Author compares today's colleges with psychiatric hospitals. (HS)

Cultural diversity is an urgent challenge to higher education institutions requiring a communitywide coordinated effort among community sectors. Pluralism is not an end in itself, but a means to the larger purpose of gaining intellectual growth and human insight. Diversity without community is anarchy; community without diversity is fantasy. (MSE)

Uses 9 years of applications of award finalists for the Hesburgh Award for innovation in undergraduate teaching to examine leading-edge efforts to improve teaching and learning in 2- and 4-year colleges and universities. Describes efforts in three major categories: improving teaching, redesigning courses, and changing the learning environment of…

Descriptions of Juilliard's reputation, student selection process, staff, and study program illustrate the pressures experienced by the student. The school emphasizes the traditional, nineteenth century role of the musician, which is thought to promote an aloof and remote sensibility of people to art. (LBH)

Colleges' and universities' commitment to community service is largely lip service. Conditions that would encourage more than just the very committed do not exist on most campuses. Communities are not voids to be organized and filled by the more knowledgeable; they are well-developed, complex, and sophisticated organisms that demand to be…

Criticism of "political correctness" on college campuses is no longer an internal debate about curriculum. Journalists and politicians have entered the debate, and the entire enterprise of the university, including healthy skepticism, has come under attack. The challenge is to make the university a place where different communities are…

The debate over "political correctness" in higher education policy concerning cultural diversity masks the real issue of educating people to overcome cultural fear and prejudice. Johns Hopkins University's (Maryland) Human Relations and Campus Diversity Committee is an example of an emerging campus forum for students to discuss issues of…

A conversation among senior student affairs professionals concerning college cultural pluralism and "political correctness" illustrates three stages of paradigm shift in higher education, including (1) a single dominant culture, (2) multiple cultures existing alongside each other; and (3) multiple cultures retaining their identities but…

Constituting only 3% of U.S. institutions of higher education, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) enroll about 16% of black students in college, and award about 27% of all bachelor's degrees to African-Americans; of African-Americans earning doctorates, 35% have baccalaureate origins in HBCUs. These institutions foster student…

The educational philosophy at Hampshire College is reviewed along with a report of its current status. Student and faculty independence are emphasized. (LBH)

A recently released National Institute of Education publication about the state of U.S. undergraduate education that gives 27 suggestions for their improvement is summarized and discussed. A number of criticisms are offered, including lack of documentation. (MSE)

The University Centers for Rational Alternatives (UCRA) constitutes lobbies for rational thought and academic freedom in the university community. (Author/PG)

Discussion of the Total Quality Management approach looks at elements that can and can not be applied in the university context. The approach is seen to offer a technique and justification for constantly seeking improvement, fostering willingness to change, distributing decision making, promoting positive attitudinal change, and shifting focus…

By focusing more on the educational values of community life and development of the whole student, as exemplified in the tradition of residential colleges, educators can help make the modern U.S. university more student centered, building characters and sharpening minds. (MSE)