We are all part of different communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) that impact who it is possible for us to be and become. Through the process of self-study described in this paper, we seek to understand our personal experiences within a particular teacher education program, but also offer insight into the social and political complexities of…

This study offers a critical policy analysis of the 2014 teacher preparation regulation proposed by the federal government, designed to alter the higher education accountability system. Using frame analysis and Burke's Accountability Triangle (2005), we reviewed 74 policy documents and tools, media artifacts, and position statements relevant to…

Over the course of the 20th century, American Presidential campaign rhetoric has undergone various metamorphoses. Most of these changes can be traced to developments in technology and media. Furthermore, many of these changes have had the unfortunate effect of undermining a rational choice of the electorate, and thus threaten our democracy. Like…

Basic design and implementation issues encountered in providing academic support systems are examined. "Academic support systems" describes the growing class of university computing that is being developed to integrate administrative computing environments. These systems may be typically characterized by the activities that center around…

This paper describes changes in German higher education as a consequence of the reunification of East and West Germany, focusing particularly on personal evaluation of East German faculty and assessment of their scientific expertise. An introduction reviews the major historical events that have shaped the current situation. The paper states that…

This paper recounts the legal, political, and educational changes in former East Germany as the nation has become reunified, and considers the implications of reunification for institutional research at East German universities. After a brief sketch of legal, geographic, and demographic highlights, the decrepit conditions of East German university…

This paper provides an introductory examination of the current situation among postsecondary faculty in China. It begins by sketching the intellectual structure as it has waxed and waned during the 40-year history of New China. The bulk of the paper then addresses the current conditions of life and work for those intellectuals who are college and…

The history and influence of the Faculty Committee for Self-Governance, a group formed to oppose any form of unionization at New York University (NYU), are examined. The group was initially formed to support the "no representative" position in collective bargaining elections held in 1973-1974, and later opposed unionization again in…

Conditions in academic employment associated with increasingly tense political struggles for anthropology departments are discussed. Personnel policies for state-supported institutions are cited as areas of major controversy and the effect of student enrollments on the setting of staffing-level parameters is emphasized. Politics internal to…

Political repression of faculty members and the use of an archive of records to help remedy this phenomenon are discussed. The focus is the use of coercion to compel the behavior of politically dissident faculty members, particularly by the use of dismissal. The archive of records would indicate faculty members fired, not hired, or harassed for…

Academic freedom and its impact on scholarship are considered in this University of Toledo's Honors Day address. As introduction, some significant points of the University's history that portray its commitment to academic freedom are cited, along with trends affecting academic freedom in the United States as a whole. It is suggested that academic…

The manner in which the University of New Mexico developed from an undergraduate teaching institution in the direction of a graduate research university during 1967-1978 was studied, using an ethnohistorical research approach. A combination of qualitative research commonly associated with the participant-observation approach was employed. A large…

The central issue discussed in this paper is the pressing need for specialized inservice and preservice graduate training for community college instructors. It is proposed that the large majority of successful inservice and preservice staff development programs now in existence in comprehensive universities are not due to the foresight or…

Among the recent changes to existing Pennsylvania state education regulations was the change from Carnegie units, or time spent in the classroom, as a requirement for graduation to mastery of student learning outcomes as a requirement for graduation. Once the changes became law, school districts became responsible for designing outcomes that fit…

Decision-making and the models of decision-making that people carry in their minds were assessed. Participants in a public policy decision involving early childhood education were mapped onto four frequently used models of decision making: the rational, the bureaucratic, organizational process (Allison, 1971) and the garbage can or organized…