Over the past decade, deliberate efforts to "market" colleges and universities to specific audiences have gone from being a marginal--and somewhat suspect--activity in higher education to becoming a strategic imperative. Heightened competition for top students, increasing bottom-line pressures due to tuition discounting and comparative "shopping"…

Professors, department chairs, and deans no longer are the sole sources of the learning experiences that undergraduate students benefit from on our campuses. Recent years have seen the growth or expansion of a wide variety of out-of-the classroom supplements to classroom education, including learning communities, "theme" housing beyond the…

The pledge of a department chairman to be accessible to faculty members by maintaining the open-door policy is discussed, and the wisdom and utility of this policy questioned. The chairman found himself taking home three briefcases full of work while his colleagues went to basketball games. (MLW)

The head of a research university studio art program outlines the potential benefits and challenges associated with maintaining a first-rate program. Problems include high costs, a faculty merit review system, lack of faculty socialization to university norms or participation in campus affairs, lack of leadership incentives, a patronage mentality,…