Admission professionals have come to recognize the potential of widening the admission criteria beyond standard academic measures-- such as high school transcripts, grade point average, and summative scores on college entrance exams--to understand student contexts, mindsets, and "college-ready" competencies, such as higher-order thinking…

Chapter 1 is The Effect of Honors College Participation on Student Outcomes. Honors education refers to programs for high achieving students at U.S. post-secondary institutions. These programs provide high achieving students benefits such as the ability to enroll in exclusive courses with small class sizes, to live in special dorms, and to enroll…

The graduate enrollment management (GEM) landscape is rapidly changing as faculty and administrators recognize biases that may affect the graduate admissions process. At the same time, there is growing recognition and increased effort to advance inclusive excellence in higher education. Much of this work has been done at the undergraduate level…

With a decision pending in two lawsuits challenging race-conscious admissions practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), many observers are predicting that the US Supreme Court will significantly limit, if not completely prohibit, the use of race in college and university admissions. However if the United…

Although affirmative action in college admissions has not been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the consideration of race in admissions has been banned in nine states--in six of them by public vote. This article analyzes the campaigns to ban affirmative action in California and Michigan as a battle between interest groups. The…

This paper outlines current trends, progress, and possibilities for fostering more authentic ways to assess students' competencies and mastery of skills needed for college, work, and civic life in the 21st century. It provides an introduction to performance assessments and their value. The authors highlight efforts to develop such assessments in…

Since Jerry Herron begins his forum essay, "Notes toward an Excellent Marxist-Elitist Honors Admissions Policy," with his anecdotal True Genealogical Confessions, Jeffery Portnoy, writes here that he feels feel obligated to begin in a similar mode. One side of Portnoy's family was in the real estate business in St. Louis, and the other…

This essay demonstrates that the honors community is still primarily focused on maintaining the highest levels of academic quality and integrity, but this focus is in sharp contrast to the national dialogue outside academia that more often focuses on mere completion or credentials. The author, Jerry Herron of the honors college at Wayne State…

A group of private liberal arts colleges in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, formed a voluntary association called the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) in 1962 based on their self-perceived shared interests and missions. These institutions included Albion College, Antioch College, Denison University, DePauw University, Earlham College, Hope…

What explains the rise of race-conscious affirmative action policies in undergraduate admissions? The dominant theory posits that adoption of such policies was precipitated by urban and campus unrest in the North during the late 1960s. Based on primary research in a sample of 17 selective schools, we find limited support for the dominant theory.…

The Supreme Court has granted review for the 2012 term in the case "Fisher v. University of Texas." Abigail Fisher, a rejected white applicant to the University of Texas, has challenged the use of racial and ethnic admission preferences, which the Court had allowed in its 2003 decision involving the University of Michigan law school,…

The literature on teacher preparation programs in the United States is extensive. However, there is limited scientifically based research on what kind of program produces effective teachers; rather, the literature consists mostly of calls for change in teacher preparation programs. Almost all experts agree that major changes are needed in these…

Numerous legal scholars and social scientists have highlighted the ways in which research has informed judicial decision making. Because, in part, of convincing empirical research presented in several landmark cases (e.g., "Grutter v. Bollinger," 2003; "Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1,"…

Most recently, many higher education institutions have continued to struggle to answer the question of whether they should promote diversity as a central value of the university or protect themselves from legal challenge by avoiding the inclusion of diversity initiatives. In this article, the authors first provide several examples documenting how…

In this article, the author comments on the issue of race and education in America. The author predicts that although the Supreme Court's recent ruling sheds some welcome light on affirmative action for higher education, the debate over the merit and methods of diversifying the student body will continue. By proactively addressing diversity,…