Colleges and universities, once largely homogeneous communities, are being transformed by the new diversity of their populations, and sense of community is endangered by racial and ethnic grouping. "Emancipatory knowledges" (critical, feminist, postcolonial views of community) provide a framework and language for building a community…

Assessments of campus climates can be difficult and be accomplished by several methods, according to purpose. However, a well-designed survey can yield comprehensive and substantive data about the characteristics of people in the institution, workings of programs and policies, and interaction of these elements to inform institutional decision…

A study integrated the major propositions of 2 theories of college persistence (Tinto's and Bean's) and used the resulting framework to survey a population of 466 first-year college students at 1 university. Findings supported most of the hypothesized links between the models and revealed a complex role for environmental factors in retention.…

In 2006, it was determined that Maine's new community college system--off to a remarkably promising start--was already at a critical juncture: nearing or exceeding capacity in many of their most popular programs, straining facilities and the ability of staff to deliver high quality programs and services, and struggling to meet the demand of many…

As the United States moves toward becoming a "minority-majority" country, what more can--and should--college presidents and governing boards do to provide low-income students and students of color with a pipeline to high-quality education? Ongoing discourse about shifting demographics locally and nationally must be built into…

The aim of this study was to discover and better understand through a case study, the phenomenon of academic staff integration in a post-merger Chinese university. The analysis was undertaken by using a cultural framework derived from relevant literature. The results indicate that adjustments to academic values and beliefs, "the cultural…

The instructional relevance of four educational philosophies--idealism, realism, experimentalism, and existentialism--to the undergraduate social work curriculum design and educational milieu is explored. The relationship of the problem-solving focus of experimentalism to social work intervention is discussed. (MSE)

Develops a general framework and matrix for assessing ethical behavior from a campus perspective and illustrates how visual anthropology can be used to implement the matrix. Claims that indices, such as photographs on bulletin boards, architecture, graffiti, and other environmental elements, can portray a campus's ethical climate. (RJM)

Asserts that the diversity that law schools strive for today must envision much more than a student body that adequately reflects the larger community: the next step must involve the embrace of structural, curricular, and pedagogical innovation. Attention should be focused on the quality of interactions once minority groups are inside the…

The increasing number of minority group students in colleges and universities mandates that student activities be designed to promote cultural pluralism and interaction among all students. (MSE)

The debate over whether patents should be granted to the first applicant to file, advocated by some industrialists, or to the applicant who first invented is examined. Relevant patent priority laws are outlined, arguments on both sides are presented, the arguments are related to universities, and ways in which university concerns can be met and…

In financially troubled times, the college or university must develop a culture of leadership. Leadership development programming can strengthen the institution by fostering a team approach to solving institutional problems, by increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of human resources, and by creating a pool of qualified professionals for…

Data from a national faculty survey and other research on faculty motivation give insight into the difficulty of categorizing faculty work and productivity into discrete categories. The studies examine how time is experienced by faculty and used within the academic culture. Implications for definition of workload are examined. (MSE)

This article suggests that campus architecture should be grounded in research on behavior, especially intellectual work behavior. College campus planners can design buildings to foster collegiality and productivity by including spaces that encourage chance meetings, informal discussions, intellectual exchanges, and views of other persons at work.…

Feminist scholarship, as a contemporary current in academic life, is analyzed from the perspective of research on the formation of intentional intellectual communities. Interview data reveal that faculty conceive of their commitments and sense of community in ways that do not always correspond to idealized conceptions of academic organization.…