The landscape of higher education in the United States currently comprises 5918 institutions serving approximately 18.1 million students. Among them, 1833 are small institutions with full-time equivalent enrollments of 3000 or less. In this article, the authors examine financial and enrollment challenges facing small institutions and the potential…

Through the lens of change management theory, this article focuses on transforming institutional culture at small institutions through grant opportunities. Federal discretionary grants, such as the Department of Education's Title III, Strengthening Institution Program (SIP), provide financial resources for new initiatives to improve student…

A small university in rural Texas explored developing a criminal justice bachelor's degree curriculum through the lens of perspective transformation focusing on humanity courses, resulting in a paradigm shift away from a traditional criminal justice baccalaureate degree curriculum. This article addresses the university's journey in developing the…

The authors document in detail how the entrepreneurship program was created at Babson College in the 1970s. They recount the early history of Babson's program because the school was one of the first, if not the first, to make a huge institutional commitment that led to entrepreneurship becoming a core part of its academic programs. At the time,…

This article explores the dynamics of student engagement in small institutions, emphasizing their unique community-centered approach. Particularly in the post-pandemic era, where personalized support systems have become crucial, small institutions are reevaluating their strategies to enhance student empowerment and connection. Key aspects examined…

Small institutions are in a unique and perhaps necessary position to innovate as the field changes, resources falter, and the needs of the next generation of students and families become apparent and quite different from those supported by our historical structures and service modalities. This article examines the literature surrounding historical…

With increasing threats to democracy, we call for communication educators to renew and re-examine their commitment to advancing civic engagement in the basic course. Given recent scholarly criticism that civic engagement pedagogies falsely present democratic practice as neutral or apolitical and reinforce the status quo, we set an agenda for basic…

Genre, defined as a "staged goal-oriented social process" (Martin, 2009), has long stood as a key principle in second-language writing instruction. This article presents the principles underpinning genre theory as it relates to the language curriculum and the five phases of genre-based L2 writing pedagogy. This pedagogy provides the…

Contrary to the narrative of collapse that attends much of the discussion of the humanities today, recent data suggest that for many programs in the United States, at least, stagnation is the real challenge. Committed to teaching models that support faculty rather than student needs, graduate programs, in particular, are struggling to extend their…

Small mid-tier private schools tend to have modest endowments, and after decades of tuition hikes comparable to those of their elite peers, they are now at high risk of pricing themselves out of the market. The fiscal crisis of small private colleges will play out differently across the nation. States vary in their demographic projections and the…

This chapter examines the current state of college unions at small colleges and offers a forecast of their future.

Although several ethical decision-making methods exist, there is a dearth of research evaluating their use and effectiveness. This study examined graduate student papers by both art therapy and counseling students that applied either the DO ART model (developed for art therapists) or the ABCDE worksheet (for general mental health usage) to case…

Much of existing assessment and instructional design strategies revolve around the use of learning objectives. Learning objectives are used by faculty, by instructional designers, by accreditors, by assessment offices, and by students. But even as the use of learning objectives becomes more widespread, the definition and purpose have remained…

Data from the National Science Foundation (2014) indicate that at least one PhD in economics was awarded to a Swarthmore College graduate in every year since 1966. The authors' purpose in this article is to consider factors that may have contributed to the high number of PhDs in economics awarded to Swarthmore College graduates. While there is…

This paper describes the academic consultation services offered to students with disabilities (SWD) at a small university. Each SWD is entitled to meet regularly with an academic consultant. The consultants are trained in offering a variety of services, including organization/time management, note-taking/reading comprehension strategies, goal…