We cannot continue to define academic quality using standards set from a limited perspective and expect students from diverse backgrounds and cultures to meet them. To increase minority participation in graduate schools, institutions should better understand minority standardized test performance and better prepare minority undergraduates for…

Interdisciplinary policies and practices at the University of Montreal were studied to determine their effectiveness. The three study objectives were to: (1) determine the magnitude of the range set up by the department degree structure to give student majors an opportunity to take courses outside their basic discipline; (2) assess the degree of…

Academic honesty/dishonesty at North Carolina State University was studied through a survey of undergraduate students and teaching faculty at the beginning of the fall 1975 semester. Information is presented on the percentage of students who have cheated, faculty estimation of cheating, estimated percentage of cheating falling into selected…

This study investigated an apparent dilemma suggested by previous research on faculty orientations toward students and academic standards. Some research suggests that encouraging faculty to be student-centered is an effective way to increase student learning and development, while other research indicates that being student-centered leads to…

Focusing on current grading practices, this report details a survey of 443 respondents from both four- and two-year institutions of higher education. The data are compared with a 1973-74 survey of the same institutions. Findings show that in general more stringent policies are enforced in the use of nontraditional grading practices, in making-up…

The performance of three groups of mature age unmatriculated students at the University of New South Wales was studied. The first group consisted of 43 students in their second year at the university. Performance of these students was creditable over a wide range of subjects, with a 76 percent clear pass rate. Of the 63 first-year students in the…

The image and reputation of General College (GC) of the University of Minnesota was studied in 1981 through telephone interviews of 619 students, faculty, and counselors. Eighty-six percent of GC students, 87 percent of the university counselors, and 63 percent of high school counselors rated GC as very important. Seventy-seven percent of GC…

The trends from 1970-75 in course-by-course grading at a large public urban university are described. A total of 144 undergraduate courses were analyzed to determine if systematic grade inflation was occurring. Multiple linear regressions were fitted to more than 125,000 final course grades by courses. Most course grading patterns showed little…