Responding to the "Handbook" chapter on educational leadership programs, this article underscores several topics noted by Professor Martha McCarthy that need attention. These include open-admissions policies; faculty dynamics (understaffed programs, changing demographics, and the graying professorate); and universities' persistent…

While California community colleges are open to all students eligible and able to benefit, most students must demonstrate that they are ready for college-level academic work by passing the college's placement exam once they enroll. Because California does not explicitly define college readiness standards for high school students, the placement…

Supplemental Instruction (SI) has been firmly established as a tool for helping college students succeed in beginning writing courses. The SI model is based on a Piagetian-constructivist theoretical framework, which holds that learning is an active process in which learners "construct" their own knowledge, making it an essential part of…

This book analyzes the effects of the Open Admissions Program at the City University of New York (CUNY) during its first year. The project undertook three tasks: (a) to clarify the issues surrounding the concept of open admissions in higher education; (b) to describe the curricula and programs developed by the various colleges of CUNY in response…

The Comprehensive Reading Program at Brooklyn College, designed for open-admissions students with poor reading skills will attempt to help students develop the sophisticated reading skills necessary to deal with the college curriculum. This preliminary report of the program, written in preparation for its pilot semester, includes course outlines…

Developing a model for predicting demand for freshmen requirement courses (from freshmen enrollees and from returned enrollees who failed to complete the course in their previous quarters) is the objective of the Freshmen Requirement Study, now partially completed by Federal City College. Work done so far has essentially validated an initial…

During the past twenty years, the Law School Admission Test and seven other such tests have been used variously for selection, placement, and advisement of students seeking advanced degrees. The use of a single test for decision making has been proven inadequate, and in fact the test publishers caution against this practice. The use of test…

The report explores the inner life of the Italian university system and describes the results of increased student access to a university that remains essentially elitist. It highlights the tensions and constraints that have placed Italian higher education in a state of suspended animation between mass entry and elitist structures. It is predicted…

The Open University is playing a significant part in "compensatory" education by providing degree-level courses for large numbers of adults who for one reason or another did not go on to degree-level education after leaving school. It has attracted a large number of students from working-class backgrounds. (Author/LBH)

The Regents External Degree Program of the University of the State of New York, Thomas A. Edison College, and the Board for State Academic Awards of Connecticut are external degree institutions serving new functions in American higher education. Without admissions requirements, they are making higher education available to many who could not…

Changes in admission policies and curriculum and their current/projected effects on enrollment, academic standards, student retention, and costs are discussed. (MSE)

Presents Mina Shaughnessy's 1976 speech, given at a time when great financial crisis threatened to result in the wholesale disestablishment of basic writing programs. Notes grave perils, and outlines some of the truths uncovered through the experience of Open Admissions in higher education, truths that are indestructible despite retrenchments and…

Proper placement of students into either remedial writing or Composition I can be crucial to their success in higher education. Using a database of nearly 6,000 students who entered an open admissions community college in Texas, the researchers attempted to discover the best predictor of student success in Composition I. For students who took a…

The metaphor of "open admissions," a consistent communication tradition at Mount Ida College, Massachusetts, is an oral tradition that has survived the many metamorphoses the college has experienced and provided consistency for the college mission and population. Begun as the Mount Ida School for Girls, the school was both Mount Ida…