Given its ongoing struggles at attaining demographic diversity and its key role in nations' economies, the engineering workforce receives considerable attention from researchers and policymakers. Yet, prior studies and STEM recruitment initiatives have often underemphasized the variety among available engineering jobs and careers. It therefore…

Google Scholar and academic library discovery systems are both popular resources among academic users for finding scholarly information. By conducting an online survey with 975 users from more than 20 public research universities across the United States, this study comparatively investigates how and why academic users use these two resources.…

We use data from 2015-2016 to document faculty representation and wage gaps by race-ethnicity and gender in six fields at selective public universities. Consistent with widely available information, Black, Hispanic, and female professors are underrepresented and White and Asian professors are overrepresented in our data. Disadvantaged minority and…

This paper identifies approaches, challenges, and best practices related to planning and designing today's academic library learning spaces. As part of the Project Information Literacy (PIL) Practitioner Series, qualitative data is presented from 49 interviews conducted with a sample of academic librarians, architects, and library consultants.…

This report examines provisional admission as an initiative that can expand four-year college access and success for students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Provisional admission policies and programs enable students to enroll at an institution under specific conditions. Students are often required to meet certain academic…

Many U.S. colleges and universities have established student learning outcomes for diversity education in their general education programs. These education goals, frequently developed for assessment or other policy purposes, convey a range of possible purposes for diversity and multicultural learning. The manner in which these purposes are…

Outsourcing--defined as an "institution's decision to contract with an external organization to provide a traditional function or service" (IHEP, 2005)--is nothing new to higher education. For decades, institutions have been "contracting out" or "privatizing" a variety of operational functions, hoping to reduce costs,…

American public higher education is in trouble. Besieged by declining state and Federal support for more than 30 years, public colleges and universities are facing a "game-changing" set of challenges that threaten to alter the very nature of the institutions. As two recessions withered state budgets in the first decade of the 21st…

This report lists 11 budgetary principles for higher education institutions, and presents the results of a survey which examined whether the practices of four-year public higher education institutions in California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin followed these precepts during the fiscal problems of the early 1990s. The 11…

In the first decade of the 21st century, the nation, the states, and colleges and universities began to grapple with the challenges of globalization, changing demography, the implications of the digital era, and of a less expansive public sector. Although not a transformative period for higher education, the decade saw significant innovations in…

Every state in the union has "sunshine" laws that apply to public higher education, and the leaders of public institutions deal directly or indirectly with these laws almost daily. Sunshine statutes go to the very heart of institutional functioning, influencing presidential searches and selection, board deliberations, research and…

This study examined how closely 11 accepted principles for managing budgets were followed at 98 public college campuses during the first half of the 1990s, a period of budget problems. The colleges reviewed were in six states: California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin. The study found that (1) planning was not inclusive,…

This study examined the impact of state budget cuts on public colleges and universities in six states, focusing on the effects of such cuts on institutional priorities and plans, tuition and fees, and educational quality. Five state higher education finance officers, 12 state college or university system finance officers, and 98 college or…

This proceedings document discusses academic leadership in uncertain times, the need for a cooperative model of collective bargaining to provide administration and faculty the flexibility required to respond to changing times, who should bargain for whom and for what, readiness of the next generation to lead, and retirement issues for college…

"Chronicle of Higher Education" presents an abundant source of news and information for college and university faculty members and administrators. This July 2, 2004 issue of "Chronicle of Higher Education" includes the following articles: (1) "The Provost as Gatekeeper: A Former Provost Offers Advice on Managing the…