College student degree attainment has been identified as a national issue, and recently has become a topic of emphasis for institutions of higher education. In the past, research has focused on retaining students from year one in college to year two. With the demand for baccalaureate-prepared graduates increasing and the charge to compete in a…

This article examines the controversial notion of the role and value of the humanities in the contemporary university. It provides a review of the history of the emergence of the humanities in the European universities, arguing that any attempt to justify the presence of the humanities in the modern university in instrumental terms is futile.…

For most college students, literature courses began in high school and consisted almost entirely of the classics of America and Western Europe. English professor Norma E. Cantu says the emergence of Hispanic literature and its growing popularity on college campuses around the country--and the world--is proof that American literature is expanding…

Potential students hoping to gauge the quality of courses at Portland State University might be forgiven for feeling confused. On the one hand, the University Studies program, which uses interdisciplinary seminars during the first two years to develop students' core skills, has been widely praised and emulated. The Council for Higher Education…

In the digital age, instructional designers must possess both a sound instructional design knowledge base and solid project management skills that will enable them to complete courseware projects on time, on budget and in conformance with client expectations. Project management skills include the ability to apply repeatable processes, along with…

Internationalisation of higher education is a strategic theme in current research on higher education and policy debate. Both at national and institutional levels, in many countries, internationalisation is stated to be an educational goal. However, the dominant discourse on internationalisation of higher education in research and research-based…

The engineering education community (motivated by internal and external factors) has begun to focus on leadership abilities of college students in engineering fields via reports from ABET, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Research Council. These reports have directed criticism toward higher education institutions for their…

Prior to Poland's transition from central planning to a market system, which began in 1990, schools of business were non-existent in that country. Instead, university level instruction on economics during the socialist period was closely tied to ideological priorities, and limited to imparting skills suitable for planned economy. All universities…

The debate over the best delivery of general education, whether through a canon of Great Books, a core curriculum of specific courses and course sequences, or a distribution requirement of course types providing for greater student choice, has existed for generations. Today, the debate plays out in practice across the top-rated colleges and…

This article explores the evolving relationship between curriculum design, teacher perceptions, and the lived experience of students participating in an international programme of study within a U.K. university business school. The article illustrates the challenges inherent in supporting cross-cultural learning within diverse cohorts and explores…

The purpose of the dissertation is to gain insight into how higher education policies can influence institutional performance in Latino postsecondary degree completion; specifically, through an examination of the college readiness efforts of two Hispanic-Serving Institutions in Texas. Over half of all Latinos in postsecondary education in the…

Recent years have seen the pace of change in education accelerate at all levels as educators and policy makers instigate reforms aimed at raising academic achievement in the United States to a world-class level. Perhaps nowhere has the pace and scale of change been more dramatic than in the realm of K-12 academic standards. In 2009, 48 states, two…

In a survey last year, four-fifths of Americans surveyed could not correctly define "molecule." This is not good news for educators who worry that Americans are ill prepared to compete with other nations and understand political choices involving science. Behind those disturbing numbers lie another, more encouraging, set of poll results intimately…

Teaching and the student experience are interlocked. This paper takes a personal look at the pleasures and pressures of teaching in contemporary higher education. In doing so it adds to the definition of teachers' work in higher education, surveys some of the creative and positive sides of University teaching and shines a light upon the impact of…

Researchers interested in post-secondary instruction often emphasize the importance of the first-year experience for college students. Despite this focus, qualitative studies of student perceptions are decidedly rare. This essay is a partial report of the findings from conducting qualitative interviews with first-year students about their…