The rapid growth since the 1980s of the use of total quality workforce methods in U.S. companies has contributed to the movement for integrating academic and vocational/technical education. This integration seeks to improve the intellectual capabilities of students through applied and contextual learning and thus make them more capable of adapting…

Attracting and assuring the success of students of color requires the rethinking of curricula to meet the needs of underrepresented, underprepared, and economically disadvantaged students. General education offerings should be restructured to give students the skills and resources needed to make sense out of their particular gender and ethnicity,…

This issue of the Center for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC) "Bulletin" describes various academic support services provided by community colleges to strengthen instruction and to assist staff members in their own development. Introductory comments discuss the relationship between academic support services and classroom instruction, with…

English departments in Arab universities have been in an uncertain state from their beginning for lack of specific policy on the emphasis to be given to English or comparative literature, English or general linguistics, or a combination. Leanings toward English literature have always been evident, but course offerings and faculty recruitment show…

Oakes College at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) is a residential liberal arts college for individuals from minority groups, "new students" who are from poverty backgrounds or are the first in their families to go to college, and women re-entering school. These students are more likely to need remedial or tutorial help…

To assess the college's impact on graduates, Nazareth College administered the American College Testing Program's Educational Services Alumni Survey to a sample of recent graduates. While there was particular interest in exploring perceptions of the general education program before and after a major curricular innovation called the McGrail Plan,…

The nature of program changes taking place in undergraduate general education and factors that affect curricular change were addressed in a survey. A sample of 272 colleges and universities that were conducting serious review or revision of their undergraduate general education programs were sent questionnaires, and 139 responses were received.…

A project to create a competency-based B.A. degree in history or a competence-certification program was undertaken jointly by Sangamon State University and Illinois Central College. The project involved defining competence in history, specifying evaluation procedures, and restructuring the history curriculum. Competencies and assessment techniques…

Humanists at community colleges, faced with vocationalism and other negative forces, have begun to rid themselves of elitist, insular attitudes and are aggressively pursuing new curricular structures and instructional methods within all areas of the college mission. Enrollment in interdisciplinary humanities (I-D) at two-year colleges, for…

Some possible new directions for the political science discipline are presented. Within the context of current, formal undergraduate education, political science has two major functions: (1) to provide part of the required general, social science education, and (2) to attract and prepare future recruits for the profession. These functions are…

Describes changes effected at the Community College of Philadelphia to enhance educational achievement and opportunity; e.g., an audit of the Associate in General Studies, curricular revisions to meet the needs of part-time students, institutional assessment efforts at program and course levels, and the development of a new remedial education…

A discussion of the university's role in the immediate future of environmental education centers on world environmental trends, what needs to be done within university systems worldwide, strategies to introduce environmental issues, the dimensions of environmental problems, environmental ethics and quality, and faculty's role. (MSE)

Northwestern University's recently revised undergraduate curriculum is described. Six distributional areas of required study are: natural sciences, formal studies, social and behavioral sciences, historical studies, values, and literature and fine arts. The plan reflects the need for compensatory and transitional courses as well as for…

Basic communication skills should be required for all college students. Effective methods of instruction include specific communications courses, integrated across-the-curriculum instruction, on-going assessment, and classes in advanced skills. Competent communication requires knowledge, skill, and motivation. Advanced skills could be taught…

A longitudinal study of 101 college students investigated the ways in which their college and postcollege experiences fostered development of complexity in their assumptions about knowledge, by emphasizing independent functioning, collaboration, direct involvement in learning, and subjective decisionmaking. Results suggest these experiences be…