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In higher education institutions, critical race theory (CRT) is known to be associated with fields that study racial disparities or systemic oppression such as law, education, and ethnic studies. The impression that CRT is unrelated to fields like business or computer science may have led scholars and practitioners from these disciplines to put their focus on elsewhere than on racial inequality and its implication in their research and practice, despite apparent need. To counter such fallacy, this review article—focusing primarily on the US context—discusses CRT literature in fields where its presence is less known which are nevertheless among the major domains of higher education institutions: health sciences, computer science and information technology, sports, business, and religion. By discussing example research of how scholars have utilized CRT in different fields to challenge the race-neutral thinking that often obscures structural racism, this paper exposes racism's ability to alter manifestations and to appear through various shapes and forms within the higher education context. Initial recommendations on how educators may engage in further discussions or actions will also be considered. This paper concludes that racist ideologies are often hidden behind discipline-specific vocabulary or technical language, and it is by tackling the ideologies at work underneath the technicalities can we address the chameleon-like nature of racism more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we employ Punctuated Equilibrium Theory to consider institutions' shifting goals, priorities, and constraints, and to explore the nature of change at colleges and universities in the United States. By exploiting annual changes in institutional budget decisions over a 29-year period, we seek to understand the extent to which institutions exhibit patterns of punctuated equilibrium, which are characterized by long periods of relative equilibrium (stasis) and of occasional extreme changes (punctuations). Broadly, we find that institutions of higher education allocate funds in a pattern characteristic of Punctuated Equilibrium, and that certain types of institutions are more likely than others to exhibit this pattern. Taken in whole, this paper calls into question a prevailing perspective on change in higher education — that change is slow-moving, moderate, and incremental. Instead, we posit that a framework of Punctuated Equilibrium may better describe how researchers and practitioners should consider institutional change within higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights findings from the first phase of an ongoing qualitative Youth Participatory Acton Research (YPAR) study with a group of students with foster care experience at a large public university in the Northeastern United States. The first phase of data collection consisted of a focus group designed and carried out by co-researchers, amongst themselves. Data was analyzed in two ways, by a faculty member and doctoral student, using thematic content analysis, and through a collaborative analytic process with student co-researchers using an adapted version of Carol Gilligan's, "Listening Guide" in which co-researchers created, analyzed and performed "I Poems" from the focus group transcript. Findings from each data analytic process were compared and contrasted; discrepancies amongst themes from each analytic process led to the merging and creation of new modified themes. Findings illuminate the barriers and facilitators to completion of high school, and applying to college for this cohort of students, as well as barriers and facilitators to retention once in college. Additionally, recommendations are made for university professionals to become more affirming of scholars connected to foster care systems. This study is unique in that it is the first known study to engage with college students with foster care experience in a participatory research process that centers their voices, concerns and priorities in both research design and data. Student organizing and action emanating from the PAR approach are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we theorize the intersectional gendered impacts of COVID‐19 on faculty labor, with a particular focus on how institutions of higher education in the United States evaluate faculty labor amidst the COVID‐19 transition and beyond. The pandemic has disrupted faculty research, teaching, and service in differential ways, having larger impacts on women faculty, faculty of color, and caregiving faculty in ways that further reflect the intersections of these groups. Universities have had to reconsider how evaluation occurs, given the impact of these disruptions on faculty careers. Through a case study of university pandemic responses in the United States, we summarize key components of how colleges and universities shifted evaluations of faculty labor in response to COVID‐19, including suspending teaching evaluations, implementing tenure delays, and allowing for impact statements in faculty reviews. While most institutional responses recenter neoliberal principles of the ideal academic worker that is both gendered and racialized, a few universities have taken more innovative approaches to better attend to equity concerns. We conclude by suggesting a recalibration of the faculty evaluation system – one that maintains systematic faculty reviews and allows for academic freedom, but requires universities to take a more contextualized approach to evaluation in ways that center equity and inclusion for women faculty and faculty of color for the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This phenomenological study explored the experiences of students in a macro practice social work elective, which integrated critical service-learning and creative placemaking. In a community-university partnership, twenty-four students from a variety of disciplines worked with a university Artist in Residence and social work professor to create a participatory mosaic mural in an ethnically diverse and rapidly gentrifying area. Of the 21 students in the class, eight participated in the study and completed hour-long semi-structured interviews. Analysis revealed three primary themes: (1) role and power of art, (2) importance of relationships, and (3) impact of this community engagement class. The findings support the importance of art and community- embedded learning in engaging students. Especially relevant to social work education, student learning focused on cultivating communication and collaboration skills across individuals, groups, and communities. This paper will contribute to the growing body of literature which supports the value of critical service-learning, creative placemaking, and community-based collaborations in social work education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines, many colleges and universities decided to mandate vaccination for all students and employees. The objective of this paper is to empirically investigate the effect of the mandate policy on Fall 2021 COVID-19 cases in institutions of higher education. We construct a unique dataset of a sample of 94 colleges and universities in the east and southeast regions of the United States, 41 of which required vaccination prior to Fall 2021. A difference-in-differences analysis is conducted, considering vaccine requirement as a policy implemented only in a sub-group of these institutions. We control for several factors, including state-level case per capita and student population. Our analysis shows that mandatory vaccination substantially decreased cases in institutions of higher education by 1,473 cases per 100,000 student population (95 CI: 132, 2813). The results suggest that a COVID-19 vaccine requirement is an effective policy in decreasing cases in such institutions, leading to a safer educational experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article maps and compares four universities' policies and procedures for addressing faculty and staff sexual misconduct in higher education in the UK and US. While universities have engaged in significant work to grapple with student-student sexual misconduct, attention to misconduct perpetrated, and experienced, by higher education employees is relatively nascent. In this paper, we explore the maze of institutional processes and actors that victimsurvivors of FASSM might encounter. We describe what is known about prevalence of FASSM in the US and UK and offer an overview of the policy landscape in both settings. Inspired by Patricia Yancey Martin, we analyze publicly available policy documents on FASSM from two US and two UK universities and map out visually the range of investigative, reporting, and sanctioning processes. We introduce an analytic distinction between an actor and a practitioner within the FASSM context, whereby actors are those tasked with administrative duties in handling sexual misconduct reports, while practitioners are those with specialized knowledge and training that enables them to prioritize victim-survivor needs. These illustrative diagrams suggest that while university employees are tasked to act on reports and disclosures of sexual misconduct, it is difficult to identify specialist practitioners with expertise to support victim-survivors of FASSM. Ultimately, this work provides a deeper understanding of what practice looks like in relation to higher education FASSM, and we outline implications for future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local-level, place-based scholarships – synonymous with "promise" scholarships – are a policy strategy to improve college completion in the United States by directing financial aid to students in a particular school, district, or geographical area. There are currently upwards of 90 place-based scholarship programs across the US, most of which share three broad goals: to increase postsecondary access by making college more affordable, to build a college-going culture, and to catalyse economic development by drawing middle- and upper-class families to an area and retaining existing residents. As place-based scholarships grow in popularity and more communities, especially ones seeking economic revitalisation, consider investing resources in their own scholarships, there is interest in what impact, if any, these programs have. This paper reviews the research on place-based scholarships, which demonstrates generally positive effects on district enrolment, postsecondary enrolment and persistence, and housing prices. While there is some evidence of improvement in teacher expectations and school climate, the scholarships have not been associated with fundamental changes inside schools. Although most programs have not been empirically studied, the 33 studies included in this review indicate that place-based scholarships have the potential to foster change within school districts and struggling cities and promote positive student outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the potential negative consequences of the internationalisation of American higher education from the perspective of positional competition theory. This analysis suggests that internationalisation efforts undertaken by colleges and universities contribute to positional competition between students vying for admission, between graduates competing for prestigious, well-paying jobs, and between higher education institutions themselves, who compete for prestige. As positional competition necessarily involves displacing other in obtaining advantage for one's self, the paper further describes how the positional competition engendered in part by the internationalisation of higher education contributes to the replication of social patterns of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conferment of tenure at a United States university provides substantial job security to its recipients. Tenure is designed to allow a professor the ability to explore new and risky research questions without fear of losing their position due to lack of publications. At the same time, this policy creates an incentive system with an ambiguous effect on how the professor performs in the classroom. Professors may no longer care about teaching evaluations since future evaluations are unlikely to affect their job security. Alternatively, tenured professors, no longer having strenuous research priorities, may devote more resources to the teaching component of their job. This paper investigates the impact of the conferment of tenure on student evaluations of teaching. Data comes from a large, flagship state university and spans 22 semesters (2006–2017). We use an instructor-level fixed effects structure to compare end-of-semester course survey scores before and after an instructor receives tenure. We find that conditional on being granted tenure, professors experience a small, but persistent, decrease in student course evaluations. This effect is driven by professors in the top half of the course evaluation distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the role that different components of the academic strength of the secondary-school curriculum (i.e. number, subjects and grades of advanced academic courses) play in explaining social origin differences in access to prestigious universities (but also to other higher education institutions) in Scotland and the USA. A central aim of the paper is to investigate whether the mechanism behind the studied patterns of inequality differs depending on the characteristics of each educational system. Our results show pronounced social class gaps in entering top higher education institutions in both Scotland and the USA. Academic curriculum plays an important role in explaining these social class differences in both countries. However, while in Scotland type of subjects taken at an advanced level is the strongest mediator for the identified social class differences, in the USA, number of advanced subjects is the strongest. Moreover, taking into account the three academic components combined entirely explains the social class differences in Scotland. Considerable inequalities which are not explained by the strength of academic curriculum remain in the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the diverse definitions of sustainability in higher education, focusing on the rhetorical uses of the term among various institutions within the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).Design/methodology/approach The paper begins with an overview of the term sustainability in political and public discourse, using that as a gateway to understanding the rhetorical uses of the term. Through this framework, the paper begins a vital discussion about university texts and what they reveal about sustainability in US higher education.Findings The author finds that university definitions of sustainability reveal a similar malleability and fluidity as definitions in political and public discourse, while at the same time revealing particular trends in the ways in which concepts of interconnection, technological problem-solving and temporality persist in definitions of the term in higher education.Research limitations/implications This analysis is limited to definitions of sustainability used by several representative institutions within AASHE. Further studies should provide a more comprehensive analysis of a larger sampling of AASHE institutions as well as universities not affiliated with AASHE.Practical implications Administrators and educators at institutes of higher education must account for the ways in which definitions of sustainability are tied to an institution’s goals, agendas and material circumstances. Developing a better understanding of how such definitions emerge can provide greater clarity in enacting change.Originality/value This paper melds together rhetorical theories on sustainability with broader research on the use of the term in higher education. As such, it offers a unique interdisciplinary perspective on rhetoric, sustainability and higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elite higher education institutions work hard to secure diverse classes, and students seek out these institutions in part because they believe that diversity will enhance their own educational experiences. Institutional theories would predict that practices set by the elite institutions in the field would isomorphically trickle down, however, case studies of individual institutions indicate that higher education structures and cultures vary significantly across the spectrum of selectivity. Do all higher education institutions market their ethno-racial diversity to prospective students in the same ways as elite institutions? Are higher education institutions trying to send similar messages about their ethno-racial diversity or does this vary by selectivity level? This paper provides an examination of higher education at the organizational field level in order to answer questions that have previously been at the institutional level. Through analyzing the admissions webpages at 278 universities across the United States, we find that more selective institutions are more likely to represent their diversity, and more likely to engage in practices that emphasize their traditionally under-represented minority student populations than less selective institutions, though it is the less selective institutions that have higher populations of these students. We argue that variations in institutional habitus across selectivity help to explain these differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we, a collective of wāhine ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian women), reflect on how we may hoʻokō (fulfill) our kuleana lāhui (nation-building responsibilities) through our positions in the academy. While doing this work has always already been tenuous given the occupied state of ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi (the Hawaiian nation), this tenuousness and the stakes of this work are perhaps even higher within the current political climate of the United States. Through dialogue, we consider the ways that we have striven to kūʻē (resist, stand up) through our research, teaching, and service and express our hopes for the students and broader community we hope to serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College and university ombuds were created throughout the United States in the late 1960's in response to campus tensions created by the Vietnam War and a growing university bureaucracy. The role of these offices was to guard against violations of student rights and to provide pathways for redress of student grievances and based upon the Danish model of ombudsing. The ombuds role evolved with changes on college campuses and in society broadly. Within a short time, these offices expanded their scope to serve faculty, staff, and other constituencies, eventually becoming a part of the organizational ombuds model. This paper examines early ombuds practice, specifically the shift away from a model that served only students to one that served the entire campus community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JSTOR has become a standard offering at most U.S. universities and colleges, as well as a growing number of higher education institutions outside the U.S. This paper will track the growth of JSTOR since its inception in 1995 as an experimental digitization project to today as an archive of over 500 scholarly titles in 40 disciplines. We will consider the two threads of JSTOR's mission—to safeguard titles in a digital form, and to provide access to them as broadly as possible—and assess the value the project has provided to the academic community. In addition, there will be some discussion of future directions and challenges for JSTOR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of public colleges and universities in the United States have hired management consulting firms to help develop strategies aimed at increasing institutional effectiveness and efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to explore the frames and strategies of consultants in US public higher education reform efforts. Drawing upon a range of documentary evidence, the paper examines four consulting firms (Accenture, Bain & Company, Deloitte and McKinsey & Company) and their perspectives on higher education reform. The paper analyses the consultative process with two public universities and two state higher education systems to determine possible avenues by which consultants exert influence. Through reference to theory on academic capitalism and new institutionalism, the paper reveals the ways in which consultants circulate crisis narratives and diffuse private sector management ideas among public colleges and universities that are seeking both financial solvency and legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a critical meta-ethnographic analysis, this paper explores the status of women's studies programs from an organizational perspective in U.S. higher education. Specifically, I draw on previous literature on women's studies program to synthesize and examine how women's studies function U.S. colleges and universities. Ultimately, analysis concluded that women's studies programs - while significant to the rise of academic programs derived from social justice movements - perpetuate neoliberalism and academic capitalism in the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conceptualizes the US federal government's response to the 'Great Recession' as a 'natural experiment' whose broad emphasis on counter-cyclical spending contrasts with the tendency towards stratification within the quasi-market for academic research support. Regression results indicate that resources tended to flow towards a few already-advantaged universities, but also supported universities with lower levels of investment in research equipment and smaller bases of support from business and industry. Because the extent to which these results describe quasi-market mechanisms generally or merely reflect the peculiarities of the US system is unclear, the paper concludes with propositions that could be critiqued and refined through studies in other national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using nine years of student evaluation of teaching (SET) data from a large US research university, we examine whether changes to the SET instrument have a substantial impact on overall instructor scores. Our study exploits four distinct natural experiments that arose when the SET instrument was changed. To maximise power, we compare the same course/instructor before and after each of the four changes occurred. We find that switching from inclass, paper course evaluations to online evaluations generates an average change of -0.14 points on a five-point scale, or 0.25 standard deviations (SDs) in the overall instructor ratings. Changing labelling of the scale and the wording of the overall instructor question generates another decrease in the average rating: -0.15 of a point (0.27 SDs). In contrast, extending the evaluation period to include the final examination and offering an incentive (early grade release) for completing the evaluations do not have a statistically significant effect on the overall instructor rating. The cumulative impact of these individual changes is -0.29 points (0.52 SDs). This large decrease shows that SET scores are not comparable over time when instruments change. Therefore, administrators should measure and account for such changes when using historical benchmarks for evaluative purposes (e.g. appointments and compensation). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Maker Movement inspires people to express their creativity by making things in a self-directed and, often, collaborative learning endeavor. The excitement of the movement has spurred the development of various types of Makerspaces across the United States and the World to further enable people to make and innovate. The education community has recognized the potential for Makerspaces as learning environments that can foster interdisciplinary collaboration and self-directed learning. As such, there is much excitement to create Makerspaces within K-12 schools, libraries, colleges and universities. However, contrary to the formal design process used to build many school facilities, successful grass-roots makerspaces are most often created when those with like-minded interests come together and adapt the building around them to fit their needs. The research in this paper focuses on the design of such spaces by applying the environmental preferences predictors psychology construct. The study surveyed 276 students from art and design, engineering, and liberal arts majors to better understand their preferences as related to images of eight different Makerspaces. The results are broken down by the four predictors of preference, major, and gender. The results highlight differences among the images along with design considerations for creating spaces that welcome a broader audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Institutional missions serve many purposes within universities, but most studies focus on how mission points to direction, guidelines, or priorities. However, organizational missions have been shown to have other functions such as instructing members about actions or behaviors that are acceptable. This paper therefore examines texts for evidence of how respondents' ideas about mission go beyond just a statement of direction or priorities. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: To consider the use of metaphor in describing institutional mission, the following research questions were examined: 1. How are metaphors used to describe institutional mission? 2. What function(s) is the discourse around institutional mission being used to serve? Research Design: The study is a discourse analysis of written texts and interview transcripts as part of a qualitative, comparative case study of six master's-granting institutions that are campuses within one state's public university system. Data Collection and Analysis: Interviews were conducted with 36 university leaders including chief academic officers, deans, department chairs, and faculty members including at least one: (a) member of the institution's body of collegiate deans, (b) department chair and/or collegiate dean directly involved in decision making, and (c) current and/or previous president of the faculty governance body. Qualitative data analysis was conducted using an iterative data analysis method drawing from grounded theory and constant comparative analysis. Following qualitative analysis, a subsequent word count was conducted to determine the extent to which the metaphors were used. Conclusions/Recommendations: Results suggest mission is a socially constructed phenomenon with a variety of different functions revealed through metaphor that engage different audiences and are closely tied to institutional context and purpose. Metaphors of mission articulated by respondents include mission as: (a) symbolic unity, (b) boundary object, (c) tool, (d) cage, (e) metamorphosis, (f) cultural artifact, (g) motivator, (h) authoritative text, (i) transaction, and (j) treaty document. Understanding the complexities of institutional mission suggests a need to reconsider it and the ways in which leaders engage with their institutional missions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring training outcomes is important given the resources universities invest in staff learning management system (LMS) training. In this paper we show how the effect of LMS training on LMS usage can be evaluated using Rasch analysis of teachers' LMS usage activity logs by making comparisons between teachers who have attended training and those who have not. Our analysis showed that teachers who attended LMS training workshops had higher LMS activity level compared with the untrained teachers. In particular, trained teachers tended to make relatively more use of ‘grade centre’ and of ‘assessment tool’ but relatively less use of ‘content’ in their teaching compared with teachers who did not attend training. The results support Rasch analysis as a useful approach for evaluating the effect of training across a large number of courses and extend understanding from findings from self-report studies of training effectiveness. They also provide insights that inform training practice and highlight its importance for development of online teaching. Implications for professional development of online teaching and the evaluation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom increasingly require prospective students to disclose past criminal history on admissions applications. However, a social movement aimed at improving opportunities for people with criminal records may force higher education to reconsider this practice. This paper offers a descriptive comparative analysis of admissions policies for people with criminal records in the US and UK by exploring policy contexts, written policies and admissions data. For the first time, admissions data were collected from a sample of UK universities, finding that while thousands of applicants with criminal records apply to universities, only a small percentage are rejected solely on the basis of their convictions. In addition, variation in the tone and scope of policies appears to reflect the variation in national criminal records laws between the US and UK. These, and other findings, have implications for the continued use of these policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes to study the American efficiency of educational diffusion and research productivity following two distinctions: urban vs. rural areas and public vs. private universities. Following this geographical consideration, knowledge diffusion seems to be homogeneous over the American territory, whereas research productivity is more heterogeneous: American research efficiency decreased of 7% points, due to some rural university localizations. Universities in urban areas favor educational quality through high student selection criteria, contrary to those located in more rural areas. Third, public universities present higher educational efficiency, in favoring educational quality over research productivity: the lesser research efficiency of public institutions comes from difficulties in the management of several campuses, by comparison with the private institutions which are all single-campus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much of recent study abroad research has focused on identifying and measuring different learning outcomes in terms of specific skills, competencies, perspectives and attributes acquired during study abroad opportunities, less research has considered how students’ deeper conceptions and understandings of international experience may change and develop during such educational encounters. This paper presents a phenomenographical research study that explored how students conceive of and make meaning out of their international education experience in a study abroad context. The data are based on detailed semi-structured interviews conducted with a sample of 28 undergraduate students at an American university who engaged in a variety of different study abroad opportunities. Guided by Variation Theory of Learning, the analysis of the data resulted in a typology of student conceptions of international experience (SCIE) that identified four distinct categories of conceptions of international experience (observing, interacting, participating and embracing) described across three constitutive features (being in the other culture, relating to the other culture and learning in the other culture). Hierarchically related through nine critical aspects of variation, the typology provides a unique and useful framework against which to map the “messiness” of students’ complex, often complicated understandings of their experience. It offers study abroad programmers opportunities to better understand and design student learning experiences and assessment instruments that go beyond competencies, skills and other learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers posit that American males face educational challenges during the elementary school years that progress to negatively impact college matriculation. However educational outcomes are even more dismal for Black American males and represent a crisis for the country and the Black community. Failure to attain higher learning has been associated with many difficulties that confront this demographic including unemployment, gang membership, violence, incarceration, and intergenerational poverty. The decrease in stereotypical "traditional male" employment makes it imperative to prepare Black males to compete in a workforce that requires higher education. In this paper, the author discussed a unique set of influences that interfere with the college progression and success of Black males more than most other race and ethnic groups. These factors prevent the demonstration of academic skill and mastery consistent with actual ability and competence levels and are collectively referred to as the saboteur. A high school-tocollege transition and in-college retention and support program that emphasizes academic success in relation to masculine principles was presented to promote awareness of these barriers and to reduce their impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When theClery Actwas passed in 1998, it required institutions of higher education to raise awareness among those in the campus community about the crime prevention programs they offer, as well as disseminate information about crime on campus, in an effort to reduce levels of individual risk. However, scant research investigates the impact that such institutional crime prevention efforts may have had on reports of both violent and property crime on campus. Using two different datasets, this study reveals that campuses with more security measures in place and more men enrolled than women are associated with the highest reports of violent crime. Alternatively, institutions with more security measures implemented and larger proportions of women enrolled have the fewest reports of violent crime on campus. This paper discusses the considerations that should be made when relying on official reports of crime on campus and concludes with implications for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since 1980, diversification of university funding sources has been an important trend in higher education all around the world. Obtaining non-governmental fund has been on the agenda of most universities. Top American universities have been long participants and beneficiaries of capital campaigns. The object of this study is to explore the characteristics and trends of fund-raising movement in top universities in the United States. This study used a multiple-case study research design. Primary data were gathered through multiple sources, principally face-to-face, in-depth individual interviews and field notes, and all data are allowed to be published publicly. Secondary data included published reports, and archived data in the form of university's financial reports, donation activities' reports, and alumni association's work reports. From the multiple-case study, the paper concludes three results. The first result is to explain characteristics and tendencies of capital campaigns in the top American universities from the perspective of value orientation, objectives, projects, forms, platform, operation, performance, industry organization and layout. The second result is to clarify the benefits of capital campaigns for the development of universities. And the last result is to reveal the implications for other universities. The current study's findings suggest that the universities should take an all-round reform of the fund-raising campaign and cultivate a vibrant alumni donation ecosystem, so as to more efficiently transform private wealth into public education resources, promote fair opportunities for higher education, alleviate social contradictions, explore the unknown frontier, and advance social stability and sustainable human progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the use of integrated campus sustainability plans at US institutions of higher education. The paper also offers a preliminary framework for the evaluation of these plans. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines 27 campus sustainability plans. It determines the types and characteristics of the institutions that have adopted these plans. It then uses content analysis techniques to determine their typical contents and emphases. Finally, the paper draws on literature pertaining to sustainability plans and plan evaluation to present a preliminary tool for evaluating campus sustainability planning efforts. Findings – Campus sustainability plans in the USA are extremely diverse. Environmental aspects are most prominent in these plans, and social equity aspects are least prominent. Campus operations receive more attention than do academic or administrative aspects. Most campuses have taken an inclusive, campus-wide approach to developing their sustainability plans. The evaluation of these plans should consider both their process and their substance and should account for circumstances unique to higher education. Research limitations/implications – The research is focused on US colleges and universities and may have overlooked some campus sustainability plans that have other titles. Nevertheless, it is a fairly comprehensive analysis of campus sustainability planning efforts to date in the USA. Practical implications – Campus sustainability plans are an important integrative tool. Understanding the details and potential evaluation of these plans can help determine their broader adoption and implementation. Originality/value – As an emerging tool for campus sustainability efforts, sustainability plans allow colleges and universities to examine operational, academic, and administrative functions in an integrated manner. To date, there has been very little scholarly attention to these plans, and no prior attempt to consider how they might be evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary introduces David Kirk's paper entitled ‘Making a career in Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy in the corporatized university: Reflections on hegemony, resistance, collegiality and scholarship’, which was presented in the 2012 Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (PESP) ‘scholar lecture’ at the British Educational Research Association (BERA) conference. We briefly describe the origins of the scholar lecture and its link to the PESP special interest group of BERA and then make a few introductory comments about the lecture, highlighting a number of points of tension that the paper raises for us. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper looks at the social role played by community colleges, the students they serve, and some of the current challenges they face. Community colleges have always been multi-mission institutions and in recent decades have been leaders in enrolling students from diverse family backgrounds. 'Nontraditional' students make up the majority of community college students. This paper looks at the diversity of students in terms of race and ethnicity, first-generation college-goers, and students who are academically underprepared. The paper concludes with a discussion of the strengths of the community college experience for students coming from diverse backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is now all but axiomatic that universities are central to the knowledge economy. Universities educate and train knowledge workers; in many countries, they are also responsible for carrying out much of the research that can contribute to the production of new knowledge. In keeping with the growing recognition of universities as institutions central to the knowledge economy, their reform has been pursued as a matter of high priority in many countries. Yet as this paper points out, there has been no rigorously formulated paradigms guiding recent higher education reforms. Though increasing the "competitiveness" of universities has been the catchphrase guiding reforms in many countries, what effects increasing competition is actually likely to have on universities--especially over the long term--has seldom been systematically examined, except by way of analogy to the effects of competition on business corporations or in the form of projections based on anecdotal evidence and guesswork. This paper attempts to sketch a typology of the effects of competition on universities, based on theoretical modeling and long-term historical analysis, especially of the competitive higher education system of the United States. It argues that competition does not necessarily have the same effects on universities as on business corporations, and in fact has been known to lead to surprising, even paradoxical results. Understanding such differences and paradoxes, in turn, is likely to lead to better informed debates on higher education reform, and may help avoid costly mistakes and disappointments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the ascendancy of market behaviours in public research universities is well documented, the extent to which universities have transformed themselves into industry-like organisations has been called into question. So to what extent are universities displaying transformation in their core values? The concept of institutional logics, with its focus on the relationship between organisational design and underlying beliefs and values, shows potential to address this question. Yet study of institutional logics at the campus level has to date been limited. This paper presents an empirical analysis of three US research universities’ organising principles as expressed in key mission and planning documents over a 15-year period. Of the multiple strategies at play in the universities’ responses to potentially competing values, the creation of new, hybrid logics is of particular interest. The concept of hybrid logics suggests a promising framework for understanding how universities can and do manage tensions in their mission. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent decades internationalization has risen to prominence in higher education institutions (HEIs). Scholars have identified several rationales for internationalization. There is however a lack of conceptual understanding and empirical evidence for which rationale(s) for internationalization are chosen by a given HEI and why. The goal of this article is to fill this gap. We develop and test a conceptual framework to predict the salience of a given rationale for a specific HEI. The framework integrates factors at multiple levels, namely competitive and institutional forces in the global and national contexts, the organizational goals and the influence of internal actors. The empirical analysis employs information on more than 400 European HEIs from two large datasets on their organizational characteristics and from a large-scale survey on internationalization of universities. The findings show that the HEIs embedded in a global context more frequently conceive internationalization as an instrumental to prestige. The national contexts do not greatly affect HEIs' rationales, and the amount of resources is less important than the competition for resources. Organizational goals as well as the influence of students, faculty members and middle managers on the internationalization process partly predict the prominence of specific rationales. The paper closes discussing the findings and the implication for scholarly research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Two-year colleges are an important part of the higher education system in the United States but there are concerns as to how attendance at these institutions affects educational attainment and labor market outcomes. This paper uses data from a nationally representative survey to examine the impact of students beginning their college career at a two-year college instead of a four-year college. Treatment effects are estimated using both standard regression techniques as well as propensity score matching. As these estimates may be contaminated because of selection on unobservable characteristics this paper will also employ a number of sensitivity analyses to consider the potential bias. The results show large negative impacts on both educational attainment and labor market outcomes for men and women who begin at a two-year college, even for those students who expect to complete a bachelor''s degree. The evidence from the sensitivity analyses suggest that to eliminate these large effects there would need to be substantial, and arguably implausible, selection on unobservable characteristics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines the role of community colleges in the U.S. higher education system and their advantages and shortcomings. In particular, it discusses the population of community college students and economic returns to community college education for various demographic groups. It offers new evidence on the returns to an associate's degree. Furthermore, the paper uses data from the National Survey of College Graduates to compare educational objectives, progress, and labor market outcomes of individuals who start their postsecondary education at community colleges with those who start at four-year colleges. Particular attention is paid to the Federal Reserve's Eighth District, the geographic area served by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article examines the genre of syllabus in higher education. In particular, it focuses on the intertextuality and interdiscursivity of paper-based and web-mediated syllabi and the ways they are used to promote links between various academic – classroom and research – genres and discourse communities. The corpus consists of ten syllabi with different interactivity levels. To avoid discrepancy in content, only syllabi for introductory linguistics courses offered at several US universities have been selected. The study shows that the syllabus is not only a document, but also a site of intertextuality and interdiscursivity. It is also demonstrated that the syllabus is utilized by instructors both to manifest their membership in multiple discourse communities and to socialize students into (some of) them. Finally, it is suggested that even though the digital medium increases interactivity of the syllabus, web-mediated and paper-based syllabi can still be treated as instantiations of the same genre. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Are We Speaking the Same Language? Assessing the State of Media Literacy in U.S. Higher Education surveys the reported existence of media literacy education in U.S. universities. Looking at two national surveys that investigated the existence of media literacy programs and/or courses in the academy; this paper shows how the term has been conceived in many different ways and across all academic departments. This has resulted in wide and varied adoptions of media literacy in U.S. higher education which, the paper argues, has caused vague and somewhat disparate understandings of what media literacy education is and how it functions in a university classroom. The paper concludes by asking three questions about post-secondary media literacy education: Should media literacy develop definitional parameters for the university? What differentiates media literacy from other media-related disciplines? What should media literacy look like in the university? and offers suggestions for future inquiry into post-secondary media literacy education that can enable dialog around media literacy frameworks for higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper maps the global dimension of higher education and associated research, including the differentiation of national systems and institutions, while reflecting critically on theoretical tools for working this terrain. Arguably the most sustained theorisation of higher education is by Bourdieu: the paper explores the relevance and limits of Bourdieu's notions of field of power, agency, positioned and position-taking; drawing on Gramsci's notion of hegemony in explaining the dominant role played by universities from the United States. Noting there is greater ontological openness in global than national educational settings, and that Bourdieu's reading of structure/agency becomes trapped on the structure side, the paper discusses Sen on self-determining identity and Appadurai on global imagining, flows and 'scapes'. The dynamics of Bourdieu's competitive field of higher education continue to play out globally, but located within a larger and more disjunctive relational setting, and a setting that is less closed, than he suggests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the organization and representation of time in certain kinds of undergraduate programs, here represented by a sociology program in a US university. Written requirements for the major are analyzed as constituting a 'chart' that defines academic time in terms of units of before-after relationships. The paper shows how students 'reuse' these temporal units when charting paths through the university and reckoning their academic work to specific futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - To assess the Lüneburg Sustainable University Project (the Project) in a non-European international context; to relate the project scholarly approach to selected scholarly and practice-oriented North American sustainability in higher education (SHE) methods; to analyze project innovations against North American initiatives. Design/methodology/approach - Benchmarking indicators were developed inductively in four SHE areas - governance/administration, curriculum/student opportunities, research/scholarship, and operations - via thematic content analysis of 15 descriptions of USA and Canadian universities active in SHE. Data were triangulated with data from the four Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education Campus Sustainability Leaders 2006. Findings - The assessment against selected North American peers suggests that the project is unique in its scholarly approach to and scientific foundation of sustainability in higher education. The transdisciplinary transformative case study is not replicated at any of the comparison institutions; however, elements of the approach and scholarly framework can be found at all North American universities participating in this assessment. North American institutions tend to excel in operational innovations; to keep abreast of international developments, University of Lüneburg is encouraged to commit to a climate-neutral campus strategy and to implement a sustainability management system, amongst other initiatives. Practical implications - Knowledge transfer and capacity-building: North American post-secondary institutions can learn from the theoretically-guided, applied research-based approach to SHE. Through intensified exchange (partnerships) with North American peers, the project and the University of Lüneburg stand to profit from community-based research approaches and the practice-oriented work of USA and Canadian campus sustainability offices. Originality/value - The paper contributes an "outsider''s perspective" to the project evaluation. Methodologically, the paper contributes to inductive SHE indicator development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are crucial to the development of the European Research Area. However, unlike in the USA, the availability of quantitative indicators for individual HEI at the European level is severely limited by several methodological issues, data availability problems and national institutional constraints. The paper discusses strategies for collecting and validating data from different national sources; the limitations of the available data for different categories of indicators and, finally, the influence of the heterogeneity of the national HEIs on comparability at the European level. Based on the experience of two recently completed projects, the paper shows that, despite these problems, it is possible to collect relatively coherent data on European HEIs and to develop a set of consequential indicators. Further, it provides advice on how to exploit them for comparative purposes in a sensible way. It concludes by indicating areas where major improvements are urgently needed, and advocates a European S&T Indicators Platform to maintain and develop these data sets long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent growth of for-profit higher education has been marked by the rising importance of institutional ownership by publicly traded corporations. This paper looks at 13 publicly traded corporations that own degree-granting for-profit institutions of higher education in the United States, examining corporate growth strategies and their distinctiveness as Wall Street-owned institutions. The paper concludes that these institutions are different from their independently owned peers and that corporate growth strategies suggest the importance of foreign expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article questions the assumption that increasing competition among higher education institutions is the best method of achieving a strong higher education sector in developing countries. It notes that there has been increasing emphasis on the importance of higher education institutions for sustainable development, particularly because of their importance to the global knowledge economy. For the same reason, the appropriate management of the relationship between the state and higher education institutions is vital to a strong and dynamic future for these institutions. This paper proposes a menu of options for higher education governance, grouped around ‘state-centric’ and ‘neo-liberal’ models of development. The ‘state-centric’ model proposed is based on a variety of examples of high performing Asian economies, in particular, while the ‘neo-liberal’ model is based on emerging trends in higher education management in countries such as Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. The paper suggests that despite pressure across the globe to encourage a market among universities, this may not always be the most efficient use of resources, or the best way to integrate universities in a country’s drive for economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the dynamics of competition in higher education. National competition and global competition are distinct, but feed into each other. Higher education produces ‘positional goods’ (Hirsch 1976) that provide access to social prestige and income-earning. Research universities aim to maximise their status as producers of positional goods. This status is a function of student selectivity plus research performance. At system-level competition bifurcates between exclusivist elite institutions that produce highly value positional goods, where demand always exceeds supply and expansion is constrained to maximise status; and mass institutions (profit and non-profit) characterised by place-filling and expansion. Intermediate universities are differentiated between these poles. In global competition, the networked open information environment has facilitated (1) the emergence of a world-wide positional market of elite US/UK universities; and (2) the rapid development of a commercial mass market led by UK and Australian universities. Global competition is vectored by research capacity. This is dominated by English language, especially US universities, contributing to the pattern of asymmetrical resources and one-way global flows. The paper uses Australia as its example of system segmentation and global/national interface. It closes by reflecting on a more balanced global distribution of capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]