Many small liberal arts colleges nationwide are facing unprecedented challenges in finances and demographics. Unless they have name recognition, a sizeable endowment, or especially strong academic offerings, most struggle to attract students from outside their regions. To survive, colleges have been urged to expand adult education and distance…

Describes the design and equipment configuration of four mediated classrooms installed at a small university. Topics include audio, visual, and environmental subsystems; the teaching workstation; integration into learning, including teaching faculty how to use it and providing support services; and an instructional technology integration model.…

Discusses results of the National Survey of Student Engagement, a $3.3 million project sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts which gauged the extent to which colleges encourage actual learning. More than 63,000 undergraduates filled out the questionnaire in spring 2000. Findings indicated that small and liberal arts colleges fared well in the…

Examines fears of small private colleges that major fund raising campaigns of large public universities will hamper their own fund raising efforts. Gives the example of Pennsylvania State University and the 86 small, private colleges also in Pennsylvania. Shows that trends in both private and corporate giving increasingly favor public research…

The University of Wisconsin River Falls is a small, primarily undergraduate teaching institution with a limited history of grant support. In 1990 it created an office of grants and research, whose director found writing proposals with faculty to be an effective way to increase external funding. The methods, pitfalls, and results of this approach…

This exploratory study examines self-reported acts of academic dishonesty for a sample of 858 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students on a small college campus (8,350 students). The study raises awareness to the occurrences, and challenges of academic dishonesty at small-sized institutions, somewhat overlooked in empirical research.…

In this article, the authors discuss the professional development of three college professors as they actively seek to improve their technological skills. The expose uncovers faculty development issues regarding learning and using technology at the postsecondary level. Moreover, key questions that higher education faculty and administrators need…

Advanced information, communication, computation and collaboration technologies, known as "cyberinfrastructure," have become essential elements for research, education, and innovation in the 21st century. A major challenge confronting the United States today is how to ensure that all colleges and universities, including those that have…

The feasibility of conducting computer science courses in artificial intelligence at a small liberal arts college is examined. The following problems are examined in detail: isolation; student abililty, motivation and expectation; equipment; and faculty readiness. Providing a focus to the discussion, three issues are addressed in terms of…

Guidelines that include policies, goals, and procedures for the governance of small colleges are presented. The following guidelines suggest how different elements of an institution's governance system might be expected to operate: (1) as a corporate body, a board of trustee has at least four responsibilities; (2) individual members of a board…

The efforts of Kentucky State University to inaugurate a comprehensive development program to increase private financial support for essential programs are described. The 14 major objectives established by the institution's development office in 1982 and the programmatic approaches used over a period of 7 years to achieve each objective, are…

Recalling a program session at the 1981 annual meeting of the Speech Communication Association entitled "The Small College Speech Communication Instructor: Jacks and Jills of All Trades," this paper "revisits" that session by reviewing the comments and observations made then and offering reflections on the changes that have been observed in the…

The official college catalogues of the 25 institutions comprising the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) and the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) consortia were studied to provide descriptive information on the special needs and interests of smaller speech and theatre programs. Information on speech departments indicated three general…

This paper examines the nature and degree of participation by sociologists associated with smaller colleges in the United States in professional sociology organizations. The objective is to encourage these sociologists to become more active in their professional organizations. Professional participation is interpreted to include research…

The Small College Consortium is a project funded under Title III of the Higher Education Act of 1965 for developing institutions. Under the project, technical assistance and financial resources were provided to 54 colleges to learn to use new techniques and processes to overcome weak areas of their institutions. The evaluation covers the fiscal…