author-contributed papers examines the notion of "academic community" within and among institutions of higher education. Papers are grouped into four sections which examine the idea of academic community, community through academic inquiry, community through curriculum, and community through organization,…

In the information age, communication studies become important. Communication departments must do more than emphasize communication competence and develop a professional identity. Changes brought about by the onset of the information age have affected the nature of society. Concomitant with changes in the workforce, the educational system became…

Increasingly, language is seen as the interpretive medium by which knowledge is constructed and communication is carried out within and across disciplines, as well as the way power and authority are exercised, renewed, and protected. This paper explores the prospects of raising awareness of this social and political view of language across the…

This guide presents alternatives to traditional inservice training for prekindergarten through grade 12 teachers; it lists a total of 113 institutes, fellowships, and awards that assist professional growth but are individually initiated and implemented. Following an introduction which explores various approaches to professional development and…

This paper reports on a longitudinal study, known as the Rancho Plan, begun in 1976 at a high school in California. The study was conducted to experiment with planned change in organizational and instructional structures. The data which have emerged offer teachers' recollections of what was and connect them to the long-term effects of a planned…

Two sets of analyses were done to examine the "holding power" of ninth grade courses. The first looked at the courses taken by high-risk students who were in the ninth grade in 1978-79. The second set of analyses looked at the courses taken by high-risk students from a dropout study who were in the ninth grade in 1979-80. Only three…

A teacher shortage survey was conducted in the fall of the 1988-89 school year in Connecticut to determine whether a critical shortage of teachers exists in particular areas of certification. Determination of shortage areas is based on the number of teacher vacancies, new certificates issued by the Department of Education during the previous year,…

This critical appraisal of North American doctoral programs contends that the degree is a seriously flawed academic institution. Recent scholarship and personal experiences are utilized to illustrate the contention that doctoral programs are inflexible, cumbersome, restrictive and wasteful, and, in most fields, do more harm than good. The history…

This manual explains the policies and procedures which guide the process of certification of teachers, special service personnel, and administrators in North Carolina. Key terminology is defined, regulations are clarified, exceptions to rules are noted as applicable, program areas are described, and appropriate forms for use in the application…

Language policy and planning has become a major concern of applied linguistics. Most language planning is institutional and not systemic, planning not the forms of the language but the relationship between the language and the individuals who use it. Institutional language planning, policy formation, provides the context for systemic language…

Several scholars in the field of teacher education recently have proposed the use of cases as a pedagogical strategy in teacher education. In this paper, Wilson discusses her preliminary attempts at using a case to teach prospective teachers about the role that subject matter knowledge plays in pedagogical thinking. The author begins the paper by…

This paper presents arguments for the notion that as a field of study, educational administration is necessarily undergoing change and development within the context of the culture in which it is being studied. For this reason the paper concludes that the field cannot justifiably be viewed as producing conclusive end products (rules for effective…

It is a good thing for the field of applied linguistics to adopt experimental methods of research where appropriate and to think more in terms of testable models of second language processing. However, there is a threat of psycholinguistics becoming the parent discipline, most likely temporary, of applied linguistics. This would be unwise for two…

Procedures used by 55 faculty in the evaluation of students in various academic areas in Indiana University were studied. The majority of respondents taught undergraduates, were male, and were experienced, full-time faculty. Business faculty used primarily essay tests and research papers, while physical science faculty used mostly objective tests,…

A study is reported in which the career satisfaction and sense of personal reward of college professors was examined. The study affirmed the value of the academic life felt by the respondents and revealed the capacity of the two primary tasks of teaching and research to commit individuals to the academic cause and thereby infuse life with meaning.…