The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered unprecedented disruptions in higher education, forcing swift changes to core operations, particularly within divisions of student affairs. A review of the literature reveals COVID-19 presented many unique challenges for students and student affairs professionals, including disruptions in traditional…

Concerns about alcohol use at college events have been documented for students, administrators, faculty, and the community across the history of higher education in America. Concerns range from the scrapes and bruises related to events that encourage or allow student inebriation, to student alcohol poisoning. Yet, a host of campuses have developed…

In 2013, Chancellor DuBois convened a Task Force on Diversity with the aim of making the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) a model for diversity by "increasing the demographic diversity of the VCCS so that teaching faculty and leaders look more like the communities we serve" (Chancellors Diversity Task Force, 2014, p. 3). The hard…

The reasons a student may choose to enroll and matriculate at a particular postsecondary institution are many. Yet a sense of belonging and a strong emotional connection often supply all the incentive students need. Campus environments play a central role in the college choice process as the ecology, climate, and culture of an institution…

With colleges and universities struggling to minimize the effects of the troubled economy, it certainly isn't an easy time to be a CIO. This article presents an interview with a panel of higher education IT leaders about best practices for steering IT through economic crisis. Panelists included Jan Biros, associate VP for instructional technology…

"Catalyst" is a publication of the U.S. Department of Education's Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention. This issue contains the following articles: (1) Redefining Resources For Prevention; (2) Message From Kevin Jennings, OSDFS Assistant Deputy Secretary; (3) Environmental Management…

In 2004, Lumina Foundation for Education launched "Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count," a national initiative aimed at improving success among community college students, particularly low-income students and students of color. Now encompassing more than 130 institutions in 24 states and the District of Columbia, Achieving the…

Although any new undertaking is exciting because of the opportunities it may bring, the transition to college life also brings new pressures and uncertainties. From the shelter of home, young people emerge into a new culture, with a new environment for success. Here they are their own masters, often far from the vigilance of parents and the…

This essay examines the ways in which nonprofit universities increasingly emulate businesses, focusing on two of the most direct forms of emulation: the creation of internal university markets at the University of Southern California through adoption of variants of resource center management (RCM) and the privatization of public higher education…