Effectively assessing higher education will require new partnerships, a close look at the goals of teaching and learning, and respect for each system's diversity. An arrangement through which institutions and state systems could work together in experimenting with assessment alternatives is advocated. (MLW)

Opinions about quality are seen as the only relevant measures of quality that can be collected. A different view of quality in higher education, and a different set of university rankings are proposed. A system that draws pairwise comparisons of university performance across nine disciplines is described. (MLW)

Discusses how revealing assessment results could be a public relations headache for public colleges and universities, or, instead, that requirements for public disclosure could offer opportunities for institutions to explain their goals and then act visibly to address any shortcomings. (EV)

Presents a brief history of the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), launched during a period of growth and turmoil in U.S. higher education. Discusses FIPSE's successes as it celebrates 30 years of helping colleges and universities assess and improve the quality of their services. (EV)

Examines effects of the state-driven assessment and accountability movements on the quality of teaching and learning in higher education. Depicts how reformers tried to give teaching and learning a more central role on college and university campuses. Concludes that such efforts have received only limited support by faculty and institutions, and…

The heart of teaching is how teachers feel about their students. The hidden fact about the teaching profession is that learners complicate it enormously. A teacher's obligation is to value students enough to value everything done for them. (MLW)

It is time for national scrutiny of the quality of higher education. Some indictments of higher education include: unqualified students; diluted standards, coddled faculty, little scholarly research, no quality control, inadequate measures of performance, declining academic freedom, and self-righteousness. (MLW)

Before more community colleges are created, those in existence should be evaluated to determine the actual impact of such institutions and the direction in which they should move. (HS)

Describes the current debate going on in Chinese political and educational circles regarding the quality of university education since the Cultural Revolution. Those being singled out for their bourgeois line are critical of such practices as nonacademic selection criteria and the weight given to practical experience in the shortened courses. (JT)

By modulating course requirements, effective classroom management is able to sustain respectable academic standards while making flexible concessions to student petitions. The author's name is a pseudonynm. (MLW)

The policies and high standards of Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela are related to the general state of higher education in South America. (LBH)

Noting continued need for high quality graduate schools to teach students to specialize and to expand their perspectives, the author comments on a new academic provincialism, characterized by hostility to research and the courting of student popularity, that threatens the future of quality graduate education. (JT)

Gifford and King debate the value of the bachelors degree in education. Abolition of the undergraduate degree in education is seen as essential to Gifford. King believes that a greater shortage of teachers could occur if colleges don't prepare teachers through their present modes. (MLW)

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) has issued a "social manifesto" on the future of higher education, "To Secure the Blessings of Liberty." It seeks to chronicle the fundamental changes in America's domestic environment and the resulting challenges to higher education. (MLW)

Making a list of essential information is seen as a hopelessly inadequate, and perhaps even dangerous, way to face America's educational problems. Opposition to E. D. Hirsch's book, CULTURAL LITERACY: WHAT EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO KNOW, is discussed. (MLW)