This Promising Practices report explores the civic learning and engagement efforts of Massachusetts' public higher education system in five areas: vision of Preparing Citizens as a core educational commitment, development of a state higher education Policy on Civic Learning, creation of civic engagement and service-learning course designations,…

Assessment plays a central role in evaluating and strengthening student learning in higher education, and sociology departments, in particular, have increasingly become interested in engaging in assessment activities to better understand students' learning. This qualitative study builds on previous research on assessment by asking what students in…

The 2017 Thought Leaders report focuses on "Transforming Facilities to Achieve Student Success." The report makes the case that student success starts with retention and graduation, but it can expand to include factors from personal career goals to social responsibility. A key message from the report is that through strategic investment…

Some higher education leaders have suggested that colleges and universities could generate state support if they were more productively engaged in addressing societal needs. This multi-case study examines how community engagement is expressed and understood at institutions that vary in their expected levels of state appropriations. The findings…

This research is a qualitative case study of graduate certificate programs offered in college counseling in the United States. This study presents historical and current information about eight different college counseling certificate programs and seven themes that describe these programs in the context of national college access and college…

The ground has shifted in fundamental ways in higher education, and it is becoming increasingly evident that strategic structural reorganization will play an important role in the financial survival of many institutions. Understanding the close links among strategy, structure, and the environment, it makes sense that organizational structure…

In higher education, current teaching evaluation models typically involve senior faculty evaluating junior faculty. However, there is evidence that peer-to-peer junior faculty observations and feedback may be just as effective. This descriptive case study utilized an inductive analysis to examine experiences of six special education early career…

America's institutions of higher education have been challenged to develop new strategies to improve the success of all students. With more and more students attending multiple institutions, improving the transfer process is key to ensuring all students succeed. AAC&U launched the Quality Collaboratives (QC) project in 2011 with support from…

Much anxiety surrounds the future of higher education in the United States. With escalating costs, tuition, and class sizes, and the increasing exclusion of many poor and minority students, higher education needs to become more accessible and sustainable. This paper defines five "abilities" for the sustainability of higher…

The purpose of this study was to remedy the paucity of knowledge about higher education's conflict resolution practice of online dispute resolution by providing an in-depth description of mediator and instructor online practices. Telephone interviews were used as the primary data collection method. Eleven interview questions were relied upon to…

Higher education institutions are facing increasing pressures to review their curriculum (Uchiyama and Radin 2009). The expectations of stakeholder groups, including students, parents and families, governments, employers and society in general have become increasingly explicit and targeted (Bamber et al. 2009). Universities are expected to play a…

In a first-of-its-kind partnership, Higher Education Partners, LLC (formerly The Princeton Review), a for-profit education corporation, invested millions of dollars to create a facility and underwrite expenses to address a shortage of educational programs at Bristol Community College, a Massachusetts community college, with revenue to be divided…

Since their inception, community colleges have included the transfer function as a central mission. However, arguments have been made contending that community colleges have systematically diverted students toward occupational education. In the 21st century, community colleges continue to contend with multiple missions and identities, especially…

This article examines Ronald Barnett's notion of an ontological turn in higher education as a language for framing the current existential demands and emerging learning needs of young adults. After presenting different interpretations of ontology, I make a case for how contemplative approaches can be applied to communication-based higher education…

This paper describes a case study of two pure mathematicians who flipped their lecture to teach matrix determinants in two large mathematics service courses (one at Stage I and the other at Stage II). The purpose of the study was to transform the passive lecture into an active learning opportunity and to introduce valuable mathematical skills,…