Institutions of higher education face financial pressure to become self-sustaining (Gumport, 2001; 2000). This rapidly growing economic demand is negatively affecting the social mission of higher education (Kezar, 2004). Scholars suggest the implementation of a new model of higher education, one that blends a for-profit model with the traditional…

This paper details typical construction errors that occurred during the building of new media laboratories at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. Also defined are the steps and guidelines that need to be taken to protect specialized media facility designs and specifications from compromise or deletion by general project architects,…

In response to the nationwide trend toward increased financial pressures and growing demands by state legislatures for accountability, several large universities (including Indiana University) have adopted various forms of "responsibility center budgeting" (RCB), which has fiscal implications for programs in speech communication and…

A review of the research on the response of college faculties to innovation is followed by a discussion of the technology currently available to colleges and universities in the public sector, and six working assumptions for administrators with regard to the current state of instructional technology. The paper concludes with a brief description of…

In any public university system, the relationship between the state's demands for utility and accountability and the universities' needs for academic freedom and autonomy create serious tensions. Coordinating boards have not reached the positive potential that was foreseen in the author's book "Statewide Coordination of Higher Education." (MLW)

An on-going experiment in the classroom use of the Japanese quality circle concept of consensus and group management has been conducted for the past 2 years at the Ogontz Campus of Pennsylvania State University. Quality circles composed of the teacher and eight student volunteers meet weekly for 45 minutes, with each member informing three other…

This paper argues that a typical use of regression models to target student recruitment efforts is theoretically unsound and may therefore be operationally inefficient. It presents results from a study using a predictive model to identify the prospective students on whom recruitment efforts have the greatest impact. The model uses four kinds of…

Universities have failed to educate the public about the role academic institutions have in society. Most state legislatures forget what functions their state universities serve because of the constant struggle to raise money for college athletic programs. Journalism needs a set of standards that are shared in a genuine and realistic public sense.…

The paper disucsses the need for training in critical thinking and the effects of debate training across the curriculum as a teaching tool and learning mechanism. The debate training provided through the Oral Communication Program at Virginia's Radford University is described (design, implementation, results), along with data from a report on the…

The process of long-range planning, political considerations, and approaches to the publication of such plans, are examined, based on the experience at Western Carolina University, North Carolina, a public regional institution conferring bachelor's and master's degrees. A key element for a successful strategic planning effort is the involvement of…

An approach to obtain disciplinary specific salary information for the institution of higher education budget process by mid-winter is considered. The approach involves using current year institutional mean salaries and prior year relative average salaries by academic discipline to provide "current" salary comparisons by academic…

This paper examines issues involved in selecting a strategy that could be carried out by institutions to achieve salary equity between male and female faculty. It compares potential strategies based on equity of salary adjustments, political constraints, cost to the institution, and whether the plan removes inequities. Steps in determining…

Views on current problems and future challenges in higher education are provided by a former U.S. Department of Education official who also was president of Chicago State University. Among these views are that: educators should have the integrity to exclude from the university any student who shows no possibility of academic success, even with the…

Florida's mandate of open enrollment for the community colleges and maintenance of the state universities as a limited access system is examined from the perspectives of its origins, perpetuation, problems, and the need for articulation. (MSE)

Three years of helping faculty members at a state university learn computing technology yielded the following lessons: (1) for faculty members, the ownership of a computer is an emotional event during which computers are viewed successively as glorified typewriters, status symbols, and tools; (2) even to highly knowledgeable individuals, learning…