Reforming general education is challenging for institutions due to inertia, institutional politics, budgets, and structural barriers. Oregon State University recently adopted a new structure for its general education curriculum that increases access to high-impact practices, decreases overall credit hours in general education, and links directly…

By adding courses in math, science, English, foreign languages, and geography to their admission standards, colleges and universities in many states are fostering further fragmentation of high school curricula and forcing some schools to add class periods or short-change vocational, music, and art students. Michigan, Oregon, Colorado, and New York…

Over the past three decades, American higher education has witnessed a shift in demographics which has created a more diverse student body. However, many university campuses remain unsupportive or even hostile to minority faculty and students. This anthology introduces to readers the Difference, Power, and Discrimination (DPD) Program, a…

Higher education under State control and partial State support has been accepted in principle by each of the 48 States. The extent of support and the method of control vary greatly from State to State but there has been universal acceptance of the principle that higher education is at least in part a State responsibility. In carrying out this…

Higher education has related asynchronously to recent cycles in social movements affecting school reform. Current efforts in Oregon illustrate this pattern in public colleges. Although higher education is not likely to overcome its skepticism of reform dynamics, there is both reason and potential for promising alliances with schools. (Author/MSE)

This report of a 2-year study on public university responsiveness to academic and vocational reforms in public K-12 schools and community colleges focuses on: (1) how state universities respond to curricular experiments, and (2) the difficulties reformers encounter with universities. The report presents a brief summary of previous progressive…

This report presents the framework for a legislatively mandated proficiency-based approach to admissions at Oregon's eight public baccalaureate-granting institutions. The goal of the report is to present a systems-level description of why and how a proficiency-based admissions system should operate. Part 1 considers the implications of the…

As part of a series of field hearings examining the issue of education reform and the preparedness of the work force, testimony was heard on the need to expand higher education opportunities for minorities and nontraditional college students. Oregon, in particular, faces these questions because the state's economy is expected to change from…