The University of Massachusetts system launched a legislative "Report Card" project in an effort to pre-empt accountability mandates and improve institutional performance. In the process, the University developed legislative survey and focus group tools, empowered a system-wide University Institutional Research Group; and developed peer…

This study examined the role of college faculty work outside their higher education institution. The study took place at a mid-sized comprehensive state university in the rural Midwest. Faculty (N=400) were surveyed regarding the critical events in their careers. Analysis of the 179 usable questionnaires involved grouping of career events…

This report addresses the relationship between tuition, financial aid, and access to public higher education through an economic analysis of data from individual states from 1976 to 1993. The analysis focuses on states, rather than the individual, as the unit of observation and how state policies regarding the setting of tuition rates and…

In the mid-1980s, a community college in a parochial Appalachian town became a state university. The new university was created at the behest of a powerful state politician despite the opposition of the faculty, administration, and board of the community college. A college of education was created and an interdisciplinary general education program…

This paper examines the kinds of persons that engineering education produces, focusing on cultural identities related to gender issues. It is based on survey questionnaires, interviews, and observations of 274 first-year and fourth-year engineering students at a state university known for its concern about the education of women engineers. The…

This paper reports on the initiatives, policies, and problems encountered by Clarion University (Pennsylvania) in its efforts to plan to increase equity and diversity. The development of the initiative is reviewed from its beginning in 1990 through conferences held in 1992 and 1997, and including the development of six major goals; a meeting on…

This paper describes the results of research conducted on the variation in structure and function of institutional research offices at 55 public and private postsecondary educational institutions in Georgia. The study examined five issues central to institutional research: (1) professional role identity, (2) location of the office in the…

Two faculty members from a California community college and a nearby state university worked together to articulate placement and assessment procedures in writing courses at the two institutions to better serve students transferring from one to the other. Historically the institutions, Bakersfield College (California) (BC) and California State…

The study reported in this paper sought to clarify the nature and form of faculty scholarship by identifying its dimensions and components from the pont of view of faculty at a large public doctoral granting institution. A survey instrument was developed listing 249 attributes of faculty scholarship, and 340 faculty members (66% of the total…

The study investigated the pervasiveness of administrator and faculty involvement in, understanding of, and support for outcomes assessment in Virginia's public colleges and universities and explored critical factors influencing administrator and faculty support of outcomes assessment. Data were collected through mailed questionnaires and…

Measures of state regulation of universities were studied to determine characteristics of states that may be associated with regulatory tendencies, as well as college characteristics that may protect them from regulation. The focus was academic, budgetary, and personnel regulation. Three national data sources were utilized, along with…

The Language and International Trade Program instituted in 1978 at Eastern Michigan University enrolls three-fourths of the university's undergraduate and graduate foreign language and bilingual studies majors and has become the largest business language studies program in the United States. Important program components include an international…

Tenure and attrition rates within the Florida State University System (SUS) were studied. Attention was directed to attrition of newly hired tenure-earning faculty members who began employment at an SUS institution in either 1976, 1977, or 1978. Each faculty group was traced from date of hire through the seventh year of employment or until they…

Seven papers from the 1987 CAUSE conference's Track VI, Hardware/Software Strategies, are presented. They include: "Integrated Systems--The Next Steps" (Morris A. Hicks); "Administrative Microcomputing--Roads Traveled, Lessons Learned" (David L. Smallen); "Murphy's First Law and Its Application to Administrative…

State colleges and universities (SUs) are being forced by critics of higher education to reassess themselves and redirect their efforts. There is a movement to discover a simplistic and valid means of measuring excellence in higher education. Measuring student outcomes cuts through all the difficulties created by more standard attempts to find a…