Forty-four students at a mid-sized urban university were given a pseudo-word spelling test to explore the relationship between their spelling ability and their placement in college writing courses. Half the students required a developmental writing course and half took college-level classes. Number of correct (i.e., orthographically possible)…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to add to the emerging literatures on organizational learning and strategic management by developing a practice perspective on strategic organizational learning (SOL). While the literature on SOL has been growing, much of it has targeted exclusively practitioners and has not yet elaborated the mechanics and…

Decades of research have documented the positive impacts of cooperative learning on student success: increased learning, retention through graduation, improved critical thinking, and intrinsic motivation. One cooperative teaching technique, however, has received relatively little attention. In the two-stage cooperative, group, or…

Differences in curriculum and teaching styles across disciplines in higher education courses are also evident in online courses. This study used two widely available sources of data, CMS tool usage logs and course evaluations, to analyze differences between online courses in disciplinary quadrants (hard-pure, hard-applied, soft-pure, soft-applied)…

This article addresses the debate on college literacy achievement by focusing on teacher education students. In addition to acquiring the academic tools for teaching, many of those students might need to remediate their literacy gaps while mastering graduate-level academic writing skills. This study inquired into variables that might help predict…

This study investigated the role that computer technology plays in transforming the learning process in higher education. Specifically, we looked at the relationship between computer-technology use, active learning, and perceived course effectiveness. The sample consisted of 1966 students in 81 graduate and undergraduate classes at a large, urban…

This article examines the efforts of a team of educators in a mid-western urban university in Omaha, Nebraska, to understand why so few persons of color enter the teaching profession and to identify actions that can be taken to attract them. The questions that were posed included the following: (1) What does past research say about recruiting…

This case describes the work of two educational leadership professors who have been asked to serve as outsider reviewers of an educational leadership department at a large urban university. The department has a number of problems, and the university's provost seems intent on closing it. The provost's view of the department has been shaped in part…

Looks at issues of college collaboration, asking questions about appropriateness, cost, and impact, and suggesting probable outcomes and necessary conditions for success. Drawing on organizational theories, makes a case for the natural and inevitable development of strong individual campuses, and suggests that collaboration can be constructed as…

Examines several efforts to assess the contributions of urban universities to the individuals and communities they serve, including the Restructuring for Urban Student Success Project, the Urban Universities Portfolio Project, and the Urban University Statistical Portrait. Suggests the primary benefit will be institutional self-reflection rather…

The Urban Professional Development School (PDS) Network represents a group of professional educators from a large, urban university and six public and private schools in the same metropolitan area committed to providing progressive models of professional development for teachers across the lifespan. This paper demonstrates how participants in this…

The traditional pastoralism of American higher education has interfered with efforts to develop an urban mission for the university. In addition, current open-door metaphors of access, political trends, and media coverage are promulgating closed-door, wall-building rhetoric and policies. Now is the time to counter antiurban attitudes by reviving…

Examined for more than 3 years 8 private colleges that had received an "Implementing Urban Missions" grant from the Council of Independent Colleges. Found that private institutions have greater and more natural campus consensus than most public institutions on their civic responsibilities, but capacity and resources are often a…

Evaluated the impact of printed promotional materials on the recruitment of college freshmen using focus groups of students attending a large, southern metropolitan university. Students provided detailed suggestions on ways to improve the method of distribution, graphic design, and content of the materials. (Author/DB)

This study examines the risk for alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems resulting from alcohol plus marijuana use compared to alcohol-only use. Data are from telephone interviews with 1113 randomly selected college students attending two large urban universities in the southwestern United States. Alcohol and marijuana users (dual users) were more…