A reanalysis was conducted of Saunier's research (1985) on sources of variation in the National Research Council (NRC) reputational ratings of university faculty. Saunier conducted a stepwise regression analysis using 12 predictor variables. Due to problems with multicollinearity and because of the atheoretical nature of stepwise regression,…

Domains of faculty research development are considered, with attention to various scholarly activities such as publishing in journals, editing books/monographs, publishing book reviews, and delivering papers at professional meetings. A cognitive map of faculty development is presented that incorporates findings from the literature on the sociology…

Planning issues for colleges seeking to maintain quality in institutional programs in the face of retrenchment are analyzed, based on a literature review. An extensive bibliography on the following topics is provided: quality (ratings, rankings, reform, institutional goals, and educational outcomes); retrenchment (enrollment decline, faculty,…

It is commonly thought that teacher educators enjoy mixed, if not poor, reputations among those with whom they interact in the course of their work. To assess this assumption, samples of teacher education preservice candidates, educational foundations faculty, liberal arts and sciences faculty and school teachers were asked to complete a survey…

Early psychological studies of "genius" are examined, and reasons why European studies of eminent people never developed into true academic quality rankings are considered. In Europe, and especially England, France, and Germany, the ecological origins of eminent men and women were assessed: where they grew up, where they attended school,…

While it is a land-grant university with ambitious plans, the University of the District of Columbia faces the problems posed by its urban context, expectations, small endowment, administrative turnover, and administrative scandals. (MSE)

Although competition at top colleges may be stiff, there are ways to improve the chances of admission, including: careful high school course and extracurricular activity selection to highlight academic, creative, leadership, initiative, and maturity characteristics; application and interview approaches; college choice; and timing. (MSE)

The University of Redlands responded successfully to financial and administrative crisis by tapping institutional and community pride in the institution's stature, affirming a dual commitment to liberal education and career training, developing a new governance system, and reorganizing financial and program priorities. (MSE)

Concerned about shrinking state support, University of Michigan officials undertook a program in 1978 to increase public and legislative awareness of higher education problems and stop the appropriations decline. Person-to-person contact, group interaction, specialized communication through publications, and mass media communication were used.…

Factor analysis of 127 private and public universities found that graduate and undergraduate academic reputations are largely explained by the same two factors, size and selectivity. Institutional research activity was the most essential component of the size factor. Findings suggest that reputation strongly influences college attendance choices,…

In order to determine how situational variables influence students when they evaluate an instructor, the individual student as the unit of analysis was used. Interactions between three variables related to class (type, level, and size) and three related to instructor (reputation, rank, and sex) were examined. (Author/MLW)

Four studies of social work faculty publishing are reported, all using citation analysis. They examine national, local, and personal norms of citations as objective indicators of reputation, for full, associate, and assistant professors of social work, at graduate and undergraduate levels. (MSE)

State comprehensive universities are caught between the research university model and the liberal arts and community college models, unsure of their identity. The quest for status has resulted in faculty dissatisfaction, loss of institutional self-esteem, and disparagement of scholarship. Five approaches to developing distinct and appropriate…

A survey of 501 faculty members in doctorate-granting special education programs resulted in a ranking of the top 10 programs. Seventy-three percent of the variance in program reputation could be explained by four variables: faculty publication, time spent in research and writing, time spent in outside professional activity, and number of degrees…

Over the past few years, games have gone from social pariahs to the darlings of the media, technology, and now educational industries. E-learning educators in particular stand to learn a lot about building next-generation learning environments from games. While online courses are usually little more than "online course notes," games offer entire…